THOTH & MORVEREN
Thoth twisted around to look at the clock as Danny glanced up at it and blinked, as he always did, in the face of the time. Time was an abstract concept to Thoth. The original fairies – including his mother, who had raised him in a single-parent environment for part of his life – had no concept of the passing of time; to them, a week passed as if it was a day. Thoth went through life similarly, working tirelessly through the night and gazing with surprise out of his window whenever the first light of dawn shone through. Most days he would forget to eat if Nimueh, his carer, didn't place it firmly under his nose.
Consequently it was, as always, a mild surprise to find that time had actually passed. Equally, however, Thoth never stopped the pursuit of scientific advancement for something as trivial as sleep, dinner, or adult rules. He cast Danny an odd look.
“They always think I'm up to something,” he responded in a vaguely bemused tone, surprised that no one thought the same of Danny. Thoth had about as much concept of discipline as he had of time. “Usually they leave me alone if I'm quiet, so we've got bags of time. Unless anyone comes looking for you. Is your mum or dad expecting you back?”
Danny probably had a family who cared about him being home late, Thoth supposed.
He perked up when the younger boy asked about how it was taken, his enthusiasm momentarily curbed by the questions of practicality he rarely considered.
“I don't know,” he admitted. “ 'Penicillin' is an umbrella term for a number of moulds with antibiotic properties. Fleming discovered Penicillium notatum. I'm working with the Penicillium rubens too, but I might be growing a different type. The majority of penicillins are administered by injection but phenoxymethylpenicillin is administered orally. I don't have any syringes so I've been taking all of them orally.” And throwing up immediately after, more times than not. “I suppose we could steal one of the nurses' syringes,” he proposed thoughtfully.
Morveren squealed delightedly as she bounced on Solarius' back. She charged up towards his head and back down towards the rear again, before making a flying leap off the end. Sol's tail was upright at the time; Morv caught it with her teeth and front paws and swung low to the ground, attacking it playfully. Her claws were retractable, like a cat's, and now they unsheathed themselves excitably. Thoth whistled for her to come back onto the bed but she ignored him, too caught up in the game to pay any attention to anything else.
|
|
