Logs:Feel the Burn
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| RL Date: 7 April, 2015 |
| Who: Alida, Edyis |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: A day after the fire, the candidate and bluerider share a bit of an impropteau wake for Azaylia and Hraedhyth |
| Where: HRW: Dragon infirmary |
| When: Day 21, Month 6, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Sunny, clear, warm. |
| Mentions: Azaylia/Mentions, Barnabas/Mentions |
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>---< Dragon Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr >----------------------------------< The vast cavern has much the same odor of redwort and numbweed as the human infirmary, though here it's seasoned with coppery ichor rather than the iron of blood. It's also laid out similarly though on a much more massive scale, its walls lined with a number of places for patients, in this case large dragon couches recessed into the floor for ease of access; nearby cots provide space for riders. Tucked into the western curve is a huge circulating pool of warm water, by which are kept vats of oil. The healers' duty station is a counter on the north side of the room, a checkpoint before the storage rooms behind it that are now shared with the human infirmary, hosting supplies that are as neatly labeled and carefully scrubbed as the rest of the infirmary. The senior dragonhealer has an office there as well, and human-sized double doors have recently been built as a direct route to the human infirmary, while opposite a wide winding tunnel leads to the east bowl. It may be over 18 hours after the tragic Bazzar happenings, but it's not been long since both Alida and Ilicaeth have woken to be tended, then fallen asleep again quickly enough. Like enough other pairs, both are mentally, emotionally wrung out from the deaths of Azaylia and Hraedhyth. Add in both rider's and dragon's physical exhaustion plus their injuries...and the kindest thing to do is let them sleep, and heal. At this very moment, both halves of the pair are entangled in a mutually-shared nightmare which evinces a stuttered whine from the human, and a gutteral groan from the dragon in their wallow/cot combination. Unable to bring herself to deal with the charred wreckage in the bowl, Edyis has offered her help in the infirmaries, running messages, errands and doing grunt work that doesn't require any healerly skill. It is perhaps her fear of nightmares and a steady stream of Klah that has kept the candidate going. She knows the signs when she sees them, and at the whine, the scribe settles the broom she had been using to sweep with against the wall next to Alida's cot. Long, gentle fingers reach for the supple familiar hide of the blue, not daring to reach for the burned rider. Slow, soothing strokes placed along his muzzle, it is a gesture of comfort intended for the two of them." Smart Edyis. Leave the rider alone, for now. Ilicaeth, with a more open, less volatile personality than his rider, twitches lightly at the not-Scribe's touch, a soft yet sonorous moan emitted as his folded wings shudder heavily...followed by the slow and only partial opening of one of his eyelids. The faceted orb beneath it is grey with tiredness and grief, but at least he manages to summon up a low chuff that sets the candidate's hair tossing for a moment. From beneath the blue's jaw hinge, Pyrite sticks her tiny head forth to peer at Edyis, her gaze and hide greyed-out, as well. The sound she issues forth is a moaning sort of creel. And the rider? Her eyes snap open like shutters slamming in a storm, a harsh gasp of 'No!' on her lips, but swallowed back even as she wakens. Training, and habit. Self-control, however, isn't able to eliminate the shock and horror, and the ensuing pain and heaviness within her eyes as Alida finally pushes herself gingerly to one side with her bandaged hands to visually locate her dragon...and find Edyis, as well. Blink. The wall comes up immediately within - the rider's heat-reddened features adopting her usual mien of casual indifference - but it isn't perfect, this time. Still within her gaze are the leftovers of the night before. Edyis continues the strokes, sighing as she sees Pyrite's state as well. "Oilings for the both of you then, and maybe a bit of jerky." It doesn't help the loss, but might take the edge off the misery she hopes at least. It is the sharp No that has the scribe turning sharply, "Lay back down." Edyis states in that rare authoritative tone. "I'll bring the bottle over in a minute." She pats the blue's jaw finally before moving over to the cot to inspect the rider. True to her word she produces a bottle that might be recognizable as intended for R'hin's stash, but with the rider out of the weyr, well what he doesn't know he had he won't miss. Word of oiling is what finally lures