#earthrunes

"When'd you get here?" A vague frown.

"Not long ago" she assures "Now, I know it's hard to find focus. I'm going to give you a cordial of stuff. Not sure how it tastes to sluagh tastebuds, but most find it bitter. Drink it anyway.. you hear me? "

"Earl okay?"

She squirms and presses her mouth against her bicep before another round of coughing starts.

"HE is fine, albeit pacing back and forth like a caged panther while I check you out... "She listens to the coughing, and takes out a stethescope, and listens to Zara's lungs

"Gotta see if it worked." Oh, she CAN fret and fuss, even with brain fog.

"You mean Samson?" She says "it worked. Earl told me you were trying to lift a curse plague off a crow to help Coradel's horse. As he is reported MUCH better now, and suddenly, it must have." She tuts "And you'll have to take my word on it, because your'e not getting out of that bed. Now, drink this" She offers a cordial, "Slam it all down if you can"

She takes the glass and sniffs it.

Her keen sense of scent is not at its best. But 'bitter' might be the right word from smell.

She takes an experimental sip.

Ugh. Tastes too much like coffee... and she's a tea drinker.

She makes a face.

Bitter she can handle better than a non sluagh, but still, coffee esque.

"Drink it fast and it won't be as bad" The healer says, passing on the same phrase healers have been using for years.

History really.

A mock-scowl at her friend.

She takes a deep breath to gear up - mistake, as that sets off more coughing.

"Easy, easy... " She says making sure the medicine isn't spilled.

And when she settles, she tosses the entire glassful back in one hasty gulp.

Bitter, Coffeee, and maybe it's the fever, maybe it is just how the sluagh translate tastes... but it tastes like pretentious preppie bitter coffee. Not classy intellectual tea at all.

"There we go, no harm done there" Clem says.

"That'll help with the fever, and the cough a bit... and yes, help you rest." She assures. "You're going to need that sleep."

A little crease between her eyebrows. "Why would coffee make me sleep?"

"Because it's not really coffee but it is a mild sedative" She says

Decaffeinated treachery!

Hacking, then - "Traitor."

"M'already fuzzy. Don't like it."

"I betray with love" She says "Besides, sleep can be the best medicine. And you won't be fuzzy WHILE you sleep. So get comfy. Earl wants to flicker flash over to get some lentil soup or.. was it matzaballs? From your mother. I told him to wait on that till after you rested a bit. "

Already Zara is feeling drowsier... and drowsier.

her chills are weaker though

"Matzoth. S'jewish penicillin."

Clem might notice at least a half dozen spiders have collected in the room - 1122 on the headboard.

"Matzoth eh? Noted" She looks up and sees the sisters and 1122, "Well, I can tell you've got friends. 1122, you keep an eye on her will you? I will check in on her now and then."

Clem rises "I best go tell Earl you're going to be all right, with just a bit of time."

"S'bullshit." tiny huff.

1122, meanwhile, gives Clem a spidery salute.

"Oh now, sass all you want, I know my trade." A sad look at something "Now rest up"

She nods respectfully to 1122, and heads out

Muffled. "Tankoo"

Clem may or may not here that, but she does look over her shoulder and gives a small wave, then is gone. That sedative works its own form of magic, and Zara feels herself drifting into slumber. Perhaps she'll have a comforting dream about a mystery regarding murder in a manor on the moors.

She tries to puzzle out the sad note in Clem's voice, but that is hard to hold on to against the much stronger call to sleep...

So if she is a plucky Victorian Lady Detective, perhaps it's no surprise that her tall blue friend is somehow at the heart of her dream mystery to solve.

It is an odd dream... why in the dream does Clem confess to being the murderess?

Even in her sleep, Zara can't quite escape curiousity

(End scene)

A bookwyrm flies from library to Earl's room, often carrying a book. Bronte is a bookwyrm, as greedy and hoarding prone as any other dragon, and books are her wealth. And yet, there is nothing, NO book, she treasures more than her librarian author , and friend. By the great bookwyrm, Bronte has practically RAISED Zara from biblophile to Biblomancer! So, Bronte does not hesitate to share, and fie on those who would stand in between a bookwyrm and her partner.

Shalimar yells "Low Bridge" ANd ducks the book that almost hits him in the head as Bronte wings by.

Zara dozes, swallowed up on Earl's bed. Clem's concoction has helped, but she still coughs in her sleep.

"She'll be fine, Bronte, and she's probably sleeping. Books aren't medicine, dear" Delores insists in the hall.