Logs:Milani Attempts to Cheer
| |
|---|
| RL Date: 28 June, 2008 |
| Who: Milani, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 28, Month 11, Turn 16 (Interval 10) |
| Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr (#855RILs) This smaller cavern serves as the infirmary at High Reaches Weyr. Immediately upon entering the room, the pervasive smell of numbweed and other medicines nearly overwhelms you. There are a few pristinely made cots lined up along the walls, some occupied, and supply cabinets flank the sides of the doors leading into the medicinal storage room and the Weyrhealer's office. Large vats of various sizes line another wall, containing solutions such as oil, redwort and numbweed, among others. A door to the south leads out to the lower caverns. Long day grows longer. Nothing worth doing. Two of the other patients rattle dice cups aimlessly, toss the contents on to their sheets, repeat ad nauseum. N'thei sits with his head leaned back as far as it will go, stares at the ceiling in an attitude of abject boredom. Probably pain mingling in there somewhere, but mostly boredom. And here comes the entertainment maybe. Milani, walking down the rows of cots, stopping by here and there for a quick, chipper word, droping off care packages here and there where allowed. And then there she is nearing N'thei's cot and without so much as a by your leave, she drops down on the edge of it, towards the bottom at least, though with how tall he is that doesn't necessarily mean his feet aren't close. "It looked a lot worse when it was fresh," she states bluntly, eyes on his face. "Doesn't anyone ever work around here." N'thei demands his answer from the ceiling, at which he continues to stare without breaking stride. His feet draw up, knees start to bend, breath sucks in shortly, and he just pushes his legs to one side instead. No look to Milani, no need to see a face to place the voice. "Shouldn't you be counting bandages or brewing numbweed or lobbing profanities or something." "Check, check and check," Milani ticks off on her fingers and tips her head to the side slightly. "This is part of my job you know, checking on people in the infirmary. Making sure they have everything they need. You know. Helping out." Seems someone's back to her usual impertinent self or at least pretending to be. "If you want profanity though, I can just say 'fuck no', how's that work for you?" N'thei mmns non-commitally, watches the ceiling a little while longer in case it does anything remarkable before he lowers his eyes. Straight on, there's nothing pretty about his sutures, nothing pleasant about the dull dull glaze across his eyes. "Part of your job. Make it to Ista when A'son was laid up?" Innocent question. There's no visible flinching on Milani for the sutures though she does look. "Good thing you weren't all that pretty to start with," she does quip though and kicks her shoes off, pulls her feet up onto the bed beneath her skirts. Apparently she means to stay a while. Innocent. Ha. "Yes. Morning after in fact. Helped him to get some crutches and make a break for it," Millie states straightforwardly. And a slight pause followed by, simply: "I'm glad you're not dead." "You ought to leave him alone. The man needs to get on with his life, and you're really not a part of it any more." And N'thei is in pain and crotchety and happy to pick on an innocent, even if only for a moment. The latter of her statements might make him a little sorry for his former, and it certainly makes his lips twist a touch wryly while he mumbles in a sulky undertone, "Was a little pretty." "I know. I went, I came back and haven't gone since," Milani answers matter-of-factly, still regarding the Weyrleader solemnly. "And if you still go bug him as anything other than the Weyrleader of the Reaches, then I call a kettle black when I see one, pot or no." That mumble brings out a smile and Milani's hand shifts, drops down to what might be a foot or an ankle or a calf, pats lightly. "Okay, you were a little. Now you're just um ... what, rakish? Rogueish? Something. Bet you'll still get plenty of women so long as the key parts haven't suffered." Meant as teasing reassurance. A foot, an ankle, a calf, whatever's under the sheet is reassured. Surely. "Shanlee quit. Not sure what to make of that." N'thei confesses the fact with bemusement, with a tilt of his chin toward the tray kind-of-near his cot. "And Satiet hasn't come in at all." Same bemusement. "Do you want an honest opinion on either of those? Or should I make nice?" Milani asks, fixing him with a long look then shifting her gaze to the tray with a touch of confusion. "Food no good or something? I could sneak you better if you want." Because she did mention that it's part of her job to get people stuff to make them happy. Food? Wha? N'thei glances at the tray, confused-- then realization. "Don't know. Didn't try it. Some people ate it." True, a few empty plates are still at bedsides around the room. "Do you have an honest opinion on either of those?" "Oh. Hm. No appetite?" Milani eyes him again, fingers laced together and hanging loosely in her lap. "Yeah. On Shan anyway. I mean, you've got a way of kind of pushing people right? Right to the limit. Maybe she hit hers? I know you hit mine." And yet she's still sitting here talking to him like they're kind of sort