#; rubiesintherough / mahia / 002

[dutyworn]

❝ Easy, ❞    Wren soothes, taking a step towards the injured woman, but keeping her distance as not to scare her.    ❝ Don’t try to get up. You’ll be OK, but you were out for a good while. I’ve cleaned your wound and administered medigel, a few times. ❞    She had found the woman unconscious, last night, so the other had been passed out or sleeping for at least ten hours, though Wren has no way of knowing for how long she had been at her doorstep; she’d been away, for a few weeks.

❝ I would’ve taken you to Huerta, but... ❞    The wings. This person looks perfectly human, but  she has wings.  Hidden under her clothing, sure, but difficult to miss when checking for injuries and carrying her.

Wren figured she’d rather not put the other through... well, whatever might be done to her. Is she human? An unknown species beyond Citadel Space? Maybe there’s an explanation, maybe she’s perfectly safe running about the Citadel, but Wren didn’t want to take that risk, or make that decision for her.

Medigel is generally considered safe for all, so Wren had dared to use it, even without knowing anything about the stranger’s biological makeup.

❝ My name is Wren. ❞    It might frighten her if she says she’s a spectre, or a marine, so she goes with her first name.    ❝ How are you feeling? There’s a glass of water with a straw on the bedside table, if you’re thirsty. ❞    Wren takes a seat on the desk (rather than the chair), where the woman can see her.

" i found you unconscious on my doorstep. " / for mahia at wren's citadel or pinnacle station apartment? (let the healer be healed)

@dutyworn

A wound she believed she'd tended to well enough, washed and bound, had grown infected... the long, angry gash on her calf becoming red, puffy, feeling as though someone had lit a fire on it that refused to die out. Fever crept it's way into her body. Chills and wooziness unsteadied her every step... until she could go no further. And, within moments of all but collapsing into whatever alcove she could find, she fell unconscious.

And woke in a place unfamiliar. Soft, and warm, and strange... immediately wrong, immediately terrifying, urging her upright on shaking arms. How had she not felt herself being moved? How had she slipped so deeply into sleep in a place so unsafe...?

The sudden voice spun the healer around with a panicked stuttering of her heart. A woman's figure silhouetted in the glow of the room's lights... the words she'd spoken slowly breaking through Mahia's fatigued mind, along with the dawning awareness that her leg no longer burned, and the feverish chills had subsided.

Unsure how to respond --- vocabulary still lost in the haze --- she could only offer a grateful, if anxious, nod of her head toward her unexpected savior...

[lanternlit]

rubiesintherough.​

(( open — mahia ))

Practiced, calloused, fingers glided across broken skin, a rivulet of darkening water trailing behind her touch, rinsing away crimson and sealing the worst of the injuries closed. Though, her hand had begun to tremble. Fatigue was growing worse, causing her limbs to weigh heavy as boulders by the time the stranger’s eyes finally fluttered open. A breath of relief from her, then… and of apprehension. She’d overtaxed herself with this mending. Mahia could only hope their reaction to her help was not a violent one, as some had been before. She was in no condition to fend it off.      “ Thank the ancestors, you are awake. “    Her voice was hoarse…   “ Are you in any pain? “

❝ Wh⸺? ❞    He thinks this woman just had her hands on him. His chest feels cold and weird and... Dean sits up too fast, vision blurring from the sudden motion, and rubs his eyes, grimacing at his whole body protesting. Yeah, he’s on fucking edge. He thought he was about to die, wouldn’t have been the first time, even  ⸺  the slashes on his chest... He touches his mended skin through the shreds of his t-shirt. Who is she? What is she? His first instinct is to treat her like a threat, but it seems she’s helped him. He shrugs off the question about being in pain  ⸺  yeah, he’s in friggin’ pain, he’s been mauled.    ❝ I’ll live. Thanks to you, I’m guessing. What the hell did you do to me? ❞