trans_9 | This is why you don't bottle things up, kids [Open; Warning

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This is why you don't bottle things up, kids [Open; Warning—Language! And maybe a little disturbing]

It starts simply enough: Meluly goes to get some of the horrible stuff in the mess hall that claims to be food. She sits, with the tray, and stares at it. One bite is taken, and a second, and she chews, but she hasn't swallowed, and her eyes are blank, and her face twists with disgust, and she coughs once, twice, and hurks, glop evacuating her mouth as her eyes squeeze shut with the involuntary half-tears of the gag reflex.

"Fuck!" she screeches, snorting back reflexive tears, in that horrible transition moment between self-control and lack of it. She grabs the tray and throws, and the throw is powerful but unguided, and the tray hits the floor and shatters while the glop spatters onwards across the floor. "Gottverdammt yebat fuck sakzera!" Her face has become something terrible, a death-rictus scream—

—and she slams her head down into the table, letting out a wordless wailing whine, and again, and again, and again... She slides back, falling, eyes open but staring unfocused at the ceiling, and against the floor of the mess hall she cries like a child, her mouth trembling but near-silent. Her head is bleeding, the skin torn and pummeled.

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The cries of animals in the night were nothing new to Lafiel now. With her shapeshifter and dinosaur crewmates, their strange noises (like a malfunctioning antimatter engine, she thought, or the screech of mines on their lethal paths) had ceased to be disturbing, merely another beat added to the rythms of Stacy's internal life. They were the microbes in her immense stomach, and any sound they heard would inevitably be dwarfed by her great shiftings.

Abh hearing, however, is more acute than human, if not on the level of the Garou. She pauses in the hall and picks up a familiar note around the distorted wail.

She peeks her head around the corner. No real source to the sound...A few quiet sobs though. She's forced to stand on a table to locate their maker. When she does though...

Down she leaps (something burns in her knees, which she ignores), sprinting around the bonelike spines of the 'chairs'. There's Meluly, reeking of gloppy vomit which mingles with the remaining contents of her tray which is scattered in a dozen crumbly pieces on and around her which crunch and crumble underfoot. There's blood on her head (she gave a silent thanks her companion wasn't also Abh for a blow to that area could have killed one of her kind). Despite the unusual skin, the blood which pools at her ruined forehead is red. Lafiel kneels next to her. "Meluly! What happened? Did someone do this to you?!" One hand touches the butt of her klanyu.

Luly lets out a long, high 'nnnnn' noise, trembling in a way that betrays all that cat-like grace she's displayed before. She doesn't try to get up, but if she did, she'd most likely fall over.

Her head slowly twists back and forth, but she's breathing quicker, nearly hyperventilating.

Lafiel knows cats, having grown up with them. This is the sound of a severely sick one. Not a sound she likes hearing from her at all.

"I'm taking you to the infirmary." She says and gently loops an arm under hers, squatting in an undignified way so she'll have the leverage to lift her.

The woman makes an unpleasant burden. Not only can she barely keep her feet, but she's bleeding all over everything—though such is the nature of even shallow head wounds.

It's after a few steps, though, that she starts stumbling, moving in an irregular pattern. "But I can't," she mumbles for some reason, voice very quiet but, for a moment, distinctly clear.

Drops of blood decorate Lafiel's hair, which keeps getting caught and pulled between her and Meluly's body. This is a distressing change from the confident, graceful woman she'd swam with just the other day. It makes her stomach feel strange. She likens the sensation to how she would feel if she saw one of her commanders naked.

When Meluly's feet fail her, so do Lafiel's. She's small and light and her muscles still aren't entirely used to this gravity. The two of them go stumbling near to the door, landing at one of the larger 'chairs', its curved spine supporting both of them as Lafiel catches her breath. She does not for a moment consider phoning for help. Arm still around her shoulders to hold her up, Lafiel asks: "Can't what?"

"Can't do it," Luly mutters, and her voice is a litttle less distinct as she tries to pull in on herself. "The funny men will take me away..." It may dimly come to mind that there's an insistent beeping noise coming from somewhere around her waist, under the cloth wrap she wears (which is looking somewhat battered by now, this close up).

