Logs:Scrambled Eggs
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| RL Date: 20 February, 2015 |
| Who: K'zin, Leova |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: K'zin makes good on his bargain and goes to see Dragonhealer Leova about his concerns before Niahvth rises. |
| Where: Dragon Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 22, Month 1, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: A blanket of cold, dense fog fills the bowl with its oppressive presence and obscures vision. |
| Mentions: Aishani/Mentions, Azaylia/Mentions, F'manis/Mentions, H'kon/Mentions, Irianke/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Torani/Mentions, U'sot/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: A tear may be shed over his dragon. // So, I thought I'd posted this when we played it, but it turns out I didn't. Way back-dated as a result. |
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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. Outside it's oppressive, dismal, a blanket of fog. Inside, off to the side, a brazier heats an alcove with a pair of cots drawn up L-shaped like chairs. Leova's got a blanket about her shoulders when she greets K'zin. "All quiet." There isn't tea, there aren't cookies, but there's that place to sit. Place, too, to pace. "Only on the outside," K'zin answers without the volume that would break the mood. His features are unnaturally grim as he sits on the edge of one of the cots, his back never touching its, in a way that almost shuns the effort made to be a chair. "Do you know anything about the rumors about Yuraveth?" He cuts to the chase (sort of). "Some, aye." Leova studies him, hazel eyes level. Her wrists rest on her knees. There's a slate to hand, but she hasn't touched it. "She never crashed, not to speak of. Nothing like he did." But. "I know." No, he really didn't, but he didn't assume she had, so that's almost the same thing. K'zin is looking at the dragon healer as a drowning man might look to a sailor leaning against the ship's rail. "Could it be the same thing? Or something like?" The words come tumbling out faster than he intends, tripping over them to say the next, "If he chases, if he catches when Niahvth rises, could it-- would it-- scramble the eggs?" And "Are they keeping Yuraveth from rising? Could they? Is there--" He starts more, the what ifs seeking to pour out of his mouth like booze from a carelessly handled bottle, and then, as one abruptly corked, he's quiet, staring at her with imploring eyes. "She's risen," Leova reports, matter-of-fact. "Never did clutch. That much is usual, a queen her age." That much of the rope is coiled in sight. She doesn't take on his agitation when she listens, when she speaks, for all that her gaze has darkened. "You talked about his mind. About its being different. What's going on, K'zin?" "I don't..." K'zin starts, stops, looks around, to take in what of the infirmary he can see. "This is... all confidential, isn't it? You won't be... reporting to K'del or anyone, will you?" "I report to U'sot," Leova says plainly. She doesn't follow his gaze around the infirmary in its quiet, but instead keeps looking at him. "'Don't expect to need to bother the Weyrleader, K'zin." One corner of her mouth tilts just slightly, just for a moment, but she makes no joke of it. "If something's serious enough to warrant that, if anyone has to be locked down, that's one thing. But his accident shouldn't affect egg-making, it's not like Arekoth's get have gnarled paws." K'zin chews his lower lip, something in what she's said staying his breath from giving life to more words. Words that might not be wise. "Yeah," beat. "Yeah, you're right." It's empty. Hollow, all of it is. "I shouldn't have bothered you." He gets up, looking lost even as he does. "It'll be fine." "What's going on, K'zin." Leova nods to the cot. There are bigger waves out there. Floating off isn't an option. K'zin looks where he might have gone, except this is Leova demanding, in her way, an answer to the question. The younger man sighs, settling down onto the cot more properly. No point in taking the edge when he's going to stay. "I don't know." That's the truth. "He hasn't been the same since he crashed. It got worse after Iesaryth died. Like, having her presence gave him an anchor, and now he's... I don't know." How to describe it? How indeed. "Adrift," holds question for all that it's the obvious. "Take your time. 'Less it helps for me to ask you questions." Leova starts there. "Questions, maybe, would help, maybe." Maybe. K'zin's brow is furrowed, his thoughts taking his focus more than the dragonhealer. It's a breath later that he says, "Rasavyth has never been like most other dragons. We have never been like most other pairings." He shifts uncomfortably. "He's always been stronger than me. Until lately. And even then it's sort of hit or miss, but I don't think it's because I've gotten stronger." Though perhaps he has, in his own way. Leova doesn't move to contradict him. Rather, "It's bothering you that it's more equal. Or that he's... diminished." It's a check: is she hearing him right, what he says and an extension of what he says. "Diminished," K'zin seize on the word with conviction. Then, "He gets confused." It's quiet. "He can't remember things right, and he always could before. He used to know what was happening in the world, even before I did. Used to care, used to sc--plan." Scheme? Nono, Rasavyth would never scheme. "Now, he just... doesn't. It's like he's lost touch with it all. Too busy trying to fix himself, only it doesn't seem to be getting any better the longer he tries." He frowns. "I'm worried about him. Maybe if he felt properly connected here, but even that... Hraedhyth doesn't feel like his queen," which feels as strange as it sounds coming out of his mouth, judging from his expression. The dragonhealer presses her mouth together, listening. What she touches first is not the last and not even the first, not directly. "How do you feel when he's asleep?" "Fine." K'zin says it automatically, then he thinks about it. The thought shows in the renewed wrinkling of his brow. "Worried." He says, then slowly, "Scared," because that might lose him his bronzerider ego card. "He's been so sure. Of himself, of us, of everything we were going to do together, since the day he was shelled." A tear slips past the guard K'zin's no doubt gotten into place and kept for turns, and it's quickly smudged away with a sleeve. Leova still doesn't reach for the