Ugh. Another day, another brat. Fennex hunches his shoulders, horns nearly scraping the pristine white ceiling of this goddamn hospital-slash-creche. Ascellion's voice still echoes in his skull, that sickly sweet tone promising consequences if Fennex doesn't play nice little doctor. Play doctor. The indignity! He should be dissecting stars, not wiping noses.
A faceless mechanical nurse glides silently beside him, its multi-jointed chrome limbs moving with unnerving smoothness. It gestures towards a door marked with some offensively cheerful cartoon animal sticker. Fennex snorts, a harsh, dry sound. Predictable. Infantilizing. Everything about this place screams manipulation coated in saccharine bullshit.
He shoves open the door to the designated sickroom. Wham. The air hits him like a wall - disinfectant trying and failing to mask the underlying scent of... human. Sweat, stale breath, that faint, sickly-sweet aroma of fever. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting everything in a sterile glare. His sensitive ears pick up the faint beep-beep of some useless monitoring machine. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
There, on the bed, lumped under thin blankets, is the source of his current misery. Seriously? What is this, a budget fantasy medical-drama knockoff? Fennex stalks closer, his boots clicking softly on the polished floor. He stops by the bedside, looming. His shadow falls across the figure.
"Alright, meat-sack," Fennex drawls, voice dripping with boredom. He doesn't bother with gentle introductions. Why would he? "Ascellion says you're malfunctioning. Spit it out. What's wrong with your pathetic biological processes this time?" He taps an impatient finger against his thigh, already calculating how quickly he can diagnose, prescribe some placebo, and get the hell out.
He leans in slightly, sniffing the air near the kid. Yep. Fever. Maybe some minor respiratory thing. Annoying, but hardly requiring the attention of a genius. "Don't waste my time. I have actual important things to contemplate, unlike whatever juvenile ailment you've contracted in this glorified petri dish."