"You're safe, Meluly. Noone's going to take you away. I don't think so anyway...I mean, i'll do my best. To defend you." She tries to ground her friend, a little hesitant, feeling a little awkward about it. She's not used to comforting people.
The fail!tenderness is interrupted by a shrill little beeping sounding from...somewhere below her clothes.
She's going to have to find out what that is. You have a real talent for embarrassing me, Meluly.
Praying to lander gods she doesn't believe in that noone will walk by at that moment and see what appears to be her taking advantage of a sobbing, incoherent woman, she pulls back a fold of the sari-like garment and runs her hand over her hip. She finds it and pulls the little device away with such force that she almost topples over. Her face is now tinged red. A small amount of the garment has been pulled away, exposing some of her ribs. Lafiel figures she doesn't mind.

It's a little round-edged square gadget without any obvious buttons, the front of which is devoted to a slick screen. In a mix of English and some foreign language—probably native Nazzadi—it's quietly blaring some kind of medical alert, along with some drug name and a standard milligram measurement at the bottom. Of course, this might rather much depend on if Lafiel can actually read the English bits of the text...

Lafiel squints at the tiny display. What she wouldn't give for an analysis crystal right now.

She gives a silent thanks for Jinnto's lapses into his native Martinhese, a descendant of English. She only recognizes a small unit and the word 'medical', but that's enough for her.

She sighs, admitting she can't do this herself. She types out a quick call for help on the omnicomm. In the meantime she's going to awkwardly try to reassure her.

Luly's starting to hyperventilate a bit again... and the way her pupils are shrinking suggests there might well be something more going on here than a mental break.

One of her hands latches on to Lafiel's arm. Luly is strong for her size—with that practiced athleticism of an active soldier—but there's a certain manic quality in the grip that seems unusual even for her.

Lafiel does her best to calm Meluly down, making shushing noises as if she were dealing with a frightened cat. That's all she can think of at the moment, a kind of atavistic reflex.

Embarrassed both at her own inability to care her and at being forced to be so clumsily tender, Lafiel waits for help to arrive, feeling Luly's strong grip threaten to wrench her small bones out of their sockets.

Luly starts muttering, a low stream of accented foreign language (Nazzadi?) bubbling out from her lips. She twists to clutch tighter at Lafiel with both hands, looking at her with a sharply pleading expression—her eyes have come back into focus, but only slightly.

Here's Samus ~~to the rescue~~ coming to provide assistance after she saw Lafiel's request over the omnicomms.

"What happened?"

"It's ok. Really. Help is on the way."

Ah, good, her CO. Luly's grip is starting to get painful. "I found her doubled over in a pool of her own vomit and blood. I'm afraid...I can't lift her."

Luly is just babbling, now—English and Nazzadi and little broken bits of German and Russian and French, too. The general gist of it seems to be trying to confusedly ask for somebody, not that it's clear who.

She's sweating unseasonably, in a way that's rather clearer than it otherwise would because of the normal cloth she's wearing instead of the plantsuit.

Cassie had been silent since the others had come over but now she spoke up.

"I can carry her."

Samus could easily carry her, too, but there was no sense in discussing who should or shouldn't carry her, as long as she got carried.

"Alright, we've got to get her to the med bay quickly."

Cassie put on a few feet and took Meluly in her arms, careful not to move her too much.

As distressing as that was to watch Cassie took at least some comfort in the knowledge that she wasn't the only one to have a breakdown on board (and in public).

"Hey," Cassie said gently, walking toward Meluly. "I know are you all right is kind of obvious so uhm, want to talk?"

Luly shakes her head, sharply, pushing herself to one side to lurch up on an arm, coughing. Her moments are trembling and uncoordinated; despite the protest, somebody should probably check to make sure she hasn't given herself a concussion or something. And that's a lot of blood working its way slowly down her face and head, now...

"Whoa, O.K." Cassie put a hand on Meluly's arm. "Stay still. I think you hit your head pretty hard. What's your name?" There was no way of knowing if the answers she gave were correct but Cassie hoped she'd at least be able to give some.

"Melu—" She coughs again, harsh and acidic, the kind of cough that would be immediately proceeding to some vomiting if there was actually anything left to vomit up. "Meluly," she finishes, voice almost cracking in the process.

"Meluly, I'm Cassie. Do you think you can walk?"

