The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

The doctor howled. "I—I was just putting her to sleep. For the healing, she must sleep! It's extremely painful. I-I'm sparing her," he said. His heart was beating a drum into his ears as his free hand slowly pointed to the collection of bottles in his box. "Please... She's still bleeding."

---

Felicity shook her head, mopping around her mouth with a cloth. "I-I'm fine. I just don't like blood," she said.

"Well, that's going to be a problem," Laurius said. "I think there will be a lot of blood in these experiments."

"Perhaps I will go draw the trees, then," she said, smoothing her hair.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's grip was unrelenting. "Why is the healing painful?" He thought of Toothsbane and its side effects, and squeezed the man's wrist harder. "She was telling you to stop, yet you proceeded. Is this what you did yesterday as well? How long until it wears off?"

_____________

Artisuren looked unsure about letting Felicity wander off on her own in this place. "....Do not eat any of them," he warned her oddly.

[Emora Deen]

The doctor winced. "Ugh... Thirty minutes," he said, his voice a rasp of fear. "Its, it's like being unmade... or made. The cells are driven into hyperactivity to mend, working in overtime. The initial application is the most painful, which is why I use sedation. Subjects who aren't sedated try clawing their skin off and other nasty side effects." He thought about his question but hesitated in telling him the truth. "I... I did. I gave her no warning. I thought it better. Its done quickly. No harm done."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's eyes lit bright with anger. He twisted the man's hand, and the wet cloth fell to the floor. "Heed me closely," he growled in the man's ear. "When I release you, you will not move or touch anything on this desk without explaining it to me first. You will staunch the bleeding normally and do nothing more until she is conscious. When she wakes, you will discuss her treatment options in detail, explaining the process from end to end. If a single thing you do strays from the process you described, I will rip your arm off and give you that potion myself while you're wide awake."

[Emora Deen]

The doctor nodded, tight breaths of pain ripping out of him. "Y-yes. I'll do that," he said. When Havitharon released him, his shaking hands reached toward the box. "T-tourniquet," he said. "To slow the bleeding until she wakes." He said, pulling out a band of some sort. He waited for Havitharon's permission.

[Soran Nightblade]

The tourniquet was a familiar tool, but Havi wasn't confident he knew how much force to apply to a female from this world. "Do so," he commanded.

[Emora Deen]

The doctor's hand rattled as he moved to apply the tourniquet. He tied it around her forearm, pulling it snug. He tightened the makeshift bandage on her hand, and even with the tourniquet it weeped into the fabric. Then, his hands moved away, hovering slightly in the air as he backed into the chair he occupied earlier. "We wait," he said. He reached for his tea and saucer. The cup rattled in his hand as he brought it to his lips. For the doctor, it was the longest thirty minutes of his life.

When Tenara came awake, she groaned, hissing at the pain in her hand. She hadn't remembered it hurting yesterday, and she drew it up, looking bleary-eyed at it, she was confused to find it the same as before. She poked at the tight, fat cable around her arm. "It didn't work?" she asked, a little groggy.

[Soran Nightblade]

The half hour was like a nightmare as Havi watched her arm discolor from lack of circulation. Why? Her wounds had healed in the past, so why did it seem like they were suddenly getting worse?

Havi stepped closer to her the moment she spoke. "Tenara. I asked the doctor to slow the bleeding until you could discuss your treatment options. I apologize for the pain... but when he drugged you without warning, I became skeptical."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara blinked, confused but too disoriented to know whether that was he situation or the drug doing the legwork. "My arm..." she murmured, noticing how pale the flesh looked.

"I can fix. Fast. Quick. I just need to apply the salve, but in order to apply it I should put you out. It is painful," the doctor said, standing quickly. "Its this one. The silvery one. I smear it on. It causes the cells in your wound to go into overdrive. Test subjects reported extreme pain, with evidence of self harm if not restrained. Others complications included hysteria, sexual aggression, general aggression, biting—" Tenara felt like a lot of words were flying out of the fog at her. She waved her hand at him to stop the verbal vomit.

"Has anyone ever had no issues?"

The man shook his head, and then amended, "One. But..."

"But?"

"Well, pain and pleasure seemed to be one in the same to him," the man said. "Weird one."

"I don't like the cloth," she said, hating how her voice cracked ever so slightly over the word. Part of her wanted to explain why, to explain that was how they'd done it, how they'd stolen her away and trapped her in a ship, abused, and nearly killed her.

