So, this was a change of pace.

The soft clicking of hooves in the backstage of the arena was slightly muffled as Vivilene moved carefully underneath the strung lights. She'd been trying to get herself ready, carefully planning out a practiced routine. Clean wounds. Weave them shut. Don't panic. Don't panic.

Poppy seeds for the pain. Woven blankets for warmth (though, as she eyed up Draconua destroying the battlefield, she realised they might not fit most of the fighters) and a flask of room-temperature drinking water. She laid all these ingredients out carefully; they were to be used by everyone who knew how, of course, and not just her.

And that was that. The only thing left for Vivilene to do was wait, psych herself up, and do what she was meant to. Although it was utterly terrifying there was a sense of excitement to it all, too-- her nose burned with the smell of fire and her ears were ringing underneath the furious echo of Nemean's music. It was all... so very different from quietly tending to her garden.

Though, Vivilene was unsure if that was a good thing.

The centaur continued to quietly pace back and forth the backstage as the Deathmatches continued outside, hands clasping together nervously.

an aw thread for medics backstage while people fight!! fighters can also come in and have their wounds mended :')

Maximus was still bloody after their fight, but they still had a duty to those who were worse off than they. They had a few things. Creepvine of different sizes to use to suture wounds or to bandage, their spear in hand with the bauble on the end to provide a light to hold should they need to pick quills or glass out of wounds.

They stepped into the room and peered around, holding the tied bundle of grass under one arm and their spear in the other, using it to lean on as they walked. Blood caked their fur, running down their scarred chest from where claws had rended their neck, their arm not much better where the keratin had cracked.

"This is where the medics are gathered, right?", they asked softly, "I'm Maximus, I'm here to help."

@Vivilene

karyo

Karyo was also here to be a medic! And also to watch some fights on the side. For Official Laboratory Observation Purposes, you ask, or for entertainment? What a good question.

(...)

Anyway! They had a feeling their magic was suited to this kind of thing. Sometimes, anyway. They still hadn't managed to figure out how exactly to deal with their friend Researcher's mysterious afflictions, which featured constantly in their front-of-the-mind worries. But that was why Karyo was here! To take a good look at a wide variety of patients whose main problem wasn't bad prokaryotes, so they could get an idea of what could be going on and how to treat each different thing.

Perhaps they could practice some new and experimental magic on the patients here. Discover some hidden depths, and investigate the effects of their untested methods on people who were, ah... less emotionally important to them than Researcher was.

Not that Karyo'd ever hurt someone with magic on purpose, of course.

The saluki's ears twitched at the sound of a newcomer, and they trotted out to greet them. "Yup!" they confirmed, tilting their head back to get a good look at this one. Doing double duty as a fighter AND medic, huh? "You sure you don't want to help yourself first? You're not looking so good," they commented absently, casting out their magic to look at Max's wounds. Wouldn't be so good if they had any potential infections growing...

Uh-oh! Their vision flashed bright white and stayed that way, the images of the real world refusing to return. Karyo stumbled back, shaking their head back and forth until pinpricks of color began to burst through the white. "'Scuse me, uh... magic," they muttered, not having the concentration to offer more details while they were trying to get their vision back.

"Anyway!" Off to a good start, weren't they. "Nice to meet you, buddy! I'm Karyo, but you can call me Yo for short!"

bury me beneath the flowering silk trees,
that i might dream as sweetly as their scent

@Maximus

The hybrid offered a tiny bleat of agreement as the Saluki came padding along, hooves clicking as she turned around to get a look at Maximus. She was unsure if someone who was wounded should be working helping the wounded (it seemed... unsanitary, somehow) but she wasn't in the position to speak up about it. Or speak sentences longer than three syllables long.

"Um... Vivilene," she murmured as she pulled one flask aside and offered it, open, to Karyo to drink from. Magic was fickle. It gave her headaches. Water always helped. With this passed along to the saluki, she was taking a cloth and folding it between her thin hands. She brought them together and pulled water from the very atmosphere; imbedding it into the fabric.

The cloth was balled into her hands, excess squeezed out and dripping onto the floor, and then with one hand, it was offered out to Maximus. With the other, free hand, she mimed washing her chest where blood matted the creature's fur, shaking the damp towel a little to implicate that they should use it.

It'd give her a better view of what wounds they'd sustained, and how severe they were.

Once it was passed along, she took a sidelong glance at Karyo again. "Are you... in pain? Is it-- bad?"

@Maximus

Maximus blinked slowly and looked down at themselves, at their fur matted in a toxic green that reminded them so much of Vargas it made them sick. They shivered and accepted the damp cloth, clearly in a state of shock themselves.

"Thank you... I want to help," they insisted softly, carefully cleaning their wounds, ears pinning at every flash of pain, "I uh, joined the fighting for rewards from the Chaos Forge, or I'd just be back here helping."

They waved a hand over the wound and cleansed it, ensuring that no bacteria would flourish and infect the exposed flesh. They wiped blood off and pressed down to stem the bleeding as they disturbed fresh scabs, sighing softly.

"I'm new to... this," they admitted, gesturing to the three of them, "But maybe this can be good practice."

At least they'd kept some of their optimism.

@Karyo @Vivilene

Karyo blinked several times as the world finally returned in all its technicolor glory. The first thing they noticed: Vivilene was purple. And had a human-looking face. That looked awfully like someone they'd met before--

"Thalia?" the hound blurted, before shaking their head. Silly them, Thalia had two legs! "Never mind!" they added cheerily, lapping up some water from the flask. "Thanks, though." It was a nice gesture, and they bumped their nose gently against Vivilene's hand to show appreciation.

