[Oatara] Broaden Your Horizons (Mike)

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa blinked in surprise yet again as she actually got an apology from Horst.

She pinched herself with one hand to make sure she was actually awake and not still passed out having a lovely dream to make up for the craptastic night she'd had. The pinch still felt like a pinch, but somehow apart from that she had the feeling this was reality.

"Why the sudden change? I thought I was the bad guy here. World in the palm of my hand and all that."

The Mirialan woman beckoned the server over as she spoke, ordering breakfast when she arrived. After all, it had been about eight hours since she last ate.

"More coffee, scrambled eggs, any kind of sausage, and how about some kind of cinnamon roll?"

"Sure thing hon," the server said with a smile as she took the menu.

Ervisa looked back to Horst then, her hangover already vastly improved.

"How's the hand by the way?" The Mirialan asked despite knowing it wasn't really by the way at all, however it made for better conversation in the presence of the server.

[Fromikeable]

Horst smiled at the question. He had been wondering about it himself. After all, in a pretty short time he had undergone a pretty radical shift from calling her, this woman, this Jedi, a soulless killer to simply apologizing and treating her as a person.

What gave?

"I guess I just remembered that people are people, no matter what kind of sword they carry." The waitress returned with a pot of coffee, and Horst tapped his own mug as Ervisa's was filled. Ervisa gave her order, and the waitress smiled and slinked away, still waking up herself.

"How's the hand by the way?"

"Better, thanks. I think it should hurt more personally." The Engineer smiled at his own grim joke, meaning it. He was starting to feel kind of awful.

"Listen, I feel like I owe an explanation or something, so here goes. 'Bout 5 years ago, I was in the military." Horst tapped the patch on his arm to prove it, running his finger over the mouth of the snarling rancor. "But one day... one day we found a few pirates..."

Horst sipped his coffee again, allowing it to burn his tongue a little.

"So we fought. And we were losing. And then we were winning. And then we were really losing..." Horst recalled perfectly the surges of the battle. One side advanced, the other retreated. Then the advance ended, and there was a retaliation. And cycle went on until one side was dead.

Horst just wished it hadn't been his side.

"Anyway, when it came down to it, there was a guy there. And he was slaughtering us all... and he was using one of those." Horst nodded at the Mirialan's waist again, pointing with his finger at her lightsaber.

For a minute, Horst was quiet.

"I practically lost my brother that day. And I've blamed those things and the people who use them ever since."

For another minute, Horst was quiet. He still wasn't used to talking about this part of his past. Ask him any day of the week about his time with as a Captain or the years as a Major preceding that day, and he'd ramble on gleefully, reliving the memories.

That day, however, was special. Horst hadn't even told Ethan about that day yet. Not exactly anyway.

"Anyway," Horst cleared his throat, sipping his coffee again. His sip quickly escalated into a gulp, which grew into a chug. When he put the mug down, it was empty, and he suddenly wished he had ordered something too.

"that's my past, so I'd say we're even." A small smirk appeared on Horst's face, and he tried to look a little welcoming.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa scaled herself on refilled coffee and cursed quietly, but didn't interrupt the story Horst was telling at any point. As it unfolded she had to say it explained a lot.

Yeah, Horst had a reason to be mad, but why he extended that to the guys in the white hats she really couldn't say. Jedi were the good guys, there was no question about that. They always had been, heroes of the Republic and all that.

Ervisa herself was still mistaken for a Jedi sometimes, often by kids. And when a child came up and asked the Jedi for a hug, she let them think she still was. People needed their heroes. She was done wearing the white hat, but someone had to keep it clean still.

When Horst was done, the Mirialan woman sipped more coffee and then spoke her piece.

"When I was a Jedi, I was a Guardian. I used to hunt down people like that guy, and take 'em to prison or take 'em down. I don't know why you'd think we're all the bad guys. You were fighting for the Republic, so were we."

Another sip of coffee. Another sigh.

"Even or not, there's a few things you've got to know 'bout me, about my past. I'll break it down nice and easy. Ex-Jedi, left the Order on good terms, quickly got onto not so good terms. Did a stint in Rodian prison for arms smuggling, got time off for tunneling out and rabbiting. Made some dumb personal decisions, got hooked on spice. Did you know what... for about two or three months, then came here."

