WHO: Anthony Goldstein, JJ Monroe WHAT: This is what happens when you leave the path... WHEN: July 20, 2019, Morning WHERE: The Reserve Grounds RATING: Not even a single swear! (But plooooot)
Theoretically, Ant knew taking an in-depth tour of the Reserve was advisable, even for a temporary employee such as himself. One never knew when or where there might be a medical emergency that would need triage on site before being moved to Medical. But he still was in the midst of getting everything organized and learning the ropes of the office. Surely the tour could wait.
The tour could not wait, it appeared. At least according to snippy little memo he'd gotten from HR.
Which is exactly how Ant found himself wearing a pair of recently purchased hiking boots as they tromped through the different flora and fauna across the Reserve. At least he wasn't alone. There was another joining him on the tour, but he didn't quite catch her name as they set out. But he'd been running a bit late after there'd been a minor breakfast emergency and there was naught a bean of coffee or teabag left in the rental house. A true emergency, indeed.
The only reason JJ was on this tour was because she was supposed to be shadowing every division of the Reserve job duties, and today's was, well, what she was doing now. And she knew she should be paying attention, but the person doing the presentation must not do this regularly since JJ wasn't engaged at all. Her gaze caught on a semi-familiar face from medical—she thought maybe he was Felix's husband's temporary replacement—and she smiled at him. She spotted a little path that diverged with their own, and her look went impish. With a glance at the older wizard, she gave the direction a quick nod and peeled off from the group.
Ant followed the direction indicated and nodded his agreement. It didn't look too far away from the greater group. It would be easy enough to hear them when they began to move on. Feeling delightfully like he was breaking a rule, albeit a pretty minor one, he followed the young witch down through the trees.
"Well this could lead to all sorts of questions," Ant said quietly as soon as they moved behind the treeline. "Hopefully they're all questions with interesting answers. Anthony Goldstein." He extended his hand. "I apologize if we were introduced before, but it seems like I've met so many people it's a wonder I don’t get confused more often than not.”
Shaking his hand, JJ smiled brightly. "Not too many questions, though. I mean, of all the people on that tour, we're supposed to be here. Well, practically anywhere you have clearance, I suppose, which is still a lot more than them." She laughed, and then realized she hadn't even introduced herself. "Jayla Monroe, but everybody calls me JJ. I think I've seen you haunting medical or maybe in admin, but haven't had the pleasure yet. Well, pleasure is pushin' it, since winding up in the former usually means you've been on the nasty end of somethin' or another, or it's time for another inoculation or vaccine or whatever. I'm trainin' in one of the departments, but here lately I seem to be all over the place. Not that I mind. I like bein' helpful. How do you like it so far?"
It appeared that JJ Monroe was a bit of a chatterbox, but Ant didn't mind. He'd grown up around people that loved to talk and on occasion he could be one of them, but it also gave him a chance to sit back and listen and learn. The older he got the more he realized how much he could learn from others by just shutting up and keeping his ears open. "Hazard of Medical, I suppose. Nobody wants to see us because you're either hurt or have to take something nasty. I've learned to not take it too personally."
He looked around the small clearing. He was very much a city boy. Having this much nature around him was a novel experience, though he maintained that it was far too quiet at night. They had to put up sound charms that reminded him of the city just so he could sleep. "What department are you training in?"
She set off in another direction, roughly parallel to the tour group. They'd wind up converging at some point down the way, if her inner map was right. Besides, JJ was thoroughly convinced that no one would be missing them anytime soon. "Psychic creatures. Easily the least understood of the bunch, and that's not just my personal bias speakin'. I fell in love with that type at HAHA." With a gasp, she turned to him with a delighted smile and started to walk backwards. "Did you go to Hogwarts?"
There were psychic creatures? Ant had flashbacks to Professor Trelawney and then made her less drunk and even less understood. And he burst into a fit of giggles. "Yes." He managed after getting control of himself. "Big castle in the middle of the Scottish highlands. A whole cast of characters for professors, including a half-giant and a centaur." And Death Eaters, but he didn't want to talk about that. "What is HAHA?"
Her jaw dropped, but immediately afterward she picked it up again and pouted for effect. "Felix never told me y'all had a centaur teacher! And a half-giant? We just got—well, you know what they say? Those who can't, teach." JJ paused, and then made a face at herself. "That just sounds awful. I loved most of my teachers, when they weren't bein' completely overbearin' which is just gonna happen when you go to an art school. Any artistic medium is gonna be subjective. That's just the nature of it, so why should school be any different. Houston Academy of Higher Arts, that is, or HAHA for short. It's about as close to Juilliard as our set gets on our side of the pond. Trust me, though, HAHA was no laughing matter." A beat. "That's a joke. Sorta."
