Cold & Native

Mother of god.

They were perfect.

The fur was the white-greyish tone and the nipples were as black as the nostrils and as fat as his thumbs. The looked perfectly in scale though. The things really were bigger than his head.

He shook his head to clear it, draped the old and now partially wet blanket a little closer to the fireplace and shifted her on to this one and off the pelts. Those he took and laid them out around her, wet sides up, so that as soon as she woke up, she would have something comfortable around.

Then he set about opening the skirt, but again found nothing he could use to get it off. Instead, he cut it open with the medical shears in his kit. Below it was another piece of clothing, a simple string keeping up a thin net that in turn covered her privates. Through the net, which was woven and knitted with hair again, he could see that the fur ended just at the black lips there. He cut the string keeping the net on her body in two pieces and removed this too, then draped another heavy blanket on her.

Finally, he wasn't sure how much blood she'd lost, he had to think about somehow getting water or some kind of liquid in to her body. Pouring it down her throat would cause her to drown, that much was for sure.

The only thing Ryan could think about was carefully sponging her lips with water. The alternative was an IV, but he neither had the equipment or the knowledge how to actually get one to work and he was not going to learn how exactly they worked on a living specimen that was in a critical situation.

The emergency call. Why on earth had he not done that yet? Would they even know what to do? Or would they laugh at him and tell him to call a veterinarian? Nevertheless, he had treated the things he could treat, but that obviously wasn't enough. Time to get a professional.

Ryan pulled his smartphone out of the pocket of his snow-pants. He still hadn't gotten rid of those. No reception.

Damn.

Something must have killed the mobile tower.

His landline was the same and his radio had broken just three days ago.

He pushed past the serious discomfort of not being able to reach anyone anywhere, recognizing he could deal with this later.

How do you get water in a body that can't drink?

It took him a few seconds.

Through... the skin!

If he just submerged the body in water, that would probably get in through the skin! It also was probably a pretty quick way to heat the body up.

That rung an alarm bell somewhere in the back of his head.

His sister was a paramedic and she had once, when he had accompanied her on a shift as a bit of research, said something about warming up someone way too quickly...

It had to do with core temperatures and heart.

Then something else rung a bell. He had to drain the water cooling system of the Defender! Otherwise the ice in the radiator, piping and the engine block would mean he could trash the entire car.

The mare had to wait for a second, but for good measure, he dragged her out of the living room and in to the still chilly hall. There, he re-donned his snow gear and headed back outside with a large plastic tray.

The defender already had a decent amount of snow piled on bonnet and roof, but there was a chance that the engine block could still be warm enough to keep the anti-freeze laced water liquid. Ryan shoved the snow under the engine block aside and pushed the tray in to the newly freed space.

Because this was not the first time he had to figure out how to drain the water containing systems of the car, he had manufactured his own quick release system which was an extended water line that had, at its lowest point and at the lowest point of the system, a valve with a secured lever. That lever was held in place by several plastic straps, which Ryan cut using a knife. Then he rotated the lever so that the valve opened, placed the plastic tray underneath it and crawled back out.

Oil was not an issue, oil did not expand when solid.

He opened the bonnet and the water filler cap to allow air to rush in to the system, leaving the water to drip out the bottom. Then he shut the bonnet to prevent snow from falling in to the opening.

A look underneath the car told him that the water was close to freezing. It had the consistency of maple syrup and generally looked like it wouldn't be long before it would freeze entirely.

Damn it was cold.

While he watched the coolant ooze out of the car, he suddenly remembered why putting someone who had suffered heavy hypothermia in the presence of a huge heat source was a bad idea.

Right. The veins would open up again and pump the cold blood back to the heart, which did not take too kindly to being deprived of it's favourite working temperature and would, if the blood was too cold, stop working.

Crap.

Ryan rushed back inside, left the jacket on and threw just his beanies and bandana on the couch, continued on in to the kitchen and took a glass out of the drawers. He knew he had a stethoscope somewhere, but he didn't really have the time to check on that.

