A Bloody Vision

Posted on Sun Apr 19th, 2020 @ 6:43pm by Xun'itash'eriqoi (Nitashe) & Ichpril Dato PhD & MA-Bee-3 Nurse Droid
Edited on on Sat Apr 25th, 2020 @ 4:38am

Mission: The Motherlode
Location: Nitashe's Quarters; Sickbay: Aboard the Mining Barge Motherlode
Timeline: MD 02: 0300 Local

Scarlet eyes glowed, studying this warm and alien landscape. The wind was freshly salty across his exposed skin, nearly matching the cloudless sky above. Two moons, despite the day, edged along the horizon, cast in a turqu0se shadow over their pale faces. Nitashe closed his eyes, despite the heat, lips parted slightly. His nostrils flared as he took in this strange new smell.

Lips caressed his neck tenderly, belonging to a presence behind, working from below his ear down the slim slope of his shoulder. Nitashe's stately poise tilted his head just enough to allow access to the hang of his jaw. Fingers touched at it, stroking and attentive as the Chiss half-lidded. He glimpsed them as they shifted, the pale pinkness of a Human. Nitashe reached back, his slender writer's hands following along the contours of hips and around, to a firm seat. Lips- and then teeth- clamped on to the shell of his ear, sending Nitashe into an undignified- and uncomfortable- chortle. The one behind him snickered too, softly near his azure ear.

"I've never seen a beach before..." Nitashe admitted, voice a soft, private husk as much to himself as the other. His alizarin eyes scanned the strange blue waters that grew more like the color of jade the closer it came to white-tan sand around rusty red and pink cliffs. Within them, the rounded, organic look of whitewashed limestone homes seemed to occupy every available space around the inlet. Atop the cliffs, large windmills captured the power of the planet's atmosphere in its blades. There was an elegance to them.

He had never seen anything like this before.

"Come to bed," the voice said behind him. It was soft yet masculine enough. The body that pressed to Nitashe's back was strangely flat where he'd expected the softness of breasts. He could feel a dormant male member press against his hind. As strange as it was, Nitashe surrendered to it. He sighed and slouched his head in time to see long hands passing over the smooth flat of his blue stomach.

"I'm not tired," Nitashe said genuinely. He caught a glimpse of light brown hair, swooping and chin-length, wavy. He felt the brush of silken robe touch his back as the other's chest went flush to his nude back. "I thought I'd go down to the water... it's... strange to me."

Fingers touched his jaw and turned his face. Nitashe gazed upon a visage he had never seen before. His cheekbones were high and sculpted, his brows strong and manicured. His eyes were intelligent and blue, though they somewhat reminded him of Pezzir Ve's. He had ears that seemed open from his head to which remind them lush, thick brown hair was pushed. "Tell me about your homeworld, Nitashe...." The stranger offered.

His world recast itself in blue, dark with a scattering of thousands of stars across a navy band of interstellar gas. "My home's very cold... but very beautiful..." The Chiss said, "Glaciers as far as you can imagine. The new ice is white and clear... the older it gets, it turns blue and crystalline." They were sitting on outcroppings of rock and snow. But for some reason it still felt sweltering.

Silhouetted in the strange blue light of night, the Human studied it with a detached air, almost aristocratic in bearing. He too remained in a silken robe that the winds of his world didn't seem to touch. Instead he looked into the night and chin jutted north, "A storm is coming."

Nitashe looked at it, his scarlet eyes narrowing. His throat constricted on instinct, seeing red lightning and strange red glowing orbs bouncing about the glowing cloud. "That's strange... my world doesn't have..." he coughed. He coughed again, feel like his lungs were suddenly thick. A sense of panic welled in him, eyes checking to his companion. The Human sat icily still like a corpse or mannequin, his eyes lolled back into his head, heavily bloodshot. He was gnashing his teeth as blood began to pour from his nose and tear ducts. His body was swaying in a circle until suddenly the Human spit. The pale one reached up and clawed deep, blood grooves into his cheeks with supernaturally strong fingers in a rigor of bony hate.

In his horror, Nitashe looked down to see a chunk of bloody, severed tongue between his toes. The Human opened his mouth, full of blood and gore as strange worm-like gastropoda burst out of his cheeks and the chunky bitten stub of his tongue. "Tell me about your homeworld, Nitashe." the Human's gargled voice stated again, harsh with a artificial hiss of respiration.

Xun'itash'eriqoi sat up with a wet gasp and cough, his chest heaving with hyperventilation so much it hurt. His head swam and he felt sick, his limbs tense like he was frozen- but all he could feel was overwhelming heat. His head was throbbing above his neck, casting forehead toward his eyes. He was wet with sweat, shaking, but strange still was the taste of thick and wet salt on his upper lip. Swiping with his hand at the sensation and then lashing for the light, Nitashe fumbled for illumination. When it bathed him in sickly yellow, his arm was smeared in thin web of red blood over his faint arm hair.

Nitashe was up, shaking, feeling fresh trickling pouring from his nose. His stomach lurched but he powered down on the indignity of it as his coltish legs quaked under him. He slapped and slapped again at the controls of his door, his other hand pinching at his nose.

