Logs:Foaling Season
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| RL Date: 26 April, 2015 |
| Who: Lilah, Kaelige |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lilah tends to a breeched runner birth, but may have picked less than the most comfortable of company to assist her. |
| Where: Stables, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 8, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Summer night, warm, clear |
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>---< Stables, Fort Weyr >---------------------------------------------------< While still in the same general vicinity as the Feeding Grounds, the Stables are a separate entity in and of themselves. All the Weyr's runners are stabled there, as well as runners brought in by visitors. The stablehands do all the regular upkeep; from ensuring the animals are cleaned and well fed, to ensuring the stables are kept up and in good condition. There's a large fenced in area that uses the existing fence of the feeding pens, giving the animals plenty of room to run around in. Hay is kept in a loft that's accessible via a ladder at the front, to the left of the entrance. It isn't unusual that runner births happen late, late into the evening; it is in their nature to attempt to deliver in the dark and solitude, hence why stablehands are usually posted at all hours especially during the birthing season to keep a watch on those runners who bear foals. It is unusual that somehow, the junior weyrwoman has gotten pulled into this one. Or did she arrive and insert herself into the situation? It's late enough that it may be hard to keep track, as Lilah appears in the larger birthing stall. Though she doesn't wear her knot and her clothes are plain and grey, distinctive red hair is enough for perhaps people who have been around the Weyr long enough to recognize. "Everyone, out," is an order that expects to be obeyed, however, without question. Though dark eyes stop on Kaelige before she adds, "Except you. Can you attempt to calm her?" 'Posted'. Sure, that's why he's here. There may be one extra stablehand than was intended for tonight's watch to someone counting, but fortunately no one was now that real action was happening. Kaelige is not amidst the active ones, however. The ones working. Rather, he is sitting on the haybale in the corner of the foaling mare's stall and the bale itself has quite the depression in the middle of it. This isn't the first time it's been utilized for this activity. The runnerbeast's stall is swamped with people- from the curious to the useful, and the hooded, gloved, lanky individual found no use to put himself in the middle of it, beyond being within earshot. And apparently, direct line of fire of the drably-dressed weyrwoman. He is plenty keen on who she is, and the way he watches her probably says so. Just watches with his head mostly down to be shaded by his hood, silently, and is odd at best, eerie being the more accurate description. When she orders everyone out, he doesn't move. Not until there's a command specifically at him. In no hurry, he rises, tugging at his sleeves before reaching for the rope halter and shortly after a covered hand upon the soft hairs of her nose. All creepiness aside, he is probably the calmest in the room and exudes that. "You going to be okay back there?" Comes sarcasm with a grin. The curve of Lilah's brow comes before she moves closer to the runner at the question, her dark gaze slipping over Kaelige as if now re-considering her choice of who would stay with her. "I will be fine; the important part is whether this girl and her baby will be," she answers. But it's clear that she waits for him to have hold of the beast's rope before she moves closer. A bag is placed close at hand, dropped carefully into the straw there, to free her hands to run along the distended stomach with careful examination. It doesn't stop her from asking, "What was your name?" Kaelige dips his shadowed face towards the runner who tosses her head once, showing the stress of the whites of her eyes. He stands particularly close, perhaps too close given the type of stress the girl is under. He shifts his positioning to stand on the side of the mare's body as Lilah stands, facing her, and she'll find that no matter which side she moves, he will repeat the same. Surprisingly gentle he seems in regards to the runner herself with the stroking he plays upon her softly furred muzzle and over her eyes, but the weyrwoman's seriousness only draws the smirk into brighter light. "Kaelige." Is all she gets, and then. "It's her first." As if that explains everything. The gentleness doesn't go unnoticed in the brief slide of dark eyes over Kaelige where Lilah can spare it, studying the young man in breaks and moments. "Kaelige. You are new to the Weyr, aren't you?" is the question she poses next. A soft noise meets his explanation, and the weyrwoman doesn't even seem to mind him watching her or placing himself so close as she moves her hands for a more clinical examination of the foal inside, only warning, "Keep her very still." "New. Not as new as some." Kaelige's hands are soothing, but his feet are planted, his shoulder against the mare's neck and his hip against her chest. With, of course, his leg to the outside of her foreleg. Crotch and knee need not participate. Not to out-strength her, of course, but to just be there as a reminder. "I haven't had the pleasure yet." Implying meeting her, one would assume, though its quite hard to take him seriously with the low but sarcastic tone the young teen uses. "I didn't know weyrwomen delivered foals." "Well, you certainly weren't here last birthing season," can apply to so many of his statements, though Lilah draws back from the mare only to rock back on her heels, reaching for her bag for one of the towels packed in there. "Did you come to Stand?" Regardless of his answer, she will introduce, "Lilah, gold Eliyaveith's. And I do many things." A pause, before she is actually continuing to admit, "I like being here and doing something active, with my hands." "True." Kaelige's smirk has carved lines into his face that's notably young but impossible to peg an age to. "Spring of this turn." Lilah is given that much information as he tilts his hooded, shadowed head to watch her dig through the bag she'd brought along, with blue-green eyes prominently simmering beneath. "They don't keep you busy enough with paperwork? With running around the tunnels?" A beat as his free hand slips away from the mare's cheek to tug at his hood, but returns without much a lapse of time. The runner herself is overly concerned about that bag, a back leg stomping with either a warning, discomfort of her interrupted birthing, or both. To her question, he seems awkward about it, though that unreadable grin has yet to dissolve, "Stand." He utters, curiously as if the concept is new and enlightening, though clearly it isn't. "Perhaps." "If we are never allowed to open our Search wider, we may need you more than you know," Lilah will admit quietly to Kaelige here in the dead of night, her murmur barely louder than the mare's breathing as she considers the young man once his grin is gone. Whatever she finds, she is soon turning back to her bag to dig out supplies. "I am going to need to reposition the baby." But while she searches through those things for what she needs, which is honestly very little except for more fresh towels, she does offer an answer of, "I am kept plenty of busy. Records, stores, directing and organizing and running Dice. But all of that is weyrwoman work. And this is--." Mine, is unsaid. Kaelige doesn't seem surprised by her words, despite being as expressive as he is, so notably he's heard this particular news. And rather than seeming complimented, excited, or however he might- should?