You Can't Save Them All - Manaan Aftermath [PM for invite]

[Avalore Eden]

Manaan.

Chaos.

Fire. Blood. Screaming. The city had fallen, the Republic had lost. In short order, thousands of civilians had fled the massacre by way of evac ships that had come too late to save everyone.

Thunder flared in the skies around them. Energy blasts screamed through the air. The ship shuddered, pitched, rolled, then finally touched down to the ground.

"Grab everyone you can! Collect the wounded! Get them on board!"

Person after person, body after body, they piled in until there simply wasn't anymore space to pile, and then they piled some more.

"I can't stop the bleeding!"

Hal had been out of his comfort zone where the wounded were concerned. His efforts had been to bring them in and hand them over to Avalore who was, at the time, the only Jedi Healer present to help where the minimal number of Field Medics could not. They were already overrun.

She remembered staunching an open chest wound with her own robes, pressing so firmly her hands hurt.

"SOMEONE GET ME A REBREATHER!"

There were just so many people on board that evac ship. Packed tightly, weeping, screaming, yelling for friends and family and answers that wouldn't be spoken. Avalore recalled her heart pounding so powerfully she could feel it in her ears. She'd lost sight of Hal and, quite frankly, she had no idea whose ship they'd jump aboard, where it was going, or if it was even Republic friendly. Had they just stepped into a trap? Were they leading all these innocent lives to the doom?

"Get in! GET IN! THE CITY IS SINKING!"

"I NEED A REBREATHER!"

The man on the floor over whom she stood was choking on blood slowly filling his lungs from a shrapnel charge to the chest. Avalore was certain his left lung was close to collapsing, and here she was stemming the flow from the gaping wound over his heart, screaming for a rebreather where no one could hear her.

The ship gave another staggering shudder. Someone screamed and a group of people toppled over nearby.

"GET IT OUT! GET IT AWAY! SITH BEAST!"

Avalore's heart skipped a beat. What was that?

"Here-" someone stumbled to collapse beside her, more screaming, people were pushing to get away from the ship doorway, she felt the ship lift off the ground, engines churning away, "HERE!"

Rebreather.

"Oh Force, thank you - take this, press down tightly and keep this over his mouth-"

"But he's choking!"

"I KNOW-" fussing, distracted by a strange feeling at the back of her mind, Avalore pulled from her Healer's satchel a large syringe, removed the stopper and plunged it into the man's chest. He heaved as the collected air escaped, allowing his lungs to fill.

"PUSH IT OUT! PUSH IT OUT THE DOOR!"

The commotion at the ship entrance caught her attention again and Avalore caught sight of something large and dark. They were screaming sithspawn, but a feeling tugged at her mind and told her to intercept. She moved on it and pushed her way through the crowd, finding a group of men attempting to shove a massive cat-like creature down the rampway.

"STOP!" she screamed as her mind instantly recognized the failing signature of the beast, "STOP! HE'S A JEDI!"


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Commenor
Chasin City Hospital

"You're a Jedi?"
"Jedi Knight Healer Avalore Eden."
"Oh thank the Gods, a Healer. Are there more of you?"
"More Jedi? There's a few-"
"No, no girl, more Healers. We're overwhelmed - we've taken in five whole evac ships in the last six hours. We could really use your help."

Avalore stood frozen to the spot, one hand gingerly laced over an ear of the large cat, and her eyes watching the retreating form of [member="Hal Terrano"] whom she'd sent off to finish his own mission of returning to Cato and sorting through his archives.

"Please, I'm begging you-" the Nurse took hold of Avalore's arm, "there's a little girl just down the hall, I don't think she's going to make it. She needs surgery, now, but we just don't have the room. If you could just keep her alive long enough, we might be able to save her-"

"Ok," Avalore sputtered and nodded, "ok, take me to her."


That had been three hours ago.


They didn't have beds big enough to hold the massive feline, but they'd made him as comfortable as they could given the overwhelming conditions. He'd been administered medical care to help with the pain and swelling, all that was left was for the exhausted Healer to work her powers. With some luck, he'd been placed near a viewport that overlooked Chasin City, and it was there by that window that Avalore sat, robes utterly saturated in blood, and a pale, defeated expression carved onto her face. She stared out at the city, wordless, waiting for [member="Meeristali Peradun"] to awaken.

 

[Meeristali Peradun]

Though the wounds were healed and bones knitted, soreness remained. Groggy, he woke, one lid slipping open, the eye on the side faced towards the ceiling, the side unaltered by the acidic spray of a hydrastaff whose heads he had crushed or maimed in the process of attempting (and failing) to well and truly maim their wielder. The eye roamed about, the world a blur for many moments, only to be obscured when a deep, mewling groan came out of his monstrous form as it lay sprawled on one side on the floor, only a number of mats between his body and the cool hardness underneath. When his eyes opened again he started to try and make an effort to roll onto his stomach, only to stop, and settle into stillness on the mats again.

It was then, laid out on his side once more that he spied the form of [member="Avalore Eden"] at the window, robes soaked through and caked with the essence of lives, and with the sight came the smell, though dried. To a mammal, even he, it was of less appeal once it had begun to lose any sense of liquidity. The scent changed, no longer fresh, which was irritating. Irritating enough that he tried again, tried harder to lift himself off of the ground, off of the mats, no matter how incredibly sore he felt. He needed to be certain that he was whole enough to chance the change, especially with the hazy memory of those on that ship who had tried to shove him out. Sithspawn, they had called him, the word floating through his psyche.

He didn't like it.

 

[Avalore Eden]

Tired beyond exhaustion, Avalore had nodded off in the quiet of the hall. Shoulders slumped, head resting against the glass, she didn't so much sense Stali awakening as she merely heard his efforts to move after the fact. The Healer jolted awake as well, momentarily startled and confused.

Where was she? What was that smell? What time was it? What was this beast on the floor?

Commenor. Dried blood. Night - judging by the stars in the skyline.

Stali.

"St-stali?" brown eyes blinked away the growing pain of fatigue, a fresh surge of adrenalin forcing them wide and open. She stumbled from her seat at the window, hovering half-awake and wary by his side. The hammering in her chest now for entirely different reasons. Fear, maybe.

She'd never seen his beastly form before Manaan. Was he the same? Would he recognize her? Or did he lose his mind to instinct and wilds? Should she alert the guards?

Her eyes flickered to a nearby table holding medical supplies, including a syringe of sedative.

"Is it...you?"

[member="Meeristali Peradun"]