#halothepygmy

[stillheresanctuary]

The rest of the portraits completed in tonight’s stream!

It was really fun designing each character and coming up with individual outfits that could accommodate the various personalities as well as the injuries so many of the current Residents have. Halo here was especially hard to puzzle out, since his heatstroke and asphalt burns really ate up his skin and I had to look up reference images. Sad, sad scorched snakes.

Anyway, if I have time tomorrow after all my running around, I’m going to see if I can pull together another stream to finish drawing Princess, Bat, Moon and Pocket. And if not tomorrow, Tuesday is worth another go.

Thanks, and good night!

[stillheresanctuary]

In comes Zeda once again, carrying a blanket and a tube of what looked like cream..? "He-Heya, I he-heard a-a-about a P-Pygmy th-that had g-gotten bu-burned on some a-asphalt..?" Her tail twitches, looking around.

“Mm?”

Cell looked up at hearing the door open, and smiled at seeing the stuttering wolf-skeleton.

“Hey Zeda! Nice to see you again!”

They stepped from behind the front desk as Zeda spoke, and they gave a soft ‘ah’ of realization.

“Yeah, Halo. He’s doing a lot better now, thank goodness, heat stroke is nothing to take lightly. We were lucky we got to him so quickly, any longer and he might have gotten some brain damage.”

[stillheresanctuary]

-walks in holding a blanket bundle, a Pygmy lamia inside- I found him under my car in the parking lot of my job today. It’s very hot and I think he was trying to escape the sun, his scales are sorta burnt on his belly. He seems docile, but I think the heat may have caused brain damage. He speaks in wordless babble and if put down will slither in a small circle forever. I gave him lots of water and air conditioning, but this is serious. I’ve been calling him Halo, because of the circles...

Oh geeze, that sounds like pretty severe heat stroke. I can provide emergency first aid, but I’ll have to contact @vex-bittys for proper care, they’ve got a better equipped facility for this.

Thank you for getting this little guy to help so quickly, the Crew and I will take it from here.

- - -

“-and he’s still trying to do that circling thing, I think he’s trying to keep moving to get some breeze going and he’s too disoriented to really listen to me-”

Cell talked rapid fire on their cellphone, moving quickly around their kitchen as they prepped a large tupperware to help the overheated Pygmy cool down. Thankfully, it had only taken two quick web searches to find the information they needed, and the tupperware was soon lined with a large damp dishtowel with ice cubes tucked into the folds to keep it cool. They had also emptied a plant mister, refilling it with room temperature water, and found a small desk fan they never really used anymore.

It was unsettling to scoop up such a squirmy little lamia and feel those usually slightly cool scales almost sort of toasty. He’d definitely scorched his belly scales on the hot asphalt and once he calmed down a bit, Cell was going to see if Halim might be able to take a moment to do some minor healing to help deal with the pain, but for right now, Halo the Pygmy was going into the tupperware to cool down to a safer internal temperature.

Halo continued to slither in lopsided circles for several moments, eyelights looking fuzzy and dazed as he babbled nonsense, but as Cell watched anxiously, he started to slow down until he finally came to a wobbly stop. A soft sort of cooing, hissing noise, and the Pygmy slumped down onto the cool damp towel, tiny hands kneading the terry cloth as he sprawled out as much as he could atop the material slowly sapping heat from his body.

“…sssssfeeeelsssgooood…”

Halo has now been added to Residents.

If you are tagged in this scenario, you are not obligated to reply.

[stillheresanctuary]

Ding! Notification for Cell!! Zeda-lous: > [Hey! Long time no see! Hope you're doing well, I heard you're getting more active!] > [It's Zeda by the way, it's really been a while! Halo's been doing well, though the heat stroke he got has definitely affected him, he's been as happy as a clam! He's had to go to the vet a few times, not much a worry for me though, I found someone competent, hehe.] > [He's been having trouble with his memory, and we'll find him slithering in circles sometimes. The vet said it's some sort of mental trauma that happened with the heat stroke. Similar to the swelling of the frontal lobe in a human brain.] > [Besides that, he's been doing well! He's gotten along swimmingly with Blitz and so far he's very close to Jewel and Orchid! He's even gotten a new friend! His name is Burgh, a Swap Burgerpants cattaur. He practically named himself Halo's aid, not that any of us mind!] > [Just wanted to send you an update on the guys, but I'm doing better myself; speech therapy has worked wonders for me.] > [Again, hope you're doing well, and hope to see you all soon!]

Per-Cell-Nel >[Omigosh, hey Zeda!! Long time so see!]

>[I'm so glad you're still around, it looks like a lot of folks have moved on in my absence, so it's really nice to see fellow bitty lovers are still floating around being awesome.]

>[It sounds like Halo is doing downright amazing with you and your crew, even with the unfortunate developments. Memory problems aren't fun, but there's a lot of options for helping to work around them.]

>[Burgh has got be one heck of an awesome friend, stepping up like that. If either of you ever end up in a situation that needs a little more training or experience, feel free to contact me at any time.]

>[I don't know if I mentioned at all, but me and the Crew have all been working hard to get our certifications up to date, and we've actually started working on disability aids for bitties! Halim teamed up with some monster scientists and a local MakerSpace to develop prosthetics, and Code has been working on building basically a bitty-sized tablet computer for speech impairments!]

>[I'm so proud of them I could just explode! Key tells me that my SOUL has been doing firework magic bursts whenever I get excited like this, so that could very well be literal, haha.]

>[Anyway, enough of me babbling. Do come by some time when you get a chance, I for one would be overjoyed to be able to catch up in person.]

>[Have a beautiful day!]

[stillheresanctuary]

"H-How is Halo doing?" {-Zeda-}

Halo is doing marvelous, thank you!

Most of the worst of his burns have healed to the point where he can safely be mobile, and now we’re just working to help him grow in some new scales to protect the raw spots. It’s slower going than originally anticipated, we’re having to balance his medical care so the magical aspects don’t overwhelm the physical and make the scales brittle, but he’s a lot happier now that he’s not entirely confined to the medbay.

Halim has graduated him from a firm tail binding to a smooth knitted tail sock, and Halo has been taking every opportunity to explore now that he’s able to get out and about. Last I saw, he was teasing Moon into a game with him and Coils, they might start up a round of tag if Halo gets his way.

[stillheresanctuary]

You know best, but wouldn’t Halo go into physical AND mental trauma? Heat stroke can have permanent cognitive effects and his babbling is probably a sign of that...

There are indeed risks of brain damage with heat stroke, but at this time, we can’t tell for certain if Halo is actually suffering such damage. Disorientation and babbling are pretty common symptoms of heat stroke, but much like someone suffering insomnia can waver in and out of coherency without actually coming to harm, they aren’t very good markers for diagnosing brain damage.

Once he’s cooled down some more, Ed and I are going to take Halo over to @vex-bittys to borrow some equipment and get him scanned so we can be sure, since Halim is still working hard on treating our miracle lamias and Spike.

Also, if you’re referencing the Resident sorting, it’s a general guideline of what we know for sure when a bitty comes into the Center. Since we aren’t actually certain of Halo’s brain damage but we are sure of the physical damage, he gets sorted there. It’s the same with the lamia trio who came in, they’re very likely going to suffer mental effects of the physical trauma they were subjected to, but they were submitted for their specific physical ailments.