Chapter Text
Danyal tried to remember what happened. The last thing he remembered was playing his guitar and singing, then doing a few bits on his quetarra and bass to check them. He thought he remembered playing a Wachamio! song with the full band to check balance. But then… nothing after that.
The Ryn looked around as well as he could with his left eye covered. White walls, computer terminals, an end table covered with flowers (a LOT of flowers); a droid that hovered in and out of view as it puttered around, checking readouts and occasionally scanning some part of Danyal's body.
Danyal was covered with a blanket, so he couldn't see most of himself. His arms were secured to the bed with restraints. He could feel that his left arm was wrapped in bandages from his upper arm to the wrist. He couldn't see his fingers. They felt a bit numb, but he thought he could move them; that was a good sign at least. His right arm seemed ok, it had some sort of tube going into it, intravenous fluids, he guessed. He understood the restraints now. If he had been flailing around like he'd tried to do when he first woke up, he could have done some serious damage to himself. He took stock of his lower limbs. His right leg felt ok, just a bit achy, but he could move it. His left leg felt like it was wrapped in bandages, too. His tail felt ok, though it was restrained also. Probably a good idea, he thought, that thing has a mind of its own sometimes. He had just started to try to turn his head for a better look at his left arm when the doctor arrived.
"Good to see you awake, Le'tzigane--" the brown-skinned human female began.
"Danyal." He croaked. Wow, my throat is really dry.
"Excuse me?" The doctor asked.
"My name is Danyal. Le'tzigane is just my stage name." Danyal clarified.
"Ah.” The doctor made a note on her data pad. She started undoing the restraints on his wrists. "Sorry, all we had to go on were your public bios for the band, which, by the way, did not list your species."
"Ryn." Danyal answered, lifting his right arm and flexing his wrist. He wiggled his fingers. No problems with that hand at least, it would play music again. He wasn't so sure about his left hand, though.
"Hm, not a species I am familiar with," the doctor replied. "The medical computer had trouble identifying you as well."
"Not surprising." Danyal muttered.
"Where is your home planet? Somewhere out beyond the Outer Rim? Wild Space?" The doctor asked, unstrapping his left wrist and checking the circulation in his hand.
"We don't have a home planet." Danyal sighed, impatience and worry coloring his voice. "Look, doc, I'd love to discuss my people's long mysterious history. But right now I'd really like to know what the hell happened to me, and why you couldn't ask any of my bandmates or the crew about my name or species."
"I apologize." The doctor said. She stopped her ministrations and looked Danyal in the eye. "My name is Doctor Morgan, you are in Ixtlar General Hospital. You, your bandmates, and crew were involved a multiple-aircar accident on the way to your concert venue from your personal ship. Initial autopsy results showed that the pilot of the first aircar had a delayed reaction to a toxic substance he had been exposed to, or ingested, causing a seizure. The first aircar carrying you, your bandmates, and the dancers, impacted the second one carrying your tech crew. Both crashed rather horribly, I'm afraid, just outside the spaceport."
Danyal was cursing, in multiple languages, as her story unfolded. His heart grew more heavy with each word.
"How--" Oh STARS, how could I be asking something like this? He thought. "You said there were autopsies... Aijan was probably that one flying the band aircar. How many survived besides me?"
"Just one. A female Mirialan." Morgan replied.
Danyal squeezed his good eye shut in agony. No, this can't be, it has to be a dream, a nightmare.
"She and you were thrown free of the first aircar together during the accident," the doctor explained. "Your body took the brunt of your collective impact, saving her from getting as much physical trauma, but a piece of debris struck her head. She is in a coma in the room next door."
"Do you know anything about her?" The doctor asked. She lifted the blanket to check on the Ryn's lower limbs. "We didn't find any identification on her."
"Her name is Jess, she plays the quetarra. She came here from another system, hitchhiked on a ship over, to see--" Danyal swallowed at the growing lump in his throat, "--to see Wachamio!, and particularly, me, perform. She wouldn't even be in this mess if it wasn't for me."
"Danyal," Doctor Morgan spoke consolingly, spreading out the blanket again. "It is very likely that she wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for you. In the last seconds before the crash, you shielded her with your own body. It very nearly killed you. We've repaired broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured skull and cheekbone, a shattered left leg, and cracked left arm."
"How long have I been here?" Danyal wondered aloud.
"Three standard weeks," Morgan replied. "We kept you sedated as we put you back together. So you wouldn't inadvertently do more damage to yourself, and to save you from the pain."
Danyal snorted, or, tried to. His nose was covered in bandages. The air pressure blowback sent a shock of pain through his entire head.
"Oh, try not to do that. Our surgeons had to do a lot of reconstructive work in the left side of your forehead, cheek, and sinus cavities," the doctor explained. "Without much besides the undamaged side of your face to go on as reference. You have a very complicated nasal structure."
"I'm glad I was such a fascinating subject for you all," the Ryn replied bitterly. "Congratulations, you all have seen more of the insides of a Ryn than anyone in the Galaxy, besides the slavers, that is."
"Ah, that explains the old scars," Doctor Morgan murmured. She made another note on her datapad.
