Log:Tick Tock

Tick Tock

OOC Date: December 10-11, 2016
Location: Wayside Medical Clinic
Participants: Corr Waldin, Rato Darsi, Rheisa Dirleel, Sion

SCENE: The clinic is flooding with victims of the First Order's march to cleanse the poverty-stricken streets of dangerous resistance. AKA anyone who looks or smells funny. In this blip of action, our hero Corr Waldin comes barreling in off the street, toting another in addition to his own wounded self. He, and others, find with dismay that the mighty hands of life-saving grace are already up to their elbows in gore, and essentially gets invited to take a number. _______________________________________________________________________________________________

She's a mess, that rat-catching Rheisa Dirleel.

WOUNDED and a mess. There is a meaty hole the size of a child's fist melted through her torso, just to the right of her sternum, between a couple lower ribs. Looks like burned hamburger, smells like bile, and if she moves just right, something on the inside peeks at the outside. Some bruising and general redness radiates out from there, disrupting the already sloppy white marking on that side. A notch, half the width of the meaty hole, is likewise burned into the medial edge of her right headtail. Lines up perfectly. The wrapped/criss-crossed scarf worn as a top is tattered there, but still covers the important bits. Her skirt is likewise more or less intact, just covered in street grime and maybe some pee? B.O./musk to the max as stress hormones pump vigorously out into the mix of things. She's bleeding inside, or so the flecks of blood spatter around her mouth and chest might suggest. Her color is pale, compared to the usual, lips almost white and lilac-tinged around the edges. Her pulseox is still functioning, the damn thing, but her montral ornaments are pretty well jacked and tangled, if there at all.

Morning has brought madness to Nar Shaddaa. The First Order's purging efforts in the Hutt and Spaceport districts have left dozens dead and many more injured. The clinic is filled to the gills with the wounded and weeping, holding limbs, bloody foreheads, and crying children as they wait their turn for the overworked doctors' attention. Into this slowmoving fiasco comes a man hauling an injured Togruta in his arms, oddly enough not the first time he's delivered such a cargo to the facility. He walks with a limp and his armor is charred around the abdomen, slick with the blood of at least three other individuals. Despite the circumstances, he seems relatively calm and in control, carrying his cargo without complaint, and starts trying to push his way towards the reception desk.

Of course she heard about what happened; Rato spent the raid perched at a computer, struggling to make sense of radio chatter and where the attacks were cropping up. Names were overheard and once her use at the base exhausted, the Togruta - one of them, not the only one, in case someone winds up getting confused and shot over this or something - rushes for the clinic, scrambling over rubble and through crowds. From the big chunk of blown apart wall, to the lamp post, over the speeder... Rat is panting heavily by the time she reaches the Clinic and joins the crowd outside slowly bleeding into the clinic - gaze flicking cooly through the bloody chaos.

No need to fill out medical history - just a name. Rheisa's already in the system. IF the man lugging her floppy, incoherent self can get a name. Wayside. Wayside wayside wayside. That's about all she's said on the long excursion here. Wayside and some sorry lament about food. The brutally blasted 'gruta isn't saying even that much, now. Her rigid frame is starting to tire, blistered muscles just unable to hold things together anymore. Like some pulverized rib pieces, a seared bit of liver, more or less vaporized bile that managed to stain some pink green on its way out...you get the idea. The rifle shot also carved a relatively small notch of her right headtail out - the only meaty armor had between some vitals and the angry barrel.

The Togruta in Corr's arms is not in good shape. Corr is not in good shape either, but he's a fair sight better than poor little Rheisa. Or whatever her name is. Food, maybe. The crowd is in hysteria, but his armor, cargo, and calm, commanding presence seem to help him fight a way up to the desk where the receptionist, that Twi'lek lady, is doing her frantic best to hold down the fort. "What's the name?"

"What's your name?" Corr squeezes his cradling hand gently, nudging Rheisa's back, looking down and moving his ear close to her mouth, straining to hear in the hubbub and noise.

Expecting to find Corr, Rato is taken aback by the discovery that he's not only here, but toting some other Togruta woman around? Hmph. She's not jealous - she's just confused... And concerned. It is the woman with the child from the street, she realizes, and with a deepening frown she forces her way to join them.

Instead of interjecting into the medical process just stands directly behind them, staring at the back of Corr's head.

Corr's efforts earn him a spray of bloody spittle to the face as the back-nudging either wakes her up or massages something loose. A couple bone-jarring coughs jerks fading Rheisa back to reality. Noise. It's noisy here. So much commotion, confusion. It's dizzying.

