OPEN: New Beginnings In Stranger Places

[promnibusanctis]

Who: Dr. Helen Magnus and [You]
When:  Day 92
Where: Roaming around, a little lost 
What: Arrival, getting her bearings, etc. etc.

Adventure was something Helen Magnus never shied from and exploring the vastness of the underground Sanctuary, far beyond those walls was something she couldn't deny herself.  So it was that she found herself here, under contract to the Ringmaster with her eyes wide with wonder at it all.  The lights and colours, the excitement, the darker elements shining through here and there.  It was as familiar as it was alien and she drank it in with an eagerness she had long felt lacking.  It stirred her as she moved through tents, passed people much like her who had joined perhaps years before her.  A bright flash of a tail there, wings, glowing skin, all of these people becoming Abnormals or were in the beginning.  The sheer fascination would have been enough, really.

 

"Excuse me?" she asked, reaching out to catch the attention of one of the people she had fallen into step with, "I seem to have found myself a bit lost.  I was looking for the medical tent and I seem to have completely gotten myself turned around.  If you could point me in the right direction, I'd be most grateful."

Comments

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

The medical tent itself was perhaps not what she expected. No cool-white and overtly sterile environment, the tent was done in earth tones and was slightly darker than might be perfectly comfortable. And though it had cots and beds for patient to lie on, it also held several cauldrons of various sizes flanked by rows of shelves and racks laden down with plants and herbs and fruits and flowers.

As she entered, the zebra peering into one cauldron looked up at her, then came around to pace towards her with a smile.

"Please, come in.
How may we begin?"

[promnibusanctis]

"Doctor Helen Magnus," she introduced herself with a smile.

It's not at all awkward that she's talking to a zebra. Well, it's no more awkward than talking to Sherlock Holmes who has snake features or a man with mirrored eyes. But then, these are things that she has, in some capacity seen before in her own world. There are far more strange things in the multiverse, she warrants. However, it is a little surprising.

"I figured before I got myself settled, I'd check in here. It looks like I'm now part of your staff, specialising in Changes."

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

New staff! Zecora smiled, her ears and (strangely metal) tail both perking up slightly.

"Come in so I can greet!
I am Zecora, happy to meet
You and welcome you to my crew.
Besides changes, have you other skills too?"

[promnibusanctis]

"Ah, yes," Helen said with a nod, moving into the room with easy. With everything so new, she had to wonder if Zecora's ears were Carnival induced or not. Honestly, with all the different worlds out there, at least by her estimation, anything was possible. "Quite a few. My disciplines are mostly in biology and chemistry and I have been a board certified doctor of medicine and surgery for more than a century now. Anatomy, teratology, crypto-zoology, and xenobiology are the other fields I've studied and hold doctorates in."

She pauses for a moment because that is a great deal to take in.

"In addition to those, I am also well skilled in the art of personal defence," she adds. "I find that if one wishes to learn something, all you need to do is apply yourself."

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"The science of medicine.
A good place to begin." Zecora nodded. Most of the carnival's crew accepted her ways perfectly well, if for no other reason than they consistently worked, but she had no doubt that some of them might well prefer a more clinical approach.

Of course, given the current setup of the medical tent... "I'm sure you need new tools
To treat our merry fools," she said, all fondness for those she so often had to fix up.

[promnibusanctis]

"It is definitely a different set of tools than the ones you use, I imagine," Helen admitted affably. "Though, I do hope to learn something of magic while I'm here and able. I dare say science for one person is another's magic and the same could be said for the reverse. I do suppose all of us play the merry fool every so often."

Helen included more often than not, though extreme luck probably plays into it in her case as to why she hasn't died. Quick thinking, she'd say.

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"True enough, but what I meant
Is what you'll need inside this tent."

Her rhymes were not historically clear to those newly-exposed to them, as well she knew, but Zecora had ample patience to get people down the correct path if they allowed themselves to be led.

[promnibusanctis]

"Indeed. Surgical instruments and equipment, perhaps a sterile surgical bay in case of serious injury requiring invasive procedures." Helen looked thoughtful. "I suppose I could write out a list, plus the necessary medicines and a fully stocked pharmacy. It is quite a handful to ask for, even if it is necessary."

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

Zecora nodded at the list, though to be honest the idea of 'sterile' in this carnival, wrought through and through with magic and mayhem on its most fundamental level, almost cracked a laugh out of her.

"I will make a plan
To get all I can.
We may have equipment
Stored in some other tent.
But for medicines it makes sense
To teach you MY supplements."

After all, she could make a stock of brews to supply Helen for a reasonable length of time, even if all her other skills might be lost were she herself injured or incapacitated.

