Shiny had spent the majority of her time with Gilbert as he slowly recovered. He regained a lot of energy and had a healthy appetite after the transfusion set in. Shiny was more than willing to help him to his feet, his small frame using crutches, that is ,when Shiny wasn't holding him up herself, as not only was the healing leg an issue, but the lack of tail made his balance awkward. The main problem was that the stump of his tail was still an open wound and they needed to close it off before an infection could set in.
One day as the two were laying together and chatting, Mr. C came in for his daily checkin.
"Well hello you two." he said in a cheerful tone. "So, I got some good news and some bad news." he said. The two young sets of eyes looked back at him.
"What's the good news?" Shiny spoke up as Gilbert waited for an answer.
"Well the good news is that you're going to learn a new medical procedure, and Gilbert here is going to get a treatment so he can stop wearing bandages on his tail." both kids chimed in with a "Hurray!"
"But the bad news..." Mr. C grew serious and the two paused. "is that it's going to hurt a lot, Gilbert." he said.
"But, don't we have medicine to make it so we don't feel the pain?" he asked as Shiny grew worried.
"Indeed we do, but the problem is that you're still kinda small and while you're feeling better, you're still injured and if we give this stuff to you, you might fall asleep and never wake up." he said, rubbing his arm and sighing. "So it will hurt a lot, but you will be able to heal up and get back to living when it's done." he said, smiling again, though it was a bit of a forced one.
Gilbert looked at Shiny and smiled, giving her beak a small stroke with his hand.
"All right... as long as Shiny is helping... I can do it." he said, which made her gleam a bit brighter as she flushed.
Mr. C cleared the area of the bed, pulling the sheets down and laying out a special cloth, before he left for a moment and came back with a tray with several items on it that made Shiny nervous; sharp things, thread, and a few items she'd never seen before. Mr. C pulled up a stool and sat at the edge of the bed while he brought Shiny close, her small frame sitting on the bed right next to him. Using scissors, Mr. C cut away the bandages from around Gilbert's tail, placing the stained ribbons on the tray as the exposed tail stump lay on the cloth he had lay down earlier. Shiny had seen the injury several times before when the bandages were changed; the tail ending abruptly where it would have been the middle, the wound slightly jagged. Mostly there was skin and muscle tissue, a tailbone having been torn out when the injury had happened and leaving it mostly flesh that was prone to bleeding if it was squeezed.
"Well it looks good and red and pink, so you're not infected, which is good and means we can start the next part." Mr. C said as he opened a bottle of rather strong smelling fluid. He grabbed a cloth from the tray and poured some of the liquid on it before he turned to Shiny. "Show me your hands." he said, which she did, opening her little palms to him. Again it struck him odd how a few generations ago, pteranodons had little more than a few fingers at the top of their wings, now they had whole three digit palms with a thumb. With his musings aside, he took the strong smelling cloth and wiped it along her hands, rubbing her palms and claws before she spoke up.
"This stuff stinks and burns my nose..." she said as she turned her head away.
"Sorry about that, but this stuff gets rid of the tiny germs that can make you sick, but too much of it can hurt you, so it smells bad to prevent you from wanting to drink it, which could make you very sick." he said, choosing to keep the definition of alcohol simple for her. She begrudgingly let him finish wiping her hands down before he dabbled more liquid onto the rag. "This is going to hurt, Gilbert. Hold on, little buddy..." he said as Gilbert clutched the pillow he was laying against before Mr. C started dabbling the cloth on the exposed tail stub.
Shiny thought she was going to have a heart attack, as a few seconds after Mr. C started dabbing the cloth, Gilbert started shivering, clutching the pillow as tight as he could before he began screaming.
"IT BURNS! IT BURNS! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!" he shrieked as his body shivered from the urge to try and escape the fire on his injury, his eyes blurring. Thankfully Mr. C had a grip on Gilbert's hip with his free hand and managed to finish dabbing the wound. Gilbert was still experiencing the fire and was crying rather loudly, something that broke Mr. C's heart and something that instantly made Shiny start crying as she leapt across the bed and hugged his tear stained head to her chest.
"It'll be okay, I'm here for you!" she said over his sobs. His trembling was quite bad for the next few moments, but eventually the burning sensation faded and was replaced with a slightly numb feeling. When that sensation settled in, he sighed softly and his sobs died down as he finally hugged her back.
"I'm sorry that hurt so bad, Gilbert... but there is more to come." Mr. C said and Gilbert broke the hug to look back at him with unbelieving eyes, to which his uncle nodded slowly with a sad expression. Shiny broke her hug as well and scurried over to Mr. C.
"But that hurt him so bad! You can't do more!" she pleaded, tears in her eyes. Mr. C sighed.
"Shiny, Gilbert, it HAS to be done, otherwise we might lose you..." he said, looking at Gilbert and giving his hip a little rub before he looked at Shiny. "But this part will be done by Shiny." he said, the little pteranodon looking a little worried, but he smiled. "Relax, it won't be too hard and I'll help you." he said as he pulled out the liquid and a rag again, running it along her hands and his own before reaching for a needle, which he wiped down before grabbing a special thread, threading the needle and getting it set before he had Shiny sit in front of him. "Okay, so what we're going to do is sew the end of his tail closed, since he won't grow a new one and we don't want dirt or anything to get in it." he said as he placed the needle in her grasp and his hand over her hand, guiding her to touch the needle to one side of his tail, just under the ragged edge of the wound. He had her press in, the needle piercing Gilbert's skin and into the muscle tissue, at which point Gilbert shrieked again and Shiny froze as he started to thrash at the more sharp pain. Mr. C instantly let go of Shiny and grabbed Gilbert, one hand on his chest, the other at his tail base to keep him still. "He's going to be in pain, so push the needle all the way through his tail!" he said, speaking up to be over Gilbert's cries.
"O-okay..." she said as she fought every nerve of her body telling her to go leap over and hug and comfort Gilbert, and instead pressed the needle through the muscle tissue and seeing it poke out the other side. Mr. C briefly let go of Gilbert's chest to assist Shiny in pulling it through the rest of the way before aiming it back at his tail.
"Just like that, do it all the way down the opening." Mr. C said. Shiny was obedient, despite how every stab made Gilbert shriek out and flail, his head slamming into the pillow several times and biting at it to alleviate the stress of the situation. Shiny's work was, unfortunately, slowing down. While she was doing things right, her eyes were welling with tears at hurting Gilbert so much and she was starting to have difficulty seeing what she was doing. Mr. C saw her welling eyes and that she had finished about five bars of the stitching and was close to having it finished. He gently took the needle from her hand. "I'll finish this." he said. "I think Gilbert needs some comfort." Shiny let him take the needle and thread and crawled up him, hugging him tightly as she sniffled.
