St. Claire Memorial Hospital, 6:45 AM (OPEN)

[hrothgar]

Her words gave him pause. He looked up, the corners of his mouth stained with Orange-brown nondescript sludge from the gallon sized white-labeled institutional style can that sat open on the counter in front of him. The can simply read "ComestiCorp (R), #223 CHILI CON CARNE` (mild)"... for a moment there was a look of disbelief on his face as her words sank in.

"Well as much as I'd love to, I really cant. One: because after engaging my supernatural powers my body metabolizes chemical energy at anywhere from twice to three times the usual rate, which means I've got to put away a fair little chunk of calories in a relatively short amount of time. And Two: This is canned Chili without beans or hot sauce. It's got the consistency of wallpaper paste and tastes like... well.. Wallpaper paste... Wallpaper paste with a bit of taco sauce and some chunks of I-dont-know-what. The faster I eat it, the less of it I can taste, and trust me that's a good thing. " He said shoveling a few more mouthfuls in before picking the can up and tipping the rest back into his mouth before tossing the empty can to the side where it landed on the floor with a loud clatter. His hands immediately grabbed a can of crushed pineapple, gripping the little key and ripping it off before pouring it down his throat in gulps.

"Just to let you know..." He said, stopping to breathe for a moment and wiping a mixture of stale pineapple juice and meat sauce off his mouth with his coat sleeve. "anything you want go ahead and grab now while its still there... I think I saw a box of drink mix packets in the pantry, Turbo-Fuel or Electro Jolt or Red Bull or something like that. I think it was the same stuff made by that company that got sued a few years back for putting twice the legal limit of caffeine per serving in their drinks so... y'know if you're looking for a fix to keep you going I'd start there personally. "

[Aida]

Her eyebrow rose when he stopped eating and looked at her. She hadn't purposely tried to make him stop and look at her so. Sauce was beginning to stain the corners of his mouth as he spoke to her. Turning away from the window to look at him she nodded. His words made a bit of sense to her but other than that she just nodded letting him know she was paying attention to him. Smirking at his comment on how it tasted she opened her mouth to start to say something on how he knew what wall pasted tasted like but held her tongue. Leaning against the wall she placed her one foot on it to help hold herself there crossing her arms over her chest watching him gulp down more food.

Aida looked at the floor until he spoke to her once more. At what he said he saw she shook her head making a face. "No thank you doctor. That would not be healthy for me, I tried that once when I was younger..." she paused pushing herself from the wall, moving closer to him. The dull thud off her boots was the only sound in the room other than him eating. "Here is a bit of knowledge for you on my kind. Energy drinks of any sort would give me energy, keep me going but at the same time it would cause my heart to beat faster and use up more energy I get from the blood I drink of animals. Which is a bad thing for me." shrugging her shoulders she let smirked.

She would have enjoyed the extra burst of energy but it wasn't healthy for her to let herself get weak, she was after all partly a monster, one that needed blood. It worried her that if she was ever denied it when she got so weak what she would turn into. Looking back at him she shook her head. "I don't need a fix of high caffeine and whatever else they put into that. I will hunt and keep the meat from my kill as well as its blood and that is pretty much all I need depending on the energy I use."

[hrothgar]

The doctor gave a smile of recognition as he took a mental note. "I'll remember this..." he said, shoving aside a few more cans and stashing more for later should he need it. "An anatomical insight is always important to have. I had always figured vampires metabolized the blood itself for its nutrients, never that they were expending the blood itself as a resource. " He scratched his chin, his mind already churning with more questions and possible experiments. Of course the plans formulating in his head were all within the bounds of ethical treatment, not even vampires deserved to be broken down as lab rats for experimentation... and (given the nature of some of the shifters these days) neither were actual lab rats.

He sighed, if he only had a few willing volunteers and the right equipment there was so much he could learn. Watching the Digestive system, examining the skeletal structure, analyzing their metabolism and their senses... He rubbed his forehead, shaking the thoughts out. No, those were pipe dreams, so long as he looked human and smelled Draconic the only way he'd get to study a vampire would be if it was chained up and dragged in like... like...

