Part One
Part Two
I thank those of you who have been commenting on the previous parts. If you like what you see, write a comment on this one! Here's the next episode in Alyana's story.
Foreign Aid, part three (m/f)
by
Kid Indy
Alyana Pulanski, recently featured in her small Southern college's alumni magazine, was becoming a legend in the hills. Rumors began to spread that, if they reached her medical aid camp, the very angels of Heaven would protect them from the revolutionary militias that victimized the poor as they fled the conflict. And as such things go, soon those stories led to Alyana's simply being called "the angel" in the local dialect, a name that she would correct at first when people slipped and called her that in her presence but, as days passed, she simply tolerated.
She knew well enough that no angel protected her team's tents. Rather, a devil of a man patrolled the hills, someone who had played her whole body like a musical instrument through the soles of her feet and who waited, the next time she took leave of her work, to work diabolical magic through her ticklish skin. She found herself thinking more and more about Andre Denard as that day grew closer--how could she do otherwise?--and, to her own horror, sometimes thought of him when she had a rare private moment to enjoy herself in a bath or in her bed.
In those moments sometimes she asked herself, "Why not? After all, the whole crew thinks I'm sleeping with him--why shouldn't I?" But somehow, despite the strangeness of the past several weeks, Alyana still maintained her convictions, and she resolved to give Denard only what their agreement dictated, not anything beyond.
Alyana's reverie was interrupted by the sound of small-arms fire in the distance. Her team went into defensive positions, bringing children quickly under cover and trying to get as many of the sick and wounded out of the line of sight. Minutes crawled by as the aid workers waited. Another burst of fire echoed through the trees, then a third, then a fourth. Everyone could hear a wounded man scream and a diesel engine roar into the distance.
More time crawled by, and the team stayed down. Finally a man in camouflage emerged into the clearing and gave the all-clear. Alyana approached him and recognized one of Denard's lieutenants. "What was that?"
"The Wolf is in the area again, Miss Pulanski." Alyana shuddered, remembering her earlier encounter with the rebel leader and his threats that only Andre Denard's arrival kept from coming true.
"You drove him away, though, yes?"
"Affirmative, ma'am. They're headed east of here, and we took no casualties." After exchanging some situation-reports, the man went back into the woods, and Alyana thanked Heaven again that her devil was winning the day.
A few days later, when the car came to pick her and Carlos up, Alyana was dressed as Denard had requested last time: a loose dress over a two-piece swim suit. After a short ride Alyana noticed that they were not headed for the normal river-dock where the yacht waited but to the wealthy part of the city, and she couldn't help but crane her neck when they pulled up to a luxury hotel. After being around ruined villages for so long, Alyana had almost forgotten what the country's money-soaked tourist district looked like. When the car's door opened Denard was waiting outside on the sidewalk, and he welcomed Alyana in as Carlos was, as usual, escorted off.
"You look exquisite tonight, Alyana. Did you bring attire for the hot tub?"
She found herself flirting with him in spite of herself. "Are you already so eager?"
He laughed and walked with her to the hotel's restaurant. They sat and ate and drank, talking as always of books and ideas, but this evening's conversation took a turn that Alyana, even expecting oddness, did not anticipate.
"Have you read much about the Harems of the Ottoman Empire?"
Alyana was taken aback; she took a drink and shook her head in the negative.
"They were fascinating institutions, really. Very religious. The idea was that every emperor had to have a legitimate heir, and more than one to be safe, so he would have several legal wives to increase the probability."
Alyana didn't know where this was going. "Am I going to meet some other women tonight, Andre?"
He laughed again. "No, Alyana, I assure you that you're the only woman in my life. But here's the curious part: the ways of a woman aren't that easy to predict, and often the harem women wouldn't be eager to be the wife of the night when their turn came around."
"That's actually not hard to predict, Andre. Most women don't want to be one of many."
He smiled. "But the keepers of the harem, the eunuchs, discovered ways even around that." Alyana was already guessing what this story was going to involve. "They would bind the woman who was to see the emperor--"
"And tickle her feet, right?"
"No, but a man can imagine, right? No, they would feather her breasts."
Alyana gasped. "There's no way! You're not touching my--"
"Oh, Alyana. I know about your beliefs, and I'm not going to make you do that."
