Scene #9596: Small and Loved

Owner	Pose
Rita Ma	Rita, it seems like, wasn't quite expecting to have Lissandra take her up on the spot. It's a pleasant surprise, though! She's still wearing an old faded skirt and dusty-ish shirt with an apron over them, like she was doing some gardening work just prior, and a small woven hat. Her dainty hairstyle, neat nails, and not-too-tanned complexion make her seem a bit like an upper-class young lady who's temporarily descended to manual labor, though. In her arms is an odd plastic contraption: it's a bowling-ball-sized travel terrarium for a mouse, but designed as a sphere within a sphere, like those 'gyroscopic' no-spill travel cups. In theory it'd keep the mouse within from being jostled as she walked, but she's making it redundant by cradling it to her chest with both arms anyway, so it hardly rocks at all. Inside there's sawdust, and a little grass, and a tiny sippy water-bottle, and four whole apple slices. "Yes, um, hi, it's Rita?" she says to 'the desk' on arrival to the given coordinates coordinates- walking briskly, to balance the mouse's comfort against Lissandra's time- -"and, um, the patient is... 'Little Bota'. Two words." In case they need it for official documentation, or that nebulous concept called 'insurance', or something. It's not as if Rita knows how doctors usually do things.
Lissandra	When Rita reaches the address, she finds herself walking into an emergency surgical clinic for people, not for animals. Contrary to what one might expect at an emergency clinic working from just about any version of Earth's idea of healthcare, it's... Actually quite peaceful right now. There are a few people waiting in the lobby, presumably relatives or friends of people undergoing care upstairs, and three different people behind the elongated front desk, taking turns handling paperwork and reception. A younger man, an intern perhaps, with sawdust-blonde hair takes notice of Rita and awkwardly begins to work his way up to a polite request of some sort, but he stops and double-blinks when Rita gives her name. He glances down at Little Bota in his special plastic orb, back up at her face, and very quietly laughs to himself. "Okay, understood. Please head to..." He stops to check something on the computer behind the desk. "Exam room 6. That's umm, through that door, past the stairs, third door on the right." He writes something brief on the computer, and Rita is free to stroll off into the back where the room she's looking for has the door waiting wide-open for her. Lissandra is waiting inside, wearing the typical sort of white labcoat over the top of a black one-piece dress, her hair tied up into a bun. Rita probably also catches her stopping herself after passing time by swivelling back and forth on a little stool, but Lissandra pretends otherwise as she hops up to her feet. There's a little device spinning on the countertop, a blood agitator for some kind of testing, but the vials are well sealed. "There you are! I hope it wasn't troublesome to get here." she starts pleasantly, making a wide gesture with her arm across the center-space of the mostly quite standard exam room, with the adjustable seat in the center with a soft green towel (instead of a disposable paper sheet) over the top of it, the counters and cupboards around the walls, the slanted shelves hanging from the door that hold various pamphlets and booklets. "Go ahead and take a seat if you'd like, and tell me a little about your poor friend here. We can start gentle, let him get used to his surroundings, before I start bothering him, hmm?" That said, she lets Rita get comfortable before leaning in a little to get a closer look at poor Little Bota through the plastic terrarium, looking at his apple slices for an immediate read of his appetite.
Rita Ma	"Right, thank you." Rita smiles as the receptionist laughs, but her cheeks turn a tiny bit pink. What's worth laughing over?? This is serious!! . . . Light travels faster than smell does, of course. Rita's eyes lock to the blood agitator for half a second, until she realizes that she can't smell the awful-delicious stuff she expected; then her gaze jumps up to Lissandra, and finally she parts a hand from the little terrarium to wave! "No, ah, of course not! It's more convenient than I thought. I guess I had the idea that you worked out of a cottage in the woods, or something. I didn't know it would be all..." What? 'Modern'? You can't say that, Rita! People from magic-y worlds think of their present day as 'modern' too. Blinking, she looks around for a better word; glances down at the shiny linoleum-like flooring; and squeaks her shoe across it. "... all squeaky?" Ahem. She sits where she's supposed to, shoes knocking anxiously against the patient-chair's base, and settles the sphere-terrarium into her lap while nodding. Her arms are crossed around it, making her hunch forwards. "This is... ah... Little Bota." Embarrassment increases by five percent. "I've had him for I guess a couple of years," she says carelessly, "and he's had some health issues I guess in the last year or so, but he always, um, responded well to treatment." Hm. "Like I said before, I don't think there's anything wrong with him, but he's still... tired, all of the time. He used to love playing in the grass- there's a little place where the seagulls don't go, so it's safe for him- but now he naps a lot more..." 'Little Bota' was probably light brown once, but he's graying now, curled up on his side like a restful baby potato. He hasn't touched the tiny dish of cooked rice in his terrarium, and one of the apple slices just has a couple nibbles out of its edge. His eyes rest nearly-shut; they open just a little and he lifts his head when Lissandra approaches. Rita takes a second to unscrew the gyro-sphere's double lid, and his ear twitches as the sounds from outside get a little less muffled. "It's okay. She's nice," Rita says softly, evidently to the mouse.