"When can I get out of here?" Danyal fumed. He was already getting tired of being a scientific study for these doctors.
Morgan helped Danyal sit up as she explained the treatment plan for the next few weeks of recovery. "It will be another month before we consider your skull fracture healed enough to be allowed out of our care. But there will be plenty of rehabilitation to keep you busy, plus meetings with the lawyers."
"Lawyers?" Danyal asked. He paused at the edge of the bed.
"You are the last surviving representative of your band. They have been calling for two weeks asking if you were conscious yet." Morgan explained. "They are trying to adjudicate the band's assets and pay off its debts."
"Patch them through tomorrow," Danyal sighed. "I don't want to deal with that today."
What he did want to deal with was going for a walk. With the occasional help of Morgan, a medical droid, and a cane, Danyal made his way slowly to Jess' room. She lay quietly on the hospital bed with barely a bandage on her.
It was a trip he would make every day for the next month. He sat and talked to Jess for hours every day. The doctors said it sometimes helped patients in comas to hear a voice they knew. After having the lawyers get someone to bring his guitar to him at the hospital, Danyal played music for her too. Slowly at first, as his left arm recovered its strength and dexterity.
He worked with the lawyers. He ended up having to sell off much of Wachamio!'s assets. He paid the debts owed to the various venues their concerts had been canceled at, unsettled tabs at clubs and bars along the Corellian Way, and damages claimed by bystanders who were injured in the aircar accident. Plus other miscellaneous things in the endless documents the lawyers brought to his hospital room each day he was feeling well enough to deal with them.
When all was done, all that was left of Wachamio! was the personal belongings of his deceased bandmates. They were packaged and shipped to the closest relatives the lawyers could find. And the Party Barge. Danyal insisted on keeping the ship, no matter how much of his share of the remaining monetary assets it cost him. He had plans for it when he was recovered. Most of the cabins had been emptied (besides his own, which he'd asked to leave secured until he could sort it out himself). Clothing, costumes and other similar items that had not been claimed by kin had been sent to auction houses in an attempt to reclaim their worth.
As Danyal recovered, he wondered what he would do when the day came that he was well enough to leave the hospital. He felt an obligation to watch over Jess until her family could be found, but he couldn't stay here forever. One morning near the end of his recovery, the question was answered for him.
Danyal sat in Jess' room, in his usual chair by her bedside. He was holding her hand and talking to her like he often did.
"Hey, beautiful, how are you doing today? The doctors said I am ok to leave tomorrow, but I've been worried about leaving you alone with these strangers, as nice as they've been to us.
"I went to the Barge yesterday for the first time since... Well, you know." Danyal leaned in and whispered to his unconscious friend. "My cabin was quite a mess, by the way. There was bedding, towels, and clothes everywhere. I don't know what you were wearing on our way to the concert, but it wasn't that sleeveless top and skirt, they were laying on my floor. I have no idea what we did in my cabin that day, Jess, but I hope it was fun, it looked like it was.
"I found your bag," Danyal continued in a normal voice. "It had some identicards in it, I handed them over to the police to see what they could do to find your family. Well, today, the hospital got commed by your parents. Someone connected some dots somewhere and matched their missing person case to you. They're on their way here right now."
Danyal thought he felt her hand twitch. It happened sometimes, but this time seemed much more deliberate than usual.
"Jess, can you hear me?" he asked excitedly. "Can you squeeze my hand again?"
This time there was a definite response, her hand tightened in his, stronger than it ever had during her weeks of unconsciousness. Danyal's heart began to rise out of the darkness it had inhabited for so long. He moved to sit on the edge of Jess' hospital bed, holding her hand to his chest with one velvety hand and reaching out with the other to stroke her cheek.
"You! Get your filthy hands off my daughter!"
Danyal jumped in surprise at the sudden ferocious yell. He snatched his hand away from Jess' face and turned towards the shout. A Mirialan man stood in the doorway to Jess' room, a look of absolute fury and disgust on his green-skinned face. Jess' hand squeezed Danyal's tightly as the man screamed again.
"I said get away from her, alien! Why is she so uncovered? What have you done to her?"
Danyal reluctantly let go of Jess' hand and retreated back against the wall of the small recovery room. The man rushed to his daughter's side on the opposite side of the bed from Danyal. He pulled Jess’ blanket up to her neck, then grabbed a towel and covered up her hair.
"I- I don't know what you're talking about," Danyal stammered. Then he saw what must be Jess' mother, in the doorway. She was wearing clothing that covered her, head to foot. Her face and hands were the only bit of her green skin exposed to the world.
Danyal swore under his breath and tried to explain. "She wasn't dressed like that when I met her, sir, no one knew--"
"Enticed by your sinful music, making her sneak away from us and dress herself so immodestly," the father ranted. "I recognize you from the vids I caught her watching, seducing her with your songs..."
"Frankly, sir, she was the one who started it, coming on to me." Danyal yelled, pain and confusion fueling him as he lashed back in anger.
Nurses ran into the room, trying to calm the angry men yelling at each other over their not-quite-so-comatose patient.
"Did you touch her? Did you defile my daughter?!" The man screamed past the attendant who was trying to pull him away from the bed.
