[SRP] Medical Surfeit (Thuraya Airëmirë + Esmerelda)

[elfstar89]

This is a solo RP between my Soq Thuraya Airëmirë and Esmerelda. Please do not post. Thuraya posts in Pale Cornflower Blue*, Esmerelda posts in Lime.


Summer reigned in the Kawani. Summer flowers bloomed, summer fruits hung heavy on the branch, the sun shone bright and hot, and the periodic summer thundershower didn't always cut the heat. Esme sighed in quiet irritation. Much as it was nice to see everything green and healthy, it was too hot.

And the nights hadn't been much better.

Not for the first time, Esme wished to herself she knew of a sleep aid. In the midst of the current heat wave, the Wind mare had remembered the strange flower she and the flutter mare, Thuraya, had seen that spring. A couple months had gone by, and it seemed a good time to go take a look at the plant.

So she'd made her way here. Esme smiled in fascination, taking mental notes. A few white flowers still bloomed. But now pale pink berries shaped like blueberries hung from the stems. Oddly pale against the bright emerald foliage. Interesting. She stepped forward to take a sniff, so she'd remember the smell of the flowers and berries, too, and in case there was any scent to the leaves. She'd forgotten to do so before, so it seemed a good idea to do so now.

She closed her green eyes to concentrate, and inhaled each part in turn. No particular scent to the leaves. The berries smelled both tart and sweet, probably easy to eat too many in one go. The flowers had a faint scent not dissimilar to roses, but fruitier. Esme opened her eyes, blinking. So much about this strange plant seemed designed to be appealing, but that didn't necessarily make it safe to play with. Which was what she was going to have to do if she wanted to learn--

She heard a rustle in the bushes, and turned to see what caused it.

"Thuraya? Is that you?" she asked curiously, making her way up slowly and carefully toward the Flutter hybrid, who appeared to be woozy and shrunken on a fern not far away. What had happened?


Thuraya had been enjoying the summer rather more than Esme had, but Thuraya could always shrink down in size and go skipping across the surface of most bodies of water that didn't have much wave action, and she'd be fine. But the glare on the surface of the water had still not been kind when the sun hit it at certain times of day.

Not really knowing what else to do, and not really knowing much about this sort of thing, she'd wandered back to the strange plant, idly wondering how it was doing, and halfway considering trying any of the local berries.

That the strange plant had borne fruit had been a bit of a surprise, but the Flutter mix had to admit to herself that she didn't know much about this sort of thing. That the berries would taste amazing had been a pleasant discovery. Better still was that her headache from the glare on the water had gone away. So she'd kept coming back every time she got a headache. And sometimes she didn't just stop at one berry.

In hindsight, that had probably been a mistake. And now her stomach was hurting, and she felt nauseous.

So she'd wobbled over to a patch of ferns and collapsed in the ferns. At which point she heard Esme behind her. "Esme?" she asked woozily. "I think I ate something wrong. Or too much of something."

*Pale Cornflower Blue = #ABCDEF  

[elfstar89]

Esme peered at Thuraya. "You definitely don't look so good," she said, looking clinically at the shrunken mare. "What did you eat, and how much of it?" Rummaging in the pouch around her neck, she began laying out bundles of different plants good as different kinds of remedies, based on the symptoms. Whatever was going on, she was going to fix it, and make a mental note about what had caused it, for her own frame of reference.

Especially if it was their strange plant. Which really needed a name of some kind. Something that was both memorable, and could be disseminated for what it was. Ideally after she knew what kinds of effects it had, and, if Thuraya had tried the berries, once Esme had established what they tasted like. The more information they had, the better the name might be. But first things first: find out what was causing the medical distress, and fix it.

Thuraya blinked her emerald eyes for a moment, getting them to focus on Esme's lime green ones. "The berries on the strange plant we found. One berry while I was the size of a salmon cleared up my headache. Two while I was moth-sized and...excuse me, I think I need to--" She turned away just in time to vomit, barely missing the ferns, retching until after she felt like she had nothing left in her system.

"Sorry," she said through a haze of ick. "My stomach doesn't feel too good. Should I not have eaten so many, or should I not have eaten them at all? They tasted so good, it was sometimes hard to stop at just one. This was the first time I ate so many, and I promise to not do it again if these are the effects."  

