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Characters: Luke Skywalker & Amberdrake
Date: April 12th
Location: Outside the Welcome Center
Situation: Prosthetics issues
Warnings/Rating: None, I don't think

He'd already been given - or offered - more help with the cybernetic than he could frankly have hoped for, which was something of a relief. Both because it was new and he was still getting used to it, and because of the situation here, which he wasn't sure what to think of, yet.

Shaking his head, Luke leaned against the wall outside the building while he waited for Amberdrake to appear, feeling vaguely hopeful about what he'd said he could do. So far, the instances of pain and the feeling of the hand that wasn't there (that the Force insisted wasn't there, had never been there) had been few, but Luke was distinctly aware that it'd been only two weeks...

He pushed that thought away and looked up at the noise of footsteps.

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Nodding, Luke did so - would've done so even if Amberdrake hadn't suggested it, because it was something he was so very used to doing in regards to working with the Force.

Even if this was probably not the Force, or maybe just vaguely related to it, somehow.

"Oh..."

Luke's breath caught a little when the images started to flicker past, and he smiled unconsciously, simply following along. The last was indeed what Luke could called the Force - at least as he interpreted and felt it.

"This is amazing."

Drake sifted through the information expertly, letting Luke watch as he nudged a single singed nerve-ending into re-growth; shooed the tiniest bit of inflammation away from an important vein... tiny little things, done with absolute surgical precision. May as well, while he was looking, right?

"Thank you," he chuckled, once he deemed it well enough to withdraw. He withdrew the projections, too, before his eyes sharpened again into normal vision. "I've been at it a while... I am a fully-trained chirurgeon as well as Healer -- that is, I've been trained with and without the Healing Gift."

Being trained in purely mundane means first gave him what was, among most Healers on his world, a unique level of understanding the anatomy he worked on. The Gift was so detailed; required so much finesse; no knowledge was wasted. His Healing ability was certainly not casting a spell and walking away!

"Your arm looks to be in fine health," he added, "I can see it possibly cramping here in the near future as the musculature adjusts," Amberdrake traced one specific spot with a fingertip to illustrate. "The best way to get it to calm down, if it does, is pressure right here," and he demonstrated with that same fingertip, "at this angle; up toward the elbow. Not enough to hurt, you see? It should calm that twinge after you hold this for a few seconds."

Luke followed what Amberdrake was doing as closely and attentively as he could; while he wasn't sure he'd be able to recreate this, on the off-chance that he could, even if it took a while...

And even if not, it was utterly fascinating to watch (and feel) the process as well as the layers of his body being gently prodded.

"That must help, being both. Which did you learn first?" Luke commented, shivering a little in reaction when they were both properly here and now instead of... elsewhere.

"I think I get it," nodding, Luke repeated what he'd been shown, adjusting the strength until it matched the pressure Amberdrake had been using.

"Like that?"

"I was trained as a chirurgeon, first," was Drake's reply to his question. "That's the type without magic, without the Gift. Purely scalpels and logic and training."

He watched Luke demonstrate what he'd just done, and nodded.

"Yes, just like that," Amberdrake smiled, and folded his hands together on his lap now that they weren't full of Luke's arm -- both real and fake. "If it persists or something else comes up, you can of course contact me. As long as we're both still here, at least, I'll be able to help."

Edited 2016-06-01 08:54 (UTC)

"That's the only form of it that exists where I come from... though, we've got some things that make sure you can heal nearly from anything." Luke turned his cybernetic around, twisting his hand around the wrist.

"Of course, not everything. Organs are easier to heal or regrow on a small scale than whole limbs, for example."

Nodding thoughtfully, Luke repeated it, though without any pressure at all, just to make sure he had got it.

"Hopefully it won't, but I'll definitely come to you if I need it."

"Ah, I can't regrow limbs," much as he wished it was possible for the Healing Gift. After a decade of war, he knew plenty of people who could use such a talent.

"I can reattach freshly-removed limbs... I've done that before," Amberdrake added, "although I was down for weeks after, and it was a hand. I'm not sure I could do it for something larger, not without some kind of external energy source channeling into me."

And even then, if it was a leg or a wing? He'd probably be down for a month. And he'd be lucky if he avoided going into shock!

Edited 2016-06-01 14:45 (UTC)

"Not something that we've been able to figure out either, even with people trying, and trying a lot. Hence this," Luke said, smiling a little wryly as he wriggled his right hand.

"If only I'd come here with my hand and immediately after it happened, then," there was light teasing amusement in Luke's voice before he sobered, shaking his head, "but that sounds like it's something of a feat and takes way too much energy from you, so just for the best I didn't."

It wasn't like he was particularly upset at having a prosthetic anyway - having lost the hand, and being upset at who did it? Yes, of course. But he didn't mind the cybernetic itself.

"I could do it, in theory, but the sheer amount of power it would take..." Amberdrake shook his head, and then chuckled at Luke's concern. "If you'd come here with your hand in tow, I would have re-attached it for you. Sanzo would take care of me after, I'm sure; grumbling all the while. I gave him instructions early on in what to do if such a thing occurred."