- be, he only questions "And if you run the risk of having 'too few'? If the clutch is larger than the best of the resident pool?" Slinging the concepts around as if he's lived in a Weyr his whole life and not just some sparse months. Her assessment gets a dip of his head in understanding, and one of his hands falls to the side of the mare's shoulder, the other with halter still in hand, to her chest. His face, stubbly and shadowed, is moved to the side in apparently practiced preparedness. Still, his manner is laid-back, calm, as if she was doing little more than brushing the runner's tail. "Fair." He comments with a smaller smirk, the amused light lingering in his eye. But his voice is low, whether it be of necessity or to match her. "We all have to have that... something." He gives, but seems to be insuinating more. "I don't need to know your something," counters Lilah easily in the face of that insinuation, though there is a hint of a curve at her own lips, briefly, as she continues. "You are a little too young for me." That smile disappears as she moves into position, though, especially as she returns to the thought of 'too few' that draws tension in the line of her shoulders. "They might find a match in the galleries, in the best case scenario. If they cannot find their match--. It's never happened in my time in the Weyr, but we could lose one Between. The risk of any birth, isn't it?" That seems reflected, certainly, in their predicament now as she leans closer to rest her cheek against the mare's belly as she gets started. Kaelige openly chuckles at this- a hearty laugh it is, but a suspicious one not unlike the rest of him. "I'll keep it to myself." As was already planned. "You're into older men then?" Inappropriate at best, but he's not shy with it, and he watches her with curious, studious intent. Upon the less invasive topic, he shrugs a shoulder of one lanky arm, "The galleries full of people outside the Weyr? Should the restriction not be on them too then?" Devil's advocate, he seems, as he doesn't mean at all what he says. The mare herself tosses her head, snorts, whinnies a pitiful whinny. Her hind end sways, but she threatens little else yet as the palpation begins. "Risk of any birth." He repeats curiously, "If it's a gold, a bronze that vanishes on you, you'd feel the same?" For some reason, that question gets a sharp mixture of emotion in Lilah's expression, jaw tightening though she never deigns to answer what she is into. Instead, she questions back in her own challenge, "Do you think it is somehow sadder, more of a loss, if it's a gold? Or bronze?" She doesn't wait long for an answer, for all that she seeks it. "We aren't in a Pass; there's no need for a Weyr full of queens or bronzes. They aren't any more important than any other dragon born during an Interval. And losing any dragon--." She breaks off as the mare sways again, a quiet hushing noise offered in comfort, before she continues, "People know the risk of attending a hatching, even Blooded. One of our Lord Holder's heirs Impressed a green out of the galleries not so long ago." Kaelige's grin broadens, darkens. He drops his head, using the runner's sudden movement as an excuse to cover his expression. "I didn't ask how I felt." Is the reply, not unsettled by Lilah's returned challenge. His amusement is conciously dimmed in light of the passion the goldrider exudes, not needing nor wanting to push her too far. "No amount of practicality will sway the tradition of perceived importance." Big words from the kid, apparently, but perhaps it's just repeated from someone who said it before. And as he continues, he pursues the question from before "They should know the risk, yes. But is that an allowable thing, given the restrictions? Is it not more of a risk now, than it would be if you had candidates to spare?" Lilah's silence meets that question for a long moment, twisting the foal into final place with all of her concentration before she starts to draw back again. Only then does she answer simply, dismissive, "The restriction is on Search. As far as I am aware, the Weyr will not care if one or two holders Impress from the stands." She pushes to her feet, reaching for one of the spare towels as she straightens to look back to Kaelige. "It won't be from us dragonriders. A loss of one is a loss to all, no matter what the color." A pause, before she promises, "And that won't happen. I will ensure we have enough Candidates whether I have to conscript every eligible person in this Weyr or not." The runner stomps, shoving herself forwards first into Kaelige whose still-growing self shoves his cheaply made, thin boot soles into the clean hay and dirt beneath them for purchase. He's forced to quiet for that moment as well. When the mare's attempt to go forwards fails, she would attempt to go backwards into the goldrider. Kael's hand is tight on the halter, yanking it once, twice to get her attention. Then, failing that, would turn her to the left, which would swing her hind end just slightly to Lilah's right. It would require some dancing on the weyrwoman's part to stay with her, but the boy is apparently decent enough to keep her from being backed into a stall wall. "No, just the rest of Pern." Kael is not entirely including himself in the statement, but nor does he exclude himself. "I would stand, given there be eggs to stand for." Another alluding topic, one that even he knows he probably shouldn't have said. Thus, it's shortly followed by. "I suppose talking politics doesn't help with your escape." It's a door for her, more than anything. He still seems oddly at ease despite the back and forth. Lilah doesn't manage anything so graceful as Kaelige, as the runner escapes from her. But she only readjusts to come back closer to the mare to complete her examination, now that her hands are clean, to make sure that the foal is in the correct place now that it's been readjusted. Whatever she finds, it isn't enough to hide the surprise at the not-so-subtle alluding, before true sharpness narrows her dark eyes on Kaelige. "Do not over estimate how much we need you, either," she says, before she is drawing away from the mare with a pat before turning to stride from the stall. She will tell one of his senior's that the runner is ready to finish giving birth. |
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