Logs:Healer Inquest: Tevara and Miska
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| RL Date: 11 January, 2015 |
| Who: Tevara, Miska |
| Involves: Healer Hall, High Reaches Weyr, Telgar Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Tevara requests to speak with Miska, before she finalizes her decision. |
| Where: Healer Hall |
| When: Day 14, Month 10, Turn 36 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Teris/Mentions |
| Storyteller: Rose/ST |
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| Cool summers have turned quickly into cooler falls, and the Hall is a bustle with the season. There are exams to be had, and mid-season promotions upcoming. Midst all this, and the Hall's other public relations issues, the matter of a goldrider's death seems like such a small thing. And yet what an important small thing it is. Miska is summoned. The messenger, a shy young healer apprentice who comes up to him after lecture and slips him a piece of paper with wide-eyes. She says nothing, but pairs her shrug at any questions with an apologetic smile and scuttles off. The note is written in Tevara's loopy, just-readable, script requesting a lunch meeting, lunch provided. There's no assistant outside her door, just the door blocking her from the rest of her Hall. That door is open just a crack, allowing a sliced view of the bookcase within. Sounds can be heard of a woman humming an off-key song to herself. What questions Miska would have - if he was anything less than stoic and composed - would not be delivered on such a young messenger, an apprentice at that; this subject is humiliating enough as it is, to him. He acknowledges the note with a nod, sending the girl off with his pensive gaze following. Punctual. He arrives at the appointed time, at the appointed place, in clean, pressed clothing and with his usual shuttered expression in place. His knuckles rap on the door, hesitant only to stop the pleasant humming, but knock the do, if softly. Following the sound, his voice rings clearly, announcing himself before he pushes the door open and hovers on the threshold: "Tevara. You wanted to see me?" The girl is there, the young waifish one with the apprentice's knot. She's the one rearranging the lunch on a side table, and not that main one that Tevara sits at. "That'll do, Gina. I promise, just because the plates aren't perfect won't mean you'll be sent home." What's meant as a tease sets the girl's shoulders tense, but she does make to leave, doing that awkward dance when someone is in your path before sliding to one side and squeezing past. "Come in," says Tevara's clear, strong voice. "You can check your ego at the front door and take a seat over there while I finish- well, whatever." Whatever she meant to finish in the mess of papers on her desk will wait. She's given up. Those aged, capable hands throw up in the air and the woman follows to make the short walk to the sideboard. Being insensitive - isn't Miska the king of that? So all in all, checking his ego at the door isn't a big deal, and his tall form moves slowly through the space and sits in the offered chair. He sits in typical pose, with one ankle set on top of the opposite knee; his hands find rest on the arms of said chair, large and awkward without something else to occupy them. "Do you need assistance of any kind?" he queries, clear green eyes following her movements with a decided lack of genuine interest. "Paperwork. Hidework. Whatever things people think to scribble down that I might be interested in. Never let your ambition lead you to my position," advises the older woman. She takes a seat across from the journeyman and reaches for one of the premade sandwiches Gina left. "All you will find is heartache and disappointment and fingers that ache to do. But," her smile turns wry and sly, "Never trust someone who tells you not to aim for something higher. I might just be trying to protect my knot from the likes of you." Little betrays any of the journeyman's inner thought process, but his fingers do move to intertwine in his lap, green eyes following the woman's journey to her sandwiches. "I doubt that will be much of a concern now. Half of Pern would mutiny if I wore your knot." Miska's voice holds not an iota of sarcasm, just blunt truth, the way one might t you that you have cancer, without empathy. "You needn't worry, and even before all this, I never had such ambitions. I am quite satisfied with my lot, of babies and birthing." "Half of Pern wouldn't be able to pick you out a line up if you changed your name. Half of Pern wouldn't be able to tell me apart from the scullery maids in the kitchen. I wouldn't worry your pretty head about what half of Pern thinks." Tevara, dry humor and all, seems to add the words 'idiots, the lot of them' to the end of everything she says. Except it's all so politely droll. "Miska, I don't disagree with your assessment." It's an abrupt change of subject, said around a mouthful of sandwich. She's not polite enough to cover her mouth, but then again, whatever, right? A