Lissandra	Lissandra isn't familiar enough to recognize anything offhand about Rita's gaze, and she's more focused on the 'patient' anyway, but she can still make conversation without watching Rita closely. "Oh! Well, yes, I did. I still have the old place, but I volunteer at places like this, too. Sometimes I help with medical relief for the Paladins, but other times... Well, plenty of people are willing to share their medical information under the appropriate privacy conditions, if it means affordable treatment. It's one way of getting useful research data." She shrugs a bit, and her lips turn slightly upward as she scuffs her shoe on the floor, making a quiet squeak after Rita observes on it... Though she did actually have to try. "It's easier to clean. Wood floors need more maintenance too, though I agree it's a bit garish." But, Rita's talking about her mouse now, and Lissandra politely folds her hands in her lap- crosses her wrists more like, since she doesn't like touching her hands together?- to listen. "Oh dear, he really is quite old then." she bluntly observes, her attention briefly sliding up from Bota to Rita before returning with a thoughtful hum. "... You've treated him at home then? I haven't heard you speak up regarding magic use, so I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest idea what that might mean initially. I would assume you've fiddled his diet around a bit, but... Any medication?" The idea of feeding over the counter pills to a mouse seems to worry her, but it doesn't seem likely enough to preemptively give Rita any scold-voice, it just leaves her a little uncertain. Rita takes the lid off the ball, and Lissandra leans in a little more without covering the entire opening with her face; don't want to inspire any worries about having no escape, or about her sticking her head inside the ball like some kind of gopher-dog. One of her hands turns over as she considers reaching in to handle him, but she decides to hold off on that a little longer; instead, she touches a spot low on her throat with her fingertips. A very faint green glow reveals what looks like a thin, floral-themed tattoo around the base of her neck, just above the collarbone. From there, she's talking to Little Bota, and although Rita can still understand her words they might resonate a little strangely with her. "Hello sweetheart. You seem veeery sleepy. How are you feeling? Do your legs hurt? Or your eyes?" The magic both helps arrange an animal's emotions and needs into communicable information and makes it understandable to Lissandra, so it's probably a little unusual of a feeling for the little mouse; it's a little like the mental equivalent of having someone come and clean up your filing cabinet, and put labels on everything so you know where it all is.
Rita Ma	Rita's mouth scrunches at the words 'affordable treatment'. Her displeasure isn't directed at Lissandra, of course, but... "It's very nice of you to volunteer," she says, rather than get Political(tm). "Oh, I know a little about first aid, but mostly it's..." Rita trails off, then holds up her hands demonstratively. She scrapes the back of her left hand with her right index fingernail, leaving it skin-scratched and red; then she radiates a soft white glow up her right arm, to the palm, and suffuses that over the scratch; it goes through the motions of healing in a couple of seconds. It looks a lot like some kind of primitive low-sophistication magic, to the naked eye, but it's just... not magical energy, exactly. "Whenever he hasn't seemed like himself, I've just used 'that', and it got him better again," she says, a little self-consciously scrunched that that might get her judged as a Bad Pet Owner. "If there was something that didn't solve, of course I'd take him to see someone, but... so far it's always worked. I know he's graying, but he isn't that old, is he?" Rita distracts herself from her embarrassment by letting her eyes roam from Lissandra's face- no, not to the blood spinner, bad Rita. First they settle on Lissandra's hands and how they refuse to touch each other- "um, did you hurt your hands lately, Dr. Lissandra? I can come back another day..."- and then, later on, on the glowy tattoo on her neck, with an obvious unspoken question. Little Bota's the more important focus, though. He pushes himself half-upright from his side-curl with his little forefeet, tipping his head up at Lissandra and sniffing; clumsily waddles towards the Rita-facing side of the terrarium; and then perk-startles up onto hindlegs a little when Lissandra speaks and the magic settles in. Thoughts come out, a little disjointed and drowsy, but still clear. "... This feels scary. It's not going to hurt me?" "I don't know you...? Does the girl know you?" "Today is about the same as yesterday." "My legs hurt a little. Everything does. It has for a while." "I thought we were going to the beach, with the flowers. It's colder here." He squirmy-curls up after a moment to try to get warmer, and then seems to realize that if he can talk to someone, he might as well complain rather than just ask questions. "The apples don't taste as good anymore." "Nothing does." "I want to be warm, and I want the good apples again."
