19th December, 1894 — The Glynn Farmhouse

You couldn’t have grown up in a village like theirs without knowing the local folk. He and Aneurin Glynn hadn’t been close – there were years between them, and their interests had always differed – but once Gwyn Conway had taken up keeping, there really was no avoiding her adoptive father and (what Howell considered) his unnecessary advances of friendliness.

Nothing like festive times of year to make people sick with the notion of socialising, was there? If the pressure had come from farmer Glynn alone, he might’ve avoided it: but Gwyn had insisted upon his coming to some family dinner at the farmhouse, and her nagging could be incessant. Sometimes there was less suffering in agreeing early, and not having to weather her remarks.

Not to mention farmer Glynn liked to hear how his adoptive daughter was getting on under Howell’s mentorship – and Howell did like to give Gwyn a healthy dose of reality once in a while, in case she went home telling tall tales about her work on the reserve.

So Howell had trudged on in; had managed a half-decent conversation with farmer Glynn and offered Mrs. Glynn a wheel of his dragon milk cheese; had bantered with Gwyn a while. All that achieved, he had been sitting quietly, in his best attempt to be not here, brow furrowed darkly towards the glass in his hand. It never helped that he couldn’t tell all Glynn’s children from one another, and the place was teeming with them. One of the girls was currently too near to be avoided – and she was at least one with whom Gwyn seemed to be of an age, so he did feel vaguely obligated to recognise her – so, in a show of good faith, Howell sent her a short nod which was intended to telegraph something like: hello, one of the Glynn siblings.

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Enid Glynn

  

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Of all the dragon keepers they occasionally hosted at Fairtree Farm, Howell was always the oddest. Oh, Enid was well pleased that he had taken Gwyn under his proverbial wing, but she had never heard him say more than five words in a row, and even though she was fairly reserved herself, Enid was never entirely sure what to do with people who were this awkward when she wasn't healing them. And as the eldest Glynn sister, she supposed she was going to have to try to protect him from the twins today. Especially because Ma had hijacked Gwyn to get her sizes for her Christmas knitting.

Enid took Mr. Howell's nod as an invitation to try and talk to him. "Gwyn should have told you to bring your dog," Enid said, trying for something that Mr. Howell had to be interested in. "Ours are always happy to romp about."

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   Howell Howell

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set by Bee

(The nod had not been an invitation.)

Howell had intended the gesture to be both the beginning and end of the interaction. The bare minimum, he had supposed, so that no one could later accuse him of sitting in a corner and ignoring everyone. But here was a lesson learned, already, of other people – you gave ‘em an inch and they took a mile.

He might have stared her down entirely wordlessly, but – in her defence – she had mentioned his dog. (Blast. If only he had brought his dog. Looking out for the dog was as good an excuse as any to seem preoccupied with other things than festive chatter.)

“Barry doesn’t spend much time with other dogs,” Howell informed her. “I dunno how they’d get on.”

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   Enid Glynn

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Well, Enid could make pleasant conversation with just about anyone when she gave it a good shot, and she still wasn't sure what to do with that response. "Well, he still may enjoy the tree farm," she offered. They had a lot of plants and a lot of smells, and maybe that offer would work for Mr. Howell.

"Are the dragons doing well?" she asked. Gwyn would have told her, but hopefully it would help spark something from Mr. Howell.

  

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set by Bee

Howell gave a non-committal hm.

From dogs to dragons, though – which was about the natural spectrum of his small talk topics, to be fair. “They’re well,” he nodded. “Nigel broke a toe in a scuffle, but he’ll be alright.” He was just limping oddly when he landed, and as such spending more time in flying until it could heal.

Speaking of – “You’re the healer?” Howell asked, in sudden recognition.

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Enid smiled at the image of dragon Nigel, and raised her hand to her mouth to hide her amusement. She didn't think Nigel was the most fond of sharing a name with one of the dragons.

