Animal I Have Become, Theed, Attn: Garlan

[Garlan Bawoosh]

Beyond the door he heard a gravelly growl. A light padding of feet could be heard accompanying the ominous sound. The scent of animal hair drifted in on an artificial breeze. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when a vornskr pulled into view. It’s yellow-red eyes stared at Garlan with a sense of discontent from between his two booted feet, at the edge of the table. The upper lip of the creature curled up in another growl. Odd that a vornskr would be trained as a guard dog rather than left to its own designs elsewhere.

Garlan slowly lowered his head, careful not to move too quickly -not that his current predicament allowed him to- hoping not to anger the animal further. In hopes of calming himself down more he glanced around the room again, taking in details. Garlan craned his neck just enough to peer over the side edge of the table he lay on. Medical instruments, stainless steel, extremely fine, and clearly expensive. The addict blinked his eyes hard, thinking, trying to grasp at straws as to where he truly was. His natural underworld paranoia was seeping into him, telling him something was not right. There were few in the criminal ring, bounty hunters and informants alike who could afford these sort of luxuries. A fully equipped medical bay seemed...strange. Garlan just chalked up the vornskr to a quirk of his captor. Before he could pursue the question further the owner of the molesting beast entered,

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead, didn’t expect you awake quite yet. Liking your accommodations?”

Silence fell on the room for a moment. The woman’s presence seemed to stem the creature’s anger, which in turn reduced some of the captive’s fear. Garlan remained silent to the question. He had been in such a situation once before, held captive by a rival mob of thugs and tortured briefly before being rescued by comrades. His capture was only for a petty ransom but it still warranted a number of scars that he still bore. However the question that lingered on the tip of his mind was: why would she go through the trouble to tie him down, instead of just killing him? Garlan shouldn’t have been tied down being asked how he liked his service. Instead he should have been lying in the gutter, a spray of gore across his face and over his chest.

When Brin moved to the side of his bed and bent to retrieve the fallen instruments he moved his face away. Her skin still seemed rough to him, white like a birch bark tree and deceivingly large, oddly. Also because his eyes darted about when he was thinking and fearing that he would display his queries, he diverted his gaze. Deriving the purpose of his capture was maddening. He was suspecting that Brin wouldn’t reveal the purpose, or intention of his imprisonment. So it seemed likely that he would be wasting his time away dealing with her dribble until they reached where they were going, for better or worse. For the time being he would make things as difficult as possible for her.

Whipping his head around to face the crouched Brin, Garlan retched and spat at her, aiming for nothing in particular, just her wooden, bent form.

[Shay Marin]

The lack of response from Shay’s ‘guest’ didn’t appear to bother the woman in the slightest. Not like he has a reason to be friendly. Sure, this Bawoosh character had been the one to initiate hostilities, but getting beat up and drugged would put anyone in a foul mood, or at the least a wary one.

As she went about the task of straightening up the mess the bounty hunter had made, Shay focused part of her mind on monitoring the man’s mental state. His aura remained in a state of flux, though not in as erratic fashion as before. He still exuded a… diseased vibe, but not as strongly as during their battle. She guessed this to be a side effect of the waning toxin levels in his system.

A spike of intent paired with the horking sound from behind her gave her a few seconds’ warning of Bawoosh’s plan. She managed to spin around in time to catch the wad of spit and phlegm on her jacket sleeve, rather than it landing in a more unpleasant location. Playing it up for the metaphorical camera, she fixed a disgusted look on the biological contaminant now dripping down nerf leather. “Ewwww. Just for that, no mint on your pillow.”

Favoring her patient with a brief Mac-style sneer, she rose back to her feet, depositing a double handful of medical equipment on the now-righted cart. “You’re awful big about causing trouble, aren’t you?” After putting her instruments in some semblance of order, she picked up the security box she’d retrieved earlier and moved over to the counter holding Bawoosh’s many implements for causing death and destruction. “Time to lock up your toys, then. I’m not stupid. Sure you've already been working on trying to break loose.”

Once the man’s weapons and useful gear were safely stowed away, ‘Brin’ proceeded to shrug out of her long jacket, down to the grass green blouse beneath. “Alright, so here’s the plan, guy. I’m going to be doing my best to fix up your knee. Now normally I’d put you under because it won’t be fun times, but I’m worried about adding to the load of chemicals in your system.”

Draping her coat over a nearby chair, the Jedi Master went over to the sink and began to wash up. “So it might just have to be a local. Which means you’ll have the chance to squirm. I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you wanna have a limp after I cut you loose. It’s all your call though.”

[Garlan Bawoosh]

The girl was quick, blocking the disgusting, messy glob of collected saliva, mucus and blood with the arm of her jacket. With discomforting slowness it ran a course down the coats leathery skin. It found it’s way to the floor with a juicy glorp. Her response came cooly, causing the captives skin to crawl with irritation for lack of drawing anger. “Ewwww. Just for that, no mint on your pillow.” Every ounce of frustrated muscle in Garlan’s body want to get off the table and strangle the woman next to him. This manner of torture was alien to the young man. Why hadn’t she killed him yet?