Lissandra	Lissandra catches the first mouth-scrunch, and makes a similar scrunch back. The solemn 'yeah...' is implicit, but she doesn't want to get tangled up in the weeds just now either. Instead she makes a slight frowny eyebrow-squimsh type of look when Rita demonstrates her own healing, but relaxes it after observing the process, pausing in silence a moment or two to consider. "Well, that does explain a little. Energetic healing, that is to say non-invasive healing, does better the quality of life of those who are aging or ailing, but..." Another pause, as she seems to try to be delicate. "When it comes to the chronic symptoms of advanced age, or more severe problems, it often can only be a temporary fix. Magical or not, it seems as if you apply similar principles. I appreciate the demonstration. He is, I'm afraid, getting relatively old. Two years is the common terminal age of this sort of mouse... Three with very high quality care. If he has been experiencing symptoms for around a year now, then... Well, you've kept him far more comfortable than the norm, at any rate." Her voice is stiff, level, a little tense but thoughtful. As for her hands, Lissandra only just realizes what Rita is talking about after looking down at herself. "Mm? Oh, nothing to worry about. It's just a bit of a habit. I used to have trouble keeping my hands clean, so inbetween washes I often end up trying not to touch them together, or touch my clothes, hair... At least not with the inner-side." She demonstratively adjusts the sleeve of her coat with the back of her thumb's base knuckle, and then makes a 'see?' kind of gesture. When Rita's attention slides to the magic tattoo, she just smiles. "A gift from another Witch." But, Little Bota has most of her attention once he's comfortable enough to start responding, and her voice softens even more afterward. "It won't hurt even a little bit, sweetheart. And I'm just getting to know 'the girl' today, but she's very nice, isn't she? I'm sorry it's a little cold in here." She nods along with the complaints, her eyelids drooping a little as her toothless smile becomes just a tiny bit sadder. "I'm sorry. She wants your apples to be better too; here, let me make them a little sweeter for you." She reaches her hand in through the aperture, going slow with her fingers drawn in so that her hand doesn't seem quite as big in the restrictive space, and gently touches the apple slices with her knuckles. She's not casting a spell on the apples though; Little Bota has his sense of smell and taste very slightly recalibrated, so that the apples seem more appetizing again when Lissandra takes her hand back. "There you go. Eat as much as you want, and I'll help teach her how to make them sweeter again too, okay?" She then, mindfully, touches the glowing mark on her neck again, like she's holding her hand over a microphone to aside something to Rita. "... He is a bit cold. Maybe he'd like to be held while he eats, if his appetite returns?" is where she starts, taking a breath through her nose and sighing softly. It's always a little hard to open oneself up to being affected by the inevitable sadnesses of even the smallest creatures. "He... Likely can live a little longer, the way you've been going. But over time, your treatment will only work for shorter and shorter periods of time. I can do something to help his appetite, which will help him keep his strength up for longer, and I can show you how to make a medicine to help with the arthritis symptoms. Even if I did surgery, going through that recovery might be very hard on him.... You'll have to make a choice soon, Rita. You understand, right?"
