Logs:Delirium and Lucidity
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| RL Date: 14 November, 2015 |
| Who: Dahlia, Taeliyth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: After four days of fevers too high to be lucid, Dee has a moment. Taeliyth takes advantage of it. |
| Where: Dragon Infirmary, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 12, Month 4, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Jenilynn/Mentions, R'oan/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: First quote from Uprooted by Naomi Novik (the partial inspiration for Taeliyth's mindvoice~). |
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| "We had plenty of time to know what was going to happen, and not enough to do anything about it." The nonsensical thought was on her lips as she snapped out of sleep, the fever raging through her veins abruptly frozen and her body shaking in response. She tried to sit up only to be scolded and eased back onto her pillows. "Water," she managed. « Dee, » was Taeliyth, relieved, even as she struggled out of her own restless dozing. « You're okay, » was hopeful thinking, the dragon's mental reach gathering her into a tight embrace. It tickled something loose in Dee's chest and she coughed. « You're not, » wasn't despair but was disappointment. I'm not, Dee was lucid enough to agree. She started to turn her head, too fast, and the world swam. She closed her eyes until it stopped and then moved more slowly. How long have I been here? she asked as she gratefully accepted the water from an infirmary aide who was telling her-- well, something, but she couldn't take it in. Couldn't wrap her mind around words that were given voice. Thoughts were stronger, had been stronger for-- « Four days, » Taeliyth supplied unwillingly in answer to the feeblest press of Dee's mind, the best she could manage. What's wrong with me? « You have the sickness. The one from Boll. » Taeliyth said it so quietly. "Taeliyth?" she hadn't realized she spoke aloud and didn't have the strength to lift her hand to wave off the subsequent stream of words from the aide. « They've died, Dee. Lady Jenilynn and her family, so many at the Hold. » I'm dying? Dee was stricken. Briefly, she felt her mind slipping back into the delirium of not quite dreams. She clutched at Taeliyth's abject refusal of the idea, « No! » and stayed with her. « No, but you do need to rest and recover. Some have lived, » was true, but Dee knew her dragon well enough now to know that it was a weak truth. 'Some' was probably 'a few'. There was something else. Something important. She could feel it weighing in Taeliyth's mind. "Taeliyth," she said again, softly. « R'oan is sick. » Taeliyth told herself, privately, that it was better to give this to Dee, than the rest. Having someone to help might make her fight harder to be well enough to do so. Telling her that the Weyr Council had voted to steal their Weyr might make her feel defeated. Taeliyth kept her secret through Dee's distraction. "What?!" Dee shot upright so fast that the infirmary aid squeaked. She went down again just as quickly, starbursts forming behind her eyelids. "R'oan," she managed to tell the infirmary aide. "You bring him to me." The infirmary aide didn't move. "Now!" Dee put all her energy into that shrieked demand. She might've been feverish, she might've been raving, she might be mad. The delirium took her again. It was a confusing wash of ideas that felt too real, Taeliyth's desperate attempts to sooth her, to keep her in bed. « Dee! Dee. I'll get them to get him. » Once, she recalled the cold of stone under foot as she managed to get that far and take only one more step before collapsing. The next time she was lucid, Taeliyth scolded her, but Dee felt no regret when she pieced together that all those willful attempts to get up, to find R'oan, to be with him was what convinced the staff that it was necessary to move the brownrider from the regular infirmary to the dragon infirmary, to a cot close enough beside Dee's that she could reach out and find his hand. He was asleep, restless and burning. She could feel the heat in this hand, and that was saying something since she knew the fire in her blood was still more than embers. "R'oan," she managed, but he didn't stir. She kept his hand in any case. "We had plenty of time to know what was going to happen, and not enough to do anything about it." She could hear herself saying the thought that seemed to trigger her thoughts to some manner of order and sense. "Or did we? Did anything we do help anything? Anyone? We're still here. Still sick, still dying." She squeezed R'oan's hand, "Maybe there was never anything we could've done," she mumbled and despaired, letting the delirium take her again. |
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