of the best of friends, only not really. "Satiet, that's harder. But generally speaking, she's kind of not one for blood and guts. At least, seems that way. Maybe when you get a little better she'll come down to make sure you're still alive." Matter-of-fact again. "No." Thoughtful. "Maybe. She left me this note--" N'thei reaches across the space toward the chair, then shoves his foot against Milani's backside. He's an invalid; the tray is out of reach; be useful. "Shanlee did. Thing is, she was in here this morning, and didn't have the tack to say it to my face. My once-pretty face." Milani pokes that foot back, but obligingly slides barefoot off the cot to get the tray, perches it on the edge of the cot and resumes her seat, a little bit further up. More towards potential knees than potential feet or ankles. "Hm. She didn't?" Millie's brows peak upward at that and she chews on her lip thoughtfully. "Haven't seen her yet since. But then, I've been working. Very hard. Fall makes a mess of the lower caverns too you know. Lots of shit to pick up." Dry; "Yes. You poor overworked people." Two notes actually, and N'thei flips over the top one to hold the bottom one out at bent-arm's length toward Milani, watching her stoically from the other side of it. --F'rint has everything in hand. I remain on standby until you're back on your feet again. I'm sorry. Milani takes the note he extends towards her and reads the short lines. "On ... standby." The young woman's brow furrows slowly and she looks back up at N'thei. "Are you sure she quit? And I guess I can kind of see why you're confused." Beat. "It was ... really a pretty bad Fall." She sighs softly and looks down at the note then puts it back on the tray. "Hayda was up most of the night. She likes to get everything back into perfect working order before the day after. Make it like it never happened almost." "She left her knot." Which N'thei hooks with his finger, swings it around into the space between Milani and himself, drops it down on to the sheet it's an unelaborate crane-game. "Wasn't. Just bad preparation. Would have been just-another-threadfall if we were still a well-oiled machine. --Melancholy?" "Oh well yeah, that's pretty plain," Milani says with a little shake of her head, fingers the abandoned knot thoughtfully and looks back up at the Weyrleader. "You think so? See that's the kind of stuff I /don't/ know about. On the ground ... it was just another bad Fall with people hurt and some dead." She inhales, turns the knot over again in her palm. "Maybe a little. One of the other assistants lost her uncle, a guy I know lost his father. Mostly I just feel lucky it wasn't either of my parents." Lip chewed. Chewed. Chewed. "Too cold for thread in a few more weeks. Should be the last we see, if the starsmiths are right." Looking around the room, N'thei adds Big-If with his tone. "Shouldn't you be cheering people up or something. I heard W'jar's going to die." And to be blamed for it! "And a good thing too," Milani murmurs, still looking at Shanlee's knot. She looks up at the Weyrleader and sets it back down within easy reach. "W'jar is sleeping again." She lifts her head looks back the way she came. "Does that mean you don't want to be cheered up?" Collected, tossed back toward the edge of the tray, the knot suffers the indignity of disuse. Fits right in with N'thei, funnily enough. "Not particularly. Leova came through earlier with dice for everyone." Hear that rattle? Explains it. "Do something useful and go take them away from everyone." "Right. Go figure you wouldn't," Milani says with a little shake of her head and eyes the cots containing wakeful patients. "I can get you some earplugs and those thingies for your eyes if that'd help. You know to block out the sight and sound. Not fair though to take them away I think." She's swinging her feet over the cot's edge again and shifting the tray back to where it was, but closer, where he could reach if he wants or needs to. Turning back to the man on the cot, Milani leans in, apparently intending to kiss N'thei's cheek, ugly mess or no on his face. "I'll go be useful and get out of your hair." But N'thei swats at her intentions, not with the intent of actually hitting Milani, just to wave around the back of his hand and deter the course of her kiss. Pulling away, as much as a two-foot-wide cot will permit him, shaking his head, none of that nonsense; just cranky, perhaps understandably so. Milani only grins and swats back at his hand. "I'll get you those earplugs, least I can do," she notes and straightens, returns to where her shoes dropped and pokes her feet into them. "Don't go crazy, okay? You're already nuts enough as it is." And with that chipper imprecation left behind she moves on to check on another wounded or two before making her way out. Later on, N'thei might find the promised ear plugs and a very nice sleeping mask, not at all frilly or feminine, on his side table. "For blocking out unwanted sights and sounds," reads the note with a swiftly scrawled M for a signature. Apparently, he's earning quite the collection of notes from girls while convalescing. By the end of the night, there's a new note on the side table, written in a very-not-girly handwriting, all scribbly and hasty and folded to stand up like a little sign: NO MORE NOTES GO AWAY THANK YOU |
Leave A Comment