beware the edge of midnight | sienna

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Rhys rubbed his eyes, he was still tired and the light was still a bit bright for him but he forced the shades open in his flat so he could try and adjust since he needed to get out today. He was sure that Sienna would have preferred he arrive yesterday, but between it being Valentine’s day and how his head had still been pounding and all his senses feeding his brain more information than it had ever received at once he hadn’t managed to get very far out of bed. Today he felt a bit better, his head still ached a small amount and he tried to sleep a bit but the experience from the night before last was still fresh in his mind. He wondered if he should talk about it, but he honestly didn’t want to—but would it effect their trial? If he withheld this information and it compromised something, he wouldn’t forgive himself for doing that to his sister over his pride. For now, though he hadn’t written it into his journal and had only elaborated on the quick notes he’d managed. He’d described his pounding headache, the nausea he’d felt and the sensitivity that he’d been expecting but he could never imagine it felt like this.

Rhys pushed open the door of the building and heard the familiar chime, but he didn’t see Sienna yet. While he waited, he looked around a little bit but walked more inside just incase she hadn’t heard him come in. He thought of a few questions he had, such as would his symptoms get worse or would they get better? Maybe his body needed to adjust to this new formula versus the wolfsbane. There was a lot he didn’t understand though thinking about it made his current headache worse, still. Finally he heard some shuffling and he turned around and saw she was here and he tried to smile, but he was sure he looked a little worse for wear.

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

It had been a couple weeks since Sienna had given Rhys his first batch of Aware Wolf, and she honestly hadn’t thought much about it since. Slug and Jigger’s always went through especially busy periods around the holidays, and Valentine’s Day was a big occasion in the potionmaking world. Naturally the apothecary didn’t sell love potions (those were considered a dangerous substance) but there was still plenty of other business to accommodate. Cure for Boils was a popular choice around this particular holiday, as well as anything from mixtures that kept flowers alive longer to potions for beautification purposes. And naturally, in the dead of winter, there was plenty of demand for Pepperup Potion as well.

These kinds of recipes were fairly simple, but it always got overwhelming when increased demand overlapped with Jamie’s scheduled absences due to the full moon. Sienna had known this was coming, thanks to the calendar in the backroom keeping track of the phases of the moon, but she still hadn’t been prepared to handle the holiday rush alone. It had meant a lot of late nights at the apothecary, and almost no time to spare for Aware Wolf.

But finally, the day after Valentine’s proved to be the first slow one in weeks. There had barely been any customers all day, and no new orders had come in for mass batches for the Ministry or St. Mungo’s. Sienna had decided to take advantage of the peace and quiet to prepare potion ingredients for future use – crushing lionfish spines into a fine powder, pickling leeches, and other such basic activities. It was always easier to have the ingredients in their prepared form beforehand, because having to stop a potion to find the right herb was always a pain. She also had her father on speakerphone while she worked and he chattered rapidly to her in French (he knew she was doing ‘magic stuff’ while he talked but didn’t really need the specifics beyond that, bless Muggles).

The sound of the bell pulled her away from the conversation, and a quick glance at the calendar confirmed it was probably Rhys (he was a day late, but she’d seen Jamie after a transformation so Si knew not to push the topic). “Père, I need to go, bisous!” Si tossed her phone onto a stack of notebooks then made her way out into the main area. Rhys looked understandably disheveled and tired, and in that she saw more of a resemblance to Jamie than usual. She smiled at him as she paused on the other side of the counter. “I’d say you look like hell, but I’m not sure we’re good enough friends for that yet.”

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Sienna took one look at him and commented on how awful he looked, though he had expected that. It made him curious of what else his dear younger sister had failed to mention when it came to this potion but he also held on to the fact that his body was probably still adjusting to a very new substance when it had been used to taking the Wolfsbane for the past two decades. Rhys attempted to half-smile but it was hard to create the energy to even pretend to be in a good mood, still it wasn’t her fault—well it was since she’d brewed the potion but not the way his body and apparently his inner wolf would have responded. ”You can be honest.” He responded, walking up to the counter and pulling the journal out of his inside jacket pocket. ”I would have come in yesterday, but uh…” He trailed off wondering where to start in terms of the symptoms that had basically disabled him for the better part of twenty four hours, he supposed she might understand if Jamie had a similar experience. ”That wasn’t at all what I expected.” He admitted quickly though.

