Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Westeria City: Little Shintenchi

"That should be fine," Talys answered with a smile and a nod. "We should pass at least one on the way, then-"

He cut off at Ayla's abrupt collapse, blinking with shock. Rune had darted in to catch her before she hit the floor, but she was a dead weight in his arms. "Whoaa, okay, that's not good," the fetchling exclaimed. "I didn't even think Aschen got sick."

"Something to do with spending a prolonged time on another world, maybe?" Talys ventured. "The New Capricans don't seem to be having that problem, but maybe there's an adjustment period?"

"If you wanna risk having plasma rained down on you to ask, be my guest. But right now should I get her to a bed?" Rune looked to Sun for prompting as to what direction to take Ayla in.

Sun was quick to move for Ayla as she started to crumple, but Rune caught her first and Sun aided by taking hold of one of Ayla's arms so Rune could shift her weight to get her to the bedroom.

"She's running a fever," Sun noted with concern. "This way."

"I'll go find if there's a doctor available anywhere," Adriaan interjected before making haste for the front door.

Meanwhile once inside the bedroom, Sun and Rune helped Ayla to the bed where Sun checked the wounds ringing the Aschen woman's throat with furrowed brow.

"It could be blood poisoning from the infection," Sun said hesitantly. "But the wounds aren't that bad... Is she sick with something maybe? I'm going to get her something to drink."

In the doorway Sun's father had joined in following the group and he watched the happenings from the threshold of the bedroom.

When Ayla collapsed, she was out like a light, the sudden drop in blood pressure from the infection causing a rapid loss of consciousness, she had gone limp and didn't resist the efforts for them to carry her to the bed, it was there her eyes flitted open, but the wounds were reddening, swelling, with the redness slowly spreading outwards in every direction.

Her world was spinning, and ringing with pain and delirium from the infection.

But she had a moment of clarity, and looked up at sun before her limp hand moved to her arm.

"Ego indeo..." she mumbled, with raspy breath before slipping back into a labored state of unconsciousness, breathing shallow and labored.

"Medicine isn't on the list of things I've studied, let alone Aschen medicine. Do they even get sick the same way we do?" Rune ran a hand through his hair after laying Ayla down on the bed. "I mean, it looks like an infection or something." The fetchlng gave a growl of angry frustration. "Fucking savages. Bad enough that they were selling her, but to treat her so bad she's ended up like this? I ought to set Nyu on the lot of them..."

Talys sighed. "You know that wouldn't do any good right now."

"Doesn't mean I shouldn't. Or, it does, but it doesn't mean they don't deserve it." Rune muttered.

Talys just shook his head. "No," he replied simply, letting the subject drop. There wasn't much they could do now until Adriaan came back with a doctor.

When Sun returned with a cup of tea in hand, the Aschen woman was already unconscious once more. She set it down on the bedside stand and moved to check on the woman.

"I don't understand, she shouldn't be this sick," she murmured. "Unless I missed something..."

She didn't even need to lay a hand upon the woman to tell that she was burning up. Beads of sweat dotted her pale forehead. Instead she turned her attention to the rest of the woman, searching for sign of more injuries that she might have missed. In particular she moved to examine the woman's stomach for bruising or sign of internal injuries from the beatings she had endured.

At this point, Ayla was slipping in and out of a coma, between states of delirium to unconsciousness.

Aside from the neck injuries, there seemed to be no injuries on her abdomen, there were a few tattoos, ornate and carefully crafted along her abdomen, tauron tattoos.

Aside from the tattoos, there were no hidden abdominal injuries, and upon examination, she groaned and muttered in slurred anquietas.

(as written by Tiko and Script)

Some time later...

It had taken nearly forty minutes for Adriaan to return as it would seem coming to the aid of an Aschen woman was relatively low down on the priority of their local medical practitioners. By the time they had returned, Ayla's condition had greatly deteriorated and Sun urgently waved them both inside.

The doctor in question was a short and squat man with more width than height to him. The red flush to his face, the puffyness around his squinted eyes, and the hang of his gut over his belt spoke of the man's fondness for drink.

He nudged his glasses up his nose with one finger before unbuttoning his jacket.

"Quickly please, this way," Sun told them as she urged the pair towards the bedroom where Ayla rested. "She is very sick."

The man only proved disgruntled at her impatience and kept on unbuttoning his jacket, clearly putting his physical comfort ahead of the urgency of the situation.

"You should be glad of the fact that I came here at all," he replied. "An Aschen? How did you even get her inside of Little Shintenchi?"

"The Red Dragon Syndicate brought her in," Sun explained. "But please, I urge you. She is dying."

