INSIDE HER

"Who are you lot?" a wirey orange dragon demanded as our group barged inside their dingy garage. Then, recognition flickered across their face. "Quartz?"

"Save the apology." Quartz growled. "This is an emergency. My friend needs help."

He nodded up at Perfume, whose unconscious body was splayed over our backs. Her pink fur was charred and matted with blood all down her left side. Bandages swaddled the stump of her arm. We carried her over to the (surprisingly clean) operating table, and another of our friends, Storm, helped heft her onto it.

Fiero was still dumbstruck. "Me?"

"We don't exactly have other options." I replied.

They opened their mouth to respond, but before they could, Storm barged in. "Stop sniveling and get to work, worm!"

"I was about to!" they protested. They turned and called towards the back of the shop, "Sis! We've got work to do!"

There was a harsh clanking from the stairs, and in stepped a dragon with her entire front half composed of cobbled-together scrap metal–head, neck, chest, and arms. She wore a heavy collar over her neck, and a helm that occluded her eyes. Where her scales resumed along her back, they were a pale acid green.

Fiero rubbed their claws together. "A chance to help Quartz! I never thought I'd see it."

Their sister slammed down a mechanical switch, and Perfume was pinned between the blazing gaze of three scoop lights. Fiero stepped around her with sharp, anxious movements. The lights cast deep shadows across their face. Their sister tugged over a heavy cart, and together they set about wrapping Perfume in sensors. Fiero glanced up at the dusty monitor. "Uhh, we're gonna need some blood. Like a lot of it. How's our supply, sis?"

Their sister reached into a minifridge and drew out a stained and shrunken pouch that had maybe two hundred milliliters of red sludge in it.

Fiero chuckled nervously. "Um, okay, nevermind. Do any of you know ..."

"Those three." Glacia interrupted, pointing at Storm, Quartz, and Cobalt.

"How do you know that?" I asked while Fiero dug around in a drawer.

"Perfume had me memorize our blood types. For this reason."

"I don't even know my blood type." Cobalt mumbled.

"O+. She tested you herself. Because she's ... like that."

Fiero stuck an IV into Perfume's neck, then connected the other end to their sister's collar. They held out the needles to two more lines. With no hesitation, Storm snatched one and plunged it into her wrist with a sharp hiss. Quartz stepped forward, but Fiero waved him back.

"I don't want to lose your eyes." they said. "Blue guy, get over here."

"Yes ... of course." Cobalt said shakily, stepping up to take the needle. "For Perfume."

Quartz stuck it in him, then peered down at Storm's wrist. "Let me fix that for you. I appreciate the enthusiasm, dear, but you've got it in wrong."

Meanwhile, I had stepped aside to examine the surgery tools. I took them out of their bowl, one by one, wiped them down with a towel, then laid them out. Quartz gently slid an oxygen mask over Perfume's snout. Her breathing calmed slightly. Fiero's sister's collar rumbled as it drew from our donors, who swayed slightly on their claws. Fiero came back over with a wicked pair of scissors. They looked down at them. "Why don't you take these?" They thrust the scissors at Quartz. "For trimming the fur."

Quartz nodded soundlessly, and set to work, snicking the blades back and forth across Perfume's side with study claws.

I came back with the cart. "Fiero; you better have some anesthesia. And surgical garb?"

They humphed. "Of course. We're not completely lawless." I followed their nod towards a closet. I dug for gear, while they mixed medications. We met back up by our friend's shaved side. Despite all our time together, in danger and in closeness, I'd never seen Perfume's scales before.

The mask smelled dusty, and the leather insides of the gloves were suspiciously damp, but they fit. Fiero donned theirs too. Quartz tried to shove his big claws into one, then shook his head. "I'm sorry dears, you'll just have to do this without me."

"... great." I flipped down the goggles. Fiero slipped their needle between Perfume's scales and pushed it into her. Her ears flicked. I picked up a drill. Its bulk was heavy in my claws as I brought it against a wound and pulled the trigger. It whirred and screeched, but slipped through. The magnification on the goggles allowed me to see every fleck of hot dust as it penetrated the scale. A second drill began to buzz away next to my ear. I picked up a retractor and stuck it into the hole to spread it open. Blood oozed out. With my other claws, I brought in a set of forceps and pressed them inside her.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of the tool. It bumped several times against squishy flesh, but then it hit something solid. A light tap confirmed it was metal. I wiggled the forceps, just a bit, until I felt them clamp down on the shard. Deep breath in. A long, slow pull out, until the shard dropped from the forceps into my other palm, dark and dirty, soaked in viscera. I set it aside, and moved for the next wound.

