Logs:Final Promises
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| RL Date: 15 November, 2015 |
| Who: Dahlia, R'oan, Etrevth, Taeliyth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: In a shared moment of lucidity, Dee makes R'oan promises, at the last. |
| Where: Dragon Infirmary, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 15-16, Month 4, Turn 39 of Interval 10 |
| Mentions: Ka'ge/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Death. Angst. |
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>---< Dragon Infirmary, Fort Weyr(#241RJs$) >--------------------------------<
This central cavern is roughly oval in shape and large enough to
accommodate two or three smaller dragons if need be. Its white-washed
walls hold several outcroppings for glows, focused around the main counter
at the left of the room and the two beds set far enough apart for dragons
to settle into the wallow-like dips between them. Equipment is stored in
the locked cabinets behind the counter and the glass-covered shelving
units carved into the wall, wide and deep enough to hold the necessary
quantities to treat injuries of a larger scale. which is well stocked for
the treatment of dragon injuries and spacious enough to accommodate the
smaller dragons.
Several ground weyrs that face out onto the Bowl link into this hub,
dedicated to the treatment of larger dragons or long-term care. A short
passageway, blocked by a heavy curtain, leads into the Infirmary while a
set of wide, double doors lead out into the Bowl and are rarely locked, in
case of emergency. She clutched his hand, fevered flesh to fevered flesh. At her (delirious) insistence, R'oan was brought to a cot close enough beside Dahlia's at the bowl-end of the dragon infirmary that she can reach him across the space that somehow still seems too much. The flex of her fingers, pressing into his hand, signals Dee waking from another troubled dream, from another restless rest. "R'oan?" she worries, even though she can turn her head and see him, even though she touches him even now. Layers of fever and pain cloud R'oan's brain, replacing the normal dull of alcohol with an agony all of its own. The fingers against his-- It takes him a moment to remember whose they are, despite having been told the last time he awoke and the time before that. This time, at least, he remembers on his own. "Dee," is the first time that he's said her name in more than a day, his throat raspy from misuse. The healers are still doing what they can for him, but there is no longer an assistant to feed him ice chips, to coach him along. That far, it seems, they have given up on. But, despite it all, the brownrider manages to croak next, "Fuck, I could use a drink," even as bleary eyes slide to take in the softened room, taking in the woman next to him and the gold beyond. Dee is more days into her sickness and the fever has lessened, though it still plagues her (ha). She manages, though, to roll onto her side, to look at him. "I don't have any booze, I'm sorry." Her lip quivers. She's so sorry. She can't keep a tear from slipping out of one eye, and then another out of the other. "I don't want to die sober," is a shock of its own to utter so plainly, no attempt on R'oan's part to sugar-coat the words that he drops between them even as his grey eyes meet hers. The brownrider's fingers tremble slightly under hers, however, not totally careless despite the strength and energy that the illness has sapped from him. "I don't want you to die at all," Dee gulps. She takes a slow, shuddering breath, her fingers curling around his. "Please don't," she begs, as if he could help it. "You have to live," she even adds, "you have to live so we can get weyrmated," which might be crazy, "so we can have Dahlian and Roaliah and six other ones besides." She laughs a little, but it's too flat, too scared. "And we'll be deliriously happy. Maddeningly happy. We'll make the whole Weyr jealousy with just how sickeningly happy we are together, R'oan." R'oan's throat works against bile, dryness, and his words are just as stark and hoarse when he says, "No, Dee. It was never-- Never just me, was it? Never would have been." His fingers actually move to withdraw, pulling away from her even as feverish eyes slide closed for a moment, drawing strength from not having to watch any spinning, to see those shimmering edges brought on by the fever. They remain closed as he speaks, "And now I am dying. And I can't seem to care except that I'm sober and Etrevth--." "It would have been," comes with a sob. Dee doesn't have the strength to keep his fingers when he's moving them away. It makes her draw into herself, arms wrapping around her middle, knees drawing up and in. "I need you, R'oan," she won't say the cliche that his dragon needs him, but she will confess her own need. "I love you." She thinks she does, anyway. The will to fight even the smallest thing has left the brownrider, and so Dee's answer, or all of them, is met with the simplest, tiredest, "I know." A breath is drawn in and then out, bracing, before R'oan peels his eyes open again to look over to the goldrider. "I know, Dee." She must want to go to him, to embrace him. Were this a harper's fanciful tale, she would manage it through sheer strength of will, and her kiss would heal him, not only in body but in heart. Dee would give anything in this moment to go to him, but this is no story. This illness is real and it doesn't abide happy endings. The best Dee can manage is to reach for him, to touch his hand, his arm, whatever she can reach. "We could still have it all, R'oan, it's not too late," she tells him, she hopes, "all we have to do is get well." R'oan's fingers catch hers with an imprecision that could usually be blamed on alcohol but must be the fever now. It is the tremor in his hand that can be blamed on alcohol, the way the contact seems to itch against his palm. "You have to get well. You are important," he replies simply, the words that would usually be dry and edged spilling past his lips with something softer, an infusion of feelings gone unvoiced. "And you are important to me." Dee returns, the words deeply laced with both truth and feeling. "R'oan-" what more can she say? "Dee, I'm not--." R'oan's words trail off into nothing, not because he cannot say those words that they both know, but that for a moment there is something else burning at his thoughts, taking his attention away as his fingers tremble in hers. When he does regain clarity, for the moment, it is only to repeat quietly, "I don't want to die sober. I don't want to die alone. Promise me, Dee." "You're not dying," she denies, "you're not," and Dee