"Wha...whaysss..." and her eyes finally register the bright lights overhead. The smells - a hint of disinfectant cuts through the metallic sweet. "Hhhaa.." her ashen lips crack apart with a wheezy smile and gurgly thrum. The humans followed her instructions. Praises be. "Rrhe-" she coughs again and curls reflexively which probably isn't helpful to the one cradling her.

"Rhe-something," Corr tells the receptionist, which is actually really close to what it is. The blood she sprayed and montral she whacked into his face just adds to the horrific image of what he is right now. Something is prickling at the hairs on his neck, though, and he turns to find Rato standing there creepily just staring at the back of his head.

"Rat," he breathes, glancing between the two 'grutas. "Do you know her?" What a racist and actually accurate question.

Not taking a step back, the uninjured Togruta exhales sharply, heightened perception overwhelmed by the packed, chaotic quarters. "Rheisa." Rato finishes softly, speaking over Corr's shoulder to the Twi'lek receptionist. "Is Rheisa. And you are racist." That one goes to Corr.

"Rrrrgt." Either she's just greeted Rato, or growled. Or is drowning again. Maybe all three. The nuances of facial expression and pigment manipulation aren't up for clarifying at this present time. It all just sort of reads as...defeat? A quick glance at the computer on Nima's part, if she doesn't recognize this 1 face of the hundreds she sees daily, will show her labeled as a cardiac patient.

Well, that can't be good. It's also what got her into this mess, and damned if that little shit PulseOx still hasn't stopped beeping.

Racist, yes. Also, thankfully, correct. "Rheisa," Corr repeats, wincing as he stands there, injured himself, cradling the Togruta in his arms with her vaguely bomb-like accompanying soundtrack. "She needs the front of the line." He doesn't know that much about first aid but he knows what will kill you and this is one of those things. "Now."

And let's hope it keeps beeping-! Rato does step back now, with her focus flickering between Rheisa's horrible, bloody condition and Corr's less horrible and still bloody condition. The air is clogged with the smell of it - thick and metallic... Is it bad that her stomach is rumbling? Rat takes another step away, pushing back against that mass of wailing and shock at her back. "She has child." She recalls softly, brow furrowing at the mangled meatsack from Shili. The information seems important in the moment.

"Kee'tch," (bird) Rheisa mumbles, snowy lashes fluttering closed again. She can block out the sights, but she can't block out the really disoriented 'sight'. It's a whole new layer of misery to the poodoo pile. Unlike a large number of the injured horde though, she isn't panicking. Isn't squirming around. Isn't wailing into a seatmate's ear. There's an element of calm to her shallow panting. A sense of resignation. "Bhem svah," she breathes out, if anyone's listening. It probably does feel that way, inside. "Baijhet. Kee'tch." Again, with the bird. Her head lolls to the side, facing the reception window, knowing that somewhere behind there is a supply closet. And in that supply closet could be a Valko. At least, that seems to be his favored hide-to place during her last appointment. "Kee'tch."

The blend of scents, stinks, and odors in the room have blended into a cornucopia of smells that can only be described as "stank". At the center of the stank is Corr with his cargo of musky dusky bloody 'Gruta. And her mumbling distant relation. Nima has Rheisa's chart, she knows how dire the situation is. "The doctors are in surgery right now, but I'm putting you on the most urgent waiting list." 'Most urgent' and 'waiting list', a pair that only seem to come together in the context of medicine.

"No, she needs help now," Corr argues, fixing the receptionist with a stern stare, covered in blood and dirt.

"I'm sorry, this is the best I can do."

"Doctor cannot rush this any more." Rato reminds Corr gently, leaning to listen to Rheisa's struggled words. They met very briefly, a brief first encounter which consisted mostly of passive mistrust and repressed thoughts of dominance... But watching the dying Togruta woman hits her harder than she expected. It's the familiarity, an instinctual grief. "Baihje na." She pleads. "Kee'tch a meih ni?" No sleep. What is bird? She moves to push a hand against Corr, to direct them away from the desk. "Please sit." She mutters, casting a look back to Nima. "They need seats." Short and to the point.

WHY is no one understanding? She needs the bird! The bird! Before her soul wanders off and gets lost...on Nar, of all places. Rheisa can all but hear her ancestors laughing at her, at the thought. Tazi, to the end. Maybe the urgency's lost in translation, strength needed to emote such things just isn't there. "Bbbird. Kee'tch." She repeats uselessly, eyeballing Rato from whatever angle she's slung at. "Marukki. Huhk. De dek. Shili'neh. Kee..." Ancestors. Follow. The sky. Spirit. Bird. "Vvv..." her belly convulses for a moment as some nerves formerly forgotten about remember that they are on fire. "Yut." There. Her left wrist rolls around to point a limp finger at the wall barring them from the treatment area. "He have."

