if she sees you, it changes you | dash

He like hearing about it. “Okay.” Dash smiled, but wasn’t entirely convinced; on days like this she knew she could get carried away talking about what she loved. She took another sip of her cider, sighing a happy sigh afterward. Her shoulders relaxed a little more, and she resisted the urge to look over at the door again. Or the clock. The dragonologist she’d summoned was an okay guy, knew his stuff, but he was also sort of a lot. She couldn’t help but anticipate his arrival.

“Right on the chest, huh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows a little. Chest was a funny word to use for a big fish, but she wouldn’t hold it against him. She needed to ask about side-effects, and how it interacted with other magical elements — potions, natural magical abilities of various creatures — and what kinds of studies they’d done with it already. Oh, and how it affected humans; that was an afterthought. Dash was understandably wary of using something she’d never used before, or passing it onto other professionals in her field. She knew that Bancroft was some kind of herbology genius, but there was a difference, sometimes, not in motivations but in definitions of success when it came to these sorts of things. But she’d circle back to all of that, because he’d skipped over something.

“But wait, no way,” she protested. “You guys don’t have, I dunno, stalk length disputes or something?” She gave him a well-natured smile; kidding, it said. “Classification issues? Intercontinental drama? Surely plant people aren’t that much more relaxed than animal people.” There were a lot of different types of animal people — she’d learned that pretty well in the past decade or so — but only a small percentage of them were very chill, in her opinion. Just like with any skilled, fairly niche profession, she thought, there was always a lot more going on under the surface.

"Yep," Neville concluded almost immediately with a succinct nod of his head, drawing his hand away from his chest to wrap back around the cider tipped on his knee. It dawned on him only after the fact that chest might not have been the most accurate scientific term for the underbelly of an enormous sea creature but it was too late. "Er—under...side..." He had been spending too much time with that bloody beast healer he'd met with after stumbling upon Bancrofts not-so-modest Aconite garden.

He was thankful when Arden seemed more transfixed on the field and how it compared to her own. He feared whatever stories he had would pale in comparison. But then again, he reminded himself he had sworn to stop thinking like that as a default. "Hmm," Neville thought aloud but paused with his eyes still closed. "Stalk disputes?" He let out a laugh that dimpled up his eyes.

She was kidding, of course.

Neville wagged a finger. "I'm sure there's much more of that a bit higher up the rank," As with most things, he was entirely too happy to be at the bottom of the totem pole and as far away from all of that as possible. "The usual bits around who's discovered something first, the most potent strain, that's normal..." He shrugged, taking another sip, glancing at the label to make note of it. "I think they might be just that," More relaxed that was. Neville grinned again.

"Sorry—" He sat up a bit straighter. "—have you not used this before?" He nodded to the vial of Mel. He was sure Bancroft hadn't mentioned that before, but then again, it seemed like the kind of thing that would inevitably slip his mind in the chaos of taking over the delivery.

Under... Side. Amused, she didn't correct him.

He laughed, properly this time and not just a polite sort of chuckle, and Dash smiled properly, too. She took a long sip of her drink, shaking her head as she swallowed. “No way,” she said again. They probably were more relaxed, though; Dash certainly felt more relaxed gardening than she did swimming with giant sun mantas, or something… But gardening was a pretty watered down version of what herbologists did. “I suppose it’s easier to bring an ego into studying dragons rather than, I don’t know, root systems,” she mused, a half smile forming again. She really didn’t mean to shit on dragonologists — she knew plenty of lovely ones — but when it came to egos…

“Oh, No, I haven’t. Bancroft didn’t say?” Not that surprising, she supposed. Poor Neville, though. “A while ago he sent me an, uh, prototype I suppose, but I haven’t actually used it in its finished form.” She took another swig of her drink, realising too late that she’d almost finished it. Maybe she’d been more stressed than she’d thought. Dash placed the empty bottle down on the ground beside her seat as Neville got to his feet, presumably going for his documents. She leaned back in her seat, tugging the ends of her sleeves over her fingers again. “I just need—“

Dash stopped talking as there was a loud knock at her door. She glanced towards it, surprised for a moment before she remembered. “Oh. Must be early,” she said out loud, half to her guest and half to herself. The little creature in her bathroom hadn’t made a noise in the last ten minutes, and she felt like it was a shame that they’d been interrupted. Getting to her feet, straightening her sweater, Dash called out: “It’s open, come in!”

Neville was sort of hovering, and she felt kind of bad about that; she really hadn’t meant to inconvenience him. “I’m so sorry about all of this,” she said quickly, as her front door opened in the background. Her brow furrowed a little with genuine concern. “I—“ She glanced at the tall man who’d appeared in her doorway. “Come in,” she said again. “Neville, this is Derek, Derek, Neville. Um. It’s just in the bathroom, I’ll just be one sec,” she said. She turned back to Neville as the other man moved towards her bathroom. “I really don’t know how long this’ll take — would it be possible for me to grab an address to owl you at? Or should I drop around to Bancroft’s and speak to him?”

Neville's smile dropped for a moment. Had Bancroft said it? Either way, it was too late to dwell on the details, he was much more concerned with the fact that Arden would be wholly underprepared given his lack of direction (and bloody manual, for that matter). They needed to be solutions-focused instead. And by they, Neville knew it was just him.

"Not a bother," He set down the half-empty bottle and hit both palms to his knees. It was the kind of enthusiastic phrase that he said to compensate for internalized doubt, every time. "I'll just get the—" His mind was already working a mile a minute. If he had the manual, great; if it was legible, even better. The worry that maybe he didn't have it at all was one he wasn't prepared to deal with.

"Merli—," Three knocks at the door at the tempo and strength of what he could only assume was a troll on the other side nearly sent Neville to his feet. His hand successfully yanked from the pocket of his still damp coat, he smoothed it over the fabric of his shirt and let out a breath as Arden got to her feet. Her guest was early. And apparently terrifying.

"That's alright, really," Neville assured her as the door swung up to the closest thing to a troll as a human that he could imagine. "Hi, hello," For whatever reason, he took a few steps over to shake the man's hand, as if he were then officially some part of their magizoological endeavors. "I was just—" Derek seemed to be more interested in the creature (understandably) and brushed aside him (less so).

"Right, of course," Neville wrestled with his coat to find a piece of scratch parchment, holding his wand to it briefly. "Just..." He struggled to find the arm of the sleeve as he rushed it over one shoulder. "Honestly, just pop in anytime," Bancroft would kill him for saying that."Good luck with the, er—" He paused in the doorway, half of a wave. "—well, with her," He nodded to where he heard a distant splash from the bathroom.

fin

Dash watched the exchange, cringing internally. If Derek Singh wasn’t always available, and if he wasn’t such an expert, she would have summoned someone else. The ministry had people to deal with this sort of thing… But academia was bad enough when it came to bureaucracy and wasted time; at least they got paid so little at the uni that almost everyone there actually loved what they did. “Bathroom,” she repeated, when Derek looked at her again, all but ignoring Neville. He went off, knowing where to go. Awkward.

“You’re sure?” Dash asked, reaching for the piece of paper as Neville offered it. Pop in anytime? She knew Bancroft liked her, and she’d dated his son, but it wasn’t like they hung out a lot or anything. Well, she supposed she’d take his word for it. She pocketed the paper, raising her hand to wave back in response as he lingered at the door. “Thanks,” she said, “I’ll see you.” She gave him an easy smile as the door shut, making sure to get her game face on for whatever she might need to do next as soon as he’d disappeared.


/end