The Adventures And Mishaps of a Half-Plant Apothecary - Febuwhump 2024

Day 5 - Ropeburn

AN: I am unreasonably proud of myself for coming up with something so fast. like I wrote this the day I thought of the 'plot' idea

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"Hey, Nyx! Betcha can't get to the bottom of the treehouse before I can!"

Nyxie stands up, only to find that Emery was already at the edge of the treehouse platform. "Hey, that's cheating!" she says.

Emery smirks, already starting to climb down the ladder. "Not cheating if I win," she replies.

Nyxie huffs out a "that's not how it works" before beginning to jump down the branches of the tree itself, instead of using the old rope ladder, like Emery is doing. She does almost catch up, but gets her fingers stuck on a particularly sappy part of the tree. In her peripheral, she can see Emery grinning cockily in her general direction. Nyxie flips her the bird back.

As she's almost to the bottom, however, Emery gives a shout and starts to fall from halfway up the ladder to the floor. Thankfully, she manages to catch herself on the last few rungs of the ladder before she breaks an arm or something, but that doesn't stop Nyxie from hopping off the last bit of tree and rushing over to Emery. "Are you okay?" she asks.

Emery sticks her hands in her pockets quickly. "I won," she says.

"That wasn't the question, dumbass."

"Yeah. I'm fine, by the way."

Nyxie hums a note of disbelief, but lets it go. "So, why did you want me to come down here?"

Emery looks like she is about to shrug, but then seems to have an idea. "Y'know what," she says, slapping Nyxie lightly on the back and starting to climb the ladder again, "Race you to the top!"

"You motherfucker!"

"I'm gay, that's not even an insult!"

Nyxie facepalms, but starts to climb back up again. It isn't very hard to keep up to Emery, as she is better at climbing trees than Emery is at climbing old, swinging rope ladders, and she manages to make it to the top before Emery.

"Ha, bitch," she says, "I win."

Emery huffs, and begins to lean against the windowsill.

She pulls her hand back with a hiss.

"You good?"

Emery turns over her hand. The palm of her hand is scratched up enough that there is actually blood around the base of her fingers. "Yikes," she says, "I didn't realise it was that bad."

Nyxie frowns at Emery. "What, can you not feel pain?" she says, only half-joking.

To her surprise, Emery just shrugs. "Maybe, I dunno," she mumbles, "Not usually. Only really felt it about five seconds ago."

Nyxie waves off that tidbit of mildly concerning information to focus on the issue at hand. (At hand, Nyxie thinks, Terrible pun, me.) She thinks for a moment, before saying "Uh, the first aid kit is next to the back door. I'll get it."

Emery, still staring at the scratches on her hand, just nods and sits down on a cushion on the floor.

Nyxie returns eighteen seconds later with the kit in her hands. She opens it quickly and takes out a roll of bandages, then starts to go through the motions of cleaning the cuts and bandaging Emery's hand. The two sit in silence for a bit, before Nyxie speaks up.

"So, uh," she starts, "This was probably from when you landed back on the ladder at the bottom, right?"

Emery nods. "Yeah." A long pause. "I dunno how I didn't notice that until I got back up here. I swear, I just have no nerves in my hands or something."

"Y'know, if you want to get that checked out or something, we can do that next time we're in town or something. It wouldn't be a pr—"

"It's fine."

Nyxie gives Emery an incredibly unconvinced glance, but says nothing.

"So, uh, wanna get lunch? Or something?"

"Sure, if you can promise not to beat me down the ladder. I'm injured, it's not fair."

"It won't impede your movement at all, dumbass! It's just bandages!"