Recovery (Mooney)

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Sunlight shining through the skylights hitting her eyes awoke Zarene from her slumber. She slowly opened her eyes and tried to slowly push herself up into a sitting position, a series of sharp pains stabbing into her side as she did so.

An ion blaster, an uncommon weapon normally deployed against speeder bikes and droids. It was a lucky shot. And it had nearly cost her her life. The cybernetics that kept her alive tended to be more susceptible to these kinds of attacks. And this attack had been almost a direct hit. She was fortunate to still be alive.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she told herself. She had gotten overconfident. She should have been able to evade the attack easily, but she hadn't. Her opponent should never have been able to get in a counterattack like that, but he did. And so here she was, in a Mandalorian hospital (which was really more of a shack with what looked like a bunch of surplus Republic medical instruments wheeled in), with her torso wrapped in bandages, and barely able to even sit up.

What a wonderful way to spend the day, she thought as the back of her neck rested uncomfortably against the plaster wall.

[Moonfire]

"Hey-hey--hey, Girlie! Don't go strainin' yourself just yet." Called out a voice from behind the tall impromptu cabinets, thick, heavy iron painted green with red and white crosses, filled to the brim with bottles and vials are various shapes and sizes. Shuffling and moving noises filled the small shack for a moment before Me'allo, clad in old buffed dark green armor, popped out from around the cabinet, a variety of easily recognizable first aid supplies in hand.

"You gave me quite a scare out there." The gingery man said with a wide smile, tilting his head towards the door and the now empty battlefield that laid beyond. It had been a small skirmish between the two clans, one with no official casualties and few in the way of wounded, the small clan Mel was traveling with quickly surrendered to the will of Mandalore, the battle more of ceremonial and traditional purposes than anything else.

Settling into a fold up chair next to Zarene Me'llao propped up his feet on his desk. "Ya didn't miss much though. Mandalore made his demands, mah clan surrendered, nobody's dead yet. Got you and a coupla other guys, but they all walked it off." The man said with a shrug, fiddling with the gauze and bandages.

"After ya settle in let me know and I can take a peek at your bandages. I already got the wound closed up, but you've got some nasty bruisin'. Got ya some stuff for the pain too, if yer interested. A lot of these guys are too proud for it, didn't want to slip ya any just in case." He winked a grey eye at her before breaking out in a large wolfish grin.

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"Don't want to spend all day lying down," she muttered. "Warn me if you decide to poke me with one of those needles." Zarene hated needles. He didn't seem to be reaching for any needles though, so she relaxed a bit as she listened to him recap the previous day's events. "So he didn't die even after being thrown off the wall. Damn." She shifted her shoulders a bit, trying to get into a more comfortable position.

She remembered him vaguely from the day before. That head of red hair was difficult to forget. He had appeared sometime after she had gotten shot. Didn't remember much more than that though. It was all very vague and fuzzy. Being in pain and having your life-supporting cybernetics going haywire had a way of doing that to your memory.

"Fine, have a look if you want. Would appreciate it if you could plug my arm back in first though." She tilted her head slightly towards a desk several feet away. "Should fit in right under the shoulder plate. Pretty standard connection." She wasn't exactly completly clothed as it was, but not having her arm made her feel even more naked and vulnerable.

[Moonfire]

"Oh yeah, 'course."

Me'allo's face suddenly serious as he jumped up, walking quickly to the desk and picking up the mechanical contraption. It was lighter than it appeared and cool to the touch from sitting on the desk through the night, a little stir of memory as Me'allo remembered removing it in a hurry the night before, it twitching and flailing as the machinery and her system rebooted.

Lifting it gingerly he cradled it against his chest as though it were a child rather than a cybernetic limb before dropping down at Zarene's side. Silently, brow furrowed in concentration he looked over the shoulder port for a long moment before lifting the arm up and setting it into the socket working with the firm but gentle touch of an experienced healer. Satisfied with his work Me'allo stood back up, his grin returning.

"If it give ya any trouble just let me know, I can call one the engineers, have 'em give it a looksie." He shrugged nonchalantly. "And I promise, no needles without a warning." He added, nodding as though it were the most serious order he'd ever been given before the smile broke through again.

[sparrow]

The arm connected with a metallic click. She rotated her shoulder, flexed her elbow. The various plates and panels each opened and closed one after another. "Hmm... everything feels normal," she murmured as she held hand in the air in front of her, wiggling each finger a few times before resting her hand back on the side of the bed.

Her eyebrow arched up slightly when she noticed him smiling. She was used to dispassionate doctors, ones who worked methodically in their sterile face masks, betraying no more emotion than a droid. So this was strange...

... although not unpleasant. She shifted her shoulders a bit, causing their eyes to meet for a brief moment, brown and green across from grey, before she looked away quickly. He was still grinning. "What's so funny?"

[Moonfire]

Me'allo watched, leaning back against his small shamble of a desk as the woman cautiously tested the limb. Every digit moved with surprising silence despite the obviously complex mechanization to move each joint, metal plates moving and exposing the gears and wires beneath in momentary glances, it was fascinating. And everything seemed to be working, which was good.