"You know what? I don't even remember, we were too DRUNK or maybe HIGH!" Danyal yelled back, perversely enjoying the even deeper shade of green blooming on the Mirialan's tattooed face.
The man's words dissolved into sputtered curses in his native language. His wife joined the nurse in trying to turn her husband away from the fight.
Danyal started to lapse into his native Ryn, there were some amazing insults in that language; but too many of the words relied on tones that whistled or resonated through his nose, and they weren't coming out right any more. It didn't sound like his voice any more. It made him even more frustrated and angry, but it did make him briefly stop trying to yell. His hands balled up into fists and he took a step towards the sputtering Mirialan man.
Doctor Morgan reached for Danyal, attempting to drag him out of the room. She yelped as she grabbed his forearm, then grabbed his shirt sleeve with her other hand and pulled him out.
"What was that?" She demanded as she shoved the Ryn back into his own room ahead of her.
"How was I supposed to know her family was religious zealots-?" Danyal began.
"No," Morgan interrupted. "That!"
She pointed to the back of his forearm, numerous stiff quill-like hairs were bristling out among the usually smooth guard hairs. Some of the quills were also sticking out of the docton's palm where she had tried to grab him.
Danyal swore, and started brushing the hair back down. "I'm sorry, I was upset, it's a self-defense… thing…"
"Then I guess you better be glad I got you out of there before Jess' father ended up with a face-full of them," the doctor said with a growl. "Or were you wanting to spend your first night out of the hospital in a detention center for assault?"
"I... just... I would have done nothing to her without her permission," Danyal fumed. "Besides watching over her for the past month."
Morgan flagged down a nurse to bring her some tweezers and a bacta patch.
"Can I help?" Danyal asked contritely.
"Have you extracted these from someone's skin before?"
"Yeah," Danyal said, smiling sadly at the memory. "My buddy Bardirel's face, after he picked a fight once while we were drunk. I had commented on his shoddy half-impaired performance that night, he disagreed with my assessment and swung a punch at me. I fought back. I came back to my senses pretty quick when he started howling.” Danyal let out a choked sound that was half laugh, half sob. “Aijan and Aaced had to hold him down while I plucked the things out with a pair of San’dra’s tweezers.”
"Alright then," Morgan said softly. "Let's get me fixed up and then get you packed, it's time for you to go find your new life, young man. Or, maybe revisit your old one, and go spend some time with your clan."
"If I can find them," Danyal muttered.
--
Danyal had one last stop before he left Ixtlar. He set up an account for any residual future income from Wachamio!'s remaining assets. At the Ixtlar branch of the bank, he used a portion of those funds to rent a safe deposit box. Back at the hospital, he gave Morgan the keychip.
"If you get a chance, when Jess' parents aren't around, give her this, please." He instructed.
"I will do my best, Danyal." She replied. "Good luck in your new life."
—
It had taken her nearly a year and a series of truly life-changing events to get a break from her overprotective parents, but Jeskal Dilan finally managed to do it. She sat in a private room in the bank on Ixtlar, holding the key Doctor Morgan had given her in a moment of solitude before she'd left the hospital. A large box sat on the table before her. She inserted the key into the computerized lock, and a holorecording began. She smiled at the image of the young Ryn musician she hadn't seen since that afternoon in his cabin on the Party Barge. Though she had heard his voice while coming out of the coma.
Hey there Jess. I'm sorry I had to leave, just when you were starting to come around, but your father REALLY doesn't like me, and frankly, if my father and mother were alive, they wouldn't be too happy with my life either.
I've left you some things here that I hope you will be able to use, and one thing that I never want to see again. You are the only other still-living person who has heard it live, Wachamio!'s last song. Though I might make some money releasing it, I never want to hear it again, too many memories. Plus it was a pretty stupid song. Hopefully your memories of it are better.
I've realized something over the past month. You know, the fortune teller the guys and I went and saw, he was right, on every fortune. I tried to find him again, but no one seems to know what or who the hell I'm talking about. So, hey, maybe there's something true to my fortune too.
At any rate, I think I'm going to try to track down my clan. If you really want to find your Ryn friend Danyal, start where I'm going to start, with the Kull mining clans. Who knows, I might eventually find my way to Coruscant, where I'm destined to belong to the one girl who I can't have. Maybe that's my reward for my life of wanton debauchery these past five years.
Anyway, enjoy the gifts, or sell them to a collector and get something you actually need, make yourself happy, for real.
Goodbye Jess.
Inside the box was "Le'tzigane's" electric and bass quetarras (autographed and notarized, in case she wanted to sell them to a collector), the black leather jacket with the band's logo, and a datapad recording of the band performing "Mambo No. 5," as the Twi'lek brothers had oh-so-cleverly named it. Jeskal wondered, however, whether the recording continued, and included Danyal's sound test too. She started the recording and skipped a bit ahead, heard Aijan's proposal to Rita, and then, there it was. Danyal's friends begging him to play some of his people's music, then the beautiful complex sounds of his guitar and plaintive voice.
Maybe she would try to track him down. If only to hear music like that again. And maybe, learn to play it herself.