Rhys placed the journal on the counter, his notes were on the first page. He could see where he had very sloppily scribbled short notes on that morning after and then he had crossed them out and rewrote them to better elaborate what he had meant and he had mostly failed but tried to add additional details such as how the nausea had passed after a few hours while his senses still felt a bit off and his headache of course. Luckily, where he was standing in the shop it wasn’t terribly bright, but he was still squinting barely as if that would help. ”You wouldn’t happen to have anything for a headache would you?” He asked, normally he’d power through it but he hadn’t even been able to stomach much whiskey either. Still his symptoms had been improving at least, so not the end of the world but if he could help with some of them then that would be idea at this point.

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Sienna wasn’t expecting to get optimal results on the first try with a new test subject, so she wasn’t immediately worried by how worn-out Rhys looked. He looked like any werewolf did after the full moon, exhausted and pale after the experience. The first couple tries with Jamie had yielded similar results in that she’d been overwhelmed by the sensory overload and, subsequently, the odd mixture of scents one usually found in an apothecary. But she’d never looked quite so haggard as Rhys did now, so the mission here was to figure out if Aware Wolf had done its job and how it had affected Rhys differently from Jamie. The first few times after switching potions was bound to be rough on the body as it struggled to adapt. Hopefully in the future it would go better.

“Don’t worry about it,” Si said, waving a hand in dismissal as he apologized for not coming in yesterday. Her eyes drifted down to the journal he’d placed on the counter, and Si eagerly picked it up – although she avoided flipping through it immediately to get his overall thoughts. He asked if she had anything for a headache, and Si responded automatically, “Of course! Let’s head to the back. It’s darker and not as…overwhelming as the front can be.” It helped that Si could close the door and put at least a small barrier between the bright lights and some of the stronger scents. She motioned for him to cross to the other side of the counter and began to examine the first page of Rhys’s feelings journal as she made the familiar walk back to her workspace.

It was hard to separate from the sure-to-be treasure trove of information, but Si reluctantly set the journal down on her desk and opened a drawer to pull out some aspirin and a bottled water. She wasn’t sure if Rhys had been expecting her to pull out her wand or some fancy potion to get rid of the headaches…but hey, she’d been raised in a Muggle household. Sometimes the best solutions were the easy ones, and Si had never known a time where aspirin had failed her. She set the little bottle of pills and the water in front of the chair Rhys had sat in last time before crossing to the other side of the desk to sit down. Every impulse inside her wanted to start asking questions – had the potion worked? What had it felt like? Different from Wolfsbane? But she held back. He didn’t look quite his best, so she asked instead, “Feel a bit better?”

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Rhys was sure that he looked as bad as he felt, the days after the full moon were rough but they tended to vary on how fast he was back on his feet. There was the incredibly rare occasional that he hadn’t taken his potion and destroyed some of his flat but at least nobody was harmed with the charms he had in place but that was always the hardest to recover from. For the most part he always took a potion and had been consistently for almost the entirety of his life so transforming was not something he was as physical used to. It was painful and left him hurt all the way down to his bones, not to mention whatever injuries he received because of his surroundings. Sometimes he got lucky and just had scratches, other times gashes he bleed freely from or broken ribs and once he’d completely destroyed a desk that had left him rather battered. He spoke to Jamie about it the most as she also took her potion responsibly but now, they could talk about their individual effects of this new potion as well.