"The only right thing an Aschen has ever done I wager," the man muttered under his breathe as he foldeed his jacket over one arm and followed Sun.

From his spot perched on one of the armchairs in the sitting room, Rune shot the doctor a glower. "Can't help the way she was born, can she?" he muttered in return.

Adriaan meanwhile gave Sun an apologetic look as they reached the room and the doctor made for the bedside.

"He was the only one available and willing to come," he whispered to her softly. "I had to fork over a month's rations to get him to even look at her."

"Thank you," Sun answered.

Talys had been seated in a chair at the foot of the bed when the doctor arrived, and he offered the man a warm smile when he walked in. "Thank you for coming," he said. "Her symptoms came on very suddenly. I think it's some sort of infection?"

"You mean she just suddenly turned Aschen?" the doctor asked before letting out a boisterous laugh at his own joke.

The ifrit seemed not to see the same humour, his smile only thinning slightly in response. He opted to keep his mouth shut, rather than say the first thing that came to mind, lest he aggravate the man they were relying on to help Ayla.

The doctors preliminary exam was quick, and far from thorough as he quickly ascertained that the woman was indeed suffering from an infection. Sepsis had already set well in.

"Lighten up people. The world will be a better place come morning," the doctor said as he noted the less than amiable vibes he was getting off from the people around him.

"What do you mean?" Sun inquired.

"I mean, she's dying. You'll have her off your hands in a few hours. Sepsis, shock, organ failure. She's spiralling the drain as we speak."

"Surely you cannot mean that?" Sun exclaimed. "You came here just to tell us she is dying? Ancestors above, you're a doctor!" Anger had edged into her words.

"You mean you people are actually serious?" he answered. "She's done for. With proper care, her chances might be fifty-fifty at best. But even if you could afford it, the resources are better spent on people that actually matter. We're not talking a quick band-aid here. We're talking intravenous fluids, antibiotics, vasopressors, dialysis. I can go on."

"It is not your place to decide what lives do and do not matter," Talys stated, his voice hard with poorly veiled contempt. "You are a doctor. A healer. A life is a life. You'll have your payment," he all but spat the last word, "and you will do all you can to save this girl's life."

Several hours later...

Ayla had been setup with some supportive treatment and the IVs would provide her with fluids and antibiotics but would do little for the kidney damage being caused by the sepsis. The doctor was set to return in the morning with the equipment necessary for dialysis treatments, but he seemed skeptical that she would last that long. He had made more than clear his belief that they were wasting resources.

For now though the place was quiet and the lights had been put out for the night. Talys, Rune, and Adriaan had already departed and Sun herself had dozed off in a chair next to Ayla's bed.

Darkness, she had seemed like she was swimming through darkness, before blurry light from the surrounding city, from fires and people's lanterns could be made out as dull blurs in her field of vision. She was weak, but slowly pushing aside the layers of unconsciousness, fighting for something tangible.

She let out a groan, her voice raspy and her mouth parched, a groan that was followed by raspy words.

The words never came, rather they came in a series of coughs, which served to lurch her body, tugging at her IV and saline bags. The needles in her arm were somewhat a cause for alarm, but in her weakened state, all she could do was lay there.

"Tretonin." She murmured. "Comdo, ego indeo Tretonin."

The raspy groan roused Sun from her slumber, and she grew all the more alert as the Aschen woman struggled to speak.

"I do not understand," Sun answered.

Her brow was furrowed in concern.

"The doctor will be back in the morning," she added. "You must rest."

It was well clear that Sun herself was weary from keeping watch over the Aschen woman through the night. Save for a brief break to put her father to bed, and to wash Ayla's uniform to pass the time. Sun had largely remained near at hand since the doctors departure earlier.

Ayla seemed frustrated at Sun's response, before she tried again, this time her voice slightly more forceful. "Immo, Ego indeo Tretonin." She reiterated, before she weakly reached over, grabbing the fabric of her jacket, fishing through the pockets, before she pulled out a small vinyl bound book written in Anquietas, with the same logo on her armband embossed on the cover.

She used the light of the window, and opened the book, flipping through the pages until she reached a series of Anquietas letters and a diagram, this diagram showed the outline of a person, with pointers and anquietas text, an anatomy book of some kind, and on the next page was a head and neck, with the carotid outlined and a syringe of some kind highlighted next to it.

"Ego indeo Tretonin, Nunc indeo est, alioquin moriar." She pleaded, while holding up the book, hoping the pictures would make sense, especially the vial and syringe of the purple colored liquid, that to those familiar with the Aschen would be easily recognized.