She nodded at Mr. Howell's question. "I'm the healer," Enid confirmed.

  

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set by Bee

He was, suddenly, too distracted to have noticed her smiling for no good reason. She was the healer – and Howell didn’t talk to healers much, since he didn’t go to the hospital or anywhere near a mediwizard if he could help it. He knew more about dragon diseases and injuries than human ones. Howell set down his glass and cleared his throat.

“Speaking of broken toes,” he muttered, mouth twisting into a slight grimace as he bent over in his chair and started, with some trouble, tugging off one of his boots, and then starting on his sock. Sort of on the same topic as that – he had some questions.

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"Oh!" Enid said, as Mr. Howell bent over. She scooted her chair back and leaned over so that she could see under the table. He was, apparently, taking his boot off.

She hadn't expected this.

Enid stood up. "I'll come over to your side, so I can see it in the light," she said, because if this was happening she may as well get a good look at this. She couldn't wait to tell Nigel about this — couldn't wait to tell Gwyn about this.

  

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set by Bee

Howell pulled a face. She was keener than he’d expected to see. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Some morbid curiosity healers had, or she was just interested in feet?

Still, he didn’t change tack now – half because he was only up against one healer (who couldn’t look intimidating if she tried) and had an easy escape; and half because he’d gotten his boot off over his months-old, still-awkwardly-swollen ankle, and it was almost too much effort to wrestle it back on now.

He finished unrolling his sock as she came around, presenting the heel of his bare foot to her (and the inflamed tendon?); the one he’d hurt in the snow in that fucking February blizzard and steadfastly ignored since. “You got anything for this?” While he was here, though – there was also some kind of odd fungus spreading between his toes. Was that normal? Howell wasn’t sure if that was normal. He minded his own business, when it came to people’s feet.

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   Enid Glynn

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There was no way around it, and Enid half-regretted coming across the table: Mr. Howell's foot was pretty horrifying.

There was the smell emanating from his boot, the swell of his heel, and a strange green fungus spreading between his toes. Enid kept her face as blank as possible, because if she wrinkled her nose at this she had a feeling that Mr. Howell would storm out of the house.

"How long has it been swollen?" Enid asked, tone mild. Merlin, the smell. How did the dragon keepers live like this? "But yes, I have things for this."

  

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set by Bee

He didn’t know what she made of it – healers were like foreigners. Spoke a bunch of made-up gibberish and nonsensical riddles, as far as he could tell. Probably most of them were quacks, too. But at least if he had problems, he knew where Miss Glynn lived.

In case she needed to see the foot better, Howell dragged another wooden chair closer and propped his foot up on it. He could disguise the wince as his heel came into contact with it, but did make a face at the pull on his hamstrings.

“You remember the blizzard?” Howell said, scratching his beard as he tried to count back through the months. “Back in spring. ‘Bout then.” In his defence – it hadn’t looked half as bad back then, whatever Raj Sandow had warned him about potentially losing a foot.

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Mr. Howell's foot had been swollen for eight months? Enid carefully kept her expression just as neutral — this would be good training for some of the junior healers she worked with — and nodded, matter-of-fact, as if this behavior was normal. She didn't want to scare him off.

"I'll give you a cooling salve that should clear that up," she said, "And the green patches, by your toes? How long has that been there?"

Really she was going to have to tell him to wash his feet more often, but Enid thought that would go over about as well as when one of the barn cats decided to terrorize some chickens.

  

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set by Bee

Well, that sounded simple – suspiciously simple. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he muttered. Letting nature take its course was his usual motto, so – all this seemed like needless meddling. (Though – admittedly – the ankle hadn’t gotten any better in the last eight months.)

“Dunno. I don’t keep a diary,” Howell said shortly, about the toes. “Comes and goes.” He didn’t get much of a chance to study them: he was often up before dawn and back in the cottage after dark, traipsing through mud and sleet and rain. “What d’you think it is?”

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