Fiery Scales

Ch.3-Rehabilitation

While this story is in chronological order, each chapter following on each other, this one you need to see more as something that goes on over a longer period of time. It's a bit of the rehabilitation of Ace and like learning to talk, it doesn't all happen in a day and the lessons and everything keep going on while he recovers, and even after that.

(More over this in the end notes)

While some of Ace his wounds, especially on his tail, had been gruesome, with the help of Bay and her nurses, all wounds were healing up well. They were now at the point that the wounds stayed fairly close, with necessary stitches, and no more random bleedings would occur, plus with the help of some painkillers, the pain was starting to be bearable for Ace too.
Now that the biggest dangers of wounds re-opening were gone, the main focus was just on keeping the areas clean and starting up a rehabilitation programme. Thus the commanders and Bay had held a small meeting on the future plans on the merman's recovery.
He was still bedbound, and will probably be for a long while, but he was lucid, not as drugged up on meds as the previous weeks, and of course most importantly, could move a little without it being a danger.

A few of the decisions made were:

- All commanders are to notify their division of their guests and explain the situation that Ace would probably be leaving the infirmary every now and then. And while having a merman onboard was very exciting and intriguing, to leave the kid alone. Don't try to visit the infirmary without good reason and don't ogle him when you see him outside at some point.

- Namur would stand in as a physiotherapist, a title which Namur said to name him by now..... Simply put, Namur would be in charge of Ace's recovery, mobility wise, more specifically, the movement and recovery of the tail part of his body. Being the only fishman aboard, Namur was the one who knew the most about these things.
So that was Namur's tasks, watching over Ace his tail, figuring out how often to hydrate it to keep it healthy but not irritate the wounds, keep him moving, etc. There was already some talk of putting a small Kiddie pool in the infirmary to start up mini 'swimming lessons'.

- Marco was appointed to teach reading and how to speak.

- Izou will be in charge of teaching Ace how to write, Marco being too busy to also take on this task.

- Thatch was of course in charge of Ace his meals and in combination giving the right medicine with it, making sure the mer didn't notice it. Why? Because the merman had spit out the first pills he had gotten, just like a little child... so blending it in his food it was.

A difference between Thatch and the others though, was that he wasn't allowed to be close to Ace like the others. Ace had shown to be very warry of them, especially when more than one other person was nearby him. Another reason why the first three commanders were picked, besides their abilities, was because Ace seemed fairly comfortable around them, or at least not as afraid as with the others.
Thatch had started whining, acting hurt, to get to visit the merman too instead of needing to pass the food off to the one currently at Ace's side. But Namur had quickly reflected that by mentioning how Ace could snap, a.k.a. bite, to protect himself when scared, and they didn't know if he had some type of poison or not. The new info got a screech out of the Chef, not knowing this was possible, but well they didn't know anything about Ace or what species he was, so anything was possible and it was better to be safe than sorry.

Marco somehow got Ace his trust from the beginning, and while many said it was because he brought food, no matter how many others had tried, it didn't work for them.
Afterwards Marco was able to convince Ace that Bay was a somewhat safe person too, so with that she had a pass too.