In Buddy's Room
Buddy led Krys upstairs and opened the blue door to his wing of the Color Castle.
"Welcome to my quarters."
Krys gazed around the room furnished overwhelmingly in shades of blue, shelves of gym equipment, inspiring and motivational pictures on the walls, and a large round bed neatly covered in sky-blue sheets.
"Sit down. Relax. Make yourself right at home," Buddy encouraged.
The sprite doctor certainly did. He bustled in accompanied by a younger pale-blue sprite who he had charged with lugging the heavy medical bag.
"Who's this?" Krys asked.
"Oh that's Patch, the sprite doctor's assistant."
"Your sprites have assistants? Isn't that confusing!?"
"Oh no, it's when their assistants have assistants and then they also have assistants. That's when it gets confusing," Buddy grinned.
The sprite doctor was babbling instructions to Patch who started pulling items out and placing them on a tray at the bedside table: sprite-size gloves, cotton swabs, gauze and tape, antiseptic cream, rubbing alcohol, tweezers, suture needle and thread and even a scalpel.
"Make myself right at home, huh? No problem," Krys tried not to sound too sarcastic. "What did the sprite doctor say? Take off all my clothes? Yeah, that's what I always do soon as I get home," Krys joked standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.
The sprite doctor was all business. He nodded and pointed to Buddy's bed, saying something unintelligible.
"He honestly doesn't mean to make you uncomfortable," Buddy assured. "Sprites don't wear clothes. They don't understand the concept of being naked." Buddy turned to the sprite doctor. "Maybe we can start with just above the waist?"
The sprite doctor nodded but still insisted Krys sit down on the bed and start undressing.
"Okay, okay, I'll get my gear off," Krys sat down then undid and began removing his armoured vest.
"Here, let me help," Buddy offered, stepping in.
"You know it's kind of weird that you think I can't undress myself," Krys said.
"Of course you can, but the sprite doctor's waiting, and your hands are injured. Isn't it easier if you let me help? I want to."
"Okay," Krys relented. "Fine!"
He took the vest from Krys and lay it neatly on a chair where he'd also placed Krys's folded gloves that he'd taken from the sprites. Next Krys unclasped his diamond belt and handed it to Buddy. He watched in amusement as Buddy seemed to enjoy carefully winding the belt up and placing it neatly with his other things. The sprite doctor noisily made it clear he wanted Krys to hurry things along, so Krys let Buddy unzip his suit and he pulled his arms from the puffy sleeves and rolled the tight garment down to his waist. Under his suit he wore only a short-sleeved white undershirt so the cuts and bruises across his arms and shoulders were laid bare.
The sprite doctor immediately jumped up on the bed and began inspecting the damage, tut-tutting as he went, and spouting orders Patch who hurried over with gloves, swabs and wound spray. Krys was taken aback when the sprite doctor brandished his stethoscope, pressing it to his chest and listening with deep concentration.
"You're a new patient," Buddy explained. "Standard check-up procedure."
"But what's he doing?" Krys asked.
"Using the stethoscope to listen to your heart and lungs. Krys, surely you've been to a doctor before?"
Krys didn't reply. He was too busy looking from one sprite to the other as they fussed over him. Patch, the assistant sprite was cleaning and dabbing at Krys's cuts and once the sprite doctor finished with his stethoscope, he started applying antiseptic cream and dressing Krys's wounds with layers of gauze and tape. He looked up at Krys and jabbered something incomprehensible to Krys.
"The sprite doctor wants to know what caused all your injuries," Buddy translated.
"What do you mean? The cuts and bruises were caused by diamonds of course. I tumbled down a slope of loose diamond shards way out on the edge of the western plains."
"But why? What were you doing there and how did you fall? Did something cause you to slip?"
"Does it matter?"
"The sprite doctor seems to think so."
Krys paused. "Well, the prism only had enough charge for one more shot, so I wanted to get in exactly the right position, which just happened to be right on the edge of that slope. I thought I could manage it, but the force of that blast made me lose my balance."
"What blast?"
"I used every last bit of the prism's power to blast the diamond thieves all the way off Spectra to an uninhabited world."
"That's what you meant when you said you banished them?"
"Yeah. It all worked according to plan, except I lost my footing right at the end."
"Where was On-X?"
"I'd sent him out to circle the thieves, kind of a distraction to keep them in position. He came to find me once the job was done."
"What did you do after the accident?"
"On-X brought me back to my hut. I got changed, packed and set off to come here."
"Straight away?"
"I'd told Rainbow I'd see her at start of summer. I didn't want to let her down. I was looking forward to seeing everybody in Rainbow Land."
"Of course."
"Is that enough information for the sprite doctor?"
"I think so. But he's worried about this gash on your arm. It's deep. It might need stitches."
"Really? This?" Krys laughed. "This doesn't hurt much at all. It's my side that's really been killing me." He put a hand to the side of his back.
