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 Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:58 am
Oh God. Oh god she'd really done it-- she's really jammed a piece of glass into that man's lungs and he was really lying face down on the floor and his eyes were really still staring up at her even once the last bloodied cough of life had left him...
So shocked was Shae by realization that she had just murdered a man that she nearly failed to remember the other three, face glazing over in a look akin to her dead victim for the briefest of moments and then--
"MOVE."
No, that was Aster-- and she was still fighting! And there were still two of them left, one of whom had turned to come after HER in some enraged attempt to seek vengeance for the 'Luke' person at her feet.
Her own Self Defense Mode kicked in the split second he grabbed her, practically THROWING her against the wall with a hand clamped around her throat, gasping for breath and... s**t, s**t, she was too weak to force him off but--
Perhaps it was blind luck that served her in the end, swiping with blurred vision and utter PANIC to, sure enough, nail him right in the face and, more specifically, bury her nails into his eye sockets. The feeling was stomach turning, like a chunky, gelatinous balloon getting popped under her fingertips... but it was effective, and her assailant SHRIEKED and released his hold (allowing her to collapse against the floor), stumbling back with blood streaming down his face...
Which was about the point when the ship gave a sick lurch, and the lights flickered dangerously, and someone started screaming from the cockpit ahead.
"s**t, IT'S IN THE CONTROL WIRING--"
Both Yossarian and his current opponents froze in the back room as it happened, each seeming to recognize the situation with a kind of resigned horror of the inevitable before continuing the duel for another few moments, ending promptly as the Koshka tore his sword back from the ribcage it had gotten stuck in.
God, this violence disgusted him. Some of these fellows looked as young as he was-- barely out of the womb, and certainly not the soldiers they'd made themselves out as.
But no, it was him or them-- and he wasn't about to forfeit HIS life to a troupe of violence mongering dogs of war.
... Not that he would have much time to tear through more of the soldiers, as the ship gave another lurch, this time even MORE violent, and the lights flickered...
... And died.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:28 am
The first lurch of the ship had sent Kanda into a wall, a loud 'OOMPH' and a crack accompanying the unpleasant trip, before Kanda righted himself and resumed his walk. He could hear swearing ahead of him.
's**t, think he killed Mike-o and the others?'
'Wouldn't doubt it, but dammit keep shooting!'
Dammit, they didn't sound any older than he was, and here he was, hacking off hands and other limbs to keep them from attacking him. Kids who were to go home as amputees for the rest of their lives...
and to bear a hate for -his- people because he'd been forced to pick which life he wanted more.
A trigger was pulled, he could hear the snapping bang...
And then suddenly the ship lurched again, and everything went dark......... Wait, was he dead? Did he get hit. No.. No, it really was just dark, he could see light filtering in through the window. The power was ju-...
"Dammit."
Had Aster not have had her own problems, she might have actually been throwing more concern in Shae's direction. But she did have problems of her own, the current one being the Mench man on top of her with a hold of her dislocated arm, holding it in the most -PAINFUL- position (slightly raise) possible for her at that given time.
Which meant anybody who was not aware of her state of being was hearing a lot of hissing, spitting, and generally pained sounding noises.
'Y'know, girly. Luke 'n' Davy 'n' Chuck 'n' I were just gonna do ya. Wouldn't have hurt ya. But then'n' yer friend over thar wen'n' Killed Luke 'n' ya'll killed Davy... So see, now I could have m'fun with you, but then I'm g'na hafta kill ya'
Ugh, his breath smelt -SO- bad, Asteria just wanted him to get his horrible and rotting teeth out of her face and let go of her. Her lack of response, however, caused the man to suddenly jerk her dislocated arm up further, which earned a hiss and for her to jerk her other arm in an attempt to free up her other hand...
and then the ship lurched...
With that little jolt for the heavy man on top of her, Aster got her actually usable (if not her less 'able') arm free, shoving it out in front of her just as the man turned to look at her...
Hitting him square in the nose with an open palm...
