Who has deceived thee so often as thyself? ~ Benjamin Franklin
The sun, high in the sky, shone down on the little medicinal garden in the Haunted Warehouse District of NYC. Toward the far side of the garden, The Phoenix was pulling up weeds from her catmint patch. While the dark green, tall stalked plants were thriving in the spring weather, so were the little seeds of all the other plants that had found their way into the patch of mint. Her fingers snaked between the mint stalks, and pulled up the little interlopers that had dared to germinate in the wrong place.
It had been a long time since she had had a medical problem to think about, and she found the idea extremely exciting. She had to start from ground zero, just as she had to do when the children were small, and she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed it. It was like a treasure hunt, having to take the clues she was given find the X that marked the spot.
To recreate a treasure map, she had taken a trip to the main library, to find a book on mustelid physiology to borrow. Granted the borrowing was done under the counter, and she had no intention of returning the book until she was completely done with it, which was probably more than the three weeks that the city wanted one to keep a book, but she had only borrowed it. It was a deeply veterinarian text, and she enjoyed the new and unfamiliar words, the delving into the latin prefixes, roots, and suffixes of the language of medicine, the gathering of new information about the reproductive cycles of ferrets and their close relatives. But what she enjoyed the most was having to figure out that plant equivalent of the medicines that were described in the book. That, alone, was worth the treasure hunt, even if she was doing the hunting for nothing.
Eliza had not come to visit her, but it had not been more than the promised week yet. Phoenix found herself looking forward to the ferret coming to her house, she could show off her living space to someone new. Then she would be gripped with doubt, was giving the ferret woman her place of residence a good idea? Too late now, she would say to herself, and take a deep breath to bring calm. She might not even come, the conversation in her head would go, you may very well never see her again. The ferret mutant would not be the first that the Phoenix had only dealt with once, never to hear from them again.
Until Eliza came to her, or the unbidden thought lead Phoenix to her, she would wait patiently, tend her garden, and translate the chemical compounds in medicinal formula to their plant counterparts to the best of her ability.
It was rare as of late that things fell into place for Eliza, but the past week had gone swimmingly. With a few well placed suggestions of a group outing and a rather convenient fainting spell on her part, she had been left her alone in the lair. Free to come and go as she pleased for the three days.
She made a point of seeing everyone off. She assured Donnie once again that she wasn't mad and that she would be fine with some rest. She wished Leo luck on the training exercises and asked Raph to keep an eye on his orange banded brother, who was likely to drag Gwyn along in his attempts at mischief. Eliza warmly accepted a friendly squeeze from Mikey, touching her nose to the top of his head in a ferrity kiss, asking him to remember that Gwyn had just healed from a scraped knee and she would appreciate if her daughter were to return in one piece.
To April she passed along a few last minute tips in case Gwyn acted up but overall she was not particularly concerned. April had proven herself level-headed and competent. Gwyn was independent enough that she only needed guidance and light supervision. The fact that she was enamored with April, seeing her as an big sister figure, would make her more complaint to the older girl's suggestions. Her daughter ran up to them just as she finished giving the teen a furry hug.
"Can we go already?" The young girl's enthusiasm to leave only tweaked a little bit of motherly jealousy, she was used to her daughter's attitude. Eliza knew that Gwynevere's desire to embrace a new adventure did not equate to leaving her mother behind.
"Not till I get my snugs!" The ferret mom declared loudly and true to form her daughter lit up at the open invitation and threw herself into her parent's arms. The hugged, squeezed and giggled till an impatient cough sounded and they broke apart reluctantly. "Now promise you'll behave and listen to April. If anything happens just call me. April and Donnie have my number programmed. Kay?"
"Kay!" Gwyn gave one last squeeze before running off and taking a flying leap onto the back of Mikey's shell. He just laughed and sprinted towards the Shellraiser with his piggybacked passenger.
"You seem more energetic today Mrs. VonHertz." She turned her head towards Splinter and blinked slowly. "Are you sure you will not join us?"
She was about to answer for herself when Donnie jumped to her aid. "No Sensei. I really think she should rest. Though she's mostly recovered from the blood loss by now, Mrs. V would be better here than camping out with us in the lower tunnels." The teen gave her an apologetic glance.
"Thank you for your concern and I think the quiet time will be nice." She tipped her head towards Splinter "I do thank you for still allowing Gwyn to go with you though." She gave him a small smile. He gave her a final appraising look before nodding in return and exiting the lair towards the awaiting vehicle. She followed them to the platform and waved till they rounded the bend before returning to her room to change clothes and fill her backpack. She paused to make herself a ham sandwich and grab a bottle of water before leaving on her own adventure.
Several hours later she emerged from the sewers for the final time. She had come up several times, always with care as the day grew increasingly brighter, to double check her location. Finally towards midday she confirmed that she was indeed in the haunted warehouse district and emerged cautiously to find the streets were indeed abandoned.
She had dressed cautiously, large palazzo pants that covered her altered legs and feet, which were stuffed into her latest attempt at footwear. She also wore a long sleeved flowing red top with a low scooped neck with a silky paisley patterned scarf. She completed the ensemble with a wide brimmed sunhat with black veiled lace overtop. It was an odd cross between arab garb and flamenco dancer, but the best she could do for a surface disguise. It was another half hour before she tracked down the wall of ivory and by this point she was ready to declare her latest attempt at shoes a failure.