"What? Krys! Why didn't you say earlier? Help us out here, would you!" Buddy exclaimed while the sprite doctor went ballistic.
"Hey! I'm trying! I've done everything you asked, okay!" Krys fired back. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say or do! I've never seen a doctor before. I don't know how it works!"
"You've really never seen a doctor before? But you told Rainbow you get injured all the time on Spectra!"
"I only meant the occasional cut or bump!"
"I think Rainbow would be very relieved to hear that. You don't mind if I explain that to her, do you? You scared her, you know."
"I didn't mean to!"
"Now let's get the sprite doctor to look at your side that's bothering you."
Krys lifted his undershirt while saying, "It's this cut on the side of my back. I can't quite see. It's probably nothing – just where my belt's been rubbing."
"Looks kinda serious, actually." Buddy winced at the sight of the large gash down the very side of Krys's back that didn't look clean cut like the other gashes.
"The sprite doctor wants you to lie down on your left side so he can have a proper look. Here's a pillow if you need it. Let's get your shirt right off. There we go. And pull your suit down further. Okay."
"Ouch!" Krys complained as the sprite doctor immediately started cleaning up the wound even before he got comfortable on the bed. "Ouch! What are you doing?"
"Krys, this wound is still bleeding. Please lie as still as you can so the sprite doctor can examine you. He thinks there's something stuck in the wound."
The sprite doctor yelled for tweezers and the assistant drenched them in alcohol before handing them across. The two sprites yammered away and Patch prepared a needle.
"Okay, Krys. This might sting. The sprite doc's going to inject a local anaesthetic to numb the area, before removing whatever's in there. Are you ready?"
"Sure," Krys consented.
The sprite doctor injected the anaesthetic and waited for it to take effect, then dug into the wound with the tweezers. Krys didn't complain but he squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into fists around the pillow before the sprite doctor finally extracting a thin sharp sliver of diamond which he held up triumphantly.
"You ok there?" Buddy checked in with Krys.
"Mm-hmm," Krys mumbled, struggling to sit up.
"You did great."
"Great? I really thought I got all the shards out before I came. Guess I missed that one." Krys became woozy looking at the bloodied diamond shard in the sprite doctor's tweezers.
"Hey, take it easy. Lie back down," Buddy told him. "The sprite doctor's definitely gonna want to give you stitches for this."
Krys lay back on the pillows with Buddy Blue at his side, wincing while his side and arm were stitched and bandaged.
"That's the top half of you taken care of. You want a break, or will we keep going?"
Krys groaned. "Why can't it just be done?"
"You're doing great, so what do you say we keep going, then it's all done and you can rest, okay?"
"Sure."
While the sprite doctor sent Patch to get more supplies, Buddy helped Krys back into his undershirt. Then Krys took off his boots and, ready to remove the the lower half of his suit, he hesitated.
"We'll turn around," Buddy him. The sprite doctor politely busied himself rummaging in his bag while Buddy faced the other way and waited while Krys peeled off his suit and tights. When he turned back around Krys was wearing just his undershirt, shorts, and white socks pulled up to his rather banged up knees. Patch reappeared and he and the sprite doctor started cleaning them up and attending to other cuts they found on Krys's thighs.
"Krys, can you please pull your socks down for the sprite doctor to examine your lower legs?" Buddy asked at the sprite doctor's bidding.
"I can but…is it really necessary?" Krys asked but the sprite doctor pulled down his socks before he finished speaking, revealing gold-plated panels down the front of each of Krys's shins, that appeared to be embedded in each leg. Some kind of implants? Krys turned pale and froze. Buddy interpreted for the sprite doctor. "Er… Well… it appears you have no more injuries to treat, which is good, so Patch can pack away the medical supplies, and Krys, you may pull your socks up if you wish."
Krys did so immediately and seemed to recover the power of speech. He told them super fast: "My boots are super tough, so I didn't get any cuts on my lower legs. Does that mean we're done here? Can I go now?"
Buddy and the sprite doctor shared a glance and Buddy interpreted carefully.
"The sprite doctor just wants to ask if there's any other information you'd like him to know about you. Any medical history?"
Krys shook his head firmly, avoiding their eyes. "Like I told you, I've never been to a doctor, so no."
"Well, in that case…" Buddy continued as The sprite doctor babbled away while writing up some notes, which Krys insisted on looking at, but the writing made no more sense to him than the sprites speech, "the sprite doctor will leave you now. But he wants you to stay put and rest up for a while. He'll check in on you tomorrow, and see how you are, but you probably shouldn't count on doing any strenuous activities for a couple of weeks. Does that sound okay?"
Krys shrugged.
After a bit more babbling and waving his finger and making sure Krys got back into Buddy's bed, the sprite doctor bustled away with Patch in tow, leaving Krys alone with Buddy.
"So, like I said before," Buddy sat down on the bed next to Krys, "make yourself at home. Is there anything I can get for you?"