Playing in the Snow

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

"Your-- Nooo." Benedali stamped her foot slightly. "Maka, there is no way in Tatooine that your lightsaber -- which I don't even know the location of -- is going to be enough for an amputation!" The rising pitch of her tone elicited a whinny from the horse, which she ignored.

Shaking her head, the Duchess began to count on her fingers. "You're going to need painkillers, towels, a sweetened washcloth, bandages... I don't even know!" She looked at him, wide eyed with worry. "How can you be nonchalant with this?! You're going to lose an arm![/]"

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka sighed, and at least partially conceded the point. But he didn't immediately say anything, choosing instead to softly squeeze Bennie's hand. He shrugged off his jacket, gasping slightly at the pain of moving his right shoulder. He looked straight into the duchess' eyes, and let his voice show a little bit of the actual anxiety he was feeling.

"Look, I'm going to do this my way. You can dope me up on painkillers later, but I need a steady hand and a good bit of the Force to survive this. I'm not being nonchalant, I'm just thinking more rationally than you are, Bennie. I'd lose an arm over a lung any day. At least I won't bleed out if I use my lightsaber."

He almost wanted to cry, but instead he pulled the red-headed noblewoman into a hug, trying to forestall any response for a few seconds. With another heavy sigh, he searched through the nearby cabinets with his mind, looking for his lightsaber. When the familiar coldness of the metal cylinder reached his hand, he dropped it on the ground at his feet, and closed his eyes.

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

Benedali didn't respond right away, instead watching Maka in silence. In the back of her mind, she knew he was right; he was the one losing the arm, and yet somehow he was more okay with that than her.

Released from the hug, she stayed on the couch and merely watched as her Archer retrieved his lightsaber, chewing almost aggressively on her lower lip. When Maka dropped the cylinder, though, the Duchess sprang up and moved towards him. She stopped, hesitating, and asked, "Is there anything I can do, though? Anything?" She didn't say it, but Benedali was starting to feel a bit useless -- after all, she was in better shape than him, yet he was doing the work.

Some days she wished she hadn't been born to nobility. Then she might've known more stuff about...cauterizing and amputations and surviving in the cold. Oh, and how to treat Vong venom before it led to the first two things.

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka grinned weakly at Bennie, his heart pounding slightly as he took off the jacket and shirt that were covering his arms, and cringed a little at the full scope of the corruption. His arm, to the inside of the elbow, was black. His lower arm was pale, leached of all blood except for the blackened veins that shot through it.

"You know there is one thing..."

He walked over, with his shirt in hand, and wrapped an arm around the red-headed duchess' waist. He put his face as close to hers as if he were about to kiss her, and then wrapped her hand around the collar of his shirt. With a considerably wider grin at the little bit of teasing, he stepped back, and sat down on the cot he'd just vacated.

"... Just make sure I don't get any blood on that."

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

Benedali blushed when Maka took off his shirt. Despite the amount of flirting she did with most males, she'd actually kept her nose clean in that respect. There were only two guys she'd actually seen shirtless: Arick, and that was when they were little kids, swimming in one of the lakes with their parents; and Orron, when he revealed the extent of his cybernetics.

She blushed even deeper when Maka came and pulled her close. The Duchess found herself holding her breath, eyes wide. What is he-- Oh. She let out a small sigh of relief, however, when he merely put his clothes in her hand. That was soon replaced with a scowl, though, as she huffed, "Really, Maka?! If it weren't for the fact that you're a cripple I'd hit you with-- with these!" Benedali shook her fist with the shirt at him in mock anger before laying the garments across her horse's saddle.

Turning back, she crossed her arms and asked, "Now, is there anything I can seriously help with?"

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Despite the gravity of the situation, and the fact that Bennie was now even more likely to freak out, Maka laughed heartily at her reaction to his little bit of playing. Even more so, because any other guy probably would have taken the opportunity to kiss her before doing such permanent damage to himself.

"I wish you could have seen your face, there... But, no... There's nothing you can do but stand there and look pretty, and then growl at me when I say 'I told you so.'"

With that last statement, he drew the lightsaber to his hand again, activating it. The light blue blade felt almost cold on the skin of his shoulder, but his knowledge of the weapon's workings belied his nerves' temperature sensing. The plasma began to sink into his shoulder, just under the collarbone. He laughed weakly at the ticklish sensation of the wound being cauterized by the searing-hot plasma.

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

Benedali turned away, eyes shut and her hands pressed firmly against her ears. A look of absolute discomfort was on her face, and she let out a high-pitched whine. "Let me know when it's over," she squeaked. The Duchess did not like mutilations of any kind; it had taken her forever to muster up the courage to pierce her ears.

It was moments like this when she wished, of all people, her mother was there. The former Duchess had been stoic in the face of injuries, and wasn't afraid of the nitty gritty work. But despite Benedali's attempts, that just wasn't who she was.

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka just gritted his teeth even harder as he heard Bennie's little noises, and his hand tightened to avoid slipping. He was halfway done, now... It didn't even hurt, really. Now that he had the occasion to feel what this was like, he understood that people died from bleeding out afterwards, rather than the pain.