One final sip as the food started to arrive.

"Now we're good."

Two plates heaped with food were put down before Ervisa, and without standing on ceremony she dug in with a knife and fork, sawing off bits of sausage patty and spearing them with big chunks of scrambled egg.

[Fromikeable]

Horst had never really considered why his hatred of Forcies had extended to the Jedi. He was a Republic kid; he had grown up with the stories of the magical Jedi Knights helping the galaxy wherever they went. Why'd he rewrite them as evil?

"I guess I just never bothered to draw the line." When you were angry at something, you only considered the things about it that made you angry. To Horst, the color of the lightsaber had seemed trivial, and so he'd never really gone into what differences there might have been. "Too mad, I guess."

Well that's stupid. Then again, angry people didn't go around winning awards, and Horst had never been much of a scholar to begin with.

The Mirialan didn't seem to think that evened the score though, and so she briefly summarized her life; Order-drop-out, accused of weapons smuggling, escaped convict, and former addict.

She almost made Horst look like a model citizen.

Horst whistled softly as she finished. That, apparently, left the score-board even. Well, "good". And "good" sounded pretty great by this point. It had been a long night with...

"Do me a fav-" Horst stopped short, immediately trying to think of another phrase to say. That one wasn't quite buried enough yet.

"Just tell me one last thing?" The food arrived, and the woman chowed down, letting her dogtags jingle a little as she inhaled the eggs and sausage. In retrospect, Horst could've just looked at her tags and figured out her name, but in a way, he was sort of glad he hadn't. He'd put this woman through enough to the point where it'd be flat-out rude to know her name without her say-so.

Personally, Horst wasn't sure he'd tell his if the roles were reversed. But the Engineer had never gotten anywhere without trying.

"Your name is, uh..." He stopped for a second, trying to remember yesterday. "... Erva, right? Erena?" The question was immediately followed by a smile. Figures we've had this entire morning together and I can't even put a name to her face. Horst let out a few soft laughs, tired and weary.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa raised a dark eyebrow, visible over the top of her sunglasses. He couldn't even remember her name? She remembered his name, though she couldn't even remember where or when she'd heard it.

This guy's issues must have been to blame, the reason he didn't care to know. Or hadn't cared to know. Unless of course it was innocent in nature, which she had to admit was a possibility.

At least he could laugh about it.

"Ervisa Therani," She corrected in a casual tone, pulling out a pack of tabac cigarettes, unfiltered, and tapping one out. Out came a light as well, and in a split second she was inhaling a nice deep puff of cancer.

She blew it out slowly to the side as she pushed away her mostly empty plate.

"We never had a real introduction earlier. Guess we've had one already now, but I wish it had been better."

A sigh as Ervisa shifted her position in the booth, soon hissing vaguely at the bright yellow circle rising up on the horizon. However little things like the size of her head weren't going to deter her from having a conversation.

"Sorry, I'm not one for big serious conversations. I usually just lie about myself and crack jokes for a half hour before screwing someone or passing out drunk... Well, used to. Can't say I've had any really long talks since... You know. Haven't been intimate either, and Iiiiiiiii should really stop talking now."

Ervisa lapsed into silence and instead drank her coffee and smoked her cigarette as she awaited any response at all.

[Fromikeable]

Ervisa. The name clicked into the gap in Horst's memory like a puzzle piece, instantly linking everything together. He'd been right on a few accounts; it was short, started with an E, and ended with a sort of "ah" sound. Beyond that, Horst could clearly remember Bit saying it in his suave fashion earlier today, or rather yesterday. The sun was up again, after all.

Ervisa remarked that she wished that they had began their relationship on a better note. Horst grunted with agreement, running his fingers slowly around the rim of his mug, wiping off a little left-over coffee when they glided over the edge where his mouth had been. Horst was normally decent at making decent first impressions, but last night had been downright awful. A screaming match on the tarmac? Stranding them both in Waypoint? Forcing a former alcoholic back to the bottle while he had to get his hand fixed?

