"An hour," Chandra echoed, eyes narrowing in thought briefly. Darting into the other room again, he jotted that down into one of his heavy books and set a timer for about an hour. If the merman's arm could be completely healed in that time, he had to wonder what the stolen flesh would do. Even if, in the end, it did nothing, it was still worth testing. Returning once more into the room, Chandra apologized with a laugh for his behavior, no more serious than required, though he did add, "It's better for me to write things down to help me remember."
It was all too easy for Chandra to get wrapped up in the sound of his own voice and his discussion on tattoos that he often missed the comments from the person to whom he was speaking. This case was different only because he was talking to a merman and that was not something that happened every day, except Chandra had a feeling in the center of his chest that was telling him that wouldn't be true anymore. That feeling, like a buzzing hollowness, was something like anticipation and trepidation, because the Cirque was a fascinating but incredibly dangerous place. It was possible that he might not survive his contract but Chandra pushed that thought from his mind, focusing back on his goal and more importantly, the client in front of him at this very moment. "Life sometimes requires us to separate from those we care about to accomplish what needs doing." Chandra was speaking completely hypothetically as his departure from his family had not left him with any of the melancholy that it clearly set into Eric. Maybe that was cold-hearted of him. "I'm sure they are."
Turning his attention to the pigments, he stirred the colors in diligently as he added them to fully disperse them throughout the entire mixture. He listened intently to Eric as he continued to describe the color, adding his white pigments in with some softer pinks, stopping when Eric seemed satisfied. Chandra liked simple tattoos almost as much as he enjoyed the highly detailed and complicated ones. At his core, he was more interested in the expression of the tattoo than its contents, and anything that held meaning to the wearer made it worth his time and effort. "Two weeks, I would venture to guess," Chandra replied as he set the pink aside to begin working on the blue pigment. "The pigment stains the layers of the skin and it lasts until the last layer is shed. It will fade in its last few days." Taking up another clean, empty jar, he placed the base in before adding a cerulean blue. "But as long as I have the pigments, we can touch it up for as long as you would care to do it."