"No need to be sorry," Phoenix said, getting the laughing she was experiencing at Eliza's sneezing under control. The ferret woman the same kind of sneeze as all muzzled animals, short, cute, and to the point. Phoenix had always liked those kinds of sneezes, especially with her own being very human.
She had been slightly surprised at Eliza's knowledge of painting technique. She herself had grown up with little knowledge of the language of the arts, only that which had to be learned in order to graduate high school. Oh, she had been to museums, she did live only a train ride from NYC, after all, even if it was very long train ride, and it was important to have enough culture to speak to her father's business clients when they came over for dinner and it was her turn to be shown off. But painting did not give one an advantage in a gymnastics competition, and therefore was given little attention by her or anyone else in her immediate surroundings. So like Eliza, her own knowledge came mostly second hand through Arcos' many days of watching PBS tutorials.
"This is my area," she continued, looking around as if she hadn't seen it in a while. The table was strewn with dried herbs, just come off of the racks from the dryer. Jars of various mixtures lay on the shelves of the bookshelf next to it, some in little jars, some in giant picnic sized jars. In them were various concoctions of leaves, roots, and fruits. Some were very colorful, a bright palette like Arcos' paintings. Others a dull green-brown. "It tends to be more of a storage area than a workplace," she admitted. "I like working upstairs better if it is going to take me a while."
"This is my dehydrator," she gestured to the avocado, rusted fridge. She'd never been able to show it off before, not to someone who acted interested. She tried with several of the Grey Cats, but they did not have enough manners to act like they were interested when they were not. Simply the fact that Eliza acted as if she cared, if not for its own sake, then for the sake of the carer. She opened it up, a blast of warm air gushing out of it, to show that each of the holes on the sides of it were pegged, to make small shelves, and the shelves themselves were screens made from thin wood and salvaged window screening. At the bottom of the fridge was a heater from the interior of a crockpot. "I was able to get things made a lot faster once I had this rigged." She looked about her proudly, "It takes only a few days for wettest stuff, a few hours for the dryer things. It used to take a week or two when I hung stuff from the ceiling."
After recovering from her bout of sneezing Eliza smiled even more to hear the sound of Phoenix's dying laughter. It was still off-putting, in a nice way, how comfortable she felt in the little human's presence. It was almost as if the mutation had never happened and she felt more like her old self, yet at the same time Phoenix was entirely at ease with her ferrity habits and mannerisms. In fact the healer seemed to have a way of drawing them out of her once Eliza realized there was no fear of rejection at expressing them. The overall effect surrounded Eliza with a sense of warm all encompassing acceptance, like being wrapped in a sheet fresh from the dryer.
She followed close behind as the Phoenix explained her process and equipment. Leaning in close overtop of the smaller woman's shoulder to get a better view of the inner workings of the dehydrator. "Very impressive!" Her enthusiasm was not feigned. She had once considered buying a small kitchen version for making fruit chips and jerky and had second thought the idea after seeing the price. A unit capable of processing this about material would have cost hundreds and the fact that she did it with used parts and redneck engineering was more than admirable. "Do you use it for foodstuffs too or is it strictly for medicinal?"
She looked around the space again, trying to make some quantifying estimates and utterly failing. "Speaking of medicine, and don't get me wrong, I for one am extremely grateful for your talents, but just how many mutants are you doctor to?" She backed up to give the healer her personal space and waved at the various supplies.
"This seems like a lot for just your family and the occasional alleyway find." A small snicker escaped and she hoped the healer would take her comments in good nature. "Not that I expected you to myself or anything but am I going to have to make an appointment during regular office hours next time?"
Phoenix closed the door to the refrigerator, the heat from the element inside of it still lingering around them and said, "I do dry foodstuffs too. We forage for things when they are in season, you would be surprised at the number of wild places there is in the city where food is growing. Sometimes were lucky enough to find things out shopping. If we get a bumper crop, or we're just plain tired of eating it, I'll dry it. We don't usually have a lot left over of fruits or vegetables, but I spices and things." She was so pleased that someone was asking her life, about what she did with it and how she did it. No one had ever asked before, and that part of her that still resided in her old life, before she died, was proud of how inventive she was when necessity called it. Of course, the old batch of Mother Earth News magazines she found in a dump all those years ago helped tremendously.
"I help dozens of mutants," she answered Eliza's question about the quantity of her medicinal supplies. "There are quite a few that are roaming alleyways at night. Stories of monsters in the dark come from somewhere,"she was sorry she said it as soon as it came out of her mouth. While she might be able to have a conversation about monsters with a Grey Cat, or her kids, her previous conversation with Eliza, about being THIS, gave her the thought that she wasn't ready for this kind of joke. She regarded the ferret mutant to see how she would respond to the comment, and went on. "And I have a group of mutants who I am close with," she said. "When something goes around, they all tend to get it. Or, if someone gets hurt in a fight," she sighed, again, not the right thing to say, "I have to have a certain amount of the right kind of herbs on hand."
She put her hand up though, and gave a deprecating chuckle, hopefully in a reassuring manner. She was doing an awful lot of reassuring with Eliza, she noticed, and had not yet decided how much of it was too much. She knew that sometimes people got annoyed at her exuberance, at her attempts to make a patient comfortable, and having someone in her home was making her inclination more so. "You don't have to make an appointment, unless you want a standing appointment. But any time during the day, usually, I'm at home. And if you need to find me at night, you'll find me in an alley." Her smile turned to a knowing one, the unbidden thought had never lead her astray, save the one time she was told to consider the floor during her fight with the turtle Raph. Every other instance in her life, when she had listened, the situation turned out.
Eliza was interested to hear about how the healer had provided for her family. It was impressive that she had been able to keep food on the table, if her children were at this size in their 20's she could only imagine how ravenous they had been as teenagers. She also made a mental note of some of the things that Phoenix listed off, what they didn't have in surplus. As for the moment she was glad of the few things she had already brought and hoped that it would made a dent towards their next shopping endeavor. She smiled at the thought as she continued to listen politely as the other woman answered her questions.
Despite knowing that the Phoenix meant no harm, Eliza couldn't help the tightening of her lips as her eyes widened ever so slightly at the use of the word 'monster'. It shouldn't bother her, she'd thought worse, said worse, but somehow she was unprepared for the sting she felt hearing the phrase come from the other woman. Phoenix was a mother and healer of mutants for decades now, maybe time took away the harm of such phrases. They had new meaning to her now, maybe in time it wouldn't bother her either. She prayed she wouldn't be a mutant long enough for that to happen.
Still, the more disturbing realization was that this world she had fallen into was indeed a violent one. She was initially intrigued by the idea of another group of mutants to talk to, but if they got into fights, she was having second thoughts. Especially if these fights were of such a dangerous nature often enough that their healer had to have large amounts of herbal aids on hand just in case, she doubted that they were the type of people she would want to spend too much time with. She was not a fighter in the physical sense, though even she had to admit that her tendency to want to express her temper with more than words had increased significantly since her mutation. Maybe it was all part of being a monster and she shouldn't judge so quickly.
"I'm sure they are very grateful to have you, as am I" Eliza put her hand over her heart and nodded her head respectfully. "It's nice to know that I'll be able to find you if I need you. But as for a standing appointment," she straightened and gave a semi-wilted half smile. "let's wait and see if it's necessary first." Unconsciously Eliza brought both hands in front of her to grasp her accessories, hiding her torso behind them.