.. Of Blood, Memories, and Bar Tales . . . { o.p.e.n. }

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

Recap : The Kitchen

Out in the front of the bar, a few of the patrons were engaging in 'clean up' duty, something else was going on in the back room ...

By the back door was a bleeding, scared, and mostly feral minded, female.  She was covered in a dark cloak but bits of her were now poking through.  A spiked chain was digging deeply into her right ankle, where she was bleeding heavily. The kitchen was a bit of a mess but it was nothing compared to the main area.  

Archer, had closed the door and isolated himself in the back with the  crazy female.


Archer:  He grabbed a couple of the cloths, and filled a bowl with warm water.  He nearly grabbed a couple of kitchen utensils, but thought better of it. Opting to just start with the cloths and water.  Bringing them over at an easy pace.  Not that there was all the time in the world considering the degree to which she was hurt, but better to take his time than have her try to run off again and only hurt herself more.

"Arcadia Caughty and Donald Blake, right."  Repeating those names for good measure.  "Their medical clinic isn't that far from here.  So, options."  

He was still speaking softly.  Keeping the calm flowing.  But more conversationally.  Like they were having a nice chat, even if it was a one-sided one.  "I could carry you there - and before you judge a book by it's cover, trust me, there's more under this cover than you think, I can carry you there.  Or, they can come here.  I stay here, you stay here, and they'll come here to us.  But I think one of those things has to happen because you are hurt beyond some kitchen towels and a bowl of warm water."

Standing in front of her, blue eyes tried to catch hers as he slung the cloth over his shoulder.  "First option," he held up one finger, "or second option?" he held up two fingers.  And inwardly hoped.

Cloaked Female :
Honestly , not all the words were getting through to her.  Some of the were muffled in her ears and she was trying, more or less, to make out the words from reading lips.  This wasn't that easy to do considering that there was a missing connection, in her head, which let the human part of her understand much. She did pick up the word 'carry' and that  caused her to flinch and  pull her leg closer to her, that chain dragging on the floor.  

That option wasn't one she would willingly pick for herself.  Eyes had grown wide again and were flitting all across the room.  Pain was etching across her  face and she pulled her hands in under her cloak.  Clearly she was trying to hide. Her voice was interchanging between a high whimper and a growl.  It wasn't too loud, but not exactly soft either.

[Archer Caughey]

When it came to situations like this, no matter how many choices were on the table, Archer would always choose the one he felt would work out best.  Even if, like it was about to this case, it would completely screw him over.  Sure, Archer could have used the front desk phone to give Donald a call, but he didn’t trust leaving this woman alone right now.  Sure, he could have asked someone else in the other room to do it, but that would get someone else involved and she was barely alright with him being here with her.  So that meant contacting Arcadia in a way that, after the topic of the fight they’d just had, was pretty much equivalent to dousing himself in gasoline and handing her a pack of matches.  

Just fantastic.  When mentioning Arcadia and Donald was what had gotten the most specific, least combative reaction out of this woman in her current state, though, it was the best choice.  Especially when he’d caught the physical response when he said “carry.”

“We’ll stay here.  Arcadia and Donald will come here.”  How much or little she understood, he still wasn’t sure, but he’d keep speaking nonetheless.  “Right now, I need to see your foot.”  Outwardly, Archer was kneeling beside her.  Closer to her legs than her torso.  Taking the risk of moving a hand to the bottom of the cloak.  He’d seen the foot injury and that needed pressure on it...ideally, minutes ago.  Which likely meant dealing with the cuff of that chain he’d only caught a glimpse of earlier.  Hence him trying to lift the cloak and expose her foot.

Inwardly, had Archer pulled his mind into a state of deep concentration.  To a state that was here, and yet...another plane entirely.  Plucking from his memory banks sanctified words that were part of histories much older than any part of this city, he used them to ping Arcadia.  Calling her by a name that he really cared not to use.  But between the words and the name, it opened up an infallible channel long enough that he could send Arcadia a message that she and Donald were needed, right now, and where.

