Guro Challenge #6: Surgery
#15 of 33 Day Guro Challenge
Romsca, stripped to the fur, sat back on the table in the smoky, smelly apothecary's shop, and eyed the grog bottle in the paw of the bent old fox. "Gonna pass that over 'ere, mate?"
"This? This is for me," said the crone, shaking it disapprovingly. "Drink makes ye bleed more. I need it to steady me nerves afore all the yellin' ye'll do. Take these." She tossed over a bottle of strange-smelling herbs and a thick wooden rod covered in teethmarks. Romsca scowled and drank the bottle down.
"Cap'n, quit loiterin'. I'm a grown beast, I don't need ye to hold me paw."
Conva emerged reluctantly from the shadows. "Sorry. Just... are you sure? This isn't exactly reversible."
"I'm sure." Romsca lay down, placing a paw on her forehead. "Woo, dizzy. Decent stuff yer gave me, fox."
The healer started shaving Romsca's belly, clicking her tongue in thought. "I can give ye somethin' stronger, knock ye right out."
Romsca shivered at the icy fluid poured over the shaved patch, and said "Like Hellgates yer will. I'm not trustin' meself to a stranger wid a blade widout watchin' wot yer do wid it."
The fox shoved the wooden rod between the ferret's teeth, and started to cut.
Near the end, when Romsca almost bit through the rod, Conva did take her paw, and she didn't push him away.
~
"Yes, I'm bloody sure I won't regret it!" Romsca snapped as Conva led her through the alleys of Sampetra, back to the ship. "Look, I'm a ferret. I won't be tied down by kits, heat smell among corsairs ain't the safest thing, an' even if I did wanna rely on me blade skills to prevent problems there I got too much I wanna do ter die o' the blood sickness."
"Good, and I'm sorry. You're my first mate, I want you to be well. Who else will help me run that bunch of idiots?" Conva readjusted his grip on Romsca's waist as he realised his claws were too close to her fresh stitches. "Do you have enough of that willow-bark stuff? Sure you can keep the wound clean? Are you sure you should be walking?"
"I've took wounds afore, cap'n, I know wot I'm doin'," Romsca said, voice slurring a little. The beginning of surgical shock and the end of the anaesthetic were combining. "Oof... ow."
"That's it, we're hiring a cart."
A rat pulling a cart accepted a bracelet in trade for a lift, and Romsca lay on the wooden seat with her head in Conva's lap, trying not to pull her stitches. Her nose was dry and pale, and blood was seeping between her stitches and staining her shirt, but she pressed hard on the wound and smiled.
"Nothin's gonna hold me back now."