Bandages Off-Date On

Posted on Wed Aug 17, 2016 @ 5:00am by erie'Riov Rianni Monteros-t'Khellian & Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin

1,960 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Interlude - Day 1
Location: Promenade
Timeline: Mission Day -25, 1000 Hours (Backpost)

::ON::

Rianni, still exhausted and depressed from spending over a week in this damned sickbay, was awakened by the sound of the nurse entering the room, ~Hope she's friendlier than the last one.~ She thought, propping herself up on one elbow, "Good morning."

"Good morning!" The nurse, a chipper young Bajoran woman with a copper colored pixie cut, replied, "How are you? You ready?"

"Ready for what?" Rianni asked, seeing as the nurse approached that she was not a natural copper.

"You're going home, ma'am." The nurse smiled, "Just as soon as I take off these bandages."

~Great, now we find out how bad it is.~ Rianni thought, bracing herself for the worst, but only saying, "Great."

"Okay, hold still, please." The nurse instructed, unwrapping the bandages from the right side of Rianni's face underneath her eye, "Of course, we're going to want you to come back if there's any swelling or discomfort, but from the looks of things there shouldn't be a problem."

~Shouldn't be a problem.~ Rianni laughed to herself, noticing the nurse wouldn't look her in the eye, "That's good to know."

"Doctor will want to see you again in about a week and you'll meet with the Counselor tomorrow." The nurse continued, disposing of the bandages, "We've already authorized several prescriptions for you, your replicator can make them all, and if you need anything else call me."

"Thank you." Rianni nodded, watching the nurse leave before getting dressed. She slid on her dark pants, boots, and Olive green tunic, the same outfit she wore to get shot in, and walked to the mirror. She barely recognized the face staring back at her, apparently a lot of work had needed to be done. The side she could see was beautiful, though the part hidden by her raven tresses was the part she was worried about. She pondered for a second on the idea of pushing her hair back and just looking, tearing off the proverbial bandage and surveying the damage, but couldn't bring herself to do so. She found a brush and brushed her hair into a long ponytail, leaving the right side hanging where it was, covering the sure disaster that her face had become.

It had taken her a few minutes, but she had found Commander Ryan's place, the place where Klia was staying, and rang the chime, ~Hope this stays in place.~ She thought, nervous that a breeze might move her curtain of hair and scare Klia with her ugliness.

Klia appear at the door, her hair white as snow and straight as a laser, in a sharp level fringe. "Hey."

"Hi." Rianni smiled, "We've got a date remember?"

"Earth food?" the orion asked.

"You know it." Rianni replied, offering her hand to Klia.

"Good. I need tequila and dimsum."

"Love your hair incidentally." Rianni complimented, "You look amazing."

"Wig." Klia admitted. "I like the colour, but haven't decided on a style yet." Klia grabbed a jumper, and stepped out of the Ryan quarters. "Yours looks good. Folicle stimulator?"

"No, same as it was." Rianni smiled, happy Klia hadn't asked about why she had one side of her face completely obscured with her hair, "But I'm glad you like it." She laughed and ran a hand through the left side of her hair, "Probably need to choose a style myself.The ponytail has definitely had a few fails lately."

"It's a classic. How can it fail?"

"Yeah, it seems giving people a handle to toss you by isn't the best idea." Rianni laughed, remembering how both she and Yolanthe seemed to have spent an inordinate amount of time getting slung around by their ponies, "Maybe time to cut if off and start over." ~Uh, yeah, no exposing the face, Rianni.~

"Or wear a wig. All the flexibility, and no spending six hours under a folicle stim to fix the mistake."

"Possibility." Rianni smiled, though she knew any wig for her would have to have some serious bangs, "Just glad to be out of that sickbay. Thanks for visiting, by the way."

"Well, i'm not exactly busy right now. Lani isn't pressuring me, but I don't really feel like programming. They reached the Promenade and Klia strolled out onto the third floor heading for Terra Nova, a restaurant that served the most delicious earth food, from pastas and pizza through to teriyaki and Dim Sum. "I do feel like steamed buns."

"The buns here are the best." Rianni replied excitedly, she loved the food at Terra Nova, "Maybe if you want to do this again we can go to the Acropolis, that's my Uncle Theo's place, best Greek food in the quadrant."

"Or we could go to Greece." Sol isn't that far from DS5. a couple of days at high warp, about a week at medium."

"Even better!" Rianni giggled, the idea of going to Greece hadn't even hit her, "The main house is right by the sea, you'd love it."

Klia gave a non-committal shrug. "I thought Greece was all about the big temple in the middle."

"The Acropolis? Sure, that's a big thing for us, but there's so much more." Rianni smiled, "There are so many things to see. But, right now I'm starving! Seriously, nothing but hospital food for over a week... gag me."

They reached the restaurant and were seated, Klia instantly ordering steamed buns, "what about you? What are you doing now?"