Sun's eyes scanned the page intently as she tried to make sense of Ayla's words. The diagram in particular drew her eye.

"This?" she asked as she pointed at the vial and syringe. "This is what you need? Tretonin?"

"Tretonin." Ayla affirmed, pointing to the diagram. "Ego indeo Tretonin." She said, gesturing to the diagram a second time.

"Tretonin..." Sun murmured. "I will find you what you need."

She kept the book before offering a gentle, and hopefully comforting pat upon one of Ayla's hands.

"Tretonin," she said again to affirm that she knew what the woman wanted before departing.

It was well into the following day when Adriaan arrived, winging his way through Little Shintenchi before alighting just outside the front door of Sun's small cottage. He was carrying a pack with him in one hand as he rapped on the door.

"Sun?" he called.

He knew well the condition of the Aschen women prior to his departure the day prior, and knew there was an element of urgency to getting the supplies to Sun.

His eyes caught note of some graffiti scrawled on the wooden door as he waited and he frowned.

Traitor and Aschen Lover were scrawled among other more lewd etchings in the Losenyu language. Likely punk kids he thought. If it were the Red Dragon Syndicate they wouldn't have stopped at graffiti.

A few moments later the door opened and Sun was waving him inside.

"Did you get it?" she asked.

"Yeah, we got everything you asked for," he told her as he passed her the pack.

She looked inside and thanked him as she quickly led the way back to the room that Ayla was resting in.

Ayla was sound asleep in her bed when Adriaan had arrived, with the commotion of some kids the night before, she had been up somewhat cautiously watching out the window for any sign of trouble. But her condition had deteriorated much faster as the tretonin began to wear off completely, the antibiotics managed to stave off the inevitable and buy some time, but even they were starting to wear off.

Slowly, with Sun stepping into her room she opened her eyes, but visibly relaxed when she recognized that it was Sun in the room and not someone who was there to kill her.

"Oh, Sun." She said, shifting to sit up some, reaching over to turn on the light. She was visibly pale with a few new sores, but her condition hadn't rapidly deteriorated yet.

"Ut medicina?" She asked aloud.

"Medicina, yes," she said.

Their brief conversations, and with the aid of the Aschen handbook, they had managed to form a few words of understanding between one another. Enough to identify a few objects anyways.

She set the pack next to Ayla and re-opened it. Inside was a small supply of Tretonin, an Anquietas to Losenyu dictionary, a Losenyu to Anquietas dictionary, and several Aschen military grade ration packs that Adriaan had seen fit to slip in as well. Sun was already short on ration cards between freeing Ayla, and paying that asswipe of a doctor. The ration packs would keep them fed for a while. Given the haul he and the others had brought back from swinging through Hagan Avenue, no one would know if a couple ration packs never made it to inventory. Hagan Avenue hadn't been along their assigned route to begin with.

"I couldn't bring more," Adriaan explained. "It's too dangerous to have a cache of undocumented medicine sitting around your place. It should be enough for now though."

Ayla took the hypospray, and loaded it with a vial of Tretonin, a moment later she pressed the hypospray to her neck, and it made a hissing sound. Almost immediately the color began to return to her face, the sores began to rapidly improve, and she could feel her strength return as the nanites could begin replicating without having to do the double duty of fighting off the infection.

"Ego sentior melior." She said, smiling at Sun. "Gratius." She said, nodding to Adriaan as well.

"Ego sum medic in Imperium Classiarius debitum in sum, et omnia reddam tibi offerre quicquid ad me." She explained, inclining her head. "Posuit me forsitan ab eo pharmacopolam circumforaneum negotii." She said, chuckling to herself, before looking at her hands. "Recurrit mea fortitudinem." She added, swiveling over and moving to stand, her legs unsure but she struggled to her feet anyway.

"Hey, slow down there," Adriaan said.

The fact that she couldn't understand him any better than they could understand her wasn't lost on him though and he pulled the Anquietas dictionary out of the pack and handed it to her.

He leafed through the other himself before pausing and turning it to face her. His finger indicated a word with the anquietas translation next to it.

Learn.

"I need to get back," Adriaan told Sun. "I think the others want to swing by later to check up on you guys though. I'll let them know she's doing better."

"Thank you," Sun said. "We are indebted."

"I'll show myself out. She doesn't look like she should be walking on her own just yet," he added with a smirk. "Good luck!"

With Adriaan departed, Sun moved to guide Ayla to the small writing desk nearby. It had been long since cleared after her mother had passed away, but the small notepad from earlier was resting atop it with a pen. Maybe they could at last make some headway in communicating with one another, however slow and tedious it might prove.