♜ river bank

@kang seulgi It didn't take long after the words spilled from her lips and settled in the heavy around them for Angelina to regret her tongue. But, with how tightly wound she was, she would rather perish herself than give her sister the satisfaction of regret. So, her expression remained stone as she started to back off physically, her heart still thundering furiously in her ears.

It was a hair too late, though, with Seulgi still able to collide roughly into her shoulder and send her just enough off balance to make her take a couple of compensating steps to the side. Angelina didn't bother following her or making any attempts to see what the elder was doing, turning her focus instead to the mess that had accumulated amid everything.

The room was quiet, deathly quiet, save for the distant chirp of the same bird, her sister's rummaging about, and the continued wails of the poor woman that had unwittingly found herself the catalyst of a long-brewing explosion. Then there were the faint clinks as pieces of shattered pottery were picked up and dropped into the makeshift pouch of her upturned apron.

She reached for the final, particularly large, shard and a stray drop of water skirted across the back of her trembling hand and she paused before realizing she was crying—the weight of months of frustrations and sorrows finally spilling out of her. The scratch-thump of heavy paws soon joined the eerie quiet as Lir settled himself next to his owner to whine and sympathetically nudge his ice cold nose into the side of her head.

She acknowledged the gesture with a watery smile and a comforting pat to Wolfhound's rough coated trunk. The big shard was delivered unto the others and she rose to stand, shuffling the mess over to a barrel and sniffing lightly.

Her head held a dull ache and her mind was buzzing while simultaneously completely emptied of all its contents, the comedown from charged encounters always leaving her feeling like a piece of her soul had gone away with the words. Through the din, she vaguely hears her sister's voice. There was a finality to it that was unmistakable, even in her haze. The cruel fist that gripped her heart twisted just a little more but she didn't bother responding. She didn't bother going out after her , or any of the sort. She merely returned to the back room to tend to their—her—client.

@angelina danilova "I will /never/ envy the girl who cannot keep it together long enough to save someone's life—let alone her own father's."

For the first time in Seulgi's life, she hears silence. Nothing stirs in her brain, not a voice chimes in to disarray her thoughts. She's deafened by the roars of an ocean she's never seen. Between her ears, a wave crawls higher and higher, taller and taller. Careening as a carapace, but threatening to crash and swallow her whole at a moment's notice. None of what her sister said matters any longer. For the first time in her life, Seulgi heard white noise - silence. If only she could have predicted how it would explode...

"And I will never envy the girl too selfish to invite anyone but herself in," Seulgi whispers, concealed tears hinged on every word.

Her shoulder knocks into the younger sister as she stalks by her, making swift work of searching their shared room to gather her belongings. Knick knacks she'd collected throughout the years - a thimble gifted by Ealdwine, a doll she'd sewn a matching pair with for Lina, acorns and dried flowers. Books and journals she tied with string, tucking them into her rucksack, which was more of a burlap sack she'd added straps to. Clothes, a humble hoist of coins, and a meager ration of food was all piled in, the bag finally tied to her back with criss-crossing straps on her chest. The friendly neighborhood voices in her head began again, and they grew stronger the longer she lingered by her sister.

It may have been entirely juvenile on Seulgi's behalf, but as she travelled across their tattered cottage and was forced to cross paths with Lina, she pointedly turned her back, even walking backwards if she needed. Until everything she had was gathered.

There was total quietude as the elder faced off with the back door.

Seulgi probably could have spent the rest of the night packing until the argument started again - something that usually happened. But then she heard it again. Angelina's biting words. The ones that said what they all had been thinking. Seulgi had murdered Ealdwine. A grave exaggeration. One she saw on her sister's face every time she looked at it.

"Goodbye Lina," she calls, without turning her back.

Nowhere to go. But she had to leave. The door creaks as she swings it open, and slams shut behind her. 'You've done it now.' 'What's anyone gonna want with a murderer?' 'Find shelter before it gets too dark.' The elder sister throws one look over her shoulder, throws her chin back, and marches on with the fighting spirit of the little girl that had first brought her here.

