June 25th, 1889 — North Bartonburg

Someone had tried to poison him, of that he was convinced — and Arven was resolutely not a conspiracy theorist. He left that to witches who insisted there were ghouls in the Ministry and amortentia in the tap water. He tried to forget about it as he took some fresh air along East Founders Way by the forest’s edge, tucking his hands into the pockets of his longcoat despite the golden sun as it hit high noon above the treeline. Arven had survived the trials and ills of the world, but a drop of something in his firewhisky had landed him at St Mungo’s.

He felt better now, improved under the care of the healers, but he still felt uncharacteristically dour. He felt… mortal.

Just then, Arven was hit by a bleak wave of dizziness and reached swiftly for the shoulder of a passer-by, thoughtlessly grappling for support.

  

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This summer, unlike the eventful last, was giving Carmelina plenty of time to catch up on things she had let fall to the wayside in all the swing of the school year. What had she given thought to this year beside class plans and rune extracts to set and translations to mark? (Not that the castle didn't offer up its own fair share of distractions. Some of them distressingly blonde.)

Once the castle had emptied, she had spent a bit of time hunkered down in her office, hammering out some new work - about last summer's expedition, in fact - but today, the weather was much too joyous, so she had set off on a long-winded stroll down from the castle into Hogsmeade, where she thought she might make it to the bookshop or the Three Broomsticks sometime in the afternoon. She was in no such thing as a hurry, though: walking had always proved fertile ground for thought, and she was not inclined to waste it.

Despite the apt summer weather, the path was still quite sparsely populated this far out, lined as it was by the Forest... not that Carmelina had been paying much attention to the other walkers, not until one of them grasped her abruptly by the shoulder. Carmelina, perhaps unwisely (given the string of vampire murders and suchlike that the papers always seemed to be spouting), felt a flash of surprise rather than outright alarm; so, although she stumbled at the suddenness of it, supposed the gentleman in question might be in trouble, and rather than shrinking away, raised her arms to him hurriedly to steady him. Admittedly, he towered a foot above her, so she wasn't sure how much help she would prove against his collapsing - but she would certainly try! "Are you alright, sir?" She blurted out, though she already had a fair hypothesis of the answer.

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Arven felt an uncharacteristic surge of aggravation alongside the wave of dizziness. The healer had warned him the poisoning might present such aftershocks, but like most men Arven felt himself sturdier than the norm. And, to be fair, he normally was. He appreciated this phase of weakness was not his fault, but nor was it compelling. He was keen to get back to normal.

But more importantly — it seemed he’d inadvertently grabbed the shoulder of a passer-by, and upon realising this he let go almost immediately. He head cleared a little, but only a little — so instead he leaned on the stone wall of a nearby house, stooped, uneasy. Arven regarded his startled saviour — a woman with a mane of curls and the brightest brown eyes. ”My most fervent apologies, madam”, he said gruffly instead of answering her concern. ”Thank you for not ducking away, or… you know… flattening”.

  

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She thought she had guessed right, to assist him without thinking rather than shrinking back: his skin was not so pale to be a vampire’s - too sun-kissed - and despite his imposing stature, had proven nothing other than polite, though he swiftly picked a wall instead of her shoulder.

Well, fair enough.

“Oh, it’d take more than that to flatten me,” Carmelina said, with a bright sort of confidence. She surveyed him with a conscious scrutiny, sure he would notice what she was doing, but as he hadn’t answered whether he was alright - well, he was obviously not. Certainly something was wrong; and Carmelina couldn’t imagine it was the wave of weakness sometimes caused by a too-tight corset and the heat of the summer in this case. “Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” She pressed, not about to let her curiosity lie in pursuit of politeness.

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Arven smiled despite himself, unable to resist a hint of amusement and admiration at the lady’s ways. First off she proclaimed robustness; a rare thing in her gender, which was normally so much quicker to express delicacy. And secondly she repeated her concern, with both the care and the curiosity of a bonafide healer.

