Friday, Aug 22, night.

The front door of the Red Dragon Inn exploded open and slammed against the wall a brief moment before an apparently-weaponless but wild-eyed redhead burst through. Black leathers were splattered with a suspiciously grim red pigment and her face was practically a rorschach test waiting to be read by someone. Her hands, not quite gloved in the sanguineous heavily saturated, gesticulated feverishly though the air. She staggered but a handful of steps before crumbling to the floor.

Patrons started and turned at the sudden disruption, peering at the ? thing ? that seemed ready to invade. "Gingers," Jack Scot muttered upon seeing her. Icer blinked at the stumbling woman after wiggling her tail to her niece.

The nightmare known as Skid reached after the just-departed Lesinda, and then didn't get at her. He turned about, sensing that something something something what the hell, Jaycy was covered in blood. He ponderously approached her. "Jaycy?"

Sadly, but perhaps not too surprisingly, Jaycy did not respond to Skid?s opening query.

"Ut oh,? Lirenel eloquently stated.

"Well." Benji was just as eloquent, greens wide open.

Jack took a step back, watching the scene with an avian tilt to his head. Kind of recognized the woman. Swiss cheese memories couldn't tell him anything else.

Skid went to the floor again! He felt her neck, and then rolled her over in one arm, propped up a little. "Svabol persvek wer'oinota tepohaic shinalt'ekess wux..?" Muttered to himself, more than anyone else.

Gently, Lirenel maneuvered back and out of the way as well. "Is that her blood, Skid?" His nostrils flared just a bit. Icer?s, too, flared at the coppery scent now infecting the air around them.

While unresponsive to Skid?s probing, Jaycy was still alive, at least, and bearing no visible marks, but limp in his grasp.

"Should I call for an ambulance?" came from Benji. Of course he'd offer that.

"Thric." The nightmare shook his head in answer to Lirenel?s question. "Someone else. Maybe shock?" He then waved Benji off. "It's okay. I've got this. I'm getting really good at carrying short chesty women out of here after they faint. But, for the sake of science... Anyone wanna get me a glass of water?"

?Does she need healing?? Icer asked in a rumble. One eye rolled to Lalen, then back. Lalen didn?t seem to notice right now. Though, she really did. Okay, she glanced over.

"Why bring science into this?" Jack made a face. A different one.

"Because it's the best word for 'go get me water so I can throw it on her' without sounding like a dick?" Skid?s Summer smile was for the Crow.

"...I'll get it," Benji offered, not so much stepping away from Lirenel and Jack as he was sort of dragging them. For a few steps anyhow, before he moved to grab a bottle of water, and brought it back to offer to Skid.

The Crow cawed right out loud. And then was dragged all over. What the... "Benjamin..."

?Ye could use my dish, Skid,? Icer offered. It always was full.

"...Last time I threw and there was water, I electrocuted Jack." Benji glumly intoned, but then he perked up. "But I did heal him."

Oh, look, Jaycy gave tiny little squirming groan. But she did not yet come to in Skid?s hold.

Skid took the bottle from Benjamin once he'd gotten it, and then upturned it over her head and squeezed it hard, and foosh! water all over her head and face and chest. And Skid got some on him. Ugh.

Jaycy not coming to worked well for Benji, because that redhead might come up fighting. And followed Lirenel as he retreated to the bar. He paused to get himself a beer.

Jack, however, waited to see if the water worked. Because...science apparently. "Is she melting?"

"Not yet?" Skid observed.

Rex quirked a crimson brow, but he didn?t snicker. Yeah, that probably would get him into trouble down the road.

The water brought more than a groan. In fact, it brought a harrowing shriek, and a thump as Jaycy flailed and rolled just out of his grasp. She scrambled up in a wild crouch, fingers digging into the ancient floorboards, sense lacking in her eyes. She did register, however, that something - someone - was there. She screeched again. ?DON'T TOUCH ME!!? With a howl, she leapt up and dashed out.

?Well." Jack stared at the reaction.

Rex winced and growled dangit. Ears.

Skid blinked. "I hate science."

"...That... was a result..." Benji piped up.

"Fucking science," Jack added.

"I rather like science." Lirenel grinned at Benji.

?Science sucks.? Rex added his own two cents in from up in the rafters. Yeah, he wasn?t too fond of science at all.

Skid walked over to the Crow, laid a hand on his chest and in those ribbons, took a deep breath, and then headed out.

(( Adapted from live play in the RDI, thank you! ))

Psly strode into the manor's bedroom ? and almost into the leaving Skid. The Nightmare had brought the redhead home after removing ruined leathers and cleaning her of any residual innards. Amber-slitted eyes took in his too-still wife, garbed in a t-shirt that looked suspiciously like one of the few he still owned and then the monster. Silently, he jerked his head toward the door and stalked to the hallway, opening a hatch to allow a short ladder to drop. He quickly climbed. Skid, having nothing better to do, followed him.

The upper doorway opened, leading out into the cool night air atop the roof. Denim-clad and inwardly seething, Psly moved to the center and stretched, inhumanly so, forming the humanoid-draconic "normal" form he'd been reborn with. It took less concentration than the others.

The Nightmare, clothes cleaner than clean (as much as Jaycy herself was, now) meandered out lazily a moment or two later. "Nice place."

"Thank you." In the privacy of their home, Psly gave up all pretense of sounding like a complete hick. Turning, he settled himself for the worst, and asked the question that had plagued him for the past hour. "What happened?"

"You know she's been having nightmares?" Skid looked around, maybe sat on something like a patch of shingles that didn't seem close to collapse with all those claw marks rent on them. He was just being generally curious.

