Log: First Aid Kit
Summary: June comes to the infirmary, looking to create a first aid kit for her tavern. Dulcinea happens to be the available healer. She helps June find all that she needs while engaging in as much small talk as she's capable of.
Location: Infirmary, Ista Weyr
Date: 6-25-09
Early in the afternoon, Dulcinea is to be found in the infirmary--just like late in the afternoon, and in the morning, and many evenings and nights, as a rule. The place is not precisely busy, but there are certainly enough people around; apprentices doing cleaning and minor tasks, a few patients being tended-to. One of them is a middle-aged woman who is talking with Dulcinea, hushed instructions passing from the healer to a series of hesitant nods. "...and if you need anything else, be sure to let us know, we're here to help." It's a tone dry as gin and the woman does not seem exactly convinced as she goes off towards the exit again, but the healer watches after her with an entirely satisfied smirk.
She's there to help. That's just a perfect coincidence then, because swinging past that exiting patient at a purposeful clip is someone in need of that help. June, all done up in rich green this afternoon, comes equipped with her own shoddy but still-functional basket, right now empty of all but a cloth lining the bottom. Her eyes light on the handy healer as soon as she's through the archway, lips perking into a shallow smile. "Well. If it isn't the mysterious healer with no name. Or not one that she'll give me, anyway." Her purpose will remain a mystery just now, too, for she doesn't state it up front. "Are you busy?" she asks instead.
Dulcinea's face has relief written all over it--look, here, an excuse. "Can you take the next one?" she inquires of a senior apprentice nearby, who nods and goes to attend to the patient in question, leaving the journeywoman free for June and not having to cope with the next patient, who limps after the apprentice. "Dulcinea," she says shortly. Well, that was easy. "Didn't say I wouldn't, said next time I saw you, didn't I? No, not busy at all. What do you need?"
June tilts her head, eyebrows all arch in a fleeting show of surprise. That was easy. "Pretty name," she comments before continuing on to the heart of the matter. "I need some supplies. Not a lot, but whatever you think it would be smart to keep around a place where brawls are a popular pasttime." She lifts her moderately-sized basket and gives it a slight swing. Fill 'er up.
"Didn't pick it myself," Dulcinea notes like there might be some confusion on that score, though she smiles. She regards the basket with lips pressed firmly together in a way that would be universally recognized as disapproving. "Don't know what I think of the idea of you folks trying to manage on your own. I shouldn't be... enabling that sort of thing. Do no harm. All of that." But she starts going through drawers nonetheless. "Are you folks an independent commercial enterprise? That could also be... sticky."
"No, no," June corrects with a few slow nods and a dismissive wave of her hand to boot. "Not at all. But we are a good bit away from all of this." She takes a look around as she continues, perusing the infirmary's layout while Dulcinea is rummaging. "I just want to be able to patch 'em up, if I have to. So they can at least make it to the infirmary. Well, and then there's the odd busted lip or black eye, I can handle that."
That might be enough to assuage the doubts, or maybe Dulcinea was getting ready to start handing things over anyhow. "Right. Just get them here, if there's any question. You had any first aid training? Mostly for bleeding you just want pressure, if it looks deep send 'em for stitches," she says as she piles a healthy number of clean bandages into the basket. "Or send for us if there's any question about them making it here, 'course. You know the signs of a concussion? You'll need to know that if heads are getting knocked around." Ah, she's on her subject. Nothing to shut her up, now. "Busted lips, black eyes, mostly just need ice."
"Right," June confirms easily, as far as bleeding goes, holding the basket steady as the bandages go tumbling in. She listens to the rest, then goes about reciting what she knows, willingly exposing any holes that the healer might want to fill in for her. "Busted lips and black eyes, ice and tell them to suck it up. You'd be surprised how many men need to be told that. Or maybe you wouldn't be," she adds, taking into consideration the healer's profession with a short-lived widening of her smile. "Let's see, concussions. All I know is to keep them awake if they've had a good bang to the head, make sure they sit up."
