Some Mending

Posted on Wed 23rd Sep, 2020 @ 7:31am by Yuliette Marayan Dr. & Khellian s'Siedhri MD & Makila i'Hartelhai

1,748 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector: Dawnstar Clinic
Timeline: MD 12 Late Evening

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A figure in a red hoodie with a bulge in her back and a bag on one shoulder rang at the door of the clinic. She looked around left and right and, seeing no one, pushed her hood back from her face so she wouldn't seem to be a hoodlum bent on making any trouble. Not that it would matter if the clinic workers were Bajoran with a bone to pick over her ancestry.

Since it was after hours Dawnstar had their doors closed, but not locked. When the chime was pressed the doors opened obediently for the requestant.

A violet eyed, curly haired Romulan female met the newcomer in the Atrium. "How can I assist you?" Makila was trying to assess if she was adequate or if her father was needed, since he had yet to leave.

Very calmly and evenly, Yuliette began to explain. "I have a friend that needs some help. They're a little different, and very very nervous about being away from their home so—" she motioned with both of her hands for calm as she unzippered the duffel and set it down, and then very mindfully pulled her hoodie up over her head to reveal the scaly bodied, meter-tall bat hanging from her back. One of its wings was bound in a long white cloth.

A triangular, scaly head with irridescent compound eyes popped up out of the duffel as soon as the zipper was opened. Her mouth opened, her jaw moved, but no sound was audible. The creature clinging to Yuliette's back let go, doing a flip in mid-air to land on his feet, then flapped his good wing to keep his balance.

"This is Dave." she motioned to the one who had been on her back. "His family asked me to help him with his broken wing, and I was able to set it but he needs to have the bone knitted."

"Hello Dave" Makila said softly before calling into the back "Maenek Khellian, I have a patient for you. Bring a osteo-regenerator."

"Ie." came a warm male voice from deeper in the clinic.

"He won't be but a minute, lets see this break now..." the Romulan hybrid scanned the wing and the musculature around it. "How did this happen?" she asked as she looked up a database for painkillers that might be safe for an avian species.

"Dave broke his radius when he was caught by crosswind in a flight group in the station air shafts. It broke clean on the side nearest the wrist." Yuliette explained as she helped Dave onto an exam bed, Mary sticking close by. "His family gave him a lot of sucrose, which makes them more pain tolerant."

Dave's bright eyes studied the new bonesetter seriously, and Mary hummed a musical-sounding snatch before jumping up and grabbing on to the bar intended for a privacy curtain around the examination area. She hung head down, and her mouth moved again, leading to a squeaking sound just on the edge of audiblity.

As the Romulan Doctor joined them, Yuliette continued. "I am concerned about the much more slender ulna bone. I couldn't tell by feeling it but it's possibly also fractured."

"You sound like a physician miss..." Khellian prompted, asking for her name as he looked at the batlike creature. "What is his species? I've never seen anything quite like him before."

"Neone." With some effort, she resisted the ingrained habit of introducing herself as a peer to another peer in the field. Doctor, doctor. It was a way of acknowledging that you'd been molded, shaped, and tested in the same fires of academia and application. "It's just an interest. I don't know Dave's species. I never came across them before today. But it would seem their physiology lies very close to zoological chiropteras, as a place to begin. If you have a universal translator, Dave and Mary can try to answer your questions. They understand us, but can't produce any of our vocal sounds."

"I have one in the office. I don't keep it on me, because well its convenient to discuss things in Rihannsu." Makila said giving her father a significant look, and then glancing back to Neone with a gentle smile "I'll get it for you..."

He gazed at the damage pattern on the screen and he nodded sharply. He'd accurately recognized a kindred spirit, even if she wasn't admitting it. The expertness in which the commuted fracture had been set could only have been carried out by a physician.

As she waited for the young lady to return, Yuliette's eyes wandered to the apothecary shelf and drawers, impressed at the wide variety in the collection.

As the translator was carried in, a high-pitched voice came out of it. "Mary, Mary, Mary! I figured it out, Bro! I figured out why we don't got webs onna thumbs!"

A second voice, sounding long-suffering, responded, "Why, bro?"

"Because if'n we had webs onnna thumbs, we cou'n't pick our nose!" High-pitched giggling ensued.

Yuliette couldn't suppress a full on grin at both Dave's revelation and Mary's exasperation. "Aside from reducing their pain, the sugar gives them something of a high." She explained the obvious to Khellian.