And with a sickening crunch the bone both hurt the palm of her hand and... shifted upwards. Which she hadn't been expecting to cause him to suddenly stop moving...
So she sat there in shock for a moment, before suddenly shrieking and kicking him off of her to scramble away, her fur standing on end and a rather.. unpleasant amount of blood on her....
then the ship lurched, throwing Asteria into the chairs again
Then the lights went out.
"Dammit! Shae!? Are you alright?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:45 am
The lights were out...
....... And they weren't coming back on.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, four. Yossarian was counting the moments post-blackout with baited breath, secretly hoping and praying with every fiber of his being that the damned ship would restart and they WOULDN'T ALL PLUMMET TO THEIR DEATH...
But it didn't, and every soul in the flying (but not for long) warzone had ground to a standstill, ally and enemy alike frozen with the same absolute horror of knowing they'd all meet the same end.
Funny, really, how certain doom was the great equalizer of everything.
"M-Ma'am?!" Even Shae, usually so calm and collected (at least on the outside) could hear her own voice quivering in the darkness, breaths coming in short, ragged gasps. "I... I-I'm fine-- are you alr--"
She never got a chance to finish, cutting off in a SQUEAK of horror as the ship gave its last desperate lurch, and the Mensch at the cockpit screamed, and somewhere down below there was a faintly explosive POPBANGCRACKing...
And the entire craft pitched out of the sky like a giant metal bird that had just been shot, spiraling toward the white world of nothingness below.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:25 am
Today was officially sucking more now than it had been when Asteria had woken everybody up that morning gleeing about going on the damned Airship.
Killed more people than he would have liked to, which was enough to cover a two-month quota in terms of work. Hell, the day had even come with enough yelling, growling, and forced compliance with Yossarian (oh of all the people) to make sure they didn't have two dead girls on their hands.
Which had resulted in the pair grudgingly hefting some supplies off with them to go on this hunt before meeting up again.
This had come with a -fun- job for Kanda who, with a a pair of blankets in tow and a kit in case of horrible fun times with wild animals and anybody not pleasant. Like the insane Mench man he'd had to knock out and leave for worse in the snow, after he'd been screaming about some Koshka girl.
Ultimately this had resulted in him tracking down Shae, whom was only found because of the snow practically displaying her tail.
Thus, it had ultimately been her he'd carried (along with blankets, Shae's stuff she'd somehow kept in tow, and the medical kit) back to the meeting place he and his grudging 'ally' had agreed upon, only to wait upon the other pair (or possibly even just Yossarian himself, it was quite possible Asteria had died).
However, he was not about to go into any treatment for Shae before he was absolutely sure she was out.
"Hn."
Which consisted of a light shake.
God dammit her head hurt like a b***h, she'd rememebered the ship going down and
CRACK
What the?
For all hilarious irony, Asteria had been a little too out of it to actually figure out where she was which, several moments after the crack beneath her feet became one horrible situation, as she took another step, suddenly slid on the ice she'd been standing on and with a loud -SMASH- against it took out both herself....
and it.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:54 am
.... Hell, to be perfectly honestly, Yossarian couldn't remember the last time he'd suffered such a miserable day.
First he'd woken up to the elated SCREECHING of one over-enthusiastic brain terrorist, then he'd proceeded to suffer a seemingly mundane flight (complete with adjacent motion sickness!) that didn't turn out being mundane at ALL, which had lead not ONLY to the veritable slaughter of some obnoxious flying PIRATE TERRORISTS (or... something like that), but the CRASH OF THE ENTIRE VESSEL IN A BARREN SNOW COVERED MOUNTAIN THOUSANDS OF FEET BELOW.
It was amazing that he had survived the ordeal at all, let alone INTACT, having woken up with a face full of snow, one hell of a migraine, and the greeting (but not really) of his grouchy rival whom, to his chagrin, the desperate situation forced him to work in tow with.
But survival preceded pride in the end, and he choked on it to cooperate, gather a sack full of supplies and abandon the crash in search of their two missing comrades... or rather, a single missing comrade, since apparently someone had already caught wind of Shae's whereabouts and Aster was totally missing in action.
