Ice Cold Procedures [Olivia]

[Lief]

Truly, he had forgotten what it was to heal. Mirial had been an eye opening experience, reminding him of the duty he used to have and the lives he used to save on a daily basis. He would never return to be among the Jedi, he despised their ethic and the reckless Jedi who put themselves and others in so much unnecessary danger.

The Sanctum, he was quickly learning, were a little better. Their Silver Jedi rendered aid to worlds without claiming governance over them. And they had helped a little in the relief of Mirial. Kail, too, had been a Jedi. Though she was different. She seemed to genuinely care, to the point of self torment.

Well, Adiara did not want to work for an organization like the Jedi Medi-Corps. But that didn't mean that he didn't wish to pursue his medical training further. It was one thing to be a trauma/battle medic, rendering aid to the battlefield, and another to heal and treat within an official medical environment.

Enter Obroa-skai.

Adiara remembered this world from his Medi-Corps days. Many of the non-Force Users he worked alongside had referred numerous different institutions, and the Aurora Medical Facility, alongside the Archives which claimed to hold a ridiculous amount of information on all kinds of fields, had been mentioned more times than he could count.

But first he had to traverse the tundras.

Wearing a thick overcoat, and a scarf which covered his mouth and nose, Adiara pressed on through the cold atmosphere. It wouldn't be too far, but any time spent out here that was unnecessary would be highly uncomfortable. He could swear his eyelashes were beginning to stick together.

[member="Olivia Durant"]

 

[Alkesh Vizsla]

Hapes couldn't be deemed a warm planet, but she supposed she'd taken home for granted in a lot of ways. She was missing it's mild climate now.

She only had a bit further to go, the lines of the Archives building growing steadily more defined out of the haze of fat snow flurries obscuring her vision. One hand pressed over the scarf covering her lower face, she pulled her fur-lined hood down further with the other, leaving her just a jacket with green eyes peeping out.

It wasn't where she'd meant to end up.

Just a few months ago she'd been working alongside her Master, a Kel-Dor with an admittedly admirable view of the Force and its purpose. She adored him and respected him - hell, he'd helped her escape death on the day they met. But the Order - their Order - had loomed larger than she could bear over what she'd once thought her greatest purpose. It all felt distinctly ineffectual. She was used to getting things done, but the Republic had been bogged down in, at best, a stilted and old-fashioned adherence to too many rules. At worst, it was a group so involved in tearing itself apart that the Sith had an easy target to hit.

Once she'd thought she might help people by joining them.
But she supposed there were other roads.

Obroa-Skai was an unlikely road, but she was quickly learning they all were. If she didn't have a Master, she would teach herself as much as she could until another group - hopefully - caught her eye.

Finally, she hit the alcove surrounding the Archives' doors, suddenly protected from the steady, low wind. With a hum of appreciation, she reached for the handle and pulled, ready for the warmth inside...yanked again...really, just so ready to get warm...

"Are you kidding me?" she muttered to herself, a distinctly un-Jedi-like wave of irritation overtaking her as she pulled one more time. Her Master would have told her not to, but she used a short nudge of the Force to give her enough strength to yank apart the ice keeping the door shut. She would have thought they would have made a way to avoid that problem by now, but who was she to judge?

She didn't notice the man coming up behind her until she'd started heading inside, holding the door behind her for him and wondering if he'd heard her irritated muttering, somewhat embarrassed. With she didn't subscribe to a lot of Hapan culture, she retained their refinement. At least most of the time...

Reaching up, she pushed the hood off her head and pulled the scarf down off her face, her cheeks flushed pink by the cold despite her attempts to cover them.

She noticed a tight-lipped librarian of sorts staring her down with something like disapproval before disappearing into a back room. She'd probably disliked the fast-melting snowflakes from Olivia's jacket making the floor wet.

"Oh good, we've already made a friend," she said, joking with the stranger who'd come in behind her.

[member="Adiara Drelas"]​

 

[Lief]

His first stop would be the archives. There were a few things he wanted to read into before he sought out the Medical Facility - namely their own history. Everything and everyone had some sort of jaded history, he just didn't want it to be so severe that it clashed with his own morals. Because he did have morals, believe it or not.

Stuffing his hands into his outercoat's pockets, he trudged on through the snow and kept his head down. He wasn't really paying attention to his surroundings at this point, the cold did that to him, so he wasn't aware that someone else was out in the same frigid weather until he neared the door. Truly, it was the unhappy muttering which gave the girl away.

Snapping up his head, the man watched as the girl first tried to tug on the door - which was frozen shut - and then did something which surprised him. He could feel the use of the Force and almost immediately the door gave way. It seemed he couldn't escape his past even on a frozen wasteland. Joy.

Though there was something a little different about her. Her signature did not read Sith or even moderately darkside. Yet she had used the Force in such an arbitrary way. Interesting. A practical Jedi then? Who'd have thought they existed? Not Adiara, not after the horrors he'd seen.

He might have turned away, left this little adventure for later, but well he was already there now and he was freezing. And the glowing light from inside surely gained his approval.

So he followed her inside. "Thank you, Sweetheart" he muttered as she held the door for him, though inside he found the act grating. Surely he was the one who should have held the door?

She looked embarrassed so Adiara simply flashed her a roguish smile and lowered his hood and scarf in the same process.

"Oh, verily" he replied, of the old lady, "She seems well accustomed to having guests."

The place was absolutely empty. But warm. Oh, two of Adiara's favourite things rolled into one.