“You’re awful big about causing trouble, aren’t you,” she went one, retrieving the fallen medical instruments. Daintily she placed them on the previously over turned table. Garlan quietly observed, tired of fighting an obviously fruitless fight. The leather had dug into his wrists and irritated his skin, anymore struggling and it may have drawn blood. He opted to lay against the cold metal gurney. “Time to lock up your toys, then. I’m not stupid. Sure you've already been working on trying to break loose.” Garlan shrugged and quietly watched Brin lock away what she referred to as his ‘toys’. He preferred ‘tools of the trade’.

A moment of silence filled the medical bay as Brin removed her jacket and flopped it over the spine of a seat. “Alright, so here’s the plan, guy. I’m going to be doing my best to fix up your knee. Now normally I’d put you under because it won’t be fun times, but I’m worried about adding to the load of chemicals in your system.” Garlan looked at her for a long time, saying nothing, but eyes narrowing in suspicion. Perhaps she was collecting on a bounty posted on Garlan’s head. He had made a number of enemies in the far off past. More than a few gangsters had lost or gained fortunes placing stakes on his head. Some of them could grow elaborate in their plots for revenge. What could anyone possibly want with him being intact?

What Brin offered was a rare thing to come by in the criminal underworld. Medical treatment was a commodity that would either make one famous or reviled by both government officials and criminals. Garlan typically helped himself with what meagre medical knowledge he had. Fixing broken bones, gunshot wounds, and lacerations wasn’t much of a problem for the average gun for hire. The damage done to Garlan’s knee was beyond him, he could tell from the grinding pain pulsing from the joint. Slowly he came to accept that he may need this woman’s help, as much as he dreaded the cold raking of her twiggy hands.

“So it might just have to be a local. Which means you’ll have the chance to squirm. I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you wanna have a limp after I cut you loose. It’s all your call though.”

Garlan mulled over the words, coming to the realization that Brin knew the gravity of his injury. Odd that an underworld nobody had such an understanding of the human anatomy and more importantly how to repair it. But Garlan pushed the thought aside. He needed to focus on where he was now and how it may benefit him in the long run. With his knee healed, and a few days of talking and wearing Brin down he may be able to break free and ultimately kill her.

Again testing the restraints of the bed he quietly accepted the treatment, muttering “you broke it, you buy it.”

[Shay Marin]

Anyone with eyes could have seen the tumbling of thoughts through the addict’s mind. Shay understood his momentary struggle with the proposition she’d made. Brin Trell, while known to be a quirky and relatively mellow sort so far as mercenaries went, hadn’t made a reputation for offering generous dollops of charity to those who crossed her. The few times she’d resorted to violence beyond incapacitation had been as a result of direct threat to life and limb towards herself and those she worked with. If Bawoosh had made himself at all familiar with his target, he’d know that.

Therefore, the Jedi Master didn’t expect the bounty hunter to understand—or trust—her motives. Which is fine, she commented internally. He doesn’t have to for me to help him. The form such help would take over the next week or two would no doubt confuse him all the more. Not to mention make him hate me more than he already does. Ah well.

“You broke it, you buy it.”

The scruffy man’s grumbled assent earned him a sardonic smirk and a faint light of approval in her amber eyes. “Hey, you tried to break me first,” she quipped. “And you didn’t even buy me dinner beforehand. For shame.”

Chuckling to herself, ‘Brin’ tugged the medical card closer to the bedside. Next she turned on the medkit’s diagnostic unit, lowering and positioning it over the injured limb. It had been a while since the Sentinel had tried even this minor of surgery, so she had no hesitation in consulting an AI expert. If there were another expert about she’d call on them, but the last thing she wanted to do with this guy is let him loose anywhere near the general population yet. Not to mention we’d have to give a story as to how he got hurt to any hospital I brought him to, and he’d have no vested interest in backing any tale I told.

A set of shears was the Investigator's first selection of tool. “Hope this wasn’t a favorite pair of pants, Garlan,” she said, namedropping on purpose to alert him to her knowledge of his identity. “But I figured stripping you while you were snoozing would give you the wrong idea as to my intentions,” Shay continued as she worked on cutting away the fabric from his leg to expose the damaged knee.

Picking up a hypospray from the cart, she fitted an ampoule of Nullicaine into the dispensing cylinder. After checking the dosage twice as she’d been trained, she again consulted the diagnostic unit, tapping out a query as to the best location for the injection. A small nod indicated her comprehension of the text on the screen, before she proceeded to press the business end against his skin and trigger the release.

“Shouldn’t take long now; let me know when it stops hurting.” Setting the hypospray aside, ‘Brin’ fiddled with the other instruments she’d brought over, making sure everything she needed was present. “While we’re waiting, I’d like to know something if you’d ever-so-kindly oblige. Who hired you to take me down anyways? I’m pretty sure we’ve never tangled before, so it can’t be a personal grudge.”