Pardon Me While I Have a Lil Flashback, Part 1

[Rue Wydown 0]

Pardon Me While I Have a Lil Flashback, Part 1

Commander Ruth Wydown

 

((This is just some back story about my character and her history, a peek in her head while she's knocked out cold on the bridge/sickbay. The dialogue underlined indicates words spoken in the Ralafean language - translated in English for the reader for the fun of it. :) ))

 

 

"Rue? Rue, can you hear me? C'mon, love. Talk to me. Rue? Rue!"

 

"Would you please stop yelling?" Rue Thouvenot muttered softly, slowly opening her eyes to the blinding sun. Everything hurt, and she sincerely meant everything -- even her hair. She didn't know how her hair could hurt, but today it did. "Rule Number One, Wydown."

 

"Dear god, she's talking in tongues." The panicked voice of her boyfriend, Clayton Wydown, came from somewhere near her feet. She heard him slide across the gravel up towards her head and his frantic muttering as he moved around. "Bugger! Helps on the way, love. Just hang on. Bloody hell, what if she's got permanent brain damage..."

 

Apparently whatever made perfect sense to Rue had come out to as complete gibberish to Clayton. And she really couldn't blame it on some auditory defect: The Ralafean language she was speaking could be best described as the poor bastard child of a Welsh farmer, a Scottish harpist, and an Irish barkeep, seasoned with a little Monty Python French soldier to confuse the hell out of outsiders. "What's rule Number One?" she repeated, switching to a more universally recognized Federation Standard.

 

"Huh?"

 

"You heard me. Rule One."

 

"Don't panic?" Clay hesitated.

 

"Righty-oh, daddy-oh." Rue sighed, closing her eyes for a moment to stop the world from spinning. They'd only been dating for four….no five weeks. It was the longest relationship Rue had managed, considering her penchant for very scary activities involving long falls, fast speeds, or outright insanity. She seemed to attract the adrenaline junkies, hopped up on the next 'natural' high to show off their 'skillz' and had a shelf life shorter than a loaf of bread. This was the first time she'd actually managed to catch the eye of a 'normal' guy, (well, 'normal' for Rue, which meant he was screwed up in his own special way, too). Unfortunately, this disaster would most likely scare him off. And dammit, she actually liked this one. Liked, liked this one.

 

"Rue, sweetheart, open your eyes. Keep talking to me." There was an implied desperate 'please' in his tone.

 

Opening her eyes, she asked "Where's my helmet?" She hoped to the goddess that he hadn't had a misguided instinct to remove it. Aggravating a head injury - that would really suck. Definitely a stupid move and grounds for an automatic break-up.

 

"You threw it, love." He sounded less panicked, now somewhere above her forehead. She felt something warm and soft being pressed to her forehead and heard him muttered. "I've never seen so much blood."

 

"I did?" Rue asked, surprised. She didn't remember that. Not a good sign.

 

"Aye, lobbed it pretty far too. Nice arm. I thought you were all right, but then you sorta pitched over, and then…."

 

"Don't freak," Rue muttered, hearing the panic creeping back into his voice. She could also hear pounding feet across the salt flats as the other spectators and 'help' headed towards them.

 

"Don't do this to me, love. Stay with me." Clayton bent over her head to she could see his face. The word "FREAKED" was practically tattooed on it. She'd have kissed him for it, if she could have moved. That and, well, he looked shiny without his t-shirt. So that's what he was using to stem the blood flow….

 

Rue merely arched her eyebrows. "And where the frell do you think I'm going?" She would have shaken her head at him, if he wasn't holding it steady. "Lemme feel the wound, you big baby." She added the last three words in her native language so he wouldn't detect the insult as a crowd started to assemble around them.

 

"Rue, luv, you're talking nonsense." He tried to move her fingers as she tried to probe under whatever cloth he had pressed over her head.

 

"Ralafean."

 

"Rala-whata?"

 

"The language, mate. I'm from Ralafea. What's nonsense to you makes perfect sense to me. I'm not that loopy." She fought her way past his hands to fish around under the cloth and find the cut. "Clay, it's not that bad, maybe a few centimeters at most. Not deep either, but head wounds tended to bleed like a stuck pig. Bettcha I've seen worse in class. Relax, please."

 

"Maybe you could teach me sometime?" Clay was game, but his attempt to keep her talking was rather obvious.

 

"Maaaaybeeee." Rue smiled lazily. "In the meantime, lemme teach you what you're gonna say to the medics when they arrive, aye?"