Pyrite out, the tiny queen fluttering to Edyis' shoulder, if possible, then curling up about the back of her neck with a low creel. Hiding. Ilicaeth issues another sound - a low whuffle - his sorrowful eyes seeming to whirl as he watches the candidate, then shifts his huge gaze again to inspect his waking rider...a few, fleeting flecks of yellow anxiety scattering over facets as Alida awakens. With a careful shift of his large head, his nose is offered to his lifemate's instantly-seeking hand - both stilling and closing their eyes for a moment as they wordlessly share and re-bond in that moment - then reattuning themselves to the outside world once more. Squint go those now-guarded greens up at Edyis - she's getting medicine? - and the guard finally croaks out a low, "Ilicaeth says 'Thanks; but I got oiled a couple days ago.'" How easily, at this time, she slips into saying 'I' instead of 'he.' Ed's pat has Ilicaeth closing his eyes again, his head remaining right beside his lifemate's, though her hand slowly removes itself to her cot, once more, the two remaining quiet until Ed reappears with a better 'medicine' than anything the Healers might have. Aside from numbweed, which has already been slathered over all her burns, of course. She knows the look of R'hin's special bottles, and instantly a quietly grateful look scoots over the woman's features, her eyes looking around for any nosy nannies before 'lida reaches out to accept it from the other woman. "Thanks, Ed..." is murmured. Edyis gently strokes the firelizard's skull, fetching two cups and popping the cork. Pouring into each glass. "Like civilized folks." She smiles wry, but it seems a little faded. "Only other medicine I know for what ails us." Reassessing those injuries as she passes Alida the cup and keeps the bottle within reach. She draws a breath as though to speak, but shakes her head instead, lifting the cup to her lips. The Healers might toss a small fit if they saw Alida consuming alcohol - something that sucks vital moisture away from the body's tissues - but it's a 'somthing' she could really use just as much as water, right now. There's a grunt for the not-Scribe's 'civilized,' but she'll take her 'painkiller' any way she can get it, right now, especially since it's one of their new 'acquisitions' from their trip South. Her first sips are thirsty and hungering for the taste of forgetfulness, but not long after she's drained a quarter of the full glass, the blonde pauses to stare down at the back of her quiet hand with grudging thoughtfulness. Give her a couple of moments, and a creaky voice finally murmurs to Edyis, "How's...how're the candidates taking it?" It. Not 'death.' Not 'Azaylia/Hraedhyth.' Pyrite and Ilicaeth know the depths of her pain, even if Edyis might not, and quickly enough the little gold flicks from candidate to her mistress's lap, nuzzling gently at burned fingers, while the blue dragon gives a grey-eyed creel. Edyis takes a long pull from her cup at the question, pulling up a chair to settle into, "It's ... I don't know. I think it is too early for it to sink in yet. I haven't been back to the barracks yet." She realizes, quietly. "I think most of them will be able to lean on each other. "Most of them have pretty level heads on their shoulders, others..." She takes another long pull, refilling her glass and looking to Alida's thoughtfully. "Cursed." There's quiet thoughtfulness for Edyis' answers, Alida absently carressing the jaw and neck of her golden pet - reconnecting with Pyrite, too - while the bluie sips more of her potent drink. "Helps...keepin' busy." And though green eyes have noticed the not-Scibe's own weariness, the blonde doesn't chide her over it. She understands all too well. Cursed, however... That labeling finally has the woman muttering with gruff anger and pain, "Ever since those Oldtimers came forward in the 9th Pass...'Reaches has seemed cursed." A quick sip helps to banish the tightening at the back of her throat, allows Alida to hiss out softly, "Where goldriders go ta..." swallow. "Die." Another silent sip, then she's refilling her cup. "I've never felt so fucking useless." The explicative is sounding odd in that soft sweet voice of hers, the voice that almost cracks. "Feels like... eventually everything burns." Not one for dwelling *too* long (most times, anyway) on her own pains, Alida slowly sits up in order to try and reach for Edyis' forearm so she can squeeze it firmly for a moment. A rare gesture, that, since no words will help to fill that aching space. Pyrite creels again, and crawls from the bluie's lap back to Ed's, now rubbing her tiny chin along the candidate's nearest piece of skin, then curling up into a grey-eyed little ball, her small sides heaving a great sigh. Even Ilicaeth responds, his soft rumble announcing to all that he's here and awake, invested, even