"You mean that I'm Catholic. We don't have sex for pay. And you're right--I'm not going to do that."
"No, I didn't say that--I'm still holding out hope that you'll just want to try it with me. But I'm not going to make you, and you can rest assured of that. But I do want you to think about it--feathers' tips taking you to heights that most women never know. It has a certain appeal, don't you think?"
Alyana could feel her swimsuit start to rub against her answer. "Andre, please stop."
"Can't you just feel them now, the shivers that you'd get when the first one stroked your skin? And yes, I'm no Turk and no fool, so I'd no doubt tickle those wonderful feet in between feather treatments, just to see you make the faces you're dying to make right now!"
"Andre!"
"And maybe, if I were having an especially naughty day, I'd take one feather, the one that wasn't tickling your breast, and find an especially good spot between those long legs to tickle!"
Alyana glared, though her attempt to sound stern rose entirely too high in pitch. "Andre! Stop! I'm not going to take off that much when we meet!" She realized, having said those words, that she had no vocabulary for the objection she was trying to make.
Denard leaned in and grinned. "Then you want another round of the Russian treatment?"
"At least that doesn't take my clothes off!"
"No, but I think we both remember that I didn't need to take your clothes off to take you anywhere I needed to go!"
"No matter what happens to my feet, I'm not letting you strip me naked!"
"No matter what, you say? That's a tall order. A challenge even, maybe. We'll have to see next time, won't we? But for now, why don't we start towards the hot tub? I'm just dying to see you in a swim suit!"
Alyana was just glad for a private moment to collect herself and change in a private room. As she uncovered her two-piece bathing suit, she calmed her breathing and tried to ready herself mentally for what would no doubt happen in the hot tub: she knew he would likely paw at her ticklish sides underwater, and she was ready for that. Once again the people who got the medical help and protection from the militias kept her ready to endure the humiliation that Denard would no doubt heap upon her.
Humiliation she could take, of course. It was the desire that came with it that she wouldn't even talk to herself about.
She stepped out of the small room to an approving look from Andre Denard. He had already changed into a pair of black swim trunks, and she couldn't help but admire the lean, muscular form before her. She found herself giggling quietly as she took in with her eyes a body that she could look at and not get tired of. Knowing that he wanted to put his hands on her made her skin tingle, and she was already imagining the underwater tickling he was about to give her. Her heart began to beat faster as he took her hand and led her to a hallway. She could smell the treated water as they passed through another door, but as she stepped into the next room, her feet sent her an alarm.
She looked down and realized that they had entered some sort of training room, the kind that martial arts students worked in. Instead of tile or carpet, thick mats covered the floor. She realized, as she took in the surroundings, that Denard had let her hand go and taken three long strides ahead of her.
Then she heard the click behind her.
She looked back to see a shadowy figure securing the door.
"As you see, Alyana, there's no going back from here. The hot tub is beyond the door behind me, but to get to it, you'll have to get past me." He had started to crouch into a wrestler's stance.
"Andre, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to keep you from getting to that hot tub until I've given you a tickling that you'll never forget!" His fingers started to wriggle, and Alyana's knees started to go weak.
"Please, let's just get into the hot tub!"
He began to take small steps towards her. "It's just beyond me. Go get it, and it's yours!"
Alyana started to realize just what kind of situation she was in: those wicked fingers could get to just about any part of her body without any clothes in the way, and she knew just which spots he was likely already imagining. Instincts kicked in, and she turned and ran, grabbed the door's handle, shook the locked door in vain.
Denard did not waste words but matched her stride for stride, and as her arms reached up for the door's handle, his fingers went up and in, and he elbows clamped down even as her fingers kept their hold on the door. With his fingers on her wonderfully ticklish armpits, a taste of ticklish woman he had not enjoyed since their first encounter, he drank in her laughing scream just before she released the door's handle and fell back into him. His body moved with hers, and both rolled gracefully to the mat, his fingers never leaving the hollows under her arms. She attempted to curl into a ball on her side, but his hands had their prize and would not leave her underarms.