Hrothgar felt a sick churn as his mind briefly recalled the horrors he had witnessed more than a century and a half ago, not just at Chelmno but at Birkenau , Dachau and Buchenwald. Nobody deserved to go through that... and it made him nauseous to even suggest it in his mind.

He decided to turn his attentions to more fruitful work now. "Either way." he said after that long pause of thought. "There's work to be done... The Pharmacy is still one floor up, and in it our treasure trove." He gave another soft smile, shouldering up his duffel bags and heading for the stairs up.

[Aida]

Aida nodded her head as Hrothgar said that he would remember it. Watching him as she finished with a simple shrug of her shoulders. Chuckling her eyebrow arched at his comment on vampires and nutrients. "Remember good doctor I am not a full vampire, never will be. I was raised as a human, I do need blood and often times crave it but I get the most nourishment from actual food, my strength... well I have always gave that to the vampire blood. If I don't feed properly I could become as weak as a human" Aida gave a slight shudder at the thought. She had done that a few times before and it wasn't pleasant especially when she liked to hunt and provoke.

She watched him as he looked in thought but didn't interrupt. This was the first time she had ever admitted anything about herself to someone. In her eyes he deserved the bit of knowledge he did save her, heal her and was trusting her to a certain extent. That deserved something. Moving back to her staff and crowbar she curled her fingers around them and picked them up. Looking up at him when he broke the silence she nodded and smiled. "Then lets get to work good doctor"

Slipping her bag over her shoulder and neck she picked up her stuff and moved a little behind him till they reached the stairs. Stepping beside him she looked up and smiled realizing that he was the first person in awhile she had a decent conversation with, shared anything with and hunted beside. Well someone that wasn't human and seemed to be on their death bed.

[hrothgar]

He held the door to the hallway open for her as they left the kitchens. With a newfound energy Hrothgar made his way to the stairwell, a slight spring in his step as he took her up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time until he got to the top. It was a marvelous feeling to be so refreshed and ready to complete the morning's task. So far as he could tell there was naught in the way of them and that supply of medicine.

Throwing open the doors of the second level of the hospital he strode swiftly down the corridor, eyes sweeping left and right in an excited frenzy as he began looking for the sign to point him in the direction of the pharmacy. There was no need for his flashlight here and with his crowbar in hand he pressed on. As he walked his foosteps made prints in the fine layer of dust on the floor. this part of the hospital had been untouched for so long it seemed almost ghostly. Everywhere he went an eerie sort of chill hung on the place as bit by bit he began to realize how truly abandoned this place was. Like scenes from Pompeii the whole floor seemed to have just stopped suddenly frozen in a single moment in life.

The nurse's station was the first little spot he came upon. The Dry Erase board still showed outlines and duties for the doctors on call as well as notices for the upcoming week. Papers and clipboards still lay stacked and ready for processing alongside patient's medical records. Beyond the doors that lined the hallway he could imagine were things probably frightening to behold now... bedridden patients who had died off quietly years ago and had never been moved. Their skeletons probably still lay tucked into the bedclothes, still in their hospital gowns. It struck a strange chord with Hrothgar to see it all laid out so. The coffee in the coffee pot seemed to be the only thing that changed in this little scene over the years of disuse, as it now sat as an inky black residue at the bottom of the carafe. Were it not for this, and perhaps the corpses in the adjacent rooms, the place would have looked exactly the way it was when the world fell apart.

The excitement that he had exerted before came to a sudden halt as Hrothgar took all this in. Leaning against the nurses station and letting his eyes wander over the remains of St. Claire. It was all together beautiful and alien at the same time. Verfremdungseffekt he had heard this feeling called... the feeling one has when seeing something so familiar in a way that makes it seem alien and strange to a point where the viewer's perception of the thing is changed permanently.... He had spent centuries in hospitals just like this and to see one truly run out abandoned and dead seemed now to make an impact on his psyche. He tried to smile, but there was a sadness behind it. "Strange to think that I could have called this place home not so long ago... now its a tomb. It seems wrong almost.... so many people came here to seek help only to die anyways, so suddenly."

