Character meme

[dreamflower]

Gacked from danachan: Ask any of my characters a question, and I will answer as that character.

Comments

[topaztook.livejournal.com]

Dear Healer Poppy Burrows,

Prior to meeting Men, at least, you seemed supremely confident in your abilities as a healer. What gives you the confidence that you are such a good healer in the Shire? What is your training and/or experience?

[dreamflower]

I studied under an excellent mistress, and learned all she had to teach me. When I finished my apprenticeship with her, I did not immediately set up on my own. I took another mistress for about three more years. She was a healer in Tookland, and was almost ready for retirement. When she did retire, I took over her patients, most of whom were Tooks. One *must* learn to at least *feign* confidence when dealing with them, as they are very recalcitrant patients, and will seek out the least hint of weakness. And if one *feign* confidence long enough, one eventually *becomes* confidant.

I became the healer to Paladin Took's family, and after he became Thain, he asked me to become the healer there at the Great Smials. I have tended his family for thirty-five years.

I do not know that I am "such a good healer in the Shire"--there are a few whose skills I would place above my own: my friend Mistress Lavender Bunce, Master Dodinas Brandybuck, the late Mistress Jewel North-took--all excellent healers with skills in many areas that I think would surpass my own.

But I am determined to continue learning, and to become the best healer that I can--this means of course, taking the opportunity to see how things are done outside the Shire. To have a chance to discover the secrets of healing from the King, and perhaps even from the Elves, is not a chance I can afford to pass up.

And when I return, I hope to convince the other healers in the Shire to try some of that knowledge out.