Wild

[Jairus Starvald]

MEDICAL WING​

Fight for long enough, keep winning and eventually you end up thinking you can't lose.

Then reality hits you in the face.

Literally.

Repeatedly.

Over and over, until your teeth are either knocked out or knocked in. Ivory wasn't sure which one was worse. Mostly because every single part of her body was hurting right now. Enough that she couldn't really pay attention to any specific part of it. That would come tomorrow. Ivory shifted on the makeshift bed. Groaned. So, maybe it would be more than a day. She was pretty sure Eghan had broken a rib or three.

Ow.

Maybe more than that.

They had dropped her in the medical wing. First time she was here. It didn't surprise her that it was devoid of people. The fighting pits weren't exactly known for giving a chit about taking care of their fighters. They'd probably keep her here for a day or two. See her bones didn't magically heal. Then throw her into the hole. Or maybe have her be picked up by someone. Organs, chit like that, they were always en vogue here.

No sense in letting the merch go to waste, eh?

"At least they didn't find the shiv." She murmured to herself, clasping it tighter in her fingers.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

"Well no, but then, they weren't REALLY looking for it were they?"

The voice was soft, amused.

A small figure stepped out of the shadows. Dark hair, sharp hazel eyes, a smile that wouldn't look out of place over a plate of cookies. Soft as the voice and almost gentle.

Sometimes, it was inconvenient. Feeling the vibrations through Shatterpoint. Tracing the lines and fractures across the galaxy, sifting through them to find ones that glinted in just the right way. The way that told her it was something that would draw her particular interest. Not that it promised to be useful but that it had the potential to be. Sometimes she wasn't even looking specifically when she stumbled across the highly reflective splinters. Sometimes she was looking for something else entirely.

This had been the later.

That said, she never passed up a chance that might turn a broken moment into something stronger than it was before.


"No, I'd recommend staying put, the way you're breathing I suspect one of those broken ribs is pressing against you lung and wouldn't that be a way to go? 'How did you die?' 'Oh I jumped up too fast because a friendly voice was disconcerting and punctured my lung.' 'Bummer.'"

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

In fact, Ivory was about to leap up.

Reflexive reaction.

It could be forgiven considering the circumstances, no? The pain and the woman's voice made her freeze up. Irajah would immediately notice the scrutiny applied to her. As far as Ivory knew there weren't supposed to be people in this room. Well. No people outside of those somehow broken. This smol lady was not a guard. No overseer either (none that she knew anyway). Which shrunk the list noticeably. She wasn't wearing any doctor chit either, so that one fell off as well.

What was left?

Slaver? One weird arse slaver, if that was the truth of it.

"Dun need to move to get this shiv into you." Iv cautioned her between hissed teeth. "Whatcha want, I am trying to die in silence here, ya know."

It was more bravado than anything else. Ivory wasn't ready yet to die. Stubborn one, but she knew she was meant for more than this chit. More than getting her arse kicked from one side of the pit to the other, by some limp-tooled arsehole that got the drop on her.

Politics were a schutta.

But she was destined for greater things. She knew it. Knew it had to be true.

 

[Kuzo]

"Go ahead. Please in fact." There was a pause, and then, "What do I want?"

An amused smile flickered over her face.

"I want you not to die."

Why was that? Honestly Irajah herself wasn't certain. Well, of the specifics anyway. The injured young woman across the room had the potential to be.... something. To affect.... something. Fortunately, she found the vagueness of Shatterpoint in situations like this more interesting than frustrating. A thousand little cracks that led out from this moment. Several of them traced too far into the future to see where they led. She was not a seer, had shied away from attempting anything of the sort. There lay madness, and of the things she valued in her life, there was no room for that.

She moved across the room.

"They call this a med bay," she snorted absently, dismissively. "It's a butcher's workshop. But we work with what we have."

As she had walked, she had left her back to Ivory.

"I won't ask you to promise not to stab me if I come within reach, but I can assure you I mean you no harm," she said over her shoulder. A small case was lifted and set on a rolling table, clicked open.

"I was right not to trust they would have proper scanning equipment," she muttered to herself, as if personally offended.

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

That took the wind out of her sails.

On a good day she considered herself a good killer. Efficient. Fast. This wasn't a good day at all. She still thought she could take the small woman. But Ivory might be arrogant, she was certainly no fool. Fools died very very young in captivity and slavery together.

This was the main reason why Iv didn't immediately throw that shiv.

Because.

Why?

Right now Ivory was slated to be killed. She knew that. Irajah knew that. Basically everyone in the room knew. So, what was the worst that this woman could do to her? But... what was the best that she could do? Tell the truth and actually heal her. No longer death. That was pretty tantalizing, no? "You are a strange lady, you know that?" Ivory finally grumbled but allowed her to come closer. There was still a tightness, where she held the shiv.