can't help but sob. Still after a moment, "I promise, R'oan. I'm not leaving you. Not ever." Some people couldn't make these promises without sounding disingenuous, but not Dee. Dee, with her font of belief, sounds (and is) entirely sincere. "What does Taeliyth say?" is R'oan's question on whether or not he is dying, some gentle command to it as those grey eyes flicker to the gold beyond before settling on Dahlia. There is a distance to his gaze, but he is trying very hard to focus on her. Dee's eyes blink. She can't turn to look at Taeliyth without relinquishing the brownrider's hand, so she doesn't. "She says..." There's a pause as the thoughts are pressed to the goldrider's fevered mind. "That she's here. With us. And here, for Etrevth." Obviously, whatever was said to Dee was carefully worded. "She says, he doesn't have to like her, but if he wants someone..." That seems to confuse her. Her fingers give R'oan's an encouraging squeeze. He's loved, she's here; they both are. A sigh slips past R'oan's lips, and for a moment there is a feeling like the touch of intoxication to his mind, to Dee's mind. But it could be imagined in fever brains, before it is gone again, resigned somewhere else. The brownrider's gaze lifts past her once again to settle on Taeliyth, even as he tells her, "I forgive you. For that, and for the other day. Bespeaking me." The wheaten gold regards the brownrider, eyes a slow whirl. Dee's expression is puzzled, "She wants me to tell you thank you. Not for that. For--" The flush is not fever this time, her too pale face brightened. "For loving me even when you wished you didn't." She can't help but be amused, "And for catching me." There's a pause then, and Dee has to ask, "Do you? Love me?" "I love you," is the simple statement, said too late. R'oan's fingers tighten against hers in as much of a squeeze as he can manage, but his eyelids are already starting to slide closed again as fever dreams try to drag him back under. "I'm here," is said urgently, Dee's fingers squeezing back, with the little strength she can muster. "I'm here," and so shall she remain, unto the end.
Taeliyth has been learning much, not only from her own observation of her rider and those in the surrounding cots, but from what's said and done by the healers and their aides. Rousing from a doze, she doesn't question Etrevth's request beyond asking, « It's time? » It's nearly inevitable, isn't it? She's waiting for Dee's. If it should come. Has R'oan's? Even in the asking, she's already reaching to the lifemate of one of the dragonhealers on duty. Their participation is limited to assisting, to helping keep calm the dragons of those ill riders assembled here for care. « He will be brought, » she manages to make her pragmatic mind briefly soothing. It does little to help the anxiety that rolls in the usually smooth, intoxicating smoke. Etrevth's thoughts are a bad high, jittery and paranoid and unable to come down. But maybe Taeliyth's soothing does help, because the cat's eye brown confines himself just outside the entrance of the dragon infirmary, his talons tearing up the earth there instead of disturbing those inside. « I won't miss you, » he tells the gold. « But thank you. » She doesn't need him to miss her. « You will be remembered, » Taeliyth tells him simply, candidly, as she oversees the process of getting R'oan from the cot by hands that are so much safer than her sharp talons. The limpness of him seems to do things to her own anxiety as her gaze shifts to her own rider. It takes a steeling of herself to go with the people carrying him, the short distance that feels so much longer for the distance it puts between herself and her Dahlia, but Dahlia would want her to stand witness. To be there for R'oan, for Etrevth, for those who will keen and mourn. Dee misses it all, sleeping restlessly, tossing on her cot, shuddering in another bout of fever. « Will we? » There is a moment where Etrevth's dry humor, so much like his rider's, returns with the disbelieving question. « Today, maybe. Tomorrow. » But he doesn't finish the rest of the thought in words, letting his thinning smoke imply them for him as he watches the entrance intently. « He wouldn't want her to remember him for long. » « She will never forget him. » That's just the way it is. « He is in her heart, » and Dee will remember him. « If he wakes on the way to where you're going, tell him she's with him now, in her dreams. » It's true, even, not some artful half-truth either. Taeliyth waits for the people to surrender the rider to his dragon. There are some titters about the instructions to burn the bodies, some argument about the finality of betweening, and all is silenced with a low growl from the gold. This is not the moment for that. Etrevth is not concerned for his claws against his delicate rider as he clasps one set of burnished talons around the man. « We hope she heals, » is a soft statement for the goldrider for both her physical and mental wellbeing. But even the brown realizes that there is nothing he can do. Instead, he levels a whirling gaze at her for a long moment. And then, he launches himself into the air, R'oan dangling limply and not even stirring at the rush of air. « Peace, » is Taeliyth's final wish for the brown, for his rider. She watches until they disappear. She raises her voice to keen, to mourn their loss. As she does so, though, she turns back to the barracks, back to be with Dee, who wakes grasping for a hand that isn't there, tumbling out of her cot to search R'oan's bedsheets as if he might be hidden somehow from her view. Hands pull her back into her own cot - those same hands that delivered R'oan to his dragon, that they might be together at the last. "No!" Dee's cry goes up as Taeliyth tells her: he is gone. "No! I wasn't with him! I promised I would be with him!" If Dee could override her own words she would, protesting, "He can't be gone!" Her shrieks and sobs are enough to warrant the healers to come running with a small dram of the ever dwindling supply of fellis, just enough to calm her, to make her feel heavy in her own body, to keep her in her cot, with her dragon's head pressed along the length of her at one side of the cot. The fellis leaves her dazed, incapable of tears, incapable of movement, her pain dulled to not caring. This is when Dee wonders, Is it my turn now? But, no, forcefully, no, Taeliyth rejects it. Her turn will never come, not if the gold has anything to say about it. |
Comments
Alida (22:36, 15 November 2015 (PST)) said...
- sniffles violently* :(
Squishy (23:45, 15 November 2015 (PST)) said...
T.T Etrevth.
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