Just how the hell was he supposed to locate her, anyway? Sure, she probably couldn't have gone too far (why WOULD she?), but as for the direction, that was anyone's gue--
CRASHSLAMCRACKLESNAP.
Oh, god dammit.
Perhaps Karma was just entertaining its sick sense of humor to cross their paths RIGHT then, cresting a little hill of snow JUST in time to see frozen lack below... with a freshly punched break in the ice and SOMEONE going under.
And off he ran, nay, BOLTED, spewing curses all the way. Why did these things ALWAYS happen to THEM!?
... Not that Shae's luck had been much better (though she couldn't say she'd fallen through a lake), having yet again become the unknowing luggage of her unhappy fellow tea-drinker... and damn, did she look the part, too. Judging by the torn (and rather blood soaked) rag that she'd once called a shirt, it seemed as if the Shrapnel Gods had been particularly wrathful on impact.
It was actually rather impressive that she'd made it so far from the crash site for whatever reason, though it was hard to say whether the cold or the injury had eventually brought her down. Either way, though, there were no real movements or conscious complaints on the walk to their little rendezvous cave, and it looked as if Kanda would be free to--
"... Nnh?"
But ridiculously, almost stupidly, for some absolutely DUMB and pointless reason, that single, careful shake had been enough to rouse something. Albeit a very weak, disoriented and shivery something, but still.
"S... Sir?..." And s**t, even conscious enough to form words.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:12 am
While the ice had been easily thin enough to cave under her weight, the feeling of vibrations through her spine, the THUD of her head (Oooh, at least she didn't crack it open) against the ice, and the reminder of her arm were enough for her to inhale sharply from the pain.
And get a lungfull of water.
It was only then did her brain actually turn on. She was cold, no, FREEZING all over, suspended HOW deep in water (actually not that deep, probably arms length, but in her case it felt much deeper), and
OH GOD WHAT HAD JUST TOUCHED HER FOOT?
Aster had learned ONE THING when it came to swimming, and it was the one thing she went against in that moment of 'I'M DYING ALL OVER' panic. She pulled all of her limbs into herself (even that damned arm that was screaming bloody murder at her senses), which.. didn't exactly help her bouyancy.
Oh if she was going to make drowning long and painful, that was the way to go about it.
Well, she moved, that meant she was alive. If only by a bit (from the amount of blood going around). Kanda, though it was a dumb move to keep it on as long as he was, hadn't taken off his partially bloodied jacket, instead having started to sort through the things he had at his disposal to put towards Shae's care.
"You're not exactly looking the best. I need to clean up some wounds on you and you'll be fine."
Yep, words that instilled confidence. Kanda was quite pleased to find that this kit had been -well- cared for, with plenty of bandages, gauze, and alcohol swabs. The kind that would sting like a b***h on contact and make you wish your flesh was melting off for two seconds.
All of which he was glad enough (no expression attached, though) to grab a couple handfuls off (or a couple wraps of) to keep them easily on hand. Then he turned to Shae.
"Your shirt is hanging on a bit, but I'm going to clean up what I can see that's exposed."
Battlefield medicine seemed appropriate for this, though he had broken the 'DON'T TALK, TREAT' idea in the name of trying for an aware patient.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:39 am
It was quite possibly one of the stupidest things he had ever done.
Sure, the concept of saving a person's life was all fine and well (and brave, and noble, and all sorts of other things), but given that saving this particular life not only entailed racing across a slick (not to mention HAZARDOUS AND POTENTIALLY FRAGILE) sheet of lake ice only to throw himself INTO THE FROZEN LAKE WATER, CLOTHING AND ALL, IN THE MIDDLE OF A FROZEN MOUNTAIN was just... just...
Yeah, pretty damn up there on the stupid scale
And of course, thanks to that useless chivalry of his, he still went ahead and jumped in anyway.