Again, anyway. There was a particularly perfect, thin little scar that looped Sanzo's right wrist. Though the priest didn't remember the incident, that in itself was a testament to how thorough Amberdrake had been about the reattachment. Nothing seemed amiss; like every nerve ending and vein and bit of bone and tendon and muscle fiber hadn't needed to be painstakingly pieced back together again.

Drake was a very good Healer! Among many other things.

"Well, just as well that you didn't need to, but... thank you," Luke said with a smile, then shook his head, "and if I'd come here with my hand, I'd have been more worried how it could've come with me."

Chuckling, he shook his head. He'd also, obviously, have been pretty traumatized (the memories of everything past falling out the bottom end of Cloud City were a bit jumbled and hazy, even now), but, well..

"My hand, with my weapon, fell into a shaft where I was fighting and would've been dumped further over an abyss." Taking a breath and letting out a sigh, feeling tension in his chest from thinking about it again, Luke snorted.

It was basically correct, though easier, he was sure, to not be talking about gas giants and their endless atmosphere and thickening layers of gas.

"Ah," Amberdrake tilted his head a little to one side, watching the young man intently for a moment. Then he smiled, again, at the snort. "If you ever wish to talk about it to someone, I'll offer my ear. That's what I actually do for a living; I am a... therapist, of sorts."

Yes, of sorts. Gods, but he needed a better way to describe what he was!

"...Though that word grossly over-simplifies what I do. Kestra'chern just doesn't translate very well, no matter how I try it."

Freezing for a moment, Luke stared at nothing and then scrubbed his face, dropping his hands to give Amberdrake a tiny, quirked smile.

"I... maybe. I haven't exactly... been able to tell anyone." He looked away, shrugging. More like, hadn't thought it was the right time or that he should. Leia was the only one he might be willing to tell, but therein lay the problem.

Actually being able to talk about some of it, at least, with someone who had no vested interest in it either way... might be nice. Wasn't like there hadn't been questions if he needed to talk, but what he needed to talk about... wasn't something he was going to tell to anyone in the Alliance. Yet, anyway.

"Sort of like a healer for mind and body both?" Luke ventured after a moment, when he didn't feel quite as tense any longer.

"Something like that," Amberdrake had waited during that tension, radiating a low-level calm as he often did in such situations. "Most kestra'chern are not Healers, though we all know the basics, and things like massage therapy and injury recovery therapy. That I also happen to be a fully-trained Healer... I make use of it as a kestra'chern. It's a bonus to my skill-set. I can't be a full-time Healer, though I was an emergency Healer during the War... and thus I did more Healing than anyone preferred."

It was always better to not have to use your emergency Healers! And the capital W in War was pretty much audible in his voice... most of Urtho's army referred to it as such, and had for decades. It was its own entity; an eternal, dark monster with its own whims and hungers.

Luke was definitely grateful (and a bit startled) for the sense of peace coming from Amberdrake - it made it far easier to recenter himself and draw in a breath and let go, for now, of the worst of the tension.

"War always need people who can patch up injuries, and they end up having to do it more than anyone likes," Luke said with a nod, grimacing a little. They'd lost so many, just between the time Luke had joined the Alliance and right before he ended up here.

Hoth had been a big one, but it was hardly the only large battle with many rebel losses. Vrogas Vas stood out...

"What was it about? The war you mentioned?"

Amberdrake looked down for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"Power, of course," he chuckled, a touch wry. "The rallying point Ma'ar built his army around was superior breed theory... that people like me, with my brown skin, were decadent foreigners who needed to be taught a lesson. 'Taught a lesson' devolved quickly into 'wiped out', of course. That was the start of the war, anyway.

"It lasted over a decade... Ma'ar's real goal was world domination, but his grudge against my kind for not simply laying down and dying for the cause was palpable. He had similar hatred for gryphons, and tervardi, hertasi, dyheli, kyree... anything that didn't look like him or was created by him, honestly. And even that latter... he didn't treat the makaar very kindly, either. They were just his attempt at countering Urtho's gryphons.

"It was a war ultimately between two Adept Mages of such power that they could create entire races from scratch. Urtho stood against him, and we rallied behind him. But the world will never be the same, not in so very many ways."

"I guess that is a usual starting point," Luke agreed dryly, but fell quiet, frowning, as Amberdrake continued. Most of that sounded familiar, if in slightly different form and shape, as the galaxy stood now. Luke shook his head, grimacing.

"Entire races? That's..." a sigh, and nodded, "the Emperor, who controls a large part of the whole galaxy where I'm from, doesn't have much over for anyone who's not human either, so he's created policies that oppress them... Or they end up as slaves a lot."

Shaking his head, Luke turned around in his seat to be able to reach out and squeeze Amberdrake's shoulder.

"Hopefully it'll heal as much as possible, at least? And you have helped both yourself and all those other races."

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