Waves of dizziness continued to crash against his skull, forcing him to maintain his grip on the wall, but Arven owed his saviour an explanation. ”I’m recovering from an illness, madam”, he replied graciously, illness being something of an understatement but by no means inaccurate. ”I’m fresh discharged from St Mungo’s, though the healer did not warn me to expect precarious swaying over whatever kind soul passes by…”

  

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An illness! Plausible enough to be quite conceivable, and still vague enough to be rather unsatisfying an answer! Whatever it had been, she suspected it was a little more than a common cold.

“They never do,” Carmelina sympathised cheerfully, though the sentiment was absolute nonsense: she hadn’t the foggiest what healers prescribed from one situation to another. “But, forgive me,” and she was most certainly overstepping here - who was she to tell a passing gentleman how to arrange his affairs?; in light of this, she spoke lightly, something near teasing, “are you quite sure you weren’t - prematurely discharged?”

She had come to lean upon the wall a little ways beside him, the thought of continuing on her walk entirely secondary to this incident now, until she had found out more about this man. (Including whether he was well enough to be carrying on by himself in this state, of course.)

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Again an eyebrow quirked at the sureties of the modern woman — something which, as a man, he'd been trained to judge and condemn. But then again, Arven was a man who'd travelled the world, absorbing cultures that did not demand women be as restricted by manner as they were by their corsets.

And so the helpful stranger did not make Arven feel mollycoddled — she made him feel like a world away.

"Perhaps", he finally agreed, with a faint smile. "But if bears, bandits and desert sands haven't floored me, a bit of vertigo doesn't stand a chance."

  

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She had caught his eyebrow quirk, which might have served to abash her if only he had tried to shoo her away. As it was, he hadn’t, and so Carmelina wasn’t in the slightest bit discouraged.

Besides, he had agreed. Sort of. “I admit, I’m relieved to hear it,” she returned honestly. “I don’t know how much help I’d really be if it bested you.” Carmelina smiled a little guiltily; she was not the healer she pretended.

However, any concern for his wave of dizziness had been suddenly submerged by another feeling entirely. In a sentence, the stranger had become a great deal more mysterious, and already she had some more urgent questions to discuss. (If the questions kept him sitting still for a moment, so much the better.) “But which came closest?” She said with a thrilled gleam in her eyes. Of the bears, bandits or desert sands, that was! It ought to have sounded like a load of tosh, mere manly exaggeration - but even just looking at him, Carmelina was certain there was a nugget of truth buried in there. Some truth, and a terribly good story or two to tell.

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If there was anything that could steady a woozy head, it was the crisp and lucid clarity of the adventures that defined his life. Arven continue to lean against the wall (just in case), but he was noticeably less pale as the young would-be healer expressed interest in his tales of peril.

”The bandits came closest”, he replied. ”Men have always been the most dangerous force of nature, after all.” True enough, they killed more than deserts and bears put together. ”Though the leader of this particular company was, in fact, a woman”, he added as he glanced thoughtfully at a flowerpot on a doorstep, not really looking at it, remembering his time on the the Anatolian peninsula.

  

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That he answered seriously thrilled and vindicated her in the same breath. Carmelina nodded sagely. She knew at least something about desert sands and had heard of a few encounters with local bandits from her time in Egypt - although she was less familiar with bears.

“Oh, was she?” Carmelina echoed, barely able to suppress a faraway smile at the thought as she conjured up an image of the bandit lady, sheathed in swirling fabrics, knives in her pockets, perhaps galloping off on a horse. A rather... romanticised conjuration, she was sure, but what was the use of imagining anything if one couldn’t fill one’s head with the most alluring, ridiculous, sensational apparitions conceivable? “And where did you cross paths with these bandits?” She pressed, conversationally. “Somehow not Hogsmeade, I imagine!”

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”Somehow not”, he outright agreed with a crooked smile. And such was her enthusiasm he would have quite happily regaled her there and then with tales of this particular adventure, but as he straightened up on the wall he realised he was still quite light-headed. He should not let himself suffer from masculine pride — Arven needed to sit down, it was as simple as that.

