Frantically, furiously, the crew members of the small ship scrambled to save their downed first mate. Nothing else mattered. Gideon laid there unconsciously with his face turning pale, blood bubbling from the wound perforating his chest. Instinctively, Ren clasped his hands onto the wound, applying pressure, trying to stop the bleeding. Crowe and Valerie allowed themselves a split second to absorb the situation, then moved into action. They rushed inside, Crowe to the ship's wheel and Valerie to a cupboard in the corner of the bridge. She reached in and pulled out an armful of towels dappled with odorous grease. She scrunched her face, clearly dissatisfied at the quality of the holey towels, but desperate nonetheless. She rose from her crouched position, taking rushed steps back to her crew mate, but in her haste she lurched, stumbled, and just barely caught herself from hitting the hard floor as the ship suddenly and violently shook. Valerie twisted her head to see Crowe gripping the ship's wheel with gloved hands, tensed shoulders, and unparalleled focus.
Crowe turned the heavy wheel forcefully, westwardly, steering the ship downward into the clouds and losing all field of vision. The ship shook and jostled as it descended, creaking painfully under the strain of the blustering air resistance. He reached over and shoved the thrust lever forward to increase speed, hoping to find some miracle of a nearby town past the misty wall of gray. Crowe glanced over his shoulder and started barking orders to his crew members.
"Bring Gideon inside! Jas, get the med kit!"
Valerie dropped her rags in the middle of the bridge and rushed to the door to help Ren move the large and motionless Gideon, but was blocked by Jasper, the ship's lone engineer, standing in the way. He just stood there blankly, unmoving since the beginning of the crisis, frozen in place and staring wide-eyed at his crew mate's limp body, shallow breathing, and sticky blood dripping onto the deck. Valerie pulled Jasper into the bridge like a rag doll, with his body numbly succumbing to the force. He stumbled inside, and almost unconsciously, his feet weakly dragged him toward the medical bag in the bridge. Valerie returned to Ren, each of them grabbing one of Gideon's arms. Crimson blood streaked behind the first mate as his crew members roughly dragged him inside. They laid him on the floor and Valerie dropped to her knees, padding his chest wound with the towels, hoping the applied pressure would save him.
The ship rapidly dipped deeper and deeper into the thick clouds, and suddenly broke apart from the mist, revealing the dark expanses of the earth in a clear instant. Vapor wisps clung to the sails and evaporated into the wind. The western land below rolled with black hills and choppy tufts of forest trees, abruptly shearing off to a cliff edge that continued for miles. It was as if, ages ago, the mountainous ground violently split in two, and the eastern half sunk to sea level, unable to be seen, hidden underneath another layer of clouds. But resting on the top of the cliff edge, far in the distance, a small collection of lights faintly glimmered. Crowe breathed, latching onto that small beacon. He spun the wheel, veering to port, dropping to lower altitudes, sinking further and further to the earth. Desperately descending, unable to shake his thoughts away from his first mate. Gifted with power, but unable to help, unable to preserve, and unable to heal in any capacity--
With an intense bang, a door slammed open, revealing unfamiliar faces in an unfamiliar setting. Crowe took his first steps, no longer in the air, no longer on the ship, but entering a shabby bar hidden within the smoldering lights of the small town stationed on the cliff side. It's rustic and smells of dust, mold, and the stale odor of beer mixed with sour liquor. The local patrons stared at the burly captain as he strode to the bar counter, harboring suspicious, unwelcoming gazes. Crowe slammed his hands on the wooden bar and leaned over to the aged country bartender.
"Where's your nearest doctor?" he demanded. The bartender was a spitting image of a corn-fed farmhand, complete with a thick, white beard. He wore suspenders and flannel that clearly outlined his large, muscular arms, and he looked at Crowe with hard eyes, unimpressed by the young and flashily-clothed man before him. His hands paused from cleaning a glass beer mug as he looked Crowe in the eye, ignoring his attempts at intimidation.
"You're one of them, aren't ya?" Crowe's jaw jerked forward slightly in response. He looked back down at his glass. "Ain't no doctors here," he coolly replied with his heavily drawled accent.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me, no doctors. This here's Euless, ain't nobody believes in no doctors here."
"My crew mate was shot, what do you suggest I do then?" Crowe shifted, impatient.
"We've got a potions wizard down the way. He can help yer friend."
"Bullshit," Crowe's strong interjection raised the bartender's eyebrows into a judgmental glare, along with several stares from the clientele still observing the traveler with weary looks. "My crew mate is bleeding to death on my ship, a little potion isn't going to fix him. Magic can't heal wounds."
"You're pretty high and mighty thinkin' you know more than our wizard."
"It's not an assumption, it's fact."
"And you want a doctor? All they'll do is drain your feller's life and your pockets."
"Better that than an incompetent backwater magician."
"Watch yer mouth," he warned.
"Magic is capable of a great many things, but healing people is not one of them. I'd much rather operate on him myself than trust his life to a magician so misguided as to assume that he is more capable at healing than a doctor. Is there anyone here in this damn village that's a doctor, or at least knows basic first aid?" By this point, the bartender's had enough with the brash and demanding outsider.
"You really wanna kill your friend? Go ahead. I don't give a rats ass what happens to a sky pirate. Sure, we've got a quack here. Got the hands of death- kills everything it touches."
"Where?"