An animal barely restrained.

"Why do you care if I live or die? You don't know me." Iv squinted at her. "And I would remember a pretty face like that in a sea of karking filth."

Might have sounded like a compliment, but it wasn't.

Scarless is what Ivory thought of the Doctor. Someone who hadn't suffered. They weren't worth much from her experience.

 

[Kuzo]

"I get that a lot," she said with a laugh as she wheeled the table over next to the cot. As she moved, she reached out with one foot, hooking a rolling stool with her ankle and sending it gliding (albeit creakily) until it bumped softly against the cot leg.

If she saw the way Ivory's fist was clenched, she didn't act as though she did.

"I'm a doctor," she said succinctly. "And I have a particular interest in those the galaxy has decided to discard hastily. Today, that happens to be you."

It was true, though supplied in a particular way. Irajah did indeed save lives. But she took as many as she saved these days.

She didn't probe the girl's mind. If she had? She would have laughed. Not out of spite but out of genuine amusement. She had lived, dying every day, with the pain of Gideon as it had tried every moment to take her life. She had been tortured at the hands of a red sith, every finger broken as a reminder to hold. Her. Tongue. Her body had been shattered by [member="Darth Carnifex"], to the point where parts had been removed because they simply could not be saved.

Yes, her skin now was unblemished. But ahhhh the assumptions. She would have appreciated them. And been perfectly happy to allow her to keep them.

Irajah had nothing to prove.

Settling down on the stool next to the young woman, Irajah drew a small, handheld scanner and held it up.

"I'd like to scan you. Make sure there's not more going on that I can't see immediately." She waited, eyebrows raised.

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

I bet you do.

Nothing of her suspicion was being elevated by her answers. But. Raj had her and she probably knew it. What did Iv exactly have to lose here?

She was dead anyway.

If there was a way that she could come out of this alive though? That changed the calculus. Allowed her to keep that shiv right in her hand, instead of in the woman's soft flesh. "Doctor, eh? Overseers just waved ya through then, have at it, rummage around with our property for free! Something like that?" Unlikely. Overseer Khali was a fething schutta. She didn't trust anyone and was a hellspawn herself. More likely that there was some sort of arrangement between this one and that one.

But what sort of arrangement was it?

The shiv gestured towards her. "Yeah, scan away, as long as I am alive by the end of this, I dun' see what more damage ya can do anyway." Oh, Raj could probably cause her pain and make her ending much worse. But... that was worth the chance.

Wasn't it?

 

[Kuzo]

"Oh honey," Irajah said with a laugh. "No. It was much more straight forward than that. I bribed them."

The chatter was easy and relaxed, but her eyes and hands worked efficiently and quickly. She ran the scanner across the young woman's body, head tilting slightly.

"Credits speak louder than anything I could have said. But you know that," she glanced sidelong at Ivory before focusing on the scanner again. It offered a soft chime to indicate it was done.

"You're lucky. I think so long as we get those ribs set- just the one, the others will heal on their own. There is some internal bleeding, and your liver is bruised but that will heal as well. I recommend not drinking any of the homebrewed hooch I assume gets passed around on the .... residential level.... any time soon." She meant of course, the level she and the rest of the slaves lived on. "We'll need to address that bleeding after the rib's been set. Don't want you to end up flinching in a way that punctures your own lung, hmm?"

Untreated, the injuries very easily could have led to death. A long, slow one. Unless she was taken out with the literal trash rather than cared for. Irajah suspected that's how it would have gone.

Carefully, slowly, she reached out, fingers probing Ivory's ribcage. Not with the intent to cause pain but it would not be a pleasant experience.

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

"You.... spend money..... to heal people."

That tone was so dry and unbelieving that you might as well be talking to a literature critic.

"...are you sure you don't need some medicine? Are you okay?" Ivory asked, mock concern thick laced against the backdrop of pain. It was simply weird to her. Why would anyone. Anyone. Spend their money to heal strangers? Naw, that was a load of chit. Maybe this doctor was trying to heal her. Maybe she wouldn't even take her as a slave. But. There was more going on here than she was telling. Free gifts didn't fall out of the air as far as Ivory knew.

Not for her anyway.

So there was a catch here somewhere.

"Dun' know if ya can call me lucky, I am in a feth ton of pain, lady." That amount of pain was only going to increase exponentially. She hissed softly, but endured it. "Ugh. This is only gonna get worse, won't it." Iv leaned her head back and then sighed. "Assume only thing ya got for the pain is a knock against the head."

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah chuckled but didn't answer the query, instead focusing on her work.

"I can give you something for the pain," she said, glancing up. "But with the extent of your injuries, the amount I would have to give you would make you a little loopy for several hours. So the question for you then is do you want to risk it?"