I really know how to charm 'em. Horst smiled again. The morning warmth coming through the window was beginning to creep up the table, making Horst's hands glow. He looked down at them in silent wonder. Considering it all, though, he had managed to get Ervisa here and talking to him civilly a few hours later. If he told himself that he'd be having breakfast with a former-Jedi at any point before last night, he'd have gone ballistic.

Soooooooo... success? He'd have to see, but Ervisa wasn't screaming, and neither was he, so things had improved at least.

Ervisa then summarized how she would treated this sort of thing before. She'd laugh, act cute by the sound of, and then get wasted or have some fun with her companion. Horst's head snapped up in surprise when he connected the ideas of Ervisa and him on some sort of morning date, and well, what she used to do after dates.

For a moment, he merely stared, his mental cogs cranking.

Then came a low laugh, which grew into a steady one, which grew into a hearty chuckle that filled the cafe. It wasn't a laugh of ridicule, but of pleasant surprise. Apparently she thought he was nice enough to jump his bones.

For a moment, Horst just kept laughing. He knew that Ervisa wasn't actually suggesting getting physical, and he also knew that they were no where near that close yet (would they ever be? Hell, he'd keep an open mind. She was a bit young though), but he was so tired and so surprised by the statement that he couldn't help but get a bit hysterical.

Finally, the laughing died and Horst wiped away a tear. After a night of stress, he had needed that.

"Oh boy... he said, still hooting lowly in the remnants of his chuckles. "I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaay too tired, let me tell ya'."

Speaking of tired, the morning was fast approaching. Horst looked around the cafe, searching for a clock. He found it on the far wall; it was about 7 in the morning. Spearpoint would be getting up soon, and if he was gonna start training the troops today, he'd need a nap at least.

Still... this was too nice a breakfast to interrupt. 10 more minutes... nah, 15.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa was staring into her coffee and inhaling her cigarette when the sound started, and it took her almost a full second to realize Horst had started laughing out of nowhere. It was a deep chuckle, a strange sound when fully formed, though it had started as an unusual rumble of questionable meaning.

The Mirialan blinked a few times, not getting what was so funny.

Her statement had been a little awkward yes, but she had no idea what he found so damned funny.

With curiosity and the stubborn desire to find out what the hell was worth laughing over, she reached out with the Force, trying to lift the dominate thoughts from his mind.

She succeeded in getting exactly two notions. Too young, and sex.

Ervisa stubbed out her cigarette just as the laughter subsided, and was met with the excuse of 'tired.'

"Too tired? What are we, married?" Ervisa quipped. "If I were coming onto you, you'd know. My foot would probably be touching you in inappropriate places and I'd be teasing you. As is, you haven't even seen so much as a flash of titties, and it ain't gonna happen Horst."

The Mirialan woman downed the rest of her coffee and stood up.

"And as to too young, I'm 34. Name an alternate universe where that's too young and you'll get a free quickie."

Ervisa winked at the last part before laughing, a little too hard. She was in boisterous mode now, and in that slightly crazy, somewhat unhinged, awkward, vaguely promiscuous attitude which left the promise of indiscretion perpetually hanging in the air.

"I think I may still be a little drunk. Oh well, we're taking off anyway. Come on Horsty-worsty."

With that the green woman paraded out the door and into the street, happy with her own little brand of insanity.

[Fromikeable]

Horst had forgotten that one thing everyone said about the Jedi: that they were mind readers. As she started talking about what he had only thought, he was caught off-guard, not used to the sanctum of his mind being robbed. Ervisa, it seemed, hadn't taken much offense at it, making it clear that if she had wanted it to go further, Horst would be well aware.

Ervisa stood up, continuing in saying that was actually 34. Horst raised his eyebrows at that, looking at her face again. Quite frankly, he though she looked great for 34. He'd been pegging her age somewhere around late 20's. In retrospect, Horst could see how she had made a living satisfying some of the galaxy's more perverted citizens.

Ervisa offered up, half seriously by the sound of it, a certain question. Horst smiled coyly and replied "Sorry Erv. I prefer working for my catch." The statement was followed by another short laugh, indicating its nature of playful teasing. And nothing else. Surely.

34? Hmmmm....

"I think I may still be a little drunk. Oh well, we're taking off anyway. Come on Horsty-worsty."

