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((Private for Susquehanna))
A heavy sigh came from inside an abandonded bar in the outskirts of the ruins of Halifax. A dark-haired, dark furred male was sitting on the third stool from the door, staring down into a martini into which he had accidentally measured too much vermouth. Fortunately, there'd still been some unopened jars of olives laying around, so, at least it was okay there. He'd learned how to martinis from some guy he'd spent a couple of weeks with a while back, back before he'd joined the Pheonix Valley pack. It felt liek it'd been ages since he'd joined the pack, but it'd only been a couple of days...
As he stared down into the mixture of gin and vermouth, mismatched red and yellow eyes blinking slowly, he heaved another sigh. "Oiy..." He stretched his legs out, feeling the resistance of a pulled muscle in his right calf. Such was the consequence of not watching his footing as he explored the decaying city and it's crumbling builds and streets. He was tired, but, at least it was warm in the little bar, and there was plenty to drink...
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Apologies. I get carried away when I do threads like these. Let's assume that the piece of glass she fell on was from the bottom of the bottle, so it would lay steady and still stick up a good couple inches to cut her.
Let me show you the wonders of life
Hanna walked quietly through the streets of Halifax, her med pack at her side, her knife belt around her waist, but otherwise unclothed. She'd not as of yet explored the human city, though she'd considered it before now. The femme was scouting out possible, plausible locations to live, seeing as how her previous habitation had been taken over by Dahlia de Mai. While she didn't want to live this far from most civilization, she'd not encountered many houses in the central part of the free area. So Halifax it would be, if she only could find the right place.
The city was largely desolate, not only because of the fact that it was uninhabited, but also because many of the buildings lay in relative ruin. The streets and sidewalks were cracked and in general disrepair, making the walkways a bit hazardous to walk on if one was not being careful.
No sooner had the thought run through Hanna's mind then did her right foot catch on a particularly large protrusion in the cement, sending her flying forward. Her hands skidded across the asphalt as she instinctively caught herself, removing a couple layers of skin from them, and the upper inside her left calf suddenly seared from the piece of bottle-green glass that had been laying in her path. She gathered herself into a ball and studied the wound.
It was not very deep, definitely not grave, and it hurt like hell. Hanna knew that it needed cleaned and stitched as soon as possible, to prevent infection, and so she hobbled her way to the nearest open building. She didn't realize till she'd gotten inside that there was another present, a male of identical coloration to herself. He had a glass clutched in his hand of unknown contents but given the fact that she'd stumbled into a bar, she had a vague idea it was alcohol. Which was what she needed.
Hanna paid little attention to the male, making her way behind the counter to search till she found a green-glassed bottle of whiskey, perhaps the sister or cousin to the shard still lodged in her leg. She moved to a booth, popped the stopper from the beverage, hefted her leg to the grimy table, then swigged better than half the contents of the container before upending the rest of it over the wound while removing the broken piece carefully.
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((Fine by me. ^_^))
Vukasin turned as another body entered the bar. He turned, the martini glass held loosely in his left hand as he watched the female. He smelled blood. Oiy... He watched her limp around the counter, retrieving a bottle of whiskey before settling herself in a booth.
He stood up and walked over, stopping beside the table. "What happened to you? he asked, his voice a little more gruff than normal, considering his own situation. But then, he wasn't the one bleeding. Her's was definitely worse.
He watched as she used the strong alcohol to sterilize the wound, then eyed the thing she pulled out of her skin. Glass. Could've even been from this very bar. Her luck was apparently about as good as his own. Looked like it was part of the base of a bottle, with some jagged edges sticking up from the edges, like someone had held the bottle by the neck and cracked the end off. Probably from a bar fight, or something...
"Need any help? I have a needle and some silk thread in my bag, he let his voice trail off as he shifted his eyes from her wound to her face. Damn... If not for her eye colors, she could have been his sister.
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^_^
Let me show you the wonders of life
As infrequently as Hanna drank, she already had a buzz, but the wound still hurt. There was no way she was getting her needle threaded, and she wasn't sure now that she'd have the cajones to stitch herself up, anyway, pain dulled or not. Her barmate approached her and she glanced up to him. He was studying her wound and then asked what had happened. She grimaced and then spoke. "Tripped and fell just down the road. Palms are skinned, too, but nothing major." Her voice was husky, both from the burn of the whiskey and from the pain.
She picked up her bag, opening it to expose the tools of her trade: packets of herbs, fashioned from animal skin or leaves, wound shut with little thongs. It didn't take her long to locate comfrey, nor her horsehair thread, nor the linen strips she used as bandages. Her hands moved with the practiced way of someone who knows exactly where her things are. But she couldn't find her needle.
The man spoke again, asking if she needed his help. She nodded, gesturing to the things she'd already removed from the bag, and said, "Yeah, I think so. I've got thread but I don't know where my needle went." She glanced into her bag, pulled out the medicine pouch with her flint in it, and handed it to her helper, drawing one of her knives with the other hand and offering the hilt to him. "To sterilize the needle, if need be," she explained, though she figured he probably knew that. All the same, better to be cautious.
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((Sorry it's taken so long, but my dad finally fixed my computer, so I'm back now! XD))
He shook his head and waved off the offering, pulling something out of his pocket instead. "Nah, I've got some matches. Got 'em from one of the many abandonded groceries a while back. They should do," he said as he went to the bag he'd left by the bar, He reached in and pulled out a small hard-leather case. "Besides, I always remember to sterilize instruments first, whether I think they need it or not. Lessens the chance for infection, y' know."