The look she gave Ivory was even, just the slightest hint of a raised eyebrow. Despite the apparent crazy, it was clear that Irajah was not naive- not about the risks of this place anyway.

"And yes, it'll get worse before it gets better. But once I set this you'll find it easier to breath which, in my experience, always helps with the capacity to handle pain."

Irajah paused, hands hovering over the worst break.

"So. Pain killers? Or no."

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

This one wasn't going to make it easy on her, was she?

"Ugh. Couldn't jus' lie an' make this easy, could ya. Fuggit. No meds, ty." Because the schutta was right. There wasn't a safe moment in this place. The last thing that Ivory wanted.... was to get better and then immediately be offed, because she allowed herself to take an easy way out. That would be some luck. She sighed and then grimaced. Even sighing was getting difficult, the more the inflammation ran its course. She wasn't looking forward towards what was going to happen next.

But.

"Okay, let's get this over with. Don't mind the cursing. I wouldn't want to hurt ya feelings, while ya rummaging around in me."

A little smirk at the end there.

Just a little one.

 

[Kuzo]

"I assure you," Irajah murmured, her eyes on her hands where they lightly probed the area. "My feelings are entirely safe."

Lips parted slightly, her head tipped up, teeth catching her lower lip and-

There was no warning. Irajah did not offer a 'on the count of three' or an additional readiness check. She took Ivory at face value when she said she was ready. One hand shifted along her ribs and the other jabbed down, the motion swift and firm with the heel of her palm. A pop.

"Easy, easy, breath," she said softly.

In fact, from that moment it should have been easier to do so, now that there was no further pressure on her lung from the broken rib.

"Worst is over, the rest is going to see like a piece of cake."

She didn't move on right away however, gaze casting up to her face. Checking the reaction of the eyes, the colour of her skin around the mouth, the way her pulse moved in her throat. Fingers shifted, two coming to rest on the inside of her wrist. Pulse. Pressure.

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

A gasp.

Then air (she didn't even realize just how much she was missing it) drifted deeply into her lungs. She breathed in... out... and relaxed into the bed. The tension seemed to go out of her body in that moment. Eyes closed, breath ragged, softer gasps now. Because it still hurt, but it was a different kind of hurt now. No longer the sharpness. Nothing close to the intense fire raging through her briefly, when Raj set the bone. It was just the dulled nagging quality of pain.

It was fething annoying.

"Never had cake." Ivory murmured.

Then Irajah leaned in and Iv's eyes fluttered open. "Now then-" A shift and suddenly the point of the shiv was pressed firmly against Raj's body. "You're the doctor. You know the artery I am currently a hair away from nicking. Won't be a pleasant way to go."

Eyes narrowed.

"One shot, doc, what do you want from me. No pleasantries or vague chit. What do you expect from this? After that I will offer my thanks."

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah didn't move. But she wasn't frozen. Simply sensible.

"Well, if you nick it, it'll be impressively messy. The whole spurting thing is probably a great attention grabber in the arena. But still gives someone the potential to strike back assuming they aren't the sort to panic. Or who simply are willing to take someone down with them. Now, if you move two centimeters to your right, you can severe it entirely."

Her tone was even, almost conversational. It was only at the end that those hazel eyes came up to meet Ivory's.

"I'm not looking for your thanks, that, I can assure you, is not why I'm here."

Her head tilted back slightly, regarding her carefully.

"I am here because you dying today would mean that you don't become what you have the potential to be. And that, my dear, would be an utter waste. There are enough worthless entities in the galaxy. Those with a greater potential? Those should have the chance to find it."

She still hadn't moved away from the small blade pressed against her.

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

They eyed one another.

Iv had an almost preternatural ability to suss out, when someone was karking with them. None of her usual alarm bells were ringing right now. That tender spot between her shoulder blades wasn't itching. She didn't have the urge to bite the inside of her cheek. It was almost like Irajah was telling the truth. "Ya know. For a doc, ya are pretty comfortable with a knife touching ya skin." A snort there. "Ain't gonna judge a girl for her preferences." The knife was taken away and disappeared entirely a moment afterwards.

It was probably still around.

Somewhere.

"Dun matter if you didn't come for it. Ya got my thanks anyway." She leaned in, grimacing at the pain, but keeping her eye level at hers. "You ain't lying. Truth. But you think I might be useful for you, in the future, I know your brand, doc, they always plotting something."

A shrug.

"So. What is my potential according to you? You might notice I am kind of stuck in a.... pit." Rueful smirk there.

 

[Kuzo]

She didn't answer the comment about being comfortable with a blade to her flesh. Just offered a small smile and let the younger woman assume what she wished.

It was only when the shiv was removed that Irajah leaned back on the stool, studying her for a moment.