"Yes dear." Horst shuffled out of the booth and tossed a few credits onto the table, still smiling like an idiot. The waitress waved them off as the they walked outside, now into the warm, glowing morning light. They slowly traversed the small capital, passing by stirring homes of people and opening businesses as the settlement woke up, piece by piece. By the time they had returned to the medical facility, Horst could see people going about morning errands, going to and fro and yawning all the while.

The doctor had been slightly angered at Horst and Ervisa for leaving the chopper on the emergency landing pad, but he proved far more temperate than them both, simply asking them rather urgently to move it. The duo of misadventure acquiesced, climbing the stairs up to the roof.

The chopper seemed to have been left undisturbed in its evening of solitude, but even still Horst gave a quick check of the hardware as Ervisa started up the rotors, going through a checklist. When they were good to go, Horst hopped into to the co-pilot's seat, donning a set of headphones and a mic. He gave a quick thumbs up, smiling at his partner in crime.

"Sure you're sober? I kinda' like my body in the one piece it's in."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"It's not like flying is an exact science Horsey Horsty," Ervisa said in between flipping switches. "Besides, don't be such a pussy. It's just a bottle of whiskey. Or was it rum?"

The Mirialan woman strapped herself in and pulled her braid out from behind her, draping it over her shoulder and dropping her last cigarette out the side before shutting the door.

"In the event of a water landing, the chopper may not be used as a flotation device. If we are to crash, standard practice is to scream like a girl until hurting yourself upon impact. In-flight refreshments can be received by asking the nearest stewardess. Thank you for flying Air Oatara, and please keep your seats in the upright position."

Ervisa promptly hit the throttle and rotated the blades, lifting the helicopter up off the roof. With the push of her foot she rotated the bird to face back to the Spearpoint base and dipped the nose, racing off into the sky as soon as she'd gained enough altitude.

Of course the Mirialan woman wasn't about to spend another five hour flight in total silence, as this time she had someone to talk to. Sad as it was, she hadn't talked to someone much in a long time. Hell, it had to be like riding a speeder bike though, you couldn't just forget how.

"So Horsty, do you fly any? Or are you just into the mechanic stuff?"

[Fromikeable]

"I could maybe pull us out of a dive if I needed to. I know how to fix a lot of things I can't use." Horst replied frankly, barring no secrets from Ervisa. In truth, she could probably sniff out anything he hid, but more than that, he held too much respect for her to fill in his answers with white lies.

Besides, it was true. He understood how the chopper worked, he just wasn't quite an expert on how to work the chopper. It was sort of like learning to assemble a gun but never shooting it; you grew to know how to work it, but you lacked the experience to do it expertly.

The sun was above the horizon at this point, and Oatara was in full swing of its morning. Below, birds flocked to and fro trees in the forest. Whenever the water was visible, schools of fish could be seen swimming about. Even as the chopper flew past a few clearings, Horst could see the natural populations of the jungle going about their lives.

The world had woken up.

Horst looked over at Ervisa again, trying to see past her sunglasses. Who was this woman had he just spent the night with? Sure, he knew about her past, but the only way to know someone truly was to know them as they were in the present.

So what'd Horst know about Ervisa? What did she like? What did she hate?

... She likes calling me nicknames? They had a few hours in that chopper to kill. Might as well start learning.

"How about you? Know how to fix this bird?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Sort of," Ervisa answered without taking her eyes off the heads up display showcasing their speed and heading.

"I do most of the routine maintenance, and I can fix most of the little things that pop up. it's the big parts failures I can't get myself. And when something goes on this bird, it goes bad. Fortunately she holds up real nice."

An amiable pat to the console and a grin accompanied the statement as Ervisa elaborated.

She'd had many loves in her life, platonic and steamy alike. Most were pretty meaningless to her, and she could safely say she'd only ever encountered two loves she felt were serious.

The first was Asyr.

That Echani was the albatross hanging around her neck. The very model of perfection, and out of her reach. Not so much as interested in anything approaching a serious relationship. Force knew she'd tried, confiding her feelings to him like she was in some story on the holonet. Instead of a passionate embrace and proclamations of undying love, she'd gotten something rather less enthusiastic.