"I know. Nothing I've done seems to help, and I didn't feel right barging in to see what had her so rattled." He meant mind-to-mind, of course.

"Well, I helped." Skid looked back at the door with his singular eye. "For now. She's getting worse. She needs this over with sooner rather than later." He turned back to Pslyder. "She's started hallucinating."

"She did." He took a seat of sorts himself, propping his body on the thick length of tail. He then folded his scaled arms. The shocking bit of pink on the left forearm lined up nearly perfectly to the matching scar over his sternum. "Is that why her leathers are gone?"

"They were covered in blood." Skid explained plainly. "It wouldn't do to have them cleaned; it was Arlen's."

" . . . " Psly remained silent for an uncomfortable stretch of time, before speaking. "Frag." It almost, but not quite, summed the situation up perfectly.

Quite." It was very good, for the lack of time he had to formulate it. "He touched her when she wasn't looking."

"How bad?" Psly knew. He already knew, from past experiences. But the question couldn't hang silent.

"No chance." The monster deadpanned.

Joints creaked as he flexed fingers, curling talons into fists. He knew too little about the 'side business', but he knew side business in general. Arlen had been the heart, the mind, while others were ... various working limbs. Nothing about this boded well, at all. "She'll blame herself."

"Obviously." One too-long leg kicked up over the other. "You need to hang back from her unless she comes to you." Maybe blindsided, maybe not. "She didn't want me to bring her here. To you. She's afraid of something." He waved his hand at Psly to indicate that he was, indeed, a part of the something.

"Hard to do that. Don't keep much shielded." But he knew that. Previous experience, yadda yadda. Long time ago, in a reality far, far away. "I'd better get her something to eat, for when she wakes up. Get the feeling she might not want to do things herself that way for a while."

"No, I don't imagine she will." Skid stood up, then looked hesitant. "I.. Have something that might help."

" . . . " He wasn't sure how to feel about that. They were already in the 'owe' column with the Nightmare, but even here, that was something not to be spoken aloud. A just-so nod sufficed.

"Follow me, then." Into Psly?s own house, led by the Nightmare to the kitchen. "I need a container. Something with a lid. Something you'd keep liquid in."

Psly followed, accepting for the moment Skid?s lead through his own domain. "Plastic, glass, stone, or metal?" He had all of the above, somewhere around the kitchen.

"Glass would be best, with the tightest seal you have."

Reaching into the refrigerator, Psly pulled out the remnants of an old bottle of wine they'd not gotten around to finishing. About half a glass of murky red alcohol gurgled into the drain, before he rinsed, sniffed, and rinsed the bottle again. Holding that out with the cork. "This work?"

"It may as well." He took it, and the tip of his tail opened just barely enough to clamp tight over the mouth of the bottle. He hopped backwards up onto the island, and let his tail drape back over his front to hang down and not let the bottle hit the floor. Something liquidy dribbled into the bottle, and just kept going. Like milking a snake's fangs. He fiddled with the cork while he waited.

It was a rather flat look he gave to the Nightmare during the process. But it didn?t take a genius to figure out what it's for; all he would have had to do was look at his wife upstairs. "How much did you shoot her with to put her out for tonight?"

"I'd say less than ten milligrams actually made it into her." The bottle was about a tenth of the way full when he stopped, and corked it. "Just put a little in something she drinks or eats. Nothing hotter than a hundred twenty degrees. It can vaporize and then you'll both hit the floor. A full ten milligrams should put her out a full eight hours. More than twenty could put her in a coma. More than thirty will kill her, easily. Keep it somewhere safe and," he had been about to hand it off when he paused, "give me your word that once this is done with, you'll throw the bottle, open, with whatever's left of it, into the sea."

"Will that destroy it?" Psly hadn't held out a hand to take it yet.

"It'll dilute it enough for that not to matter. And it'll keep it from aerosolizing. You might wanna fly it out over the open water first, though."

"I'd rather air-bomb it into a volcano, if it's all the same." But Psly finally still took the bottle. "Getting a bit tired of people walking around with drek that's lethal to me. Should be used to it by now. I'll make it happen."

"I'm lethal to lots of people." Skid shrugged. "I'm just not a dick about it." He slid off the island, and started to meander out. "Take good care of her, Pslyder. Even if she doesn't want you around, she needs you around." He knew that, of course, but it never hurt to repeat it. "Oh, one more thing." He stuck his head out from around a corner. "If you're gonna drink my stuff, at least telll me afterwards so I can replace it before I have a ****ty day." He began to meander again.

"Hold up." He set the bottle on the counter, and fished for something.

The monster paused.

He held out, of all things, a phone. "Digits. Unless you've got a better way for me to tell you." Implacable expression. "Not saying it'll happen again, but you know how it is."

"Ah." He dug around in his small pouch, and pulled out a commlink. A rather saucy looking Redneck's AI imprint blinked to life, and numbers zipped and flashed across her eyes as the systems communicated. Pslyder would have the numerical code necessary to call the comm, and Skid's comm could reach Psly's phone. "I do." Did they just have a bonding moment over these two women that wanted to disembowel one another?

Could be. "Good deal. I'll make sure she gets her sleep. Will she remember, when she wakes up?"

"She'll remember being with me, and things'll get fuzzy from there. She'll remember Arlen, though, for sure. Might be a little blas? about the situation until the grogginess wears off, though. Might be the best time to talk her through anything you need to."

"Good to know. And Skid?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." It wasn?t a word he said often. Or without great import.

"You're welcome." Both the rarity and gravity in the phrase is mutual. He turned, then, and made his way off the property. He had some cleanup to do, and an incredibly long night ahead of him, little did he know.


((Adapted from play, much thanks to Jaycy and Skid!))