For a moment, the young humanoid- Epicanthix by his guess, looked up, her eyes meeting his for the briefest of moments before flitting away, almost shy.

"What's so funny?" She asked, though not unkindly.

Perhaps if Me'allo had been a less confident man he would have faltered, but his face never fell, his smile dropping on the slightest.

"Oh no. Nothing funny at all," he said with a causal wave of his hand, his grey eyes seeking hers again, almost apologetic. "

Sorry m'am, 'is just my way. The others have taken to callin' me 'Miles, short for Smiles..." Me'allo shrugged before standing up straight again, walking around the desk to collect the various supplies he had gathered before. Bandages, gauze, kolto, salves, pills rattled around restlessly as he moved.

"My name is Me'allo for the record, and I'm afraid in the flurry of everything around here I haven't gotten yours yet, Miss...?"

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She watched him somewhat warily as he went about... doing whatever it was he was doing. 'Miles. What an odd nickname, she thought. And odd nickname for an odd man. Most of the other Mandalorians, from Mandalore on down, were all so very dour.

Suddenly she noticed that he had asked her a question. "Yin," she said simply.

"And you're... Me'allo - what?" She certainly wasn't going to start calling him 'Miles.

Slowly, she began shifting her weight on the bed, which creaked slightly as she did so. There was still a sharp pain in her side whenever she tried to move, not as bad as it was before, but still enough to make her wince slightly. Having just woken up less than an hour ago, she was already feeling restless. She wondered if he would try to stop her if she tried to get up and go outside, and whether she would actually be able to get past him if he did.

[Moonfire]

"Yin." He repeated thoughtfully, as those testing the way it tasted on his tongue. "Simple. Epicanthix, right?" His voice giving no judgment, merely curiosity as he approached her, various miscellaneous medical supplies in hand. He didn't push for a first name, many in such structured militant places like this preferred surnames, and no need to draw any more attention to himself.

"Talron. Me'allo Talron. Unless you're fishin' for a middle name too, girlie, though I'll be happy to obliged if you are." He said with a wink before dropping to his knees at her side.

"Now, I injected some kolto into the area earlier when you were unconscious, but I need to have a look at it, see how its healin', if you need more, bandages could stand to be changed too. I've got some pain stuff too if ya like. No shame in it, the body heal faster when you're more relaxed. Its science." He rested comfortably on his knees on the side of the bed, looking at her has he spoke, eyes looking to meet hers again.

[sparrow]

She nodded. "Yes, Epicanthix." That came as a slight surprise. While most would be able to tell that she wasn't baseline human, it was less common for someone to be able to immediately identify her Epicanthix ancestry. The Epicanthix hailed from the Pacanth Reach, located in the outer rim, not part of the Republic, and most tended to stay there.

She listened silently as he continued to speak. "Fine," she finally said, "If it gets me out of this bed and on my feet, then do whatever it is you have to to do.... There aren't going to be any needles, are there?" But even as she spoke and their eyes met once again, her hand was clenched on the front of her hospital gown tightly, as if shielding her and holding the garment in place.

[Moonfire]

"No promises, but if I can avoid stickin' ya, believe me I will." Me'allo said with a nod of his head orange curled head, grey eyes meeting hers and sensing the tension. Her hand protectively holding her gown closed as though trying to hide the flesh and scars and cybernetics beneath the surface. She was anxious, or at the very least uncomfortable with the overly friendly medic, and to that Me'allo let his smile fall into an expression of pure neutrality.

"If you could be anywhere in the galaxy, consequence free, where would you be right now?" He asked, Me'allo's tone purely conversational as he lingered at the side of the bed, grey eyes flicking from her face to the white of her tense knuckles clutching the garment in her vice grip.

He'd let her relax a little, try and ease her discomfort a little first before pinching and poking and prodding at her healing wounds.

[sparrow]

"I don't know... a Naboo lakeside, an Alderaaian meadow,... somewhere else." It was a vague, noncommittal answer. But it was probably the only accurate answer she could give at the moment, because she really didn't know. She had been the Naboo once, years ago, and it had indeed been beautiful, but if she went there now, she'd probably end up spending her time trying to figure out the most suitable place to land a commando strike force instead of actually enjoying the scenery. The things waging galactic war did to you...

"I guess I better let you do... whatever it is you were going to do," she said, her fingers slowly releasing their grip on her gown.

[Moonfire]

"I'm just checkin' your wounds. Seein' if ya need more kolto." His voice soft, even. With the delicate touch of an experienced healer Me'allo lifted her gown, grey eyes instantly drawn to her wound.

A mess of black and purple, with faded patches of blue and green across her abdomen. The ion blaster, while not directly inflicting harm on the flesh had shorted out the circuitry beneath, causing the woman's whole body to spasm and seize, injuring herself multiple times as she writhed on the battlefield, nearly trampled in the dusty chaos.

"So you've been to Naboo? Whats it like? Describe it for me--I've never been."