"Not surprised at all," agrees the healer with an easy smile. Theoretical talk about injuries is so much better than having to deal with the actual injured, obviously. "Check for mental awareness. If he remembers his name. The date. If you've got a glowbasket handy, light in the eyes, make sure the pupils respond. Pupils should be the same size, too." Now Dulcinea's moved on, a bottle of redwort: "Redwort as antiseptic, better to overdo it than not enough." But then it's back, perhaps confusingly, to the concussion business. "Nausea, bad sign. Actual vomiting, worse."
June mutters little tidbits here and there as Dulcinea gives her instructions, meant to be reassuring, proving that June is comprehending and taking the information to heart. The actual effect may be less than that, however. "Pupils. Right, the..." and she mimes with a finger, a circle drawn in front of her eye. The center, yes. "Antiseptic," she repeats, picking up the bottle from where it dropped into the basket so she can take a look at it herself. And, indeed, she does get confused by the quick, unannounced return to concussion talk, for she turns the bottle's label out to the healer, asking in a doubtful tone, "Too little of this, and I get vomiting?" She's never heard of anything like that before.
Sharp young woman that Dulcinea is, she catches it. "Your sisters?" She sorts through a number of variously-sized jars and finally holds up a smallish one. "They get... caught in the crossfire often, in that line of work? Would think, serving drinks to that sort, you'd learn to get out of the way pretty quick." She turns the jar around in her hands. "We looking for a possibility here or a probability? This seem like enough?"
"My sisters," June confirms cheerily, matter-of-factly, as if the two terms were in fact interchangable to her. "You learn, but that doesn't mean you can't make a mistake. It probably," and there's a faint stress on that word, "won't happen, but I would really rather be safe than sorry." The smallish jar is considered, lifted gently from the healer's hands, then considered again before June decides, "That should be plenty," and nestles it in the basket a bandage-width away from the redwort. "So how have you been since we last talked?" she continues, introducing a bit of small talk into all the business conversation with casual ease, idle interest.
"Good to hear, that," the healer says as she hands off the jar. Before responding to the idle remark, Dulcinea gives a glance around, almost like she's *looking* for a patient to have to deal with, but alas--all seem to have been attended to. "Oh. You know. Fine," she says. "Things all... good. Still dealing with them running me off some days, but I'm learning to cope with the boredom. Doing a lot of reading. Thinking of doing some research. Plenty of interesting things around here, and it'd do wonders for my promotion chances." Rearranging the numbweed jars on their shelf, now, by increasing size instead of decreasing, like it's of definite importance.
"That's good," June fulfills the obligatory small-talk response, though she does go on to add more substance to it. "Something that might be interesting. I've heard a slew of home remedies since I've been here. Some plant deep in the jungle helping headaches, ground up insect curing heartburn, that sort of thing. More than we ever had back home. It could be worthwhile to see if there's anything behind them, if they actually work." Just full of advice, this one. With her hand tapping lightly against the top of the numbweed jar, an idea occurs to her suddenly, and she asks, "We don't have any scissors down there, do the bandages tear easy?"
Nose wrinkles. "Ground up insect," echoes Dulcinea, disapprovingly. "I suppose at the very least some of that's overdue for being properly debunked. Tear? No, you will need scissors. Didn't think of that." She finally stops the rearrangement to open up one drawer, close it, and then the one next to it. "Ah, scissors." Producing a small pair. "There we go. Can you think of anything else you might find useful?"
June accepts the small pair of scissors with a little, "Thank you," and skewers a roll of bandage with them, making sure they won't budge while here eyes run over the rest of her basket's contents. "Let's see... A sling maybe? But we can just fashion a crude one from whatever leftover fabric we have, if we need one. I could use a scalpel," she suggests with a joking turn of her smile, "to warn the men off touching my sisters." There, she got the right term that time. "But I guess that, 'no harm' thing..."
"If anything looks bad enough for a sling, better idea to come get a healer," muses Dulcinea. "Could make a fracture worse if you don't know how to handle it, and I don't know that I want you trying to figure out what's just a sprain and what isn't." She taps her fingernails on the countertop thoughtfully, a smile spreading across her face. "No, no, do a lot of damage with something like that, that would definitely be harm. Besides, those things are tough to keep that sharp, eventually you'd just end up with a metal stick to poke people with and that would be far less effective."