Rato makes a noise deep in her throat, following Rheisa's retreating lucidity. The coloring of her montrals shifts and pulses subtly with some ingrained biological distress, cells thrumming with this unexpected, painful ache for the injured Togruta woman. They may not have been of the same tribe, their customs may differ - but they are both lost daughters of Shili. Castaways of a planet where the weak are left behind... But the rules of their homeland do not apply here.

Perhaps Rato truly has been tamed by the wider universe - slowly losing the pieces of her old life, of her old self. She cannot remember how turu grass smells, but her spirituality remains: that coursing connection to the world and the beings around her which has been called so many names; gods, the Force, 'just put some damn shoes on' - it is there, she feels it.

And she does not wish to see it leave this one.

"Inno kaza'ati nu, Rheisa." She hums softly. "Inno kaza'ati nu... Now is not the time, my friend." She has no idea what this one means by the bird, why she needs it so badly. "You preserve strength." She reminds her, brow furrowed. "Kee'tch come - you wait, no giving up." Does she mean Val? Yellow eyes look towards the treatment area once more. "Other wounded. He come."

Rheisa's left propped up on the chair like a twisted scarecrow while Corr steps outside for some fresher-than-in-here air to make a call to someone important and check-in. From this view, she can see interesting pieces of herself that ooze bubbles through the new orifice. It looks like it should hurt more in this moment, and one curious finger starts to migrate, unhindered by the cloud of delirium. And her headtail - it shudders now and again involuntarily, perhaps undergoing its own nervous meltdown. "He not..." she rasps with a rattling sigh of resignation. "Doctorrr tell him 'no'."

Hesitating at the injured woman's side, Rato glares after Corr as he retreats away - more rankled by his wound than his departure. "No touch!" She snaps reflexively as she turns back towards Rheisa, frown deepening. She kneels at the seat and sucks a breath in through her teeth, shaking her head sharply. "'No' what?" She presses, trying to keep her... What? Away from the light? Bleeding? She half twists in her crouched position and finds the overwhelmed Twi'lik woman once more. "Need something for bleeding!" She demands.

"They all do..." Nima /might/ be heard muttering in a frenzy to herself while trying to hurriedly discharge (FINALLY) /a/ patient and harp on some other poor soul back there to hurry up at clean the room so the next - somebody who's lost an eye and probably more between his ears than the people who dragged him in are willing to accept - can go in. "GAUZE!" she at least shouts over the intercom to whomever may be listening on the other end, then fires Rato a /look/ as if to say 'there you go' and swishes her clearly superior lekku.

Rheisa stays her hand with a delayed startle response to the snap. It's forgotten almost instantaneously though, and she seems a little perplexed as to why her fingers have goo on them. "Nah? Nah. Doctorrr Kal say 'no'. Say me: 'stay away from Valk'ko'" oops, a hiccup. Froths a little more pink onto her chin. "Rrraim was mean, at story, and chase him ahway. So Doctor mad. No like."

A nod to Nima, devoid of sass or back-growling because - you know what? She gets it. The blood and oozing and general air of shouting and pain and chaos aren't creating ideal working conditions. "Thank you." She mutters as she finally gets a lump of gauze in her palm. "Rheisa-" She pushes, holding it up. "I put-" She points at the hole and nods. "Stop bleeding - may hurt." In the meantime? Keep her distracted. Tentatively, she pushes the lump towards the bloody mess of a wound, lips pulling back in an anxious hiss, headtails flexing in her discomfort... She doesn't do this medical stuff, although she did once memorize the bones of the human body after misunderstanding one drunken male's inquiry.

"Doctor will get over this, hm? She must." She promises. "Is job. Take oath. Valko, he is good. Would not fight me in bar - he come."

The front door hisses open, admitting a woman in riding leathers. Sion is careful to shut it behind her, glancing warily outside first. "Whew... think I lost 'em."

Then she sees what's going on in the lobby. "Oh, wow. Do you all need help?" she asks, blinking owlishly at the injured people and the obviously-uncomfortable Togruta trying to make things better. "I don't work here, but I know a little medicine..."

Encouragingly, Rato's cringe before administering the gauze to try and block the pulpy mess from further intrusion IS mirrored by the recipient of that gauze upon administration. Sort of. There's a lip twitch, stiffening of the neck, and a high pitched whine. Squishy bits of her ribcage's inner sanctum get smushed back inside their no longer sterile home. Germs rejoice. Septicemia, here we come!