if his eyes are now closed. Alida looks a little perplexed for a few moments at Edyis' choice of 'burns,' then shrugs it off to take another stiff drink, finally adding low, "Reaches get rid uv' 'em - all before their times - in its own way...fer good." A look into her booze is followed by a pointed gaze upward at the ceiling of the dragonhealer's chamber for some silent moments before greens slip back down to Edyis...the bluerider's hand about glass flexing slowly within its partial bandages. Very quietly: "If...if 'e didn't feel so attached t'this fucking place, I'd pack us up t'morrow an' go." Her tone is far from emotionless: bitter, angry, pained. Maybe it's as much the rare gesture from the blue rider as it is her compatriots, but the little scribe scoots closer to the cot then, "Reaches won't leave you, no matter where you go." Edyis speaks as though she knows, which might seem humorous for someone still so young. She manages it without a trace of irony. "Crazy woman barely ever remembered my name." She laughs now, edged with grief but also something else. Gratefulness. "Flew with her to help the refugees, Accidentally had her thinking R'hin was my granddad once, for which I still blame Leova. That dragon of hers too... I was always so damned terrified, but she was always so fierce, didn't feel like anything could ever happen under her guard." "Like a fuckin' canker..." Alida mutters dourly of 'Reaches, sipping deeply again from her cup, though - when this informal wake of Azaylia and Hraedhyth begins - the bluie's emotions shift quickly. Listening to Edyis recall the gold pair brings a lump to the injured woman's throat that is forced down only with more quick swallows of potent liquor...the burn of it restorning her to some semblance of self-control. Very quietly, partially so as not to alert the staff, the blonde murmurs in response, "I...right after Ollie Searched me..." Ollie? "...I got inta' not-quite fight in the Galleries." With who remains unspoken. Sip, lip-twist. "Hrae was on the Sands, bein' a protective momma, like always, I guess." Shrug. "I thought she might actually tear inta' us, she got so mad." The fear Alida felt at that time is glimpseable within slightly widening eyes, her pale head shaking a few times at the memory of fierce Hraedhyth. "Azaylia sat me down later, talked t... no, talked *with* me." There's a wealth of respect, fondness...and some leftover puzzlement at that stressed word. "She...she never ever yelled 'r got truly angry at me... at anyone, I think." Blink-blink, guzzle. "She was one uv the very very few in this whole place that I actually respected from the start...and it only grew as I got ta know her better." Edyis listens and drinks to that, all of it. "You fighting? Never." The former scribe smirks, "Those big wrestling bouts out in the bowl." She sighs then, coming to the inescapable truth. She falls quiet then, having no more to tell of the woman who had been Reaches' Senior. "Maybe that is the burden of an interval. Terrible as they are, at least in Pass you have something to pin the blame of it all on when someone goes too soon." Another lip-twist - faintly smirky, for a few moments - is Edyis' 'award' for that statement, the blonde then holding out her glass for a top-off. Wakes - good Irish ones, anyway - require lots of booze. The only thing Alida can offer in response to the other's words of death in a Weyr are a low, breathy, "Sometimes even us riders fer'get we bleed just like other people." Inhale, head-dip. No matter the hurt, though, the bluie continues their sharing session. "We ran, exercised in the Bowl with each other whenever we could. Zay was a really good runner. Long legs, I think." Smirkie, sip. "We had...tea ta'gether sometimes; drank the harder stuff between us a few more." Like the aftermath of the bake-off some weeks ago: the two got gently sloshed on a bottle of potent Benden wine in the goldrider's weyr. Each shared recollection seems to make others flow more freely for the often reticent, glib blonde. "I got the feelin' she was kinda...unhappy about a few things...maybe shit she couldn't change about this place." Swallow. "But she was almost always up fer anything...except outright violence." Headshake. "I wanted ta teach 'er at least some uv' what I taught *you*... but she just refused in that...that gentle way uv hers tha'cha couldn't say 'no' to." Damn it. Edyis smiles listening, offering to refill that cup when the healers aren't looking. "You better believe you are drinking water like a fish after this." See Edyis does remember how to be responsible sometimes. The little gold in her lap gets a soothing pat, a few of them absently. "She had Hraedhyth; she had Bones. Didn't need violence." The scribe frowns, wondering what the convict turned gardener was going to do now. Lot of good it all did