[elfstar89]

Esme nodded thoughtfully, plucking a single tiny nubbin of ginger free from a bundle of stomach remedies. It sounded like an overdose of some kind, and fortunately didn't sound as bad as it could be. Some plants were supposed to be fatal if you ate the wrong amount. Given that Thuraya was currently not much bigger than a moth, a bit of ginger would probably be sufficient.

"Here. Nibble on this until your stomach settles. Then tell me everything you can about the berries. It sounds like you ate too many, and got lucky to only have an upset stomach. Also, we should name this plant so we can tell other people to be careful about eating too many berries like you did," the Wind said, mentally clocking the amounts. Body size was probably an important factor, as the stuff in plants probably worked slightly differently depending on body mass. A single berry might cure a headache in a Flutter up to the size of a salmon, so smaller than a fox, but a fully grown adult Kalona might need two or three of the small berries to feel the same effects. More if the berries weren't fresh. Two for a moth-sized Flutter was enough to make them sick, so four for a fully grown adult Soquili who wasn't shrunken was probably too many to ingest in one sitting. And the higher the dosage got, particularly without treatment...if the berries didn't kill you, the vomiting absolutely would, particularly if it came with a side order of diarrhea, as that could dehydrate a creature.

"Out of curiosity, how did they taste?" One might be fine to satisfy curiosity, but it probably wasn't a good idea if they were at all addictive, or given how potent they could apparently be.

Thuraya accepted the odd nubbin of root, chewing away slowly. It was an odd combination of sweet and bitter and spicy, and her stomach didn't want any. But she persisted anyway, and soon her stomach had stopped hurting, and the nausea had mostly faded away. "Thank you so much, you're a lifesaver," the shrunken mare said gratefully. "What is this root, so I know what it is? I think it'd be a good thing if I can find it again."

Pausing to hear the response, and filing away the name "ginger" for future reference, though she felt a pang of regret that they didn't seem easy to acquire, Thuraya continued. "They tasted really sweet, like peaches, but tangy, too, like a slightly underripe strawberry, kinda sharp but glittery. Easy to want to go back for more, but not really addictive. They just tasted so incredibly good." She paused, thinking about a name. "How about Summer Candy? Or Summer Star? It has a star in the center of the flower, and kinda tastes a bit like the most colorful starlight, or like candy, and it fruits in the summer."

She shifted her size, feeling her strength slowly coming back, and chewed through the remaining nubbin of ginger to chase away the lingering effects on her stomach rather faster.  

[elfstar89]

Esme nodded approvingly as Thuraya's face seemed to improve as she nibbled at the root. "It's called ginger. It unfortunately doesn't grow around here, and I had to trade to get it. A little bit of it's supposed to be good for nausea and vomiting, so as soon as you feel up to it, I think it would be a good idea to grow back to full size, so the dosage is more spread out."

Pausing to listen to the description, the Wind turned the information over and over in her mind. It frankly sounded incredibly delightful, so even if it wasn't addictive, the flavor could probably feel addictive. As for a name..."summer" implied there were other varietals that fruited at other times of year. "Star" and "candy" both sounded good, but perhaps not together. "Starberry" sounded good, but too similar to "strawberry". "Candyberry" seemed a little silly, but "fizzleberry"...that had some possibilities...

"How about 'fizzleberry'? Something exciting, to match the effervescent taste you described, but that also tells you that it's a berry and not a stone fruit or something. Also, because you might feel like you're fizzling if you eat too many," Esme suggested thoughtfully.

Thuraya nodded as she finished her ginger nubbin. "Fizzleberry. I like it. But since it seems really easy to overindulge...shoud we try to uproot it, or move it somewhere out of the path of other animals?" she asked regretfully. It seemed a shame to destroy such a tasty berry, even if it wasn't safe to eat them in large numbers.

"I think I can take it with me without killing it, but it won't be easy," Esme replied. "If we uproot it just right, without damaging the root system or losing any of the soil, and I fly home very, very fast, I should be able to get it back in a pot or a basket or something where I can grow it more carefully, and so others don't accidentally eat too many of them. It was probably good I came when I did, and that you didn't eat more than the amount you did; more berries might have been toxic, if the vomiting didn't dehydrate you."

Thuraya shivered and nodded, grateful once again at how lucky she'd been that Esme had been in the area, ready with a treatment in her satchel. "Yeah, I don't think we want foals eating this by accident, or other Flutters."

Bending down to help Esme uprooted the newly named fizzleberry, she helped her reload her satchel with the fizzleberry plant on top. Soon, the mares parted ways, and the fizzleberry would find itself repotted safely out of the path of other creatures.