Opportunities

[Elisora Rivaen]

39th of Ophus, 2718

To say that she was torn on her decision to transfer her residency to Brunnhold would be a severe understatement.

Working at Grand Mercy Hospital had been a dream ever since she decided on a career medicine and Elise had fought for her spot there – tackling dozens of researches, being ordered around by various doctors and professors. A residency at the Grand Mercy could only be obtained by the best students in Anaxas and the young woman had made sure she was one of them. To return to Brunnhold… It was certainly not an idea she was particularly fond of.

She was very tempted to simply insist on returning to Vienda. After all, Daalton did say he was willing to follow her anywhere. Guilt bloomed in her heart at the thought, unfortunately. He would have to sacrifice his career for her. One of them would have to make the sacrifice if they were to stay together. They hadn’t make a final decision, but it would need to come soon.

All things considered, it was only fair that she kept her options open and try to learn more of the residency in Brunnhold.

With that in mind, the young woman strode through the front doors of the hospital and headed for the reception desk. It was still early in the day and she was surrounded mostly by people clad in white coats, interns and doctors alike. Meanwhile, Elise was clothed in a simple blue dress and a black overcoat. The sight of them simply reminded her of how much she missed the days she spent in the operating theatre.

“Have Professor Eljor arrived for the day? I have an appointment with him,” Elise said to the woman sitting behind the desk. An older galdor woman with her black hair tied into severe bun.

“Unfortunately, Professor Eljor is unavailable for the day, miss. Perhaps we can reschedule another appointment,” the receptionist said briefly, only glancing up for a split of second before returning to her work.

Elise raised an eyebrow but kept her smile on. “Oh, I am not a patient. I am one of his students and he offered me a tour of the hospital.”

The woman blinked and then looked down upon the papers on her desk. It took about a minute until she finally looked up again. “Miss Elisora Rivaen, isn’t it? I am sorry to inform you that Professor Eljor had actually left for a convention since yesterday, but he did say that another professor would take his place. Will that be alright with you, miss?”

Seeing that it would be far too much trouble to reschedule, the young healer nodded. She was not exactly surprised. The man probably remembered too late that their meeting clashed with whatever event he was attending. “Very well. I shall wait here.”

[Orianna Aubellard]

Brunnhold Public Hospital

39 Ophus 2718

Orianna was pissed. Her supervisor Professor Eljor had decided suddenly that taking a vacation was perfect, regardless of whether the erse had appointments or not. As a result, everyone had to step up and pick up his slack.

The godsdamned fool needs to retire already. It's clear he doesn't want to be here anymore, Anna thought to herself as she made her way down the hall.

Anna didn't mind meeting with patients and prospective students. What she minded was the fact that the extra duties had been dropped in her lap without consideration of her other jobs. There was an outbreak of whooping cough in The Stacks and she needed to be at the apothecary. The brutally cold winter had left many children vulnerable and she had already seen 2 dozen children put under the ground since the outbreak began at the beginning of the month. That was just from her apothecary.

She shivered to think of how many children were dying while Eljor took a week off to go gallivanting to wherever the fuck he had gone.

She pushed her frustration and worries to the back of her mind, preparing herself to speak to the potential resident that Eljor had pawned off on her. To be honest, she hoped the resident would choose to come to Brunnhold just because they needed the help. A lot of their specialist residents had chosen to go to Vienda, since Vienda was much bigger. But Anna had seen that Brunnhold was in need of help and that Brunnhold often came up with the newest techniques. Being tied to the university meant they could work with university researchers much more closely than they could have in Vienda.

Anna entered the reception area, arching an eyebrow as she saw a familiar face from the event in the cafeteria just over a week ago. "Elisora Rivaen?" she asked with a smile on her face. If this was the person who was considering transferring to Brunnhold, Anna would be extremely pleased. The girl had already shown her ability to remain calm during a chaotic event and had proved herself adept at Living magic. "I'm Dr. Aubellard, junior professor of surgery. Pleasure to meet you in a less tumultuous setting," she said once she made her way across the room. "Professor Eljor told me that you were considering transferring for the remainder of your residency?"