Sienna didn’t seem concerned that he was a day late and he wondered if she had expected it. Perhaps they had sugar-coated the side effects as to not scare him off. She motioned for him to follow her and into a space that would take pity on his senses and also help with his aching head, he walked to the end of the counter and around the corner to get behind it and followed her back to her workspace. It was darker here, so he had an easier time keeping his eyes open and, he didn’t smell as many things. As he had in the front, that part hadn’t been as extreme for him as the light sensitivity and headache though he would have traded it for a more settled stomach as well. She had begun to read his journal, which shouldn’t have taken long as it was just the first month. He still wondered about the nightmare he’d had and whether he should mention it. Technically, it had occurred later and after the full moon had passed plus he didn’t want to have to explain more of that history, it wasn’t even details that Jamie knew about him.

She pulled out a bottle of small tablets and water and he recognized the workspace as where they had made their introductions previously. He walked over slowly and sat down, opening the bottle and looking at the tablets curiously. Even in his beaten state his intellectual curiosity never seemed to fail him, it wasn’t common in the magical community to take anything like this as there seemed to be a potion for everything. ”How many of these do I take?” While Rhys wasn’t totally unfamiliar with muggle items he didn’t particularly recognize this one, but if it helped with his headache he didn’t care what it was. She asked how he was, and he set the bottle back down for now and looked at her, it was better now that there was less input for his brain to process—for now. ”A bit yea, thanks.” He hoped his body would adjust, or this trial was going to be rough.

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

The backroom seemed to help Rhys at least a little bit with managing his symptoms, since he didn’t appear to be squinting or wincing so strongly at whatever was overwhelming his system. Jamie had consistently demonstrated an aversion to strong smells (which required putting away particularly pungent potion ingredients beforehand), but Rhys seemed to be reacting more strongly to the bright lights. It was an interesting difference, and Sienna made a mental note to check if Rhys had also written that down in his journal. Either way, it’d be going into her own personal notes on each test subject, although naturally she knew better than to start filling out that information in front of them. Jamie, as a fellow potioneer and researcher, would understand, but Si wanted to keep Rhys nice and calm as they discussed what changes he’d experienced.

She fought to keep a smile off her face as Rhys perplexedly studied the bottle of aspirin. “Two should do the trick,” Sienna suggested amusedly as she watched him open the bottle and look at the little pills curiously. She wasn’t going to laugh out-loud – because Sienna knew she probably looked the same way every time she came across something magical and unknown – but it still felt so odd to see how something so mundane could be so unknown in the wizarding world. Magic was slowly starting to catch up with technology, most recently with the introduction of special enchantments on computers and phones, but there was such a wide divide between the Muggle and magical worlds. It seemed unbelievable to her that this might be Rhys’s first time taking aspirin, but it was probably equally unbelievable to him some of the things Sienna had never heard about before age 11. “You can keep the bottle if you like, I have more. The pills work fast, almost like magic.” At that, Si did laugh at herself, although she made sure both her voice and laugh were at a softer tone than usual – again, thanks to more than enough experience at this point interacting with Jamie after the fact.

“Take your time, but whenever you feel ready to start I’d love to hear about the experience in your own words,” Si began tentatively. She patted Rhys’s feelings journal once before adding, “I’m sure you did a great job writing everything down, but sometimes we remember more when we talk about it.” All things considered, Rhys seemed to be in decent shape, not more worn-out than anything Si had been expecting. That gave her hope that Aware Wolf could eventually beat Wolfsbane in improving the werewolf experience, and that this first try was just Rhys’s body adjusting to the new potion. Nothing catastrophic had happened with Jamie yet, at least. But Sienna had already decided that she wanted to adjust Rhys’s dosage after doing some calculations based on the data he’d given her. Jamie could get away with a smaller dose, being fairly petite, but Rhys was bigger and more active, which meant he needed more. If he hadn’t received enough potion, that might be another explanation for his rough appearance. It all depended on what he chose to share with her.

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Rhys was having a hard time discerning which senses are more overloaded than others, the light seemed to bother him the most and since seeing was central to existing it had been troublesome. He could still smell more than he was used to, but it had been less of an issue outside of that initial morning. Maybe his headache was a result of that and why it had lingered for so long. Also, he still hadn’t slept a ton and he considered whether he should ask for a sleeping draught to just help him reset after this round. Whiskey hadn’t been sitting well with him yet, which was almost reason enough to never take this potion again, but he grumbled through it as he had promised his sister. Sienna didn’t rush him or begin to ask questions right away for which he was eternally grateful, he hated how slow his brain felt as he wasn’t used to that nor did he like it.

