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+------- Thread: When Plants Feel Sick :: Rose (/showthread.php?tid=645)
When Plants Feel Sick :: Rose - Matilda Nordstrom - 11-18-2025
Monday, 6:45 pm
16 May 1921
Hospital Greenhouse
16 May 1921
Hospital Greenhouse
Nothing about the scene in the Hospital Greenhouse was strange. In fact, it was like any other day. Matilda was spending her free time, to which she had a lot with no boyfriend, alone in the Greenhouse. Tending to the plants, harvesting flowers and herbs for potions and teas, coming up with new medicinal teas, salves, tinctures and poultice blends was a new hobby she was obsessed with.
It was said on many occasions that her love of all things herbal was a worthless avenue to pursue, considering magic could do everything faster and easier. Tilly didn’t care. There was a time not too long ago that the magic was faulty all throughout the castle. Not being able to depend on potions for sleep or pain, Tilly was able to help with salves for inflammation, teas for insomnia, poultice for insect bites and tinctures for anxiety. So while magic was better in many instances, homeopathic cures were also a worthy form of medicine.
Today Tilly was focusing on a batch of chamomile, an important plant in many tea blends as well as potions, but something was off. As was typical for the 4th year, Tilly wasn’t wearing gloves, liking the feel of the soil between her fingers. Hands, stained brown, dirt under her nails, had a strange feeling. Something that she couldn’t place.
The chamomile plants she was working with were not healthy. There was a blight effecting the leaves and root system, something she hadn’t pinpointed, but the strange thing was while sifting through the dirt her hands stung. Washing the dirt off, nothing was amiss. No cuts, bruises or rashes. It didn’t make sense.
The feeling reminded her of a week ago when in Dark Arts, things felt strange when working with the plant in the forest. Tilly figured it was due to the ley lines and the location of the class, but now she wasn’t sure.
Digging through the dirt, Tilly’s finger ran up against a root. A strange sharp sting ran up her finger, like the plant was trying to tell her something. As if it was screaming at her to notice. As if it was telling her where the problem started.
Taking the plant out of the pot, shaking the soil off the roots. With a small paint brush she sometimes used for more temperamental plants, she brushed the roots clean. Which is when she noticed it. Root rot with mite damage. He brain knew this already, as if the roots had sent a message straight through her finger. Stepping back, Tilly stumbled a bit, noticing a small pulsing throb in her leg. Standing there, unsure what this meant and why this was manifesting now, Tilly staired at her dirty hands in a state of shock.
RE: When Plants Feel Sick :: Rose - Roisin Blackwood - 11-18-2025
Despite the importance of the Greenhouse for the Hospital Wing, not many students had shown interest in working with the plants. It was a shame; she loved plants (which is why her office and quarters were full of them) and she loved that they could be used for many different purposes. Sometimes a good tea – as was shown with Matilda’s insomnia cure that she and Gideon often drank together – was all that was needed to calm one’s thoughts enough to drift off to sleep.
The Wing – for once – was rather calm, so Rose headed down to the Greenhouse to check on things there. However, someone else was there too. She furrowed her brow, wondering why Matilda was still there. Her shift had ended fifteen minutes ago.
“Matilda, what are you still doing here?” Rose asked as she walked past the Mandrakes. The girl wasn’t moving and as she got closer, she realized that the Gryffindor was having a reaction to something. Something that clearly shocked her. “Are you alright?” she asked, placing her hand on her shoulder.
Rose’s eyes wandered to Tilly’s hands, which she was staring at in shock. “Was there something in the soil? A mite?” she asked, trying to figure out what was wrong with her.
RE: When Plants Feel Sick :: Rose - Matilda Nordstrom - 11-26-2025
“Are you alright?” She felt the hand on her shoulder, before her brain caught up to someone else being in the greenhouse with her. Was she alright? Yeah, probably, but something was very strange about this situation. Not that she could explain it.
“Was there something in the soil? A mite?”
Tilly tried to wrap her mind around what had happened, but it didn’t make sense. Add to the strange things happening in her hands, but her leg was also throbbing. Six months ago that would have been normal, but it hadn’t happened in quite some time.
“Umm, sorry. I don’t know.” Placing the plant down, her hands tingling. “I don’t know how to explain it. I was digging in the dirt and when my finger brushed the root it was like I was shocked by something.” Wiping her hands down over her apron, transferring a large amount of dirt to the fabric, Tilly looked at her fingers expecting to see blood or a small cut, but there was nothing to see.
“I just knew it was root rot. Like, there was no question. Then when I brushed off the dirt it was root rot. I couldn’t even see the roots, but I knew when I pulled it out of the soil that is what I would see. This is weird right? Nothing like this has happened before.”
RE: When Plants Feel Sick :: Rose - Roisin Blackwood - 11-26-2025
Rose stood, her hand still on Matilda’s shoulder as a sign of support, but let the girl speak. She furrowed her brow as she listened, tilting her head to the side. She looked at the plant in her hands before she set it down, and then leaned in when she held her wiped off hands up.
“Honestly, Matilda, I have seen weirder…” Rose commented, wondering if that would help the girl feel a bit better about whatever it was she had just experienced. It was true; she had. The magical world was completely bizarre and she found moments of still being amazed by it all. She hadn’t grown up in a magic-friendly house, except for when she was alone with her father.
“Well,” she sighed and tapped her finger on her lips as she considered the situation and what the girl had experienced. “I can’t think of anything that would cause this unless… you do spend a lot of time here. I haven’t heard of anyone creating a bond like this with plants, but if anyone was going to, I’d not be surprised it’s you.” Even the herbology professor went on about the girl’s love for plants.
“I don’t see anything on your hands, but we can put a salve on them, or give you a light potion for the pain,” she suggested, honestly not even sure what to do in this situation. How do you treat something that wasn’t even there?
RE: When Plants Feel Sick :: Rose - Matilda Nordstrom - 12-01-2025
“Well,” Rose said, in thought. “I can’t think of anything that would cause this unless… you do spend a lot of time here. I haven’t heard of anyone creating a bond like this with plants, but if anyone was going to, I’d not be surprised it’s you.”
This didn’t feel like a bond. Sure, she loved plants and instinctively knew what they needed, but that was more science than magic. Wilty leaves, needs water. Chewed up leaves, mites. Discoloration could be a number of things, but all had a reason and a solution.
This was different. She could feel it. Under her skin and in her bones. It wasn’t deductive reasoning, Tilly could feel what was wrong. “I don’t see anything on your hands, but we can put a salve on them, or give you a light potion for the pain,”
Tilly shook her head. It was hard to put into words what she was feeling. For one, it was a strange situation and sensation. But two, how do you explain a feeling that no one else can feel. “Its not a pain exactly, just a feeling. I’m not in pain from something, it’s more that I can feel the pain in the plant. I don’t know if that makes sense. Sorry.”
Wiping her hands on her apron, Tilly tried to understand and convey what she was feeling. Looking at the plants, she saw another one that on the outside looked to be diseased. The usually bright green leaves had spots of yellow and brown tips. Just by looking she knew that the plant was root bound. It was struggling to get nutrients and was outgrowing it’s container. Walking over to the plant without saying anything, She stuck her fingers into the soil, as much as she could, and her hands and skin suddenly felt to tight. Almost suffocating. With a jerk, she pulled her fingers back and hissed.
“Holy crap. That felt strange. The plant is rootbound, which I already knew, but when I felt the soil it was like my skin got tighter. I felt almost suffocated and hungry. Probably because of the lack of nutrients. And my leg, its throbbing, but not my entire leg, it’s like my scar has a pulse. This has to have something to do with my attack.”