The Night Flight Enthusiast
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 2: The Healer and the Spell
Morning came cautiously, as though afraid to disturb her. Pale light slipped between the blinds, laying soft bars across the floor, the chair, the bed. The rain had stopped sometime before dawn, leaving the air washed clean and bright with the faint scent of wet concrete.
Lucretia stirred beneath the sheets. Every motion sent ripples of pain down her legs — sharp at first, then dull and rhythmic, like the echo of waves on stone. The room hummed faintly with the machinery of mortal healing: the low beep of a monitor, the whisper of a curtain moving in a draft.
The door opened with a soft click.
The man who entered carried the sunlight with him. He was tall, clean-shaven, his dark hair neatly combed though one rebellious lock refused to stay down. His eyes were the warm brown of polished wood, thoughtful and alert. He wore his white coat like a shield, pockets filled with pens and folded notes.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice gentle, carrying the calm confidence of someone who had learned to speak softly to pain. “I’m Doctor Adrian Joseph. We met briefly last night, though you might not remember.”
“I remember,” she said, her tone cool but not unkind. “You checked the monitors and told me I’d be fine.”
He smiled, just slightly. “That sounds like me. It’s what I tell everyone who survives falling off a building.”
Her lips curved. “Comforting.”
He stepped closer, the faint scent of antiseptic and aftershave surrounding him — clean, almost sterile, but not unpleasant. “May I?” he asked, gesturing toward her bandaged leg.
She nodded.
He moved with precision, adjusting the traction system, inspecting the wounds. His touch was firm but careful, as if her skin might bruise under a thought. Lucretia watched him, fascinated by the way his hands worked — the quiet concentration, the way he breathed slowly, deliberately, as though syncing himself to her pulse.
“How’s the pain?” he asked.
“Tedious,” she said. “Persistent. But bearable.”
He glanced up, meeting her eyes for the first time. And in that moment something inside him faltered. Her gaze was ... impossible. The color seemed to shift with the light — sometimes deep moss, sometimes emerald fire — and yet it wasn’t only the color. It was the stillness within it, the knowing that made him feel briefly transparent, as though she saw not just his face but the weary machinery of his soul.
He blinked and looked away, clearing his throat. “That’s good. Bearable is good.”
She smiled faintly. “You’re kind, Doctor Joseph. Too kind, maybe. That’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“For men.”
He laughed softly, though it came out more uncertain than amused. “Well, I’ll take the risk.”
He reached for a small jar of ointment and began to clean the edge of a shallow wound. The smell of alcohol stung the air. Lucretia winced, but said nothing.
“Are you sure this is necessary?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said. “We mortals aren’t as fast at healing as—” He stopped himself mid-sentence, a faint flush creeping up his neck. “As the people you see in movies, I mean.”
Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes sparkled with quiet amusement. “Mortals,” she repeated softly, as if tasting the word. “You make it sound like there are others.”
“Force of habit,” he said quickly, focused on his work.
She tilted her head, studying him with something like curiosity. He believes what he sees in front of him, she thought. And he sees only what he believes.
The silence stretched between them, filled with the quiet rhythm of cloth and breath.
She noticed the small fleck of dust on his shoulder and wondered if it had fallen from the ceiling or from some forgotten star, and for a moment she considered flicking it off — just to see if he’d flinch.
When he was finished, he stepped back. “There,” he said. “That should keep you comfortable for now.”
“Comfortable,” she echoed, her voice low. “You speak as though comfort is possible in a cage.”
He frowned. “You’re not in a cage, Miss...?”
She hesitated. “I don’t remember my name.”
“Then I’ll call you ‘the lady from the sky,’” he said with a small smile.
Lucretia blinked, startled by the phrase. “The lady from the sky,” she repeated softly, her eyes unfocused for a moment. “That’s ... oddly accurate.”
He laughed, but she didn’t. She was still watching him — not mockingly, but with the faint melancholy of someone remembering another lifetime.
He noticed her silence and shifted awkwardly. “Would you like anything? Water? Tea?”
“No,” she said. “Just ... open the window.”
He hesitated. “You’re cold already.”
“Please.”
He moved to the window and lifted the latch. A thin breeze entered, cool and clean, carrying with it the scent of rain and distant smoke. Lucretia closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. For a moment, her expression softened.
The light caught her face, gliding over her skin — pale, nearly translucent, like porcelain touched by moonlight. The faint shimmer of veins at her temples glowed blue under the morning sun. Her lips parted slightly as she breathed in the air, and for that instant she didn’t look like a patient at all, but something ancient, returned briefly to the element it had lost.
Dr. Joseph found himself staring, his heartbeat stumbling.
He quickly remembered he should probably not look so openly like he’d just spotted a ghost in a sunbeam.
Then, as if sensing his gaze, she opened her eyes. Their green depths caught the sunlight — and he felt something shift in him, quiet but absolute, like a door opening without sound.
He turned away quickly, pretending to adjust his clipboard. “Well,” he said, his voice rougher than before, “I’ll check on you later. The nurse will bring your medication.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
She allowed herself a tiny smirk, thinking: What a mortal, stumbling over his own heart, while I lie here like an inconvenient princess.
He moved to the door, then paused. “If you remember anything — even a fragment — tell me.”
“I will,” she said. “But I doubt I’ll remember what you want me to.”
He hesitated, uncertain whether to smile or shiver. Then he nodded and left.
When the door clicked shut, Lucretia leaned back into her pillow, a slow smile playing at the corners of her mouth. The air still trembled faintly with his presence — warm, nervous, human.
She let her mind drift: How utterly ridiculous it is to be a centuries-old witch, defeated by bruised legs and a very polite human doctor.
She had not meant to catch him. The old enchantment that slept behind her eyes sometimes slipped free when she was tired, or lonely, or unguarded. But she could feel it now, faint as a thread — the invisible line between her and the doctor tightening, pulsing with something dangerously close to desire.
“Foolish man,” she whispered.
Outside, the morning grew brighter, the sky paling toward noon. The world continued, unaware that one of its witches lay among the living, half-healed, half-trapped, and entirely too close to remembering what it meant to feel.
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