"It's the fastest way..."

"Can I try it without?"

The doctor hesitated, looking at Havitharon. "I highly recommend against that," he said.

"I want to," she said. "I'm strong. I can handle it..." The doctor seemed skeptical. "And if I can't, then you can use the cloth?"

The doctor look at Havitharon as if he were the person who's opinion mattered more. He didn't want to do as she said and this thing rip his head off afterwards.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi glowered at the man. "Your patient is royalty. If you wish to be forgiven for drugging her, you will obey her wishes." The look he gave him wasn't for show. Havi would like nothing more than to rip someone apart at the moment. Even now, she was speaking of this excruciating process like it was another voluntary experiment, like her own pain was just the practical cost of gaining knowledge. He hated this. He hated it!

The doctor was still just standing there, looking useless and afraid. "Do as she says!" he roared.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara and the doctor both nearly leapt out of their skin at Havitharon’s roar. She had not heard him lose his temper… Ever. Even when he was angry or frustrated he always seemed to speak with such unnerving calm.

A flurry of blubbering apologies spilled out of the doctor’s mouth as he hurried to drag on his leather gloves and scoop up his tools.

Tenara was still looking at Havitharon with round, surprised eyes when Dr. Crofford took her hand. It was likely the numbness from the lack of circulation, but she barely felt him pull it close for inspection, or remove the saturated makeshift bandaging.

The man’s hands rattled violently, as if Havi were holding a knife to his throat. “S-someone should h-hold her down…” He immediately winced, awaiting another scolding.

[Soran Nightblade]

"Proceed. If she hurts herself, I will stop her," Havi said darkly. His expression said very clearly that he would not expend the same effort if she tried to hurt him.

[Emora Deen]

By now the doctor was sweating profusely. He swallowed, opening the jar of putty-like contents. He used a small metal stick of some sort to scoop out a portion of it. He almost applied it, the material hovering just over the weeping cut.

“Maybe stitches?” He offered her. “Switching to stitches does mean you would not be able to perform your experiments so quickly but—“

The look Tenara gave him silenced his words. He locked his teeth together and pinned her hand down by the forearm. A prayer whispered out of him, and he smeared his concoction into Tenara’s wound.

At first, she didn’t feel anything and thought that the doctor had either greatly exaggerated the effects or had used it as an excuse to drug a woman in his care. But then, her hand felt on fire and the fire spread up her arm until every nerve in her body screamed for relief—screaming so loud could almost hear it. No. She could hear it. Someone was screaming.

She was screaming.

Tenara thrashed, her other hand reaching for the injured one, some small part of her brain believing if she clawed the putty from the wound it would end the fire scorching her to ruin.

“Don’t touch it! If it gets on you elsewhere—“ he tried to wrestle her other arm down and she lunged up and bit him like a feral version of her vampiric father.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi moved to the head of the table and took each of her wrists, holding her still. His grip wasn't rough, but it was unyielding compared to the doctor's.

[Emora Deen]

The new restraint stole her focus, and she pulled away from biting Dr. Crofford. Blood was on her mouth and pouring from his ear. The doctor pinned down her shoulders down, which left her legs kicking and flailing.

“I should put her out!” he shouted at Havitharon, but made no move to attempt it. He cursed—a never ending stream of it—along with several threats of quitting, and a few grumbles of how he wasn’t getting paid enough to deal with this ‘shit’.

Tenara begged them in incoherent pleas to let her go, but eventually those faded out and she lolled around on the table. A zombie without control of her extremities.

The doctor said a few more curses, his hand moving to lift her eyelids up. He grumbled about ‘shock’ or ‘fainting’ and how ‘they should have just let him do his job’.

Felicity stood in the doorway, pale as a ghost. “I… I heard the screaming,” she said.

Tenara was out a moment later, with or without the cloth over her mouth. Her hand twitched and trembled of its own accord, and the doctor wrapped it in gauze. “The pain will be gone in a few minutes. She shouldn’t remove the bandage until tomorrow morning. It will be as yesterday, like nothing happened.”

He packed up his things and headed for the door, pausing to check his ear in a window pane. “Tell Mr. Marr he needs to find a new doctor,” he said to Havi or Felicity, it was hard to tell which. “I quit.”