lostcarnival | OPEN: New Beginnings In Stranger Places

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."

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"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.

"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.

"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.

"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."

"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.

"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."

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

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

"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?"

"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.

"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.

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.

Helen watched and kept record, nodding as she followed along. The recipe wasn't so difficult so long as she noted what went into where, what the names were, and how they were all combined. Helen, as a chemist herself, followed along with no difficulty.

"Very good, then," she said with a nod, though it didn't explain how long. "If a batch is too old, what signs will there be? For safety's sake."

"Consistency is the first tell," Zecora said, giving the cauldron a stir to demonstrate just how thick the first of the two healing tonics was. It almost looked uncomfortable to drink, though in practice it was just short of being so.
"After that, there's smell."

That one was not subtle, so Zecora didn't think she quite needed to elaborate.

Helen nodded. Good, now she knew what to look for, just in case a batch had been sitting too long somewhere. Not that it would ever happen under her watch, though she would, of course, figure out how to keep track of the days and label accordingly.

Actually...

"Do you have a labelling system in place to tell when batches were brewed? Or do you simply prepare batches as needed?" She was asking many questions but in all fairness, they were questions any physician would ask when it came to medicinal preparation storage - especially since this medicine was unknown to her.

"That system only exists in my head," Zecora replied without any shame. She was used to working alone, be it in her Everfree home or here in the carnival. She'd never needed a system. But hopefully Helen would stick around a little longer than some of her other nurses...
"We can start a new one instead."

"It might be preferable, especially if someone else were to take up an assistant's position. I can help with that. I'm quite thorough," Helen said with a soft nod.

"The help of others is rare,
So if you wish to, that's fair." Helen needed it more than Zecora did, so Zecora would be happy to sign on to whatever system she devised.

"Quite so. It should help in case you do gain another staff member," Helen said, nodding.

Helen couldn't quite appreciate the depths of Zecora's laugh, because she hadn't been around for the various crises and disasters she'd weathered alone. Having just one staff member represented an enormous relief to her.

She loved her job, but she could get so very tired sometimes, the worst times.

"As a matter of course
That's cart before the horse."

OPEN: New Beginnings In Stranger Places

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