RP:Catfight in the Clinic
Summary: Reow! Lanara confronts Josleen about her secret relationship with Ansel
The Healing Room
Lanara enters the sterile healing room, and grimaces at the sight of the place. The dreaded cot she was on for days, the unmistakable scent of sanitized instruments, the loneliness, and of course, the helplessness of the patients. The elf makes her way past the cots, surgical equipment, nurses, and patients, and heads near the back of the area, searching for someone in particular. Chocolate brown eyes scan those gathered, looking for a particular blonde, and narrow as they come to rest upon Josleen. “You and I need to have a little chat…” The woman hisses, as she nears the nurse, her tone not the least bit welcoming.
Josleen sits on a crate in the supply room with the door open. A rectangular basket filled with little bottles of herbal extracts sits in her lap. She’s carefully labeling them in white ink in her delicate, slanted penmanship. Her thoughts drift pleasantly on memories of someone else just as Lanara barges in and pulls her out of her reverie. Her expression sours, brows lowering into an unamused line. “You’re not supposed to be back here, and I don’t need to do anything with you,” she says firmly. She points out the door with her quill. “Get out.”
Lanara leans against the wall, a dainty shoulder holding her figure in place, as she quirks a thin brow. “Aw, how cute! –You- think you can give me orders? Listen, I’m not here to cause any trouble, rather I’m here to end the trouble that you have created. You see… You are involved with another man, and you bring out the worst in Ansel. Have you not noticed he has been drinking? Neglecting his boys? He is torn… And it’s all your two-timing, hussy, fault!” Glaring at the nurse, she takes three steps nearer and eyes the bottles of herbal extracts, sneering at the perfect penmanship. But there was much more than jealousy in the witch’s eyes, there was a deep hatred for Josleen. “I’m here to ask you to stay away from Ansel. You are destroying him, and I’ve had enough of it.”
Josleen‘s eyes widen in alarm as Lanara reveals she knows about ‘the other,’ but the trained bard quickly gets her expression under control. It’s particularly easy to transition from surprised to angry as the witch slings insult after insult. What more, this scene is embarrassing. A quick glance past Lanara scans for eavesdropping coworkers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And keep your voice down. There’s patients in the other room,” she says loudly for the benefit of her colleagues. “Like I said, you should go.” She’s about to call Eleenin, a frost giant, to help her escort the troublemaker out of the clinic, when her curiosity gets the better of her. “You are grossly misinformed. I don’t know why you invent this fantasy, or where you get these rumors from.” She steps past Lanara to the door frame and raises a hand as if intending to flag down Eleenin, but there’s a delay in her movements and her ear seems keenly tuned to whatever Lanara has to say next.
Lanara is quick on her feet, and mistrusting of the nurse, so she rapidly whips her body around to keep an eye on the blonde. Long, dark brown hair frames her face, and she blows a stray lock out of her line of visage, annoyed. A quick glance behind Josleen warrants a wicked grin from the witch, as she’s pleased to see that the clinic is packed, full of patients and nosey co-workers. What an excellent opportunity! However, she lowers her voice, for a fraction of a minute, and gives a conspiratorial wink to Josleen. “Like I said, I don’t want to make a scene… Just yet. Ansel made me promise that I wouldn’t divulge your secret of having another man, and the reason that you can never marry him… And I won’t. However, I have no problem in speaking to –you- about it, and it’s not my fault if there are some curious bystanders that just happen to eavesdrop. So what is it, Princess? Are you going to steer clear of Ansel? Break it off? Quit your job? Move from Frostmaw? Or… Do you wish to have your laundry aired all over the realm?”
[Bleeping] Ansel. Well, Josleen got her answer. Without any further delay, she waves a hand for Eleenin to approach. He’s with a patient so it will take a minute, but he’s keeping an eye on the situation. This is his domain, after all. He nods to Josleen, be right there. The bard turns back to her basket and glares at Lanara through her periphery as she passes her again. The work resumes, with Josleen sitting on the crate with the posture of a queen on her throne. It’s a miracle the crate doesn’t catch fire from the smoldering fury that burns off the nurse. She’s writing ‘sour nettles’ on a bottle as she says to Lanara without looking at her, “You’ll be shown out shortly, dear.”
