Shoes Are For Wimps!

Posted on 26 Jan 2018 @ 3:29am by Ensign Miraj Derani & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde

1,620 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: USS Hathaway - Sickbay
Timeline: TBC, probably md 92

[ON]

Miraj limped awkwardly through the doors of sick bay. She was walking on the toes on one foot, and trying to stay on the heel of the other. She was also trailing blood over the carpet from her wounded feet.

"Er, is there a doctor?" she asked falling onto the nearest biobed to get her feet of the floor. Blood dripped from the soles of her feet into a little puddle under it.

"Well, I would say you could safely wager a good amount of money on finding a doctor in Sickbay," Alexion Wylde said dryly as he made his way over to her. He blinked. Having been a doctor for so many decades, the sight of blood barely registered...it was the colour of her hair that caught his attention first. "That's new."

"What is?" Miraj asked as her feet twitched around the shard of glass embedded in them. It was a sharp pain, but not unbearable. Her frame of reference for pain had been expanded far more than she ever needed in the last six months.

"Pink hair," he moved to the lower half of the bed to take a hold of her foot, taking a look for himself with a slight tsk sound, his fingertips pressing just a touch to see the give of the flesh near the wound. "I've seen purple...I've seen red. But not pink. Well, not all over."

She twitched away from his touch, then forced herself to let him feel the extent of debris she had managed to stand on. "I'm half Boslic. We come in pretty colours." she explained

"Makes you sound like flowers," he glanced up to her as he felt the flinch, shaking his head softly as he reached out for a hypospray. He pressed it close to the area to numb it before moving to get a dish and tweezers. "What happened?"

Miraj's face turned as pink as her hair. "I dropped a bottle and managed to stand on it." Which was the absolutely truth. He didn't need to know why she had dropped it in the first place.

Alexion's lips pursed slightly with mild amusement at her reaction, shaking his head before leaning down to firmly take hold of her foot to steady it. "Did you happen to be drinking out of it before hand?"

"No," she said with absolute truth. "But I was quaffing. Possibly swilling. Grog. Well it wasn't grog because this ship has nothing but synthehol, but it was the next best thing, and there might have been a little bit of swashbuckling as well." She held up her fingers just a smidgen apart. "But only a little."

"That is what they all say," Alexion tsked with an arched eyebrow, leaning in close to her foot to carefully grasp the glass, taking it slow and steady as he pulled the shard as smoothly as possible out of the flesh. "I would suggest shoes next time 'quaffing' is involved."

She grimaced. Just because it didn't hurt, didn't mean she couldn't feel the broken glass coming out and it felt very weird. "I don't like shoes. Its hard to tell what's going on with the ship. You can't feel as much."

"Hm?" he glanced up to her with a slight frown at the way she'd phrased it. "So you...don't wear shoes at all on the ship? Out and about?" he asked with surprise, catching hold of a medical tricorder to scan the foot, wanting to be sure there wasn't any glass left in there.

"As much as I can get away with." Miraj replied as more blood coloured the short hard wearing pile of the carpet. "Planetside I do. Nothing to feel there, but on board, barefoot is better."

"The gash in your foot disagrees," he replied evenly, with an almost confidential air to his tone. He took the steriliser, slowly waving the wand over the wound to be sure it was clean enough to heal.

"Tis only a flesh wound," she giggled. "And I'd still rather be barefoot. Shoes muffle things, and groping the ship makes me look weird."

"I won't argue with that," he murmured, shaking his head lightly with an arched eyebrow. He glanced her way, letting out a soft breath. "I'm not quite sure what there is to hear from a ship though."

"Just a sec." Miraj wiggled slightly on the biobed, moving so she sat over the pillar that supported the biobed, and pulling her skirt out so to get as much of her bare thighs rested against it without interference, she listened. "We're currently traveling at warp 7.5. The warp field is slightly skewed towards the port nacelle, and the flutter says there's probably something building up on the bussard collector. Though if I can feel it, the chances of them having detected it are pretty high. It won't be there long. Also, some of your bio beds are loose.