It had been a mess the day before, Me'allo for once unsure of what he was doing as he struggled to reboot her system while treating the organic parts of her. But he had done it, after carrying her from the battle field and spending hours in the med-tent she had made it... Now was simply the recovery. Large, lightly calloused hands gently ran across the bruised and scarred flesh, surveying things. Both the old the new lit up under his fingers tips.

"Alright, things are lookin' better. Lots of bruisin', miiight need a little more kolto, but we'll see how its doin' in an hour or so before we decide. Now, Yin, how're ya feelin? Be honest."He asked, grey eyes looking up at hers again, the smallest of smiles lingering under the surface.

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His hands were a bit cold, and she flinched slightly as he touched her skin. "It... it was long time ago. Look, you, uh, don't have to do the whole smalltalk thing. It's not like I've never been in a hospital before. You just caught me off guard, is all. Most doctors I've have... less smiles and more wrinkles." There was Doctor Dres at the Temple, for instance. An old Arkanian in his sixties, he never smiled, and when he talked it was always about complaining about the state of the facilities, or the incompetence of the medical droids or the other doctor at Temple, a female force-sensitive Arkanian who he always referred to as "the intern" despite her being roughly the same age as him.

"It still hurts some, but mostly only when I move my upper body. It's not as..." Suddenly she paused, feeling a shiver running through her body as he touched her. She felt something... why hadn't she sensed it earlier? Seemed so obvious now, now that she knew it was there. "You... you use the Force."

[Moonfire]

"You're all tense," He explained, fingers still gently prodding and probing. "I'm tryin' to help ya relax a bit. I'm not gonna go on a rampage and start stabbin' ya with needles. Promise." Me'allo said brow still furrowed seriously as he continued the exam.

She had so many scars littered across her skin, some burns, others from pieces of shrapnel that dug deep grooves. But Me'allo kept his expression neutral, not staring or focusing on any part of her abdomen for too long. Yin was already tense, wary of the stranger poking and prodding her, no need to alarm her more.

"You... you use the Force." She marveled, he could feel her mismatched eyes scrutinizing, it was strange, almost unheard of for a force user to be a Mandalorian.

"Yeah, a bit. I grew up away from the clan on Nar Shaddaa, worked for a crime lord under a dar'jetii." He repeated the story casually, still concentrating on his task, searching for the source of the pain in her upper body. "Taught me to heal a bit, but no honor in the work. Sought out home a few months back, reconnect with my roots like Ma wanted." He shrugged before pouring the force into her, to soothe the aches and the pains, relax her. She knew now, was there any point in holding back?

"Though, looks we've got somethin' in common there, eh Yin?"

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She watched as he went through his examination. For the most part his touch was gentle and methodical. He smile on his face earlier seemed to have disappeared, replaced with a more focused expression.

"Yeah... I guess so. Funny, that." she murmured, before letting out an awkward chuckle.

Well, this was certainly an interesting and unexpected development. But she didn't want to push the subject of his force training too far, as the conversation could easily take a turn to her own force abilities, something she wasn't too keen to talk about at the moment. So she'd let this topic drop for now.

Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt him beginning to channel the Force, an initial wave of cold sending a shiver through her body. However, her body soon began to relax as his healing powers began to do their work, the knots in her muscles beginning to untie themselves. "That's... wow..."

[Moonfire]

The Force moved through Zarene, soothing the aches and the pains. He could feel them, for a brief moment as he touched on the sore, aching muscles and the pangs of healing flesh and agitated nerves. He could feel as she did, and absorbed it, taking it into his self and letting the Force move like a living being, invigorating the tissues and calming the inflammation.

The bruises that bloomed like exotic flowers across her abdomen began to waver and close up, the yellows and green returning to the creaminess of her untouched skin. The reddish, angry marks turned pink, and the vivid blacks and purples that dominated the landscape lessened and receded, staying concentrated around the wounds, little buds.

And with a sigh, Me'allo released her, pulling away and wiping the sweat from his brow as the exhaustion, slight but present, settled into him. He had to stay restrained. She knew already that he was a Force user, and least a proficient healer, but letting her know the full extent of his capabilities didn't sit right with him, it felt dangerous, irresponsible.

With a long exhale the healer smiled, soft and gentle at the woman, the picture of relaxation before him.

"Yeah, I get that alot."

[sparrow]

"So... yeah... uh... thanks." She returned his smile sheepishly. "Does this mean I can get up now?"

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(after the Battle of Ordo)

She sat at the edge of the table, leaning slightly on her left arm. "When do you think I get finally get these bandages off?" They were wrapped thickly around her right shoulder, where the bullet had entered, ripping through both flesh and circuitry as it exited.

"Varlan came by, said he could get my arm back on tomorrow, if everything else was okay by then."  She hoped it would be.  Medical operations with the mechanics present to help repair the broken electrical connections, days of bed rest, treatments with kolto and various other medicines... she was ready to be done with it.  At least she was able to walk the past few days.  She would have gone out of her mind if she had to count the ceiling tiles one more time.

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for his diagnosis.