"Sitting over there." Crowe immediately rushed in the direction of the bartender's pointed thumb. "You want her like you want a hole in the head," he muttered to himself, returning back to his glass.
Crowe marched down the path of booths and tables toward the back of the bar, where shadows grew longer and candlelight, dimmer. At the very last booth in the back corner, he noticed the thin arm of a figure drinking alone, facing away from him and the hushed murmurs of the regular patrons. He approached the booth with vexed determination, and like before, he thrust his hands to the table, rocking a lone candle and knocking over an empty bottle of hard liquor, both previously resting in the middle underneath a small hanging light. The bottle bounced a couple of times and rolled slightly, emitting a sharp and curt sound with each impact.
"I need your help," Crowe demanded. He paused and his eyebrows furrowed, slightly taken aback by the face of the so-called deadly doctor. It's a woman, around thirty years of age. He didn't know what to expect from the country bartender's vague and spiteful descriptions, but definitely not her. She had medium-length black hair and almond eyes, but the full effects of her appearance were muddied by the darkness of the bar and her overall disheveled state of inebriation. One lock of her hair even bulged from the top of her head. At the collapse of the bottle, the woman gasped in horror, but her eyes didn't acknowledge Crowe's. His hesitation only lasted for a heartbeat, then he continued.
"My first mate was shot and he's bleeding out. I need a doctor and apparently there's you." The woman continued to stare at the bottle, mesmerized, looking like she's not absorbing any of the information Crowe's giving her. "We don't have much time," he stressed. The woman gave him no response, but tilted to the side slowly like a tree under massive strain, or in this case, a drunkard under the exaggerated strain of regular gravity. Her head thumped on the table, still conscious, now staring at the sideways bottle, which became right-side-up from her new angle. She didn't look very reliable.
"I did it again," she said to herself, somewhat in awe. "I don't know whether to be proud or scared of myself." Crowe exasperatedly slid into the booth opposite of her. He grabbed the bottle and slammed it on the table back to its initial position.
"Did you listen to anything I just said?"
"And what am I supposed to do about it?" Her words muffled from her squished cheek on the table.
"Your fucking job."
"My job?" She sluggishly pushed herself back upright and slumped down in the bench. "Work day's over, buddy. I'm not doing anything but sitting here and enjoying the fine spirits this rust bucket establishment has to offer." The woman took a final swig from her glass and set it down. "Nice place, right? The people here love me."
Crowe glowered at her ridiculous words. "Obviously," he nearly growled. "Then what would you have me do? Give him mouth to mouth? Leave him to die?"
"Might as well give him a potion while you're at it."
"Who do you think you are to say that to me?" The woman smiled playfully.
"You know, you're actually kinda pretty when you're angry," she teased him. "Even uh.. this--" She pawed at the air above her hair, motioning to Crowe's exaggerated undercut, attempting to suppress a laugh. Crowe just continued to stare. "Does it ever, you know, go up? Like that annoying bird? Like--" With a smile, both of her hands hovered over her head and poofed out, mimicking the feathered crown of a vexed bird. Crowe slicked back his undercut, clearly offended. "You know?? Like- Let me show you--" She stood abruptly, shaking the table as she reached over to fluff up his hair. He instantly grabbed her wrist and jerked her close, pulling her right to his face.
"Stop." The smile on her face froze at his command. "Can you help him or can't you?"
"What do you want from me, huh?" Her smile wavered and her eyes hazily narrowed to glare at Crowe. She jerked her hand out of his grip, landing back on the bench with a thump. "Aren't you and everyone else just tired of this joke? I've really had enough of all of this." Her eyes diverted back to her empty glass. It seemed that Crowe struck a nerve. "If your buddy really needs help, just go to the potionary, just like everyone else- you should know where it is." She chuckled with her hard smile and ordered with a lighthearted, yet defeated tone, "Just leave me alone, yeah?"
"Are you kidding me?" Her eyes looked up to Crowe to see his angered and serious face. "You of all people should know that magic can't fix him. I didn't ask for a damn wizard. I didn't ask for useless potions. I asked for a doctor. What kind of doctor are you?"
She spread her arms wide as her words dripped with exasperated sarcasm, "Haven't you asked around? I happen to be the best doctor in the fucking world." Irritated, she grabbed her glass roughly and frowned at its empty state, as if she'd forgotten that she just drank the last of it. "I'm sorry for your loss." She slammed it back down in disappointment. "You're fresh outta luck."
Something in Crowe snapped. He's had enough. He's done playing nice. "I don't have time for this," he muttered. He quickly rose from his side of the booth and grabbed the woman, forcibly sliding her out from her seat.
"What are you doing?!" Her alarmed outburst accompanied her wide eyes as Crowe easily overpowered her drunken resistance.
"I'm desperate. You're helping." Pulling her arm closer to him, he bent down and roughly slung the woman over his shoulder.
"Let me go!" Her hands weakly hit against his crimson coat in protest as he strode to the bar's entrance. The patrons paused their drinking to stare at the ridiculous scene and just watch in contempt as Crowe toted the woman away, with no one coming to her rescue.
The cool night air gently swept across the woman's face as Crowe hauled her out of the bar and into the streets, toward the direction of the ship. Her resistance to his strong grip ebbed, and after less then a minute she resigned herself to her fate, hanging limply. Her body relaxed while she dazedly watched the back of his boots rhythmically enter and fade from her point of view.
(continued in A Drunken Encounter II)
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