---

"Mmm yes, well this is nothing to be concerned about. Epistaxis of the Kieselbach's plexus, young man. is nothing new. Particularly in environments as dry and warm as the Motherlode's atmosphere." A comforting hand, fish-cold, closed around the smooth triangle of Nitashe's bare shoulder. With a remnant smear of red gore across his cheek, Nitashe managed to look at it and then back at the thick, throaty speak of the hand's owner.

"A what?" Nitashe asked, his normal voice made nasal.

"Nosebleed," Dr. Ichpril Dato was the first and only Mon Calamari Nitashe had ever met- and if he was anything like the rest of his species, Mon Calamari must have been uniquely placid. The webbed hand touched Nitashe's hair and made a gentle push, "Tuck your chin to your chest for a little longer, until the bleeding ceases completely." Massive yellow eyes on white-blue, bulbous lids blinked. In the peripheral of Nitashe vision, he sensed movement. There too was the cold touch of a hand, but this one was the hard metallic cold of a droid. Fingers clamped down along the artery of his wrist.

"Heart rate is 103... blood pressure returning to normal." The voice was almost a soft hum from the droid. "128 systolic. 74 diastolic." The Mon Calamari twisted to look at the numbers on the monitor himself. It was down, but not down to normal numbers he'd seen as the Chiss' baseline.

Dato had a strange gait- like a waddle- but whether it was natural to the Mon Calamri or just the confines of the small Sickbay, Nitashe did not know. The Mon Calamari was dressed in a white scrub-like gown that resembled shoji paper to Nitashe. Spatters of his body dotted pink upon it which didn't seem to concern the fish-like being. "Well whatever you dreamed, it gave you quite a scare." Dato's thick voice stated. "Are nightmares common for you?"

Nitashe chewed his lip. "Not really. I dream a lot... I remember my dreams. But they're not usually like that."

The Mon Calamari blinked his massive yellow eyes while his fishy muzzle turned in an analog of pensiveness. "Have you encountered any new stressors lately?"

"Subject Xun'itash'eriqoi is dehydrated..." the Nurse Droid stated. Ichpril blinked at that and ventured away while the Chiss thought.

"Not really..." Nitashe answered at a loss, "Aside from having to help find a new port. But I don't know why that would cause me stress." With his chin still tucked, he tried to glimpse what Dato was doing. It was a mystery until he heard the sound of water hitting at the bottom of a metal basin- then strangely quiet. He wasn't surprised when the Doctor appeared nearby with a glass of water to drink. It looked to have something stirred in to it.

Nitashe blinked, his blood smeared, dried, affixed around the cup. "What's in it?"

Dato pinched gently at the boy's nose, testing for sensitivity or tenderness. "A few amino acids and nutrients. You have a vitamin D deficiency and your magnesium is somewhat off. Minor but I would like you to begin a daily regimen." At that, Nitashe sipped the water. "We need to speak to Master Guelph about changing your quarters. My limited knowledge of Chiss anatomy suggests you are sweating too much at night. When we sweat, we lose sodium, potassium and magnesium. And water. Your species was never meant to spend this long in warm environs."

Nitashe chewed his lip again. "So I'll live?"

Ichpril's fishy mouth twisted into a floppy yet rigid smile. "Oh yes, you will be fine. You appear in excellent health aside from these minor issues. I can give you a mild analgesic for the headache. In the meantime, try to review where you may be getting stressed. My guess is, when you mitigate that, the nightmares should desist. However, we all expereince nightmares from time to time. Likely, the heat of your room, coupled with the dryness and the mental state broke a capillary in your nose. A perfect storm of mundane events. In the short term, we need to bring a humidifier into your room and get the temperature lower. More toward Chiss comfort zones."

Nitashe sensed movement and with a flurry of mechanical fingers, the Nurse Droid began to swab his face with a sterile cloth. The droid handed him one when it completed its task, so Nitashe could clean his fingers. "It appears the Epistaxis has ceased." The droid stated as it closed its fingers again on Nitashe's wrist. Red eyes studied it, the fineness of his own wrist and the small differences of anatomy where his arm joined his hand. He shuddered. "Ninety seven. Your heart rate is still high. I would like to continue to monitor you." The droid turned with a hydraulic twist at the waist and reached out for a small patch. It peeled the patch away from a sticky surface and then adhered it to Nitashe's wrist. The Chiss could feel some kind of diodes or batteries in the small patch.

"Yes thank you, for the headache," Nitashe said gratefully. The Mon Calamari nodded and placed a small sealed packet of two pills into his hand.

"We will continue to monitor you remotely. I would like you to return tomorrow for another vitamin fortifier. In the meantime I will have a word with Master Guelph about your unique needs." Ichpril stated.

"Thank you," Nitashe said as he slid off the examination bed. He adjusted his pajama shorts from how they'd bunched on the table. He folded his arms across his rangy chest. "I guess I'll get back to my quarters."

"Goodnight," Dato said with an incline of his head. "MA-Bee-3, you may power back down." The droid pivoted and strode to some kind of wall alcove. Nitashe heard a deceleration sound from it, and a click.

"Goodnight," Nitashe said with a nod. He rubbed his neck and the tension there and meandered back to his quarters, almost afraid to go back to sleep despite of only wearing pajama bottoms in public.