Rita Ma	"Oh! I see. That's really smart. I guess it would've been hard to..." Rita makes a gesture at her wrist, like snapping on latex gloves, inadvertently betraying that she's used to Pervert Doctors. "... um, get gloves, I mean." She nods slowly, about energetic healing; it's a relief that Lissandra understands. But the words 'common terminal age' do slightly tense her up. Her eyes drop to the terrarium in her lap again, looking at Little Bota's gray hairs with a new unease. "I'd read some people saying that," she says, slow-sadly. "But, sometimes mice make it to four or five, or..." Not wrong, but as rare as a human living to be 120. This much, two and a half years old, is already like 70 or 80. She's let herself be too optimistic. Rita's mouth scrunches again, and then with effort, presses from a frown into a straight line. It's as if she thinks she has to be brave for her mouse. She nods, without trusting herself to say words for a moment. "... Yes. She's gentle and warm." "She smells scary, but I like her." "When I'm having a bad day, she makes it hurt less." "... Once she put me in her mouth while she was asleep, but I think she didn't mean to." "Are you fixing the apples?" "... Oh. They smell nice, now..." Rita slips her hand down into the terrarium, pinches a slice of apple between two fingers, and then offers her palm for Little Bota to climb onto. He does, while she smiles queasily down at him. "So he can... understand it, if you tell him things? I guess it's silly to ask you to tell him I love him. I'm sure he knows already. But..." She lifts him up out of the terrarium as he settles forward, nibbling at the apple slice with a little more vigor as she strokes over his head and body with her thumb. "Thank you..." "I'd really like to have the fixed apples all the time. "Does she know I like being held? She should do it more." "You'll have to make a choice soon, Rita. You understand, right?" She is doing her best to understand. Rita is used to bereavement. But in her mind it weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds more than this. It looks like a mess of blood on the floor. It sounds like screaming, unthinkable and sudden, a cold jolt dividing her life cleanly into 'before' and 'after'. This, a small fragile graying animal and a long journey towards parting, isn't the shape of loss as she knows it. She nods, with her lips slightly parted and eyes slightly scrunched. "I... think so. Um. I'd like to know about the medicine."
Lissandra	Lissandra seems to effortfully make a wistful sigh, as if to dispel some of her tension while remarking, "Disposable gloves, wonderful things... Though it's a little tough to keep them intact sometimes. I still find myself sanitizing as much as possible, just in case. And they aren't very friendly to my nails, if I let them grow out..." She might not have pointy claws, and she seems to keep her nails quite neat and blunt, but gloves only stretch so much. Fortunately for Rita, Lissandra is ethically obligated to control most common symptoms of being a Pervert Doctor; twenty years ago she might've been asking for a bit of hair by the end of this checkup, after seeing that healing power. She tunes back in to what Little Bota is saying, gently nodding along through what he shares, and seemingly trying to lighten the mood a little by making a very gently scandalized expression and covering her mouth with her fingertips while glancing over at Rita, when The Incident comes up. Maybe making it seem like a playful little secret is better for Rita's own stress than outright questioning her about it..? "I'm glad you like them li'l Bota." She obviously just contracts it to "li'l" because it sounds more petlike to her. "It sounds like you've had a very good time staying with her." She looks over at Rita again, hears her trying to self-doubt out of asking what she wants to, and immediately turns back to the mouse. "She loves you very much, you know? You're a very charming boy." Then, straight back to Rita, she ruthlessly cuts right through what she's guessing is another kind of doubt and simply announces, "He likes it when you hold him. You should do it more. For a little fellow like him... You are essentially his entire world. You are his idea of what love and trust are. That's very special, isn't it?" She has to take another breath to clear some tension, her nose wiggling a little as she tries not to sniffle a bit. It's just too hard to be a stone-faced hardass about these things. "Iiiin any case..." she says, slowly turning to avoid spooking 'Li'l' Bota, "I will write it all down for you, don't you worry. So, to start with, you need one of these three plants; you can buy these two dried, if you go to a respectable apothecary in a more... Pre-capitalist place. The third, I've seen live in the floral department of a superstore now and then. If you use this one, you need to mix it with-" . . . She's going to be explaining for a little while, but in the end it seems like it really is something Rita can make at home with just a grinder, some household substances, some food-safe oil and time. Since Bota's so small, one batch will last... As long as it needs to, probably. After that, Lissandra just has Rita waiting for half an hour or so while she mixes up a mild and mouse-safe sweetener for his meals, and she hands it over in a small brown jar with a tiny paintbrush (for coating the apple slices lightly) and the folded up two-page front-and-back instructions for making the medicine. That, and an awkward little smile, in hopes that Rita won't feel quite so glum about it all.
