Bail Organa (bailorgana) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-09-26 08:32:00 |
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Bail was making his way back to where he was camped out with Poe when the drip-drip-drip silence of the caves was interrupted by a shrill inhuman scream followed by shouting. He hesitated, glancing off in the direction of where he'd meet back up with Poe, and then changed direction toward the commotion. It wasn't as though he had any idea what he might find as he ducked into the darkness of one of the caves he hadn't yet explored, but Phasma fighting a giant winged creature wasn't on his radar. And it wasn’t entirely on Phasma’s radar either. Caves were familiar to her, but these creatures were not and while she had been somewhat prepared for the smaller ones - though the sudden rush of them through the opening of the cave had caught her off-guard - it was the massive beast that followed that had her swearing in an old, dead language and slashing at it with her knife. The monster was enormous. Ten foot across, at least, though she hadn’t been able to get a good look at it in darkness and flurry of flapping and screeching. She found flesh, but so did the creature, slicing her across the left side of her face with a talon and narrowly missing her eye. She could smell blood, then she could taste it. She didn’t even register the Viceroy’s presence until the creature screamed and reeled away from her, gashing at the air, and she turned to take one more stab at it. Bail wasn't about to get into a tussle if he didn't need to, and he worried for a moment that she would lunge at him as soon as he was visible to her. He also wasn't about to throw a knife (potentially losing it) at the bat, seeing that she was managing just fine on his own. He didn't count on the giant bat making straight for him once she had stabbed at it. He turned from the bat to keep it away from his face and its talon sliced across his shoulder as it flew past him. "Kriff," he swore under his breath. He cleared his throat. "Are you all right?" he asked, even as he moved away and stepped back into the shadows. Perhaps if she didn't see him, she wouldn't make any move toward him or against him. She’d managed to get another good stab in before the bat flew up out of her reach and back into whatever cavernous hole it resided in, and while she would have loved to stay and slaughter it, she wasn’t dying at the hands - talons, wings, whatever - of some beast. It was better to leave. She knew when running was the better option. “Alright?” she grumbled, switching the blade to her off-hand. “I’ve been worse.” Phasma wiped the blood from her cheek then made her way towards Bail, quickly, silently, and grabbed him by the side of the shirt before she shoved him in the direction of the other end of the cave where a dim light heralded the other opening. She didn’t know where Bail had come from and frankly, didn’t care, that end was closer and it was more important to get out of there and wait until nightfall to move back through. The bats would be out hunting at night, it might be safer to walk through then. Which, had she known about the wildlife, would have been her course of action in the first place. “Move,” she said, “quickly, before that thing finishes licking its wounds and decides to come back.” Bail didn't take kindly to being man-handled by anyone, let alone by Phasma, and he stepped away from her easily to brush himself off. He kept his injured hand carefully at his side and his knives visible and within reach. He didn't trust the woman before him not to attack him at any moment. Not that he had any urge to attack her first. No, he would prefer to simply leave her here. He tipped his head to the side, a finger up to signal that he was listening, and, satisfied that the sound of the bats flapping away was growing fainter, he nodded. "I have gauze and water for the cut on your face," he told her. That almost stopped Phasma in her tracks, too. She expected him to go back to wherever he’d come from before stumbling upon her little scuffle with the bat. She had supplies, she could care for it herself, but she wasn’t about to turn down help when it was offered, either. That would just be foolish. So she gave him a curt nod and continued for the other side of the cave, waiting until they had come out into the light again before offering him a faint, almost uncertain “Thank you,” as well. Phasma slid her knife back into place on her hip and shifted the duffle bag across her shoulder so it would rest a bit easier, then checked her hands for sign of any residue from the cave before she brought the back of her hand up to test the wound on her face. She hissed through gritted teeth. “We’re going to need a small fire as well,” she said, drawing her hand away and wiping the blood off on her pants. “I presume you know how to make one of those?” She didn’t pause for an answer, just nodded forward, “Lead the way.” Bail fought hard not to roll his eyes as he stepped past her. "If you believe we need a fire to heat and sterilize the water, you're incorrect. The water I have is clean." He felt no