Rhys took the cap off the bottle and retrieved two of the pills, holding them in his hand while he put the bottle down and grabbed the glass of water. He swallowed them and then drank some water, hoping it would be rejected as most of the things he had tried to eat recently. He nodded as she remarked that he could keep the pills, he supposed that meant it wouldn’t be the last headache he got from this but if It worked he wasn’t going to argue with it either. He put the cap back on the bottle and placed it in his jacket pocket so he wouldn’t forget it later. Maybe he wasn’t such an unfamiliar sight since she hadn’t seemed surprised or said anything—it made him wonder what Jamie must have looked like after her first potion.

She didn’t rush him but asked him to start explaining when he was ready. Rhys slumped a little in his chair, which was a tad unusual for him, but he was exhausted. He let out a deep breath and thought about where to start. ”Ok.” He paused again, hoping the aspirin would kick in shortly. ”My senses were definitely overloaded as you said they would be. I felt sick and I could smell everything.” Rhys recalled, a look on his face hopefully showing how distasteful that had been for him. ”And then it was really bright. The light still bothers me some.” He drank the remaining water that had been in the glass she gave him. ”I’ve had this headache since too, and I haven’t been sleeping well.” He paused again, for a longer period of time. He still had decided if he wanted to talk about the dreams he’d had, the nightmares rather. He cleared his throat, ”I—uh—also had some dreams.” His voice was a bit lower this time and he was uncomfortable now than before. ”They….felt rather real.”

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

It almost seemed like a miracle that Rhys had found his way to Slug and Jigger’s at all with how exhausted he looked. Sienna supposed having the option of magical transportation – Apparition or Floo Powder or something – made things better than if he’d had to take the tube or a bus. But still, Jamie usually waited longer before coming in to the apothecary after the full moon. The fact that Rhys had decided to come in, ‘one day late’ according to the calendar but still early compared to his sister, made Si wonder about his work ethic. He must be an incredibly work-oriented person, but maybe it was a problematic trait to have when testing such a disorienting potion. It increased the chances of an accident, especially while he would still be adjusting to the change from Wolfsbane. But that wasn’t Si’s place to say anything, she thought. Not yet while there was still a clear distinction between Rhys as a test subject and his personal life.

So she focused instead on committing to memory all of the symptoms he confirmed having. Overloaded senses, a particularly developed sense of smell, and increased sensitivity to the light. All symptoms Jamie had reported in the past, so it was almost relieving to get such a consistent result on the first try. “Okay, and when did you first start noticing these changes?” Si prodded further. She had to be careful how to phrase the question. Jamie had written that she’d noticed the extra smells as soon as she woke up, and that the light had bothered her almost right away. Sienna was expecting the same result from Rhys, but the moment she asked ‘did it start when you woke up’ was the moment she planted the idea in his head – a leading question versus a neutral one. Maybe there had been a delay or an order to which symptoms had begun to bother Rhys first. Sienna elaborated a little further on her question. “Did everything hit you all at once, or was there a noticeable order to the things you described? Something you noticed first, or some symptom that took a while to kick in?”

She still had many more questions locked and loaded – and at some point she wanted to start at the very beginning with the moment he took the potion, and the transformation a while later. But his last comment bothered her because he mentioned dreams, and Jamie had never mentioned having any dreams – normal or changed – after taking the potion. Sienna frowned a little as she considered the new information. “Dreams?” she repeated, the frown not only evident in her expression but also in her tone of voice. She rested her chin in the palm of one hand and turned the thought over in her mind. “The last time you were here, you mentioned you had nightmares sometimes. Were these dreams…like that? About the same things and at the same level of intensity?” she finally asked, sitting up straight and digging through her desk to find the parchment Rhys had scribbled on a few weeks ago. Sienna finally found it and scanned the parchment until she found the word nightmares, which Rhys had indeed made a quick note of.