[Aida]

Keira kept up with the doctor as he moved up the stairs and then to the floor where they had been heading. Moving through the doors with him she couldn’t help but notice the change in his step and demeanor. It seemed lighter, more energetic until they began to walk down the hall towards the nursing station. Aida had never seen a hospital in its prime like the doctor had. There had been a few small makeshift ones and then they few that tried to take over these old hospitals with no luck.

The scene that played out before her was nothing she wasn’t used to seeing. It was as if life had stopped. Someone had sucked the very life from these people and then time forgot about them. When there wasn’t much left of your kind the dead tend to be forgotten. It was just surreal that people came to a building so large and ominous not to live and they still lie in their ugly gowns. Bodies decaying or just as bones from time. Shaking he head she remained silent as the doctor looked over everything.

Aida stepped up beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder as he spoke. Her green eyes soften a little at his words and she shrugged her shoulders. “What is right about the world now? Everything is very wrong good doctor. It just needs more people who want to make a difference in other ways then killing and hiding.” Normally Aida wasn’t so optimistic about anything but Hrothgar had motivation and experience. Maybe it was what the world needed, it just wouldn’t be coming from her.

[hrothgar]

Hrothgar's eyes remained glued to the floor, shaking his head slowly. "You are right... there's not much left of us, I wish i could say there was something familiar about all this, but was born in the Dark Ages. I was born only a short time after the Western Empire fell to the barbarians.. and I myself was born to Barbarian stock. All I know is that rebuilding is hard after a cataclysm like this but bit by bit the world has survived by the skin of it's teeth. As such we owe great thanks to those who preserve the knowledge of the past and hold fast to the science and learning and keep it safe from the catastrophe that's befallen the rest of the world."

Weary eyes now scanned the floor looking down the hallway to the stairwell where they had come from. "Perhaps deep down inside I never figured I'd have to see this myself.... it all seems a bit too real now.. I've hid forever in my work so that I wouldn't have to claim responsibility for the world falling down around me, I saved lives but I could have saved more... and that is what haunts me the most."

Slowly he sat his hand on hers as it touched his shoulder. He gripped her fingers, hoping to feel something real in his hand, hoping now to draw on some sort of strength from that simple act of contact. It was comforting to know he wasn't completely alone out in this world. It was scary even for him, and he was a dragon. Perhaps if the others of his race were here they'd find it odd, that someone belonging to a race of undisputed masters could find the world he lived in so frightening at times. Fear it seemed was never too far from Hrothgar's mind.

"Please Aida... Learn from me. Don't make the mistakes I've made in my life. Do not hide from the world when you have the power to do something. Don't do what I did and cling to comfort.... It does not become us, we've been given gifts and we blaspheme those bestowed them on us if we do not use them to their fullest."

[Aida]

Aida listened to him, standing where she was. Her eyes looked at the dragon with concern showing through her tough exterior. Licking her lips as if they were parched she watched him look past them, down the hallway that they had came from before she moved slowly towards him. She had been born into this world and unlike him she knew nothing else. From a young age she learned to hunt, to survive and to kill those that threatened her and her family. Now that her mother was gone her father unknown and the rest of her family gone as well, she didn't care about anything but herself. Though the doctor risking his energy to heal her neck, to heal someone that was a halfbreed and enemy to his kind, was opening her eyes to the bigger picture of the world. It probably wouldn't make much of a difference as she would go on her way after all of this but sometimes a crack turned into a larger one.

She placed her hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner. It was a foreign feeling for Aida of all people to give comfort to another but she felt the urge to try. When he placed his hand ontop of hers she smiled at him when he squeezed her fingers lightly. Taking another step closer she looked at him then glanced around where they were standing. Aida tried to picture the hospital filled with life but just couldn't grasp the concept. At his word she cocked her head a little to the side. "Do not blame yourself for saving but a few lives when it could have been more. A wise person told me to take life's lessons and learn from them, then strive to do better if another opportunity arises." pausing as she thought of her mother she then continued. "You have a better opportunity then most doctor."