[Elisora Rivaen]

39th of Ophus, 2718

Elise took the time to look closer at the entrance area as she waited. While it wasn’t the first time she had been in the hospital, the brief introduction that was given to her back when she just graduated her studies hadn’t provided much either. And to be frank, the young woman hadn’t paid that much attention either since she was already accepted at Grand Mercy. Not to mention her eagerness to leave Brunnhold as soon as possible.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait for long.

A smile pulled at her lips as she saw the familiar face greeting her. “Dr. Aubellard, it is good to see you again.” Elise certainly hadn’t expected that out of all people Orianna would be the one replacing Professor Eljor. The world was certainly full of coincidences. A welcome one at that. “Just Elisora would be fine.”

The young woman nodded at the question. “Yes, I am. I haven’t quite decided yet, but I figured I should look more into the hospital. I know this is sudden and not exactly the season for new residents to come in, but Professor Eljor said we’ll be able to work something out should I decide to move.” Even if she did move her residency immediately, she would probably take a short break soon after to prepare for the wedding. And she would have to– Elise stopped herself from getting to far in that train of thought. One step at a time.

“I assume you did your residency here then? What do you think of this place?” Elise wondered as she gestured with her hands. She supposed she was lucky that Professor Eljor had chosen someone else to give her the tour. Perhaps she could get an honest perspective of how things were here instead of the glossed information the older professors usually give to promote themselves.

[Orianna Aubellard]

Brunnhold Public Hospital

39 Ophus 2718: Morning

Orianna gave Elisora a slight shrug. "Whether it's the season for new residents or not, you'd be more than welcome here, Elisora. You made it clear in the cafeteria that you're able to keep your head in a chaotic situation. You did very good work there, by the way," she said as she started walking down the hall. "If I remember correctly, you should have been told about the basic layout of the hospital here during your medical school classes, but I hardly mind showing you around. Things have changed a bit in the last couple years, due to research."

"Oh, doing my residencies anywhere but Brunnhold was never an option for me. For one, Vienda's further away from Mugroba and I miss home enough as it is," Anna laughed, bright and friendly. "But, professionally, I always knew I would prefer this hospital. We train in both magical and non-magical aspects of medicine, just like Vienda, but since we're a smaller city and have fewer patients, we're able to focus more on non-magical aspects. I've always leaned towards hands-on work. I feel that's the only true way to understand the body. Yes, you have to understand it to use the mona for healing, but…" she shrugged. "You gain more respect for the body and a more instinctual understanding when you're able to touch it and feel it doing its wonderful work, I find."

Anna fell silent for a moment, not sure whether to bring up the next point or not. She eventually decided it would be best to just bring it up, because it could be something that would influence Elisora's opinion and she didn't want the girl to come to Brunnhold without all the pertinent information. "We do have one advantage over Vienda. We have access to passives. Whether a doctor takes advantage of that fact or not is up to each individual doctor. But it gives us the ability to try new techniques on passives before using those techniques on the general populace."

Anna paused, giving Elisora a side-glance, trying to figure out what the girl thought about that revelation. "Mind you, all experiments at this hospital go through an ethics review, just like in Vienda, regardless of which race is involved in the research. But we're able to do final tests for treatments and potential cures for infectious diseases here without risking a city-wide outbreak because we have passives. New techniques for surgeries can be tried here though, admittedly, we don't have a lot of passives who need surgery," Anna shrugged. She secretly suspected that injuries that severe happened much more often, but were hidden by matrons and patrons.

"Most of our passive patients are patients who have come down with things like the pox or whooping cough. We can't afford to have that spreading in the wards or in the school itself. We also work with humans, of course. But being able to do a final test run with passives means we don't have to compensate our fellow galdori for their part in research projects."