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Rhys wanted to go back to his flat and crawl back into his head and put his pillow back over his head. He had never thought of light as so intense, but he certainly would never take his eyesight for granted again. The smells only made his stomach churn sometimes though he’d smelled lots of interesting things while exploring various tombs, nothing such as the array someone who brewed Potions might—but enough. Regardless, he didn’t have a weak stomach even with this. Perhaps it was all the whiskey, not that Rhys needed encouragement to ever drink more—even if his sisters might comment on it now and then. However, Rhys hadn’t drank anything alcoholic since he’d taken the potion. He explained his symptoms and Sienna listened eagerly. Even in his currently state he recognized that look, it was the same one that appeared in his own eyes when he was working or researching. It was the fun of it, really. All that hard work in a subject that you actually enjoyed tended to boost one’s energy rather than weigh you down. He figured she must be like Jamie in that way and it just made him glad his sister had someone she could work on her passion with.

”When I woke up.” He responded, it had been as though he’d been kicked awake and then everything had hit him like a train, actually it had felt more like the time he’d been knocked backward at a job by a randomly moving wall in a tomb and he’d been knocked into another wall. It had left him incredibly sore and in pain where his shoulder had collided, it was something like that. ”I had this…pounding headache.” Rhys explained, it was the same headache that still lingered but at least it didn’t hurt to move so much. ”And I was really sore, but that’s kind of normal.” Rhys was always curious why his transformation had always been so damn painful. Granted he took the potion the high majority of the time but he still woke up feeling as if the werewolf had tried to claw its way out and he’d just fought it every step of the way. ”And then the lights bothered me, but the smell wasn’t too bad until I tried to write a bit later.” He remembered the strong smell of the ink, it hadn’t been as bad when he’d gone back to re-write his notes but still bothered him.

Rhys noted the change in her expression when he mentioned the dreams, it was small, but it told him this might be something different or something new. But then again, he was only test subject number two. Rhys paused to think of how he would answer her question, he had been hesitant to even mention it because he hadn’t wanted her to ask about the content. It was a deeply personal memory for him, an unfortunate memory he had actually managed to block out as a child until he’d seen it in a pensieve and it had been all downhill from there as they say. ”Yea, it was like that.” How did he describe remember how the forest, the flowers and the grass had smelt along with blood? ”It was just…very intense.” He swallowed hard, hoping she wouldn’t probe too much further. He had just figured his overloaded senses had transferred over to his nightmares and given him that experience.

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Sienna nodded along as Rhys described his symptoms. She still wasn’t going to start jotting down notes, although her fingers desperately itched to pick up a quill and start writing, so she instead mentally catalogued each problem he described and how it stacked up to Jamie’s. Unfortunately, side effects were usually there to stay, and every potion was guilty of having them. There were ways of mitigating those aftereffects, usually with the help of spells or other potions, but Si and Jamie had long since accepted that there were going to be unpleasant effects to Aware Wolf (which, to be fair, was already targeting an unpleasant experience and therefore was usually a better alternative to no potion at all).

The use of ‘pounding’ to describe his headache was particularly helpful, since most people didn’t realize exactly how many different types of headaches there could be, and Si flipped through some of Jamie’s notes on the subject as she listened. Still, she glanced up at Rhys again, this time in concern, as he elaborated on his dreams (or rather, nightmares). He looked incredibly uncomfortable, despite having brought the subject up in the first place, and Si fidgeted in her seat and bit her lip as she considered her options. She wanted to push on the subject more, figure out what kind of nightmares he normally had and how they’d been influenced by Aware Wolf. But maybe it wasn’t relevant at all and bringing it up would only cause Rhys more pain – she wanted to believe that, at least.

