[video] SNAKES ON A M_F_in' SHIP

[snake_dreamer]

[The camera pans wildly, showing the interior of the ship, and an open pod.  Snake's not used to video technology like this. Oh, Center had its call screen but nothing this small and compact. 

[That she'd seen of course. But obviously she's in Center. Somehow.  Center, at last, when she least needed them.]

[But she wouldn't break her silence just for nothing.  She's awoken from her pod, crawled out and found what looks to be a battered leather case, with several large--empty--compartments, and another compartment crowded with boxes, pouches and vials.]. 

Where are my snakes? 

[She sounds halfway between angry and frightened. ]

Comments

[snake_dreamer]

That's most of how we heal. With a proper lab I can do more.

[But she hasn't seen one since the Station.]

These are all the tools we have, in my world. I've performed surgery but only as a last resort.

[The Mayor was almost at that last resort, the wound in his leg foul with gangrene.]

[akito]

So you are more like the kind of doctors I know!
Except that you have snakes.
:)

[snake_dreamer]

Is that different from the healers they have here?

[She's made it to the mouth of the ship by now, squinting into the daylight.]

[akito]

I don't know!
I have been here just over a day.
There are lots of different kinds of peoples and non-humans here
So people who heal with magic would not surprise me!

[snake_dreamer]

[He seems very settled for someone who's been here a day.]

I am learning that.

[Another laugh.] To me, one who speaks with the winds does magic. This is merely science.

[akito]

Some people say that magic is just what science hasn't explained yet.
If science could explain my existence
It would be really neat to know!!

[snake_dreamer]

I would understand that. People thought my tigerpony was magic, when it was just a simple genomic modification.

Has anyone studied you?

[akito]

[ his reply takes a bit longer than usual to come. ]

No.

[snake_dreamer]

Do you want to be? If I had a lab, and some...samples--do you have a body?

[Why is that a question she'd never thought she'd ask?]

[akito]

I have a body.
I don't like the thought

[ he stops responding for a few minutes to gather his nerves back up. ]

Doctors and scientists make me uncomfortable
Or at least the thought of them doing anything to me does.

[snake_dreamer]

...I would never do anything to you that you didn't want. I am a healer, it goes against everything I believe in.

[She knows it's a lot to ask a stranger to trust, but there's something about this wind spirit that reminds her of Melissa: the shyness, perhaps, something her snakes can't make a medicine for, but maybe friendship could.]

[akito]

Maybe someday
If it would help other spirits
Then maybe someday I would think about it
Maybe