Suddenly his hands left her sides, and she took in a grand gasp of air, only to realize that he had not given up the pursuit but merely started to pursue his next target. She felt the mat give as he planted his feet on either side of her. His hands seized her upper arms, just above the elbows, and pulled up. She rolled from her side to her hands and knees, and she knew that every inch of skin on her body, save what precious little the swimsuit covered, was soon to be fair game. As she tried to catch her breath she had no strength to resist, and she felt one muscular leg swing over her body, and in an instant his legs wrapped around her waist and rolled her over so that her body was on top of his. With one hand he hooked one arm and held the other in his hand's strong grasp, and in a split second she realized that she had no limbs available, and he had one hand completely unaccounted for. She felt her torso arch backwards as he stretched her body out, and she almost had time to start begging.
A cruel pinching claw set upon her side, just under her last rib, and her legs kicked out as a response. He kept tickling that spot that she could not reach, and she screamed in response, feeling his legs reposition themselves so that his feet were on the insides of her knees, keeping her from putting her legs together again. Even through the merciless side-tickling she knew what that exposure was going to mean, and she squirmed in vain against his grip, feeling his pleasure increase against her lower back as he poked and pinched up and down her ribs, squeezed her ticklish hip, and kept applying the maddening touches that she had come to receive. Laughing this hard with a body like Denard's pressed against hers was an experience that had no point of comparison in her memory, and to her terror, his fingers tickled more and more as his muscles against her skin excited her.
As she laughed and panted he released her arms and crossed both his own across her midsection. Now his right hand tickled her left flank and his left her right, and her flailing arms could do nothing about it. Her back against his chest and his arms around her body, Alyana felt an intoxicating mix of pleasure and terror as he pinched and rubbed and kneaded her ribs and her hips and every ticklish spot above her legs. In a fleeting moment she hoped he wouldn't ask her about the harem experience right now, because she couldn't imagine saying no to anywhere he wanted to touch her in that moment. As she wriggled and he tickled, his legs moved up from her knees so that his hips were underneath her buttocks. Once more she could feel his hardness slide down her back, and she knew what was on the way.
Alyana stopped laughing for a split-second and gasped as she felt his arms release their grip: the outsides of his calves now pressed her lower thighs apart, making everything from her swimsuit bottom almost to her knees an open target. As his arms crossed her lower abdomen and his hands reached for her inner thighs, she screamed and her tickling-weakened arms tried to grab his powerful wrists. But it was far too late for that: his fingers found the spots that she dreaded since their first tickling encounter, and she bucked wildly against him as his fingers pinched her inner legs. Each squeeze made her squeal, and her own arms flailed in vain against his strong forearms as he tickled. She could feel his chest against her back, and even though the terror of his fingers' squeezing her sensitive thighs, even as she felt herself becoming more and more aroused, she could feel him laughing underneath her, and she couldn't tell whether his tickling or his enjoyment of her was making her crazier and making her want him more but both were happening.
Then she felt him kiss her lower neck, just where her shoulder met the nape, and everything that came before gave way to a white-hot haze of ecstasy. His fingers tickled more, she could feel her lower body heave in a grand explosion of desire satisfied, and his lips and tongue kept caressing her neck as every finger's greedy touch tickled her more than she could ever remember being tickled. Her arms now simply flailed as she realized that, without ever touching her anywhere that her swimsuit covered, Andre Denard had taken her over an edge that she had hardly ever even looked over. Some voice beyond the torture was telling her to embrace him, but his hands, one of which had moved from her thigh to her hip, making her tired body squirm in a new direction, kept her from thinking that abstractly or dreaming that explicitly.
When he finally released his hold and helped her to stand up, Alyana simply quivered as her body tried to process every touch that had lead up to and through and beyond the grand wave of pleasure. As she panted, Andre helped her up from the floor and guided her to the hot tub. In her haze she could feel his hands, those powerful torture instruments, rub her shoulders as she settled her back against him. They did not talk; she just moaned as his massage untwisted the cords that he had wound so tight and the hot water made her drowsy and content in a way that she could not remember being content.
When Alyana awoke the next morning, the surroundings of their medical camp rushed in at her, and it took several minutes, as she prepared for another day's work, for her to convince herself that everything that she remembered was real and not a bizarre dream. She had images of Denard's waiting for her to change back into clothes and guiding her to her ride home, and she was certain that he had not ever been in a room where she was naked, and that small courtesy made her smile even as she realized that his hands really did know more about her now than she had known about herself the previous morning.
As refugees began to line up for medical attention, Alyana Pulanski licked her lips just for a moment, then put on her field-medic's face and began the day's work.