What a blessing it would be if she was still mad enough at him that she sent Donald alone.

[DrDonaldBlake]

That message was relayed out to Donald, with the request that he handle it. Of course Arcadia was nice enough not to tell Donald who it was that needed help or what that help would require. It was an odd request to be sure. He hadn't been to the inn for quite some time. But she had a no questions asked that she was turning in... So for the first time in a few years Dr Donald Blake entered the TelRanaemyn Inn.


The good Doctor had not changed much in his time. He was still wearing a somewhat deshelved lab-coat with a white shirt and tie. As he stepped through the backdoor he was in the process of tucking his shirt in and resettling his medical satchel. Immediately the scent of blood wafted up to him and he was throne for a moment. Archer? " When his senses cleared he glanced around the kitchen. " What the hell happened here?"

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

Even in her current state, she had sense enough to know that she was badly injured and a continued fight would only cause more bleeding.  She had to preserve as much energy as she could in case there was a need for it later.

Injured hands held the dark cloak closed. Any hint of the clothing she may have been wearing was not yet seen.  But her eyes, those glittering yellow eyes were trained on Archer and watched his movements very carefully.

The chain was an interesting thing. Two feet in length from her ankle, the end of it was broke. Cut, to be more specific.  Each link was two inches thick and covered in thick spikes that varied from a half and inch to an inch long.  Holding the chain would likely result in cutting one's hand unless they took precautions for their own safety.  This chain was wrapped tightly around the females ankle twice, the spikes having torn into the skin and resting against the bone.  There was no slack anywhere and the blood from the wound covered her foot.

There were other injuries to her leg and foot: scratches, scrapes, and shards of broken glass from when she had crawled on the floor.  For the moment, she was calm for she felt dizzy from the blood loss and sensory overload, then someone came in through the back door. That was her one avenue of escaping if the person she was with turned out to mean her harm, and now that way was blocked.

She jerked away from the door and started growling again, though her voice didn't have as much force as it did the first time. The hood she wore had fallen off now to settle on her shoulders and revealed a mass of matted, dirty, dark brown hair. Her face was darkened with dirt and a couple partial healed lacerations, that looked like claw marks, on her neck. The yellow eyes had left Archer and looked up to see what was now in her way.

The female stilled, she was statuesque as she studied the entrant. She knew this man, and her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she whimpered. A hand reached out from under the cloak and pressed to her forehead.  She was struggling with buried memories that were now trying to push their way to the surface.

She brought her arm down and opened her eyes, looking up at the man in the lab coat.  She had met him, and had conversations with him, before in the past. She knew that this was Donald Blake, but would he recognize her as De'Ryanna?

[Archer Caughey]

One glance over at Donald and Archer exhaled his relief like he was a billows.  "Hey, Donald. Thanks for coming." Alone. But he didn't say that part.  More often than not Archer liked to kid himself that Donald didn't know when he and Arcadia went at it, when likely the man was treated to a play by play so detailed that he might as well have been there.  And considering how fast Donald got here, well it was only logical to assume that they were probably together when she got his message. Catching Donald's reaction to the blood, Archer gave him an apologetic look.  "Sorry.  It's not mine." A nod to the injured female in front of him.

Archer’s attention focused on her first.  Now that she wasn’t struggling or trying to run, he could finally look her over.  Answering Donald as he studied.  "Not sure. I wasn't the one who found her. From the looks of it, she was chained up, someone cut her loose, she came in through the door behind you and went out into the bar area.  The bar's trashed, that's where a lot of these scratches and the broken glass come in.” A gesture to a patch of skin that had a bit of glass protruding before his gaze dropped to get a good look at this chain.  “She didn’t respond well to the crowd out there, and crawled back in here.  She hasn’t spoken, she’s only growled, and what she does or doesn’t understand is hard to tell.”

