[240103.08 Ancient ch`Rihan....]
In the early evening of ancient ch`Rihan's past, officers from the Morrhae`Vnu are finishing their tasks for the day, talking quietly about the news of the murder that happened the night before, while out of the range of the villagers ears. Over in the villager's side of the camp, a few officers keep themselves busy, talking to the people and helping out when they can.
Gehan tr`Tahn, obviously bored as he had nothing to pilot, wandered over to the villager's encampment, and proceeded to get himself his much craved attention, "Bow down to ninte God! Worship me and bring me food, and a bed to sleep in!" he proclaimed to a small group of Villagers. They turn their eyes to look at him a moment, then turn away once more, ultimately ignoring the child. Tahn watches them a few more moments then turns away himself, feeling a little foolish, and begins to search for more gullible prey.
Rylan, who had seen an elderly farmer walking around an ancient combine and scratching his head, heads over to the elder to see what the problem was. In talking with the Farmer, Rylan learned that the man intended to plant a crop of late-season grain near the encampment, "The seed," he had explained to the boy, as he showed him a small bag of the bright blue seed, "is a hearty strain that will grow even in the harshest environments." Being just a little skeptical of this statement, Rylan agreed that it couldn't hurt to at least try, but then was told that the push-combine didn't seem to want to work as the gears were stuck. Rylan leaned down to peer through the curved blades of the combine to locate the gears' placement, then reached in to free whatever it was that prevented them from turning freely. Unfortunately, not having much experience with the more ancient equipment, Rylan realized too late that there were blades in place in front of the gears to prevent anything from hindering the gears from working. Though the small blades didn't do a very good job of cutting up whatever small object that had managed to sneak by them, they did a mighty fine job of ripping his hand open. With a loud and surprised, "FVADT!!" Rylan pulls his hand free of the combine, and clutching the bleeding hand close to himself, stomps off to find one of the Morrhae`Vnu's medics.
After a short walk, he finds Emni and D`Tarik walking among the villagers, tending to any that were sick. As Emni seems the closest to himself, Rylan calls out, "Hey! Spare a moment?!" still clutching his hand and trying to stop the bleeding
Emni looks up sharply at that and spots him, asking concerned as she quickly headed over to the wounded Ry, "Rylan! What's wrong?"
When Emni takes hold of his injured hand to gently examine the damage, Ry smirks, "What do au think? It's just a gash..." he shrugs, "Fix please?"
As Emni goes about tending to the injured RS, D`Tarik has come across a young, blind village-girl. Not able to help himself, he heads closer to her and offers like a used-car salesman, "I can fix that for au! What do au want, Perfect vision? Fly vision? X-ray vision....?" then a half beat later, "Another eye!" he smiles slightly as he waits for the young girl to make her choice.
Dumbfounded by this, the young girl stammers as she backs away slowly, "X...ra...fly?" unable to understand half of what the unseen stranger was saying.
The small smile of D`Tarik's broke out into a grin, "Oh, I forgot." he says almost to himself, then clarifies for her benefit, "Well...trust me, x-ray is good!"
tr`Tahn, who had walked by and happened to hear the blind-girl's choices in eyes, suddenly runs up to the mad-doctor, "Can I have x-ray vision?!" he asks hopefully.
D`Tarik turns an eye to the younger officer, then shakes his head, "Na. Au would only misuse it. Some girl I just met and I have na idea how she would use it...?" he nods, "I trust her."
"What?!" Tahn asks, insulted. "I wouldn't misuse it!" then adds with a shrug, "Much..."
D`Tarik ignores the boy and turns his attention back to the blind girl, to find out that she was trying to run off. Concerned, DT takes off after her, weaving through the other villagers. Grumbling to himself, poor tr`Tahn walks off, eventually finding himself a tree to sit under and escape from the heat, and discovers it's a mighty fine place to watch everyone else around him work.
[Meanwhile, back in the crews' encampment....]
Vyynd grumbles to himself inside his tent, investigating, interrogating, and interviewing every person on the ship, has only made him more enraged at each one of those questioned having only a partial alibi for himself. By this time, Vyynd was starting to doubt even D`Tarik's alibi, as he was usually quite insane. He takes a moment to glare down at the list of the entire ship being suspects.
Growling to himself over the Leih having sealed himself in a solitary, and now powered, lab on the ship, Vyynd suddenly notices the unconscious sketches of a cartoon Rylan with four arms, being chased around by two Vyynd's. Still staring at this unexpected rendition of oddness, Vyynd almost passes out...then calls the RS into his tent shortly after his flip out.
At first, there was no answer, which only annoyed Vyynd all the more. So, after a few minutes, he tried again - this time sounding a little less friendly. "RYLAN! A word with au?!"
[Villagers' Encampment]
As Vyynd's irritated com-call finally came through to him, Rylan absently pulled his injured hand out of Emni's grip and tapped his com with it, only to wince a little. "Ie..." he said between clenched teeth as Emni once more pulled his hand towards her so she could work on it, "be there in a few, Vyynd..." he taps off with his uninjured hand.
