“Good day miss!” The first thing that Muur did as soon as she woke up in the morrow was to line up at the Gate of the Sultana and look for the expert she’d earmarked in her mind, “I hope Ol’ Marigold treated you well? Here for another ride to the crossing?”
“Aye, that she did. Although I’m here for some advice, there’s this abused Chocobo who’s ended up in my care and…” Muur began to explain the whole sordid tale.
“Some advice you’re asking for, miss…” Having quietly listened to her tale, the Au’Ra hadn’t really been able to gauge his take on it until now. As lovingly extra as his helmet was, it made for a surprisingly good poker face. “First, I’d love to help you wring the neck of whoever’s responsible for this bloody travesty!” Unsurprisingly, now that he was talking, it was easy to hear the righteous anger in his voice, “Since the bastard's dead, I suppose we’ll have to settle for lettin’ the Gods take their pounds of flesh… Bah! No point in focusing on that waste of space, that bird’s in desperate need of help. The lads at the sanctuary gave you a list of issues they found, aye? If you’ve brought it along, could I take a look at it? It’ll make walking you through what needs to be done far simpler.”
“Of course.” Muur said, producing the item in question from her deephold bag. She’d kept it at the very top for this exact reason, as a matter of fact.
“Let’s take a look…” Taking it from her hand, the man quickly read through it. “Bleedin’ from escape attempts and self-plucking, a cracked beak, unnatural sluggishness, separation anxiety, highly aggressive state and– Rhalgr’s glare! This right? They shipped him from the wilds directly to that rich fool’s estate?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Muur sighed ruefully, “Rest assured, the clergy is out for blood with this audit, so there’s at least that.”
“If you’ll forgive me this bit of unpious conduct, but I hope Oschon uses ‘im for animal feed and that whatever beastie feeds on him shits him right into the damn Void!” Handing the list back to Muur, he threw his arm up– which one of his birds took as a sign that his caretaker needed to be shown some love, and rubbed its head against the man’s side, “I’m fine, boy, I’m fine.” Just like that, the boiling anger that had been seconds from boiling over turned to a simmer, “Takin’ a wild chocobo to an estate– I’d ask if that stain on all merchantkind even knew how to care for a bird, but I reckon he most certainly did not!”
Scratching his bird under its beak, he took a deep breath and calmed himself as best he could before looking Muur in the eyes, “Well, if nothin’ else. You’ve my deepest thanks for guivin’ this boy a chance. Anything you’d like me to go over first, or should I go in the list’s order?”
“May as well take it from the top.” Muur said quietly, bracing herself for a mountain of work. She knew things would be bad, but that merchant had managed to outdo her expectations in the worst way possible.
“Right, then starting with the first two. The bleedin’s not all that worrysome, it isn’t good by any measure, but chocobos are hardy creatures. He’ll need proper care later, but the risk of infection can be mitigated with mixin’ a few alchemical whatsthis into his feed until he lets you close. Worst case scenario, it might be possible to sedate him to administer treatment? Although…” A thoughtful hum drifted from under the man’s helm as he rubbed at both his chin and his bird’s, “Mmmh, maybe not? Er– the beak’ll heal itself up. If the crack had been runnin’ all the way to where it meets flesh, I’d be worried since that means it might not be able to grow properly any longer. But they’d have made a note if that was the case. He’ll be needin’ some specific feed, soft bones and whatnots, to help with beak growth and that’s about it on that front.”
“More calcium, tracks. And thankfully I’m a full member of the Alchemist’s Guild so it shouldn’t be any trouble sourcing some immunoboosters and assorted supplements.” Muur murmured with a bob of her head, distractedly pulling out her personal signet badge from the deephold bag.
Eyeing the badge, he returned Muur’s nod, “Ah, that’ll make it cheaper aye. No clue who you’d have to ask for the recipe though. In any case, I’d bet the sluggishness is due to an overuse of calming herbs and compounds. There’s other reasons for it I can think of– separation anxiety most of all. But letting his body purge all that built up gunk ought to do the trick. Issue is, by now he’s most likely associating being tranquilised as extremely negative.”
“Which means I’ll have to turn to more old fashioned ways to burn off all those jitters. Exercise in an open field ought to do him a world of good and get him hungry enough to not make a fuss about the supplements mixed into the feed.” The Au’Ra hummed, “Of course, he may try to peck or claw a chunk off of me, but that’s what chainmail is for.”
