Qirri Tinkerfirst (Health)

First to address: her albinism. Qirri’s albinism and nearsightedness go hand-in-hand, and are unrelated to her other health issues. Like most more common forms of albinism, it’s genetic! Both Pazz and Tixxi are carriers of the recessive mutation, with Tixxi’s father having been albino and Pazz’s grandmother sharing the same condition. Her albinism is also the easiest thing for her to manage, requiring her to wear glasses to correct her vision and to cover up as much as she can if she’s going to be in the sun.

The rest of her health issues are entirely tied to her being very premature when she was born. After a difficult pregnancy and labor, both Tixxi and Qirri nearly died, and the doctors were - for a time - convinced Qirri wouldn’t live past her first six months. But she defied the odds… and continued defying them, living to a year, living to five, living to ten, and now living to 21.

Her most pressing concern is her lungs. They never fully developed before she was born, and while some development did take place after, they’re still very weak. She sometimes has difficulty drawing full breaths, and the condition sometimes looks a lot like asthma to someone looking in from the outside. She uses an herbal treatment from a plant similar to lungwort found in brackish water around Metrica to treat any breathing trouble, but for severe episodes, her physicians use an “atmospheric isolation chamber,” which is really just a room that’s magically altered to increase the oxygen level, sealed with even more magic.

Equally pressing is her immune system. It tends to the weak side, leaving her vulnerable to complications from common illnesses most asura would be able to shrug off. This situation has improved as she’s gotten older, but she also takes supplements to help with the issue. She does still have to be careful, and illnesses she does catch can be much worse if she doesn’t take close care of it.

She’s also prone to getting tired much more quickly than others, but that’s possibly related to her breathing issues.

In order to travel freely without being tethered constantly to Rata Sum, she travels with a small golem - one of her earliest inventions - called MED-1 (Medical Equipment Dispenser v.1). The golem contains a two week supply of dried herbs, as well as what looks like an inhaler, which uses magic to dispense a dose of mist from the dried herbs.