RP:The Beauty of the Diener
Synopsis: At the House of Ara, Penelope runs into Joan. After sheer nosiness, Penelope is escorted to the morgue, and Joan shows Penelope what happens to a body after death. Penelope is so intrigued, she hopes that Joan will work with her hands-on in the future to perform autopsies.
This is a Healer's Guild RP.
House of Ara
Penelope:: Today was a day of check-in at the House of Ara. The clinical healer was roaming around assisting novices, as well as taking note for herself. Penelope was always one to reflect on new skills that she had never seen before in the clinical space and always willing to grow with the students she worked with. “Right on,” the girl would exaggeratingly put a thumbs up to a female guild student who finished a clean suture on a child’s forehead. Moss eyes would look at the child sitting on an iron, medical bed, “And that, kid, is how it’s done. I’d be surprised if the scar will be noticeable!” The bubbly healer chimes. Standing near Penelope would be Ruari Erickson, a fellow apprentice to Penelope. Suddenly, an elbow would be thrown towards the healer’s ribcage due to the panicked look on the child’s face. The child was clearly still in shock about having stitches on her forehead. Penelope got the memo from Ruari that the kid was a little sensitive. “It’s okay, your friends will think you’re super cool. You’re totally going to be the talk of the school,” Penelope adds on before seeing the child smile slightly. With that, Penelope pivots and Ruari reflects the same motion before they stumble to some nearby paperwork to see what other patients were in the learning facility today.
Joan took time out from the lower level of the teaching clinic morgue area, having come up the stairs to make her way to the clinic staff kitchen, the vampiric healer popping in to make herself some herbal hot tea before taking her mug as she traveled out from the staff kitchen towards the nurses staff to greet Mei before passing onwards towards the healers office where she needed to go to grab a few charts before heading back down towards the morgue. She would more then likely run into Penelope and Ruari there. As she moved towards her destination she would take slow careful sips from her steaming hot mug full of that herbal tea.
Penelope flipped through a few charts before she handed one off to Ruari. “I want you to observe bed three. Make sure with the dislocation they readjust and splint it.” The clipboard is handed off with ease towards her friend before she would come across violet hair. A face that almost seemed familiar in passing. “Hey,” the freckled human leans on the counter as she observes Joan. “We met before, you’re Joan, right? I’ve seen you at one of our meetings. I’ve never got the chance to talk to you,” the tea is observed. “I’m Penelope. Most just call me Nel or Penny or whatever rolls off your tongue easiest,” the healer is warm with her words. “What are you up to?” Moss eyes slowly slip to the paperwork the vampire is looking over. Penelope was a nosy one.
Joan offered a warm smile after she swallowed her most recent drink of her rapidly dwindling herbal tea, she would had spiked it with a bit of warm blood but the vampiric healer just wasn’t thinking of that when she had made her beverage. “Mm, yes pleasure to meet you!” Joan intones is a pleasant clear tone of voice, her free hand moving towards the wire basket that held the death certificates. “Those, I have a few I need to fill out for the recent victims of the zombie attacks here is Larket.” She’d sits her mug on the nearest desk to twist and turn at the waist while lightly offer out her hand towards Nel, then Ruari in way of greeting, her normally icy pale hand would be mildly warmed from the heat that transferred from her mug. “I got to make sure everything is recorded down and then take my paperwork in to Bradyn and the funeral director in Cenril at the Chapel Of Rest/Unrest for my funeral attendant review.”
Penelope quirks a brow at the mention of zombie attacks. Surely the healer had been in her own world down in Kelay. “Zombie attacks…?” Not a lot of humans wanted to hear that. Her face looks twisted for a moment in her puzzled way before she waves off what Joan just mentioned--for now. Nel reaches towards the hand casually and there is a lukewarm touch from the vampire which seems odd to the healer. Instead of thinking Joan is a vampire, the healer only thinks Joan as someone with poor circulation. Naive Penelope. “Bradyn, right,” the healer did not know of any Bradyn’s, but normally Penelope was not the one in contact with the funeral department. “I want to take a stab and say you work in the morgue…? Only a guess, considering the paperwork.” One would know that Penelope was the very observant type. If Joan answers, Penelope would continue to ask, “Mind giving me a tour…?” Odd to ask for a section of the guild that was so grim, but she was a genuinely curious person.