Rita Ma	"Wh-- what?? What?!" Rita protests, wilting under the scandalized glance. "What did you tell her about, Bota??" The mouse, of course, can't possibly help her... he just keeps contentedly munching on apple, feet tucked up under himself. Despite her embarrassment, Rita keeps him steady and keeps thumb-petting. "... Yes. I've been happy," he says. "I don't remember much before she came to live with me." "I was somewhere with too many other mice, and scary animals." "It was bright... and cold... and..." "... but I've been happy." Rita startles up, from her little post-embarrassment slouch- oh, no, Lissandra's too good at toying with her feelings- and fails to find any objection, though she wants to, to the 'she loves you very much'. "I-- ah... thank you..." "I know," he says, in the matter-of-fact way given to animals. "... I didn't know I'm charming." "That's nice." He lifts his little head from the apple slices, and turns halfway around, and wedges his face against the base of her thumb to sort of nestle in. Rita's cheeks tense up like she's doing her best not to cry; she cups her other hand around him for extra extra warmth, and holds him right near her chest. "He likes it when you hold him. You should do it more..." "You are his idea of what love and trust are. That's very special, isn't it?" There really is a little moisture beading at the corners of her eyes now. Rita nod-nods hastily, as emphatically as she can without shaking Little Bota, and presses her slightly-wet cheek down against little visible sliver of the top of his head. "Ah. Um. Tha--ank you, Ms. Lissandra. Can I... is that something I can grow, at home? Do you know the soil I'd need for...?" she prods gently, about the herbal ingredients. It seems like she's got a bit of a green thumb. The idea that she might only ever need one batch, for a mouse-sized patient, is a sense of finality she's still not eager to absorb. As the visit winds down and she slides off the patient-seat, she's got two remaining questions: "You said the talking-to-animals thing... is a gift from another 'witch', right? It's not something you can teach...?" And: "Is there anything I can do for you, Mi-- um, Dr. Lissandra? I know you don't want to be paid, but, I'd still feel strange not asking. I like feeling like I'm being a help... I guess you don't need that explained."
Lissandra	"Oh, just reminiscing. You must have some eccentric sleeping habits..." is all Lissandra gives away; it's too rare of a treat to get to mess with someone so... Reactive yet polite? She'd almost feel bad for the teasing if she were planning on being paid. The way Lissandra shifts from sympathetic-silent listening to Bota, into having her shoulders scrunched in to where she can perch her chin on the back of her hand, kind of makes her smile look especially smug. Squished in from the sides, but with the corners of her mouth turned up quite steeply. It stings, getting an idea of where the little mouse came from, but... Juxtaposed against the sight of Rita holding him so close and doting on him, and the life he's gotten instead... Well, there's such a thing as too much candy. She has to shrug off the brief overjoy just like she did the previous tension, exhaling conclusively. Even if she knows planting the herbs would be redundant... It's not unusual to want to feel like you're doing something to help, when you're grieving. It's not that different from how Lissandra might do so. "Of course. If you know what to look for, I can write down the soil composition for you, or I can get you a couple of planters from home and have you pick them up." When Rita brings up returning the favor, though, Lissandra's expression seems to slide from guilty reluctance into an effortfully aloof, almost snooty look. "I... Hmm. Admittedly, I just got a bit carried away and forgot to discuss fees," she lies because admitting that she just wanted to learn about Rita from her pet and see a cute critter on her lunch break would be embarrassing, "But, I suppose..." She trails off. "Hmm." She stalls, and crosses her legs absentmindedly. "... Scarf and Munch could probably use a more reliable petsitter than whatever stray boy I can catch by the scruff."
Rita Ma	"You must have some eccentric sleeping habits..." Oh, no. Rita must be acutely embarrassed about that even after all this time, because she seems to immediately know what Lissandra is talking about, scrunching up her shoulders and turning red. "I-- it was one time! I was sorry!" she says, starting off almost loud, and then quieting herself because Little Bota is right by her chest. "You know I was sorry! Come on...!" she whines down at the mouse in her hands. She's still doing her best not to glance at the Blood Tube Carousel over on the desk (it's sloshing, indecently. Does Lissandra know her little machine is sloshing? Is this another one of those things only Rita can hear?), and so she keeps her eyes on Little Bota for a while longer as she shifts the terrarium to the crook of her elbow and makes ready to go. But... "Oh! Those are your ferrets? I... keep a kind of busy schedule, but..." Rita's mouth wobbles upwards, for once. Someone this nice must have such cute, spoiled pets. "Any time I'm free, you can give me a call for it, okay?"