Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
December 17, 2021 1:13 AM
I don't know what to do. [tag Selina] by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
OOC: TW death and disease discussion BIC:
There was probably an easier way to get to the deputy headmistress than to take the main halls and corridors but that was all Mary could think to do. She'd left her own desk in such a rush, the legs of her chair scraping across the floor hard enough to screech even despite the ornate rug Mary had laid beneath it, that thinking through a more reasonable route hadn't occurred to her. She was grateful that it was a day and time where the only students milling about were those who had decided that being indoors was suitable for them despite their free time but off the top of her head, Mary couldn't remember what day or time it was.
The sheets of paper in Mary's hands - one in her right and three in her left - were far from crumpled, as they were too important to risk damage like that to, but they were certainly not held loosely. The wrinkles only increased when Mary arrived to Selina's door, knocked and got permission, and then realized she couldn't open a door with her hands full; she quickly shoved the papers all into one hand to work the handle and make her way inside.
Selina, who understood better than most people Mary knew about how it felt to have a loved one be sick and possibly dying. How it felt to have life throw curveballs at you in love, in family, in work. Mary had intended to show her the papers but she couldn't even figure out how to do that because somehow letting them fall from her hands felt like letting the truth pour out of them and shape her world and she wasn't ready for that inevitability just yet.
Instead, she stood before her boss with a deathly expression set in her uncharacteristically pale face, her dark eyes red-rimmed and damp, and her hair tangled from swinging so wildly around her in her haste to make it here. She'd worked so hard to make it to this point, and for what?
"I haven't told Tabitha," she began, her voice only a croaked whisper. It was the only sound she trusted herself to make without crying. "Zeus' results came back. They don't know where it's from or how to fix it."
And then the papers tumbled from her hands and onto Selina's desk as she approached like a ghost. Other ghosts, the metaphorical kind whose haunted reaches were limited strictly to the realms of nightmares and self-deprecation, came to mind as Mary remembered the family she'd been born to and lost. The idea of losing anyone else. . . .
The papers had been written on hospital stationary, with key points underlined to emphasize them. It seemed to be a consistently true fact that reading comprehension and stress were inversely proportionate after all.
We are sorry to inform you that the results of our tests on Zeus and his symptoms have demonstrated positively that he is afflicted with a curse that is genetic in origin. Whether it is a blood malediction is unclear as of yet, but does seem the most likely. Due to the nature of such curses, it is unlikely to be breakable.
The letter went on. Signs, symptoms, treatments. Survival rates.
"I married a defense professor," Mary cried, putting her face in her hands. "And our son may die of a curse."
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Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
I don't know what to do. [tag Selina]
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Selina Skies
December 23, 2021 9:59 PM
Breathe? by Selina Skies
The majority of the time, unexpected knocks at her door turned out to be a bad thing. Selina was fairly sure that was true, and not just the bias of the bad times sticking more vividly in her memory, though she had never actually collected the statistics to prove her point. Today though, was one in favour of the theory, as a distinctly rumpled-looking Mary entered her office. ‘Distinctly rumpled-looking’ was an usual enough description to apply to Mary that that in itself was concerning, and nothing about the ensuing words or actions did anything to shift that perspective. It was bad. Very bad. And it got worse by the second.“What? No!” she said, before she could stop herself. She had long schooled herself in not reacting to shocking news, but there were limits. The word—there was a word in the last sentence that Mary uttered which was—well. Selina didn’t want to think about it. Except, of course, she had to, because Mary was sitting here crying about it to her. She blinked back against her own slightly damp eyes, because she had to be the one who wasn’t crying here. It wasn’t her turn.
Very lightly, she waved her wand, making her desk fold itself up out of the way. The papers fluttered to the arm of her chair as she moved to sit closer to Mary.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, moving in close enough for Mary to lean on in quite the literal sense, if she wanted to. The words were trite and insufficient, even if she very much meant them. “Hosptials, illnesses… They’e some of the worst things to deal with, in my experience.” And she had had plenty of that. More than she wanted, more than she felt was fair. She had seen vast portions of Leo’s life, and what he should have had, snatched away. But that suddenly felt like nothing. Not compared to having it happen with a child. She had had to take Ema and Krisalyn to hospital on occasion (moreso Ema…) but those were just the normal fevers and scrapes and explosions of childhood. She remembered the heart-clenching fear that had come with each of those perfectly normal occurrences, and was quite sure the sum of the parts—of knowing the long game with her brother, and the fear of being a parent with a sick child—didn’t add up at all to what Mary was feeling.
Mary probably felt hopeless, and powerless. And the worst part was, that maybe she was. Against—That Particular Enemy… Well, he was the one thing wizards really couldn’t win against, for all their magic. And she was no healer with a miracle solution.
“Talk to me,” she suggested. It was the only thing of use she thought she could offer right now. And she did not want to presume the direction that Mary wanted to take the conversation in.
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Selina Skies
Breathe?
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Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
December 23, 2021 10:28 PM
iiiiinnnnn...... ooooooout....... IINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN..... ouutttttttt by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
Mary accepted all the comfort Selina was offering, not caring whether or not she even snotted on the woman which was saying something. While Mary and Selina's relationship had certainly turned into more than simply a woman and her boss, it was always in the back of Mary's mind that the woman before her was her superior (in many ways, but mostly the work hierarchy way). In this case, however, it was not in her mind at all.She did her best to breathe, to collect herself, as Selina reminded her very gently that she understood in a way. More than possibly anyone else here, Selina understood a little bit. That was why Mary had come here, after all. Selfishly, Selina's traumas and hurts were a benefit to Mary right now. There was also the fact that Selina needed to know for work reasons but she doubted either of them were especially concerned about Mary's PTO request form right now. Or whether she'd need bereavement leave. . . .
It helped in a horrible way to see that Selina was hurting. That Mary wasn't the only one sad. She had thought that it would bother her but it wasn't for some reason. That was part of why she hadn't told Tabitha yet; not only had the woman's marital absence made Mary loathe to ruin their time together with such sour news, and made Mary hesitant to reach out the way she once would have done, but she hated the idea of Tabitha grieving this. This particular hardship was one Mary had earned the right to grieve and Tabitha had not. She hated herself for feeling that way.
She wiped her tears and pulled back some to regain her own self a bit when Selina suggested she talk. Just talk. Get it out. She could do that. She should do that; she hadn't yet done that with anyone.
"When Michelle-- Zeus' mother-- when we were-- when she and I were dating-- before he was born--" She stopped to breathe again, apparently having forgotten how. "She had told me that her grandma or something had been cursed. I didn't pay that much attention because she told it like an old story that got passed down but no one paid attention to. She always blamed it when we went hiking and stuff though, she said it was why she didn't breathe well or something? I can't remember. Merlin, why can't I remember." She ran her hands through her hair, feeling very much like she just wanted to rip it all out but bringing them back to her lap instead, forcing herself to keep going. "But there had only been women in the family since then. The curse was meant for men. I don't know if it was because of the veela thing or . . . I don't know. Zeus doesn't seem to have gotten as much of that. But he got-- he got---" She forced back a sob with a gutteral sound before continuing. "He's been getting weaker and weaker. His birthday is coming up and he'll be eight but his energy has dropped a lot. He's been catching more stuff on fire too. But I can't-- I don't remember-- I don't know what to do," she said, her voice breaking. "I don't remember how the curse went. Do they need to know that?"
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Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
iiiiinnnnn...... ooooooout....... IINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN..... ouutttttttt
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