A genuine smile settled upon his lips, and he wriggled his toes in his boots to try and warm them up a little. Peering around the archives he wondered where to begin. There seemed to be so much data, and so little time.

[member="Olivia Durant"]

 

[Alkesh Vizsla]

The flash of worry, that ingrained habit to try and cover up a use of the Force that her Master would not have approved of, quickly dissolved away at the press of the word ‘sweetheart’. Her family had left Hapes specifically because they did not agree with it’s view on men, women’s view of the masculine sex as inferior. And yet still, there was a part of her that was rubbed wrong by what was usually construed as something of a rude pet name. He didn’t seem to mean anything by it however, so she let it go.

Nodding a quick goodbye as one did to handsome strangers they met for only a moment, she shrugged off her coat and left it at the decidedly empty row of hooks designated for such before moving in to the archives.

She couldn’t say she’d ever had a particular thirst for knowledge, but she was bright and curious, especially about things like the Jedi. Once, a long time ago, this planet had hosted a score of young Jedi training to join the Order in full. The Gulag plague had wiped so much of the galaxy’s history from reachable memory, but the planet’s archives were the stuff of legends in terms of the breadth of its content - she hoped to find more answers there.

It took her a few minutes to get her bearings and figure out where to look, and it seemed her lone Archives companion was a little quicker on the draw, having already found what he was looking for - right where she wanted to look. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem, but it was like one of those times you say goodbye to someone and then both turn to awkwardly walk the same way, pretending it’s not happening.

All around, embarrassing.

Sighing quietly, she walked over, trying to maintain a discreet distance until she realized it wasn’t as discreet as she’d hoped and he’d taken notice.

“I’m not following you. I swear.”

[member="Adiara Drelas"]​

 

[Lief]

He seemed to hit a nerve with the use of Sweetheart; some girls loved it, others abhorred it. Seemed this one fit into the latter which was a shame, truly it was. Still, he was not here for the company of women, but instead to widen his knowledge. The Medi-Corps had taught him a lot, more than he'd even realised, but they weren't the be all and end all of medical know how.

Striding through the rows of holo-books and datacrons, the cases for which rose high into the vaulted ceiling, Adiara let out a low whistle. The Gulag Plague had wiped much from the Galaxy, so a sight like this was a rarity. He did so love wonders such as this.

Finally he was within the correct section. Reaching out he thumbed the spine of a thin tome labeled Cybernetics and You: Five Ways to Enhance your Body! Such frivolous tat. Adiara could appreciate replacement limbs and the like, but adding technology to yourself for the sake of enhancement? Well that was just stupid. Or maybe that was the Morellian in him talking.

No, most definitely not that one.

FTP: Be You, Only Better. What was it with people and wanting to modify their appearance? Facial Transformation... Really? He shook his head. Was this what qualified as medicine these days? He was about to give up and walk away all together when a particularly small and all round dusty book caught his eye. Useful Flora, and where to find them. Now that was more in his ballpark. Not perfect, but getting there.

He took the holo-book from the shelf and wiped a thin layer of grime from the cover. It didn't look to have been touched in forever, and no doubt it wasn't up to date, but kriff it. He had come this far already, he may as well try and make the most of it.

Just as he opened it and set his sights to the first section he became aware of the sound of boots on the metal ground. Peeking up he saw the young woman from earlier heading down the same aisle. What a coincidence.

"Oh really?" he began, feigning a stern expression... Before humour got the better of him and he grinned. "I wouldn't have minded if you were, you know?"

Okay so she hadn't liked sweetheart. Adi was probably making a mistake with such a comment, but he couldn't help himself. That was just who he was, and he was entirely harmless. He meant nothing by it.

[member="Olivia Durant"]

 

[Alkesh Vizsla]

There was a part of her that considering making a show of being offended. While ‘sweetheart’ had thrown her for a loop, his casual flirting was even more alien. Back home, a man that spoke to her that way within earshot of the wrong person would have found themselves thrown in prison - or worse - fairly quickly. Part of it would have been because of who she used to be and the position she once held, but mostly it would have been his sex. She used to think that leaving home would show her a world far more tolerant of differences, but she’d been wrong.

However, it had never bothered her then and it didn’t bother her now, especially since it just seemed his way.

She smiled, a small thing that seemed to brighten her desperately blue eyes.

What she wanted was opposite the stacks he was looking through. Turning on her heel, she could see him out of the corner of her eye as she ran her finger along datapad spines, looking for something that spoke to her in a mishmash of titles.

“Funny,” she said, thinking of the title she’d caught from the tome in his hands. “You don’t strike me as a botanist.”

[member="Adiara Drelas"]​

 

[Lief]

Surprisingly she smiled, and Adiara felt his own lips tug roguishly in response. Her eyes were bright, virtually twinkling in the hazy light of the archives, brilliant. He knew better than to test his luck, however, so he turned back to the holo-book and thumbed the pages until he reached a page which broadened his smile.

Dreamul'er was a plant he had held in reverence for quite some time, a holy grail of sorts to his fellow medi-corps, viewed more as a myth than reality. This tome suggested it was very much real, even giving a location he had never before heard of. Reaching into his jacket, Adiara pulled out his datapad and copied the notes to his personal files.

Her words made him smirk. "Oh? And what is it you believe I should be reading, sweetheart?"

Adiara wasn't fond of the knee-jerk response of using kolto and bacta as a blanket remedy. He often searched for alternative methods, preferring practical means. There were lots of miracle plants out there, and he had a fascination with them.

Truly, though, the fact he chose this book was purely coincidental.

[member="Olivia Durant"]