@kang seulgi "Seulgi!" the startled-admonishing yelp escaped Angelina as she jumped out of the path of the honey pot's shatter path, shards of ceramic that managed to escape a sticky grasp radiating in all directions around the now pitiful puddle of viscous liquid. She's barely registering any words or the harsh shove that sends her stumbling back a few steps with the noise in the room, pulling her attention in all directions.

Between Seulgi's incessant screeching, the aggressive thundering of her heartbeat in her ears, their client wailing her pains, and the calls of a nearby bird, the room was getting louder and louder—so unbearably so that Angelina just wanted to claw off her skin; so much so that she was desperate for anything to make the argument that had quickly snowballed out of control obsolete. She didn't care how it ended; even if it wasn't the best solution, she was ending this.

"Jealous?" she repeated incredulously, voice raised because even she could hardly hear herself. More contribution to the noise that had her skull pounding. She might have found humor in the statement and laugh had the present situation not been so grim and had she not been able to feel the tension in the room hitting its peak. It made her bones ache, empty hands now ringing each other as she held back both the urge to crawl out of herself and the words she wanted to say. "Of what? Of whom? /You?/" This time, she couldn't help the quick bark of laughter that escaped her while her shoulder demon danced about in praise while urging her to continue. To say it. To deliver the killing blow.

"Never in a thousand lifetimes would I ever be jealous of you, sister."

She took a step forward.

"Pray tell, what reasons? What reasons could I possibly have to be?"

Another step, and then another—leather boots crunching on a few pieces of pottery and closing the distance between the two of them until she was looking her older sister square in the eyes.

"I will /never/ envy the girl who cannot keep it together long enough to save someone's life—let alone her own father's."

The harsh words spilled from her tongue like a waterfall, uninhibited by any obstacles, but also like a knife, sharp and direct with intent to their blow. Words she didn't even fully mean because she knew more than anyone how badly her unwell sister tried to make up for her own misgivings. It wasn't Seulgi's fault she was like this, just as it wasn't any of their faults that Ealdwine was dead. But, the words were out and they were an unspoken confirmation of the sentiment she'd kept locked in with a vice these past few months: father may still be here, if not for you.

@angelina danilova Ealdwine had been Seulgi's saviour from the moment he found her; a beacon of strength in her eyes.

When she'd lost herself in the forest as a young lass, the voices had been the only thing keeping the loneliness at bay. The willow tree was her personal sanctuary. Amidst the birds and leaves, she sheltered herself from the weather while listening to the chirping of crickets. At such a young age, she'd lived a whole chapter in a story already. Scuffed up soles punctuated every sentence of that. Lady Luck found favour in Seulgi one chilly, somber night. Ealdwine discovered her as Autumn closed in. His honest face peaked through the wispy branches with a deep, gravelly voice seeped in kindness.

"Little girl, come down, will you?"

It may not have been the wisest thing for the young girl to walk into the arms of a strange, cloaked man, but the decision saved her life. She returned that gift by murdering her saviour; her father.

"But it would be amiss to say you were not a large part of the outcome."

Snippets of Seulgi's past twist in her head, overlapped by the shouting cacophony from the permanent residence in her mind. Her sister's words helped little to calm the already brewing storm. There was a sick irony to their patient showing up with parallel symptoms to Ealdwine. Her pitiful groans were the only thing breaking the tension between the siblings, muffled through the wooden walls.

She had tried. 'Not hard enough.' 'You never could be good enough.' 'Great responsibility comes with great failure for you.' She had tried!

"You're WRONG!" Seulgi explodes, arms flailing as she spins around and knocking the jar of honey out of Lina's hands. "I didn't have anything to do with Father's death! He was ill! Take it back! I didn't kill Father! Take it back Angelina!" She shoves the younger in the shoulders, immediately retracting her arms to plant palms over her ears.

'Your fault, your fault, your fault.'

