Moon 514 || Blaze and the White Griffon

40 || Genetic Enhancements

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Last revision: 6/24/2013

As Evelia walked past Blaze, she discretely sent a strong surge of cooling energy to the gash on his thigh.  Other than that, she barely acknowledged his presence at all.  She walked straight towards Aria excepting a brief detour to pluck a drinking flower from the wall near the entrance.

Blaze watched as she handed the drink to Aria and couldn’t help but to notice the striking differences between the two women.  Evelia’s back, nearly bare excepting the pristine white ruffles covering the strap of her swimming top, was a strong olive color and strongly contrasted with her white clothing.  Her hair, draping loose today, strongly contrasted with her white clothing as well.  And while her body was mostly bare excepting her swimming clothing and various vine bracelets, anklets, and similar adornments, Aria was in full uniform – albeit a very tattered and torn uniform.  In contrast to Evelia, Aria’s skin peering through her clothing was very pale today – which made her bloody appearance all the more striking.  Huge pieces of her uniform were entirely torn from her body but these too were heavily caked in blood and served to accentuate small patches of pale skin that had somehow escaped the splatters of blood that decorated her so thoroughly elsewhere.  In short, while Evelia looked pristine and pure, Aria looked horrific and defiled in every way.

Hungrily, the geneticist gulped down the juice from the drinking flower and instinctively craved more the instant it was empty.  Evelia didn’t fail to notice that detail and felt a little foolish for not grabbing two in the first place – but then again, she scarcely believed that Aria should be able to raise her head to drink at all, let alone down a whole drinking flower in one quick serving.  As she turned around to get another flower for Aria, Evelia broke the silence.

“I can heal you if you are willing to allow me to touch …”

“Thank you,” Aria interjected, “but I have no wounds to heal.  I only need food and water.”  As she spoke the last sentence, she began pilfering through the drawers not far from where she had been lying on the floor a few minutes earlier.  Happily finding a nutrition bar, she unwrapped it and feverishly plowed through the makeshift snack.  Designed to hold enough nutrition to replace an entire meal if necessary, Aria remained famished and continued searching the area for any food that Toka may have stashed away.

Evelia stared at the bloody mess of a woman in disbelief.  “What do you mean, you have no wounds to heal?” she asked in a tone that approached discourteousness.  “You are a complete mess of blood, you are clearly the victim of a severe beating, and yet somehow, you have no wounds to heal?” Evelia questioned the emcee a second time.  “How …”

“Genetic enhancements,” Aria interrupted again, greedily unwrapping a second nutrition bar she had found.  This one was no meal replacement.  It was only intended as a snack but that didn’t matter much to Aria.  With nearly impolite speed, she wolfed down the second bar and then, graciously accepting a second drinking flower from Evelia, she gulped down the nutritious juice from the flower as well.  Blaze suddenly realized that his eyebrows were raised and that his jaw was somewhat slack as he noticed Aria’s natural skin tone returning, leaving the pale look of death far behind her. 

“Toka was able not only to cure my childhood diseases,” she explained, “he was able to get my body to receive more genetic enhancements to heal itself than anyone else in our recorded history.”   She paused as she found herself both intimidated and excited to share this personal detail with her new friends.  “Those weren’t the only enhancements he gave me,” she began again, “but they explain why I have no wounds to heal.  In contrast,” she said, pointing towards Blaze whose attention was suddenly taken by a spasm in his leg, “Blaze could use your gifts right now.”