"Only for a few years," Ant assure her. "And I never had him, but my nose was fully poked in the middle of one book or another for the most of my school career." He said most, because his seventh year was an exception to all the rules. "But I think it's a teacher's prerogative, regardless of their place of employment, to overbearing to some degree."
Nodding to himself, Ant stuck his hands into his jeans' pockets and trailed after JJ. "So you went from the arts to creatures?"
"By way of a brief stint as a pop star, yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still write and play music, I just don't get paid to do it anymore." With a wry laugh, JJ turned back around, since she figured she'd been pushing her luck in the walking backwards bit. "That's cool, though, havin' that kind of diversity in your teachers. I mean, for as much as the US can be pretty progressive about some things, education is sadly not one of them. But I get that y'all have different complaints about the way that things are run on your side of things. It ain't all tea and roses all the time, is it?"
She couldn't hear the tour group at all now, but she wasn't concerned. The area was thick with trees. "I think we're pretty close to the wards that keep us separated from town." It was an observation, made all the more curious by the fact that she thought it was a little further away. But something was pressing on her head, like a gentle reminder that she'd forgotten a vaguely important object at home or had left an appliance running that ought to have been turned off. "Feel that? Like a funny taste in the back of your mouth."
Ant wasn't quite ready to comment on the politics of Britain. They were in a better place than they were fifteen years ago, certainly, but politics was never his cup of tea. So he avoided the topic entirely. Thankfully, JJ offered the perfect opportunity for a subject change. "Are we? I have a terrible sense of direction. I think I got lost at the grocer's one time."
"It's a big place, that's for sure. I'm not quite as bad off as some folk, but even I have to get the map up on my phone sometimes." She very nearly mentioned Felix again, but she didn't want to give her new healer friend the wrong idea. Although at one time she may have seen Felix in a somewhat romantic light, she both respected and adored what he'd found with his new husband. Jealousy wasn't something she felt in the slightest. And she had Derry, so it had all worked out. "You're not all the way out here by your lonesome are y—"
Her foot sank about three inches into the ground very suddenly, and JJ started to lose her balance. And then she started to lose her ability to stay conscious. Everything went kind of wobbly around her, and her knees buckled. The ground beneath her feet was black as pitch. It was draining her magic so quickly that she couldn't even articulate what the issue was, just that she very much felt like staying awake and alert was really overrated.
There was a phone app? Why did nobody tell him about that? He was definitely going to have to ask HR about that. Or maybe he should stop with Visitor Services? Ant shook his head and was about to ask JJ about the matter when her cut off question had him looking up sharply. "JJ?" She was swaying on her feet and looked like she was about to pass out any second.
Hurrying to her side, he was one step away when Ant felt a wave of dizziness slammed into him. He pulled back on instinct and his vision cleared just as fast. Was this the result of the funny taste JJ had just mentioned? Looking around Ant tried to find a physical cause of the phenomenon as he reached out to grasp the young woman by her upper arms. He would apologize for the familiarity in touch when they were both safe. The soil where JJ was standing was a remarkably different color than anything surrounding it. Figuring that may be the cause, Ant pulled JJ towards him as he walked backwards into safety.
"JJ, I need you to stay awake. Why don't you tell me more about your psychic creatures?" What he wouldn't give for his medic bag just this second, but he hadn't gotten into the habit yet of always carrying it around with him. His wand flashed as he ran a set of diagnostic charms that would tell him if this would turn into a true emergency or just a concerning situation.
"Nobody ever asks me about my critters, which is a cryin' shame, 'cause they're just about the wonderful things on the whole planet. D'you know the baku eat nightmares an' dreams? 'Cept I don't get to sleep with them yet. Not like that. That's gross. Besides, I've never slept with anyone. But that's part of workin' with the psychic critters. Once a month, you gotta spend the night for a week, so the baku get fed." JJ's resultant and impromptu lecture was more or less coherent, save for a lot of slurred words and entirely too much information.