It was a helluva lot colder than any water he'd ever plunged into before too, smart enough to AVOID Aster's deadly mistake (a BAD pun) of inhaling in favor of a grimace instead, getting right down to business with diving down (god, were even his eyeballs freezing?) and latching an arm around the idiot's corpse to haul her topside.
... Good god, she even FELT like a deadweight when he broke the surface again, semi-frantically FORCING his body, by sheer stubborn will, to halfway drag itself onto the thickest part of the ice's edge (and PRAY IT HELD) before heaving her up.
Stupid, stupid, STUPID girl-- he'd be chewing her out for this idiotic stunt ALL DAMN DA--
Wait, was she... okay?
'Not looking the best' was a very kind way of phrasing the scraggly train wreck that was Shae, who just sort of... laid there where she'd been sat down in an apparent daze, listening as intently as any such mess could for the situation, but... well, the effort didn't quite match the outcome.
"Wounds...?" Repeated very slowly, and quietly, as if considering the idea for the first time. She felt a little achy, sure, but wounded? No, that would've burned a lot more and she was just a little chi--
"... Shirt?..."
'Exposed'?...........
Of all the things for someone to be worrying over (in place of, say, FREEZING OR BLEEDING TO DEATH), it was the realization of her wet and tattered clothing that snapped the girl to attention, jerking as upright as she could and looking down at the ruined garment with something vaguely akin to horror. Or fear. Or panic.
It was hard to tell.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:55 am
Well besides the lungs full of water, she was fine. However, the LUNGS FULL OF WATER were the problem, and quite an audible one, causing her to make a rather disgusting sounding hacking noise as her body screamed "DAMMIT BREATHE" at her.
Which was turning into quite the task as her one GOOD arm held onto Yoss with a DEATHGRIP (oh puns) and her lungs, only after she started turning a horrible shade of blue-purple, starting to cough up water. Happily without assistance.
She coughed....
Then paused to take a deep breath (which did wonders to help with the purple color of her face)...
before hacking up more water.
Overall, it was a very ugly sounding (and looking, frankly) task which took several minutes and by the end of she had a shuddering -wheeze- to her breathing and had been subjected to forceful crying which came with physical stress.
Which, once her body seemed to be sure it was alive, was followed by a groan and a rather violent swoon.
Apparently the 'talk through the situation' idea hadn't worked as well as Kanda liked, causing him to give her a look.
"DON'T. MOVE."
Not the normal 'Kanda scowl' that everybody knew so well and loved (maybe), but this was a look that said 'EXCUSE ME, I'M DOING SOMETHING AND NOW YOU WILL SUBMIT TO MY WILL SO I CAN FINISH IT', before he again repeated.
"I'm cleaning ONLY what I can see."
He was -not- making any plans to move her shirt, heck, he might have even been compliant enough to not clean everything, but he couldn't have her bleeding all over and making this particularly nasty situation any worse.
Now he had to wait and see if that was acceptable. If it wasn't, he could always leave it to her to clean it up herself and he'd go find some way to make a fire so they wouldn't all freeze to death.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:29 am
... Okay, she HADN'T exactly been okay-- but it looked like there was enough life left in her to work on getting there, as a lovely taste of fresh (FREEZING) air and some lengthy minutes of nasty, hacking coughs on the (hopefully stable) edge of the ice did wonders to revive her.
Hell, he should've figured that she was too stubborn to just up and die so easily; it would've taken a damn crowbar to unlatch the DEATHGRIP (of LIFE apparently) from his shirt.
But at least she was definitely back to the world of the living, which meant that he'd be free to chew her out for a good solid hour or two over that blatant lapse of stupidity...
.......... As soon as they remedied the whole 'stuck on a fragile frozen lake bed and soaked to the bone and quickly freezing to death' situation, that was.
SIGH.
"... Idiot."
With his Fishing For Asters completed successfully, Yossarian moved on to the next order of business, picking her up (damn, that was a lot of extra water weight), and more or less sliding along the ice, careful to try and distribute his weight as broadly and evenly as possible so they wouldn't go crashing through the ice AGAIN...
