The Adventures of Research and Dispatch

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What would you do if you were suddenly thrust into a world without the skills to succeed in it? How could you navigate a society that felt completely alien to you? For most people, they had parents or guardians that spend years preparing them for these hardships and trials, but not everyone had that. For twenty-two years, Ling had lived in a quiet forest, where the green groves and thick thickets were the roofs over his head, and the fruits and vegetables that grew in the comfort of the woods was the food on his table. The woodland creatures were his friends and family, and he was content with that. He wasn't alone, but still, from time to time, he felt lonely. He watched civilization exist from afar, witnessing as many of its ups and downs as he could from that quiet little forest of his, wondering when he would ever muster up the courage to go meet them someday. Well, that day came faster than he could have ever predicted.

For one reason or another, the poachers that had been trying to infiltrate that forest for years had finally succeeded, and it all burned to smithereens as a swift result. Ling lost his home, and many of his friends and family died in that cruel process. Just like that, the blond was thrust into society, without being able to read or write, nor with the social skills to compensate for his illiteracy. But with the help of Pimwadee, Mathis, and Dagda, he was able to find a place in the world for him right here in Meliora Vitae.

He may not be able to read or write, and he was so atrociously shy that it was almost comical, but his ability to speak to and understand plants and animals along with his natural healing abilities made him a great fit for the "rehabilitation" part of "Rehabilitation & Research". Growing up among a wide variety of critters and plants gave him a vast amount of knowledge regarding their health and well-being, surely enough. There were natural remedies he knew how to make, and mixtures he could create to solve very specific health problems, magical or not. He was like a doctor without a degree, and he was doing a good job for someone who sold himself short all the time.

Still... who cares about all of that if I can't even talk to people? Everytime someone from Dispatch comes to talk to me, I totally freak out! Ling was hunched over a worktable somewhere on the S.S. Endeavor, mindlessly grinding distinct-looking plants into a mortar. He was in a room connected to a small indoor enclosure, where you could view it through the floor-to-ceiling windows that circled around it. It was mostly for smaller critters, and Ling ended up spending a lot of time here, tending to them. It's so easy for everyone else... all I'm good at is grinding stuff, and anyone can do that! It looks so natural for nice girls like Pimwadee, and super cool guys like Dagda and Mathis...! Useless, useless, useless... Ling began to grind the plants harder and harder as he fell back into his typical self-degrading inner tangents, a gloom over his boyish face as he hunched over the table until someone unfamiliar came in.

"Ah!—Oof!" the blond flinched when he heard the woman approach him, smacking the crown of his head against the cabinet above him. He was a jumpy man who was easy to frighten, even if you didn't mean to. He knelt down, sympathetically rubbing the top of his head with both hands as a painful sting ran through his skull. His cheeks were flushed in pink now that someone had seen him do something so embarrassing! He really just wanted to crawl under a rock right now. "Ouch, ouch, ouch... uhm... sorry! I-I... didn't hear you come in, so..."

Ling stood up again, trying to avoid looking at this woman in the eyes. He always struggled with making eye contact with how shy he was, but working in this department always demanded talking to Dispatch frequently. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen this woman before. He had only glimpsed at her, but she looked like an absolute mess. In her arms was what Ling thought to be a baby Wolverine, and just as she said, its wounds seemed to be on the verge of getting infected, if not already.

When she held the critter out, Ling cautiously accepted it into his own. Animals seemed to be comfortable with him, for one reason or another, wild or domestic. It embraced him like a koala bear, and with a closer look at its wounds, it was clear that it was some type of poison. Thankfully, it was still treatable in this infant stage.

"Er... th-thanks for bringing her... but your hair..." Ling looked up at her through his blushing face, his pretty emerald eyes fixed at this woman's messy locks before he immediately looked away, "Sorry! I shouldn't have said anything!"

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