"That's more to do with the lack of ranch tamin’ if you ask me.” The expert told her with a shake of his head, “But you’re not too far. I’m more worried that using any sort of tranquiliser on him will put you back a great ways– even to heal some life threatenin’ injury or condition. On the topic of the lack of tamin’, chocobos are roamin’ birds by nature. In the wild, they’ve a territory that they share with– er… apologies, you’re not here for a lesson on their ecology. Point is, when a wild bird is caught, he’s got to be weaned off of the great outdoors so to speak. Ranches generally handle this over the course of a few months. As it stands, if he’s not been acclimatized, and kept in too small an enclosure, he’s probably stressed out of his mind. See if you can secure a visit or two to the temple’s pasture? I’ve been given the chance to see it once on account of the agreement between my employer and the Order. Couldn’t bloody tell you where the damn place is on a map, but apparently they do wargames there too. So clearly, it’ll be large enough to let your bird roam around. For now… let’s see…”
Mumbling under his mask, the man began counting on his fingers, “Military pens are five lengths… Draughts need… That’s three over… It’ll cost you,” he eventually declared, “But you’ll want to have him put in a private pen that’s at least four times as large as those of a military bird. Should be large enough to let him stomp around and ‘hide’ to a degree. It’ll help with the separation anxiety too, might have guessed it already, but chocobos are flock animals. Torn from his flock as he was, seein’ other birds’ll help get that under control. Seein’ them be cared for by people should also help with socialisin’ him too. You’ve gotten all that so far? I feel like I’ve been ramblin’ something bad.”
“I’d rather have an overabundance of data than a dearth of it. Don’t worry, I got it all jotted down.” Muur said, pointing at her tail, which had twisted itself to hold a notebook at the same time it wrote on it.
“Huh-uh.” She could just tell that his eyes were glazing over as soon as he noticed her note-taking method. For whatever reason, it seemed to awaken a sort of generational annoyance in all that saw it. Their problem for not having an awesome tail like hers, really. “To close on my opinion, I’d say that the aggressiveness’ll disappear in time. Poor thing’s probably overwhelmed and treatin’ everythin’ as a threat.”
She’d really want to go grab that mythril chainmail for this, in other words.
___________________________________________________________
Securing the bird’s accommodations had taken quite a bit of time and money. But eventually, Muur had managed to get more or less what the chocobokeep had told her. A large, fairly quiet pen inside of the Order’s own stables. Algar had been rather useful in that regard, and she felt no shame in pulling him into her chocobo rehabilitation plans in exchange for a few favours down the line. Especially since those favors amounted to ‘spar with me’.
Moving the damn thing into his new home had been a challenge and a half, stubborn thing that he was. But now that he was there, that meant that she could work on the other part of the puzzle. Namely looking up which kind of alchemical concoctions and products would be best for it, which had brought her back to the Alchemist Guild. “Good afternoon, can I help you with anything?”
“Hello, yes, I’m still pretty new to the Guild so I was wondering if we had some sort of archive I could consult for standard products?” Muur asked as she produced her engraved badge in case it was Guild members only.
“We do, yes,” Glancing at the badge, the clerk took a step back and started looking through a pile of papers, “Considering you are new, it won't have much aside from the most basic recipes and a few thesis. The one in charge will probably explain it better than I, but most of the information inside is kept from alchemists that lack the talent or seniority not to kill themselves by accident.” Pulling a sheet from the pile, he handed it to Muur, “Just follow the signs and you should find it easily enough. Would you also like to rent a laboratory for today?”
“Aye, thank you.” Muur replied with a bob of her horned head. Even if she didn’t find what she was looking for in the archive and she found nobody to give her some help and that crate of alchemical notes had nothing of use for her right now, she could genuinely use some soothing time just working her alembic.
Also, with her deephold bag so well stocked with stuff needed on an adventurer’s day to day, she could focus on making things the local artisans always had need of and thus she could sell for a pretty penny. It’d help the dent in her finances.
Assuming she didn’t get co-opted by her assigned tutor and end up just making another few barrels worth of fantasy gunpowder to meet deadlines, that was a distinct possibility too.
The clerk silently handed over a key, before telling Muur where her lab would be. They also listed a set of requirements— which boiled down to ‘please don't kill yourself, be safe and clean after yourself’. With that little obligation out of the way, Muur was unleashed upon the Guild.
Alas, it seemed that Cocobusi had escaped the role of Guild's Face for the day. Unfortunately that role had fallen to an harried looking Guildmaster who looked more than ready to murder whoever dared bother him.
Valuing her continued membership (both in the Guild and among the living) far more than she did being a brat, she wisely chose to let dragons lie and moved deeper into the building. Finding the library wasn't too hard and neither was explaining to the one in charge what she was looking for, “You shouldn't have too much trouble finding some material in the agricultural section.” Besides some basic directions and a suppressed yawn, the diminutive librarian wasn't of much help, “You can look through books as long as you want. But if you want to take them out of here, it'll cost you an upfront payment and subsequent renting fee.”
