multiversallogs | a little sincerity is a dangerous thing; a great deal of it is absolutely fatal

Who: Lucius Malfoy (Sr) and "Vanessza Bernát"
What: A second appointment.
Where: Syriac Well.
When: Newdie afternoon.

He Apparates silently out front her apartment building, likely startling anyone who happens to be crowding the sidewalk - but that is also one of the small, pettier pleasures of living in Baedal. Good to remember when home sickness, or something like it and perhaps with more dignity, draws its bow across his nerves like the world's tiniest violin. It's coming down with sleet, a little bit London about its damp Christmas weather and urban angles, and he allows a glance around before leaving it behind. He carries specks of the quick-melting ice water on his coat, one that is the approximate same colour as the grey streets he leaves behind, his clothing plainly Muggle in cut and sensibilities for all that long, scraggling tendrils of platinum-grey hair and affected addition of a cane is less so.

But there are all kinds, out here.

The end of that length of elm is used to knock against "Vanessza's" door when he arrives at it, drawing up his posture as if he has to remember to do so, a small twitch at his mouth at the twinge to his arm at the movement. A glance down at shoes, reflexive if belated, to see that they are suitably clean, for all the good it would do him.

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Dragging attention away from the strips laid on healing skin, as well as fighting the urge to touch over the edges of them once her own fingers lift, Lucius otherwise doesn't wait to be told to get dressed. He remains seated as she speaks, tugging the shirt closer and shaking out accumulated creases in lazy, discreet movements before it's slowly dragged back on.

He can study them later, anyway. There is a strange and fundamental philosophy behind the way the non-magical go about things, he is beginning to find, which reminds him further--

Coat, then, is tugged over as well, but not to put on just yet. His hand sinks into a pocket, searching.

"One hopes not all social calls involve the requirement of injury, although I presume you are intended somewhere after this," he says, with regard to her own neatness, the makeup and hair.

"An interesting night out sometimes ends in emergency, but rarely begins there," she says, a little dryly, as she rolls the gloves off her hands and discards them (as well as the sutures) in the medical waste bin. "But I have arrived in time to be invited to the half-dozen year end parties my colleagues are throwing." Some of them involve specific festivals, some don't; it's just that time of year in general and as reserved as she can be, she rarely turns down an invitation.

There's a papery crinkle within satin lined pockets before the envelope emerges, a usual sort of vessel for monetary exchange, but more unusually, a thick glass vial, stoppered with cork, and it's difficult to say at first glance if the glass is that shade of deep purple, or if the fluid inside it is this shade.

"Thrilling. Then I shan't take up too much of your evening."

Because even in wizarding Britain, being sarcastic about work dos is normal enough that it's still a habit, for all that he doesn't have the right to any since arrest and subsequent terrorism. "For your interest," he says, offering the latter object, and setting down the envelope. "And a donation. I made a guess at the going rate."

Her social calendar for the rest of this month is an even mix between the archetypal work do and a number of invitations she received by dint of being new in town, a bit quiet, and obviously needing to be thrust onto the scene by well-meaning new acquaintances. She'll probably enjoy most of it, but there's a certain wry awareness at the half-reproachful look she gives him for that.

(Apparently one doesn't much stand on ceremony with someone after bullying him into one's shower and rose-scented bath products.)

Regardless, more interested in the stoppered vial than the envelope she does take a cursory look at her payment, assuring him, "I'm sure that it's sufficient," as she turns the vial into the light for a better look at whether or not that's the liquid or the glass. "What is this particularly?"

There's a fingernail-sliver amount of space free enough inside the vial to tell that it is in fact thickly purple, the contents. Wry-reproach accepted with a raise of an eyebrow, Lucius' attention is back on his sleeves, fussing the cuffs closed as she examines the gifted sample. "A potion, for cleaning wounds. I take it you aren't used to more magical remedies, prior to Baedal."

In the same way he isn't used to those of raw materials and chemicals doing what God intended, prior to Baedal, as opposed to whatever perversion magic makes of them when put into a cauldron and stirred with a wand.

"Ah," she says, pleased; magic might not be something she can replicate, but at least she'd like to be able to learn about how to recognize and work with it when necessary. "No, I studied medicine in Paris--" Germany, but who's counting, "--and it's strictly scientific. I'm playing catch up at the Glory Shada, I have a colleague whose sister-in-law is lending me texts from the university--"

She waves it off a moment later; he isn't interested in her obsessive study of her field.

'Interested' might be the wrong word, if not for the reasons she is handwaving. It is generally difficult for Lucius, these days, to take over-consideration for the actions and intricacies of others.

But the subject matter itself and motivation to divest books of their knowledge is not uninteresting. Still, he doesn't prompt her to continue, but nor does he end the exchange. "You'll have deduced via circumstance that I am not as adept as, it seems, I should be with healing magics," Lucius says, taking up cane again, balancing it against the ground rather than where it lay beside his perch on the bed. "But I can put together brews related to it, when I've the patience."

Which is not always, granted. And also usually when he isn't dizzy from blood loss. "If you feel inclined to use it, don't be alarmed if it starts to smoke on contact. But I thought you would, at least, appreciate it as a fascination."

"I'll never turn away resources in this city." Baedal is a little more of a crapshoot that way, after all; she can't rely on having what she needs anywhere near as much as she'd like to, and in some ways it's a timely reminder how comfortable she's got in the modern world as time's progressed. Things she relies on now that she'd never had before. "What does the smoking indicate?"

"That it's working."

Welcome to magic.

Lucius stands, then, pulling his coat on as he does so with a flap of heavy wool, ever cautious in movement not just of healing injury but now the delicate attachments she pasted over them. "And that it will hurt, but no worse than the elixir you used, nor the injury itself. But it is also infallible."

Benevenuta's expression is politely disbelieving at the notion of anything being infallible, and she observes very mildly, "Provided it's made and used correctly, I assume."

But it goes in the cabinet with a brief label that she'll expand later when she has more time, and-- "I will show you out?"

"I assure you it is and was."

Never mind that he probably had to start again a few times before coming up with a solution he felt comfortable using on himself, considering the ingredients that go into it; it's been a while, admittedly, but in the spirit if getting his hands dirty lately. As for the second thing, Lucius gives a nod, and moves to fall into step.

a little sincerity is a dangerous thing; a great deal of it is absolutely fatal

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