June considers the complicated upkeep of her chosen weapon with her lips twisted gently to one side. "Effective enough," she counters in a laughing tone, her mouth smoothing into that charming little smile again. "I think that should do it, then," she comments after another survey of her haul, giving the bandage fluff a bit of a pat. "Anything that this can't handle, I'll just pass on off to you." Maybe she missed that general bit, about /any/ healer, or maybe she's just being facetious.
And maybe Dulcinea is just going to take that 'you' as a general 'you all', if just for the sake of convenience. "Very good plan. Hopefully none of it will be too necessary, although I suppose in your line of work that's likely to be a vain hope. Have to say, I prefer dealing with the drunks who throw up and pass out to having to deal with the ones who get violent with each other and everyone else." She pushes the drawer closed finally, perhaps a little harder than necessary because it slams shut. "Although I'd just as soon not deal with either, but there's a vain hope, too."
June gives the healer's preference a good moment of thought, eyes falling to that slammed drawer, before she disagrees with it. "I think I'm the opposite, actually. If they throw up and pass out, I'm stuck with them /and/ their mess. At least I can throw the angry ones out. And, like you say," she adds, letting fall a soft snort of laughter, "I'd rather there be neither, but." She leans a hip against the counter, facing the healer with her basket dangling between them. "If only they could all be cheerful drunks, all songs and clapping on the back. I'd even take a few sullen, grumpy ones, if they weren't the bashing kind."
"Well. Beggars can't be choosers, and so on, and so forth," says Dulcinea, with an and-so-on gesture of her hand. "You get to deal with all the drunks of whatever variety. I get to deal with all the sick people, drunk or otherwise." She eyes the basket again, crosses her arms, uncrosses them almost immediately. A moment of silence. "Well, so. So. You have everything you need, now, and you can go." Twitch of the limits as she *almost* says 'away', but she manages to suppress just that much.
If June catches that unspoken addition there at the end, she doesn't let it affect her smile, which is just as wide and cheerful when she pushes out of her lean again and says, "I can." She meanders a few slow steps toward the door, but she turns before Dulcinea can run away from her like last time. "Do you think you'll be able to make it to our opening? I'd love to have you stop by, even if it just for a bit. It's a way to deal with the boredom, at least." Invitation extended, June waits with a slightly arched brow for the work-bound healer's response.
Lips purse just a little bit. "I--might. Maybe." That's a commitment, right there. Dulcinea leans against the counter, no move to run away, but also kind of hard to run anwyhere in the infirmary. Full of obstacles. "Don't know that I know anyone who's going who I'm friendly with." Because being with friendly people requires occasionally not being at work, of course. "And being drunk alone is a sad and pitiful thing, even if you happen to be in a crowd at the time." Wan smile.
"We can be friendly," June counters sweetly, pulling out her largest, charmingest smile for just a beat, before a chuckle breaks it and exposes the cheesiness of what she just said. "Come," she entices again, in a franker tone that borders on ordering. "I'll even throw in a free beer for you, if you do." Free booze, who can resist?
"Well..." Drawn out, still a little reluctant. But: "All right. At least for a bit, I guess," Dulcinea finally says, although not with great enthusiasm. "Ordinarily--well. Jump at the chance, you know. Men and alcohol. But then, in the middle of trying to cut back on both for a bit. But one beer, and a free one, well." She tries, really tries to get back her usual smile, but there's still a sort of vague discomfort, an antsiness for the moment disallowed from working itself out. "Guess I can go for that."
June pauses over her smile, a hint of puzzling, or maybe some shred of sympathy, for that antsiness creeping in around her eyes. "It'll be fun," the tavern owner promises with a final nod, before turning, basket handle clenched with both hands, to walk leisurely toward the exit she entered through. "Enjoy your day at work," June adds over her shoulder, just before she leaves Dulcinea's range of hearing, a parting comment followed by a quick laugh that acknowledges the slim chance of the woman not enjoying herself there in the infirmary.
Enjoy might be a rather strong word for it, but before June's moved off even a few paces, Dulcinea's already off to attend to other things, greeting a mother and young child cheerily with, "So, what's wrong with your boy, then?" to the cringes of some of the surrounding staff.
