Emotional Connection

arrival

Ashley-Rae stared out at their packed bags, unable to sleep. It was their last night in Italy, tomorrow they were travelling to Romania. She couldn't sleep before a long journey, even by portkey. She was always tired afterwards, though she couldn't figure out why seeing as she didn't really have to do anything. Her dad said it was the stress that wore her out, and maybe he was right. He usually was when it came to her.

Of course, staying up most of the night meant she could catch up on her reading, of medical journals or on whatever creature they were going to visit next. This was where most of her stress originated: what kinds of injuries her dad would sustain on these trips, what kind of creatures he could encounter along the way, how to treat everything that could potentially happen. She'd barely been doing it a year, only just receiving full Healer status eight months ago, but travelling and healing him for a year and a half. It was a full-time job, really, with the number of risks he took, one time standing fully in the way of an acromantula, and with the amount of travelling, as well as the fact that she had graduated from Hogwarts a year early and only attended medical school remotely, she didn't have many friends anywhere in the world that she could reliably keep in contact with.

Distracted by her reading, Ashely soon forgot about everything else, and time seemed to slip away a lot quicker, with the sun soon streaming through the curtains into the living room of the tiny four-roomed cottage they had called home for the past month, and not too long after that, her father was in the kitchen making breakfast for them both before their travels. He always made them eggs and beans on toast before any sort of journey, as it used to be her favourite when she was a child. She didn't really have a favourite anymore, but she enjoyed the little tradition and the good memories that the breakfast brought, so she sat happily eating her breakfast and trying not to think too much about what they had ahead of them.

But by then it was a little late, and they were ready to get to the Romanian Dragon-Trainer's base. She didn't exactly know who would be there to greet them, neither did her father, but they had sent word nearly a week ago that they were all set to accommodate them in a hut, so she just had to hope for the best that they would be ok with her practising her own medicine. That had been an issue at other places not liking her ways of things, so she was ready to take a back seat when performing medicine on anyone but her dad.

She shouldered her bag, taking a deep breath before nodding to her dad and grabbing a part of the old textbook they always used in time to be transported to the heart of the camp.

It seemed that their arrival had been planned with her dad, with most, if not all, members of the camp there ready to greet them and help them settle to the training grounds.

"You must be Ashley-Rae." Ashley nodded to the girl who'd fallen into step beside her. "I'm Kalina, just Kali for short though. What's your role?"

Ashley smiled, "I'm a Healer. His personal physician really, but I have my qualifications."

Kali nodded. "Well once we've shown you to your hut, I'll take you on over to the Hospital and introduce you to Pete. He runs the hospital, I think you'll get along well with him."

Ashley nodded, following along, listening to Kali explain how the whole camp worked, when certain schedules were, what time the hospitals would probably be busiest, and where to find the nearest sweet shop. Kali seemed nice enough, but once the year was up, Ashley knew there was no way she'd be able to ever keep contact. Best not to get too emotionally involved with people.