Part Two
I thank those of you who have been commenting on the previous parts. If you like what you see, write a comment on this one! Here's the next episode in Alyana's story.
Foreign Aid, part three (m/f)
by
Kid Indy
Alyana Pulanski, recently featured in her small Southern college's alumni magazine, was becoming a legend in the hills. Rumors began to spread that, if they reached her medical aid camp, the very angels of Heaven would protect them from the revolutionary militias that victimized the poor as they fled the conflict. And as such things go, soon those stories led to Alyana's simply being called "the angel" in the local dialect, a name that she would correct at first when people slipped and called her that in her presence but, as days passed, she simply tolerated.
She knew well enough that no angel protected her team's tents. Rather, a devil of a man patrolled the hills, someone who had played her whole body like a musical instrument through the soles of her feet and who waited, the next time she took leave of her work, to work diabolical magic through her ticklish skin. She found herself thinking more and more about Andre Denard as that day grew closer--how could she do otherwise?--and, to her own horror, sometimes thought of him when she had a rare private moment to enjoy herself in a bath or in her bed.
In those moments sometimes she asked herself, "Why not? After all, the whole crew thinks I'm sleeping with him--why shouldn't I?" But somehow, despite the strangeness of the past several weeks, Alyana still maintained her convictions, and she resolved to give Denard only what their agreement dictated, not anything beyond.
Alyana's reverie was interrupted by the sound of small-arms fire in the distance. Her team went into defensive positions, bringing children quickly under cover and trying to get as many of the sick and wounded out of the line of sight. Minutes crawled by as the aid workers waited. Another burst of fire echoed through the trees, then a third, then a fourth. Everyone could hear a wounded man scream and a diesel engine roar into the distance.
More time crawled by, and the team stayed down. Finally a man in camouflage emerged into the clearing and gave the all-clear. Alyana approached him and recognized one of Denard's lieutenants. "What was that?"
"The Wolf is in the area again, Miss Pulanski." Alyana shuddered, remembering her earlier encounter with the rebel leader and his threats that only Andre Denard's arrival kept from coming true.
"You drove him away, though, yes?"
"Affirmative, ma'am. They're headed east of here, and we took no casualties." After exchanging some situation-reports, the man went back into the woods, and Alyana thanked Heaven again that her devil was winning the day.
A few days later, when the car came to pick her and Carlos up, Alyana was dressed as Denard had requested last time: a loose dress over a two-piece swim suit. After a short ride Alyana noticed that they were not headed for the normal river-dock where the yacht waited but to the wealthy part of the city, and she couldn't help but crane her neck when they pulled up to a luxury hotel. After being around ruined villages for so long, Alyana had almost forgotten what the country's money-soaked tourist district looked like. When the car's door opened Denard was waiting outside on the sidewalk, and he welcomed Alyana in as Carlos was, as usual, escorted off.
"You look exquisite tonight, Alyana. Did you bring attire for the hot tub?"
She found herself flirting with him in spite of herself. "Are you already so eager?"
He laughed and walked with her to the hotel's restaurant. They sat and ate and drank, talking as always of books and ideas, but this evening's conversation took a turn that Alyana, even expecting oddness, did not anticipate.
"Have you read much about the Harems of the Ottoman Empire?"
Alyana was taken aback; she took a drink and shook her head in the negative.
"They were fascinating institutions, really. Very religious. The idea was that every emperor had to have a legitimate heir, and more than one to be safe, so he would have several legal wives to increase the probability."
Alyana didn't know where this was going. "Am I going to meet some other women tonight, Andre?"
He laughed again. "No, Alyana, I assure you that you're the only woman in my life. But here's the curious part: the ways of a woman aren't that easy to predict, and often the harem women wouldn't be eager to be the wife of the night when their turn came around."
"That's actually not hard to predict, Andre. Most women don't want to be one of many."
He smiled. "But the keepers of the harem, the eunuchs, discovered ways even around that." Alyana was already guessing what this story was going to involve. "They would bind the woman who was to see the emperor--"
"And tickle her feet, right?"
"No, but a man can imagine, right? No, they would feather her breasts."
Alyana gasped. "There's no way! You're not touching my--"
"Oh, Alyana. I know about your beliefs, and I'm not going to make you do that."
"You mean that I'm Catholic. We don't have sex for pay. And you're right--I'm not going to do that."
