Logs:Study Until My Eyes Bleed
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| RL Date: 27 March, 2009 |
| Who: Carobet, Madilla |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Left alone, the two healer apprentices share their personal agonies. |
| Where: Resident Common Room, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 19, Month 4, Turn 19 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Satiet/Mentions, Tiriana/Mentions |
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| It's been not quite a seven since Satiet's death, and though life is, in many ways, continuing as normal, there's no way to escape the reminders, scattered here and there, everywhere. It's about dinner time, but Madilla appears to have eaten early or intends to go late, because instead of joining the rest of the weyr, she's settled herself in a cozy chair not far from the hearth. She appears to be making a pretence at study, but mostly, her gaze keeps sliding upwards, so that she can stare into the low flames. Carobet slips into the common room quietly, her own work tucked under one arm. She, apparently, has a similar idea to Madilla, as she heads towards the hearth-- and then starts at seeing that she's not alone. "Oh! Madilla. It's just you." Claiming her own chair and settling into it, she asks, "Not hungry either?" Madilla starts, too, though not until Carobet actually speaks - that's how intent she is on... well, the fire. Not her work. Her gaze flicks up, and then she manages a quick smile for her fellow apprentice, as she takes a chair. "Just me," she agrees, shifting her position, and, in a gesture of industry, turning a page. Working. Really! Then, "No, not really. And... Questions." Asked of her, presumably. Carobet knows that feeling, and acknowledges so with a simple nod of her head and a long silence that she allows to settle over the room like a heavy blanket. She glances down at her own work, seeming every bit as intent on looking studious as Madilla. Sighs. And then, finally, asks: "Have you been able to answer any of them? Those questions? Because I sure haven't." During that silence, Madilla seems intent upon boring a hole in the pages of her work, like somehow staring through them will impart all knowledge. But Carobet's question and admission draw the younger apprentice into a sigh of her own. "No," she admits, slowly, extending the vowel sound. "Not properly, anyway. Not truthfully." Carobet rakes her fingers through her hair, the way she does when she's uncomfortable, pulling the long strands away from her face. Then she shakes her head in frustration, and her hair falls back into place again, making the combing futile. "There are no fucking answers!" She finally exclaims, voice punctuating the air jarringly. "I could study until my eyes bleed, and nowhere does it say how to make a dying woman want to hold on to her life." Madilla bites at her lip, nodding steadily with big eyes: yes, yes. For once, she has no flinch for the swearing; for once, it probably fits, makes sense, even to her. "No," she agrees, finally. "There aren't any. And... I just feel like we should have been able. To do /something/ To... Tiriana indicated we just decided we didn't want to." Her voice shakes at that, unhappy, even angry. "That b--" Carobet's eyes widen, and she's very close to using more foul language before remembering, just before the word leaves her mouth, that she's talking about the new Weyrwoman. So what comes out instead is a very long, audible exhale. It takes a moment for her to find composure, and then to say, quietly, "We did everything we could. But that's the worst part. That maybe I am just incapable of doing something that's, somehow, possible. A more able mindhealer..." She doesn't have to voice the rest; it's unlikely Madilla could misunderstand. A more able mindhealer would have kept Satiet alive. Madilla is gripping her work in both hands, during this, for the memory of what Tiriana said, and for the enormity of all of it. "She is though." What Carobet didn't quite say. "She's--" And then, more gently, "But she's grieving. I just..." Carobet's self doubt has her reaching out, though her hand doesn't get quite close enough to touch the other healer. "But... Even if you had stopped her from doing that, she would still have died. Painfully. Awfully." There's a tear running down her cheek. When will there have been nough to stop? "I just wish we could have cured her. I could have. /Done/ something." Carobet reaches out, leaning slightly from her chair in order to take Madilla's hand and squeeze it gently. "Maybe you could have. If she hadn't taken her own life before the disease did. At least... maybe done something to slow it down? Given her another year or two." From the way she says this, and the expression on her face, it's clear this gnaws at her- that /her/ aspect of the craft is where things had gone wrong. "I wasn't compassionate enough. I didn't think she wanted to be coddled. But maybe that would have been what helped. Reassurance of... something. Instead, I just made her more aware of her own mortality." Madilla lets her hand be taken, even squezes back, but she shakes her head. "We told her there was nothing we could do, that it was a matter of time. Maybe we should have said something else, and maybe something would have happened. Have changed. Some new remedy. It wasn't /your/ fault. She probably just decided, because of what we told her, that there was no point waiting. Putting off the inevitable." Madilla breathes out, long and hard, and then adds, "She's pain-free, now. Oblivion. But everything is falling apart, because we didn't save her. Didn't do enough." Her other hand lets her work settle back on her lap, as it reaches to her shoulder, unconscious, the new knot there. Carobet holds Madilla's hand a moment longer, then gives it a final squeeze and settles back in her chair. There are tears in her eyes, and she needs both hands to rub them away. "We failed her. We failed the Weyr." There, she said it. "We're weren't good enough healers. I just hope to Faranth that doesn't mean we never will be." A beat. "Maybe, had I been another ten turns down the road, I'd have been Mindhealer enough to have done something different. Journeyman Carobet. Or Master Carobet." "We failed," repeats Madilla, sounding as though she'd like to curl up and sob, or perhaps rend her clothes, pull her hair. Her voice aches. The tears streaming down her cheeks are faster now, and thicker, but she doesn't wipe at them. "I hope," she agrees, suddenly earnest. "We're just-- we're apprentices. We can learn. Next time, we won't fail." Nevermind that Delifa, Journeywoman, was equally involved; perhaps it's just that this idea gives some comfort: they couldn't help it, they were just too young. "I never cursed my knot before," Carobet says, her voice beginning to calm-- there's not as much raw emotion in it, now. "I used to be proud of the fact I was an apprentice, given so much responsibility. Now I feel like it proves my ineptitude." She sighs once more, more wistfully. "But you know? Satiet could have requested any of the Masters on Pern attend to her. And yet she trusted us. I suppose that means... something." "I never wanted the responsibility. Delifa--" but whatever it is that Madilla's direct superior, Journeywoman Delifa, has said or done, the younger apprentice can't bring the words out into the open. "I just remember the way she looked at us, when we diagnosed her. Looked at /me/. And I would've done anything to help. Like..." Madilla takes in a deep breath, and then exhales. "Something. I suppose it does. Will we be better, next time? Do something different? If it happened again tomorrow." "I'm sure we will- do something different. I'm just at a complete loss as to what it will be," Carobet admits. "I suppose somewhere far down the road, we'll remember our former Weyrwoman with fondness, and remember this time as an experience that taught us... something. I only wish I knew what that was already." Her voice is choked-sounding, her eyes glass once more with tears. "But we'll be better. We have to be." And the statement sounds like a promise-- to the younger apprentice, to the woman who exists no longer. It almost sounds out of the blue, what Madilla says after this, though she's nodded all the way through what Carobet says, even managed a determined expression for that last bit. "I liked her. I /respected/ her. I would've done anything to--" But those words won't come, like so many others, so the girl lapses into silence. Carobet nods. But she, too, has no more words, and so says nothing. Instead, she watches the fire for a long moment, and then finally sets her eyes on her sudies. Quiet predominates as the two apprentices settle in to doing what they came to do; pages turning are the only thing that break the silence, as each searches for the bit of knowledge that might have made things turn out differently. |
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