Society had these weird ass standards where you expected certain things, and Ervisa hadn't been expecting to be met with the proposal of further casual sex when she'd brought up the L word. Love. She'd been embarrassed as hell, flushing in an awkward green shade, and then she'd been mad. At herself.

Self-hatred. Came out at the worst times. She hated herself for failing at literally every single thing she'd ever done. Drop out of the Jedi, screw up at love the first time out, and sink down to the very bottom because she failed at dealing with problems.

Now her love was her bird. Though she'd never named it, or even thought up a gender for it, this was her true love now. It wasn't about to ask only for casual sex, or to burn her.

Certainly it wasn't going to go sleep with her friend after she told it how much it meant to her.

"Frak..." Ervisa muttered as the memories surged back unbidden.

Unfortunately she'd been kicked into serious mode.

"Horst, have you ever been in love? Like, really fallen for someone, wanted to make a life with them?"

And then did they go bang a Zeltron while you were crying into a bottle of whiskey?

[Fromikeable]

Horst smiled as he received the usual answer he got from pilots; the ol' "I can maintain 'er" lingo. In Horst's experience, that was usually a worthwhile statement, as pilots that were attached to their rides usually kept them in nice shape. But he smiled, knowing that Ervisa had probably never had to shift out some of the rotor-blades or had to rebuild the floors due to rot. He hadn't expected her too, but even still it was nice to know. Horst was indeed learning; Ervisa was sentient just like everyone else in the galaxy.

For a few moments, the cockpit was empty, save for the loud operating noises of a chopper in flight.

That's when things got a little serious. Ervisa' smile and patting her bird's console soured into a grim, serious look, like she'd just remembered something along the lines of the end of the world. Horst looked over, squinting to see past a gleam of sunlight coming through the windshield. Should he say something?

Say what? He instead remained quiet. He couldn't help if he didn't know what the matter was.

Then, straight out of left field, came a whopper of a question: had Horst ever been in love?

For another moment, the chopper was only audible as the operating motors.

I've never been in love... The most serious relationship Horst had ever maintained was back in high school, and even that had only been about a three year fling. Horst hadn't spoken to his old squeeze since he had joined the service, and to be honest, he couldn't even remember her name at the moment.

But that wouldn't do for an answer. Horst could read Ervisa enough here to recognize that she was looking for something relatable, something empathetic.

All Horst had on the menu was sympathy.

"Can't say that I have..." For another minute, Horst was unsure of how to follow up.

"... You?" He asked tenderly and a little awkwardly, almost like trying to pick up a potato chip with an industrial crane.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa winced as the question she'd asked was turned around against in a twist she really should have seen coming. Nevertheless, she'd been a little blind-sided by the obvious turn it had taken.

The Mirialan ex-Jedi had many ways of evading the question. Ignoring it, pretending not to hear it, pretending not to understand it, suddenly lapsing into a foreign language, pretending she'd gone deaf, and lying through her teeth.

Then there was the whole 'tell the truth' option, which wasn't so appealing.

What was she supposed to say? I fell in love like a schoolgirl, then got burned and went on a bender that turned me into a penniless wh0re? Yeah, that was just the sort of thing she wanted to admit to a man who was basically a stranger.

One breakfast and an argument didn't make someone into a trusted advisor and confidant. That was just the sad reality of life.

Ervisa opted for lying.

"Yes actually, I was still a Jedi, and I met this Senator while I was protecting him. We had a whirlwind romance on Naboo, culminating in a secret marriage a month later. Then I realized my mother had been kidnapped by sand people on Tatooine, so I fled there to rescue her with the Senator. Next thing I knew I was on Geonosis in an arena fighting wild animals. Then the Republic arrived and rescued us."

Ervisa avoided eye contact the whole time.

"Was quite exciting really. Someone should make a movie about it. Maybe add in a war and some clones, maybe a couple Sith. Box office smash I guarantee it."

The Mirialan woman's chipper attitude and casual lies were a front, a facade behind which she was deeply uncomfortable and awkward, her hidden depths filled with turmoil she kept completely secret from others.

[Fromikeable]

In his years of lying about his past, Horst had picked up a useful skill; the ability to figure out when someone was full of crap.

And Ervisa reeked of it at the moment.

