Oh. There does come someone.

He goes to sit (leading Pradnakt along) before they have the chance to come in and tries to put "good sensations exist" aside for now.

A few seconds later there's a knock on the door: the tech, with a cart full of prosthetic limb samples. (This one has a single piercing over each eye.)

He greets them politely, and asks if there's anything they'd like to see first.

“What’s the...”

lightest thing, strongest thing, most durable thing, one with best sensation, one that you can buy and keep maintained on a rent-sub’s income and still keep the lights on—

No, that’s wrong.

What can you buy with the stolen wealth of someone whose whole room was set with rubies and use to kill a god?

“...the best you have.”

"They all have trade-offs. But for the all-around best, you'll want this one." He picks up an arm from the top of the pile; it's got the slight silvery effect of Dorfu body hair, but otherwise looks entirely normal. "Stronger than a biological arm, and faster, too, once you've gotten used to it. And-" he presses a button at the base of the arm, and a hatch opens in the forearm. "It has a modular connection plate; you can use it as extra storage, or attach a variety of tools or weapons. The downside is that it needs a little more maintenance; I have a few that are nearly as good, if you'd rather avoid that."

He considers it.

“Is the skin always part of it?”

"We'll match that to your own, of course."

He shakes his head.

“I don’t want it.”

He’s not going to cover it. He’s not going to pretend that it didn’t happen. This belongs to him.

“What can come without it?”

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'll have to check, for the premier models." He takes a datapad from inside the cart and taps at it. "The XK-9540 can be made without skin, it just needs modified flanges..." tap tap tap "...and it uses the same kind as the 7000 line; we have those here."

“Sir” grates, but that’s not important yet.

“Show me?”

"Of course." He brings it up on the holoviewer; it's sculpted, under the skin, mimicking the shapes of a real arm more closely than a droid does, with various plates defining the shape of it and mostly hiding the workings inside from view. "We have a few options for color, too," he says, retrieving a bundle of variously-colored metal plates on a ring from the bottom of the cart and splaying them for inspection.

He nods and taps the deep black plate on the far left.

“...how soon can this happen?”

"We'll need four days to build it; the surgical team might need another one or two, depending on how you're healing."

Four to six days seems like a very long time, right now.

"Okay."

He wants to have this right now, wants to start learning right now, start climbing out of this pit between getting taken apart and starting to do something about it.

(It's only been a day – he hasn't even processed any of it yet – but he doesn't really care about that.)

Pradnakt has been hanging back, letting him handle it; now she chimes in. "Can that be sped up, at all?"

    He's suddenly nervous, intimidated. "-I'll see what I can do."

"Good."

    "And, er, sir, I'll need to scan your arm..." He produces a large ring, presumably the scanner.

He doesn't want to think about which one he means, so he holds them both out, flesh and not-yet-metal.

The flesh one; the scanner goes around it without touching it and sweeps the skin with lasers as the tech moves it slowly toward his armpit.

Pradnakt considers the situation. "How soon can we have any arm at all?"

    "Uh - tonight? No, if we skip the hand, a few hours. For a matched one; I can bring an unmatched one up right away. I don't know how busy the surgical team is."

"And we can swap them out?"

    He shakes his head, still nervous. "Only matched ones."

"We should wait. I–he..."

He pauses.

"I want whatever they put on me to be mine."

"Yes, sir." The scan is done; he takes the scanner away. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I don't think so."

But–

"Don't call me sir."

He glances worriedly at Pradnakt, but nods. "All right." And then he packs his cart up and goes.

And now he's in Pradnakt's lap.

...few days. that'll be fine.

She pets his hair. Yeah. He's strong; he'll make it.

it'd just be sad if i made it through losing the arm but not through a couple boring days in a hospital.

She chuckles. Yeah. And then she kisses him.