need in telling her about his vial of iodine or how else he came upon safe water. "Besides, a fire would draw attention to us, potentially both in the form of bats and, also, other beings who may or may not be playing this game the way the scientists intend us to play it." He shifted his own pack on his back and made his way to a small alcove where she would be able to sit on a small ledge so that he could tend to her face. Once it was done, though, he was leaving. He had to convince himself not to do so already, but he had offered his help and he'd give it first. "Sit," he ordered her. As she did so, Bail pulled his pack to his side and, one-handed, worked out the canteen and the clean cloth he had torn into strips from his jump suit, under his arms, when he determined it would be good to have for injuries just like this. "It needs to be cleaned. I have nothing to adhere the bandage to your face, but as long as it's clean, you should be fine. Phasma wasn’t inclined to take orders from men like Bail - or much of anyone, for that matter, the few people who had ever been able to give her orders had earned that position - but she gritted her teeth again and did as she was told, settling back on the ledge and shunting forward slightly to put her elbows against her knees. She glanced at his hand for a moment, at the obviously missing finger, but said nothing about it. There wasn’t anything she could do about that after three days. If there was infection, it was too late. “No,” she muttered letting him tend to the wound, “the fire is so I can heat up my knife and cauterize this wound. If you have any disinfectant in there, by the grace of the stars, that would be helpful too, otherwise I’ll have to break open the battery on this headlamp and use the acid to burn out any potential infection first and that’s time-consuming.” She wasn’t trying to shock or horrify him. She spoke in the flat, blunt affect of someone who had tended to hundreds upon hundreds of battlefield wounds and thought no more of it than she did of getting out of bed in the morning. If anything, Phasma was more visibly uncomfortable with the fact that Bail was the one doing the tending and not her. She was quite capable of taking care of her own injuries and didn’t need his pity, even if she did need his aid at that particular moment. Bail used a little trickle of his water, ignoring the pain from his own cut along the back of his right shoulder (he would deal with that when he had returned to Poe and the younger man could better access it) to first clean his fingertips and then the open wound on Phasma's face. Her arguments with him made him bristle, and he decided that she wasn't the sort of person he was going to spend too much time worrying about. Not like he had Matt Murdock, who was glad for the aid. Once the blood and grit and, hopefully any potential poison (if there was any) from the bat was washed away, Bail capped his canteen and slid it back into place. "I'm afraid I don't have any disinfectant," Bail said. "Nor anything by which to start a fire." Untrue. He had matches, but as he said, he wasn't about to start a fire here and draw attention to them both. He paused for a moment. "I'm sure you have it under control then, in how you'd like to handle your injury," he spoke carefully, evenly. He fished a small folded piece of clean fabric from his pack and handed it to her. "I'll leave you to it." Without waiting for a response, Bail hitched his bag more securely up along his back and turned, ducking into the darkness outside of the chamber they had been in, away from Phasma. She was still and quiet while he worked, mostly, except for the occasional measured inhale or a nearly imperceptible tightening of her grip from time to time. But she was watching him, her pale gaze steady and unyielding, like there was something she wanted to say but wouldn’t; not when she knew they were being watched. When he finished, she took the fabric and pressed it to her face to staunch the last of the bleeding and leaned back into the alcove, still studying him. “Thank you,” she said again, less hesitant this time than the last, “for the help.” And managed to bite her tongue before adding some snide comment to the end of it. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t or wouldn’t offer any more than this, she could and had managed fine on her own long enough. But she did watch him leave, marking his direction and pace of movement firmly in her mind, with every intention to follow him. Later. For now she had other matters to attend to. Phasma could build a small enough fire quickly enough with what she had gathered and it only took her a few moments to get it going, cleaning the knife with her own water and burning each cloth ripped from a discarded bag dutifully as she went. She was glad, in hindsight, that she was alone when she pressed the flat of the blade to the cut to seal it shut. It was hardly a sight that wanted for an audience. But it was done. And this was something she could tend to far easier than an open wound. She snuffed the fire, shouldered her pack, and then began tracing Bail’s footsteps along the path. |