Reactions: For Better or Worse (IcelandSeychelles)

[seychelles]

Michelle would have loved to go shopping for the sake of treating herself, but she rarely had the ability to do so. Even when her projects were well funded, there was always something important that she could be buying for the shop or some new game that she could try out with her father.

The bottom line was, shopping for work related materials was the closest she came to those splurges that the more wealthy could go on. So she tried to pretend it was just as good. She would greet the vendors cheerfully and act excited when they had new things in stock. To an extent, it actually worked. She did love inventing and the more exotic materials she collected the more possibilities she had to come up with a combination no one else had.

This trip hadn't brought about anything truly novel, but that wasn't so bad. Michelle had managed to pick up the things she had already known she would need. The bag she had brought was practically filled with different containers of raw ingredients. What she didn't know, was that one of those containers hadn't been properly secured. She had bought a a kilogram of potassium for her electroplating baths. It wasn't a process she used a lot, but it could come in handy.

A loud sound behind her prompted her to turn sharply and out dropped the potassium. The beads poured out on the ground and she instinctively bent down to try to stop them all from going. But the reactive element practically exploded near her feat as it reached a puddle. The force was enough to throw off her already off balance footing and send her toward the ground. She let out a shriek before her head impacted with the ground and her mind went blank.

Note: I'm sure this wasn't the best mixture for the job but shhh

[puffinwhisperer]

Dodging inky grey puddles as he went, Egil meandered rather aimlessly through the streets of the trade district. Originally, he had been sent down here to pick up a certain kind of spice for Tino, but he had tried three different vendors, and no one seemed to have it in stock. Knowing that he had nothing but the quiet bar to return to, he took his time getting back to the entertainment district.

He turned onto a rather vacant street; at the far end of it, a large man lifted crates of what could have been anything and stacked them against a wall, and walking toward him was a young woman carrying a bag that she handled with care. Not thinking anything of it, he continued on, staring at the ground to make sure he didn't accidentally step into one of the puddles that never seemed to evaporate.

A startling crack rang through the air, and, caught off guard, Egil's eyes snapped up to see the man with the crates cursing up a storm as the contents of one of the boxes lay smashed on the ground. And then there was another boom, this one much closer, and a woman's scream, cut short. Without thinking, he flinched away from the explosion. When he opened his eyes, he saw the girl lying on the cobblestones.

Before he could even sort through what happened, he stumbled over to where she lay and knelt down, feeling for a pulse like Nikolai had taught him however many years ago. It was there, and the beating of blood underneath her skin let a little of his tension abate.

"Miss?" he asked tentatively as he shook her shoulder a little. "Can you hear me?"

[seychelles]

Michelle felt her mind float on the edge of consciousness. She wasn't asleep, but she couldn't open her eyes and she couldn't move. That would have frightened her if her mind had been working a little more properly. As it was, it just made her feeling like giving in and sleeping. Tired was what she felt more than anything else. The other feelings simply ebbed and pulsed. Dropping in momentarily to alert her that they still existed.

The one to linger the longest was pain. It would drop in and then skitter off, drop in for a little longer and then wane again. Until finally it just stuck around, prompting her eyelids to fidget before eventually opening.

She groaned as the light that entered into her eyes felt sharper than usual. Her arms didn't rise to shade her and the majority of her body refused to move past a slight spasm when movement was attempted. Michelle barely registered the voice talking to her until her vision zeroed in on the man saying them.

“I can... I can hear you,” she said, trying to nod before realizing that was a bad idea. Her voice was flavored by the pain. “What happened? Where am I?”

She really wanted to just close her eyes and sleep. The fluttered a little as her brain forgot any reasons it shouldn't. This guy could fill her in later. What was the rush? She couldn't have been doing anything that important if she had stopped off for a nap or whatever this was. If only the pain wasn't there. That was the main thing that kept her awake. Who was this guy again? He didn't look too familiar.