Location: Infirmary, Ista Weyr
Date: 6-25-09
Early in the afternoon, Dulcinea is to be found in the infirmary--just like late in the afternoon, and in the morning, and many evenings and nights, as a rule. The place is not precisely busy, but there are certainly enough people around; apprentices doing cleaning and minor tasks, a few patients being tended-to. One of them is a middle-aged woman who is talking with Dulcinea, hushed instructions passing from the healer to a series of hesitant nods. "...and if you need anything else, be sure to let us know, we're here to help." It's a tone dry as gin and the woman does not seem exactly convinced as she goes off towards the exit again, but the healer watches after her with an entirely satisfied smirk.
She's there to help. That's just a perfect coincidence then, because swinging past that exiting patient at a purposeful clip is someone in need of that help. June, all done up in rich green this afternoon, comes equipped with her own shoddy but still-functional basket, right now empty of all but a cloth lining the bottom. Her eyes light on the handy healer as soon as she's through the archway, lips perking into a shallow smile. "Well. If it isn't the mysterious healer with no name. Or not one that she'll give me, anyway." Her purpose will remain a mystery just now, too, for she doesn't state it up front. "Are you busy?" she asks instead.
Dulcinea's face has relief written all over it--look, here, an excuse. "Can you take the next one?" she inquires of a senior apprentice nearby, who nods and goes to attend to the patient in question, leaving the journeywoman free for June and not having to cope with the next patient, who limps after the apprentice. "Dulcinea," she says shortly. Well, that was easy. "Didn't say I wouldn't, said next time I saw you, didn't I? No, not busy at all. What do you need?"
June tilts her head, eyebrows all arch in a fleeting show of surprise. That was easy. "Pretty name," she comments before continuing on to the heart of the matter. "I need some supplies. Not a lot, but whatever you think it would be smart to keep around a place where brawls are a popular pasttime." She lifts her moderately-sized basket and gives it a slight swing. Fill 'er up.
"Didn't pick it myself," Dulcinea notes like there might be some confusion on that score, though she smiles. She regards the basket with lips pressed firmly together in a way that would be universally recognized as disapproving. "Don't know what I think of the idea of you folks trying to manage on your own. I shouldn't be... enabling that sort of thing. Do no harm. All of that." But she starts going through drawers nonetheless. "Are you folks an independent commercial enterprise? That could also be... sticky."
"No, no," June corrects with a few slow nods and a dismissive wave of her hand to boot. "Not at all. But we are a good bit away from all of this." She takes a look around as she continues, perusing the infirmary's layout while Dulcinea is rummaging. "I just want to be able to patch 'em up, if I have to. So they can at least make it to the infirmary. Well, and then there's the odd busted lip or black eye, I can handle that."
That might be enough to assuage the doubts, or maybe Dulcinea was getting ready to start handing things over anyhow. "Right. Just get them here, if there's any question. You had any first aid training? Mostly for bleeding you just want pressure, if it looks deep send 'em for stitches," she says as she piles a healthy number of clean bandages into the basket. "Or send for us if there's any question about them making it here, 'course. You know the signs of a concussion? You'll need to know that if heads are getting knocked around." Ah, she's on her subject. Nothing to shut her up, now. "Busted lips, black eyes, mostly just need ice."
"Right," June confirms easily, as far as bleeding goes, holding the basket steady as the bandages go tumbling in. She listens to the rest, then goes about reciting what she knows, willingly exposing any holes that the healer might want to fill in for her. "Busted lips and black eyes, ice and tell them to suck it up. You'd be surprised how many men need to be told that. Or maybe you wouldn't be," she adds, taking into consideration the healer's profession with a short-lived widening of her smile. "Let's see, concussions. All I know is to keep them awake if they've had a good bang to the head, make sure they sit up."
