Fetching the kettle off of the stove top, Chandra procured a set of cups and their matching saucers from the cupboard above the sink. They had been a gift from an old client of his and he had taken great pains to protect them in his years moving from place to place. They were both as pristine as the day they were gifted to him, and it was just as well because they were enchanted. He poured the tea into each of the cups and held Eric's out for him to take. "I vastly prefer tea to coffee." Sipping from his own cup, he felt some of his tension melt away. The brew was one of his own concoction, as were most of the ones he made. With everything he learned about the various plants he typically worked with, it only made sense for him to apply that knowledge to the other interests he held and tea had been one of them.
As he drank his tea, he listened to the merman speak. The idea of tattoos being foreign to him made sense to Chandra, and considering something about being able to camouflage was brought up in their conversation, it was likely that permanently marking the skin with something could have an adverse affect on that biological process. Chandra was most curious about the healing process of other supernatural creatures and had heard from his late uncle that it was believed that merpeople had a unique healing ability that set them apart. That was just a theory of a man who had been clearly obsessed to the point that it affected his judgement and Chandra took that man's statements with a grain of salt. That said, he was in a position to test that theory, something his uncle likely never had the chance to do.
"That I can do," Chandra answered with a smile. He was entirely mesmerized by the color change and stared at the skin of Eric's arm rather intently until it returned to the same pale shade it had been to start. Setting his nearly empty cup down, he stood up from the chair he had settled into to disappear into one of the back rooms before returning with a scalpel and his preserving jar. "I assure you, this is sterilized." Chandra didn't spare a second thought for whether the merman would know what that meant to not. "It's a rather old art, tattooing," Chandra began as he readied all of his equipment. "Henna has been in use for millennia." Deftly, he flayed a strip of skin from the merman's arm and dropped it immediately into the jar all without even pausing in his discussion. "It's been recorded as far back at the 17th dynasty in Egypt which is over three thousand years. The ink I use is one of my own design and lasts from two to three weeks. As I've never worked on a merman, I cannot say for sure how long it would last on you, though if my research proves fruitful, I may be able to create something that would work much better for you."