"No, I didn't say that--I'm still holding out hope that you'll just want to try it with me. But I'm not going to make you, and you can rest assured of that. But I do want you to think about it--feathers' tips taking you to heights that most women never know. It has a certain appeal, don't you think?"
Alyana could feel her swimsuit start to rub against her answer. "Andre, please stop."
"Can't you just feel them now, the shivers that you'd get when the first one stroked your skin? And yes, I'm no Turk and no fool, so I'd no doubt tickle those wonderful feet in between feather treatments, just to see you make the faces you're dying to make right now!"
"Andre!"
"And maybe, if I were having an especially naughty day, I'd take one feather, the one that wasn't tickling your breast, and find an especially good spot between those long legs to tickle!"
Alyana glared, though her attempt to sound stern rose entirely too high in pitch. "Andre! Stop! I'm not going to take off that much when we meet!" She realized, having said those words, that she had no vocabulary for the objection she was trying to make.
Denard leaned in and grinned. "Then you want another round of the Russian treatment?"
"At least that doesn't take my clothes off!"
"No, but I think we both remember that I didn't need to take your clothes off to take you anywhere I needed to go!"
"No matter what happens to my feet, I'm not letting you strip me naked!"
"No matter what, you say? That's a tall order. A challenge even, maybe. We'll have to see next time, won't we? But for now, why don't we start towards the hot tub? I'm just dying to see you in a swim suit!"
Alyana was just glad for a private moment to collect herself and change in a private room. As she uncovered her two-piece bathing suit, she calmed her breathing and tried to ready herself mentally for what would no doubt happen in the hot tub: she knew he would likely paw at her ticklish sides underwater, and she was ready for that. Once again the people who got the medical help and protection from the militias kept her ready to endure the humiliation that Denard would no doubt heap upon her.
Humiliation she could take, of course. It was the desire that came with it that she wouldn't even talk to herself about.
She stepped out of the small room to an approving look from Andre Denard. He had already changed into a pair of black swim trunks, and she couldn't help but admire the lean, muscular form before her. She found herself giggling quietly as she took in with her eyes a body that she could look at and not get tired of. Knowing that he wanted to put his hands on her made her skin tingle, and she was already imagining the underwater tickling he was about to give her. Her heart began to beat faster as he took her hand and led her to a hallway. She could smell the treated water as they passed through another door, but as she stepped into the next room, her feet sent her an alarm.
She looked down and realized that they had entered some sort of training room, the kind that martial arts students worked in. Instead of tile or carpet, thick mats covered the floor. She realized, as she took in the surroundings, that Denard had let her hand go and taken three long strides ahead of her.
Then she heard the click behind her.
She looked back to see a shadowy figure securing the door.
"As you see, Alyana, there's no going back from here. The hot tub is beyond the door behind me, but to get to it, you'll have to get past me." He had started to crouch into a wrestler's stance.
"Andre, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to keep you from getting to that hot tub until I've given you a tickling that you'll never forget!" His fingers started to wriggle, and Alyana's knees started to go weak.
"Please, let's just get into the hot tub!"
He began to take small steps towards her. "It's just beyond me. Go get it, and it's yours!"
Alyana started to realize just what kind of situation she was in: those wicked fingers could get to just about any part of her body without any clothes in the way, and she knew just which spots he was likely already imagining. Instincts kicked in, and she turned and ran, grabbed the door's handle, shook the locked door in vain.
Denard did not waste words but matched her stride for stride, and as her arms reached up for the door's handle, his fingers went up and in, and he elbows clamped down even as her fingers kept their hold on the door. With his fingers on her wonderfully ticklish armpits, a taste of ticklish woman he had not enjoyed since their first encounter, he drank in her laughing scream just before she released the door's handle and fell back into him. His body moved with hers, and both rolled gracefully to the mat, his fingers never leaving the hollows under her arms. She attempted to curl into a ball on her side, but his hands had their prize and would not leave her underarms.
