milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(OOM: "So... apart from healing and resting and knowing there'll be questions, do we have any sort of plan?"

"So far today our track record with plans isn't too hot, Sunshine.")

From the other side of the main door, there is the sound of someone fumbling to get a key into a lock. Carefully fumbling, though, wanting to avoid putting too much pressure on the key when seemingly any pressure is too much. Why had she insisted on going in by herself instead of letting Jesse help her?

Eventually, the door opens, and Rae steps through, keys held loosely in one hand, an assortment of pharmacy bags held in the crook of her other arm. The knot of anticipated relief that had been growing in her chest swells and bursts when she sees where she is, leaving her lightheaded from pain and unsteady on her feet.

She is, it has to be said, a mess. Her clothing is mostly intact, though her kerchief is gone and her lavender blouse's neckline is charred black and fraying loose. All the better, though - she couldn't have endured the shirt's collar so close around her neck as she is now. Severe burns cover much of her neck and hands with angry red blisters, shiny with a thick application of ointment. Bruises cover more of her than even the burns, and her hair has been burned short on her left side. The frizzled fringe brushes lightly against her left cheek as she wavers. The rest of her hair is still in the long braid she had worn when she had left Milliways so many months ago and earlier today, though now it is lopsided and hanging loose on the left side.

Before her knees can give way beneath her, Rae closes the door and steps unsteadily over to the bar, spilling her collection of prescription bags onto the counter as she drops onto a bar stool. She lets herself breathe, letting the closed door behind her put distance between the events of the morning and now. Feeling faintly sick, she puts her aching head down on the cool, polished wood.

"Thank you," Sunshine whispers.

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Rae lifts her head, wincing with a faint indrawn breath at the pain in her neck, and offers the man a faint smile. "Baze Malbus. Hello."

His first question is complicated enough that she lets her concerns over the second question take priority. "What... what do you mean it's been months?"

"You and your friend Chirrut arrived just the other day..." she looks at him. He looks thinner, smaller somehow, though that might be the lack of armor.

Milliways has been playing with time again.

"How... how long? When is it here, now?"

Baze winces when she does. He sets his craft-papered-sphere down on a toilet paper roll and frowns slightly.

"You shouldn't be moving until you're healed," he says, immune to irony. He holds his gloved hands up.

"It's the fifteenth day of the second month of the year. February, sorry. I'm still not used to the Earther calendars. Just the other day, huh? So all these burns happened to you at once?"

"Gods and friggin' angels," Rae breathes, floored, her voice cracking from more than just internal damage. "It's been over half a year here, since I left, and... it's been less than twelve hours, for me."

"These..." she gestures faintly, without her hands touching anything, "all happened this morning."

Baze takes in her burned and scarred neck, her red and blistered hands, and her frizzled and seared hair. His frown deepens, and he turns to the counter to quietly order glasses of water for both of them. Bar provides, with curly straws, and Baze pushes Sunshine's towards her in a silent but insisting offer.

"Half a year? That's ridiculous. Are you safe now, in your world?"

"Thank you," she murmurs, drinking down the cold water greedily, letting it soothe her poor throat. Rae normally never uses a straw, but when the pressure of a drinking glass against one's hands makes tears come to one's eyes, straws are the way to go.

"Safe is... complicated." She quickly fends off a coughing fit with more water. "I'm... in a better situation than I was."

Baze folds his massive arms across an equally massive chest, though she's right--he does look smaller without the armor, and his face is ever so slightly thinner.

"Bar, please make sure she doesn't run out of water," Baze says softly, which is less a request for Bar and more a 'please drink as much as you want' to Rae.

"Well. That's all that one can hope for, I guess. Though if you being burned is better, that situation must have been pretty terrible. But no immediate doom hanging over your head, right? Like there was?"

"No immediate doom," she confirms, swallowing and clearing her throat very gingerly, trying to get rid of the tickle in the back of her throat without inadvertently sparking the coughing fit that it's threatening.

"And the one... trying to offer doom previously is in custody, awaiting further questioning." Rae manages a faint, wry smile. "While I am free, in my own home, with medical supplies paid for by SOF itself ...awaiting further questioning."

Absolute worlds better than she was anticipating.

Baze breaks into a smile, the first she's seen since she's been back. "Good," he says firmly, taking the water into his hand and bringing the glass to his face despite the curly straw, to prevent leaning over to get the drink. He gulps some down, and moves the beverage back to the counter without tweaking his back.

"What's SOF, again?"

"Special Other Forces," Rae replies, sipping more water. "They're a police force for sentient non-humans - Others - in my world."

It's a gross oversimplification, but generally accurate.

"So, there's a police force specifically for non-humans?" Baze says, his brow creased. He doesn't get why they'd be singled out like that.

"Huh. These questions they'll ask you--you're not worried?"

