Nightingale set down her quill, gently blew the ink dry, and carefully rolled up the parchment before tying it neatly with a dark blue ribbon.
"I don't have any Mithril dust for you today," she said, looking up at Noctis, who stood quietly at the corner of the table. A hint of apology flickered in her eyes. "So you might have to fly back on an empty stomach."
"Take it to him," she added softly, nudging the rolled-up letter toward the raven's feet.
But Noctis didn't move.
(►__◄)
Its pitch-black eyes fixed on Nightingale, unblinking, like polished beads of black glass.
Two seconds of silence hung in the air, carrying an intensity and discernment far beyond a bird's instincts.
Nightingale lifted her slender brows slightly.
She set down the hand that had been about to straighten her quill, leaned back in her chair, and met the unusually still raven's gaze with sharp eyes.
The earlier worry and apology vanished at once, replaced by an all-knowing calm.
"You're watching, aren't you?"
Her voice wasn't loud, but the certainty in it shattered the quiet of the room.
She looked into those steady bird eyes as if she could see straight through them to the wizard far away at Hogwarts.
"Sagres," Nightingale said evenly, her voice returning to its usual composure, "Peeking into a lady's private space like this is quite rude."
She lifted her hand and took back the letter tied with the blue ribbon from Noctis's feet.
Then, without looking at the raven again, she pulled open a drawer of her desk, placed the letter inside, and with a soft click, locked it.
"Now," Nightingale said, turning her attention back to Noctis at the corner of the table. Her voice returned to its usual calm, carrying even a hint of dismissal. "You may go back."
But Noctis remained still. Nightingale's hand, halfway through arranging the potion bottles, paused. She turned her head, her sharp peripheral vision catching the raven's unusual stillness.
"Are you going somewhere else?"
She asked softly, her tone tinged with understanding.
The raven made no sound, no movement—yet its silence was an answer in itself.
Her slender brows drew together slightly. She thought for a moment before speaking again, her tone softening. "Alright. That way… it's much safer than you wandering outside."
As she spoke, she took out a blank parchment and quickly wrote a few lines:
The antidote is still under research. Everything is normal.
P.S.: No Mithril dust. Noctis left my place on an empty stomach —Nightingale
After slipping the parchment into the leather tube on the raven's leg, she paused, her gaze falling once more on its glossy black feathers. Her voice was very soft, yet carried a serious, almost admonishing weight. "Then… be careful."
The raven stood silently at the corner of the table, its dark eyes seeming to etch Nightingale's final words into memory.
A few seconds later, it spread its wings without warning. Like a black silhouette, it slipped through the open window and vanished into the vast twilight outside Beauxbatons Castle.
Noctis did not return directly to Hogwarts.
Following Sagres's will, it cut across the sky as the night deepened.
Passing over the bustling, magic-oblivious crowds of London, the raven landed precisely on the windowsill of a private ward on the 4th floor of St. Mungo's Spell Damage Ward's Curse and Injury Department.
The ward was softly lit and carried the familiar scent of calming potions.
Several flickering magical monitoring devices surrounded a hospital bed, emitting a steady, low hum.
On the bed, Kestrel lay with a troubled expression.
Hummingbird, dressed in St. Mungo's Healer robes, sat beside him. She looked more exhausted than when they had last met, but her movements remained swift and gentle.
She was carefully wiping Kestrel's dry forehead with a damp cotton ball, her attention fixed on him.
When the raven's shadow appeared on the glass, Hummingbird seemed to sense it and looked up.
Upon seeing the familiar black silhouette, a trace of comfort flickered in her tired eyes, and she gave a barely noticeable nod toward the raven outside the window.
The window opened, and Noctis hopped lightly inside.
"Kestrel, look who's here?"
As she spoke, the raven had already lowered its head and pulled the rolled parchment from the leather tube.
Hummingbird took the parchment and read it. A look of understanding crossed her face. "Hmm… it seems it went to Nightingale's place first."
She held the parchment up for Kestrel to see.
"Boo~ Has Big Sis Nightingale still not developed the antidote?" Kestrel sighed dramatically.
"It's not that simple," Hummingbird replied with a small smile. "This is a completely new potion; creating a targeted antidote isn't easy."
As she spoke, she picked up a quill and quickly wrote on the parchment:
Everything is normal at the hospital.
However, I don't have any Mithril dust here either —Hummingbird
Noctis: (╬▔皿▔)
She was about to put the parchment back when Kestrel began wailing again.
"I want to write too, Sis Rollison," she said, trying to sit up but immediately lying back down obediently. "Uh… just help me write it."
Hummingbird smiled and didn't refuse.
"Just write… hmm, write 'I'm sorry,'" Kestrel muttered, deflated.
Hummingbird didn't say anything, simply wrote the words neatly and placed the parchment back into the leather tube.
Noctis watched Kestrel on the bed and Hummingbird tending to her for a moment, then gently spread its wings and left without lingering.
After another long flight, by the time Noctis reached the archaeological camp on the edge of Egypt's Valley of the Kings, it was already the afternoon of the next day.
The scorching sun baked the endless yellow sands, and heat waves twisted the distant horizon.
Like a black phantom unfazed by the desert sun, Noctis circled once before landing outside a large awning at the edge of the camp.
The sandy ground was scattered with magical detection runes and fragments of ancient stone carvings uncovered during excavation.
Swift was crouched beside a newly opened pit.
He wore a light sand-colored expedition suit and a wide-brimmed hat, his strong, well-defined arms exposed, his skin tanned to a healthy wheat shade under the relentless sun.
He looked energetic, fully recovered to his usual agility and capability.
At the moment, he was carefully using a fine magical brush to sweep the loose sand from the surface of a stone tablet covered in hieroglyphs, his gaze sharp and focused.
A gust of sand-laden wind blew by, and he instinctively shifted aside to avoid the cloud of dust. Noctis's arrival made him pause.
Looking up, his bright eyes beneath the brim of his hat met the raven's. Swift broke into a hearty smile and waved.
He removed the parchment from the leather tube and read it. First he nodded, then gave a slightly embarrassed smile.
"I don't have any Mithril dust here either. Do you eat owl food?"
With that, he pulled out a handful of dusty owl treats and held them out to Noctis.
Noctis: (╯▔皿▔)╯
The raven gave him a single glance, then turned its head away in clear disdain.
(╬▔皿▔)╯Motherfucker!
"Uh… alright, looks like that's not to your liking."
He then drew his wand from his pocket, gave it a small flick, and the wand transformed into a quill.
The curse on my body has completely disappeared, no need to worry.
P.S.: Noctis still left on an empty stomach. It looked a bit unhappy —Swift
Once he finished, he placed the parchment back into the tube, and the raven took off again, flying toward the far western horizon.
~~~~~~~
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