Gently she gave his shoulder a squeeze as he spoke to her. Lowering her eyes to the floor she slowly looked back at him. "I can not promise much, only give you my word that if I can I will try. Unlike you what I am is looked upon with scorn and distrust from all peoples. I hide from everyone, doctor, but I do not cling to comfort of any sort. I cling to my life and trying to save others that are not as fortunate as me." Sighing softly she slowly pulled her hand from under his and then took a step forward before looking back at him. "We all have gifts for different purposes, yours is to heal and comfort and mine is to kill. What a team that makes us" she mumbled the last bit under her breath.

[hrothgar]

He smiled, feeling the weight on his shoulders somehow lightening, the fact that she was there listening and perhaps saving a piece of all this in her mind put him at ease. The past was the past, he'd learned to put it behind him so many times but it was never easy and each time it seemed to return just a little more poignantly. By and by he pulled away from the Nurse's station counter and took a moment to himself to stretch his back and scratch at his chin as he pondered their next move. "You would sell yourself short but I believe you've got that spark of heroism in you, I should know I've seen thousands of them come and go in the blink of an eye. Modesty it seems would be the calling card of the great in times of need." He replied tapping the side of his nose with a knowing look.

"So they may shun you now, so be it. In case you could not tell it is within our nature to be shunned by the rest of the world, even more so these days. Never forget that in every person of every race and walk lies a human mind, and it is human to fear and distrust that which is not understood or that which is unfamiliar and to react in kind when treated with fear and distrust. The true test of strength and altruism is to do what you can even for a world that hates you simply because that is what is good." He sighed, "It does not make a great deal of sense... But they are words I've tried to live my life by, however unsuccessfully."

He moved now past the Nurse's station, following the signs on the wall and making his way further down the corridor. One by one he counted door numbers until he came to a stop outside a door marked. "HOSPITAL PHARMACY STAFF ONLY". After a ragged morning of close calls and run-ins they were here at last. Hrothgar let out a sound halfway between triumphant and relieved. With his crowbar he gave the door a few taps at the hinges and tried the door handle. "Locked.. just as I expected." He murmured.

[Aida]

She stood there, keeping her hand on his shoulder, letting him talk and listening to what he was saying. It was hard for her to grasp what it must be like for him to look at this place and remember what it used to be. For her it was just something normal. Aida let her hand fall away from his shoulder when he took a step away from her, moving towards the nurses station. Crossing her arms over her chest she watched him before chuckling at his next words. "I fight that is what I do, what I am good at doctor. Never have I tried to do anything more than what I have thought myself capable off." shrugging her shoulders she smiled at the tap to his nose. Shaking her head she glanced around as she took a few steps closer to him.

"It is the nature of the world and the fear is obvious. Especially for old ones and those that are terrified of my kind and other half breeds taking over. We are a newer race after all, some call us abominations while others accept us. " giving a shrug of her shoulders she hopped up on the nurses station crossing her one leg over the other. When he said that it didn't make sense she shrugged her shoulders, "It does but it doesn't. I can not promise much doctor other than I will try...' pausing she sighed and slid off the station before moving towards him. "No matter how unsuccessful you have tried... that has to count for something" Aida replied to him trying to be optimistic as he started to move down the hallway.

Following behind him her eyes scanned over the area as he stopped in front of a door. Smirking at the sign she looked at him when he let out a triumphant sound. Laughing she shook her head and watched him as he toyed with the door. "Of course, nothing is ever simple" moving to the door she looked at it before smiling at Hrothgar. "Dear doctor it is simpler, more times then not to use that strength you are gifted with and..." Aida kicked the door handle hard with her boot. Breaking the lock and probably the door. "Give it a good kick" smiling at him she made a motion of after him as she opened the now broken door.