2025-01-11 - The Knight's Nurse

It's just a bit before noon on Saturday the 11th. Erika is on duty at Spellbound Clinic where she's been spending the day patching scuffed knees or abraded palms for the most part.

She's wearing scrubs that - other than being pants and a tunic - could be mistaken for the trope-inspired wizard's robes: dark blue fabric with yellowish white stars scattered over the tunic. She has a pair of Converse trainers, black with white highlights and laces on her feet. Pinned to her tunic above her left breast is a name tag that reads "Erika Y." with a small Norwegian flag just beside her name. Today she is wearing her hair short and her natural blonde. She otherwise looks like a perfectly normal nurse who's in the middle of writing up a report about the last child who fell and hurt his hands on the pavement while running.

She doesn't look terribly alert but at the same time there's also nobody waiting for care and the door chimes softly when it's opened so how alert does she really need to be.

The chime announces a newcomer to the clinic. In through the door steps a broad-shouldered, sandy-haired young guy, mid-twenties, in a faded grey 'NOTRE DAME' hoodie and navy sweats, a pair of grungy but very comfortable looking Nikes on his feet. He steps a few feet into the receiving area, the door closing behind him as he looks around.

Spying Erika writing up a report, the newcomer steps up and asks politely, "Hello? Sorry to interrupt."

Erika looks up at the sound of the chime and sets down the stylus as she stands up, leaving the tablet she was working on on the counter as well.

"Not interrupting, I'm here to help guests and staff," she says in her slightly accented English. "Are you needing any help?" she asks while doing a visual scan for any obvious signs of injury or other incapacity which would make him a patient no matter what his status at the park is otherwise.

"Thanks. And probably," Brandon answers with a tiny, pained smirk. Stepping toward the trained professional, he explains, "I take a lot of falls. Usually I can shake it off, but this one--"

He makes to roll his left shoulder, then grimaces and thinks better of it. "Yeah. I think my shoulder's messed up."

Erika shakes her head as Brandon tries the shoulder roll and grimaces. She manages to not roll her eyes as he states he has a pain in his shoulder and instead, speaking kindly, says, "Well, we'll be able to figure out what's wrong and take care of that I expect. I'll need to start some paperwork also," which leads to the likely expected first question (likely of many): "May I have your name and are you a guest, sir?"

Brandon fidgets slightly, clearly not being comfortable standing in one place for too long-- but lines and paperwork are a necessary evil. "Brandon O'Donnell," he tells Erika with his best smile, which under the circumstances is probably about seventy-five percent of where it could be. "Not a guest. Employee. I work in the River Village."

He fishes his park ID out of the neck of his hoodie, detaching it from the faded lanyard around his neck to pass it to her.

Erika takes the ID and scans it on the tablet. She hands the badge back to Brandon as she scans over the record that comes up, particularly looking for any alerts about important medications or allergies that would pop up immediately.

"I'm Erika, wish we hadn't met this way," she says kindly as she motions towards a room with an examination bed on it and a chair as well. "Why don't you have a seat on the chair so I don't have to stand on it to examine your shoulder," she says with a chuckle before asking, "May I call you Brandon?"

"It sounds so much better than 'Mister O'Donnell'," Brandon quips, doing his best to put a happy face on the injury and maintain his good cheer. Sitting down in the exam room's chair, he glances over his shoulder toward her, checking the name-tag. "Erika," he says, squinting at the badge a little.

"That's a cool accent. Where'd you get it?" With a self-deprecating dryness, he notes, "I'm not very good with flags," in reference to the one beside her name.

"Ja," she says, acknowledging the first name being better than formality. The Norwegian word, meaning yes, sounds like 'ya' so the meaning likely comes though clearly in context with her nod that accompanied the answer. "It's the flag of Norway, which is where I... and my accent... are from," she replies with a warm smile.

"I'd like to check your blood pressure, pulse and temperature first," she tells Brandon and then asks, "Do you think you can remove the sweatshirt or should we just roll up the sleeve on your right arm and put the cuff on the lower arm?" She quickly explains, "It will still work but more accurate readings are gotten from the upper arm."

“That makes sense,” Brandon replies, conversational and happy to be conversing, happy for the distraction. While he talks, he slowly pulls his left arm out of the sweatshirt’s sleeve. There’s a wince but he gets it free. The other arm and sleeve come off a lot more easily as he pulls the hoodie off completely.

Underneath he’s wearing an Oasis tee and a beaded necklace. “That’s really cool, that you’re here. Is Norwegian a lot like German? The word for ‘yes’ sounds basically the same, right?”

Erika puts a blood pressure cuff on Brandon's arm and a small sensor on one of the fingers of the hand as well.

"Keep your feet flat for me please," she indicates as she both takes his temperature with another device to the forehead and begins to answer his question. "Not as much as you would think. English is much more closely related to German than Norwegian is even though they're all Germanic languages," she explains. The thermometer beeps and the blood pressure cuff, having squeezed Brandon's arm with air pressure releases. As she puts the equipment away she says, "Everything's in a good level there considering you're in pain. Were you not the blood pressure would be very slightly concerning but lets take a look at this shoulder."

