Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr
Two sets of double doors, one from the the inner caverns and a recently built set from the dragon infirmary, lead into the unnaturally hushed human infirmary. Despite fastidious cleaning, the scent of redwort and numbweed has long since soaked into every smooth-carved surface, along with other, subtler medicinal smells. Pristinely made cots are lined up against the walls; most of them are left open to view, but some in the back are surrounded by curtains for delicate procedures or critical patients.
About halfway between the two entrances is the counter for the healers on duty; it guards the entrance to the storage rooms just beyond, their shelves and cabinets lined with meticulously labeled bottles, boxes, jars, and even vats of supplies. The Weyrhealer's office is also here, along with another side room for mixing up medicines and the like.
Midmorning, and already there's the first weyrling injury of the day. Or, rather, the second: presumably there's a reason why it's Leova and not a proper assistant to the weyrlingmaster who's collared the tall young weyrling. He's clutching a used-to-be-white cloth to his forearm and looks more shaky than in agony. One of his ears is red, but if the greenrider had been dragging him along by it, at least she'd let go before actually making it into the human portion of the infirmary. There's got to be a line somewhere. She marches him into it.
It's not a big line, really, just a few people, one in front of Aukiri, one Aukiri himself, and one behind him. The boy's face almost lights up to see someone more interesting than the twisted ankle currently behind him, freckled face poking out a bit farther to stare at the bandages, shoulders and torso all moving with it, and the injured fingers he holds by their tips with his opposite hand barely moving at all. "What did you do?" asked with all the same excitement of one child asking another what his present turned out to be.
"All I did was," the old-enough-to-know-better weyrling tries to respond, only Leova beats him to actually completing the job. "They were racing," she says repressively. "In the mud. His brown's already been seen to." The weyrling's nod is weak, but he's the one who asks, "What about you? Or you?" this last to the would-be patient between them. Anything to distract from his own mishaps!
The idea of dragon mud racing just makes Aukiri the more keen. He probably doesn't even notice he's shoved the woman with the turned ankle after so generously offering, "You can go first." She stumbles, gives a grating, "Turned ankle," and Kiri remains oblivious. "Did you win? How many were you racing?" How awesome is this? He lets go of his fingers long enough to wave them dismissively at what he's done. "The mud's got to make it better, huh?" Yes, that question was seemingly asked of Leova, rather than the weyrling.
"Yeah. Careful." Leova glowers at the pair of them and aims to help the poor woman... only to get rebuffed because apparently the other woman 'can handle it, missy. Leova, who hasn't been 'missy' in quite a few Turns now, eyes the woman's back such that Aukiri's question comes as an apparent surprise. Turning, "What?" This, after the weyrling's given her a sheepish look and mumbled to Aukiri about no, he didn't win but his dragon did before he bit it, and there were six of them if you count dragons or four if you don't but he does.
Aukiri takes supportive hold of his fingers once again, watching the bloodied weyrling himself now, instead of just his bandages. "So did you come in last, or did other people fall off too?" Which means he's talking right during Leova's 'what', which means he then turns to her, blinks wide-eyed, and asks, "What?" right back.
"We aren't allowed to ride," the weyrling says with sudden loftiness. "Not yet, I mean. You didn't stand for the clutch did you? I'd have remem..." and that's when Leova, who's wandered back, takes his ear into custody again. "What," she tells Aukiri, like it's a sentence full stop.
Aukiri might have had a verbal answer, but even he seems to pick up on Leova's vibe. His response to the weyrling, then, is just a shake of his head. He blinks a few times in quick succession, glances about, and then holds up his hands, for both weyrlingmaster and weyrling to see. "I tried to catch a falling pot. It was cold, but it was heavy." Note the swelling at his finger joints.
The weyrling looks impressed, if also as though he's trying not to. The dragonhealer only asks, "Did it break?" Whether or not it was the sort to break.
And that look makes Aukiri stand up a little bit taller, and even offer a smile broad enough to take in both dragonriders as its general aim. "Nope. Bounced onto my foot and rolled a little. Only thing that broke," his chest puffs a little more, "was me."
"All right, then." Leova's approval, if it does make it that far, isn't even grudging. Meanwhile, the weyrling has to know, "Did you break your foot too?" with a degree of anticipation, completely missing that the woman with the ankle's being seen to right now. They could move up in line, but it's not like there's anyone behind them... yet.