When De’ryanna stilled and looked up at Donald, Archer’s gaze followed  “But as you can see, she knows you.  And possibly Arcadia.  I thought she might be a patient at your clinic?  I’ve seen her around here once or twice.”  Never spoken to her, never gotten a name, but he did have fleeting memories of seeing her here.  And blessing and curse that it was, Archer never forgot a damned thing.  A heavy exhale followed, as he cut right to business.  “So.  Do you have a better way to remove this chain without causing her further injury than acid?  Because that’s my best idea, and it’ll take a couple minutes for me to get some from the lab.”  He was confident that he had a way to shield her foot from said acid while he was using it to burn through the chain, or else he wouldn’t be suggesting it.

At any rate, his solution was a good illustration of why he was the scientist and not the doctor.

[DrDonaldBlake]

"Any time..." He said almost absently as Donald looked around the room, examining the scene with clinical efficiency as he nodded along with Archer's words. He did not outwardly react to the scene, He was a Doctor. This was an emergency and he could react to it afterwards, when lives weren't in danger. He knelt down beside the female. Taking in the extent of her injuries and the involvement of the chain. "

"well, you're part right..." Donald said with a nod, catching the girls gaze. "I can help you. " And then he pointed at her. " Do not bite me. " He spoke calmly as he removed his medical back and glanced back at Archer and pulled a small pen light out of his bag along with a small white paper covered tube. "If this is who I think it is... she knows you too. " He stood then and knelt down beside her head, shining the light into each golden eye to gauge its reaction before he cracked the glass within the paper tube and pressed it underneath her nose. It was a concentrated ether solution. and a few breaths in would knock the girl out. It was a sudden move and probably could be seen as incredibly rude. But the last thing he needed while he was working was to have an angry woman attacking him while he was trying to help.



"Clean Water, and alcohol. and some clean linens... " and While Archer ran off to do his Task Donald began to pull a number of things out of his pack, hook needle and gut. antispectic. clean bandages and a pair of heavy duty metal shears. Which coupled with the gifts he'd been given by Arcadia should cut through the metal links. Assuming they weren't enchanted to be unbreakable. which seemed unlikely seeing as how the chain was... broken.

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

Fortunately De’Ryanna did not understand what Archer was suggesting about using acid to free her of the chain. The result may not had been good.

She shifted her attention from one guy to the other. Part of her was trying to understand what the two of them were discussing. Donald had grabbed her attention again when he told her not to bite him, and that earned him a small snarl but she stayed still.  The light in the eyes disoriented her. A few hard blinks in attempt to bring back her sight. It made her slightly frantic that she began to thrash around. It also resulted in her taking  a few deep breaths of the solution put under her nose.

De'Ryanna batted at her nose, pulling her head back in trying to escape the smell, but it was too late. Her movements slowed and she started slumping down against the wall. A final effort was made as her body jerked and then went still.

Her breathing was shallow. There would be no more fight from her until the effect wore off, or something snapped her out of it. De'Ryanna's body relaxed, the tightness gone from her limbs. Chin on her chest and arms hanging down at her sides. The cloak had inched down around her. Not a stitch of clothing was seen (it was safe to say she wore none), but dirt and grim were a constant throughout.

What neither of them may have known is that being knocked out was likely one of the best things that could have happened. While the beast was asleep the girl was able to rise more to the forefront. If her eyes could be seen now, they would resemble more of her usual silver hue.

[Archer Caughey]

Honestly Archer was glad to see she had no reaction when he dropped the word acid.  It meant she was really struggling against a feral mindset, and that she wasn't just being difficult.  No judgement against her that he'd wondered if this was the latter, he'd just been a part of too many situations in the past where that was the case.  Once bitten, twice shy when it came to Rhy'din chaos. In response to Donald, Archer shrugged. "By sight, we've never spoken. She has some connection to this place, yeah?" What few memories he had of this woman were all connected to here.