"You're jealous! That's it. That's it!" She's muttering to herself while pacing, hands tangled in her hair above the disheveled braids struggling to hold together like her. "I didn't kill, father. I didn't. No, you're lying. Shush!" She squeezes her eyes shut against the raging noise building like the flush in her chest. "Take it back, Lina!"

@kang seulgi "Don't be stupid," another moment where her tongue preceded her thoughts, despite actively trying to smooth over the near Freudian slip. She took a pause, biting her tongue and focusing on unsealing the jar of honey. Of course, Seulgi hadn't killed their father. Only a truly mindless fool would believe that. The girl was thick and reckless, yes. But she wasn't a murderer.

"I've never said that." Angelina spoke up after a moment, offering the open jar since the mounting tension in the room made it clear she'd be better off not touching the elder again. "Father was ill, the sickness took him," she replied, tone even. The Sickness—the illness they still hadn't found a cure to because they had seen no other victims yet; the one that she hadn't the heart to give the power of a name.

The mere mention of it took her back to those dark days that simultaneously felt like they'd come to a close mere months and an entire lifetime ago. Long days and nights, tending to the Master Apothecary while fraught with worry but still carrying on with research and the business as if all were well. Fruitless treatments. Fruitless research. His insistence that they stay open for their cause. Faerie and human clients pulling her in all directions when all she wanted was to focus on him. Long nights of staying awake or waking at the slightest noise because she had to be there for him at every turn. She just had to be there. Like he'd been for them—two pitiful orphans who likely wouldn't be alive without his intervention. He deserved to live centuries longer, as far as Lina was concerned; never mind the limitations of man.

In the end, years of trying resulted in nothing to even show for. The 22-year-old largely felt like a failure herself, but it would be a complete lie to say she wasn't bitter about her sister's lacking contributions as well. Seulgi tried, she certainly did, and the younger would have to blind to not see as much. But with Seulgi, it seemed, there was always some incident. Always time spent on fixing avoidable problems and messes and whatever else. They had wasted time then, and they were wasting time now. And Angelina would be damned if she let another person die because of time. Citing it all, the devil on her shoulder prompted her to continue. "The reason? No," she started again, setting the jar on the tabletop and returning to retrieve her abandoned book. "But it would be amiss to say you were not a large part of the outcome."

@angelina danilova Seulgi would have been able to handle it on her own, but the ever so capable Angelina had to interject as she did, calling her the bane of all names. The elder sister gasps as her hands are grasped; more so in response to the insult rather than the stinging of air meeting her burns. "You're the clodpate!" she hisses back. Any other retaliation is quickly sealed off, her sister carrying on with her slurry of words a mile a minute and leading their bubbling argument.

The entire time, Seulgi's mind rages with all the things she wants to say. She's braced to start in herself, until Lina pauses, her intentions hanging solid in the air. Seulgi knows she's a fool, but even a fool can guess what words followed that sentence. It'd been the elephant in the room since the day father had drawn his last breath. She yanks her hands free, cradling them to herself with narrowed, disbelieving eyes. "This is why, /what/? Why father died?" 'You killed him.' 'Shoulda worked harder.' 'Nono dear! It wasn't your fault!' She shakes her head, wanting to focus. "You still think I'm the reason he passed, don't you? You still think it's my fault!"

@kang seulgi "Perhaps not..." With a soft, thoughtful tut, Angelina put a mental pin in the Erysipelas idea. The symptoms were similar enough that it could still be a factor; perhaps in conjunction with some other ail. She didn't speak again for a few beats, more focused on paging through the contents of the dossier and most certainly not paying attention to the wild limbs brushing her as she'd come used to after so many years.

