kismet_loop | [Audio | Locked to Sam]

[To Sam's credit, she was almost ready to head out, despite multiple snooze button smackings---a whole ten minutes after rolling out of bed. That's partially due to deciding she might as well wear her pyjamas out, but only partially; aside from dressing, she's got everything done. At the ring, she'll just shuffle over and open the window since that's quicker than going down to the door.]

Hey, g'mornin.

Morning. [Have a smile and an offered hand.]

Just a sec.

[She steps away from the window to grab a hoodie off the couch, since the rest of Cybertron seems a little cool so soon after leaving her nice warm bed. Shoes? Forget shoes, she's already climbing over the windowsill---carefully!---and onto that offered hand.]

Sorry. Okay. How're you?

No need to apologize. And I’m well. Did you get more sleep after I let you go?

Yeah, decent amount. Not quite enough to roll out of bed without groaning, but enough. My sleep schedule's wonky with the time difference, anyway. With Earth's 24 hour days, it'd be like... bed at eleven or midnight, up around seven, sometimes sleep in another hour or two. Here, napping's necessary.

And oh yeah, on the topic of time? If nobody else filled you in on equivalent time stuff, one vorn is about eighty-three Earth years.

I do apologize. I know now for the future.

[That makes him pause.] Wow...that’s...hm. [Wow, that is really interesting.] I guess that actually makes sense. All planets would have different light/dark cycles and different lengths of time to circle their star.

Didn't you already? We're cool, we're cool. I ain't even irked.

The tricky bit of business is getting used to the way time's portioned on alien planets. But, now you have a better basis for comparison.

Oh good. [He's glad she's not irked.]

Heh, I can't imagine. I've never been off Cyberton. Even coming here, this is still Cybertron, it's no change in time for me. You? This is just an additional level of crazy to get used to.

At least I'm used to it now. The first few weeks I'd just say screw it, but to be fair, the first few weeks were all sorts of weird.

I think if you ever get the chance to see Earth, it's going to seem very, very busy with the seasonal stuff. A lot of the same sorta stuff you'll be able to observe at the farm here, but it's not quite the same as a chunk of wilderness with all its assorted stuff doing its own thing.

That said, where did we even leave off last night? Before breaking into another tangent.

Blood, I believe. And poop, of course.

Right. That. [pft.] I mostly remember. You're actually better off asking around for blood samples than, ah, stool samples, because it's not going to seem as weird---blood tests are pretty common for medical screening stuff, and I'd mentioned blood donations? You're going to have to ask someone else, though. Ditto if you decide you want hair, too.

Hair, that's the...well, all of organic life is quite soft, but that's the softer stuff on your head, right?

And you did mention no blood samples from you as well, is there a reason you can't donate blood or hair?

Yep. And yeah. [Zero will feel Sam shift her weight as she considers elaborating.] It's kind of personal, though.

I won’t press if you don’t want to talk about it, but I won’t deny that I’m curious as well.

[He’ll leave it open there for the moment.]

Well...

[Well, what? She weighs it. On one hand, her 'witch' status is no big secret, and if it is, it's Haven's worst-kept, but on the other? Some vulnerabilities can't be corrected, only obscured.]

This is just between you and me, yeah?

[He nods.] Of course. I’ll not tell your secrets, Sam, and don’t feel you have to tell them to me if you’d rather not.

Well, my secrets I'm gonna sit on a while yet. It's not you so much as anything said's kinda comprimised---we got telepaths and god only knows what else around.

[Since she's exploited the hell out of this, that someone else might also is, really, a reasonable concern.]

[He nods.] I understand. It’s enough for me to know that blood and hair samples can’t come from you.

We'll get into it one of these days. Meanwhile, I can offer you scab samples if you would want 'em. Most of them would contain some foreign pigments, but 'most' is better than 'all,' yeah?

[Compared to blood and hair, scabs are a low-risk substance---and that's lucky for Sam, because even if scabs were easily exploited, her healing tattoos have left scab flakes all over Haven. If someone really wanted some, they'd find some with time, patience, and a piece of scotch tape.]

Scab samples? [What’s that?]

['Arguably gross, but probably of interest.' Having spent several years brushing bits of scab off everything in her immediate environment (clothes, furniture, flatmates) Sam's absolutely inured to the 'arguably gross' aspect.]

I should probably cover scabbing so you have some kind of context. It's part of the process of an injury healing, provided the injury is something like a cut or a scrape. The brutally abridged version? The blood flow at a wound site triggers a chain of events for forming a kinda combination shield-and-plug to close up the injury as quickly as possible. The faster it's closed, the better, because that means blood loss is minimized, and there's less of a window for germs to enter the body since that's kind of a big thing with organics---infections are a talk of their own, I tell you. But! Just being closed, a scabbed-over wound isn't healed; the scab stays where it formed to protect the wound as it does heal, since the tissue forming for it will take some time. Once it's far enough along, the scab dries out and eventually falls off.

Scabs can be picked off, too, but it sometimes hurts to do that, and if you try too soon you might just reopen the partway healed wound. You're also likely to get a scar if you pick a scab---or so I was always warned.

[He’s leaned forward a bit, utterly fascinated] So organics have an ARS? [no acronyms, Zero, be clear.] Automatic repair system? Is that common for all organics or just some?

[As soon as Zero clarifies, Sam's nodding.]

All, though the ability of organic bodies to mend varies significantly. Like... Okay, I don't know if you've heard of starfish, but they are these smallish multi-limbed animals which live in salt water. Some are like this big...?

[She holds her hands apart to indicate.]

They're well-known for their ability to regrow entire limbs if one gets cut off. Most other organics can't do that, though there are lizards which can regrow their tails and some other animals which can jettison frankly alarming amounts of their internal organs to distract predators for the sake of escape. Humans can't manage anything quite so dramatic, but for almost any injury it's 'just wait for it to heal up.' Especially bad cuts can call for stitches, stuff like that, but... body systems do the brunt of it.

Amazing. Our bodies will repair to a point, but it sounds like organic bodies will do so much more. What are stitches? Are there things that an organic body can't heal?

[Hey, at least he's not thinking of going and testing this, he's not a cruel scientist.]

I've got to admit, it's pretty cool. How much self-repair is a Cybertronian body capable of? Self-repairs excluded.

[As cool as organic healing processes are, Cybertronians' ARS sound just as interesting.]

Stitches are used to hold the sides of large or deep cuts together so that they can heal closed quicker, and without quite so much scarring. The sides of the wound are pressed against each other and then sewn together, using... well, whatever threadlike material is deemed to be best for the job. They have this stuff for stitches which will eventually dissolve within the body because removing stitches can be---so far as I understand---an uncomfortable hassle, but I don't know what it's made of. I never actually needed stitches myself.

And yeah. Yeah. Like... minor wounds not so much, but moderate and severe wounds will heal up with some scar tissue remaining at the site. Scar tissue is fast-forming, and strong, and great for connecting stuff what's severed, but it doesn't act the same way undamaged tissue does, and so scarring on organs can interfere with their efficiency and create some serious long-term problems. Nerve damage is really problematic, too.

I hope this is a half-decent explanation. There's a LOT organic bodies can heal, but there's also a fair bit beyond the capacity of an organic body to heal, and a lot of stuff that's conditional, too.

[Audio | Locked to Sam]

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