|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:54:22 GMT -6
((please note that the circumstances of the crossbreed as mentioned in this thread isn't meant to reflect on its actual ooc past ownership; it's merely for narrative purposes re: the story I want to tell P: ))
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:55:32 GMT -6
((start: Tolerance)) Rabbit’s duties for the first day consisted more of cleaning and caring for the creature’s wounds than it did feeding. This was for the very practical reason that it was impossible to feed a creature who was not awake. Aster hadn’t administered any more sedatives, but the dosage he had originally used was quite strong, and he theorized that exhaustion might have made it even more effective. “Better safe than sorry,” he said again, when he had informed Rabbit of the circumstances in more detail. “It might not be the best approach, but better this than to have it wake up before we’re ready to deal with it again.” Thus, Rabbit tended to the creature with one bucket of warm water after another, and a wealth of clean towels that came away filthy. Blood and dirt came away under her careful ministrations, and after hours of painstaking work, the creature’s white hide no longer looked quite so sullied as it had. (1)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:55:47 GMT -6
And it was white--- a solid white, Rabbit realized, with no patterns whatsoever. Its scales were smooth, but the hide was soft like skin in many places, and warm to the touch. It was hard to tell as of yet whether it was a healthy warmth, or the heat of infection, but that was what the next stage was for.
Once the wounds had been cleaned, and the armor polished as best she could manage so it didn’t shed more dirt and dried blood into the open wounds, Rabbit began the process of applying a salve. The purpose was twofold, to disinfect and prevent infection, and to speed the healing. Aster had given it to her a little grudgingly, though he had been the one to make the suggestion of it. “It feels like a waste, giving it to something that determined to roast me alive, but this isn’t the time to start discriminating based on killing intent, I guess.”
(2)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:56:04 GMT -6
Healing salves were not cheap. Aster could make a few himself, but it was more the ingredients that were an issue. He wasn’t much of a gardener himself, and his ward, who had a better temperament for it, had yet to get himself sufficiently established to provide any sort of consistent supply.
As such, Rabbit applied the salve sparingly, only using enough to adequately treat each wound. Even as she did so, she knew that it would not be enough. Aster wouldn’t be happy once she broke the news.
Rabbit worked tirelessly through the night. A robot did not, after all, become weary in the way of organic creatures, and Aster had already seen to all of Rabbit’s own repairs. Only when the work was done did she exit the barn, and even then, she merely retreated a small distance away. It was a warm night, and her batteries were not low. There was no reason to return to the house.
(3)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:56:22 GMT -6
The next morning, Rabbit returned to the barn to change the creature’s bandages. At her approach, however, the creature’s eyes snapped open. Rabbit paused for a moment, considering her options. Much of the creature’s restraints were still in place, including a muzzle, but Aster strongly suspected that it--- or rather, he, for Rabbit had found over the course of her ministrations that the creature was at least anatomically male--- had other abilities that did not require movement to use. But the look in the creature’s eyes was, she realized, still erratic and unfocused. The sedative was still in effect, only wearing off slowly.
The creature gave a low growl, but it sounded weary--- the quiet half-grumbling of a creature rousing from slumber.
Nevertheless, Rabbit approached slowly. The creature did his valiant best to track her movements, though sometimes she saw its gaze snapping to her new location after a pause, as if it had drifted off for a moment.
(4)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:56:40 GMT -6
“Easy” she said. Aster spoke often to his creatures, sometimes in a stream of consciousness manner of which he was barely aware. He told her once that the low, consistent noise put some creatures at ease, or in a trance of sorts.
Rabbit was not terribly practiced at it. Her voice was stiff and tinny, still the utterances of a robot rather than a humanoid.
Still, Aster had posited that it might have something like human-like intelligence. Perhaps it would understand a few words. “I mean you no harm,” said Rabbit, slowly. She could not make her voice less synthetic, but she could slow its pace and lower its volume. “I merely wish to tend your wounds. Be easy,” she said.
He was not easy, but neither did he seem in any state to address her as he might have liked. At least he did not growl again until she reached out for one of his bandages.
(5)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:57:36 GMT -6
“I will not hurt you,” said Rabbit.
The creature only snarled.
Rabbit paused a moment, thinking. Then, she produced more poultice, and held this out so that the creature could sniff at it. She had no idea if it would do any good, but a good deal of Aster’s knowledge had been built upon trial and error and intuition.
The creature didn’t smell it so much as he merely breathed, but he let out a sharper huff of air, blinking at the scent. “It is healing,” said Rabbit.
Gently, she began to undo one of the bandages. The creature growled again, and this time she stopped, waiting for it to calm before she continued.
It made for slow work, this start and stop method, but she did manage to make some headway. Perhaps the creature calmed, or perhaps it merely dozed off in fits, but there were spans of time in which she could do her work.
(6)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 19:58:45 GMT -6
She removed the old bandages from the day before, assessed the wounds beneath them, applied new salve where it was needed, and bound up the whole with fresh bandages. At the touch of the salve, the creature let out a dull protest twice, but eventually stopped protesting.
Rabbit left a dish of water next to the creature’s head. He had some mobility now, and his neck was long enough. Perhaps he would drink on his own.
On the second day of his convalescence, the creature was more lucid.
The water was also gone.