"What if—" her words were cut off by the commotion coming from the hearth—including the telltale sizzle of flesh on scalding tin—emerald gaze snapping instantly to the source. Concern outweighed the task at hand as she quickly abandoned the journal, letting it fall to the floor, as she hurried over to relieve her thoughtless sister of the kettle and using a rag to grab it by the handle. "Forget the tea, you clodpate!" She hissed, setting the kettle aside and taking Seulgi's wrists to dunk her hands into the nearby basin. "Look at you, you act before you think and we'll get nowhere with you being so empty-headed all the time. This is why—" Brows furrowing, Angelina caught herself before she could say something they'd both regret and turned heel to find honey for the burns.

@angelina danilova Never being able to focus on the books for long, having always left that for Lina or Ealdwine until she was forced into it due to urgency and pressure. Instead, she worked at finding ways to relieve the immediate, and worst symptoms, bringing water to the kettle and setting it atop the stove. The shakiness of her hands made it difficult to get the fire started, but a spark soon lit the kindling and set a small blaze. She nursed it with coals from their previous fire, getting it to a nice, dull heat that would boil the water needed for the coriander tea. "Pray to God Almighty it isn't the living death," Seulgi agrees with her internal monologues, rushing back to hover over her sister.

"No," she immediately dismisses in tandem with the younger when they both rule out leprosy. She had perfect use of her limbs. No damage there at all. "The Holy Fire?" Seulgi blinks back her surprise. The woman did have those rashes in her groin. "No, it can't be that."

Much like Angelina, she couldn't sit still either, pacing about the room. Her limbs were always more like an attachment on her body, and they swung while she walked, constantly knocking her sister. As she pivoted on her last lap, her fingertips knocked the kettle, sending it spilling. She avoids the boiling water - the fire catching it instead and going out. "Shoot! No! Blast!" Seulgi curses. While she had avoided the water, she had tried to grab the hot kettle with her hands, searing her fingertips. "Her tea! How will I get her tea!"

@kang seulgi "Coriander tea would be helpful, yes. But a fever is only the start of it.." Never the biggest fan of making unnecessary noise, Angelina made a distinct effort not to let the books hit the table too loudly. Nonetheless, they produced a solid thud with a few threatening to slide from the top. Quick hands caught them just before and she halved the pile in two.

"The living death..." she murmured, showing acknowledgement of the idea despite not giving a definite response right away as she considered and thumbed through her stacks for the journal she knew had an entry on the aforementioned disease. She didn't sit upon finding it, instead opting to pace idly while scanning the contents of the page on leprosy. "I should hope not. All we could offer her then is mercy." It was a blunt statement, but the truth. She shook her head after a moment of skimming, feet still carrying her across the creaking wooden floors of the shop. "There is no damage to the nerves, so we should rule it out. Perhaps....St. Anthony's Fire?"

@angelina danilova It took a great amount of concentration for Seulgi to stay on task, but if there was one thing she'd been taught by her father, it was compassion. Especially for someone so vulnerable who had come so far to seek their aid. She held the woman from the other, side, assisting Lina to the sweat room. They made quick and careful work of disrobing her from her sweaty garments, settling her into the hot tub. As an extra touch, Seulgi added a folded up towel to support to woman's head, hesitating in worry over her scabbed mouth and hazed, fever eyes.

"This poor thing..." she whispers, stroking back her hair. But Lina was already trudging off, so Seulgi chased after her. "Could it be a case of the living death that the others mentioned in the west?" she suggests, gathering journals and notes with the same equal haste of her sister. She squints her eyes to fight back the shouts in the back of her mind trying to distract her to a different task. "Red fever, maybe? No, you're right, it doesn't account for the sores and swelling..."

Her stack of books is much smaller than her sister's, but it thunks just as loudly when she sets up at the table. "We could use coriander to reduce her fever!"

@kang seulgi The ill woman gave a noncommittal answer, causing a deeper furrow to set in Angelina's brow as she found that the swellings and tubercules littered seemingly every part of the woman's body. Her arms, her legs, her hands; paired with the skin of her palms being inflamed and irritated in their own manner. And the fever—heat emanated from the woman as if she were a furnace, burning from the inside out. Things like this didn't just appear with such force overnight. The twenty-two-year-old knew that much.