"Kee'tch," she whimpers feebly. And we're back to the 'bird' business. The gut-blasted Togruta has seen better days, yes, but so has everyone in here. It's a heavy load of patients and a heavy load of MESS that they leave behind. The staff is trying to process folks as quickly as they can, catering to the most critical as quickly as possible, which isn't going to be quick enough for some, maybe. Or Rheisa seems to think. The pulse oximeter mounted to her wrist can confirm that O2 saturation is low, but so can her lips. "Bird." [Language: Togruta]

Rato Darsi isn't wearing riding leathers, but by this point she has probably managed to get some degree of secondhand gore on her dark clothing - some of it might be Rheisa's, some of it might be that guy over there's - she isn't following it well by this point. "Bird will come." She keeps promising, but does not sound so sure. She makes a sound deep in her throat, a low, vibrating hum. Calm. Calm.

Sion's voice behind her draws Rato's attention, and the Togruta woman pauses in her weird, primal tittering to turn with wide, concerned eyes toward the source. 'She need surgery and bird.' She clarifies, holding her hands to the pulpy gauze that is acting as her own sad brand of medical attention. It's like trying to clog a damn with corks - it's doing something, but not well enough. 'Corr's wound is smaller -" Wherever he got to. She realizes with a pang that she'd lost track of him

"Bird? And Corr's wound would probably be easier to treat," Sion says, frowning thoughtfully at the Togruta. She remembers the folksy guy from earlier. "Wait... where /is/ Corr? Do you think he went into the back?"

Speak of the folksy devil, and he shall appear. Corr pushes his way back into the waiting room, bodily moving a few individuals who bar his path, and makes his way back to the Gruta Gals in all their musky glory. Sion looks familiar, and he notices her with them, remembering having met her at the Blue Light a few nights back. "Still no doctor?" Blunt, to the point, and looking none-too-pleased.

'S'okay...' Rheisa lifts her head out of its sag to regard the mystery warrior Corr with a listless expression. 'They come.' Because Rato told her so. 'Aht'. "Rest," she repeats, to Rato this time, eyes passing from Corr, over Sion who she ought know, and to the worried kinswoman. A wet-sounding thrum burbles in poor imitation of the reassuring notes being hummed at her just moments ago. 'Ta'aan unt stooory.' Because what else does one do to pass the time? How fortunate they are to be in the presence of a phenomenal storyteller, no less! A small tear seeps out of her left eye. She should be home, telling Umak a story. Oh yeah, Umak. And Raim. Perhaps it is best they are not here. Yes, it is best. Umak watched his first mother die. There is no need to put the boy through it a second time. [Language: Togruta]

"No doctor, by the looks of things," Sion replies, shaking her head regretfully. "Sorry... if it helps, I do know some medicine. Real medicine, not the primary school playground stuff," she adds, patting the bag slung over her shoulder.

There is a small flicker of a sad smile. "I rest plenty last night." Rat assures Rheisa as her fingers curl against the leakage of musky bodily fluids. "And this one help too, maybe." She turns towards Sion, regarding her suspiciously. 'You know Corr? You help?' And the devil himself is back. She exhales through her nose, gaze immediately flicking toward his side and the blood there. 'No doctor, have gauze though. And genetic material enough to be cloning this one.' It rings like a poor attempt at joking, and her expression reflects this, headtails shrinking back, in their limited way, distressed by the weakening life force on a cellular level. Keeping pressure on the red-soaked gauze, Rat scoots aside so that Sion may get in there with something potentially helpful. 'Corr -' She frowns. 'You are bleeding.' This day is not going how anyone planned.

Corr's lips purse into a thin line at the news that there is still no doctor to help the injured Togruta, that one being Rheisa. The Gruta Gals have a secret code going on, which is probably for the best, but it does earn them the occasional inscrutable glance as he tries to make some sort of sense of what they're saying. Tries and fails. When Rato points out that he's bleeding, he glances down, having almost forgotten his own blaster wound. The armor took the brunt of it, as it's designed to do, but there was still burning, bruising, and now bleeding. In this instance, it's not seeping out directly like Rheisa's, but soaking through the fabric under his armored plates and showing up red and stain-incurring on the outside. Two fingers feel the fabric, coming away crimson, and two cold blue eyes frown down at them. "You're right."

"Ta'aan unt stoory," Rheisa repeats, fixating on something new, since the 'bird' is unattainable at this time and she'd better keep her soul focused on something else so it doesn't wander off and get lost. Her fingers flex over the arms of the chair, over her knee. Anchoring. Slick with who knows what, her toes attempt to make the same connection with the floor. She often accuses Nar of being cold, with a spirit that is almost too gone to hear. Today, there are many spirits churning in this room. Mostly bad. She can try, though, envisioning for a moment through closed lids the whip-like turu grass of home, the dappled forest floor, and willing it to be so here. Tapping in. Holding on.

