heigh ho, heigh ho, why is three miles so far and why do my legs hurt

[zomboligist]

WHO: Ravi Chakrabarti
WHERE: Hospital
WHEN: July 22
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: n/a

---

In the rush of discovering a whole other land, Ravi's excitement may have gotten the better of him. He'd taken all of his scientific equipment and hiked his way over, going as far as the water's edge before he started to take as many samples as he could, still focusing on the water (mainly because he's curious if this water, ocean or cove or bay, has the same healing properties as the fountain or the spring). What he doesn't take into account is how far it is to get all the way out there.

By the time he gets back, the sun is starting to set, but he's sweating and he's fairly sure that he's managed to give himself an impressive neck burn from the way that the sun is reflecting off of his skin all day. Huffing and puffing, he thinks that someone should have put up signs along the way to warn him just how far that trek is.

Collapsing inside the hospital, he slams his kit on the table and collapses in a slump in front of it, groaning for water like he's a zombie. No, bad thought, that's not what he needs to think about, it just makes him miss Liv and home. He drags one of the chairs over so that he can sink into it, stripping off his scrubs shirt until he's just in a sweaty t-shirt (not hot enough that he dares go shirtless, he's not an animal).

Staring at the vials of water, he knows that he should start running tests before time or strange village magic can change anything, but he's just so tired and hot. "I hate walking," he complains aloud, already knowing that his calves are going to ache like mad tomorrow. "This science had better give me something," he continues to gripe as he forces himself to get up and start fetching the rats for their daily bout of tests.

Comments

[turned_to_steel]

Sansa comes into the room just as Ravi complains about walking. Pausing, she arches a brow at him as he continues to mutter to himself without noticing that she is there until she speaks up. She doesn't want to startle him since his mind is clearly focused somewhere else but she doesn't think she can backtrack her way out before he does see her.

"The science for what?" She asks curiously, making her voice just loud enough for him to hear her but gentle enough that she hopes it keeps him from jumping. She knows very loud voices can make her jump at times.

[zomboligist]

Ravi thinks that he can be excused for jumping a little, mainly because when you speak to yourself, he's not really anticipating anyone sneaking up on him. Then again, he should expect that, because it had happened far too much back at the Seattle Morgue, so why is here any different? Once he's sure his heart isn't planning to leap out of his chest, he turns to find Sansa at the door.

"My little lab rat friends have been helpfully proving the effects of our water," he says, gesturing to test subjects Alpha through Echo. "I fetched some water from the salt body mass in the new area, I'm about to administer the first few drops," he says. "Mainly, to find out if they have similar healing properties without slashing open my body to find out."

[turned_to_steel]

There might have been a little laugh that escaped her at his reaction but she does a good job of covering it up as she slowly moves into the room while he calms down. Stopping a couple feet away, she tilts her head as he gestures towards the rat and she can't stop herself from wrinkling her nose at the sight of the creatures but she focuses on his explanation.

"Is it okay if I watch or do you prefer to work alone?" She asks, watching his face with a curious smile.

[zomboligist]

"I hate working alone," Ravi confesses, because this is why he'd enjoyed having Liv around so much at the morgue. That he then sort of got Clive and Major out of the deal helped even more, seeing as working alone generally made him talk out loud to people who weren't there, which made him look more than a little mad.

"Come, sit, watch the science," Ravi says, gesturing to the table in front of him. "One of them will be a control," he explains, "and then two will receive varying levels of the water via oral ingestion. The other two will be injected."

[turned_to_steel]

"Okay." Sansa offers him a warm smile as he invites her to watch him while he does his work. Moving forward, she turns her attention to the table as he explains what he will be doing. It seems simple enough and yet not.

"Why is one of them in control?" She asks, looking back at Ravi again. "Are you trying to figure out if the water works both ways?"

[zomboligist]

"I need to make sure that one of them is normal, to compare the rest to," he says. "I hope you're not too squeamish," he admits, as he digs out a small scalpel from one of his kits, since he's going to have to do this part and some people might not want to see it. Truthfully, sometimes Ravi doesn't want to see it.

"In order to test their healing factor, they need to be injured," he says, "in a uniform, stable way."

[turned_to_steel]

"Oh." Sansa hums, looking at the rats when he explains what a control is. Then she looks at him again, shaking her head. She has seen too much to really be squeamish anymore. Or at least, she didn't think he was going to do anything too horrible for her to get upset about. "I'm not, I'll be fine. If I need to, I will just look away."

Realizing his intent, she is torn between stepping away or staying where she is. Drawing in a little bit of a breath through her noses, she asks. "Do you need any help?"

She doesn't sound too keen on the idea but she makes the offer.

[zomboligist]

"It's not like the rats are very easy to be subdued and I don't want to drug them for fear of tainting the results. Maybe you can press down on the cages a little," he suggests, gesturing to the wire. "I think that might do the trick in case they start wriggling about." He works towards subject B, his little Beta, and opens it in order to slide his fingers in with the scalpel.

Before he does, though, he leans back to make a note in his book about the type and length of the wound he's making. "It's not as if the mass of water will help," he admits. "It's a bit too far to really do that, but still, it's good to know this sort of thing."