”But it’s not exactly a streetside tale, madam. There’s a little tearoom across the way — would you care to join me for a spell? Arven Fisk”, he added by way of introduction. No it was not entirely proper for them to share stories over a cup of tea, especially with his being a bachelor, but at least they’d be in a public place, more or less introduced — and they were hardly nubile teens with fluttering eyelashes.

Besides, the perceived importance of propriety tends to be measured by the improper.

  

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Carmelina wasn’t certain whether his suggesting the tearoom came with any ulterior motives - such as settling somewhere sturdier than a garden wall, perhaps - or merely because the tales he had to tell were too lengthy and epic to be appreciated in such a passing manner. Either way, her errands for the afternoon had never felt less critical. She would get to keep an eye on him until she was quite sure he was well enough to walk himself about, and she was, she admitted, a sucker for a story.

“Carmelina Cramming,” she said promptly, cocking her head at him a little as though still considering the proposition. But any introduction was good enough for her, and she was at least convinced he was no bandit, so there was hardly any harm in it. (Even if there were, she thought she might’ve risked it.) “Very well, Mr. Fisk,” Carm answered, with rather too much keenness to pretend to be relenting, “I should be delighted. Shall we?”

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Carmelina Cramming was a belter of a name, and he accepted it gladly. She had a lot of personality and her name furthered that impression in abundance.

The tall wanderer gave a light smile to show he was grateful for the company, and so the day's unconventional companionship was solidified. He led the way up and across the road, but didn't waste any time getting to the story. Carmelina Cramming was not in this for the tea.

"So this was nigh on ten years ago. I was rather younger then, but no less foolhardy. And so I found myself crossing the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia, entirely alone having rejected the safety of a caravan. I was alert, and armed, and ready for danger. But that didn't stop me from sharing a bottle of Balkan intoxicant with the first friendly young couple I met on the road..."

  

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Though they had crossed to the tearoom and were safely planted on chairs, Carmelina was already in danger of knocking over the teapot that had been set upon their table as she poured it out for them both. No less foolhardy, he said, and she could hardly help but grin. And Anatolia, indeed! She had not found herself there in quite the same way (she had never been armed with more than a chisel or trowel, and never alone or tipsy or ready for danger, to say the least) but all the same, she felt a surety that Mr. Fisk was quite the kindred spirit.

“An utterly sensible decision,” Carm remarked wryly with a suppressed little snort, hoping the poor man wouldn’t be offended at her poking fun. Supposing she had been in that situation, she could not be sure she would have been any less foolhardy than he. “And then?”

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Their surroundings seemed to spring up around them as they talked, for now they were in a charming street-corner tearoom, two steaming cups of tea between them. ”And then we drank some more”, he replied through the steam. ”For it was late, and cold, and Asians are an affable bunch. These two were no less so. The lady was confident and amusing; the gentleman quieter, short and slight but somehow exuding a tremendous amount of presence. All the more so when he pressed a knife into my ribs and demanded the contents of my purse.

I cursed my drunkenness and naiveté, but at least retained enough agility to whip out my wand and point it directly between his eyes. And, regarding his face close up, I noticed at last that he was not a man at all.”

  

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“Really?” Carmelina intoned, trying not to let her surprise slip her up and either slosh her tea over her or else give something more personal away, but feeling a warmth come to her cheeks as if this charming stranger could possibly have unravelled the most pointed story on earth to accuse her with. That would bring this friendly acquaintanceship to a startlingly fast end! No, the wayward women must be a mere coincidence. Probably she was also reading too much into the thieves’ partnership. (After all, she would.)

No, she would definitely have been just as foolhardy as he, especially if the person holding her at knifepoint turned out to be a daring, probably dashing, cross-dressing bandit. For all that she knew the story’s protagonist had clearly survived being in that scrape, Carm was also quite caught up by the story.

“And what did you do?” She breathed, her exhale cooling the tea poised at her lips. “Or indeed, what did she do?”

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