Then he ran back in to the hall, dropped to his knees beside the mare and placed the glass upside down on her chest, just between her boobs. It took a little bit of effort, but he managed to find a way to come in to as little contact with the boobs as possible. The fur had become wet, which could be a bad sign, maybe there already was some of the extremely cold blood on the way back to her heart.

They breathed as one, him a deep breath of relieve, her something a little deeper than usual, as he heard her heart beat.

Ka-thunk.

Pause.

Pause.

Ka-thunk.

Pause.

Pause.

Ka-thunk.

Very, very slow and faint, but definitely regular.

He smiled and listened some more, until she took another breath. There was still work to do. The bathroom downstairs was bigger, it made more sense to submerge her there.

It wasn't much further, just through the hall and along the stairs to the attic, then in to the bathroom. He flicked on the light, passed the glass shower and stopped.

There needed to be water at the right temperature in the tub for this.

Back to the first aid kit then.

Ryan returned with the thermometer, measured her skin temperature and tried to get the water just a few degrees above that.

It took him roundabout five minutes, after which the mare's fur had completely defrosted. Now it was just really really wet, and Ryan was somewhat unsure whether he shouldn't instead take the core temperature. But then, he tried to carefully heat the blood outside of that to match the core, didn't he?

Yeah.

The skin or fur temperature had risen another degree, but he deemed the water temperature still good enough.

Ryan finally plopped her in to the tub, legs first, then tried to lift the torso in and failed.

The problem was, his tub was built in. So instead of having her face the room as he had intended, he had to rotate her one hundred and eighty degrees, with her hooves at the wall and her facing that way. Only there could he lift her upper body in to the tub.

The arms were giving him a bit of a difficult time, but after he laid her down at the edge and folded them on above her belly button, she slid in the cool water.

Her snout definitely helped keeping her nostrils above the water, while Ryan realized he had failed to rig something up so she wouldn't sink underneath the water level.

Crap.

How long would this take? How close did he have to keep the temperature to what level for her heart to avoid getting temperature shocked? Luckily, he only had to keep her nostrils above the water, but since she seemed hell bent on turning her head to either side and letting them fall below the water level, he had to keep one hand on her snout at all times. He looked around for some way to affix her, so he could concentrate on temperature and heartbeat, but everything seemed out of reach.

"uhmm..."

Ryan bit his lip, considering his options. He needed to keep her head raised and pointed to the ceiling. What could he use?

...

The arms. He could fold the arms. And the braid. With braid and arms, beneath her head, she should keep up high enough for the few seconds he needed to raid his towel cabinet in order to build something more sophisticated.

It was a little more difficult than he had anticipated, but it worked and left him free to fetch a mountain of towels, which he placed all around and beneath her head. Encased like that, she wouldn't be able to move her head by accident.

Then began the waiting game.

He raised the temperature about a degree or two every hour or so, it wasn't that easy to tell with his thermometer.

After three hours, he felt safe enough to leave her unattended for long enough to get the groceries and other supplies out of the truck.

After five hours, she was breathing shallow, but regularly with almost no skips.

During the sixth hour, Ryan took a quick break and fixed himself some sandwiches.

Finally, after almost ten hours, the mare groggily twitched, then slowly opened her eyes and blearily stared at the ceiling, before closing them again and taking a deep, full breath.

Ryan couldn't believe it. It had actually worked! His jury rigged system had actually gotten someone back from the, pretty much, dead!

It took him another two hours to get the water temperature to where he thought it should be. Her lips had also assumed a glistening black colour, which gave him the impression that there should be enough water in her. What else could he do? She should be waking up. She drew deep, regular breath, her skin colour wasn't remotely as pale as it had been and her heart beat was strong and regular.

Huh.

After having fallen asleep two times during the last two hours, he didn't know what else to do and instead let the water flow out of the tub, which drew a reaction from her. She started shivering. Good.

He lifted her back on to the blanket he had dragged her in on and used his remaining towels to get the short fur as dry as he could, which was especially uncomfortable on the boobs - he felt like a perv because of his boner. He also noticed she had a typical horsetail which had previously escaped his notice. He blamed it on fatigue.