"I guess I'll go back to the Dhelan." Rianni shrugged, "I don't really know, I just got out of the hospital, guess I really haven't thought about it all that much." That was the truth, she hadn't thought about it. Could she even go back to her ship? She couldn't precisely cover half her face at all times on the bridge of a Warbird, sooner or later someone was going to see the disaster under her hair. She'd never been vain, never one to spend a lot of time in the mirror, but that didn't mean she wanted to be an object of pity, people talking in hushed tones about how pretty she used to be, "I guess for right now what I'm mainly doing is enjoying my date with you." ~That's good, Rianni, happy subjects.~

Klia snorted. "failing that, you have a great future in cheese."

"I guess." Rianni replied, getting the feeling already that this wasn't going well.

Klia put her menu down. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Rianni answered with a laugh, "That just sounded cuter in my mind before it came out."

"Don't worry about being cute. No one's cute with a face full of steam buns. We're here to eat, and not be in sickbay or all that."

"Oh, how I hated that sickbay." Rianni kind of half groaned, half laughed, "I could not get out of there fast enough. Seriously, those places are not conducive to healing, they really aren't. They're just so..... so.... depressing, you know?"

"Beats the alternative." Klia decided

A waitress came over with a basket of steamed buns, and two orange juices. "Are you ready to order."

"Fuck yeah," said Klia. "I'll have the salmon sushi platter, and the mini pasties, and the garlic mushrooms."

"And I'll take the tuna sushi and some shrimp on the side, give me the mini-pastries as well, but make my mushrooms feta cheese stuffed." Rianni asked, not realizing before then how hungry she was, adding, "Oh, and we're going to need a bottle of tequila, the good stuff."

the waitress nodded and slid away to get the drinks. "tequila? Klia asked with a gleam in her eyes. "You are planning party tonight?"

"I think we both deserve one, don't you?" Rianni laughed, sipping her orange juice.

"Yeah. maybe." Klia drank from her own cup. "So what now? Are you still working at the embassy? Someone told me the Ambassador was now in charge of the whole station."

"Yes, my Aunt Isha is the new base commander after Tasha Tahir got transferred." Rianni answered, sipping her own juice, "I'm still commanding the garrison ship, the IRW Dhelan, Norexan class, baddest big bird in the galaxy. Shortly after you.... vanished, we unleashed hell on some pirates around here. Destroyed twelve wanted pirate vessels and captured seven more."

the little Orion considered this. "So you're going back to that. seems like you were pretty good at it?"

"Maybe." Rianni shrugged, "I mean, I don't know, I might decide to do something else sometime in the future. I mean, yeah, life is kind of in flux over here, too." Rianni took a sip of her juice, "One thing is for sure, I really want to have at least some semblance of a normal life."

"You know you're living in the wrong place for that?"

"Always am." Rianni laughed, nervously checking her hair with the back of her hand, ~Yeah, maybe a freak show, Rianni. You might fit in there.~

"Leave your hair alone," klia murmured, "There's nothing wrong with it."

"Oh, sorry." Rianni shrugged, "Didn't notice I was messing with it." ~Yeah, my hair is fine, but what lies beneath......~

"Well, stop it. Its annoying." Their order arrived sand Klia fell on the mushrooms like they were the last ones on Earth. "Are you still part of the embassy?"

"Yeah,, still working with the embassy." Rianni answered, popping a shrimp in her mouth as she wondered if Klia had merely forgotten that they had had this conversation mere minutes before or if Klia was so bored with her that she was covering old ground again to fill the silence, ~This is a disaster.~ Rianni decided, though she continued to smile and eat, never letting on that anything was wrong. Pausing her inhalation of her first real food since the shooting, she continued, "I mean, it's not the same as it was when I started, I mean with my aunt there it just felt more.... I don't know.... homey?"

"So you can't just take that big pirate hunting ship of yours and bugger of?"

"Oh, sure." Rianni said with a smile as she poked a feta stuffed mushroom in her mouth, "There are always pirates to hunt, especially around here. This place is a pirate magnet, especially with the new planet just randomly appearing beneath us."

"Yeah I saw that. I'd love to know whats down there."

"You know, my Grandfather is going to take the Arrow and do some exploring and mapping." Rianni opened the suggestion, "I bet we could go with him. You know, if you really wanted to."

"No, I want to." Klia said, and for the first time there was a hint of her old enthusiastic self. "I want to figure out how those talking statues work. see what happens when I clap my hands."

"Can't deny being curious about that myself." Rianni laughed, this was the first happy thought she'd had about that planet; until now it had just been the massive rock that showed up and took Amanda from her.

"Then it's a plan." KliA decided. "As soon as the planet is open to landings we go down and see what we can see."

"Sweet." Rianni nodded happily, "Hey, you know I've got all kinds of gear, we could spend a few days down there, really map it out and do some for real exploring."

"I'd like that." Klia picked up another mushroom, and bit it in half enthusiastically, then raised her tequila. "To seeking out new life and ... old? civilisations."

"I'll drink to that." Rianni readily agreed, touching her glass to Klia's before knocking the shot of the potent liquor back like it was water, ~This turned out better than I had expected.~

::OFF::

Klia N'Shadrah
Holotech engineer

Rianni
Figuring Out Where She Goes From Here

 

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