Her sister's voice drew her attention briefly, shown by a slight double take and an appreciative smile, rare in these recent days. "Thank you," she uttered, continuing the preliminary search while asking more questions about less obvious symptoms. And a rather large sum it turned out to be. She took mental note of them all while the sounds of running water and the restless nature outside filled the occasional empty air.

By the time Seulgi returned, Angelina had a head full of possibilities, but no substantial proof. "We had better help her. She's come all this way," she answered, rising to stand and taking careful hold of one of the woman's arms. Allowing her sister to take the other, the pair walked their poor client to the bath and helped her out of her sweat-laden clothes and into the water. After making sure she was comfortable, or as comfortable as she could be, Angelina excused them both and returned to the front with promises of returning within the hour.

"Fever; swelling in the neck, underarms, chest, abdomen, and groin; aching throat; hair loss; headaches; loss of weight; aching limbs; fatigue," she rattled off the symptoms as soon as her sister was back within earshot, already heading for the shelves of journals to grab as many as she could. "Some are normal enough for most sicknesses, but never all of them and with the skin irritation, too. I don't think we have ever seen anything quite like it."

@angelina danilova They'd switched patients already by the time Seulgi rejoined her sister in the room, wearing mismatching slippers and the usual garments that protected their skin when patients with unknown illnesses surfaced. They were a bit too large on her, with a texture akin to frog skin, which made her skin crawl, but this was one of Ealdwine's teachings she knew to take seriously. "Dear!" she whispers upon seeing the state of the woman closer up. Her face was blistered, with spots of red, and the fever seeped deep into her garments. Long hair was dampened by her sweat and matted, a clear indicator that this woman had been bedridden for at least a few days.

"I'll prepare the sweat room," Seulgi affirms with her sister, speeding off to the backroom. It wasn't much of anything, save for a basin large enough to fit two people. She double-checked everything was in its proper place, before setting off lugging pales of water back and forth from the well. She tended a fire for the stove, boiling water to the right temperature and mixing the tub with the combination of water that would help draw out the illness. "It's ready," she calls.

She's worked up a sweat herself. The ends of her braids have started to come undone, cheeks red, and brow smudged with ash. Her breath is short and quick, having practically run the entire time while Angelina tended to the patient inside. "How is she? Can she walk, or should we carry her in?"

@kang seulgi A long-suffering sigh blew from Angelina's lips as she did her best to ignore the uncouth screeching, making quick work of grinding up the ingredients that should have been long finished. She made quick, quiet work of taking care of their patient, making sure the wound was sterile, cleaned, salved, and wrapped. She was in the midst of going through a series of instructions for maintenence, gently placing the required items in the woman's hands when the grating voice she'd come to relax from projected from the back room.

As if on cue, the scab-ladened woman also shuffled into view and Lina felt her heart dropped. She looked as if every movement caused her pain, but she was so determined to come however far to seek help. Quickly wrapping up her guidelines and walked the first woman to the door. She headed out to meet the other halfway, first donning the arm covers usually reserved for protection from brushing against poisonous plants—just in case.

"Oh, you poor woman," she murmured sympathetically, helping the stranger sit once they were inside. After tying back the hair that had fallen out of place over the course of the day, she traded her arm protection for long leather gloves and got to looking over the strange wounds. "Do you know when these first began?" she asked before doing a short whistle to call off the dog and calling out, "Seul, could you come out please? Wear skin cover."

@angelina danilova That mutt was the only thing preventing Seulgi from carrying after her sister with one slipper on her foot and the stolen pestle raised high above her head. While Lir had never been vicious towards her, she had haunting memories from her childhood where hunters kept mistaking her for a doe and setting their hounds on her. Canines had much trust to build up with the spacey herbalist. See. Herbalist. She was a herbalist. "I'LL PATCH MYSELF UP BECAUSE I'M A /HERBALIST/!" shrieks at the top of her vocal chords.