Suddenly his hands left her sides, and she took in a grand gasp of air, only to realize that he had not given up the pursuit but merely started to pursue his next target. She felt the mat give as he planted his feet on either side of her. His hands seized her upper arms, just above the elbows, and pulled up. She rolled from her side to her hands and knees, and she knew that every inch of skin on her body, save what precious little the swimsuit covered, was soon to be fair game. As she tried to catch her breath she had no strength to resist, and she felt one muscular leg swing over her body, and in an instant his legs wrapped around her waist and rolled her over so that her body was on top of his. With one hand he hooked one arm and held the other in his hand's strong grasp, and in a split second she realized that she had no limbs available, and he had one hand completely unaccounted for. She felt her torso arch backwards as he stretched her body out, and she almost had time to start begging.
A cruel pinching claw set upon her side, just under her last rib, and her legs kicked out as a response. He kept tickling that spot that she could not reach, and she screamed in response, feeling his legs reposition themselves so that his feet were on the insides of her knees, keeping her from putting her legs together again. Even through the merciless side-tickling she knew what that exposure was going to mean, and she squirmed in vain against his grip, feeling his pleasure increase against her lower back as he poked and pinched up and down her ribs, squeezed her ticklish hip, and kept applying the maddening touches that she had come to receive. Laughing this hard with a body like Denard's pressed against hers was an experience that had no point of comparison in her memory, and to her terror, his fingers tickled more and more as his muscles against her skin excited her.
As she laughed and panted he released her arms and crossed both his own across her midsection. Now his right hand tickled her left flank and his left her right, and her flailing arms could do nothing about it. Her back against his chest and his arms around her body, Alyana felt an intoxicating mix of pleasure and terror as he pinched and rubbed and kneaded her ribs and her hips and every ticklish spot above her legs. In a fleeting moment she hoped he wouldn't ask her about the harem experience right now, because she couldn't imagine saying no to anywhere he wanted to touch her in that moment. As she wriggled and he tickled, his legs moved up from her knees so that his hips were underneath her buttocks. Once more she could feel his hardness slide down her back, and she knew what was on the way.
Alyana stopped laughing for a split-second and gasped as she felt his arms release their grip: the outsides of his calves now pressed her lower thighs apart, making everything from her swimsuit bottom almost to her knees an open target. As his arms crossed her lower abdomen and his hands reached for her inner thighs, she screamed and her tickling-weakened arms tried to grab his powerful wrists. But it was far too late for that: his fingers found the spots that she dreaded since their first tickling encounter, and she bucked wildly against him as his fingers pinched her inner legs. Each squeeze made her squeal, and her own arms flailed in vain against his strong forearms as he tickled. She could feel his chest against her back, and even though the terror of his fingers' squeezing her sensitive thighs, even as she felt herself becoming more and more aroused, she could feel him laughing underneath her, and she couldn't tell whether his tickling or his enjoyment of her was making her crazier and making her want him more but both were happening.
Then she felt him kiss her lower neck, just where her shoulder met the nape, and everything that came before gave way to a white-hot haze of ecstasy. His fingers tickled more, she could feel her lower body heave in a grand explosion of desire satisfied, and his lips and tongue kept caressing her neck as every finger's greedy touch tickled her more than she could ever remember being tickled. Her arms now simply flailed as she realized that, without ever touching her anywhere that her swimsuit covered, Andre Denard had taken her over an edge that she had hardly ever even looked over. Some voice beyond the torture was telling her to embrace him, but his hands, one of which had moved from her thigh to her hip, making her tired body squirm in a new direction, kept her from thinking that abstractly or dreaming that explicitly.
When he finally released his hold and helped her to stand up, Alyana simply quivered as her body tried to process every touch that had lead up to and through and beyond the grand wave of pleasure. As she panted, Andre helped her up from the floor and guided her to the hot tub. In her haze she could feel his hands, those powerful torture instruments, rub her shoulders as she settled her back against him. They did not talk; she just moaned as his massage untwisted the cords that he had wound so tight and the hot water made her drowsy and content in a way that she could not remember being content.
When Alyana awoke the next morning, the surroundings of their medical camp rushed in at her, and it took several minutes, as she prepared for another day's work, for her to convince herself that everything that she remembered was real and not a bizarre dream. She had images of Denard's waiting for her to change back into clothes and guiding her to her ride home, and she was certain that he had not ever been in a room where she was naked, and that small courtesy made her smile even as she realized that his hands really did know more about her now than she had known about herself the previous morning.
As refugees began to line up for medical attention, Alyana Pulanski licked her lips just for a moment, then put on her field-medic's face and began the day's work.