As she swam back towards reality, she became slowly aware of two things: one was the slow tickle of her magic flowing back into her limbs, the other was the fact that there was a very solid chest pressed against her back as well as hands on her arms—neither of which felt like her boyfriend's. She'd been there with someone else, hadn't she? And then there was that bizarre feeling and—oh. It was kind of like hanging in between remembering and forgetting, and JJ actually raised her hand to press into the side of her head, like she could keep the thoughts inside there if she just tried hard enough.
And then, miraculously, they stayed, and she remembered what she'd been doing and with whom. Easing away from Ant and out of his hold, she was very, very careful to not take another step toward the area that had just a monstrous effect on her. "I… I'm so sorry. I have no idea what came over me, but…" Her face fell in confusion as she finally laid eyes on the black patch of earth, and she dug out her phone. It didn't take a ton of searching to find the memo that Felix had sent out about the quarantined areas. She showed it to Ant, along with the app showing the affected areas. "Could this be that? If so, we need to report this right away. This definitely ain't on the map."
Ant really wanted to sit down in case she was liable to pass out, but he let her move as she pleased, wand at the ready in case her blood pressure did suddenly drop and she became unconscious. "It could be." He took the offered phone to read the memo before handing it back. A moment later he conjured a camp chair and gestured that she should sit down. "Now, if you could please take a seat I would like to make sure there are no lingering side-effects from whatever that dirt did to you."
He was going to have to talk to Felix Weissman about these strange patches of dirt and any other abnormalities that had yet to be mentioned to members of Medical, no matter if they happened to be temporary employees or not. But that was a matter for another time. Right now, JJ was his priority. "How are you feeling? Any lingering side effects?"
A part of her kind of wanted to protest the conjured chair, but one look at it told her that sitting was actually the best plan of action. "I'm okay," she protested, but that was kind of her default. She never wanted to make a fuss about herself, so she was prone to downplaying just about everything; case in point: her memory loss. But Ant was a healer, and she knew that attempting to prevaricate probably did more harm than good. "Still a little dizzy. I don't think I realized what my magic really felt like until it started gettin' leeched outta me, but it's comin' back now."
JJ flexed her fingers like they'd been asleep, and then glanced at the black patch and shuddered. "What in the world is that stuff? How can it be able to do that?"
"Does your okay mean the same thing as my fine?" Ant gave her a small smile. "Because let me let you in on a little secret, someday someone is going to figure out your tells and then you'll never be able to use the excuse again." Or, in his case, found two people. But it wasn't all bad. "I wish I had some chocolate on me. Just for the dizziness, mind."
She laughed a little, blushing at the well-earned call out, and then even harder at the mention of chocolate. "What is it about magic users and chocolate? It's like some weird cure all, or at least a placebo. I mean, I ain't knockin' it, but what happens if you happen t'be allergic?" JJ let the question hang for a second before she waved her hand dismissively. "Not important for now. Maybe a question for another day. What is important right now is what to do about this curse dirt, or whatever you wanna call it, 'cause I don't want some innocent tourist or creature stumblin' into this stuff."
"It makes us feel better, like we're doing something productive in the meantime. Like when they sent men to get boiling water and clean towels when women were in labor." Ant turned to look at the patch of dirt in question, a considering look on his face. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, the healer cast an impermeable charm onto the fabric before levitating a small sample of soil into it. Sealing the corners, he slipped the packet back into his pocket. "For the powers that be, to test," he explained.
Now, there was the question of how to protect the affected area. Another few flicks of his wand and a simple ward flickered into existence. It wouldn't be hard to break if someone really wanted to, but the creatures would be protected. And if a tourist purposefully took down the ward then there were other questions that needed to be asked first. "Now, why don't we get you to Medical and alert the proper people in Herbology about our discovery?"
"I mean, it has been a couple of weeks," JJ said in a tone that was about as close to actually snarky as she could get. The truth was that she actually felt mountains better now that the ward was in place, but the way Ant posed his question left no room for interpretation or alternative suggestions for anywhere other than medical. "I guess I'm pretty overdue. I have one request, though: please don't judge me for the novel length of my file. Can't exactly help that I seem to be a trouble magnet."
Ant held out his hand to help JJ up before banishing the camp chair. "No judgement from me. I mean, you're talking to someone who ended up in Norway without any memory of how he got there. So really, I don't even have room to judge even if I wanted to." He smiled at her. "I'll tell you the story after a more thorough diagnostic. Deal?"
Her mouth opened as if she wanted to ask more, but she closed it just as quickly at his mention of memory issues. It was a problem that gave her responding laugh a slightly nervous edge. JJ still smiled, however, and genuinely. "Deal."