He began humming a random show-tune to himself. He was off-key and he had bad pitch, but it was chatchy. He couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, as anyone with ears could tell, but he had fun singing and humming anyways. He pulled a curved surgical needle out of the case by it's head and lit a match, holding it to the point of the shining tool until the flames licked up around his finger tips, at which point he shook the tiny flame out and went to hand the needle over. "Can you do that yourself, or would you be willing to take help from a stranger?" he inquired. Injured creatures always concerned him, even if he normally acted all tough. Blood and bruises always brought out his sensitive side. Once the fighting, so to speak, was over, of course.
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^_^;;; I'm sorrryyyyy!
Let me show you the wonders of life
Despite the pain, when Vukasin extended his hand holding the needle, she couldn't help but ogle it, taking his hand lightly to move it this way and that. She'd never seen such a thing; usually Hanna used a small, straight bone needle and did the best she could with it. Her way was slightly crude, but effective. Why it hadn't occurred to her to look in the Wolfville clinic for something else, she'd never know.
She released his hand with an apologetic smile. She could see the needle, and could see the eye, but she was fairly sure she would never get thread through it. "I think I'll take your help, Stranger. I'm not sure I have the intestinal fortitude to stitch myself up." Hanna peered into her bag again and found a leather strap, the beginnings of something, and placed it in her mouth. Better than his arm, she figured.
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((Yay! You ARE alive! XDXDXD))
Chuckling at her honesty, he pulled a smaller plastic case from the leather one and pulled out a length of silk surgical thread and began to thread the needle. "I know what you mean. I always used tobe sewing my brother's muzzle's up. They liked to hunt birds, and sometimes their eyes were bigger than their teeth, so to speak," he explained in a slightly strained voice as he managed (just barely) to get the thread through the eye. seeing her go for something to chew on, he laughed again. "Thanks for that. You wouldn't believ how many times I used to have to sew myself up after sewing up my brothers."
He set the needel back down in it's felt-lined case to re-align the torn skin of her leg. "Shoudl've done this before preping the needle... Oh, well. I'll just resterilize it," he muttered to himself as he pulled a small bottle of iodine out of his satchel along with a small box of individually wrapped gauze pads. Yep, he'd raided a couple of the hospitals, or what was left of them, in the cities he'd passed through on his travels. Opening a gauze, he folde dit into quaters, soaked it with iodine, and began to disinfect the area. "Do you mind the rather non-traditional methods?"
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Yeah, I'm alive.. just made of lots of fail.
Let me show you the wonders of life
Hanna shook her head, speaking through the strap and her gritted teeth. "Not at all. I actually have a bottle of morphine in here somewhere. I used to work out of the Wolfville clinic, when I was in Dahlia de Mai. I won't use it on myself though.. don't wanna put myself out." Beyond that, she was mostly quiet, though she gasped lightly both at the touch as he put her skin back the way it was supposed to be as well as at the cold, slight sting of the iodine as it hit where the whiskey must have missed.
The woman settled back in the booth, preparing herself mentally for the piercing of the needle. She'd not been stitched before, so she didn't know quite what to expect. The three gashes across her muzzle were healing nicely after her run-in with Haku. As for the old scar across her throat, while it looked horrendous (and had been at the time nearly five years ago) had healed fairly with merely the use of comfrey and bed rest.
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As he finished realigning the skin, he pulled out another match and sterilized the needle again, just to make sure it was clean. Once again, he waited until he could feel the little flame touch his fingers before extinguishing it. With that said, he began right off. With careful, precise movements, he didn't tug any more than he had to. "How many stitches would you suggest, Doctor?" he jokingly asked, hopeing to distract her. It usually helped with the pain. Most creatures tended to go a little nuts at the sight of their own blood.
Working quickly, and making the stiches as small and as few as he could, he had three done in the time it took him to finish his sentence. Probably wouldn't need too many. Twenty at the very most, but probably more like ten or fifteen. Hontestly, he tended to go a little sparse when it came to using his thread, as it was difficult to get a hold of good quality medical thread those days. Such was the way when you were mooching off of what was left behind by the last sentient species.
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Let me show you the wonders of life
Her teeth gritted and then relaxed as the male began his steady stitching. It really could have been worse, she figured. Each pierce hurt for a moment and then went away. The wound itself had hurt more. Hanna took deep breaths to keep herself calm, and then took the strap from her mouth. She considered his question, staring muzzily down at her leg.
Twelve, my good colleague. That should do it. She smirked, the dark lips twitching. Fewer to take out later, too. She turned her eyes up to his, studying his face and then turned her attention back to his fingers, watching them dip toward her leg and then rise again. For whatever reason, her own blood failed to make her squeamish. Hanna supposed this was a good thing, she wouldn't pass out before she could get help.
So.. though I don't mind having help from a stranger, curiosity prompts me. What's your name? I'm Susquehanna, but I go by Hanna for short. I've been a medic for approximately 4 years, at least with any great success. She smiled briefly, and then went back to watching his fingers.
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"Vukasin. You can call me Vuk, if you like," he introduced himself, keeping hsi eyes steady on his work as he finished the seventh. He would have gone with about that himself, if it were his leg being stitched shut. "Twelve it is then, Hanna." He kept working, stopping to tie off each before putting in the next. Maybe everyone else did it differently, but he liked to place and tie each one individually.
About five minutes later, he was finished with her injury and set the needle down on the table. "There, finished," he said with a sigh as he headed for one of the sinks behind the bar to wash his hands, and, almost as an after thought as he walked away, he took the needle with him. "Four years? You've got quite a bit of experience on me. My mother trained me for, like, three months, teachign me everything she knew abotu medical treatment and healing, and then I continued my medical education with some medic-ish guy I met in Michigan. All in all, I've been in practice for approximately eleven months, since I was about three months when my mom started teaching me," he described his own history in response to her's.
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