Lanara rolls her eyes, and has the nerve to pull up a vacant crate and sit beside Josleen, clearly not offended or frightened over the aspect of being shown from the clinic. Two could play at being ballsy! The witch didn’t scare easily, and it was obvious, as she begins to rummage around in the basket of extracts. Plucking an unlabeled bottle from the collection, she rummages in her satchel for a quill, and has the audacity to write on the label. If Josleen looks close enough, she would see a very colorful label, as the ink was a vivid scarlet hue, and the label clearly had ‘WHORE’ written across it. Lana carefully returns the small bottle back into the basket and reaches for another, a smirk splayed across her full lips, as her fingers wrap around another unlabeled extract.
Josleen considers stopping Lanara, but the witch’s behavior doesn’t bring anything new to the scene unfolding before spectators. As a bard, Josleen has a tendency to see things in this way — in messages conveyed through scenes, the unfurling of little plays in our daily lives. Instead, she breaks the fourth wall by looking out to the clinic floor at her nurse friend Eileen, shrugging and smiling helplessly and gesturing towards the ‘crazy’ woman. With one theatric choice, this little play becomes a comedy, and as the character breaking the fourth wall, Josleen’s the sympathetic protagonist to those so inclined to believe that Lanara is misinformed (though some surely believe the witch as well). Josleen continues her work, pretending not to be riled by Lanara’s antics. Of course she is, but Josleen dons masks to hide from that which upsets her. Eleenin stomps across the room and stands in the supply room doorway. Addressing Lanara he says, “You need to leave, miss.”
Lanara lowers her quill, mid-letter, and pouts up at Eleenin, giving the male the most heartfelt and soulful gaze she could muster. The empath’s beauty often would lead men to take pity on her, especially when that perfected pout was given, and that smoldering gaze peered up beneath long lashes. Just a second was all she needed to disarm the male, as she extends a dainty hand and gently gives his arm a squeeze. “Oh… I don’t think I need to leave, do you? I’m just helping Josleen label some bottles and having some girl talk. Is Little Ol’ Me really causing any trouble?” Nipping her lower lip, she quirks a brow, feigning innocence, as she focuses all her energy into the male’s arm. Within seconds, Eleenin would grow confused and glance from Lanara to Josleen, and back again, before he shakes his head and aims to leave the room. Lana holds her grasp on the male’s appendage tightly, forcing her feelings into his flesh, and leaving the mark of an empath, before she allows him to leave the room. Though she knew her time would be short, the farther he drifted from her hold, and with more time, his head would become clear. So she tosses the herbal extract to the floor, and watches as it erupts into tiny glass shards, as she turns on Josleen. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Well, not smart enough! How is your lover? I’m not speaking of Ansel, you know… The other man? The reason that nice Dr. Ansel is becoming a drunkard around his patients, friends, and children? The reason you carry on like the hussy you are, and like you aren’t destroying someone else’s life?!” The empath’s words were quite loud now, loud enough that patients and nurses were turning their heads. Some stared wide eyed, other snickered, and one or two looked disgusted at the scene unfolding before them.
Josleen looks confused as Eleenin backs off, but it quickly becomes clear to her that some magic transpired. Lanara breaking a vial sets Josleen’s jaw working around an audible snarls. She quickly sets the basket on the ground away from Lanara and stands, but some of her confidence has given way to fear now that the witch has displayed her magic. The bard doesn’t think Lanara will attack her, but what if she does? “Don’t do that! These are for patients to save lives!” She tries to shepherd Lanara out of the supply room without touching her, by simply encroaching on her personal space. “As I am sure Dr. Anesko has told you,” she says equally loudly. “He and I simply work together. We are colleagues. You need to go.” Eileen, who probably knows all about Ansel and Josleen and thus isn’t the least bit surprised (unlike everyone else who certainly is), crosses over to fighting women and helps Josleen kick out Lanara. “Miss, this is a place of healing. You are disrupting our patients,” say Eileen to Lanara as she too tries to box her out of the room, through the clinic, and out the door.
Lanara shakes her head and begins to get even louder, her voice almost shrieking as she’s pushed out of the room and through the clinic, screaming obscenities and telling each passing patient and nurse how the blonde is two-timing the good doctor, and how she’s a home-wrecker. “Would you want that sort of nurse caring for you? Your husband? Think people! She had the choice to walk away and she chose not to take the high road! She’s trash! She doesn’t care for people’s feelings, yet you all trust her with your lives?!” Upon coming to the door of the clinic, the door that would entirely end the confrontation, Lana turns around and gives Eileen a shove. “Get away from me, I am going!” And then, turning to Josleen, the witch aims to grab the nurse by the shoulder, though she aims incorrectly and instead ends up roughly tugging on those golden locks, that she secretly envied. “If I have to leave, so do you. Let’s go and handle this like big girls, outside.”