Still, Horst could see why she was lying through her teeth. She'd known him now for what, 8 hours? 24 if you counted yesterday's recruitment? In retrospect, he really shouldn't have been expecting an honest explanation.

That still didn't mean he'd just take it sitting down. Horst valued honesty, and he wasn't afraid to call to people on their lack of it.

"That's a nice story. Real polished and shiny. Where'd you get it from, 'All My Lightsabers' magazine?" The statement was likewise frank and simple, as Horst was just being honest. "Just don't make it a prequel to anything. Fans'll get pissed."

Horst smiled at his continuation of the joke, hoping Ervisa hadn't taken it too seriously.

He understood though. Horst had never been much of a sociologist, but one of the few pieces of wisdom he had obtained from life was that everyone had regrets, secrets, or both. Some times you could actually choose between the two.

Horst had chosen regrets, and by the sound of, Ervisa had chosen secrets.

"If you don't want to talk about it, just say so."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Not surprisingly, the lie wasn't taken as truth. It really hadn't been intended to, it was just one of those comedic quips she made that usually provoked laughter and a change of topic.

In this case he hadn't taken it right. That soured Ervisa a little.

OK, more than a little.

The Mirialan woman frowned before replying in a rather curt tone that made it quite clear she was not pleased by the topic.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

Her gaze fixed ahead out the windscreen at the vast jungle spread out before and below them. Heavy growth, trees, and life everywhere. If her senses were better they might have been brimming with sensation. That would have been a welcome distraction.

"It's called deflecting, and it means I don't want to talk about it, so don't ask." The Mirialan uttered tersely before lapsing into a brooding silence.

Damn she was unhappy now. Stupid Asyr, stupid Morwynn, stupid nosy Horst. Damn everyone. Life wasn't supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be a great Jedi Knight right now, or else happily married and living in a nice house in the Core, or... Something. Or something.

Instead she was working for a mercenary group in the middle of nowhere, and to top it off she wasn't even supposed to drink anymore.

The final insult was that she couldn't smoke inside the cabin.

[Fromikeable]

It seemed that Horst's small confrontation had set Ervisa back into her brood, and she curtly informed him about deflection before becoming silent and staring at the sky ahead.

Damn. Smooth-moves-incarnate, Horst was not. He hadn't meant to get her angry, only to communicate that he understood she didn't want to talk. Unfortunately, being the very sensitive man that he was, he seemed to have back-fired a bit, souring the mood.

"Sorry. I'm kinda' a straight-forward guy." It wasn't much of an excuse, but Horst put it out there all the same. After 5 years of lying, he still hated the after-taste it had left in his mouth. Whenever he brushed his teeth, he brushed his tongue too, trying to get the imaginary slime of his actions away from his tastebuds.

If only toothpaste worked on feelings.

For a few minutes, the cockpit was silent again. Horst noted their cycle here; he and Erv would talk, one of them would say something awkward, and then it'd get kind of quiet for a while until one of them worked up the gusto or bubbled over the top and said something new.

It reminded Horst of an odd pair of teenagers trying to learn about each other. Considering how he felt, he knew he personally fell perfectly into that analogy.

Eventually, Horst worked up the gusto to speak again. For a second, he tried to think of something trivial that would redirect Ervisa's train of thought. This past-love thing seemed to be tied to some bad thing that had happened, and it seemed Ervisa either wasn't quite over it yet, or didn't trust Horst enough to tell him.

"So... what flavor malt do you like best?" Horst practically slammed his head into the console before him, cursing just quietly enough to be inaudible under the rotors.

Malts? Really? Di-kut...

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"What?" Ervisa said in confusion over the question random enough even to make her blink.

Malts? What did that have to do with anything? Of course the clear answer was vanilla, but that was rather irrelevant-

Suddenly there was a jerk and a loud bang, and the entire helicopter shook wildly as a high-pitched alarm went off, assailing the ears of the occupants.

Rapidly the helicopter was losing altitude and Ervisa felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, the one she associated with falling. Unfortunately as the helicopter started to spin, her efforts to control the situation were falling a little short. She was able to control the spin with the rudder pedals, but the power was going out fast.

"Hold on to something, we're going down!"