“Any rules against transcribing recipes to a personal notebook while staying in here?” Muur asked just in case.
Giving her a dismissive wave, she shooed the Au’Ra away, “Not for the books you are allowed to browse.”
Now that she was officially left to her own devices, Muur was free to roam through the library. Which had turned out to be equally as disappointing as it was impressive. On one hand, it didn't come anywhere near the majesty of the Ossuary’s vault of knowledge. On the other, it was still about the size of a small public library and painstakingly organized.
She had something of a hunch as to who it was owed to and why, sending the poor man a silent prayer as she made her way to the agriculture section to get everything together. Muur needed recipes, expected yields, a shopping list of reagents and so much more.
Small or not, organised or not, finding the right tomes took time. The vast majority of chocobo literature seemed more focused on show-birds and how to keep their coats as smooth and shiny as possible than what she'd been looking for. Thankfully, it only took broadening her search to include books talking about agriculture proper to find a lead.
Almost all of them referred the reader to a book named “Beasts of the Fields and Farms, and how to treat them” when it came to chocobo health. Needless to say, Muur immediately honed in on it— or tried to at any rate. No matter where she looked, there was neither hair nor hide of that specific book.
Without another choice, she went back to the clerk hoping that he'd be able to tell her if anyone had borrowed it. But as she was going back to the entrance, she stumbled onto a small study area. Half a dozen small tables with two or three chairs each were scattered about, and sitting at one of them was the Hrothgar she'd shared the boat to Eorzea with. What was his name again?
Right, Myrrh.
Well, cost her nothing to swing by, he may know where the book was or outright have it on his table. If the latter was the case, asking the librarian would be of no help.
She couldn't quite see what sort of research he was engaging in, but from the looks of it he'd lost himself into it. Or at least the book that he was currently parsing: "Inert matters and their uses” according to its spine. A dozen other books were piled up around him, inadvertently camouflaging Muur's approach.
Which meant she had to do a faintly silly walk-around to get in clear sight of the leonine man so she wouldn’t startle him out of his research. You learned how to be very gentle about this kind of thing when you lived in the Ossuary, what with Thaumaturges being Thaumaturges. On the plus side, it gave her a better look at his material… and how aside from the one in his hands, all of them were related to beauty products, animal care and– oh! there was the book she was looking fo—,
“Hm?” Right as Muur caught sight of the illusive manuscript, Myrrh did the exact same with the chicken-crab walking Thaumaturge. He gave a single blink before his face lit up in recognition, “Oh! Miss… I don't believe I actually know your name. What brings you here? “
“Hah, both times we met things were a bit too loud and chaotic to really trade names. Muur’Zagaas Himaa.” Muur introduced herself with a soft chuckle, “I did actually end up joining the Guild like I said last time, and now I got a bit of a personal project going on.”
Nodding along, the lion-man extended a massive hairy hand-paw her way with a light smile, “Then allow me to introduce myself: Myrrh, no last name I'm afraid.” He said with a shockingly gentle handshake from such a huge mitt, “To tell you the truth, I thought things would remain quite as loud and chaotic as the arena for quite some time for me. The Golden Cutlasses are quite the heroic plunderers, but they are… Well, their life is not for the faint of heart? I was meant to work for them for a time, if you'll recall.”
“Aye. I’m guessing you have decided to ease down into something a bit less hectic?” Muur asked, waving at the pile of books.
“Somewhat?” In one motion he closed his book and made a so-so motion, “The Golden Cutlasses actually cut my employ short– er, that sounds rather bad, doesn't it? What I meant to say is that their smuggling services were required much sooner than expected. They gave me half of the fare I would have been owed by the end of our deal, a pat on the back and directions to this Guild before sailing off to some Garlean enclave or other… In any case, you mentioned a project, yes? Anything you would be willing to share?”
Which was Muur’s cue to launch into yet another retelling of the whole chocobo adventure and how she needed some recipes for supplements and whatnot for big red. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Myrrh quickly offered her the book she'd been looking for, “I've no use for it at the moment,” unlike most others, the leonine alchemist didn't respond with any sort of anger. Instead, the more he'd heard of the bird’s treatment, the gloomier and more despondent his face had turned. “I can advance my own project well enough without it.”
“Appreciated. Feel free to hit me up if you want someone to bounce ideas off of, I may even have something to help your project along, got my hands on some alchemical journals from a guy in Scorpion's Crossing.” Muur offered, fair was fair, he helped her so she ought to toss a standing offer to return the favor.
“I've heard of that place, the trade depot right outside of town. Yes?” Muur could tell that she'd peeked his interest the moment he all but jumped at the call, “I'd be delighted to help! Returning to my old duties as an assistant would be a welcome change to having to plan my own research project.”