"Yes," the woman says insistently, and pushes herself forward and up, and smoothly falls again, her knees buckling as soon as any weight hits them. "No."

Cassie caught her by the arm. "Do you mind if I carry you?"

"Why?" Luly asks, her voice kind of dreamy and confused about the whole thing as she stares up at the ceiling.

"Because I think you have a concussion and you need medical treatment."

"I don't need nobody," the woman insists confusedly. She doesn't resist, exactly (for the moment, anyway), but she's more dead weight than anything.

"You're really out of it. Do you know where you are?" Cassie started growing as she spoke. She was going to need to put on a few more feet before carting Meluly away.

Luly is surprisingly easy to carry to the Medbay—probably because she seems more intent on clinging tightly to whoever helps than on fighting them. By the time they get to the Medbay, her gibberishy speech has slipped away, leaving her staring blankly into space again and shivering.

Samus enters the Medbay along with the rest of the party and calls for a doctor.

"We need a little help in here."

Dr. Carolyn Lam glanced up from where she'd been inspecting the examining table and quickly assessed the situation -- which really seemed a great deal like shock. Something of catatonia as well, perhaps, though she's no shrink. Definitely not her department.

"I'm Doctor Lam," she said briskly, her full attention on both women. The plantsuit was still oddly disturbing, but she ignored it in favor of patting the examining table. "If you would? What exactly happened?"

Having a proper frame of reference was crucial and she wanted a decent summary to lock into place.

Cassie lowered Meluly onto the table, shrinking back down afterward.

"She was eating in the mess hall when uh," She went crazy- no, Cassie had done crazy things too, that wasn't right to think let alone say. "She started banging her head against the table and walked off. She's really out of it I don't know if she gave herself a concussion or what."

Lafiel felt a little awkward tagging along, but her presence seemed to calm Meluly down somewhat. So she held up the little rounded device with its flashing LCD screen. "In addition, I found this on her, loudly beeping. The only words I recognized were 'dosage' and 'milligrams of'."

A closer check will reveal that the bleeding from Luly's forehead—where the skin was cracked from the repeated impacts against the table—is copious, but not really immediately life-threatening. It can't be good for her, though.

Her lack of one of the plantsuits—she has a makeshift wrap of thick red cloth, sort of like a sari or toga, instead—can't have helped the situation, either. With how muggy and hot most of the ship is, she must be having overheating issues without the plantsuits' temperature regulation, even with the climate that her jet-black skin suggests she's adapted to. She's sweating pretty heavily by now, though at least some of that must be coming from physiological shock rather than the temperature. Her laying down, and the way the sweat's making the cloth cling to her, reveals in rough outline the multi-pocketed belt against her waist under it, and the holster on one thigh.

The device Lafiel hands over is showing warnings in two languages—English and a very foreign one with a script full of curves and angles. The English text advises the device's bearer to immediately take particular dosages of a certain pair of drugs... they're almost certainly strange ones to Carolyn, but a check with whatever passes for the ship's medical database would reveal that they're strong anti-psychotics with enough adverse side effects in some people to only be prescribed on a very case-by-case basis.

Luly herself has started scratching her arms... almost violently, in fact. And her neck. And the side of her head. Somebody might want to get those nice nails away from herself before she breaks one or pierces the skin...

"She needs to be restrained." Well, yes, obviously, Samus. She acts quickly and grabs Meluly's wrist, attempting to pin them down and prevent her from harming herself. DNA augmentation and intense training have given Samus surprising strength, probably enough to restrain her, but not without effort.

"What does that say?" Samus really couldn't give her attention to the device to read it.

Lam nodded, absorbing the information as she carefully looked the woman over without touching her. The beeping, of course, drew her attention and she tried to locate the source. If it was some sort of medical alert, it might actually help the situation. From the sound of the other woman's description, Lam's first thought was some sort of reality or psychotic break of some kind, but it could be a chemical imbalance -- given the fact that not all the people Stacy abducted were humans.

The scratching was going to be a problem.

Lam reached for the device while the other woman restrained her patient and studied it before checking the database. At least the dosage was familiar. Lam moved to check the thigh pocket with the hope that those drugs were in it.