So, without knowing what else to do, he dragged her carefully back in to the living room, arranged a few pillows so he could shift her on to them right in front of the fireplace and draped another blanket over her. Then he got rid of his jogging pants and made himself comfortable on the couch with his last dry blanket.

A loud crash woke him up. Ryan sat bolt upright on the couch and saw the mare stare at him, his TV-cupboard knocked over behind her. Her eyes were wide open, then she looked down, saw that she was naked and took the tablecloth to hide her privates before she bolted towards the door with a loud CLOPCLOP..CLOP.

The pain of putting weight on the injured leg threw her off balance and she crashed in to the door frame with her side, falling in to the hall with another loud crash.

Ryan threw the blanket aside and jumped off the couch. There was noise coming from the hall, then he made it through the door and saw the mare shoving herself backwards against the inner front door. She had clutched the table cloth against her, shielding as much of her body from him as she could. Her almost neon green eyes, surrounded by blond strands, were still wide open, her ears going straight up, pointed at him, occasionally twitching.

He raised his hands slowly, holding them palms towards her at a 45° degree angle. Her eyes jumped between his face and his hands.

"Are you okay?"

She continued staring at him, so he took a step towards her.

She raised the intact leg and compressed it, pointing the underside of the hoof directly at him and yelled something with a lot of ee's in it.

"Okay."

Ryan froze where he stood, then very slowly and carefully took a step back. She watched him for a few seconds, then lowered the hoof, but kept the leg tucked in a way that allowed her to quickly bring it back up.

He slowly lowered himself to the ground, then used one hand to stabilize himself while keeping the other palm open in her direction. Then he sat down.

"You don't speak English, do you?"

The mare kept her eyes on him and did nothing.

"Apparently not."

Slowly, he lowered his hands and brought them in to his lap, which caused her first to raise her head to keep them in her vision, then to say something again. The tone sounded only marginally friendly, and he lifted them again.

He felt slightly exposed just sitting here in boxers and a t-shirt, but then again, she sat there with only a white tablecloth draped over her. That kind of evened things out, besides, it was night outside. Despite having lived up here for so long, sun or no sun still influenced his subjective day and night cycle heavily, even though he knew that there wouldn't be a sunrise for the next month.

She relaxed slightly, ever so slightly, but kept her eyes on him, still obviously heavily stressed and nervous.

Time to play nice. Talking always helped, even if the other side had no idea what you were saying. The tone had to be right. And so Ryan struck a calming, comparatively quiet note.

"No need for violence. You are my guest. You'll be okay. Alright?"

It seemed to work to a certain degree, although he wasn't quite sure. Her eyes, previously glued to everything he did, started to dart around the room, returning to him every few moments to make sure he stayed where he was, it seemed to him. Her breathing slowed a little after that and the panicky behaviour stopped, but her eyes remained glued to him and every move he made.

After a few seconds of silence, he raised his right arm and pointed it at himself exaggeratedly.

"Ryan."

Maybe they could start off like this. Just an an introduction. He saw her puzzled for a moment, then she caught on.

"Wye."

"Wy-an.", he corrected her.

"Wye-e." Her R sounded very, very weird, but it was recognizable as such. Coming to think of it, it reminded him of a German accent.

"Ry-an. Ryan.", he corrected once more,speaking everything overly clearly.

She tried again, very slowly too this time and managed to get to "Wyhen.", then waited for his reaction.

Good enough, Ryan thought to himself. He nodded. She took a second to comprehend, waited for anything else which prompted him to point at her.

She seemed to consider whether or not to answer. Her eyes seemed too intelligent for her not to understand what he wanted from her.

"Hiiyeh", she offered.

"Hiiyeh", he tried, to which she almost immediately answered.

"Hii-yeh."

The y was somehow weird. She did something to it that he couldn't quite make out.

"Hiiyeh."

Again she corrected him, but he couldn't quite make out what it was. It sounded like a mixture between a j and g somewhere in there.

"Hiiyjeh."