She steps over to Brandon's left side and asks, "Do you mind if I touch it?"

Brandon’s smile tightens as she asks that, but he has the presence of mind to shake his head and acquiesce. “No, do what you have to do,” he says, then adds with a laugh, “I don’t usually ask anyone to please be gentle, but….”

He trails off, chuckling. “I only know a little German. From high school. Milwaukee used to have a lot of Germans.”

“How’d you wind up here, anyway? If I can ask.”

Erika nods about the question and speaks while also palpating Brandon's shoulder and upper arm.

"You can, it's not that big a secret. I love amusement parks and there was an opportunity to get employed by one. It was a very simple equation to be honest," Erika explains.

The examination is not a massage. The probing will find very pain, will lightly but at the same time forcefully check every bone and connecting tissue. She obviously knows the human body as she prods every ligament and muscle for tenderness or other signs of damage. Early on in the assessment she says, "Let me know if any of this hurts," as a polite reminder.

“Yep,” Brandon grunts as her firm fingers prod a particularly tender region just below his rotator cuff. “That hurts,” he adds through gritted teeth.

Forcing a smile and doing a fair job of pretending he’s not in pain, the young man adds, “That’s great. I hope it—argh—is living up to your expectations—“

"More than actually," Erika says, explaining, "I was a guest back in February and forgot all about the magic until I returned."

Finishing her examination, Erika says, "I'm pretty sure that this is just a contusion of the Deltoid muscle and a strain of the tendon which connects the muscle to your clavicle," she then quickly adds, "Your collarbone."

She makes a note on the tablet to update his file with the diagnosis as she says, "I am pretty sure there's no broken bones but I'd like to get a couple of x-rays." She chuckles and says, "At hospital I'd send you to radiology but here we do it almost like at a dentist's office. I can roll the machine in and do that right now if that's alright?"

*Brandon nods, something sparking in his eyes as she mentions having been a guest—though it’s covered over by diagnosis and medspeak for a bit. Gritting his teeth at the mention of X-rays, he takes a deep breath….

And nods. “Yeah. I just don’t want to hear it’s broken,” he admits. “I ride at the Arena. Honestly, I’m still learning how to joust but with a broken bone, I wouldn’t even be able to fight on foot. They’d make me a minstrel or something,” he says. Says it like it’s a death sentence.

“Say. You’ve been to the Arena, right?”

Erika's cheeks flush slightly at the question and she tries - vainly - to hide this by saying, "I'll be right back with the machine and the apron," before stepping out of the examination room.

She's away for a few moments before returning. She rolls a portable x-ray machine into the room ahead of her and stops it beside Brandon.

"I have, yes," she replies as she pulls a heavy, lead-lined apron off a bar on the side of the machine. "I'll just drape this over your chest and lap," she says as she lays it across Brandon's torso with his right shoulder also covering his right shoulder.

As she positions the machine she asks, with a very slight hesitation, "You don't remember it do you?" She doesn't explain it. She doesn't even stress the word that much. But the implication is that she assumes no explanation needed, either he knows or he doesn't.

"Remember the injury? Clear as day," Brandon says with vague enthusiasm, completely clueless to the real intent of her question. He's never been great at reading people, and as she lays the lead X-ray shield across his lap, he goes on in a similar vein. "Dr-- I mean, the Mystery Knight-- she's fucking relentless. Awesome but relentless. And if you mess up with your aim or your seat, she will make you pay."

He goes on like this for a bit, prattling about the details of jousting the way he's been learning them, when something seems to click. Maybe it's that Norse flag on her top, when she leans over him. Uh-oh.

"I should ask, Erika of Norway," he wonders, entirely innocently and completely unaware of the implications, "Did you know that Norwegian couple at the jousts last winter? The one that went nuclear or whatever?"

"Herre!" (This is a short form of "Herregud" which literally translates to "Lord God" but is used as a way to say "oh my" with strong emphasis.) Erika says reflexively in Norwegian as she blushes brightly and gladly steps out of the room holding the button attached via a cord to the x-ray machine.

From outside the room, Erika says, "Please remain still," and waits a moment. She must have then pressed the button as the machine buzzes loudly and the targeting light brightens - both artificially added to the machine to indicate the invisible x-rays are being projected - only to then return to the at rest level of brightness as it also silences itself.

The Norwegian nurse seems a bit more composed when she returns to the room and hangs the button back on the machine and lifts the heavy, lead-lined apron off of Brandon.

"Norway is a pretty large place relatively, not everyone from the country knows each other," Erika explains. She doesn't sound angry, nor is she truly lecturing, its more a case of preparing herself it feels. A moment later it is clearer why as she says, "We didn't go nuclear until the argument in our hotel room, but I guess the rumors spread, huh?"

Understanding begins to dawn in Brandon's not-particularly-observant countenance. The faint blushing of his cheeks would belie it, even if he didn't quietly mutter to Erika, "Oh shit, I didn't realize. I am so sorry. I'm such an idiot. I didn't honestly think--" Not observant, but at least not devoid of empathy, then.