His head was already up when Rabbit opened the door, his gaze was trained on her, eyes narrowed. His fangs weren’t bared, but a low warning growl issued forth from somewhere deep in his throat.
“I mean you no harm,” said Rabbit. Slowly, she held out the bandages and the jar of poultice. “I need to change your bandages.”
(7)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:00:01 GMT -6
It was still debatable whether the creature understood her speech, but after a moment he did seem to make out something of her intent. He turned his head a little, glancing at the bandages along his limbs and side, then back at her and the items she offered.
There was no moment of acquiesce, exactly, but when Rabbit began approaching him again, he did not growl a second time. She took this to be as much acceptance as she was likely to get from the creature for now.
“Thank you,” she said. It felt rather odd to say it, but it felt more strange, somehow, not to.
Treating the creature while it was awake and aware went differently than it had thus far. Even before she began in earnest, Rabbit could feel the weight of his gaze on her, and there was a tension to his body that hadn’t been there before.
(8)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:00:19 GMT -6
It was not an unreasonable reaction, given his circumstances, and Rabbit did not precisely feel concern given her nature, but it did bring to the forefront of her awareness the fact that things could go very badly here if she was careless.
Slowly, she placed a hand on the creature’s side.
The creature made no noise, and after a moment, Rabbit took this as encouragement to keep going. But he let out a hiss when she peeled the bandage away from the wound, and then she found herself at the end of a growling muzzle full of teeth again. Nevermind that he couldn’t bite her; the threat was clear enough.
She stopped, and held out her hands where he could see them.
They stayed like that for a long time before the creature finally eased away. As soon as Rabbit moved, he growled again, but Rabbit noticed that he did not move to stop her just yet.
(9)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:00:40 GMT -6
He growled twice more before she had the bandage off him, but he did not turn on her again, and she was able to accomplish what she had set out to do.
After that, it was a little easier. He knew what to expect now, perhaps. He still hissed and flinched away on occasion, but Rabbit merely went still when he did--- not unlike her namesake, in fact--- and allowed him to calm before she continued.
In this manner, eventually she was able to work all his bandages off him. She set them aside, and he watched them do it, his gaze lingering on them with something that might have been interest. But his attention returned to her as soon as she reached for the poultice.
She held it out for him to sniff once more, and this time, his distaste was more readily apparent, Slowly, she scooped up a little of the poultice and touched it to the worst of his wounds.
(10)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:01:05 GMT -6
This time the reaction was instant. There was no warning growl; the creature merely rolled away, and only once he had done so did he snarl at her. Rabbit’s temperature sensors registered distress; the air around them was heating up. Rabbit’s own metal body would be fine, but the wood around them wasn’t going to stay unlit if things got much hotter. The creature’s doing, somehow. Aster hadn’t been wrong about that.
“Peace,” she said. “It is only a salve. It is healing.” The creature only renewed his growling, and at a loss for anything else to do, she applied some of the salve to her own arm, where he could see her do it. What she hoped to achieve, she did not fully know; the salve’s effects were nothing like immediate, and it would do nothing for someone like herself. But this did catch the creature’s attention, and puzzlement, if nothing else, brought some measure of distraction.
(11)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:02:29 GMT -6
“I mean you no harm,” she said once more.
It took nearly thirty minutes of waiting before he would let her approach again, eyeing her balefully all the while as she closed in on him. In the meantime, the roll he had performed had done him no favors with regards to his condition. The floor of the barn was not a clean or sterile surface; it had been neither practical nor time-efficient to make it as such. Rabbit surveyed the damage and sighed. “This will need to be cleaned again,” she said. She looked at the creature, who watched her in turn with a steady gaze. “You will not like the nature of this cleaning.”
He made no noise. She rose, and he watched her go; when she returned, he watched her bring over a bucket of water to set at his side, wash cloths arrayed along its edge. As the water sloshed, she saw his tongue flick out once.
(12)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:04:10 GMT -6
Water. That was right. She offered it to him, holding out the bucket toward his muzzle. He held out for several minutes, looking between her and the water, but eventually what must have been his thirst won out, and he took a long drink from the bucket. She watched his throat move, swallow by swallow, making sure to keep as still as she could. By the time he was finished, he had drained the bucket down to its dregs.
Rabbit rose and fetched more water.
Eventually the creature was sated enough that she could dip a wash cloth into the water. She paused before making contact with his wounds, and met his gaze. “This will not be pleasant,” she said. Perhaps the warning meant nothing to him, but given the possibility of intelligence, it did not seem wrong exactly to inform him.
Then, she steeled herself and gently dabbed at the wound.
(13)
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Apr 14, 2019 20:05:18 GMT -6
The creature hissed his displeasure, but he did not have the violent reaction that he had had to the salve from before. Perhaps it was the warning, after all, that had done some good. Perhaps it was only that the logic of this was easier to follow. If he was intelligent, he must have understood in some sense the importance of cleaning wounds. Whatever it was, this time he let her work in relative peace.
It was only when the salve came back into play that the creature tensed again. Rabbit repeated her earlier motion of spreading a little on herself. “It means you no harm,” she said. “It is for healing. It numbs the pain a little, and it protects against infections.” The creature gave the salve another dubious look, then watched her closely as she approached his wound with it. As soon as it made contact, he flinched away, growling.
(14)
|
|