not-so-terribly unpleasant chuckle follows the words, though it sounds half-forced. "No, they could not," Miska agrees quietly. His eyes drop, momentarily, only to lift again to the Master of his craft, where they stay for the duration. "Did they come to an agreement, already? I thought they would need turns, yet. May as well have it over with," he says clearly, steadily; if that's what she meant, which he obviously assumes it is. "I have their recommendations. I wanted to speak with you first before deciding how to move forward." Tevara, master of his craft, came to this position not through wiles or political machinations. Her sharpest skill, the one of absolute forthrightness, comes forth here to parallel is bluntness. "If your spouse lost both his or her legs and begged to die, but was addicted to fellis, would you have done the same?" Miska listens, perhaps with bated breath, for the answer. Her reply causes the frown; it's a slip of his reserve, a slight one, which he undoes with a simple maneuver of mouth. "I would have done the same. Regardless." "Because quality of life in the moment matters very little when the extension of that life is at stake." It's a statement, but there is the faintest lilt hinting at her wanting him to speak more. The half-eaten sandwich isn't forgotten, popped in whole into her mouth. To say Miska is mesmerized by the sandwich, by the chewing, is an understatement. It is just another way to distract without really distracting, to put his attention in something menial without sacrificing him aplomb. "Because we cannot know what their wishes would be, in their right mind, when they aren't sober. To have that regret, if not them, then me. It would be unbearable." "Would you believe, however, that the mortality rate for dragonriders who lose their dragons is 99.9999%?" Tevara inquires. "Is protecting the fraction of a fraction of a percentage important to healers? Should it be?" Before she finishes speaking, Miska already looks resigned. "I did what I thought was right for the situation, for the patient. Would it be for every healer? Every rider? I don't know. I wouldn't change what happened, but obviously, my opinion isn't a popular one." He has, effectively, skirted the question, but answered another one entirely. Tevara is patient. And hungry. She doesn't say anything and reaches for another sandwich to make short work of. The journeyman delves deeper into the realm of resignation. "I think that this situation was unique, and it can't be compared to others. It had to be treated with the time it needed. Had I given her the mercy draught immediately, would they have complained? For my lack of thought given her addiction? There are many ifs and buts, but.. yes. I do think so. She wasn't a statistic, she was my patient, and I treated her as such," Miska says, with as little variation in tone as possible; monotone. "For someone who lacks bedside manner you display an extraordinary amount of empathy?" Statement or question? No, Tevara questions him and herself with that, lifting a brow in appraisal of the journeyman. "Or commitment to your work. Are you not hungry, Miska? I am constantly famished. Or has fear of the future dried your appetite?" "I do not call myself empathetic. I just like to do my craft well. I like to treat my patients well." It is the change in topic that earns the frown, again, and a wave of his hand in a dismissal of the offering. "No, I do not have much of an appetite just now. Nerves and food have never gone together well, for me." Miska's kind way of saying he might 'erp' on her floor if he does. "Your loss." Tevara doesn't push the subject further and starts in on her third, but then stops before the food actually reaches her mouth. It waits, hovering in the in between space between her face and the table and becomes a tool for her hand to use to punctuate her thoughts. "One thing and then you may go. If Teris had had a note on file from when she graduated, presumably before her addiction became a problem, of what she'd like to be done in the event of this, would you have honored it, irrelevant to her addiction?" Of all the question, that one nearly crumbles the healer's composure. A jerk of his hand, a twitch of his jaw muscle, and his mask is back in place, but his voice is on edge. "I would have honored it. It would have been what I wanted all along - the wishes of a clear headed, sober woman, and what she wanted in the wake of A Disaster, not the sobbing pleas for fellis from the latter." Tevara's sandwich doesn't move higher, instead tapping out a silent beat in the air. "Thank you, Miska. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter at hand." Tight-lipped, as ever, Miska dips his head in an elegant nod, and pushes to standing in front of his chair. "I appreciate your consideration, and the time you have spent deliberating over this matter." He hesitates for long enough to exhale, but his exit is just as simple as he came in, without any hovering this time. |
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