Joan would offer a small smile and a firm nod of her head towards Nel’ once they finished shaking hands. “Yeah, the zombie uprising from that party down in Cenril, there has been zombies and ghouls getting out from the containment zone and out from the cities guard watch. It’s been a slow spreading problem.” Joan added as she swiped a few blank death certificates from the wire basket as her lilac orbs glanced over the other healer, “And yes, I work in the morgue, I have a project I’m involved in with Thamalys. I think Emilia wants me to focus on restoring healing or something.” Her brow furrowed abit as she thinks, she never got back with the guild leader to chat on what the frozen healer wanted Joan to mainly focus on for the guild as a whole. With a rolling shrug the vampiric healer would now turn back to grab up her rapidly cool mug of herbal tea with her free hand as the other held the certificates in it’s grasp. “Sure, if you got time now I’ll take you down and give a guided tour, it’s really small and cramped right now, I hope you aren’t claustrophobic.” With that said Joan would be ready to lead the way out the office and down the huge long hall of the teaching clinic towards the small downstairs area that lead to the small morgue the teaching clinic had.
Penelope reflects on the zombies again, and faintly, Penelope remembers. Kreekitaka had helped the healer on the training field with the other guards who were going to go against the zombies. Ruari, on the other hand, is saluting the two off because Ruari was the claustrophobic one of the two. Penelope is intrigued to hear that Joan has been working with Thamalys. “A project, huh? You know, I’d help with the restoration healing, but unfortunately, that’s not my specialty. I kind of fiddle with magic, but not in the healing sense.” Should she continue to ask about the project and be nosy? Perhaps she should wait until she gets down into the morgue. “I have plenty of time,” and the healer is after the vampire to the small morgue. The air begins to get a little thick in the small space, and the small area smells of odd chemicals. “What dies never stays dead,” the girl peeps out. “They’re still alive… in the mental aspect, I mean. They’re never forgotten.” Well, until time ticked. Death made Penelope weird, and somehow poetic. Kyori always thought the woman was weird for that. “So,” Nel addresses the vampiric healer, “What do you do down here? Mind giving me a little… demonstration?” The Kelay healer was always curious on where the bodies went after they did not “make it”. Were they in proper care?
Joan :: Making sure to finish off the remains of her cooling herbal tea the vampiric healer would place the now empty mug on a tiny office table at the end of the stairs before pushing open the metal swinging door that lead into the cramped lil’ morgue, there was two steel tables in the middle of the room, a good size drain was under each table as both tables had a drainage tube attached and that lead to the drains, these drains lead to a self contained sewage system. Small carts with all sorts of medical equipment where shoved up against two walls as another wall was filled with rolling out full body shelves, these where wear the bodies where stores besides a rather small frozen cave cornered off by a magical field to keep the cold at bay. There was a sink area near the cave entrance for washing up and cleaning the equipment. Everything smelled of the clinical cleaning chemicals and embalming fluids. Secured to the walls where also long full shelves that held all the tools one needed to run a small morgue efficiently. The vampiric healer would make a sweeping hand gesture to the small cramped morgue as she held open one swinging door that lead into the brightly light room, there was also the handing overhead bright lamps. “Feel free to look around, just don’t go into the frozen cave, I have a couple of infected zombies held captive in that that the guards brought in.”
Penelope walked through the entryway before observing the nooks and crannies of the small morgue. The tools, the smell, the body shelves, and drains. “Huh,” the freckled healer makes a mental note. The smell was not very appealing down in the morgue. Eyes then trail towards the cave and the thought of zombies makes the woman frown. Best stay away, Nel. No need to be a zombie Nel. “Good to know. I won’t go into the zombie cave.” Her questions are then posed towards the vampiric healer. “How do you prep the bodies? Do you just… clean them up? How does it work? Can you show me a body? Is that weird? Do you do autopsies?” So many questions from one healer. This was clearly not in Penelope’s expertise.