[promnibusanctis]

"Whatever you can teach me, I will learn without hesitation. I am always open to new ideas and approaches be the conventions of my own world or others," Helen said without hesitation. "If we can't find what we need in another tent, then we'll have to make it or I'll learn a new skill. I have never been more ready for a challenge."

And she really was itching to get her hands into something completely and utterly new. Her eyes searched Zecora's face with an eagerness that rivalled her time at Oxford. This was uncharted territory for her that would mean an entirely different view of medicine.

"How may I assist?"

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"Eager but not rude.
A fine attitude!" Laughing warmly, Zecora motioned with one obsidian hoof for her to come back among the cauldrons.

"As you can see, I use
Most often, my brews."

[promnibusanctis]

"One should never be rude to one's mentor, a lesson learned many years ago," she said wryly as she followed Zecora. As a good student ought, she touched nothing, respecting the zebra's instruments as she had done her father's long before. She did, however, peer at the cauldrons to get a sense of their depth and to see if anything was, indeed, brewing.

"Quite so," Helen murmured. "Are these brew ingestible or topical?"

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"You will find, I think,
That almost all are to drink."

Zecora kept a couple of cauldrons routinely full -- the first a thick, bubbling pot of a pink goo the consistency of melted ice cream, the second a cinnamon-warm mixture that simmered without steaming.

The zebra chuckled, as a long-ago memory came to here mind. "But sometimes the tricks
Are to bathe in the mix."

[promnibusanctis]

That made sense, oral ingestion was frequently the easiest of methods. Helen nodded in acknowledgement and smiled at the bathing comment. The caldrons with their contents got a long look.

"And these?" she asked as it would be remiss of her not to ask.

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"This one mends skin
When cut or scraped thing," Zecora said, indicating the first one. Then gesturing to the second, she continued,
"This one's drinker loses
Their painful bruises."

Put together, they covered the vast majority of her duties here -- to the point that she barely even considered those treatments to be exertions. Which was fortunate, given how much else seemed to crop up.

[promnibusanctis]

"How much of each is given? Is the dose static or variable given the weight of the injured?" Dosing is forever important when it comes to her own medicinal practices. The answers to each of her questions are kept in her head for now but she'll find time to write them all down soon enough.

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"For either brew
A vial will do," Zecora said, motioning with her muzzle to a rack nearby where numerous flasks and vials waited to be filled.
"The mixes are devised
To be generalized."

Most zebra potions had a lot of slack in their dosage requirements, thanks to using ingredients that had some fairly uncanny qualities. Which was very fortunate here, where who even KNEW how different metabolisms could shift with all the changes running around.

[promnibusanctis]

"Fascinating," Helen murmurs under her breath. Magic would generalise being what it was, though it could very well be the ingredients that did that in some way. Her eyes flicked to the phials and back with a nod.

"How long do the potions generally keep?" she asked, curious from a personal and professional standpoint. "And what sorts of ingredients are they comprised of - or is that something you would rather not divulge? I'm definitely not adverse to learning how to make these or anything you would be comfortable with letting me learn."

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"The recipe I'll teach
Is all within reach," Zecora answered, by which she meant the various racks and shelves laden with plants and herbs and the occasional fruit or berry.
"I am glad you won't spurn
The chance to learn."

Zecora couldn't imagine working with staff who WOULDN'T be eager to learn her ways.

[promnibusanctis]

"I couldn't even imagine not learning," Helen said, laughing at the thought. "I am at heart a scholar and a scientist. There's no day that goes by where you fail to learn something, after all."

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"You'll fit in well, I see
with that philosophy." Needless to say, Zecora approved.

"Have you settled in?
If so we can begin."

[promnibusanctis]

"Yes, quite so." Helen nodded, quite ready for business. "I had nothing on me than what you see, so I am quite ready. I'll see about my trailer after we're finished with the day. Why waste time when I'm already here?"

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

"I think you and me
Will get along splendidly," Zecora said with some satisfaction, as she began to gather ingredients from the shelves. Explaining each one was a simple enough matter, quickly done even in rhyme; the formula for the brew followed more like a cooking recipe than a pharmaceutical concoction, or something out of a Hogwarts dungeon classroom.

[promnibusanctis]

"Wonderful," Helen murmured warmly. As Zecora explained each one, Helen put it aside in her mind as if on a shelf, where she could tend to it later. Learning was always a fascinating process and this was absolutely no exception. It was very much like cooking as much as it was about chemistry.

If that was the case, this was going to be more fun than work, really.

[zebrarhyme_everytime]

The two potions were very simple, all told -- requiring a combination of ingredients that sounded esoteric, but truthfully were no challenge to find here in the carnival if one knew to look for them.

"And when they brew, fill a vial
It will keep for quite a while," she concluded, at last answering an earlier question.