She yanks her foot up from the broken planks, muttering strings of colourful words beneath her breath about how she'll have to patch that up later. The slipper had saved her from most of the damage (her own creation, thank you very much), pieces of fabric hanging from the splintered planks. There really were only a few little pieces that she dug out with a needle dipped in strong alcohol. Something she'd done timeless times before after watching Ealdwine model it.

She was near done when a stumbling woman out the window caught the corner of her eye. "Hmm? Visitor?" she whispers back to herself, tripping herself to the sill. The woman looks ill, with sores deep red enough to be seen from here. Even at this distance, Seulgi can pinpoint the fever in the flush of her face, and the dampness of her hair. "Linaaaaaaaa," she calls out, carefully pulling from the window. "Lina! A woman is coming!"

@kang seulgi Fingers curling back once more, Angelina didn't bother entertaining the adolescent and selfish notion of a tool being her sister's. A /tool/. A tool for the /apothecary/. A tool used to grind up ingredients to dust and paste. A tool used to help people, one of the most selfless things one could do—something that certainly wasn't happening right now. The waifish young woman merely stared, silently waiting for either compliance or the final nail in her sour mood's coffin.

It was almost poetic—the way the tantrum set off a chain reaction of destruction, very brief but destructive all the same. Closing her eyes, Angelina took a heavy breath to steel herself before she opened them again, narrowing them directly on the object of her frustrations. "No." Stern and succinct, the word danced off of her tongue before she heel to leave the backroom.

"Since you're so capable, patch yourself up," she added, grabbing the spare pestle on the way and then whistling to catch the attention of the wolfhound that lazed just outside of the shop. "Lir, sit." The order was direct, and she gestured to the curtained doorway from which she'd just come before calling over her shoulder, "Do not worry about cleaning up. I'll be back soon to do so. And a conversation will be had." She didn't wait for a response, going straight to finish the job and send their customer on her way.

@angelina danilova Ealdwine's passing had not been kind to the girls. For Seulgi, she had a hard enough time managing her individual emotions when they were whole. Dealing with them when every part of her being felt ripped into a thousand scraps of fabric was something she preferred to avoid. The chorus of conversation in her head rendered it a simple task. If she listened to their opinions, she wouldn't have to form her own. While Angelina chastised her, she allowed her eyes to roam the room just past her head, staring down the various voices with squinted eyes and pursed lips, shaking her head the slightest at what they were suggesting she do to her sister.

"It's my pestle," she interjects, having not really listened to anything in between then and now, but determined to keep the heavy, stone instrument in her possession. It was truly confusing sometimes, having to explain that Angelina was the younger sister, not the older sister. "Father taught me too! I know how to help wounds! I can do things, TOO!" The stomp of her foot was strong enough to rattle the chipped glass vase with the drying flowers on their nearby table, inching closer and closer to the edge towards its demise.

"No," she rejects again, angling her body so the pocket with her treasure is as far away from the younger as possible. "Father taught me TOO!" Again, her foot stomped, and this time, not only the vase in their little cabin fell and shattered, but a piece of the floor. Her foot broke straight through, so she was hanging there on one leg, curiously staring at the splinters stinging her foot. 'Too much!' her worry-voice shrieked at her. All Seulgi could do was shake her head to drown it out. "Let me do it."

@kang seulgi A child.

There was a poor woman waiting for swift and professional services and her sister was being a complete CHILD. It was instances like these that made Lina question who was truly the older of the pair and desperately wish for the mediating presence of their departed father. Her fingers curled around the empty air when the stoneware was ripped from them and she felt her usually even temper quickly shooting toward its limit after a full morning of the same nonsense. Another apology and she excused herself from the woman's side, setting the mortar out of reach, to roughly drag Seulgi by the sleeve into the back room, quick steps creaking along the rickety floorboards.