[turned_to_steel]

Sansa barely refrains from wrinkling her nose when he tells her to touch the cage but she shifts closer to do as he asks, pressing her hands gently atop the cage he is at. Turning her head, she looks over her shoulder and away from what he is doing when he starts making the wounds.

"So if you find that it works and how well it does, are you going to try finding a way to store some?" She asks curiously, wetting her lips.

[the_scandal_of_italy]

She had been volunteering her time at the clinic, bringing the plants and herbs she collected to help prepare various remedies to help combat infection and illness. While she had seen Ravi in passing, she had yet to actually speak to him. He was dedicated to his work, as far as she could tell. Yet, perhaps for the first time, she witnessed him in a poor mood, complaining to the vials of water.

Lucrezia set aside her work, pouring him a glass of water to drink and placed it at his side. "What science?" He was studious and clever, in a way she had seen with other healers, but it seemed his time was more advanced. She wanted to learn and understand in the same way he did. "What have you been working on?"

[zomboligist]

It's just a fact that Ravi is beginning to learn that in general, the women of this village are the sort of beautiful that would have models weeping. Ravi's seen this one around, but hasn't really mustered up the will to speak to her, which is mad, because he's got a sort-of-girlfriend, so it's not like he has to impress her.

He also just doesn't want to end up looking like a fool. That tends to happen often when he doesn't spend the time thinking about what he intends to say. "It's mainly trying to establish whether the salt-water source on the other side is a healing source of water, too," he says. "The way the fountain is when we arrive or the springs on an ongoing basis. The science behind it makes no sense, but I should at least be able to establish a baseline."

[the_scandal_of_italy]

It was fascinating to watch him in the clinic. While much of the treatments and medicine he knew were unfamiliar and strange to her, she found that she learned more through observation. She had become more educated and exposed to ideas that she wouldn't have considered before. Even washing her hands before treating patients seemed revolutionary.

She leaned closer to get a better look at the vials. What he described sounded similar to the fountain of youth. She couldn't say that it was science that was running this world, but magic instead. Still, she suspected that he would find an answer soon. "Have you tested this on humans or animals yet?"

[zomboligist]

"These little friends of mine are my water test subjects," Ravi says, stepping aside to give her a clearer view of the lab rats he'd received. One is still in the wild somewhere, though he sincerely doubts that it's still alive, given that the ecosystem here means that something else has probably already eaten it, truth be told.

"I'd like to avoid experimenting on humans, truthfully, mainly for the injury component of this," he says. "It's the same as I did back home. Until I'm really sure of myself, it's animal subjects all the way. Are you interested in the science of this place, too?"

[the_scandal_of_italy]

She knelt to get a better look at the rats, flinching back as they came too close. Rats were such unclean creatures, and while she didn't fear them as other women did, she didn't like being too close to them. "Has there been any change in them? How have you tested the water with them?"

While she didn't know the exact measures of the scientific process, his line of thinking was understandable enough for her to follow. "There is much I wish to learn and understand. I have been compiling a list of the plants, but I didn't think about the water."

[zomboligist]

"I'm mainly testing the healing factor of certain waters," he admits. "The fountain when people arrive here, the springs," he says, now wiggling the little bottle he's got with him of the salt-laden water from the other side. "It's time to find out whether our salty liquid friend here is going to do the same."

"Which means that the rats have to get a bit hurt," he admits, seeing as it's hardly a promising or fun venture, but it's science and it's in pursuit of something helpful. "I mean, I haven't got nearly enough machinery around to actually make any true deductions, but I can try."

[the_scandal_of_italy]

She nods, managing to follow his explanation. Her eyes trailed over to the rats, inwardly cringing at the sight of them. "How badly must they be hurt? Is there anything else you need to prepare before the experiment?"

There was an herb garden she was planting behind her home, but if the waters had a healing factor, then it would render it irrelevant. "Why do you need machines to help you?"

[zomboligist]

"Truthfully, not much at all," he says, which is the good part because even he's not sure he could deal with flailing little rats trying desperately to live. "I'm going to make equal cuts, approximately an inch long on each of them," he explains, gesturing to each of them. "Then, I measure how fast they heal when equal amounts of water are used," he shares.

"If I had my equipment, I could at least analyze the water on a molecular level," he says. "Maybe even isolate and replicate the healing parts. Instead, I've just got...water," he says, with a wrinkle of his nose.

[3ofswords]

"Don't you ever feel weird doing that," Kira asks, entering some time after Ravi has dragged himself to work. Having finally checked off, assisted, and resettled everyone in the aftershocks of the quake, he's been helping to put back necessary supplies, redirect the tarps and blankets used to cover the fields from the sun, and tentatively making the brick house a row or two behind the inn look lived-in enough that he trusts it to be there when he and Veronica find the time.

He hasn't seen her yet today, but he's been too busy to overthink it. She's busy, he's busy, they'll sort their shit later.