Archer released a heavy exhale when he saw the ether did its trick. "I should start carrying some of that around." While it was stated with perfect deadpan, it was typical Archer using humor to diffuse the tension. Though, as he rubbed his beard, his weariness showed. "This kind of thing happens to me all the time now when I'm down here." Made sense, he'd become a magnet again to those in need. Archer had just forgotten - as much as he could forget, anyway - what that was like.  So he just needed to say that to a friend, out loud, to get that thought out of his mind so he could focus.  Not only to a friend, but a friend who knew very well what he was talking about.  

He pulled the short stack of clean towels from his shoulder where he'd draped them, offering them over to Donald.  "Check. I'll see if I can find any more."  He picked up the bowl he'd gotten earlier, and went over to the sink to dump it out and fill it up with fresh water.  Blame the scientist in him - he had a sense of exactly how many minutes had passed since he'd filled the bowl of water and figured in terms of being sanitary that it couldn't hurt to refill it.

After setting the bowl next to Donald, Archer passed through the kitchen door back out into the bar area.  Trying to project a casual 'everything's under control' type air as he rooted through what was left of the bottles behind the bar for a bottle of vodka.  "Doctor's here.  She'll be fine."  It was said to the room in general, and no invitation or ask for help followed.  He just grabbed a half-filled bottle, a couple more towels stowed away under the counter that looked clean, and headed back into the kitchen.  Shutting the door behind him.  Even though the woman was knocked out now, he was still trying to honor her wishes of not being looked at by a crowd.

Bottle and towels were set next to Donald. "Let me know how I can help.  I've pulled glass from wounds and stitched myself up plenty."  The life of this scientist certainly included beaker breakages, and sometimes even small scale explosions.  It was the larger wound on De'Ryanna's foot that was completely out of his capabilities.

[DrDonaldBlake]

"The stuff works wonders, never leave home without it. " He snapped the link to the chain with his metal shears breaking it through and then began to pour water over the puncture wounds."I do know her. She and Priss were best frenemies back in the day." He leaned in closer when Archer stepped away "Alright, It's not so bad..." more to himself since she was unconscious and Archer was in the other room.  

"Excellent , thanks!I have a pair of forceps in the bag, as well as hook needle and gut. " He gave his old friend a quick smile and reached up to take the bottle of Vodka, pouring a bit of it over the wound  and pressing a towel down over it. "Can't really sew this kind of Puncture wound. He pulled his bag over and pulled from it  something that  looked a whole lot like a syringe filled with  packing peanuts. "Check this out. he tossed his improvised bandage to the side and pressed the syringe into the hole and injected the fillings into the hole.  the contents expanded when they touched her  blood, expanding and filling the hole to a point where the oozing blood stopped.

Dr Blake grinned like a wild man at that, tossing the empty syringe back into his bag before going about wrapping the wound in the cloth that archer brought. " The contents are sterile and accelerate the healing process by breaking down into proteins the body uses in recreating  muscle growth. "  It was all very thought provoking and amazing according to Donald. But most things related to emergency medicine were to him.  with the wound on her ankle dressed he turned his attention to others she might have. Though it didn't seem like there was much more that was serious for a woman with her condition. "It's going to be okay..." he murmured as he inspected her wounds, taking care to wash and bandage any that Archer might have already tended to. Glancing up at the man. "You see this all the time, is that because of who you really are?"

[De'Ryanna Aybara]

(it's short but... in my defense..  she is unconscious...)

While she was unconscious there was little movement of her body. A jerk here and a bit of a flinch there, mostly muscle reactions. It wasn't anything to take notice of.  However, if they spent any time looking at her face, something was going on there.

It started with a small twitch at the corner of her mouth, the lips moving slightly. The movements grew, stretching across to the other side of her mouth. Eventually, her mouth moved to form two soundless words. At the start, it was nearly incomprehensible. Soon after, if they listened, she was speaking. It was hoarse and shaky, foreign on her own lips, but it was the same word over and over.

Help.

Inside of her mind, De'Ryanna was trapped.