"Nah," is affable, and Kiri turns his head in a way that's almost certainly adorable. "I know how to use my feet to kind of catch at things? Was a little sore, but only until I walked a few steps." When he turns back, straight on, his eyes fall to the cloth again. "So what are they going to do to you?" And then, to Leova, "What are they going to do to him?"
"'Catch at things'. How does that work?" Leova asks before she adds, "They're going to put him down. Like a canine." She leaves a pause. "On the table, anyway. He might get stitches. I'd give him stiches." The weyrling does not look as though he wants stitches, and in fact looks at Aukiri as though he could help him somehow.
"I dunno, same way it works with your hands I guess. You sort of," and he lifts a foot, and then makes to drop it as if cushioning a fall, "catch things. Slow them down. Don't you guys ever play foot ball over here?" Aukiri then turns an appraising look to that weyrling. "Bet you'd get some good scars that way. I met this girl at the hatching feast, she said she likes scars." Helping.
"Deflect 'em," Leova supposes, the weyrling looking between the two of them hopefully. The latter says, "We toss balls and things around, if that's what you mean. Not for actual lessons, but you know, afterward, it's just that sometimes the dragons want to help and they pop. The balls, I mean, not the dragons." It's starting to make Leova look tired, as does the weyrling's, "Yeah? I hope so. There aren't many places to get scars around here anymore, not like..." The dragonhealer clears her throat, and nods him toward the human-healer who's come for him and his line-jumping blood. She adds a few quiet words while the weyrling's busy with, "Bye! Good luck!"
"It's not just deflecting, you can stop-" Look, healer. "Oh," says Kiri. "Bye," says Kiri. It's at his newfound friend's back that he tosses, "You should show me what it looks like when you're done!" The freckled boy's on his toes, peering after the pair for a while until he finally decides, once they're settled, that he can't see. Leova is a consolation prize, the way he turns back to her, with dull insistence of, "You can control things, you know. Not just deflect them."
"Tell me about it," the greenrider says, and not even just rhetorically, for all that she must have better things to do. It's the one chance that she's giving him. Though she does append, "He probably will, too. Show you."
"There were some kids," Aukiri starts going to push his hands into his pockets, and then quite suddenly remembering his injury - flinch - "who could like... kick it up behind them and catch it in their knees and balance it on their feet and stuff." The non-chalant shrug might be more to do with an attempt at covering the careful laying of his fingers against his chest, braced and solid. "How big was his cut anyway?"
"Yeah, I've seen that." It's not that Leova looks disappointed that there's not more to it, exactly, it's just that... well. Less than enthused. But as for size, now, "Not so big. Maybe," the gesture's attracted her attention enough that she decides, "Half your handwidth in length, only the one deep spot. Going to be more careful 'round jars that jump out and attack you?"
Aukiri accords Leova an odd sort of look - didn't he just tell her like she told him? - but moves right along. He looks down, down to his chest, to the hand on it, and his shoulders sag, just a bit. "Oh. So he won't have lots of stitches anyway." The jar question earns her a look that's not far from a roll of his eyes. "What's so wrong with trying to catch something?" is, at least, earnest enough.
"Not this go around. Give him time," the greenrider says dryly, perhaps more so for that odd look. "Nothing's wrong with trying to catch it. 'Specially because you made it work. Just, you know. If you can do it without hurting your hands, so much the better. Unless they're all better now?"
Aukiri sighs, a bit teenage-dramatically, although he once again manages to avoid rolling his eyes, this time under the guise of just looking away instead. "They'll be fine. It's not like they broke, I just had to..." he can't help looking back to Leova now, and mimic realigning his fingers for her benefit, with a bit of a smile tugging again at the edges of his mouth, "put them back in place."
If Aukiri had been looking for a grimace, well, that's what he gets. "Great," Leova says with a visible wince. "Let's hope you did it right," though if he can move that well, likely he has. "And don't get arthritis when you're ancient and twenty-two or something." There's a slight pause, a more-than-slight alteration of her tone as she steps back with an eye for the exit. "Don't mean to be a wet blanket. Been a long seven."
"Well that's how come I got sent here," Aukiri states, as if it ought to be obvious, with that glazed look that comes with being told things like that. His tune changes in time with hers, though, a smile and quick laugh, as he repeats, "Wet blanket," with a wrinkle of his nose. "Yeah, don't worry," comes more in a calling voice than anything. "I'll check his stitches over when he's done!" Even as a lesser infirmary hand taps his shoulder, and it's Kiri's turn to be seen to.
|
Leave A Comment