"How did au manage to mutilate ninte-self?" Emni asked curiously, cleaning the wounds and bandaging them.
Ry shrugs, "Oh, just wasn't looking at what I was doing..." he grumbles.
"Well, try to be more careful, eh?" Emni says as she finishes by tying off the bandage, "Au could've really done some damage. Now, off with au!" she smiles slightly.
Ry's brow furrows and he mutters something incoherent about being mothered, before he bows his head slightly to her and walks away with a "Fine, fine, fine..." On his way back to the Crews' Encampment, Rylan spots Tahn and lightly kicks one of the boy's boots. "Get back to work, au lazy bum." he grins down at the pilot as he walks by. Tahn gets up, mumbling some more, as he goes to find a place to hide and sleep.
Emni watches Rylan leave a moment, then shakes her head and goes back to attending to the villagers. She turns around in time to see the blind girl that D`Tarik had been chasing, run smack into a tree. Calling to D`Tarik, Emni asks alarmed, "Is she all right? Do au need any help?"
DT doesn't seem to hear her, he only runs up to the girl as she lays on the ground, and asks extremely worried, "Are au okay?!" only to find that the girl is knocked out cold. "Well...that's na good..." he takes a look around to make sure that no-one is watching, then kneels down and injects the girl with what Rylan simply called, 'The Blue-Stuff'. As the blind girl starts to slowly open her eyes and shakes her head a bit, DT asks gently, "Au okay?" The girl blinks rapidly several times, seeming to stare at the tree she ran into. D`Tarik realizes that the high regenerative properties of the serum have partly restored her sight. Quickly glancing around to make sure that no one seemed to be looking, DT leaves the site of the fallen girl so she doesn't know how she got better, so as not to effect the timeline....and so he wouldn't get into trouble.
Seeing D`Tarik walk off, and knowing he wouldn't leave the girl there if injured, Emni goes back to showing some villagers how to bandage wounds properly, when she discovers that she has a little tag-a-long. Approaching another family of villagers with the little girl following close behind her, Emni smiles to herself, then turns to the child, "Would au like to help me for the day?" The little girl smiles and nods her head at this idea happily. "Okay," Emni nods, "But au have to be brave. Are au scared of blood?"
"Na." the little girl shook her head, and said in her childish little voice, "I've seen lots of animals at slaughter."
Emni's mildly surprised at this, but then thinks of all the battle wounds she herself had seen by the little girl's age, "All right then," she takes the child's hand, "Let's go!"
Tahn, who was still in search of another place to relax in, comes upon a small villager boy. "Worship me, small villager boy!" he commands the child. The child tilts his head and looks up at Tahn curiously, then suddenly kicks the pilot in the shin and runs away. Though the kick didn't hurt Gehan physically, his feelings were, and so Tahn goes to hide himself in a small cave.
[Crews' Encampment]
Rylan, now heading towards Vyynd's tent within the encampment, calls through the ip, "What did au want, by the way?"
Vyynd, beginning to feel as if investigating this ahz`hhl's clueless crime scene is growing more and more like slave labor, grumbles an answer back through his own ip, "A new job would be nice?"
Smirking at that, Ry responds with, "Well...speak to the Tal`Shiar about a transfer then. Of course...there *is na* Tal`Shiar in this time frame, but..."
"Ie..." Vyynd comes back, "And that would be even more hassle then the hanev I'm going through right now anyway..."
"Well..." Ry asks through the ip, "How goes the investigation then?" then finishes as he steps through the tent, "Anything new to report?" he suddenly turns around to glance outside as a crazy old man approaches the entrance to tr`Khaine's tent.
"YadadbababababWOO!" the old man declares to Rylan, waving his arms about wildly as he babbles.
As if there weren't anything out of the ordinary going on, Rylan closes the tent-flaps in the old man's face, then turns to Vyynd with a smirk and finishes, "Like that joker, for instance?"
Vyynd looks up at Rylan from his poorly lit desk area. His eyes burnt out, his face pale, his hands shaking....barely holding the pile of isd's in front of him as they clatter to the desk top. "Na....." Vyynd says with a hollow voice, "Na a thing the Elements themselves could tell au..."
Wondering what that meant, Rylan raises a curious brow, "Vyynd...?" he pauses, then crosses to the other chair in the tent to take a seat, "When was the last time au slept?"
Vyynd raises a lazy and shaggy eyebrow at Rylan, "Sleep?" he asks. Before Rylan could open his mouth to answer, tr`Khaine hurries on, "Au don't suppose...." he began slowly, when without warning his words picked up speed until he was stuttering, "That...that..that...that...*that* erien...or farien...or...whichever-he-was...whipped himself? Then impaled himself on that pipe? After welding his own hands to different items he found around the ship?" he looked at the RS as if he fully expected Rylan to agree with this theory, "Do au?!"