He could hear it himself, that was even worse than the previous tries and she apparently thought so too, because she immediately corrected him again.

"Hii-yeh", she pronounced, every syllable very slowly and cleanly pronounced.

"Hiiyeh", with just a little bit of j in the y. She contemplated this one, moved her muzzle up and down like someone who had no idea what a nod was, then waited for his reaction.

He nodded back, which provoked a small smile out of her. Interesting. So she could smile. And smiling seemed to mean the same as it did for him? He offered a smile back, to which she nodded somewhat exaggerated again, but nowhere near as bad as the first try.

Good. Very good. Then he pointed to the wound on her thigh and raised an eyebrow, then pointed his two fingers at his eyes, then those fingers at the thigh. Can I look at the wound?

She recoiled and clutched the tablecloth tighter and said one word.

"hih!"

Apparently she thought he wanted her to undress herself. And hih probably meant no, although he could already tell he was going to butcher it if he tried to use it.

He had to, anyhow.

So he shook his head while trying to pronounce it exactly like she had.

"hih", he tried. Then Ryan pointed at his eyes with two fingers again, then at his left thigh, then one finger at her and looked directly at the bandage that was half hidden underneath the tablecloth. He could see that there was blood underneath the bandage, but it apparently wasn't seeping through, stopped by the plastic foil he had used to make it leak proof.

She in turn followed his eyes and looked down at her leg. Then she looked back up at him and their eyes met. Her eyes seemed to say no. Maybe she didn't trust him. Probably that, since he had taken the liberty of undressing her.

She shook her head vigorously and said "hih."

"Okay."

He looked around, wondering what else to do now. He could offer her food and water. Maybe she'd then trust him enough to let him look at her injury.

"Would you like some food?"

Ryan followed the words with a hand that he held up to his mouth, then a chewing gesture. She lifted one eyebrow, just as he had before and laid one of her ears straight against her head.

Obviously she didn't understand.

"Water?"

He tried again, this time making a gesture as if he were lifting some kind of drink to his lips.

She kept her eyebrow up, then let it down and seemingly understood. She nodded.

"Ekey."

That stumped him for a second, until he understood that she had tried to say okay. His 'hih' had probably sounded equally bad. Slowly, he lifted himself back up and turned around, walked past the stairs that led up in to the attic along the corridor and turned right in to the kitchen.

Just as Ryan reached for a glass, he heard a quiet clacking sound behind him.

She stood in the door frame, leaning heavily against it on the side of the injured leg. He was surprised by how quiet she had been able to move across the wooden planks, even with the wounded leg.

He gave her a quick look over, trying to find any changes to her condition and realized he shouldn't have done so. The rather immodest tablecloth hid just enough to be highly suggestive. Or maybe it was just her proportions that made even a tablecloth seem like lingerie. Then he filled the glass with water from the tap, which came straight out of his own water purification tank.

He made a step towards her, but before he could get close enough to hand it to her, she stopped him with a "hih".

She pointed at the water, then at him, then repeated his gesture for drinking. Did she not want to have a... Oh. Right. She did not trust him.

Without a word, he lifted the glass to his lips and drank a few gulps. Then he held it out for her to take, and she did, but watched him like hawk for any changes. After almost a minute, seeing that nothing had happened to him, she sniffed the water. It passed that test, then she dropped the tiniest drop on her lips and waited, seemed to search for any kind of poison.

Apparently, that test was a negative too because she emptied the rest of the glass in one big gulp, then handed it back to him.

Ryan refilled it at the tap and brought it back to her, watched as she emptied it again in one big gulp and expected her to hand it to him again but instead, she made another step in to the room, moving the injured leg as little as possible. It must be a lot worse than what he had thought it would be. She treated it like it was somehow broken.

Could it be broken?

He would have noticed that, wouldn't he?

She was trying to go for the kitchen sink, but it felt wrong to let her stumble along without any help. How would he go about it though? Putting her arm on his shoulders and supporting her was the obvious choice, but how would he communicate it to her? She had not allowed him to get even within an arm's length of her and he doubted that that had changed.