He watched with fascinated horror as the lightsaber quickly cut through the rest of his arm, cauterizing the stump of his shoulder with an angry-sounding whirr. And then, the arm was gone. He sighed weakly and turned off the lightsaber before getting up. Relaxing all sorts of muscles he'd tensed up, he walked over and just put his remaining arm around Bennie, silently.

"It's definitely over. My arm's on the ground over there for anybody who wants to see it."

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

Benedali kept her eyes squeezed shut, leaning on Maka. At his words, she let out another squeak. "Don't say it like that! It's a human limb, not some rock!" Shuddering slightly, she peeked open one eye and looked on the ground. "Oh, Maka, that is so gross!" She shuddered again.

The horse, meanwhile, had wandered over in curiosity and began to sniff at the dead limb. "Balthazaar, no! Leave the arm alone!" Benedali reprimanded. Never thought I'd day that before... Rubbing her face, the Duchess looked at Maka's shoulder, her face somewhat blanched. "I'll go get something to wrap that up with..." she mumbled, before moving to leave.

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka smiled at Bennie's back, a little bit surprised she hadn't been louder about her disgust. When Balthazaar looked hopefully at the arm again, the temporarily crippled archer picked up the arm and threw it into the fire, waiting for the hand to char down to the bone before fishing out the remains of his hand. The bones were totally intact, and he waited until the duchess was facing the totally other direction, and then crept silently up behind her.

With a bit of an evil grin, Maka ran the skeletal fingers over her shoulder.

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

Benedali walked into the kitchen and began to search the cabinets for gauze and medical wrap. While she had some in her saddle, the redhead would have preferred to not deplete her own supplies, just in case.

As she searched, a thought crossed her mind. "Maka, why do you even have medicine in the kitchen? Shouldn't it be kept in the bathroom cabinets, or in the linen closet?" When there was no reply, the Duchess frowned. "Maka? What--"

All of the sudden hot, bony fingers trailed across her shoulder. Benedali froze for a moment, eyes wide, before letting out an earsplitting scream and swinging her hand out behind her in an instinctive attempt to knock away whatever ghoul had touched her.

When she turned around and saw it was just Maka, she let out another shriek. "Maka! That's evil!" As soo as the words left her mouth, though, she couldn't help it. Benedali burst into tears, which were quickly followed by attempts to stop them. Maka's prank had frightened her, true, but the tears were more like an accumulation of everything -- Maka disappearing, Arick leaving, her having to travel out into the wild, Maka's amputation, and then this.

"S-sorry..." she sniffled. "We need to find you those bandages."

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka's eyes widened at Bennie's shriek, and then her tears. He, almost unconsciously, put his lone arm around her and kissed her on the nose like he had, not even a week ago. His glasses slipped down, and with a wink he pushed them back up with the bony pointer finger of what had been his right hand.

"I'm totally fine. You were more worried about me than I was, I see. A lot more worried."

He grinned at his former hand, and wiggled the bones, which rattled cheerfully.

"I'm keeping this. Maybe I'll use it as a paperweight."

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

She let out another sniffle, though by now the tears had began to disappear as quickly as they'd came. Blushing a bit when Maka kissed her nose, she whispered, "Well, of course I'm worried about you, Maka. Why else would I have left the warm coziness of my house to find you? You're not just my archer...you're my friend."

Benedali wiped the palm of her hand across her cheek. "And you are not keeping that...that disgusting thing, not even as a paperweight." Her voice was a bit louder now. Finally deciding that she was warm enough, the Duchess took off her coat to reveal a white, semi-formfitting long-sleeved shirt underneath. Letting out a soft sigh, she walked over to the horse and slung her coat over the saddle. "I guess we'll have to use some from the med kit I have."

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka rolled his eyes, and subtly put the skeletal form of his former hand into a drawer behind him. With a little sigh of his own, he decided he'd have to explain again. And he also decided to argue about the finer points of his lovely duchess' "worry" for him later.

"We're not wrapping my shoulder, Bennie. That was the whole point of using the lightsaber. The blood clotted almost instantly. All it'll do is irritate whatever skin starts growing back today."

And with that, he went to his fridge, pulled out some kind of odd sugary drink, and popped the cap off with his hand as he took it out.

"Just relax. If I say I'm fine, I'm fine."

[member="Benedali Serrus"]

 

[Benedali Serrus]

[member="Maka Sumoto"]

She let out another sigh, biting her cheek to prevent any spoken response. Clearly, Maka was not fine, but Benedali didn't want to keep arguing.

She walked over and stole the drink from him, taking a sip. The Duchess grimaced at the overabundance of sugar and handed it back, muttering, "Fine." She cranked her neck to look down the hall. "At the very least, will you lay down and rest? You do have a bedroom, right?"

 

[Maka Sumoto]

Maka didn't even bother grabbing his drink back from Bennie. He just grabbed the neck of the bottle with his teeth and drank down the rest. Oddly enough, the ten-ish minute that'd passed since he'd cut off the infected arm had made him realize how much of an effect the venom had had on his energy levels. He felt like jumping, really.

"Psh, rest. Go ahead and lay down if you want... I have more adrenaline in my system than if I'd been fighting with my lightsaber. Bedroom's upstairs."

He didn't mention that he was probably gonna start working on how to attach the prosthetic in his closet onto himself. Bennie didn't really need anything else to scream at him for.

[member="Benedali Serrus"]