Back on land (or solid snow), he somehow managed to hook his supplies under one arm and keep a hold of his miserably cold and soaked companion, and with that... well, it was time to get back to that b*****d rival of his, huh?
Yeah, before they both froze to death and everything.
"DON'T. MOVE."
Well, that had certainly been a forceful command-- and the sheer harshness of his tone was MORE than enough to stop Shae dead (awful pun) in her tracks. Perhaps it was stress that had turned her so incoherent, or perhaps the cold, or the blood loss, or the lack of oxygen to the brain, but... even that wasn't enough to snuff out the obedience impulse. Not completely, anyway.
And that was ALWAYS a lucky break for Kanda.
There was a pause, a long pause, as the little female just sat there and... didn't stare at him, per se (the moment she met his gaze she choked and cringed), but stared at his shadow (or something) instead, ears hanging and eyes a little clouded with... no, those weren't tears, right? She had never ONCE cried in all (three) of their weeks together--
"... Mm'sorry, s-sir..." Though it sure sounded like she was choked up about it. Huh.
Keeping her clothes on was a nice thought... albeit not a realistic one, what with all of the injuries she'd managed to accumulate that her cold skin was almost past feeling (and the very minor detail that moisture on skin didn't bode well in freezing tempertures), but... yes, the idea of it was enough of a comfort to keep her still anyway.
For now.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:42 pm
Fortunately for Yoss, she was too busy getting her oxygen levels back up to come up with some wonderful retort to her not-so-new title.
Instead she just groaned at it, with as much complaint in her tone as possible (that not being a lot in her cold and painful lunged condition), wrapping her arms around Yoss's neck carefully to put at least some effort into keeping herself up.
At least it helped out in some terms when it came to picking up other stuff. Wouldn't have helped if there had been a well placed old couple out here.
She had bypassed shivering for a while, before (with all misfortune) a WELL TIMED wind blew by, suddenly making it feel like all the cold water had frozen to the flesh on her body.
COLD COLD COLD!
Which, unfortunately for poor Yoss (or fortunately for a slight increase in body heat?), caused her to tighten her arms ever so much and bury her face into his shirt, the shivers coming then.
Along with a mumbled, "Thanks...."
Kanda took advantage of her compliance to start opening the swabs that were going to BURN LIKE HELL, carefully rubbing them around the edges (and the inside edges, OW) of the mess that had become of her torso.
A process he repeated only after he'd finished gauzing and bandaging up the previous 'task' before moving on to the next one, treating each individually as opposed to just burning her torso to death in one go.
He didn't mean it as a spiteful thing, though. It just seemed more logical to get the more serious looking pieces taken care of before he went on to less severe things.
Unfortunately for Kanda, it seemed he was -far- too experienced in doing what it was now, skillfully, and with about thirty seconds to each wound, give or take, patching the girl up until he ran out of visible areas to treat.
Which then caused Kanda to turn his back to her to stare at the wall opposite.
"Check under your shirt to see if there's anything else."
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:10 pm
... Oh hey, she was actually still semi-conscious-- and speaking! That was quite a surprise for Yossarian, who hadn't really been expecting more out of his resident luggage than the obligatory not dying thing and all.
This was normally the time he would've started screeching and swearing her ear off for being such a fool, but... considering that they were BOTH in the same potentially deadly soaking-wet-in-a-freezing-mountain boat, it seemed like a wiser idea to put that fun on hold and focus a bit more on getting back to the other b*****d alive.
"... Stay silent," he growled down at her, though it didn't really have his usual bitter edge and sounded funnily... subdued. "Heat and energy conservation should be your first priority at the moment."
... Dammit, now even he was starting to shiver. Stupid wet clothes and fur-- and stupid COLD WEATHER...
And then there were still issues like the fact that one of he'd noticed one of her arms looked... oddly torqued. Even worse, the fact that she seemed to be using it WITHOUT cringing and crying hysterically probably meant she couldn't FEEL the thing anymore, which was... not really a good sign.