She stood for a moment in front of the abundance of green, unsure of how to proceed. The warehouse on the left looked just as empty from the outside as did all the others she had passed in getting there. Still if it was Phoenix's home she would hate to just barge in, invited or not.
Having no decent solution she started walking along the wall towards the left and calling out. "Helloo? Heeellllooooo? It's me. Eliza." she felt ridiculous but hoped that the heads up would be enough of a warning by the time she found an entrance and made her way inside. "Hello. I came. You said I could. Heeellllooooo."
The Phoenix sat in the middle of the of her living space, surrounded by the newly harvested leaves of several spring plants. She pulled them off the stalks, one by one, taking any leaves that did not look as good as she wished them off of the stalk and into a bucket to be deposited in the compost pile. The ones that were to be set out for drying were laid on flat trays, not quite touching each other, to be slid into the dehydrator that she had built for herself years and years ago. The search for the materials had been an excursion in and of itself, a blessing to pass the time in a way other than wrangling four small mutant children around a barely furnished warehouse floor. Made out of an refridgerator, which she'd hauled up to the fourth floor through a window with a pulley made from an old car wheel, it still worked beautifully, if rather ugly.
"Helloo?" she heard drift through the open garden window. "Heeelllllooooo?"
She leapt up and jumped over the plants that surrounded her, passed the kitchen counter and table, sidestepping a chair that had not been pushed in from breakfast, to pop her head out of the garden window. "Eliza!" she called. "You came!"
Then she caught sight of her, and had to stifle a laugh. It came out a giggle, and she hoped it could be conveyed as being her happiness to see the mutant. Oh my goodness, she thought merrily. She was wearing a disguise! It was an inventive disguise. She looked like something out of a comedy movie, with a black veiled hat the hide her ferrety face, only the veil stuck out every so slightly because of her muzzle. Her clothes might have had her pass for human, especially in a place as large as NYC. But what tickled Phoenix the most were the contraptions on her feet. She was trying to wear shoes. She looked so much better in the shirt and skirt she was wearing when they first met, it fit her frame very well, looking very attractive on her body type, whereas this outfit was...not quite so attractive.
Smiling from ear to ear, she said, "Come on up, the front door is right over there!" She pointed to the left, where the main doors of the warehouse, two great steel contraptions made for keeping people and merchandize in. She then ran to the stairs on the other side of the warehouse floor, and flew down the five flights to meet Eliza in the dirty and abandoned looking bottom floor.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, suddenly shy and feeling rather foolish for her excitement. She bounced on her toes to expend some energy, and then motioned to Eliza's rather bright and form covering dress. Compared to Phoenix's fitting tshirt and jeans, Eliza was quite bright, indeed. "You didn't have to do that," she said. "There aren't any humans around here except at Halloween. It's a long way off from Halloween."
Then she laughed, as if she'd told herself a joke, and asked, "Did you have a hard time finding us?"
Eliza looked up and waved as she saw Phoenix hanging out of an upper window. Following her instructions Eliza quickly found the entrance and opened it just enough to allow herself passage before closing it behind her. Turning she scanned the empty space, almost exactly as she had expected it to be and found Phoenix waving her over to where she waited at the base of a flight of stairs.
She was so happy to see the healer again, if her tail wasn't confined down her left pant leg she could almost imagine it would be flailing around behind her with the excess of joy she felt. As she made her way to her she could almost feel the abundance of energy that was rolling off of the older woman. She slowed to stop a couple of feet away, laughing when the Phoenix commented that Eliza's disguise wasn't necessary. She took off the headgear and scarf, holding them in one hand while she administered a much needed scratch behind the ears with the other.
"Well, that is what you said." Shook out her head and shoulders briefly before giving the healer a broad smile.
"But I figured you can never be too careful. I've made a couple wrong turns in my day and it was better to be prepared. Besides," he ferret-woman shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture with both hands to indicate her clothed frame. "it's NYC. I KNOW I've seen stranger things than this get-up." Eliza tucked her free thumb under the strap of her backpack and adjusted the weight slightly before answering the second question. "It took me longer that I had hoped, but I did end up backtracking twice. It should be a lot faster on the way home."
Eliza couldn't help smiling. In a way her trek here had been the most liberating thing she'd done in a long time. At the lair she had plenty of time to be creative and work on whatever project struck her fancy. She had lessons with Gwyn and cooked and cleaned and sewed and read. But it all eventually became monotonous without the simple luxury of a change in scenery. In prep for today she'd taken to going on longer walks, just to accustom the others to the fact that she wouldn't always be in the lair. But she usually had Gwyn with her, and the one time she'd decided to venture out late at night, while her daughter slept, Splinter had intercepted her departure and invited himself to accompany her.
Looking around she took in the scale of the building and had to admire the expanse of it, and this was only the ground floor. The window welcome indicated that Phoenix made use of the other stories as well. She chuckled good naturedly. "I've seen your children, it shouldn't surprise me that you have a home to match them in scale."