We worked in breathless harmony for quite some time. Stressed smoke poured out of our nostrils, gathering in a cloud above our heads. Sometimes a piece was easy, right beneath the scale or even caught in it. Sometimes it was lodged deep, and we had to take our knives to her in order reach into her depths. I was no stranger to surgical work, but there was something different in watching the scalpel glide through my friend's flesh, to have it come away soaked in blood thick with loyalty.

With my head swimming and my claws aching, I reached into the latest hole, down low on her belly, going through her velvet underscales. My forceps dropped once more into empty space. "Damn, still nothing. This one's deep."

"If it goes much deeper, it'll have pierced something." Fiero warned from above me, where they were patching earlier holes with artificial scaling.

I gritted my teeth. "I know." I picked up a long-bladed scalpel and forced it in deeper.

"Warning: maximum safe blood donation has been reached." There was a harsh thunk of shutting metal, and the hum of Fiero's sister's collar stopped.

I pressed the knife deeper. It bumped against something hard, and for a moment I thought I'd found my target, but the hole kept going. Sickly yellow goop dripped down around my claws. "Aw, great. It's pierced her stomach."

"We'll probably need to open her, then. I'll go get ... do you want me to go grab a part?"

I sighed. I could sense Quartz clenching his claws behind me. "Yes, unfortunately, dear."

Fiero padded off. I turned to Quartz. "You wanna help me flip her over?"

"Of course." he replied. Together, we heaved Perfume belly-up, careful of tangling the sensor wires or putting any pressure on her injured side. She looked so vulnerable like this, so still, so unlike herself. If she had any control right now, she'd turn, and probably bash our snouts in for staring. But instead, we just stood. I put one set of claws on her belly, right next to where we'd need to cut. I could feel her shallow breaths rising and falling.

Fiero came back over with a greyish-brown hunk of metal, about the size of two fists. Shakily, I brought the thick knife down next to my placed claws, while Fiero applied more anesthetic. With a deep breath, I steadied my talons, and pressed the scalpel through the soft underbelly scales. I walked a long trail down her stomach, then stopped. Fiero rolled a rectangular frame over the cut, and its claws worked open a narrow window. Coiling tubes of slimey flesh snaked back and forth over and around pulsating sacks. Warm, acrid fumes floated up.

There, on the upper right, was our problem. A large hole in the brown stomach, big enough to stick a whole claw into. With a pair of tubes, Fiero gently washed away the acid ringing it, but the flesh underneath was already deeply scarred.

I struggled to take another breath. "Yeah, we're-we're not just sewing that. It's ... gonna need a whole replace."

Fiero looked at me and held their claws out for the knife, but I shook my head. "I'll cut, you sew. You know more about installing parts."

They opened their mouth, then after a moment, closed it.

We leaned in, and set to work. But just as my knife touched the top of the stomach, Fiero's sister's robotic voice boomed out once more, "Warning: patient blood loss approaching severe."

"Damn it." Fiero cursed. I didn't leave time for worry. I quickly slit the tube and pried up that end of the organ so Fiero could begin to attach theirs. I ran the scalpel back beneath it, cutting through the slimy tendrils connecting to her walls. My snout was basically in Perfume's guts, so I held my breath to keep the smoke back. I traced a few more lines, then winced as hot blood sprayed out onto my mask.

With quick motions, I grabbed a pair of clamps and fixed them on the broken vessel. Fiero had just finished sewing the top of the part to the esophagus, and did the sutures outside the clamps for me. I carefully removed the tools, then set back to my cutting. I hoped we'd been fast enough.

"Warning: blood levels are critical."

Nope.

Storm stood up from where she was resting on the floor. "I've still got plenty! Take mine!"

"Warning: this operation will bypass typical safety protocols. Are you sure you want to proceed?"

"Yes! You stupid machine!"

I watched out of the corner of my eye as the tube slowly sucked fresh blood down its length. After a moment, Storm's knees buckled, and Glacia had to jump forward to catch her. I pulled out Perfume's pierced stomach, and Fiero fastened down the other end of the prosthetic. I tried to ignore the sharp clink of metal as I set the old organ in our biohazard bin. After a brief examination of the other organs (thankfully spared), I began to stitch up the incision. Fiero grabbed a new thread and started from the other end. After a tense moment, we met in the middle, and the breach was closed.

"That's it." I announced. "We've done all we can. Now, we wait."