THOTH & MORVEREN
It was another quiet, drab, grey day inside the hospital ward. A ten year-old had come in earlier that morning with a sprained wrist, but had quickly been patched up and sent on her way. There was no one else in the short-term ward. The doctors were in their offices, doing their paperwork, and a few nurses came in and out of the long-term ward at a couple of points during the day, but weren’t around for long. A storm had been brewing all morning and had finally brought the heavens crashing down to earth around midday, by which point every suspecting fairy was tucked safely away inside the castle. Wind whistled through the cracks in the castle walls, the sound broken only by the regular rolls of thunder, and the only thing visible through the lashing rain was the occasional flash of lightning. Few people would be out in this.
Thoth was rarely as affected by the weather as other children, but today it had brought about a common state of restlessness. Fifteen books in total were strewn about his bed, many open, most with pencil scribbles all over them or handwritten papers sticking out. A half-forgotten birthday card had been pushed back against the wall on his bedside table to make room for a thick tome and several sheets of paper on top, noticeable because they were only partly in English. The top sheet was a copy of the most recent combination parchment to be found with the castle, detailing the nominal equation one kinetic stone together with one earth stone is earth magic. The translation was waiting to be picked up by one of the royal administrators.
Aside from the books, there were other obvious signs of boredom. The curtains over the window had been pulled down and drawn across two of the bed posts to make a small hammock in which Morveren was lying, stretched out in bliss. An empty vase sat on the bedside table next to a bunch of thoroughly dissected flowers. Several different fruits had also been dissected with a stolen scalpel and were now sat on the windowsill, lighting up whenever the lightning flashed outside. The messiness of Thoth’s bandages indicated to anyone who knew him that he’d taken them off (probably more than once) for the sole purpose of putting them back on again, either for practice or in experimentation.
It was boring, boring, boring being stuck in bed all the time.
Currently, he was in here for snapping his still-healing arm and leg again when he crashed his off-road skateboard into a tree. Thoth had tried to convince the healers that the tree had snuck up on him, but they confiscated his board anyway. He could glimpse it whenever the head doctor came in or out of her office. Thoth had long since given up adhering to the healers’ cautions, since it didn’t seem to matter what he did – he always ended up back in here before the week was up anyway. His bones just didn’t seem to be strong enough to heal unless they were completely inactive throughout the whole healing process.
He glanced down at the book currently open on his lap - Revolutionary Centuries? A Study of Industrialism in Britain - before pushing it slowly away with his left (only useable) hand. Thoth was right-handed naturally, but had trained himself to be reasonably ambidextrous long ago, for which he was grateful at times like these. He scratched the cast on his legs under the blanket and twisted around to check the nurses’ offices, the doors to which were all shut. The door to the long-term ward was shut, too, and complete with the two royal guards who had been stationed there ever since Mallos had woken up. The healers were careful enough not to discuss Mallos’ condition in public, which unfortunately only intensified the curiosities of the rest of the castle. Twenty-four seven guards, ambiguous statements and authorised entrance only: a recipe for an appetising mystery. Thoth was getting bored with all the inquisitive courtiers who kept turning up to try and bribe information or access out of the nurses.
Thunder rumbled outside. Thoth kicked the bottom of his bed with his good leg, trying and failing to wake Morveren up. She rolled over in her hammock and snored convincingly, so he reached for some of the scrap paper, meaning to screw it up and throw the balls at her. There was another flash of lightning outside and something whacked against his window with an enormous bang, making him jump.
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