Luvena
Exhausted
That was the word for this feeling. The first few weeks had been relentless. She knew it would calm. She’d done this before, and it always did. But every day seemed longer than the next. She was running back and forth from the citadel to the clinic, she hadn’t figured out yet how to ask pol yet to take over, and she’d quickly realized that she couldn’t close the clinic until then. Not with fall advancing. So she spent most of her day running the clinic, and then the evening into the night finishing work at the citadel. Paperwork, organizations, all of the monotonous tasks that a sovereign took on. Israfel was there too of course, but even between the two of them… She knew it was only a matter of time before it caught up to her catastrophically.
She bustled along through the markets as quickly as she could manage now, trying to get back to the clinic to prepare for opening. Pol wouldn’t be there that morning so it was to her to get it ready. The dogs were wild that morning, and she was trying desperately to keep them in check through the busy markets. Everyone was in there lately, trying to snap up the last herb harvests of the season, buying new cloaks for winter.
Suddenly both of the leonbergers were shooting forward ahead of her, bounding ahead with wagging tails. It was hard to miss the reason why. Gareth was not exactly an inconspicuous man, even when he tried to duck his head. “Gareth!” She called, hurrying towards him through the crowds. She cleared her throat, trying -with futility- to rid her voice of the rasp she had acquired last winter. “It’s been an age! I was just heading to open the clinic for the morning. Join me?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, instead clearing the last few stalls to reach the alley that her clinic was nestled in the back of. She opened the heavy wooden door, and waited for the tall man to join her.
She ducked her head to catch her breath for a moment, chest heaving a little more than it should have, before dropping her bags onto the workbench.
@Gareth
Table © Camy