[Archer Caughey]

Archer hooted. “Frenemies?  Is that what the whippersnappers are calling it these days?”  At least he was at the point where he could make fun of his own age.  A year ago, a couple months ago even, it was one hell of a sore subject.  He picked through Donald’s bag, grabbing up some bandage, first aid tape, and shears while he was at it.  He suspected that some of the cuts would just need some cleaning and bandaging instead of stitches.  

Like anything Archer did, the scientist was methodically efficient, but in this case he was also empathetic.  Starting his work at the top of De’ryanna since Donald was working at her feet, he took a little time to clean off her face.  Tilting her head, he stretched out a piece of gauze about a foot long and used it to tie her hair back as neatly as the circumstances would allow so that it would stay out of the way.  That’s when his eyes landed on the lacerations on her neck, and he frowned as he noted the fact that they were already on their way to healing.  “Interesting...looks like something clawed her up before tonight.”  He made sure to give the marks a good cleaning, and put a bandage over them to make sure they’d stay clean.

Working on her hands next, Archer winced, glad that she was currently unconscious.  Each bit of glass was carefully removed and each wound carefully checked before he stitched it up.  Cleaning the whole of her hands like he did her face after he was done.  “I think it’s a good idea if you take a second look at her hands after you’re done there…”  Hands were delicate business, and he wanted to make sure his stitching held up to par.  Then he adjusted the cloak so that he could get a good look at her legs, and anywhere with glass was tended to first.  The cleaning and stitching process comfortably repeated, he grinned at Donald’s enthusiasm.  “How bout that.  Looks like some pretty smart science.”  And Archer’s love affair with science was no secret.  “Pretty amazing, too.  I was wondering how the hell you were going to treat a wound like that on a kitchen floor.”

Right when he was about to clean the scratches on her legs, Archer stopped short. The sharp internal yank he felt inside was a sensation no longer than a heartbeat, and it was one that he was still getting used to.  It was a tug like that which had brought him into the inn tonight in the first place, though it had been Gwen ‘needing a brain’ who’d unknowingly yanked on his sacred chain that time.  A lot closer to his actual purpose than this call was, though he could understand why he was feeling it. Sitting up, blue eyes went to the young woman’s face and sure enough she was trying to speak.  She kind of didn’t need to in this case, though, even if there was no way of her knowing that.   “Yeah.  Because of who I really am."  He swallowed his sigh at the irony of saying those words at this moment, and focused instead on what the woman was asking for. "What’s her name?”  The question might sound sudden to Donald, but Archer’s mind was now on a different track.  “Where does she live, do you know?  Who should we be notifying?”  Maybe he could get on that, while Donald finished up.

[DrDonaldBlake]

Archer was a damned good nurse in this instance, good enough that he would give the man a hard time about it if it were appropriate at the moment. Though Donald was a phsician and he had a patient in danger. It wasn't the time for jokes." sure." He said as he finished what he was working on, binding the last wound that he was working on before he took archer's advice and took a second look at her hands. " nice work here..." He leaned back and pulled a bottle of antiseptic and another roll of gauze. "We get a whole lot of really cool things like it at the clinic, I have a friend who deals in cutting edge tech. " There was a small smile as he went about pouring the antiseptic over her wounds. hiis hands were quick and sure and once he was sure the cuts were cleaned he began wrapping her hands tightly with the thin fabric. With that done he leaned back on his palms and heaved a sigh fo releag. she was presently in no danger of bleeding out.

"Ryan, I think is what she liked to be called... And, she lives here at the Inn... Or she did when I was here a few years ago. ' he said with a nod, standing. " I'll see if I can get her upstairs. See if anyone out there knows if she has family, or might know more about whats wrong with her.

He was about to lift her up when she began to whisper. Help. With a comforting smile he continued his work and picked her up. " It's okay, we're helping..." he glanced back at archer... " I'll put her in an empty room, and leave the door open. " so that the man could find him when he gathered someone who might have been able to help.

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