Ironically, the same numbness was what spared Shae the full brunt of some very uncomfortable treatment, barely flinching at the swabs that would've made most grown men cry for mercy. Her body was... dull and heavy and it ACHED quite a bit, but as for actual pain? No... not really.
Which was probably how she had failed to notice one particularly nasty gash until she looked down into her collar, wincing at the sight of... oh, ick. Maybe that was the one that had gotten her shirt all nasty and soaked through. It was a small miracle that the glass (or.. whatever the piece of stuff was caught in there) had missed that-- another inch higher and it would've probably been her end, but...
... Dammit.
Crinkling her nose up in a little frown, the sluggish female groaned a bit, inwardly debating.
Was it better to die "decent" or live at the expense of horrifying someone she didn't want to impose on?
Granted that, in her RIGHT (aka normal) state of mind, the choice would've been pretty damn OBVIOUS... but it took her a few seconds longer, and a little half-coherent self muttering, before she forced herself to speak up.
"... Er... J... Just a little bit... I think..."
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:40 pm
Indeed she -couldn't- feel her arm, in fact she'd been too dazed to even realize she -shouldn't- have been moving it, though her shoulder (Bruised under the clothing) was screaming at her to put it back in place and stop the attempts.
Deaf to it just like she had a tendancy of being to anybody else.
"...Sorry.."
Yeah, she was totally supposed to be taking Yoss's advice, instead mumbling into his shirt some more, mostly broken stuff, before settling and ultimately seeming to fade off into a state of half-awake, half-dead and half asleep. She was 150% of a Koshka.
Probably made life for Yoss a little easier.
Once she'd checked and actually made the thought public, Kanda found himself groaning a bit. That meant that there was -more- he needed to treat, never a pleasant task, but it also meant that he had a potential ...er..
Blackmail fodder moment on his hand.
"Show me."
It was a flat demand, Kanda turning to face her. If she'd been well enough on her own, he would have just talked her through doing it herself, but frankly... he didn't expect she was.
Not to say he held low esteem for Shae's physical capabilities, but there was a fine line between weakly capable and needing someone else to do it for you. "If we don't stop you from bleeding your body temperature will decrease."
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:12 pm
Easier? Oh, of course Aster's silence made life easier for Yossarian on a Sparing the Usual Argumentative Garbage level... though at the same time, he almost would've preferred her to stay aware if only so he didn't need to keep checking she didn't up and die on him at some random moment.
It wasn't an easy task, the hauling of both inanimate and living (Koshka) luggage across the snow (plus at least ten pounds of FREEZING LAKE WATER-- was that an icicle on the end of his tail?), but for once he wasn't even attempting to grouse about it verbally.
Hell, he didn't want to waste his precious energy on that. Now NOW.
... God, this whole thing was just one enormous mess. It was miracle enough that they'd all managed to survive that ship's crash (so he could only assume, though he hadn't seen the little harlot around and she could've very easily been dead in the snow somewhere), let alone survive INTACT... er. Sort of.
Just keeping all of their limbs ATTACHED was something he considered a plus and-- Oh, hey, he could see their rendezvous up on the hillside ahead!
It was actually rather convenient that the mountainside was pocked with so many odd cave. Not generally big ones and still horribly cold, but... some form of shelter was better than nothing, right?
Hopefully he'd navigated toward the correct one, though...
"Show me."
... Show him.
Now THERE was the command she'd been dreading above all else, cringing like a scolded dog and just sort of... staring at the ground for a few seconds.
He'd issued a command. Commands were to be obeyed. There was logic involved and logic was a perfectly reasonable justification for giving in, but... at the same time, there was a very illogical but very LOUD little voice in the back of her head that kept insisting on some excuse, or getting up and fleeing the scene (as if she could), or shrinking back and crying like a HYSTERICAL LITTLE GIRL--
Thankfully, though, in the end she just settled for a shaky nod and a sniffle (which could've easily been blamed on a cold), fumbling with the buttons of her shirt that was barely a RAG anymore and... hesitated.
"... A-Are you sure that this is--" Damn, had her voice actually cracked? "... Okay?"
