Scene #5700:

Owner	Pose
Mercy	After reaching out to Ryu in curiosity, Mercy had managed to wrangle some free time and gotten off her own Earth and has landed in... another one, that her fellow Paladins had noted was very cool with outsiders. In a small diner, the rather tall Swiss woman has found herself tucked into a booth far away from others, nursing a cup of tea, and a plate of what ... looks like some sort of appetizer plate, with a mozzerella stick and chicken strips. She'd warn him he'd know her when he saw her: After all, it's not hard to spot the woman wearing a t-shirt with the definition of 'MERCY' on the front of it. (Sometimes, Angela Zeigler likes to have a little fun.) There is also a small laptop she's using, going from furious typing to absolute silence. It's a work trip! ... sort of.
Ryu	Ring-a-ding. The door's customer bell goes off as someone enters the building. Someone immediately reacts with shock at the garish creature that ambles into the place. The dragon slips through the room, his wings billowing behind him like a bizarre cape, his ears flicking as his eyes scan the room. He spots the lady with the clever shirt, and so he slips over to sit at the booth and rest his big draconic handpaws on the edge of the table. He smiles at Mercy, and makes a little lip-smacky noise, his tongue briefly going 'blep' from his mouth. "Mercy, right?" he inquires, just to be sure. If she was trying to be inconspicuous, he just ruined the whole attempt by existing in her general vicinity. Look at how colorful he is, good god.
Mercy	Well, this isn't /her/ planet, so... "... that must mean you're Ryu. Think you can fit, or do we need to move to a table?" She asks, with her gently accented voice. She taps something more on the laptop before putting it into sleep mode - after that, her full attention is on the dragon in front of her, her gaze sharper than she lets on.
Ryu	The dragon looks down at his seat and fidgets in place to test how much room he has. Then he closes his eyes, and there's a soft white glow in the air. His form changes from that of a very obvious dragon, to that of a young man with shaggy blue hair. He is still pretty tall, but he doesn't seem as out of place as he did a second ago. His outfit seems to manifest, too. Perhaps some kind of magic glamour. "No, that's alright," he replies, after that. "You already remind me of Nina," he murmurs with an ambivalent furrow of his brows. Then he begins properly, "We're both healers, and I'm curious about what you do... so I'll start with myself so you're not at a disadvantage or something." He slips his hands back and clasps them in his lap. "I'm a medical mage. Like a nurse, but magical. But I can heal myself enough that I'm not sure what the upper limit of my own healing is..." He leans in and more quietly says, "And I can bring back the dead." "I know a little about pharmacology, what not to give to someone in combination, what helps with pain if magic isn't feasible, that kind of thing." Then he smiles at her, and waits for her response.
Mercy	"Nina?" Mercy lifts an eyebrow at the transformation additionally, but... intriguing. She makes a mental note, sipping her tea cup again. "So... you have a basic amount of pharmacology where you know your own magical abilities fail. I should warn you: I know there are those that have learned how magic works, based on my introductionary materials to this multiverse, but I am no mage myself. However, I suspect you are wanting something I can teach you... actual medical knowledge. Tell me, how do people typically view your healing?" Mercy asks, sharply. "Do you do it as a dragon? In this form? How do people react, especially on your home planet?"
Ryu	Ryu's perplexed by her response to him. He wasn't looking for anyone to teach him anything, and smiles and shakes his head when she says that much. The rest is what has him confused. "I do it in either form. Sometimes it's not a good idea to run around in a dragon shape, but people don't seem to care around here," he says, looking over his shoulder to the diner that treated him like any other customer when he walked in. Nobody seemed that surprised, besides to oogle the colorful scales and weird physiology. "People are usually grateful," he admits, "But it isn't really something I think about. Nina said healing isn't about the reward or how happy you make people, it's about making them better." Clearly he holds this 'Nina' on a pedestal... and having mentioned her twice, he goes on to say, "Nina was my teacher, and my only friend back home. I've been looking for... uh..." He shrugs. "More friends, I guess. 'Colleagues' is such a cold word, right?" He seems to only just have thought about the reason he's even seeking other healers out beyond the sake of curiosity.
Mercy	"Oh thank goodness. A woman of many skills I am, but a teacher I am not." Mercy relaxes. "I am glad to find friends in other places, with the same sort of skills I have... but tell me, if you don't mind indulging my curiosity... are you a fighter and a healer, or ...?"
Ryu	Ryu looks awkward about that, considering what he's heard from her voice on the radio in the past. He doesn't want to give her the wrong idea, so he tries to make this as clear as he can get it. "Both." "I was raised in a lab, where they tried to make me into a weapon. I learned how to kill before I learned how to heal. It was years before I escaped, and met Nina, and learned how to help anyone." He crosses his arms and seems uneasy that he had to say it at all. There's people he's hurt that he can't do anything about now, because he'd never know where to start even if he could track them down again.