her. "Had you even." She adds. "Yes'sum..." Alida murmurs with mock-meekness before sipping her better brew with open relish. "Staff's prob'ly gonna wonder why I gotta piss like a stud runner." Snork. Those pats to her greyed-out hide finally lull Pyrite into a soft snooze, the guard smiling rather gently at the scene and commenting quietly, "She's kinda taken with you." Duh. Could it be the extra snacks? inquire those shadowed green eyes, though the bluie never directly asks. No matter how fond Alida is (or was) of certain beings (including herself), however, she's mostly practical about security issues, and that drives her to say, "Dragons can't fit in human only places. Bones, *I* couldn't be everywhere with 'er. Dogs c'n only protect so far as their training, instincts allow." A quick sip squashes her sudden pain, is followed by a breathy, "Bones, her flits, her pup." At least Alida has Ilicaeth, Pyrite. Maybe a friend or two. Edyis chuckles, "Well I'm sure the menfolk will be impressed." She chuckles at the observation, glancing down. "I think she just likes having someone around she can guilt into paying her extra attention and the oilings. Met a brown like that once; they had him all harnessed up with that wing injury after Solith's flight." The snacks are a solemn pact between herself and the tiny gold, a (not so) secret to be kept on pain of death! At least Ed is rather careful about not overfeeding her. "Still. For the record. You aren't aloud doing anything stupidly dangerous at least for the next month or three. I don't know how much more chaos my sanity can take." Though there's the suggestion of humor in her voice, it is entirely possible the scribe means it. "Like I care..." Alida replies in more her usual, glib fashion, her own eyes cast down at the dark colored liquor in her glass. Snert. "Could beee..." the blonde allows quietly, her one-sided, soft smirk then lifting to the snoozing flit and up to Edyis again. "Stupidly...aye." Plain old dangerous, shells yes! Head-bob. Sip. There's no more words of insanity or chaos, only a small lift of her glass to Ed's talk of a hope of a *lack* of those conditions. The bluerider's not holding her breath, however. Softly, "Please look in on Bones, her bulldog if nobody else's thought uv 'em in this craziness." Swallow, sigh. "I'll find a good home fer the latter, soon. I'll keep 'im with me until then..." Pause, scowl. "Once they let me the fuck *out* uv' here." Edyis nods to that, "I think I can check in on him. He probably won't remember me this time either." There's a smirk, even as she tries to hide an exhausted yawn that is very much against her will. "Reaches will change." She says at last... uncertain of how she feels about it. More of that potent liquor is downed by the bluerider, her breath holding the distinct scent of it, by now. And still she holds out her glass for more, especially since it looks like Edyis is on her last leg. "One more drink fer the road...then it's time ta send both uv' us on our ways." To that observation, Ilicaeth gives a faint rumble, his near-eye cracking open a little to show grey facets with faint, dank hints of blue, here and there. "He seconds that." Meanwhile, Pyrite continues snoozing on Ed's lap, her mistress noting darkly to the not-Scribe's last observation, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Shrug. Edyis refills the bluerider's cup, drains her own and recorks the bottle tightly settling it into her bag. Removing the temptation as it were. The gold, if she allows, is scooped from her lap and set gingerly on the cot. A decanter of water fetched and set next to the bed along with that odd authoritative look that is so rare in the younger woman. "Take care Al. Guess I got to sleep sometime." Making to leave then. Damn. No on the sly refills for her. Still, Alida's glad enough to have drained two glasses, lifting her final one to the other woman in a toast. "Ta' booze...and absent friends." Again, a quick, deep draught is taken to clear the lump in her throat. A quick look for that odd hint of steel in Edyis is followed by a low, "I'll drink it, I'll drink it..." Eyeroll. The damned bland water. Pyrite shifts, stretches like a cat in Ed's grasp, and resettles quietly upon her owner's blanketed thighs, receiving a soft trail of burned fingers from 'Al.' "Finish the bottle before ya lay down..." is offered to the candidate as the bluerider's parting advice, her nod just a little droopy as the booze begins to work on her system. There's a wry grin at that steely glance and the picture of pet and owner neatly settled. "I think I will. I am going to check in on you, so no making trouble for the healers." She directs this at the rider and gives Ilicaeth a look as though she knows he'll see it followed through. Then, she's gone. |
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