Either that, or she was stalling.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:38 pm
She was talking as though he wanted to -DO- something to her, besides checking wounds, once her shirt was off. Right, Kanda the rapist/molestor, that was him.
"How would it not be?" he stated flatly, seeming less and less amused with her stalling as she continued on with it, but taking her stalling as a break for him to pull off the semi-bloodied jacket he was wearing, pausing to leer at the shirt underneath it which... was also bloodied.
Which meant it too came off, exposing his rather scarred looking torso.
Not his shoulders or arms, just his torso. Along with the nice branding in the middle of his chest. It had to be such as it wasn't ragged and actually had a rather set looking design to it.
But he had hardly any 'doting' to it, attention wise, folding up both bloody pieces of clothing and setting them to one side.
A great 'half naked' equalizer, and possibly a way to make this look worse than it was.
It wasn't hard to make sure she was still alive, however, as sometimes a movement would cause her to groan and shift in his arms, before mumbling more nonsense into his chest.
It was as though she were holding some conversation with his heart.. or left lung, whichever seemed to work for the current alignment of her head. It was only when they were actually within view of the 'meeting place' Asteria wasn't aware of she turned her head to look up at him, eyes half open and looking quite ready to roll over and fall back asleep.
"Where are we going?" she asked, sounding about ready to just fall back asleep, though she was forcing herself to stay up now. Asteria wasn't exactly the type of 'special' dumb person to just fall asleep in the cold.
Lessons from Dad that had been practical: 1.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:13 pm
Oh, Shae didn't really expect him to do anything that wasn't strictly 'professional' business (even in a largely incoherent state of mind she respected him too much for that), but her concerns were... well, most girls didn't carry quite the same bodily stigma as she did, and not NEARLY to her own special extreme.
Although the sight of him suddenly shirtless did get a brief double-take out of her-- not in a perverse sense of any kind (ha! she probably didn't even HAVE hormones) but in a sort of... odd fascination at the fact that his chest was so littered in scars. One of them even appeared to have a purposeful shape, and she felt as if it were vaguely familiar somehow...
It was certainly an unusual thing to interpret as 'reassurance', but somehow it worked out like that in her brain anyway, and a few more seconds of clumsy fumbling with buttons finally free the rag of a shirt to fall off of her.
Her scars weren't quite the same patchwork that his were, more or less consisting of one giant tangled spread of discolored reddish-gray flesh on the whole left side of her (old burns or something?), and over her heart, fused into place by the tree-rootish mass, what appeared to be... the face of a pocket-watch. One that was still ticking.
The damage was just an inch or so below that little trinket, about the length of one rib and... not horrifically DEEP (thank god), but still pretty sizable for a flesh wound. And it looked like there was still a bit of glass in it. Ick.
"..." She couldn't really bring herself to say anything for it, too focussed not just on staying upright, but not letting the (still pretty OBVIOUS) anxiety show. But... at least there was only one person to see her like this, right?
Not for long!
There she went with the nonsensical mumbling again, but at least it kept Yossarian from having to stop and wonder about the idiot's inevitable mortality as he trudged up and through the snow toward the supposed "sanctuary", frowning all the way.
"We're going to meet the swordsman," he informed her, unusually curt... but not in much of a mood to waste his breath (surprisingly). "... And the other woman," was added after a pause, deciding to assume the best-case scenario of the latter female NOT having died horribly (which was true, more or less)...
The home stretch was always the most difficult part of any walk; his muscles were cramping and trying to numb over (though he was far too stubborn to allow them that), growling quietly to himself as he FINALLY made it to the little cave mouth that was HOPEFULLY correct and where Kanda had HOPEFULLY come back to...
... Only to find that they were having a stripping party.
Huh.
"... Am I interrupting?" he sort of grumble-sighed, not really knowing HOW to interpret the scene (since his own future hadn't quite occurred to him yet), before stepping in.
Poor Shae had never looked whiter in her life-- if she had ANY color left to her post 'treatment', it had blanched out of her right then and there.
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