"Not surprised at all," agrees the healer with an easy smile. Theoretical talk about injuries is so much better than having to deal with the actual injured, obviously. "Check for mental awareness. If he remembers his name. The date. If you've got a glowbasket handy, light in the eyes, make sure the pupils respond. Pupils should be the same size, too." Now Dulcinea's moved on, a bottle of redwort: "Redwort as antiseptic, better to overdo it than not enough." But then it's back, perhaps confusingly, to the concussion business. "Nausea, bad sign. Actual vomiting, worse."
June mutters little tidbits here and there as Dulcinea gives her instructions, meant to be reassuring, proving that June is comprehending and taking the information to heart. The actual effect may be less than that, however. "Pupils. Right, the..." and she mimes with a finger, a circle drawn in front of her eye. The center, yes. "Antiseptic," she repeats, picking up the bottle from where it dropped into the basket so she can take a look at it herself. And, indeed, she does get confused by the quick, unannounced return to concussion talk, for she turns the bottle's label out to the healer, asking in a doubtful tone, "Too little of this, and I get vomiting?" She's never heard of anything like that before.
Sharp young woman that Dulcinea is, she catches it. "Your sisters?" She sorts through a number of variously-sized jars and finally holds up a smallish one. "They get... caught in the crossfire often, in that line of work? Would think, serving drinks to that sort, you'd learn to get out of the way pretty quick." She turns the jar around in her hands. "We looking for a possibility here or a probability? This seem like enough?"
"My sisters," June confirms cheerily, matter-of-factly, as if the two terms were in fact interchangable to her. "You learn, but that doesn't mean you can't make a mistake. It probably," and there's a faint stress on that word, "won't happen, but I would really rather be safe than sorry." The smallish jar is considered, lifted gently from the healer's hands, then considered again before June decides, "That should be plenty," and nestles it in the basket a bandage-width away from the redwort. "So how have you been since we last talked?" she continues, introducing a bit of small talk into all the business conversation with casual ease, idle interest.
"Good to hear, that," the healer says as she hands off the jar. Before responding to the idle remark, Dulcinea gives a glance around, almost like she's *looking* for a patient to have to deal with, but alas--all seem to have been attended to. "Oh. You know. Fine," she says. "Things all... good. Still dealing with them running me off some days, but I'm learning to cope with the boredom. Doing a lot of reading. Thinking of doing some research. Plenty of interesting things around here, and it'd do wonders for my promotion chances." Rearranging the numbweed jars on their shelf, now, by increasing size instead of decreasing, like it's of definite importance.
"That's good," June fulfills the obligatory small-talk response, though she does go on to add more substance to it. "Something that might be interesting. I've heard a slew of home remedies since I've been here. Some plant deep in the jungle helping headaches, ground up insect curing heartburn, that sort of thing. More than we ever had back home. It could be worthwhile to see if there's anything behind them, if they actually work." Just full of advice, this one. With her hand tapping lightly against the top of the numbweed jar, an idea occurs to her suddenly, and she asks, "We don't have any scissors down there, do the bandages tear easy?"
Nose wrinkles. "Ground up insect," echoes Dulcinea, disapprovingly. "I suppose at the very least some of that's overdue for being properly debunked. Tear? No, you will need scissors. Didn't think of that." She finally stops the rearrangement to open up one drawer, close it, and then the one next to it. "Ah, scissors." Producing a small pair. "There we go. Can you think of anything else you might find useful?"
June accepts the small pair of scissors with a little, "Thank you," and skewers a roll of bandage with them, making sure they won't budge while here eyes run over the rest of her basket's contents. "Let's see... A sling maybe? But we can just fashion a crude one from whatever leftover fabric we have, if we need one. I could use a scalpel," she suggests with a joking turn of her smile, "to warn the men off touching my sisters." There, she got the right term that time. "But I guess that, 'no harm' thing..."
"If anything looks bad enough for a sling, better idea to come get a healer," muses Dulcinea. "Could make a fracture worse if you don't know how to handle it, and I don't know that I want you trying to figure out what's just a sprain and what isn't." She taps her fingernails on the countertop thoughtfully, a smile spreading across her face. "No, no, do a lot of damage with something like that, that would definitely be harm. Besides, those things are tough to keep that sharp, eventually you'd just end up with a metal stick to poke people with and that would be far less effective."