Against every one of her researcher instincts, Si sighed and said softly, “You don’t have to talk about it now. I’ll make a note and we’ll see if it keeps coming up.” She hesitated, then added, “We all have things that hurt too much to say out-loud. Hopefully…the potion doesn’t have anything to do with it and you’ll never have to.” That approach seemed unhealthy, but Sienna knew she was guilty of it herself. And she certainly didn’t know Rhys well enough to advise him on what to share and what to keep locked up inside. Maybe it would be different if Jamie was here, but she still hadn’t come in from her own experimentation with Aware Wolf and Si didn’t know how much the siblings share anyway.

She cleared her throat. “Maybe you could walk me through the timeline? Slowly? Starting with when you first took the potion and ending with what you just described?” Sienna was curious what time of night Rhys had taken the potion, if he had felt anything immediately after (anything from an upset stomach to a dormant werewolf wanting to tear its way out of him), and how much he remembered about the actual transformation itself – had his mind stayed human?

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Sienna listened intently on his recollection of the morning after, other people might have not been so friendly in their weakened state to see someone look like they were having fun at their expense but Rhys only recognized a kindred spirit in that he’d had moments at work where he’d been incredibly fascinated by something and gotten carried away. His friends always found it amusing since he was so sullen and stoic the majority of the time but then here, he was happily bouncing around an old and dusty cave at some artifact he’d found. She didn’t push him for the details of his nightmare, and he could have breathed a sigh of relief. Surely, she was curious, and he wondered if it was something, he would ask Jamie about and that made him a tad nervous. His sisters were always worrying about him and something like this would result in a flurry of letters if they didn’t just show up at his flat, especially when Max was supposed to be at school this time of year.

He nodded gratefully and before he answered her next question, he did have one more thing. ”I don’t know how much you share with Jamie…..she doesn’t know I get nightmares.” The request should have been clear, and hopefully he was allowed some privacy in this. He cleared his throat, ”Ok, I uh took the potion in the afternoon—no whiskey.” He added, noting her previous instructions. ”And then I went to sleep early, it’s what I usually do. I had a hard time though, I felt….” Rhys always tried his best to sleep through what he could even with the Wolfsbane, but this had certainly been different. ”Restless? Transforming has always been hard on me.” He admitted, it was such an intense experience, so he wasn’t sure if restless was the correct word there.

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Sienna raised an eyebrow as Rhys admitted that he did not, in fact, share details of his nightmares with Jamie. She supposed it wasn’t her place to judge, though – she was very private about some of the details of her own life, mostly related to being Muggleborn. It wasn’t nearly as bad as some minorities had it in the wizarding world – werewolves and house elves and all sorts – but there were still plenty of bad-intentioned people out there who couldn’t be depended on to react well to news like that. It was part of why she and Jamie had first started to collaborate in the first place -- a shared understanding that not everything could be disclosed to just anyone. So, she nodded slightly at the unspoken request. “It’s your secret to tell, or keep.”

Ultimately, they were here to discuss Aware Wolf and the transformation experience, so Sienna leaned forward in her seat and listened intently to Rhys’s description of the process. She smiled briefly as he confirmed he’d taken the potion without his usual nightcap, although her face turned serious again soon enough. “About what time in the afternoon? And how soon after eating?” she asked, drumming her fingers on the table. It wasn’t a super important question, but it mostly had to do with Si’s desire to eventually modify the potion so it could be taken with food or, as Rhys might prefer, with a drink. She took a deep breath as she continued the clinical questions. “Alright, so you felt restless. Did that feel like…your heart pounding, or a pressure building somewhere?” She had paused slightly in the middle of the sentence to search for examples. She didn’t want to put ideas into his head, but sometimes people didn’t know how to describe what they felt. She and Jamie had mostly discussed the side effects, but not so much the pre-transformation experience. Si wanted as much detail as possible for her notes.