"I don't give seven hells if you know how to make a poultice, you insolent twit!" She spoke in a hushed, severe tone literally as soon as the dividing curtain dropped into place, fixing a hard expression on the girl across from her. Pointing in the direction from which they came, she continued, "That woman came in expecting help with what should be a quick job and if you're going to waste all of our times by acting like you give a plagued rat's about any of this, you can stay back here until she's gone. And that is NOT a suggestion. I promise to all the gods that you will not have fingers to draw with if you keep getting in my way. Give. Me. The pestle. Now."

@angelina danilova The anger bubbled within Seulgi's head, the voices shouting one above another to get their own two-scents on her sister's attitude. Dismissed! Like they were still children in Ealdwine's class! How so terribly RUDE! Being as she was, Seulgi had never been the type who was able to withhold her emotions. She expressed them as she felt them, regardless of the bystanders, today being no different. Angelina pours various ingredients into the mortar, clearly ready to make a poultice of some kind for the rather dirty, gaping wound on the woman's leg. Purely out of spite, she grabbed the pestle, and tucked it into her pocket.

"I'll have you know, that I can make a poultice, toooooo!" she drawled out the final syllable, huffing with a turn of her head and one foot stomping to the floor. Vials rattled atop the tabletop. Seulgi shushed them with a finger, glaring to the right corner of the room to silence the voice there as well.

"Let me grind it. You'll mess it up. Yes, she'll mess it up!" she whisper-hisses to another presence on her left. Her fingers reached for the mortar, interrupting her sister mid-work yet again.

@angelina danilova () not me realizing my starter was absolute grammar garbage and my phone autocorrected to ANGELINE
i'm a terrible sister really

@kang seulgi "I'm terribly sorry, miss, she'll only be a moment." On the much calmer end of the spectrum, despite the unmistakably irritated grit in her voice, Angelina sat adjacent to the current patient, deft fingers diligently cleaning excess dirt from the large gash on the lady's leg. Dressing a wound. She scoffed. Of all the things to be at odds with. And the gall! The damn gall to act as if she didn't know what she was doing. Angelina had dressed dozens and dozens more than her elder sister, while the other was busy scribbling away upon pieces of parchment. She knew how to dress a damn wound.

Before she could ruminate in her annoyance any longer, the loud rattle of instruments drew her attention to her kin. A sharp gaze warned the elder to behave, seeing as they were in the presence of another, but she sooner rolled her eyes to focus on the task at hand.

"The 'thingies,'" she scoffed in equal wonder and disdain, abandoning the vinegar- and blood-soaked rag in favor of the mortar and pestle that sat on the table next to her. "I thank you. You may go now." The dismissal was simple, paired with the wave of a hand before she used the same to deliver a handful of ingredients into the stoneware. She wouldn't force a horse that didn't wish to be ridden, so she wouldn't force her sister to stick around and tend minor injuries.

Myrrh for antiseptic, mint to aid in healing, the pre-fashioned poultice they'd learned to use since they were young. She avoided the bay completely, recalling that the woman had an adverse reaction before. Ealdwine had always stressed the importance of remembering everyone's forbidden ingredients. It was clear that *someone* hadn't been paying attention.

@angelina danilova "How dare she!" Seulgi huffs to herself, flittering about the adjacent room where they stored their various ingredients. She collected various leaves, powders, and pastes, sniffing them as she went as her instincts guided her to the right treatment. "'That's not how you dress a wounddddd' - I'll show her how to dress a wound! Absurd, I know!" She takes a brief moment to address the voice nearest her in the corner, shaking her head with frizzy braids nearly smacking a mortar and pestle off the counter.

All morning, she and her sister, Angeline, had been at odds. The moment they'd both mentioned breakfast, it was downhill. And when the exasperated, hot headed and wanky (pardon her!) patient banged at their front door, it splayed her nerves all the more. Do this. Do that. Not this. Not THAT. "UGH!"

She slams the jar of bay leaves on the table, rattling all the instruments with her fury. "I'll show her. I'll show HER!" And with her arms laden with everything she needed (and more that she didn't), she returned to her sister and patient with a frown. "I brought the thingies you requested."