Ervisa scanned for a clearing in a hurry, with the knowledge she had mere seconds.

Rather than have her life flashing before her eyes, she could only focus on one thing.

shitshitshitshitshitshit

The ground was coming up too fast now, with precious little room in the canopy. Faster... Faster...

"Shiiiiit!"

The helicopter slammed into the ground with force, and everything went black.

[Fromikeable]

Horst stirred, sending an impulse of pain up his arm as he bunked his broken hand against something. His eyesight took a minute to come back into focus, and the ringing in his ears didn't stop for a good 5 minutes. Finally, Horst was able to make sense of his surroundings.

Luckily Ervisa had managed to aim the crash a little (on purpose? Who knows), and they had managed not to slam into a tree with the cockpit. That said, the nose of the helicopter had burrowed into the wet ground a bit, leaving its nose completely under the dirt. Horst jostled his door a bit; the dirt was preventing him from opening it normally.

Horst felt his face; a couple pieces of the windshield (which had broken) had left a few small cuts on his cheeks, with a rather large one diagonal from his nose to his scalp. His legs seemed okay, if not likewise scratched up and bruised slightly, but his torso panged with pain. Horst looked under his shirt; a small piece of glass had lodged itself in his rib. The Engineer bent his good arm, grabbed the piece of glass through his shirt, and gave a hard yank.

"Son of a B-" The glass piece came out quickly, dripping blood. Horst dropped it out of his shirt, onto his lap, and quickly pressed his shirt into the wound, trying to stop the bleeding long enough for him to find the survival kit.

First thing was first though. Horst peeled off his headphones, looking over at Ervisa.

"You alright?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa was slumped over in her seat, held in place by the safety webbing, but not in good shape. She'd still been swung forward by the crash, and the stick had slammed into her ribs. Her head had also been hit against the seat pretty hard.

When she finally woke up, she was coughing from acrid smoke that had gotten into her lungs. It wasn't pleasant.

Her first deep breath was met with the pain of a cracked rib, and she winced, even as she felt dizzy and nauseous. Her head was swimming as if she was drunk, only not a pleasant sensation at all.

She slowly became aware that Horst was talking to her, then aware of what had happened.

The helo had spun out, probably lost one of the rotors, and the stress must have wrecked the counter-rotation of the other one. That fact barely registered before something else did.

"My bird!" Ervisa cried out mournfully, fumbling with the seat release and clambering out the door, clutching her side.

The fuselage was slightly crumpled in the nose, and one of the rotors was smoking and mangled. Other than that it looked in reasonable shape. Nevertheless, Ervisa clung to the nose lovingly and rubbed the cool metal.

"It'll be okay baby..."

[Fromikeable]

As Ervisa came to, she quickly dislodged herself from the cockpit, hopping outside. Horst did his best undo his restraints and try to open his door again. It wouldn't budge.

The metal must be mangled. Shrugging, Horst shifted over to the pilot's seat and then out the open door, landing on the wet ground with a squishing noise. He winced as he slightly folded the muscles around his wound, placing his broken hand on his shirt to keep the bleeding down.

The jungle floor was just like everyone said it was; noisy with the sound of birds and other creatures, damp and humid as a sauna, and as hot as an oven. Oh, and there was the inescapable threat of being mauled by one of Oatara's more territorial creatures. Yeah, that little fact that even the hunters were quick to point out.

Ervisa, meanwhile, was snuggling the crashed chopper, telling it things would be okay. For a moment, Horst was worried that the shock of crashing might have made her go crazy. He walked over and patted her shoulder reassuringly, hoping to at least seem sympathetic after pissing her off so many times in the past day.

"It'll be fine. First we need to survive. Then we'll come back and fix 'er up." Horst noted mangled rotors and crinkled fuselage. It'd be a bit of a project, and quite a few components would probably require some delicate attention, but he was confident at least that given the tools, he could fix the crippled bird.

Provided, of course, that they lived that long.

Horst smiled again, trying to maintain his look of reassurance. Ervisa had been having it rough lately, having to deal with both him and the rest of the problems she had described to Horst, and he couldn't help but feel sort of bad for her, especially considering that his recent life had been aces and on the rise.

"I promise; she'll be good as new." He meant it too.