“Will do,” Strange says, pausing to catch his breath and standing behind the elf, watching as Tav investigates the patch of mushrooms and then sets it aside. The doctor’s been studying the local plants and herbs from textbooks, mostly to know enough to brew healing potions and to not accidentally poison a patient, but he still doesn’t have a green thumb for it; gets impatient with squinting at the striations of a mushroom or counting the number of fronds on a stalk. He’s not especially interested in how plants tick compared to how brains tick.

But this is why he brought Tav along.

He makes a thoughtful noise. “What drew you to the druidic arts and nature? Do you suspect it’s something you were skilled at beforehand, or might it have been something new that you just took a liking to?” He’d undergone his own transformation, turning over a new page going from surgeon to sorcerer; but at least that had been Strange’s choice, his decision, his own agency. He hadn’t been trying to fill an empty slate.