#ozaryat

He hadn't the scantest idea of anything on botany, but he found the idea that they could grow anything with the right parameters and artful configuration of glass to contain the warmth absolutely delightful. It was like he'd gone to Nature territory without having an absolutely terrible hike through underbrush that catches on his everything to get to anywhere resembling civilization. The other plus being that half of what they seemed to do here was breed and perfect the different tropical flowers, poisonous or otherwise. He paused in front of one such bed of flowers, this one hosting a variety of vibrant blue flowers configured in spires of small blossoms with pale buds crowning them. Interest piqued, he leaned forward slightly. Absently tucking a rosy strand of hair behind an ear, his other hand reached towards the particular sprig he was inspecting. 

“Don’t-!” Bolezni’s seemingly sudden appearance was punctuated with his loud, cut off warning, the botanist pausing as Ozaryat jumped, the surprise causing him to jerk around and effectively brush his entire forearm along the flower he’d been aiming to prod with his fingertips.

Ozaryat stumbled over a few starts to sentences as he watched Bolezni’s expression flatten, utterly not amused as he drummed his fingers once on the book he was holding. Ozaryat tried for a sheepish laugh, “You scared me! What’s wron- ow!” He looked down at his wrist in confusion at the sudden stinging, twisting it away from himself at the patchy redness that had bloomed up on his skin. Eyes wide with horror and lips parting for no words, he almost touched the angry rash before hesitating. Before he could begin to look up at Bolezni, the man had already clasped a gloved hand on his shoulder and was wheeling him past the garden bed and down a narrow maintenance path cut through a stand of reeds.

Bolezni’s staunch silence radiated irritation, and with how he was guiding Ozaryat ahead of him, the ridgeback couldn’t turn to see how irritated that meant. Ozaryat’s worry, however, was momentarily stymied as the maintenance path opened at an edge of the greenhouse. Behind a collection of sleek tables and chairs, a rest area for the workers, cabinetry was built into the wall next to a door that presumably led to either laboratories or a maintenance closet with the bigger gardening tools. 

Bypassing the doorway, Bolezni let go of Ozaryat to rifle through a few of the cherrywood drawers before procuring a small jar and tossed it at Ozaryat, who quite nearly dropped it. Bolezni smoothly sat  on one of the wrought copper chairs “Apply that to your rash, but only half of it.” After a cautious look to judge the botanist’s mood, Ozaryat sat across from him before uncorking the salve and starting in on his task. “So what kind of blasted flower was that, anyway? Why make a flower that bites?”

“Those were a strain of juneflower you wanted to pluck, the flower itself is lethal-- on ingestion, don’t look at me like that. It produces an oil that’s just an irritant.” He waved a dismissive hand at Ozaryat’s horrified expression with half a laugh, watching for a moment before deciding that the medicine was being applied correctly and cracking open his tome. “What did you need, anyway? I only ever see you in here if Vnimat’s bullied you into requesting me for a Nature conference for her.”

“I wasn’t going to pick them, I’m not dull-witted,” Ozaryat frowned at the other after Bolezni confirmed he wasn’t, in fact, about to die from touching a flower. At the question, he didn’t reply immediately, crossing his ankles to buy time. While true, it was only because the botanist was too quiet to easily make conversation with, and silence in conversation put Ozaryat on edge like nothing else. So, usually he would only make his trips to admire the greenhouses when he had a reason to in case Bolezni found him before he found Bolezni. “Nothing, really. Just bored enough I went wandering.”

Bolezni rose an eyebrow, before shaking his head and looking down to his text, running a finger down a list of some sort on the page. “Well, in any case you’ll want to get bandages on that to keep the ointment damp.” When Ozaryat didn’t immediately reply, he looked back up.

“Do you have gauze?”