He gave a slight laugh at the display, shaking his head slowly as he tilted his head in her direction. "Well I did ask. I never held a Talent for machines. It would have been more useful if I had," he gave a half smile at that. No, his Talent had pushed him into medicine. Whether he'd liked it or not. Which he hadn't.

"More useful than medicine?" She grunted with imagined pain as a another shard of glass slid out of foot. "I thought fixing people was considered far more important. Everyone goes on and on about machines being replaceable." There was a faint tone in her voice, that such a thought wasn't just untrue, but a contemptible heresy.

"Huh," Alexion gave a soft grunt at that, shaking his head with distaste as he reached for the regenerator. "I think we both know that's not true. Technology, it's what life is built on now. Whether humans like to admit it or not. Without it, everything would crumble."

"That's so true." Miraj held still whilst the device sealed shut the cuts in her left foot. "Can you imagine not being able to fly? Ugh. Kill me now."

"Fly? Hm, I have to admit, that is just a means to an end for me," he shook his head with a slight frown of concentration as he worked. "It felt like freedom when I learnt back when I was...what, about 70 human years old," then he'd realised that he had no idea where he'd fly to anyway. "Now, it is just a way to get from place to place. Transporters are easier."

Miraj jaw fell open, and she stared at him. He didn't look seventy. And seventy had been quite clearly used in the past tense. "How old are you?"

Alexion glanced to her with a weak smile at the question, shaking his head lightly with an arched eyebrow, ready for the pokes of fun. "229 human years," he murmured, not inclined to say it any louder. He frequently felt old in Starfleet.

"Wow." she gasped. "Thats amazing. Are you, like, The count of St Germain?"

"The Count of what....? No...." he gave a gruff laugh, shaking his head as he straightened up, his blue/violet eyes shining for a moment. "Just Vaeron. We have longer lifespans than some other races. Don't get my son started on the subject...he'll tell you in far too many words how unfair it is that he's older than most officers but still treated as a child."

Miraj could relate to that. Not the being older part, she hadn't been out the academy for a year. But certainly being treated like a child. "I've not heard of Vaeron Do you all live forever?"

"Forever?" Alexion arched an eyebrow as he looked to her, shaking his head with a slight chuckle. "I don't think anyone could stand that. No, I think the stats say we can stay around until about....600 standard years. But it varies a lot...I mean, I have known people who just burned out at about 300....and I even had a patient who managed about 1000. It's strange living with so many humans," he admitted quietly, shaking his head. "Knowing they might be gone."

Miraj nodded it sounded quite horrible. "Its kind of like ships I guess. You have fun with them, play with them, and either you've got a little one that wears out, and its gone just as you've got it right, or they're big ones, and you know it doesn't matter how long you live, it will probably outlive you, barring accidents. This grand old Dame is over a hundred fifty years old." She stroked the biobed fondly.

Alexion blinked with surprise at hearing how old the ship was, putting the regenerator down. He'd never thought about it like that before. It seemed like...a long time. "That's not entirely reassuring..."

"It isn't?" Miraj found it the opposite. "Just goes to show how well engineered these ladies are. She's seen who knows what, carried hundreds of lives inside her, and she's still going strong. Maybe winding down a little in her old age, but don't we all?"

"Is that not just true," Alexion murmured, a slight hiss of breath escaping his lips at the pang of irritation that always came when someone clearly so young referred to old age. "Well, I may not have much of an affinity with ships, but I can manage to 'patch' people up. You are fixed. Although, I would suggest shoes might be useful in the future."

Miraj looked down at her toes, and flexed her feet. They needed a wash, somewhat covered in sticky brown blood, "Shoes are for wimps!" she grinned. "Thanks doctor."

OFF:

Dr. Alexion Wylde
Medical
USS Hathaway

Ensign Miraj Derani

RSS Feed