Anyway, if their magic wasn't going to cooperate and let them see what was crawling around on Maximus, they'd simply proceed with the standard spell anyway. It could practically be assumed that there were prokaryotes swimming in Maximus' wounds; they just liked to see what they were killing before they killed it.

"Let's get you fixed up first, then!" they suggested, and attempted to growl a purr. Focusing their magic, Karyo willed everything living in the skin near Maximus' wounds that wasn't Maximus' own cells to simply... die. It was a shame they hadn't known about the Fauna Cleanse, but there was no helping that.

"Anyway, all the bad stuff that's been living on you should be gone now!" Which was important for this next step, because: "I think I should try something I've playing with ideas of for a while! I'm gonna make you fast! Not, like, at running, but at healing! Kind of like how the prokaryotes—that's the little white things that live everywhere—grow fast. I was thinking I could make little scab particles grow fast, too! Thing is, I've never done it before. You wanna give it a go?"

@Maximus no table bc i'm on phone boooo

Vivilene's padded fingertips tapped against each other. "Thalia's my, um, sister," she said softly-- aunt, technically? Aunt-sister? Vivilene didn't try to dive too deeply into the details of that one and moved right along instead, pale eyes drifting over the claw-marks along Maximus's chest.

"I think you.." she hesitated, side-eyeing Karyo nervously. "G-got.. got rid of them..? Um... I can close it up, too."

It seemed all too busy backstage, all of a sudden. Vivilene wanted to help but she didn't want to feel like she was fighting over people to mend. She was preparing to go about her magic anyway-- if not now, then a precaution for later, regardless. More people would come in with injuries, after all.

She reached back into her satchel and took out a little bundle of seeds into her palm, spreading them out evenly. The hybrid was quiet, focusing, a little burst of magic and--

Vivilene squawked alarmedly as the seeds promptly exploded in a burst of bright light in her hand. She dropped the smoldering shells and shook the limb out; though luckily the padding had absorbed most of the pain. Not a good start.

A clip of hooves and she was backing off with huge eyes staring at the remains of the seedlings in startled silence.

@Maximus

Maximus looked on, quiet as they observed Kayro doing what they'd already done, and then Vivilene's hand exploding... not a very good start, that was for sure.

"... Maybe skip magic for the time being," they suggested quietly, "The wound is clean, it just needs to be closed. That's what these are for."

They held up the bundle of string-like plants and set them down, pulling free a long strand and holding it to the wounds all up their neck and chest. It wouldn't be pretty, but if they kept it clean it would help heal.

And then the thread was going through their hand. Yet again magic was going awry, but while it had left them mostly unharmed so far, now it was causing the twine to curl through Maximus' flesh like snakes. They swiftly cut as many pieces off as they could, bleating in pain as they tried to pull the threads free, already in enough pain as it was.

Once the strands stopped moving they just dropped their other hand and sat down heavily, looking just about ready to cry.

’Pathetic,’ they thought, furiously wiping their eyes, ’Just a little bit of discomfort and I'm bursting into tears.’

"Sorry," they said, ears pinning as they looked away, shoulders hunched, "Maybe it's better we just take care of it without magic for now."

@Karyo (plz tag vivilene when you post uwu we'll make an order of sorts)

Karyo jumped at the sudden flash of light and noise, floppy ears folding back against their skull. "You okay?" they asked, scampering closer to Vivilene once it was over and giving her hand a concerned look. "I think my idea might work on... explosion wounds, too, if you want me to try—?"

Karyo might have been unapologetically looking for less emotionally important test subjects, but they still wouldn't completely ignore consent. Besides, Vivilene was related to Thalia, someone they'd befriended after interacting with exactly once. That made her sort of important in the hound's eyes.

They turned to Maximus with their quiet aversion against magic (honestly, Karyo couldn't blame them, with the excellent start they were off to). But… "You're gonna close them up with plants?" they asked, eyeing the vines doubtfully. Cortex was very into plants of all kinds, including the painkilling and soothing, but they didn't see how these... random vines they didn't recognize might help.

Still, they were here to learn as much as experiment. So they'd watch quietly as... magic crit failed yet again. Okay. They gave Maximus an apologetic sort of grin. "No magic," they agreed. "I don't know much about what to do without spells, so I'll just watch and learn! If you change your mind, though, just gimme a shout."

@Vivilene

Karyo was getting closer and-- don't panic --Vivilene leaned a little away, but she was shaking her head. It only hurt a little-- it wasn't too bad and it certainly didn't need much attention as much as it needed some water to cool it down.

Meanwhile, Maximus's suggestion was going ignored. She picked up what little vines were left and inspected them closely, sniffing the green and twisting it between her fingers. "It stops.. bad things getting in," she told Kayro slowly. "Keeps it... clean. Helps it heal." A little nod, reassuring herself more than she was trying to reassure Kayro.

She held the bits of vine close to Maximus's chest before performing the spell. One by one, a little strand went underneath the hybrid's skin, spread across one wound and into the other side, pulling the gap shut and securing it together neatly. Once the vine was in, it wasn't too painful-- a brief, sharp scratch that burned out into duller healing pains.

Six stitches in all. Just enough to keep the cuts closed, not too many and not too little-- though, "if you.. move too much, um... they'll break," she said-- but presumably, Maximus knew this already. "You have to keep them clean, and... rest a lot. I just have to... preserve them, so that they don't..." rot. It seemed like a nasty word to say out loud to a patient, though.

Fragile fingers wiggled. "Um, just.. give me a second."

@Maximus