Joan moves from holding open the swinging metal door to entering after ‘Nel, letting the door swing close behind her and stepping around the other woman to move towards the body shelves. She opens the nearest one with a firm grip and pull, pulling out a prepared body of a young man, his full body was covered under a white sheet that she folded down to exposed just the upper body of the clean and stitched chest, his face was set in a peaceful pose and makeup applied to make him seem more natural, hiding any blimish he may have suffered in death. “When a body come in, first we do is visibly catalog any damage done to the body, we chart and note it all down. Remove any clothing and such, next we bath the outside, making sure we caught all the wounds and damage before moving on to opening the chest cavity and removing the skull cap. We then note down the conditions of the brain and organs, next we carefully cut out the organs and then look them over before we weight each organ. Once we are done looking the organs over and noting their conditions and any damage we note that down and replace everything we removed before stitching up the chest and replacing the brain back in the skull and glueing and stitching up the skull area with careful stitching if and when we can.” She points these areas out on the body, taking care not to touch the body so not not ruin the makeup job. “So yes, we do full autopsies here. And more then just cleaning and washing them. If we have notice before hand we try to follow their wishes and the wishes of the families of what they wanted done to their bodies.” With a shake of her head amethyst colored hair shakes from side to side as she notes that ‘Nel’s questions about asking if it was weird. “No, it’s commonly asked.” She will let the elder healer look over her work before folding the sheet back over the chest and head of the body before pushing it back into it’s proper place.
Penelope moves when Joan maneuvers around her to pull from the shelving. The body slides out and the Ardelian’s eyes grow wide at first, but then they calm themselves. Penelope saw death a lot throughout her healing journey, but to see a body so peacefully placed made the woman at ease. Although a tight space, the clinician moves forward to gaze over the upper-view of the body. Penelope had practiced on cadavers, and had been in surgical situations, but to take time to examine was something that the woman never had a lot of chances to do. Fingers reach out, but they do not touch the lifeless soul. Instead she gazes over the stitching of the corpse. The naturalness of the skin had Penelope silent as she listened to Joan’s explanation. There is silence on Penelope’s end as Joan speaks and after Joan is done with her explanation, the healer blinks to continue the silence of observation. Curiosity was piqued when she thought about what affected the male to… pass on. Was it a disease? A wound? What was the story? Eyes search the lifeless stone before they find their way to the violet-haired woman. “Joan, this is… wow. What you do is so… beautiful,” the Ardelian admires, although such a grim scenario of being in a morgue. There was a long pause. “I do have to get going to check on the other students in the clinical room, but… Would you be interested in meeting me again? Perhaps you can walk me through your process visually. Perhaps we can solve some medical autopsy mysteries together?” The healer is obviously eager to spend more time in the morgue as dark and cramped as it was.
Joan nods she agreement as she moves towards the morgue sink, the vampiric healer makes quick work of wetting, soaping up up her fingers and hands then washing them both clean before reaching for a hand towel to dry them off. Cleanliness was close to godliness, and also starved off germs and made it so there was any cross contamination. “Sure, no issue. This is also part of my cross training as a necromancer. I could just raise the bodies through my natural magic and do all this morgue work the easy way by commanding the bodies to do as I need, but a hands on approach is what is needed for the medical field. Anyone that is interested in helping and furrowing my education is welcomed! I’d be more then happy to work with you.” Here Joan finally smiles fully showing hint of her dainty pearly white fangs.
Penelope follows suit on washing her own hands after Joan does. “Necromancy?” The Ardelian ponders on this thought. Raising the dead. Her mind reflects on her brother for a split moment before she shakes that off. She does not ask further questions as much as she wants to. A limit of holding herself back. “A hands on approach is crucial. It’s like a base for medical practices. I’d love to help you, and together we can both learn more from each other.” The healer smiles back until she notices the fangs on the violet-haired woman. The human is thrown, but is not shy by the idea of a vampire, she just rarely sees them. The smile comes back to life again after the moment of processing Joan’s race. “Until next time then. I’ll be around the guild walls from time to time. I’ll see if I could catch you, or I’ll just send word.” Penelope smirks before nearing the door to get to the top level. “It was nice -officially- meeting you, Joan. See you soon,” the Ardelian would then wave before striding back up the stairs to help with the novices upstairs.