lostcarnival | [Closed] doctor, doctor

Entry tags:

lambert,
zecora

[Closed] doctor, doctor

Who: Zecora & Lambert
When: Sometime on Day 55.
Where: At the medical tent.
What: The new nurse reports for duty, but the doctor isn't exactly what he expected.
Warnings: None yet, will update as necessary!

[ It's been an adjustment, to say the least. He'd expected signing the contract to feel more constricting, but far from the fate of being clapped in chains and dragged into some watery abyss, he was told he could simply report for duty 'tomorrow.'

Underwater, Lambert's not sure how much time has passed, but he's pretty sure it's 'tomorrow,' or close enough to it. There's only so long he can swim around the ocean floor, especially considering that unlike some of the other carnival workers, his transformation hasn't seen fit to gift him with a more hydrodynamic means of propulsion. So after taking an hour to meditate, half-distracted by the still bizarre feeling of water filtering through his gills, he heads towards the medical tent. ]

Anyone home? [ Lambert pushes the flap open with a clawed, webbed hand, peering inside from the threshold. ] I'm looking for the doctor.

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[Zecora appraises him thoughtfully, a bit curious. He looks more like a warrior than a healer, though she isn't making any judgments on that score.]

Tell me, please, about your skills
How do you treat hurts and ills?

[ This, at least, is straightforward enough. ]

I'm no surgeon, but I know how to deal with most injuries. Set broken bones, disinfect and sew up wounds, that kind of thing.

[ He glances around the tent. ] And I know how to brew potions.

[If she'd been happy before, Zecora brights immeasurably now.]

Somepony who can use
Potions and brews!
What a delight!
I never thought I might
Run into one here.
Your purpose is now clear!
Please, tell me
About your mastery.

[ The exciting is more unsettling than encouraging, with all the extra limbs involved, but if he focuses on her voice instead, he can tune it out. ]

I'm a Witcher. [ He pauses, waiting for any sign of recognition, before he continues. ] That means I'm a professional monster killer. Most of the things I need to fight them aren't exactly something I can just buy off a merchant. So I have to make it myself.

[No recognition, but that hardly ought to bother him. He doesn't recognize a zebra, after all.]

I would gladly seek
A show of your technique.

[With a surge of tentacles, Zecora swims over to one of the medium-size empty cauldrons sitting near the back of the tent.]

[ When he looks at the way the table's set up, it's a much more complicated setup than anything Lambert sees outside of Kaer Morhen. Still, if he looks carefully enough, he can recognize enough to work on something. ]

All right. [ He's nothing if not up to a challenge, even if it's brewing potions underwater. ] I'll need ingredients first. Berbercane fruit, essence from a water monster, and some strong alcohol.

Or if you don't have that, you can just dictate something and I can follow along.

Bebercane fruit might be the same
As a thing with another name.
Describe if you please
So I can find it with ease.

[The other two, those are easy. From her racks and shelves, Zecora picks off one bottle, then another, setting both spinning through the water towards him with gentle tosses from smooth neck motions.]

[ It's easy enough to catch both, although Lambert fumbles the second a little -- still not used to the claws or the webbing. Luckily, things don't fall as fast in water! ]

Red, waxy berries -- about this big. [ He indicates the size by holding up a hand and using his thumb to mark off a point along his pinky, a more elongated shape . ] Tart, pretty toxic when they're eaten raw. Traditionally used in folk remedies as a calming agent, usually for the insane.

[The description is easy enough to match -- Zecora slides open a drawer, then casually lobs a bag of the berries his way. Normally she wouldn't pass things in this fashion, but the water does make it all a lot easier.]

[Honestly, she'd much rather be checking on his skills outside of the water, because her cauldrons sitting there with flames beneath them and their contents exposed to seawater bugs her no matter how much she can rationally observe that it somehow all still works.]

[ Yeah, the water makes things weird, but Lambert can deal as he begins settling himself down to work in earnest. How the flask set over the low flame is still burning underwater is probably thanks to magic he isn't familiar with ... but that's a question that can wait for later. This potion's the first he ever learned to make, and though he's not sure it will work with substituted ingredients, he can prepare it in his sleep. ]

This is for a potion called Cat. [ The berries are tipped into a beaker of boiling water, to be heated until the flesh falls off and he can pick out the seeds, which then get swiftly crushed in mortar and pestle and mixed with monster essence. He strains the pulp through cheesecloth, letting clear red fluid mix into the alcohol. How it's managing not to simple dissipate into the water around them is a mystery, but he moves through the rest of his preparations meticulously, measuring the exact proportions of ingredients and finally tipping it all into a condenser, which starts to steadily trickle out a grey-green fluid with dark sediment into a vial. ]

Leave that for an hour and you'll get a potion that lets you see in total darkness. [ And then, after a pause: ] I don't know if it would work on anyone else but a Witcher without side effects.

I think you and me
Will get along splendidly.

[Zecora is quite satisfied with his display -- efficient, effective, and not unlike her own stylings in the slightest. Even if he can't mix some of her more complex brews, she expects she can trust him to watch them as they boil or steep, and that's a load off her mind.]

[Watching the potion condense for a moment, she slowly nods, then turns back to him. She'll have to try it later, to see just how compatible it is.]

I would not think it tragic
If you knew healing magic.

[ Literally no one has ever said that to Lambert, ever. It's enough to make him blink, smart mouth surprised into silence for a little bit before he recovers, giving her a cocky grin. He likes feeling competent. ]

Glad I pass. [ At to the second bit, he shakes his head. ] I never learned any magic like that. Just healing potions ... but i don't know how they'd work on anyone else. Is that mostly how you heal people?

I learned it here
And when danger looms near
I use all my power
To avert a darker hour.

[As had happened once or twice very recently, in fact. Her brews are amazingly effective, but some things need to be addressed immediately, and some things simply can't be fixed with a potion. Believe it or not! Add in her other magics and she feels, she hopes, not much else can exceed her abilities to mend, if she can only reach it in time.]

I also take it you might
Be prepared to fight?

That's right. I'm usually the one who causes the injury, not the one who patches them up. I'm supposed to report to the Nightrider too, but since there isn't really anyone else around... [ Most any injury he gets he can count on his Witcher constitution to take care of. ]

Who'd you learn healing magic from, the Ringmaster? [ After all, she probably wouldn't be the Doctor now if there was someone more qualified. ]

[Zecora nods. That's an oversimplification, but a good enough basis for understanding.]

It was her half of the pact
For my first year's contract.
Years two and three
Brought other witchery.
But don't get any notions:
My brews and my potions
Have been in my mind
Long before here, you'll find.

[She taps her temple with one tentacle, then pauses to regard the limb with wry skepticism. After adapting to obsidian hooves, now she'd had to re-acquaint herself with new features all over again. Sometimes this place is exhausting.]

[Oh well. The aquatic changes would at least PROBABLY be gone once they left, putting her back on her own four hooves again.]

[ More changes ... that's the last thing Lambert needs. He has enough already -- but if it was something useful, he supposes he can't complain much. ]

Three years. [ He murmurs, instead. ] That's a hell of a long time.

[ To think she'd not only ask for one contract, but three... well, he can't think of anything else he wants, so that's not something he needs to worry about, he supposes. ]

You really wanted that magic, huh?

[Zecora shakes her head, the gentle motion making her tentacles sway beneath her body to keep her stable in her suspension.]

The chance to learn, discover, explore
Was too great to ignore.
If I had to I'd have come for free--
But I didn't, so that would be silly.

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[Closed] doctor, doctor

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cue potion making montage bullshit

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