What next? How does one recover from a foot wedged so completely in one's mouth? Luckily our man lacks neither confidence nor the ability to swallow his pride-- a pairing that's served him well enough onstage and yes, occasionally in private life too. If you're going to screw up in front of others, one or one-thousand, owning it's the fastest way to get back up off the floor.

"That's only what I heard. I guess I'm not surprised things got jumbled... stuff like that doesn't happen every day, even at the Arena. Usually we're the only ones in that spotlight, you know?" Levering himself up on his elbows, he says more firmly, "You've got to have balls of steel to come back here after that. Figuratively speaking, obviously."

"Well," Erika begins hesitantly to answer the suggestion of her possessing 'balls of steel', "There has been a significant amount of time that has passed. I also kept having dreams about the place. Not nightmares about that day but... well, I'd been waiting with a sense of wonder about Spellbound." She stops herself from adding about what Axel did to her because she broke up with him but it is painfully obvious that she's left something out.

Changing subjects she says, "Let me go hook this up to the computer and get the images transferred to your file so that I can check this out and give you a final diagnosis."

On this she rolls the heavy machine out of the room on its well oiled wheels and is away for a couple of minutes before she returns.

While the nurse is out of the room, Brandon is left to his own devices-- which apparently means a fair amount of wondering how he can possibly offend her any further. Chewing idly on his lower lip, he twists his hoodie between his callused fingers, not really moved to pull it back over his head again.

When Erika does return, Brandon says simply, "I'm sorry. We all have stuff we'd rather keep buried." There's no playfulness or even admiration in his tone now, only contrition. "If you want me to just go, I can head to the other clinic--?"

Erika smiles and shakes her head. "No need. You didn't mean any harm," she says as she pulls another chair over so she can sit down next to him as she pulls up the x-ray image. Before switching to clinical information she says, "I just hadn't expected to find that people remembered it honestly."

Having expressed this, she points out the images of the bones. "So, no breaks," she says. "You'll want to not stress the muscle and tendons for a few days. I can send your supervisor a note about the diagnosis. If the pain increases or you start to run a fever come back to the clinic or call for an emergency visit."

"Do you need anything for pain management? Over the counter should be fine, I'd recommend Ibuprofen or Naproxen." She seems to be confident in her diagnosis.

Switching subjects back she says, "I'd just ask that you not spread the fact that I am the Nuclear Norwegian Noper, please?" There's a hint of self-deprivating humor in her voice as she asks this.

His first response is to nod, even looking a tiny bit relieved. It's easy to see that while he's not the best at reading people, Brandon is genuinely pleased not to have upset Erika-- and it's not just because she could probably have finished breaking his bum shoulder if she'd wanted to.

Listening to her diagnosis and recommendations, nodding along, Brandon seems fully accepting of her directions-- so he's a little bit surprised when she shifts back to a joke about nuclear Norwegians. In response, he allows himself a droll little smile and answers, "No problem. I really am sorry. Besides--"

"Whoever that guy was, he missed out. I think you're good people, Erika of Norway. You've got guts, and that means a lot where I come from. You don't have to worry about me."

"It's alright, you didn't know," Erika says, dismissing the repeated apology with a wave of her hand. She then says, "Thank you," about the compliment and promise of discretion. She mirrors the droll smile and says, "Find me in a good mood again sometime and buy me a drink and I might tell you what he did about the breakup." She pauses and says, "But if you are who you seem to be and ask I suggest that you brace yourself for being angry at someone you don't otherwise know." She pauses again and says, "I'll need the drink cause I don't normally want to bad mouth people... even those who I might think deserve the bad mouthing."

Brandon tilts his head to study Erika, curious, as she opens up a bit more. "I get it. Tris-- I mean, Sir Tristan, that's my character-- he's not a goody-two-shoes because I'm playing a role. He's a good guy because on some level, I think that's who I want to be." He pauses as if considering the veracity of the statement, then nods to himself in what seems to be approval. "Yeah. Yeah, that's it exactly."

"So yeah, I can buy you a drink, and you can tell me, and I promise I'll leave my sword back at the shop," he says with a good-natured laugh.

"There's going to be a karaoke get together next Saturday at the Bard's Balcony," Erika says and explains, "It was supposed to be tonight but I got word that it had to be rescheduled." She then suggests, "Maybe we can meet there and talk afterwards?" which saves him from having to ask how to reach her as well as her not having to ask herself. It's also not like this is a private practice, the rules of ethics are a bit different in this situation.

When she says karaoke, Brandon smiles tightly. He nods to himself, draws a deep breath, and says, "That's really kind of you, but karaoke... well, if I get up to a mic here anytime soon, it can't be for that. Take my word for it." He stands up from the chair without pulling his sweatshirt on-- that'd still be tricky-- and adds, "I'm sure I'll see you around. Thank you so much, Erika of Norway-- really. I meant it, you're good people."

Then he's grabbing the printout of her recommendations, and heading out into the afternoon.

"You don't have to sing, there has to be an audience also after all," Erika points out speaking to Brandon's back as he leaves the examination room and departs the clinic.