"Honestly," she said, hands spreading wide, palms up, "I am not sure that you will be useful to me in the future. Possibly, yes. I won't pretend it's otherwise. Do I hope you will? Certainly. But that has yet to be written, and I am no seer. That said...."

She settled her palms on her thighs for a moment before reaching back to the case, shifting the rolling stool slightly with her toes.

"If I were here to truly manipulate you or your loyalties, I would buy you and set you free. But I am not a savior and you do not need saving. No. I just detest potential being snuffed out by the small minded and violent."

She withdrew a syringe and a small bottle, showing it to her.

"Clotting factor and injectable bacta. Will fix the internal bleeding and prevent it from getting worse, but it burns like a schutta going in."

Filling the syringe, her eyes on it rather than on Ivory, she continued.

"Only you can figure out what your potential is. But I assure you, it's not 'fight and survive until someone buys you'. You can be so much more than that.... but only you can create what that will be."

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

She eyed the syringe like it was a demon.

Just waiting to jump on her.

"Yeah, do it, after all this I'd rather not die from the inside." Iv murmured in response. She didn't look away from her or the syringe though. Didn't let weakness dictate her actions. But that didn't mean she had to like it. Ugh. She hated needles for sure. The words Raj was trickling into her ear? Didn't look away from those too. It was true. She knew she was worth more than this. Was destined for better things. The endless grind would kill her eventually.

She knew this.

There had to be a way out.

It wouldn't be on the back of a good Samaritan, that much was for sure. "Whichever way it shakes out.... don't worry, I won't forget your face." Ivory gritted through her teeth as the medicine worked her system. It truly felt like liquid anger raging through her veins.

Even the needle was forgotten in the face of it.

"Or what you did for me." Everyone wanted something. That was a thing Ivory was comfortable with. Made it easier to accept this help too.

 

[Kuzo]

Hazel eyes cast up, eyes for a moment heavy on the younger woman.

"I would suggest," she murmured softly as she maneuvered the syringe into place, "that for your own safety you do indeed forget my face. And perhaps, if you are so inclined, as a favor to me."

Her hand tightened on Ivory's side, but it wasn't to cause pain. It was to keep her still as she injected the serum. As promised, it burned like acid, but it would do the trick.

"At least until we meet again," she said with a sympathetic smile as he hand eased from her hip.

The chances that she would have an opportunity or reason to explain her face to someone who it would matter if they knew was small. But there were lines in the glass that led in that direction for the slave and Irajah already recognized the risks behind here with her own face on display. Three potential ways this woman would end up there. One of which could (but did not necessarily) lead to her discovery within the Empire. How would it play out? Irajah didn't know. She took the path that led here, acted as she saw fit. That was all that she could do.

"Something is going to happen soon," Irajah leaned in, words whispered in her ear. "Take advantage of the opportunities given. Someone," she murmured intensely, lips a breath from her ear, "Is going to make a mistake. Take it and freedom is yours, and more. Ignore it- hesitate- and you will die bleeding in your bunk."

She had claimed that she was not a seer, but that she had seen, clear as day. There was no life where Ivory muddled on as a slave for long. For a heartbeat, she reached out, brushing the woman's mind and let her see what she had seen. Like a cracked mirror it showed both in refracted clarity. Not just freedom, but power in this place- sliced against the flies swarming around a wound ignored, legs limp, too weak to drag herself an inch farther in the dark.

"It's all or nothing," she said, pulling back and away, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "Make it all."

[member="Ivory"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

"That... sounds concerning, doc, but I will keep it in mind."

Ivory doubted she'd be able to forget her.

Not because her face was oh so memorable. Pretty, yes. But Irajah was neither stunning nor hideous. Just one of those raven-hair, pitch eyes that could fade into a crowd. Perhaps that was the entire point of it. The way this one liked it. Whichever it was... Raj wasn't a doctor. Not solely anyway. There was far more to it than she allowed others to see. But that was just fine. Even as the burn was hissing through her veins? She knew that there was a chance now.

That she'd survive.

That was more than Iv had any hope for a few hours ago.

The Doctor leaned in and Iv immediately froze up again. Hand clenching against the shiv. Then a blink as Iv realized she was.... what? Brows furrowed in thought as Raj murmured into her ear. "Ya know, doc, I knew ya was a weird one, but-" The but locked on her lips. An image flooding in her head. Two even, reflections of one another. "Woah." Blink blink blink blink. "Jeez, that was, okay."

Squinting at her.

"You are not a doctor." Brows furrowed harder. "You should probably go now tho. Did all you could. Watch your arse around here, liable to get shanked."

After that Ivory looked away, staring at a corner of the room, wrapping herself into her thoughts.

Thoughtful look there.