Lafiel feels rather a little useless. "Meluly, you're among friends. You're in the medbay and it's early evening. You...stop that at once! Please, calm down!" Lafiel's voice takes on the tone of a commander, as if she could cow Luly into ceasing to harm herself. A foolish notion but the only way Lafiel knows.

Cassie helped Samus hold Meluly down.

"It's all right, we're just trying to help." She tried to sound as soothing as possible.

Meluly struggles sharply—she's strong for her slim frame but not exceptionally so, but she's very twisty and flexible, so the challenge is more in keeping her from sliding around too much than in just holding her down.

"K'thulu lwyghafin!" she hisses, accent twisting in a way that seems... honestly strange, for the way she's talked so far, and the language doesn't match with the alien one that's been included in her babbles so far. "G'tho'los frwhuphna! Ia! Ia!" If it's a language at all, anyway, and not just her coughing on something. She twists, grunting, trying to escape the hands holding her down.

Samus is quite strong herself, but she can't hold down Luly completely on her own. She's actually sort of grateful Cassie is around.

"Get her legs." She has the idea that if they both take and end, it will be harder for Luly to slide around.

Cassie grabbed Meluly's legs and somehow kept hold of them. She even succeeded somewhat in keeping them down.

"You're only hurting yourself."

"I...don't think. She can hear reason." Lafiel clambered half up onto the examination table to snake one forearm around the back of Meluly's head. Her hand disappeared in the mass of purple hair. Now at least she couldn't bash the back of her head against the examination table. The other hand adds pressure from the space between her collarbones.
She remembered a snatch of conversation from their talk in the sensorium. "Meluly...You're in space...In the Nazzadi fleet. It's ok. We're just giving you an examination." Perhaps evoking the childhood memory would calm her a little.

Lam moved, then, to pull off the cloth belt -- untie it, loosen it, her deft fingers working to figure out the best way to undo the holster thing on her leg as well. It took effort and a few awkward positions, but she finally pulled the belt pouch free and ran her fingers over the contents. There was a disposable syringe, a bottle of pills, a vial marked appropriately. Her eyes flicked to the blipping device.

"Meluly," Lam murmured, "I found what you need and now we're going to make everything better." Hopefully. The pills looked like they were used the most, so it was the pills she began with. The odd gun she'd found in the holster was put elsewhere, beyond reach. Lam measured out the right dosage and frowned slightly.

The worse part of pills was getting them down.

Even worse with Luly than the average completely-flipping-out sort of person... because those teeth of hers are sharp, as anyone whose hands get near her mouth will shortly discover. They look normal, but her incisors come to a natural bizarrely-razored edge.

And it doesn't help that she snaps and struggles at anything that gets put near her mouth.

There was no sense in just standing there like an idiot, gawping. If she got bit, she got bit and that's all there was to it. It was, by far, more important to get her patient medicated and stable. Lam moved to pop the pills into the woman's mouth, moving as quickly as she could to minimize damage to herself.

That long slice from Luly's teeth means that Lam's going to need some stitches down her hand, or whatever future-technology equivalent the Medbay can come up with. The upside, if anything, is that it's actually a surprisingly clean cut... not that that's very reassuring to someone who's just gotten glancingly bitten. To judge by this (if Lam is in any state to) a full-on bite, if Luly was slightly more in command of her faculties, might go clear to the bone.

She chokes on the pills, but swallows, and long moments pass while she's held down. She struggles, but then it weakens—and there's a moment of glassy-eyed comprehension in her expression.

She faints.

Pain lanced through her palm, but she ignored it until the woman was completely out cold, then examined the bite, frowning. It would need stitches for sure and her teeth were oddly sharp -- something Lam noted for future reference. She ground her teeth for a moment as she inspected the slice, probing it to make sure it hadn't left her with anything but superficial damage.

All her fingers and her thumb worked properly, though moving her thumb hurt enough that she squeezed her eyes shut. The gash ran along the fleshy part of her hand around her thumb and trailed off at her wrist. After a moment of inspection she moved to figure out what the hell the Medbay had to patch her up.

Hopefully Luly doesn't have any pathogens that might be borne in her saliva. Maybe Lam should stop by to ask once she's waken up and a little more comprehensible (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/92094.html).

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This is why you don't bottle things up, kids [Open; Warning—Language! And maybe a little disturbing]

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