Practicing casual speech

After realizing I am getting out of practice with chit-chat, I decided to work on that a bit. And how did I wind up working on it? Why, by rattling off a prolonged conversation between Sun Kim - the property owner of Haven (previously Catalina something-or-other... I changed my mind), and Trent. This is part of it - in its entirety it carries on for a while and gets a little bleak, which is basically my writing in a nutshell. Hah.

As Sun drove her fingers into the gash in my leg, feeling for the femoral artery, my stomach lurched. My hands spasmed against the frame of the cot, buckling the aluminum.

"Sorry," I hissed through clenched teeth. "I'll pay for a new one."

She gestured dismissively with a gloved hand painted red with my blood.

"It's fine, they're very inexpensive." She leaned back but continued probing the inner workings of my thigh. "Good news, your femoral artery is intact."

Sweat beading on my brow, I offered a feeble smile.

"That's great news. Now... could you possibly get your fingers out me? I mean, you haven't even taken me out to dinner yet."

Sun let out a single sharp note of surprised laughter, then did as I asked, rising to her feet.

"I'm still worried about the ammount of bleeding, and just how badly flayed you are. I think stitches are in order." She turned her back, rummaging through a stout cabinet for supplies. It made sense that Haven had a rudimentary medical center, but it seemed curious that its proprietor was so intimately familiar with triage care.

"Do you do all of the medical care here at Haven?" I asked as she turned donning fresh gloves and carrying nylon suture thread and a wickedly hooked needle.

"Just the basics, and only as much as they'll allow me. Most of the gargoyles here aren't very comfortable with humans." She sat down and scooted her chair up to the cot, trapping my leg between her knees and clearing away some of the thicker clots of blood with a sterile swab. She did not bother properly cleaning and flushing the wound; I was a therian, it wasn't going to get infected.

"Where did you get your medical training?" I winced as the needle bit into my flesh, ducking through the lasceration and emerging on the opposite side.

"Hm?" she responded absently, too focused on the task at hand to have heard me the first time.

"I know a little bit about you, Sun, and from what I've read your primary education was in psychiatry. Now I know you went to medical school, but even my primary physician wouldn't be this comfortable stitching up a wound. I'm wondering how you got so good at triage care in your line of work."

She paused for a moment, then looped the needle through my flesh once more. I could feel the creeping tug of the thread sliding through my skin.

"Is that important?" She finally replied.

"Not particularly. I'm just curious."

"Why?"

It seemed like an odd question.

"I'd like to get to know more about you," I shrugged. "I came here mostly to study the Gargoyles and learn more about Haven, but a human who risks her life and devotes her finances to helping another species is automatically of interest to me."

"It would have been less of a trip to just interview someone at your local dog shelter, then." Her lips were pulled tight in a humorless line.

"Dogs aren't in the midst of a violent civil rights struggle," I replied. "Ok, so you're keeping mum on your mysterious medical background. Fine, fine. Maybe you have your reasons. Maybe you're a secret agent and it's classified information." I grinned. "How did you get involved helping gargoyles?"

"That information is available on Haven's website."

I let out a frustrated groan.

"Am I really that unbearable to talk to?"

She looked up and for a moment, there was something profoundly sad in her dark, almond shaped eyes that I didn't really understand.

"Not at all."

"What is it then?" The last syllable was lost in a sharp hiss as the needle dove a little too deep.

"Sorry. I'm a little distracted. I'm trying to sew up a really nasty leg wound, but this guy won't stop talking my ear off." She had the slightest hint of a smile when she said it.

"He sounds like an asshole. Is he cute, at least?"