June considers the complicated upkeep of her chosen weapon with her lips twisted gently to one side. "Effective enough," she counters in a laughing tone, her mouth smoothing into that charming little smile again. "I think that should do it, then," she comments after another survey of her haul, giving the bandage fluff a bit of a pat. "Anything that this can't handle, I'll just pass on off to you." Maybe she missed that general bit, about /any/ healer, or maybe she's just being facetious.
And maybe Dulcinea is just going to take that 'you' as a general 'you all', if just for the sake of convenience. "Very good plan. Hopefully none of it will be too necessary, although I suppose in your line of work that's likely to be a vain hope. Have to say, I prefer dealing with the drunks who throw up and pass out to having to deal with the ones who get violent with each other and everyone else." She pushes the drawer closed finally, perhaps a little harder than necessary because it slams shut. "Although I'd just as soon not deal with either, but there's a vain hope, too."
June gives the healer's preference a good moment of thought, eyes falling to that slammed drawer, before she disagrees with it. "I think I'm the opposite, actually. If they throw up and pass out, I'm stuck with them /and/ their mess. At least I can throw the angry ones out. And, like you say," she adds, letting fall a soft snort of laughter, "I'd rather there be neither, but." She leans a hip against the counter, facing the healer with her basket dangling between them. "If only they could all be cheerful drunks, all songs and clapping on the back. I'd even take a few sullen, grumpy ones, if they weren't the bashing kind."
"Well. Beggars can't be choosers, and so on, and so forth," says Dulcinea, with an and-so-on gesture of her hand. "You get to deal with all the drunks of whatever variety. I get to deal with all the sick people, drunk or otherwise." She eyes the basket again, crosses her arms, uncrosses them almost immediately. A moment of silence. "Well, so. So. You have everything you need, now, and you can go." Twitch of the limits as she *almost* says 'away', but she manages to suppress just that much.
If June catches that unspoken addition there at the end, she doesn't let it affect her smile, which is just as wide and cheerful when she pushes out of her lean again and says, "I can." She meanders a few slow steps toward the door, but she turns before Dulcinea can run away from her like last time. "Do you think you'll be able to make it to our opening? I'd love to have you stop by, even if it just for a bit. It's a way to deal with the boredom, at least." Invitation extended, June waits with a slightly arched brow for the work-bound healer's response.
Lips purse just a little bit. "I--might. Maybe." That's a commitment, right there. Dulcinea leans against the counter, no move to run away, but also kind of hard to run anwyhere in the infirmary. Full of obstacles. "Don't know that I know anyone who's going who I'm friendly with." Because being with friendly people requires occasionally not being at work, of course. "And being drunk alone is a sad and pitiful thing, even if you happen to be in a crowd at the time." Wan smile.
"We can be friendly," June counters sweetly, pulling out her largest, charmingest smile for just a beat, before a chuckle breaks it and exposes the cheesiness of what she just said. "Come," she entices again, in a franker tone that borders on ordering. "I'll even throw in a free beer for you, if you do." Free booze, who can resist?
"Well..." Drawn out, still a little reluctant. But: "All right. At least for a bit, I guess," Dulcinea finally says, although not with great enthusiasm. "Ordinarily--well. Jump at the chance, you know. Men and alcohol. But then, in the middle of trying to cut back on both for a bit. But one beer, and a free one, well." She tries, really tries to get back her usual smile, but there's still a sort of vague discomfort, an antsiness for the moment disallowed from working itself out. "Guess I can go for that."
June pauses over her smile, a hint of puzzling, or maybe some shred of sympathy, for that antsiness creeping in around her eyes. "It'll be fun," the tavern owner promises with a final nod, before turning, basket handle clenched with both hands, to walk leisurely toward the exit she entered through. "Enjoy your day at work," June adds over her shoulder, just before she leaves Dulcinea's range of hearing, a parting comment followed by a quick laugh that acknowledges the slim chance of the woman not enjoying herself there in the infirmary.
Enjoy might be a rather strong word for it, but before June's moved off even a few paces, Dulcinea's already off to attend to other things, greeting a mother and young child cheerily with, "So, what's wrong with your boy, then?" to the cringes of some of the surrounding staff.