Josleen looks like a tomato with a blonde wig. She is mortified by all of this, and maintains her party line of ‘Dr. Anesko and I work together. We’re work friends.’ Nevermind that she isn’t feeling particularly friendly and warm to Ansel at the moment. Nevermind that these ‘work friends’ have secretly made out in the very supply room from which Lanara is being evicted. She can’t look at anyone as she and Eileen form a phalanx and back Lanara to the clinic door. Just as she thinks this episode is over, Lanara grabs her by the hair! Thoroughly shocked and unprepared, she shouts as her body bends forward, neck wrenches to the side, and feet stumble forward. Her fingers dig into Lanara’s wrist as she tries to pry her hair free. “Let go!” Lanara gets her outside easily enough. Josleen fights back just enough to try and free herself, and if successful, flee the crazy bitch.
Southern Road
Lanara stumbles forward, as the slight frame of Josleen adds extra weight to her attempt to pull them both outside. And the witch is successful, for the most part, though as she gives one last pull to yank the nurse further into the public, she stumbles onto the snow-covered road. Landing face first into a snow bank was not how Lana imagined her first cat fight ending, as she stands up and aims to rub the snow from her face. As her hand comes into her visage, she scowls, as she’s holding a large clump of silky blonde strands, and her wrist has ugly nail marks, with small droplets of blood beginning to form. Turning on her heel, she glares at Josleen, though she remains silent for the moment, as if catching her breath, and having underestimated her foe.
Josleen is not a fighter! As soon as she is free from Lanara, she makes a run for it. She landed in the snow on her knees, which already smart from a recent injury, so it takes her a comic second to find her footing and traction in the slush to make off like a terrified little bunny. Her adrenaline is pumping, heart beating like her chest isn’t fleeing fast enough for it. Josleen isn’t even wearing a coat, or her countless layers of clothing. Hopefully the run and fear keep her warm enough to get her to the fort, if Lanara doesn’t stop her before then.
Lanara sighs and seems to soften, just a tad, as she witnesses the woman running and falling, and attempting to flee from her. The empath takes pity on the blonde and continues to brush the snow from her figure, with her uninjured hand, though she keeps her gaze on the terrified nurse. “Josleen.” Her words were a tad kinder than earlier, as though the unleashing of her anger was necessary to maintain an even temperament around the woman. “Look… I shouldn’t have behaved, quite like that. But you really are hurting Ansel. He’s drinking a lot, and he showed me his furry face…” Knowing those words alone may slow down her attempt to depart, she sighs heavily, again. “He can’t control himself, and it’s because of his curse, and your infidelity. Ansel is blaming himself for everything. All of your actions, my actions, and his actions… He takes it all upon himself, and the guilt is killing him. If you love him, the way I love him, and the way he loves you and his children… You will help him. And that’s by leaving him, or giving him space to clear his head. I’m not saying this out of malice so that either of you are broken hearted. I’m saying it because above all, Ansel is my friend. If you want to run away and never speak to me again, that’s fine. But I’m telling you all of this because woman to woman… We both care for him.”
Josleen slows down not because of the revelation that Ansel’s been drinking — of course Josleen knows — but because of the nerve this woman has to come to Josleen with the ‘I love him’ sob-act. She turns around, jaw slack, looking absolutely appalled. Free from the eavesdropping range of people in the clinic (though they look through windows, they can’t hear them), Josleen says just shy of a shout, “You don’t know the first thing about my life, what I do, who I see, or what he needs. Leave us alone. I don’t ever want to see you again.” She eyes Lanara warily just long enough to make sure the crazy witch won’t attack her again, then turns to leave at a fast clip. The chill’s already seeping into her bones.
Lanara narrows her eyes at Josleen’s back, about to shout after her, but then decides it’s best not to get further involved. Ansel would be hurt or destroyed the longer he was with Josleen, and she had made every attempt to try and rectify the situation. “So mote it be…” She murmurs, beneath her breath, as she takes off in the opposite direction.