"Um.....na..." Ry glances around the tent a little uncomfortably, then tried to make a joke of it, "Why would he do that...?" but since he couldn't find a punch-line for it, he trailed off.
"Maybe...." Vyynd starts shaking, "Maybe he had to investigate some murder...ie!" he declares, slightly wild-eyed, "That's it! He was set up...to find out who murdered...the gingerbread man!" Without warning, Vyynd face falls flat on the desk, sound asleep...yet he continues to mumble.
Ry waits for a moment, but when Vyynd made no move to rouse himself, Rylan cautiously approached the desk and picked up one of the many isds. Taking a moment to see that the isd contained a list of suspects, Rylan added Vyynd's own name to it, then sets it quietly back down on the desk, before slowly backing out of the tent.
Once a few feet away from tr`Khaine's tent, Rylan barks through the ip, "TAHN!!!"
Gehan, having just started to fall asleep in the coolness of the cave, jumps awake at the sound of Rylan's voice blaring through the ip, "What do au want?" he asks annoyed through the ip.
Rylan pauses in his footsteps to raise a brow, then warns through the ip, "Au better tack on a 'rekkhai' to that...."
"Oh yeah...." Tahn's voice comes back through, to be followed shortly later by, "What do au want, rekkhai?"
"There's a farmer that needs help with a combine... go help him." Ry pauses to look at his injured, but bandaged hand, "But be careful of the blades... they're rather sharper then they look."
"Okay..." Tahn sighs, then remembers himself and says, "Ie, rekkhai..." Once again he gets up and mumbles as he walks away. After a moment of wandering around, Tahn spots the farmer in question and heads over. The boy takes one look at the ancient combine, and realizes that it's going to take half the night to fix the thing. He sighs then gets down to work.
Rylan wanders aimlessly around the camp, talking to an officer here, receiving a report from an officer there; he eventually spots Katara. Smiling to the barmaid, he heads over.
[Villager's encampment....]
As the early evening turns to early dusk, Emni hears a commotion behind one of the Villager's make-shift shelters further down the path, and runs to investigate - the little girl in tow. As she draws nearer, she finds a crowd of men huddled and shouting around something on the ground. On closer investigation, the group of villagers are huddled around a man who lays twitching on the ground, apparently choking. His skin colour is deepened to an almost forest-green hue, his eye protrude, his mouth hanging open in desperate attempts to gasp in air.
As Emni steps closer, she nudges two of the men near her away, "Give him room!" she shouts to them, "Please, I need everybody to clear the area!" she demands, moving closer to inspect the choking man on the ground. Quickly checking the airway of the man, she motions to the little girl beside her to bring her equipment bag closer. The little girl lugs over the medical bag, and opens it for Emni, peeking inside at all the high-tech, futuristic gadgetry inside.
Emni sifts through the gadgets for a split second and selects a device. Placing it down the man's windpipe, she begins to press the control buttons on it. In the choking man's panic, he becomes combative, and tries to knock the device out of Emni's hand. Emni firmly places a hand on the man's forehead in order to keep him still, as a Villager boy near her own age grabs the man's hands and tries to hold them down for her. "Please," she says gently to the choking man, "I'm here to help au..."
While Emni is occupied, the little tag-along-girl picks up one of the instruments in the medical bag to look it over. Soon after, a glop of matter becomes apparent in the device's chamber, and Emni carefully removes the device from the man's windpipe, then turns to reach for her bag to move it closer. "Please continue holding him." she says to the boy who's helping her. Seeing that Emni had moved the bag closer to her, the little girl quickly hides the instrument behind her back, as she didn't want to have to return it.
Emni searches and searches, rooting through the bag while keeping an eye on her patient. Since Emni is taking so long, and looking a little worried, to find what she's looking for, the little girl bites her lower lip in thought. Wondering if Emni was looking for the instrument that she held in her hand, the little girl slowly holds it out towards the medical assistant with a guilty look on her small, elfish features.
Looking to the girl, Emni nods appreciatively as she takes the device. Placing it against the man's chest to relax the muscles that were constricting his lungs - and thus returning him to normal breathing. "Au should be all right now, rekkhai." she smiles down at him, noting happily that his color was returning back to normal. "Hann`yyo for ninte help." she nods to the villager boy as he releases his grip on the man's arms. "And au..." she looks at the little girl with a kind smirk, noting how the child hung her head, fearing that she was angry with her, "Hann`yyo for helping me when I needed au. But au should be careful, au could easily get hurt with the things I have in here." she nudges the medical bag. She paused as the little girl nodded dejectedly, and offered, "Do au want me to teach au how to handle them, and what they do?"
At the girl's happy little nod at this, Emni smiles as she stands once more, taking her bag in hand, "Well all right then." Taking the little girl's hand, she addresses the villagers, "He'll be all right now..." then looks at the man as he regained his feet with the help of the boy, "I recommend that au get some rest, ninte body needs to recover a bit."
As Emni walked away with the little girl in tow, the Villagers all stood aside to let her pass, amazed that she had been able to help.
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