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

He was grateful that she wouldn’t tell Jamie about this particular detail, he didn’t want his family’s pity when it came to his tragic childhood or any reason for them to feel sorry for him. Really, he didn’t want anyone’s pity. He’d gotten this far in life on his own accord and he liked it like that and the image he portrayed for himself. She asked him further probing questions and fortunately the aspirin seemed to be beginning to kick in which was helping him think a bit clearer. ”Um, I think about a half hour?” If he had to guess but couldn’t have been more than an hour. And then she still focused on anything related to transforming though her description immediately caught his attention. Each werewolf seemed to experience half of the same symptoms when it came to transforming while the other half seemed to vary individually. When it came to the Greybacks it wasn’t as if he, Adrian and Jamie sat down and compared symptoms per say.

Rhys nodded in agreement, ”Yea. And it always starts in my chest.” Rhys always wondered if he was “normal” when it came to being a werewolf, how intensely he felt it all and how painful. ”Usually when I transform its very painful for me, beginning in my chest.” He paused, it hadn’t actually been that long ago that’d he had forgotten to take his potion so that was fresh in his mind as well. ”So, it felt like that, but I didn’t transform. But I managed to sleep some.” Maybe he was odd for being able to sleep in such a state but even like that it was a tremendous toll on the body and pushed one to exhaustion, that added to Rhys’ chronic insomnia and he managed to fit in some sleep.

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Sienna couldn’t bear the suspense of having to wait any longer to take notes. So, during a lull in the conversation between the two, she said casually, “If it’s alright with you, I’ll start taking some notes on our conversation. Every bit of information will help.” As nonchalant as the comment had come out sounding, Si didn’t wait a beat before digging out one of her notebooks with various thoughts and observations about Jamie’s descriptions of taking Aware Wolf in the past. She flipped to a blank page, dipped her quill into an inkwell, and began scribbling down as much as she could remember of what Rhys shared with her.

But when he mentioned off-hand how it felt when he transformed, Sienna almost began to hold her breath as she stopped taking notes. This was one of the few subjects she and Jamie didn’t talk about. She’d never directly asked her friend and coworker, and Jamie had never actually described what her transformation felt like. There were bits of it scattered throughout her notes, hinting at it, but it remained a subject that Si was intensely curious about – as much as she was in the dark about it. She nodded slowly and set the quill down for a moment. “That’s good,” she said slowly (although she wasn't quite sure what she was replying to, maybe what Rhys had said about managing to sleep), playing with a bit of hair as she debated whether she should ask.

Eventually her curiosity won out. “Do you…remember your transformations?” she asked, almost timidly. Werewolves as a subject was still relatively new to her – she’d never thought much about it before meeting Jamie, and even now her role in their partnership was to be the potions expert. “From Jamie’s notes, it seems like…it hurts a lot.” It was also almost a confession that she and Jamie had never actually talked about it. It seemed an unfortunate gap in Si’s knowledge…even if it had nothing to do with her potionmaking or her ability to work on Aware Wolf.

rhys alexander greyback

[rhys alexander greyback]

don't touch the doors of daylight
cause you will never be free

---

February 15, 2025
Sienna Aurélie Linslee

---

Rhys nodded, ”Of course.” This was a trial and error sort of thing so notes would be important. Rhys had many notes back in his flat regarding his own research whether it was general or for a specific job he was about to go. He needed to review runes and go through various Arithmancy formulas and calculate and re-calculate so that he was prepared. There were some situations it didn’t help as much and it was a touch and go situation, but he was diligent, nonetheless. The same would apply here, finding causation rather than correlation and things such as that. Rhys noted she seemed more intently curious when he spoke about his transformation, it was straight putting his thoughts on the subject into words since he’d never really found a situation to do so but it was still difficult.

Rhys paused, trying to search in his mind for a possible memory but he seemed to fail to come up with one after a certain point in his transformation. When it was that time it was as if his own brain was turned off and the beast inside had their change to see the light of day. ”Up to a point, yes.” He responded. He didn’t know why he felt so comfortable talking about it with essentially a stranger, but perhaps it was because he knew she wasn’t asking to judge him but as part of her process—though it became evidently clear that Jamie had never openly spoken about it. ”Its like whatever is inside of me is clawing its way out, literally, and eventually it does.” That was about the tamest way he could describe it, though it seemed to be trying to crawl its way out even a few days before the full moon.