Khellian was barely holding back laughter himself and he murmerred "So I can see." He coughed into his robe, so as not to be seen laughing but humor danced in his eyes. Makila giggled briefly "What would you like to do next Doctors?"

"I'd like to get a closer look at that scan if I may." he murmured thanking her quietly when she handed it over. "His ulna is indeed broken, as is the humerus but neither are displaced like the radius was. Can we unwrap the wing, so I might see it? Dave, you are not allergic to anything are you?"

"Dude, it's not at all humorous!" Dave protested, turning his body and the damaged wing away from the Romulan physician.

Mary shook her head, her long tongue flicking out over her scaly muzzle. "I don't know half those words, dude!"

Yuliette unwound the cloth and carefully refolded it as she considered the scans. She'd suspected the break in the ulna, but she'd failed to sense the hairline in the humerus. How badly she missed her technical equipment! Even just her medcorder. It was a little like being part blind now, without them. "I'm glad we came to you." Yuliette's eyes settled on tools Makila was staging for her father, and it took restraint not to reach out for them herself. She put her hands in her pockets, self consciously.

Khellian placed a fingertip on the longbone of the wing. "This bone is named the humerus, friend." his voice was full of gentle amusement as he gazed at his finger. The feel of the bat's skin had been an interesting sensation, and one that sent the hair raising on the back of his neck for some reason. Shaking off the sensation he ran the scanner over the wing again. "How fast were you going?"

"It's my funny bone!" Dave cackled.

Mary shook her head. "We was fast, fast, fast! Doin' a duck parade when this wicked crossflow had us spittin' barrels!" She spread her wings and hopped front-to-back and then back-to-front demonstrating what she meant, then paused, hopped back around, and stared at an object on a nearby counter. With one long, webbed forefinger she pointed at it. "Whazzat?"

He followed the webbed finger, to the machine he used to load hyposprays and other medication dispensation tools. "That is a small medication dispensary. It fills hyposprays and syringes. "

"Hypo sprays deliver medicine through the skin by high pressure, which is usually sufficient, but some types of medicine require a needle of a syringe for delivery beyond the layers of skin. Don't worry. The doctor won't use either without asking your consent first." Yuliette reassured.

"Oh," Mary said, before running her tongue over her snout again. "But dude... whazzat writing on? With the wings?"

"A caduceus. I think it comes from Earth mythology." Yuliette shrugged. "It's on a lot of medical related things."

"Wingie snake means bonesetter stuff? Cool, dude!" Mary seemed to lose interest in the topic, and turned around to face Dave, who was watching the Romulan doctor palpate his wing.

Dave, meanwhile, was humming quietly to himself. Seeing Mary paying attention to him again, he blinked slowly and sang, "Just a snoot full of sugar helps the medicine go down!"

"What's his prognosis? Does it look like he'll be set to rights without any complications?" Yuliette tried not to seem too obviously as if she were craning her neck to read the scans, but she was awestruck by the spinal structure, which she hadn't explored while focusing on Mary's wings as he model earlier. "There's a double spine with a second brain stem..." she murmured with wonderment.

"He's almost set to rights already. " The Romulan had been flicking the regenerator on and off as he aligned each bone fragment.

Dave giggled. "Dude's tickling my funny bone!" As the Doctor finished, he stretched his wing experimentally, then hopped from the biobed, turning over in mid-air to grab the bar Mary hung from. He stretched both wings wide, showing off the meter-and-a-half span.

"S'alright, bro?" Mary asked, running her sensitive nose over the once-mangled limb.

"S'alrigh!" Dave agreed. "Thanks, Dudes!"

"Thank you so much," Yuliette looked between the Khellian and his daughter and she unzipped the duffel again and arranged it on the floor for Mary to make her self comfortable for the return trip. "What do I owe you for the visit?"

Khellian smiled softly and shook his head in the negative. "Dawnstar is free to any in need."

"That's terribly sweet of you both, making yourselves available at odd hours out of kindness. I hope the universe pays you back in all the good favor you've shown us."

"I feel in many ways as if it already has." Khellian responded with a tiny smile.

Yuliette knelt for Dave to climb back on her shoulders and helped him hook his feet back around her neck, resettling him so they would both be comfortable enough. She turned her hoodie back right-side-out and pulled it carefully over her head to hide him. "I can't tarry. The rest of their family will worry. Maybe I'll be back though— I have some questions for you, about your apothecary. Thanks again." Yuliette shuffled out of the clinic, laden with her hidden friends.

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