"Unt Story." she speaks between timid breaths. "It is one the Marukki did not know to tell. After their time. I tell...First time." Her clenched digits begin to relax.

"I can treat that," Sion says, seeing the bleeding now that Rato's pointed it out so helpfully. "S'just... I might need help with Rheisa and hers," she adds, looking helplessly at the Togruta. It's bad. It's very bad. "Normally you don't see internal organs on the outside like that... and I don't know where they go, properly. But if I could get you up and running, Corr, maybe you could find the doctor while I try and treat Rheisa?" Or at least find a databook on Togruta anatomy.

"Sit!" Rato pleads sharply, lips pulling away from her teeth in frustration. There isn't much room to sit, but it looks like the other patients waiting have taken to bleeding out on the floor, against walls - anywhere really. It's a free for all. "Many need help..." She sighs, looking helplessly between Sion and Corr.

Now, Rato is a patient creature, bred for hunting - lying in wait, listening to the language of the wind and grass; tracking, waiting... But if something isn't fixed soon this 'Gruta is going to flip a table and fang someone in the neck. "Unt story." She breathes softly, centering herself - her being boils down to holding bloody, useless gauze against a wound she cannot fix, trying to do a small service in saving a half-stranger she knows she is not equipped to save. An old enemy stirs at the base of her spine with muted snarls - an obsessive hatred that she had swallowed long ago.

Rato sucks in a deep breath and opens her eyes and starts to hum again as the former Shili native begins to weave her tale.

Corr might give off the impression of a simple man, but that's only because he's actually a simple man. And his simple code of ethics dictate that on the scale of priorities, when there is no mission to be accomplished, his personal well-being falls down to the bottom rung. That means that Sion's offer of help gets re-directed. "I'm fine, really. Lots of kids in here, been waiting for help for hours because they're not bleedin' out." The civilian soldier (totally civilian, see all his civilian gear?) points out a particular child, weeping and holding a bloody rag over her arm, with no parents in view. "If you c'n help, help her. Help them. I'll be fine." Rato's concern notwithstanding. "I'll shove some gauze in there." See, he's taking care of himself.

"Story." The dark stripes banding Rheisa's headtails are shrinking. Thinning. Chromatophores are puckering their little behinds in anticipation of the end. Her face seems almost serene now, here in the center of chaos, and for a moment it looks as though maybe she's forgotten what she was talking about. But, after an awkward expanse of time, her vocal chords kickstart again. "Is story of tazi, the leetle waan.." What's she watching, behind those lily white eyelids? (There is a tiny orange freckle on one) They ripple with the tick of her seeking eyes, back and forth, back and forth.

"Fine..." Sion mutters in frustration. "You pretend you're not bleeding to death, I'll go try and help the people who aren't pretending. And whose anatomy I know how to fix. I'll be back." Unslinging her bag, she goes to start helping the other wounded, starting with the child with the injured arm.

There reaches a point where Rato has had enough. Enough of the screaming and wailing of those around her, of her shot-up companion at her back determined to be otherwise, and of the life force slowly dwindling beneath the pressure of her palm. "I'ii unu kee'atch." She assures Rheisa softly as she drifts into this world behind her eyelids. "I bring here." The gauze given to staunch the blood flow of that hole is a red mess, but she looks pleadingly to Corr and then Sion, who is tending to the masses clogging the hall. Locking predatory, yellow eyes on Corr, she stands and points a cybernetic finger at Rheisa. "Keep alive." She turns that blood soaked wonder of robotics and biology on him, then. "Don't die." And with her face set, turns to force her way back through the crowd - it isn't clear what she's going for, but if her face is any indication, Rato is about to bust into surgery and paint the town red.

And what of 'tazi' the little one? The room may never know. Rheisa's lips have gone as still as the rest of her, save for the spastic rise and fall of her chest. She's drifting away towards bluer skies and valleys teeming with game far as the eye can see and heart can feel. The home of little tazi is buried down there, somewhere beneath the sheltering branches. That's where the story begins. She'd show them, if she could, but she's too busy sleeping now, too busy walking among her people, looking into the faces of babies who were but a twinkle in their fathers' eyes when she'd left. When they'd left.

Aw, man.

The blue skies are growing cloudy again. Smells like rain. In the land of the living and wailing, more moisture collects in telltale tear ducts.