slate, doesn't tick marks against him, doesn't demand that card to rip it up into tiny bits. "Can you think straight? Your math. Formulas. If you still use 'em, anyway. Names, faces. Maps. Can you draw." "Yes." K'zin says on an exhale. This, could, at least be good news. "It doesn't-- seem to be me." But perhaps that's all the more frightening. Leova does, as it happens, now make use of her slate. "Have you had any betweening... misses?" "No, thank Faranth." K'zin sighs his audible relief. "I've worried about it. He's always been exceptional at betweening. I only let us do it if I can focus him, get his whole attention on the thing. It annoys him sometimes, to be interrupted, but he still has the sense to know it's important, I think." "That's a relief. Do you, hm." Leova's gotten to studying the other rider again. "Is it easier to do your math and all that, when he's asleep? Simpler? And has that changed at all, from before. Some'd be glad not to be weighed down." Her tone is neutral but matter-of-fact, not too-casual, even now. K'zin has to give her questions thought. "I'm not sure," he must answer of the first few. "I can't say I've noticed one way or the other, but I can't say I've been trying to notice. I can." Try. "If... If I were the boy I was before I Impressed, I'd say this was a relief. It was terrifying, at first, how self-assured he was. How attentive. How-- everything. Intense, you know?" Maybe she doesn't, he moves on, "but now... That's who he is, or was and what's happening now, it isn't right. It doesn't feel right." Can she appreciate that? It clearly is tearing him up inside. Intense. Everything. There's a quality to Leova's nod that may suggest she's intimately familiar with that. Vrianth. "When," she checks. "Does he feel most 'right'?" The bronzerider is quiet as he must mentally sift through everything. "I don't know." He's cautious with that answer. "Some dragons seem to be able to draw him out better. It's when he's in himself that it's so strange. If he could just... be present in the world, it might not be so bad, but even sometimes when he's present, he gets confused. The worst is when he thinks about the time around the crash." "Of course he'd remember that." Leova, wry. She says, "What I want you to do: keep track. How he is. Circumstances 'round how he is. Especially when he seems more 'right' or especially not. You'll do that?" She doesn't wait. "Tell me about how he takes care of himself, about how he has you take care of him. About how that is now." "That's just it," he tells the dragonhealer with a frown, "He doesn't. Not really. He doesn't remember the crash exactly, or hearing about the hatching he missed, or really most things, not for the first couple months. And I'm no help because I don't remember much of it either." K'zin sighs, frowning. "It's like it happened to other people. Like there's a chunk of our lives missing. I think... he says there's tangles. And he's... unraveled?" He's trying to translate the feelings. "And it feels like it's... I don't know, a crack that radiates out from that moment in time, and if we could just fix that moment, the rest would come together." The bronzerider's intensity and anxiety rises with the words, with the need, the need he doesn't escape feeling with his dragon. He's not as unaffected as he'd like to believe. Her eyes narrow, thoughtful. "Have you tried drawing it," the dragonhealer wants to know. "Building it, like you did that thing, when you lot were weyrlings. Something physical to look at even if it's too small for him to touch, filling it in." "I... haven't..." K'zin is hesitant. "Like... a map? Or a timeline?" "If that works for you. Or models," Leova says with a lift and fall of one shoulder. "Something to fill in the blanks." "Models of what?" K'zin is confused, tone and expression confirm it. "The dragons that were there. The landscape. It doesn't have to be perfect," Leova sounds certain of that. "Enough to fill in the hole. So it's not gone. Shells, ask a harper to write up a tune, or else your favorite drinker. This is new territory, K'zin." K'zin looks at the greenrider, and then slowly, slowly nods his head. "I think... I could try. It couldn't hurt." It brings him back, "But. The... flight. You're sure... I mean, if he caught, he could... there could be something wrong with the eggs, couldn't there?" She did say new territory. The dragonhealer nods. "That and the tracking. Get sleep and exercise while you're at it, with his and your moods." But. "Not sure. Isyath's brood, they fell within normal parameters. Don't reckon it would be different here, not with Niahvth's," and Leova can say the name without sneezing, "blood." But. "What I will say is: don't go chasing at Benden. Hear that?" "Normal parameters." K'zin swallows. "I don't suppose you could check into that for me." His brow furrows, "Or that they might let me ask some questions?" That makes him shake his head, but then some idea comes to him, "Nevermind. I know what to do." He shakes himself a little as he stands. "I'd rather he didn't chase anywhere." The bronzerider sounds sincere about that. "We don't have a good track record." Even if Vrianth and Leova are a part of that. That last isn't reflected in the greenrider's expression, one way or another. Then again, she has a job to do. "I looked him up to be sure," Leova says simply. "Before. All of the eggs hatched, and without... deformities. But you could ask. There was a bronze that was on the small end, but he might've grown out of it." She'll see him to the exit, but on the way: "So you'll keep track. Fill in that hole if you can. And ask questions if you want. Let me know what you find, hm?" K'zin gives a nod. "You're sure I don't need to stop him from chasing, just to be sure? We could... I don't know, go on vacation?" But given that Niahvth's been showing signs already for a time and might yet go on taunting the bronzes with the ever-nearing flight, how would K'zin know when to go? "Not here. But. You wouldn't be the first bronzerider to request watch duty," Leova notes with a one-shouldered shrug. Watch duty, which is not vacation. "Volunteer for dawn sweeps the day after, and I don't doubt F'manis would let you go. Either way, though: so long as it's not Benden, don't worry." "It won't be Benden," K'zin will assure Leova without a second thought. "It's here I'm worried about." Present tense, despite her last words. "Thanks, Leova." He says before turning to take his leave. |
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