"Less worried," she admits, voice rough. "I was... more worried about this morning."

Maybe it's just weariness and pain making it so she doesn't have the energy to worry at the moment, but she'll take it.

"SOF is... not perfect, but the world changes slowly. Mostly they focus on saving people from vampires, or from Others who would cause harm to humans."

"But you wouldn't cause harm to humans. And you are human. Why would they focus on you?" Baze says, blinking at her. He takes another drink of water to try to remind her that she has some.

"Being involved with Others is sometimes enough," Rae murmurs, wondering if she can open the stapled-shut pharmacy bag to get at the ointment. Wondering if more ointment is the answer.

"And... I've been sort of unofficially helping SOF for the last few years," she explains, in between coughs. "Unofficially enough that none of the higher-ups knew about it."

She didn't take the hint, so Baze wonders if he should nudge her glass of water towards her.

"And this person that promised doom was one of the higher-ups."

It's a guess, but one that makes sense to Baze. It's also an invitation to talk more about it--or tell him to buzz off, her choice, as she's the one with the injured throat.

Rae nods slightly. "Yeah."

The word is choked. She gives up on the pharmacy bag - staples are too much of a daunting task right now - and leans stiffly over to sip at the water.

"Deputy... executive Jain, called the Goddess of Pain out of earshot."

Baze holds out a hand for the pharmacy bag.

"May I?" he says gently, his hand hovering there, poised to leap into action.

At least Rae is drinking water again.

"So, this deputy executive is in custody. For burning you, too?"

"Thank you, yes, please," she nods, and immediately regrets it. "The... could you get the other one, too? It should have the painkillers in it."

The painkillers she took in the SOF infirmary are well on their way out, and the pain in her hands and neck and throat are doing their best to occupy all of her awareness, with the extensive bruising just filling in the gaps.

She drinks more water, the scratchy itch in her throat not wanting to calm down.

"For... illegal acts against me, these last few years. We had proof. And it turns out she might have been involved..." This is the part she'd been keeping in the background of her thoughts, trying to ignore it until she could come to terms with it. "...she might have been involved in the disappearance of my father's family."

"The... burning was in reaction to everything coming to light."

Baze's gloves squeak as he removes them, and then immediately pops open the two prescription bags. The staples are nothing to him, having not been burned. He draws the bottle of painkillers out of the second bag, and, after reading the "press down to open" instructions on the lid, he pops that open, too.

"So, she had a vendetta against you from the start, panicked, and shot herself in the foot?"

Rae thinks about this, or tries to, in the haze of pain.

"I don't... it didn't feel like panic when she did it, no," she murmured.

That wasn't panic.

"She didn't have to reveal herself... like that. She could have taken the, the," Rae downs more water, finishing her glass, which promptly refills. "Thank you, Bar. The goddess could have taken the accusations and... dealt with just them. But she didn't, but it didn't feel like she panicked, or like she did any of it by accident."

She could have explained away the remark she had made to Rae at any time, or simply let the accusations of illegal harassment and the investigation into her history with the Blaises be the only thing she was facing. But she didn't.

"So she not only wanted to do these illegal acts against you, she wanted to kill you?" Baze says, offering Rae the bottle of painkillers.

"Do you know why?"

Rae remembers what the Goddess of Pain had whispered to her. No, she doesn't think Jain had intended to kill her.

"I... don't know. I don't know why she did any of this," she admits. "I don't know what her aims are, but I don't think they culminated with killing me."

"At least not as a primary end-goal, I think."

If the Goddess felt the need to kill Rae to get what she wanted, sure, but killing her didn't feel like her main goal.

"Hmm," Baze says, going to fold his arms, but taking a drink of water instead.

"So, she burned and bruised you. Well, I for one am glad she's in custody. Hopefully she'll be tried and imprisoned for her crimes, and never darken your doorstep again."

Rae clears her throat, gently, and drinks more of her water, trying to soothe the continued irritation.

"That's the hope," she murmurs. "She also burned the regional executive director, who we were meeting with, and my friend Pat. Director Misra was harmed a little less than me. Pat, somewhat more. I've not see him, and he's still in SOF's infirmary."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Baze offers quietly, wishing he could pat her on the shoulder or give her hands a reassuring squeeze. He hunches a little, and winces, as that tweaks his back. He straightens up again, slowly.

"I'm sure your friend will be okay. SOF must have access to all manner of cures, what with magic-handlers being a thing in your world."

Baze doesn't know a thing about curative magic, but he hopes that SOF would have access to it.

"I believe they do, though a lot of the..." she is interrupted by a short coughing fit, "the particulars aren't shared with the public."

And injured members of the public get sent to the local pharmacy.

"If you could, could you... could you get me three of those painkillers from the bottle? The ones I had at SOF headquarters've... thoroughly worn off."

The deep, searing pain of the burns is hard to think through.