"Like someone's watching you watch the rats," he elaborates, swinging his pack onto a relatively empty table. He thinks it's the last of the first aid packs, one or two left in the store rooms for emergencies, and his own still tucked up at the house in what he hopes is an acceptable amount of selfish preparation. This one isn't quite full of its old materials, but he's filled a few jars with spring water to make up the difference. Hoshi passes deftly from one shoulder to the other, perching at the very edge and watching Ravi and his rats intently as Kira unpacks the jars.

[zomboligist]

"What, talking to myself? You know, research has proven that people who speak out loud to themselves generally have higher rates of intelligence," he says, which is probably a study he read once upon a time, somewhere, but he hasn't exactly spent much time actually thinking about it because he'd taken it at face value and run with it.

He starts to move one of the rats (Charlie, in fact) and gets her towards the little row of mini-cages he's wrought, glancing at Kira suspiciously. "And here I thought maybe you'd bring me a snack, toast and jam, maybe," he laments, when it appears it's just more supplies, reaching for one of the feeders he's constructed to load it up with the salt water.

[3ofswords]

"I'd rather be stupid than embarrassing," Kira replies, like he doesn't have a dog and crow at his disposal to have one-sided conversations with in the long hours of canyon days. He hasn't progressed to speaking aloud their side of said conversations, so he thinks he's still above-board. When he imagines Ravi talking to the rats, he can see the man making up specific voices for their replies. "Also, you've admitted to playing Call of Duty, so it definitely cancels out."

Hoshi hobbles, almost slips, and backtracks with a flip of his wings to secure a grip on Kira's shoulder, and he takes the time to fish out Ren's crystal necklace and set it on the table with the supplies. Jewelry distracts the bird from almost anything, and whatever Ravi does with the rats, Kira doesn't think the interest of a crow will help.

"What I was asking was, don't you feel odd running tests, when that's probably what they're doing to us every day?"

[zomboligist]

"Which is why you're not having conversations with empty air about rats and water," which is fair enough, seeing as it's not like anyone is probably going to be commending Ravi for his intelligence in doing such things, seeing as he's mostly just rambling out loud to keep himself company. "I miss Call of Duty so badly," Ravi complains, "There's no better way to spend a day than talking about someone being rubbish over the internet," he sighs, as if this is the sort of thing that genuinely makes him forlorn, these days.

"I see the irony," Ravi allows, but at the same time, what's he supposed to do? Not run the tests? That would let them win, or whatever strange and weird analogy that he's making in his head. "Who knows, maybe the rats are also running their own tests, making this the weirdest round of science-Inception you've ever seen."

[3ofswords]

"Has that reference not gotten old in your timeline yet," he asks, guiding Hoshi down with one hand to let him pop the crystal around the table to his heart's content. At some point the crow will steal it, and there will be a wonderful game of ignoring him until he offers it up like a personalized gift. Definitely the sort of thing Ren left it to him for.

Thinking about Ren, and how little he's done to organize or escape this place, he feels the sort of pang that sits at odds with heckling Ravi about his rats. Productivity is important, and if it takes talking to rats to do it, who is he to stand in the way?

Instead, Kira turns to lean his hip into the table, crosses his arms, and heckles Ravi about his relationship instead. "Don't you have a cougar slash girlfriend slash something," he asks, "that's automatically something better to spend a day on than Xbox Live."

[zomboligist]

"I was living in an exam hall when it came out and didn't see it until two years later, so much more made sense," Ravi says, eyeing the crystal with one barely-attentive eye, not entirely sure what it is or what it does, but curious enough about it that he's attentive and careful to watch it. "I have a somewhat-girlfriend that's grown out of a friends with benefits situation that I'm trying desperately not to screw up, but you can have a relationship and miss internet games," he informs Kira.

"I managed it back home as well, though it did help that my last girlfriend had been overly ambitious, which often left me a lot of free time," he confesses. "Not that it's a bad thing, of course, that. Many men tried with Peyton and failed, I just got to be the most recent one," he says, faux-cheerfully.

[3ofswords]

"Ravi," he admits, waiting out the waves of protestation, "until it directly involves me, I only care about your romantic relationships inasmuch as I can give you shit for them." His posture is a kind of loose and his eyebrow a kind of arched that says, yes, this is one of those times I hit on you for fun, but he's as distracted by his curious bird as his bird is by anything that reflects light, and he's soon breaking eye contact to deal with him.

One finger curled around the chain, he trails the crystal against the table, leading Hoshi away from its edge. He's never seen the bird fly in any effective way, and he's starting to doubt he ever will--either from the old injury or lack of feathered caretakers.

"That said," he allows, not looking up, "how is Helen, after everything?"

[zomboligist]

"You're the one who brought it up, you're the one who suffers as a consequence," Ravi informs him cheerfully with a smug glint in his eye, because making people suffer by being able to rave about how happy he is, honestly, is a personal delight and practically a hobby for him.

He's busy with the rats for a long moment, careful to not mix them up as he works to keep them separate, scribbling down notes about which one is going to serve which purpose. "She's well," he says with a firm nod of his head. "Honestly, better than I'd have imagined. It's not like I have much luck being good at this."

He glances up and gestures to the crystal, because clearly it's important. "Are you going to scry, now?" he asks, a touch sarcastically.