Logs:Supposed to Help
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 16 December, 2013 |
| Who: G'laer, Oliwer |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: G'laer goes for his first massage with Oliwer. |
| Where: Dragon Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 19, Month 7, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Aseana/Mentions, B'gherio/Mentions, Gaelan/Mentions, Gallania/Mentions, Gheara/Mentions, Leara/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Backdated (to just after Aseana's first appearance at HRW). Teisyth's interest in massage, explained! |
  |
| 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.
Oliwer is a punctual sort of man and his arrival will be noted by G'laer when the weyrling looks for him. "Good evening, dragonrider," he greets the other man with a friendly smile and doesn't seem at all surprised that the appointment has been kept. "Good evening, Teisyth," is added to the dragon even if doesn't end up paying him any notice. For a holdbred man, he doesn't seem particularly concerned by the young green. Well, she wasn't paying attention to him. But then he's talking to her! That's more exciting than any of this other stuff! The green abandons her investigation of one of the nearby unoccupied alcoves to honk-bugle her own enthusiastic greeting to the healer. "Inside voice," G'laer has to remind the green who drew eyes with that sound. It's repeated then, but softer. "Good evening, Journeyman," He answers in kind, rather ignoring his lifemate now. Blue eyes linger expectantly on the healer (make that two sets, one set whirling), both ready to follow him to whatever alcove they're going to use for this experiment in shoulder treatment. The green's response is met with a warm smile but, fortunately for everyone, Oliwer is here for G'laer and not his dragon since he knows very little about healing them. "This way, then, shall we?" he says, gesturing the way before turning to lead. He has a bag slung over one shoulder and sooner or later someone will realize the chubby blue firelizard that's circling the infirmary is following him. "Please, make yourself comfortable," he says, once there's a cot to gesture at. "It will be easiest if you take your shirt off and lay down." But there's nothing about him that suggests he's in a hurry. It's sooner. And it's Teisyth. Firelizard! She twitches, eyeing it as though it might be a play thing sent for her own amusement. "No." G'laer articulates softly but in a tone that brooks no argument and the green's excitement fades as she visibly wilts, moving to about a foot and a half off from the cot to settle and watch. See? She's being good now. The greenrider's movements, too, are unhurried, simply efficient, shucking the shirt and tossing it at the green. This seems to help revive her spirits as her nose burries in the fabric. The rider takes a moment to roll his shoulders back and forth just lightly before hands find the edges of the cot and he does nearly the down part of a push-up motion to end up laying on his stomach on the cot. "I take it from the way you scheduled this that massage isn't your normal area of practice?" The question comes as he shifts his head to try to make it comfortable on the thin pillow. If he were anywhere else, probably G'laer would be silent. But something about infirmaries, when he is the patient unnerve him enough to prompt a want for conversation. The firelizard chirps at Teisyth with bright curiosity. Hi, I don't know you! Isn't that fantastic! Oliwer is used to the blue, however, and he mostly ignores him in favor of having his full attention on the rider. Which of course has him watching the man take off his shirt and settle himself on the cot. "Not usually, no. But I know how." Obviously. Or he probably wouldn't be here. Oliwer is trying not to look very awkward about that but it's probably exactly that reason that he doesn't do it regularly. Just about the most fantastic thing ever! Except that G'laer won't let her play with the firelizard. Teisyth huffs and noses at the fabric of his shirt. She might be thinking of biting it when no one is looking. "I believe you." That he knows how, "Just-- making conversation. It's not something I particularly excel at." Making conversation. "What is your specialty, if you don't mind my curiosity?" He goes on to ask a few breaths later as he shifts a little on the cot, still, apparently, trying to get comfortable. Well, this should go extraordinarily well, then, because Oliwer isn't Pern's greatest conversationalist, either. Once G'laer seems comfortable, though, the healer approaches setting his bag on the ground as he settles on the edge of the cot. "Trauma, typically. I also enjoy working with children. But less so when they're involved with trauma." Somebody has to do these things, though, and children are sometimes more likely patients in that area. He doesn't jump straight into touching the greenrider, instead pulling a small, thin jar out of his bag and holding it in his hands to help warm it. A single blue eye peeks at Oliwer out of its corner, but that quickly becomes too much of a strain, so it goes back to staring at whatever it can see off the side of the couch, that isn't obscured by the mild loft of the pillow. "We learned some first aid in the guard. I always thought if I'd ended up at Healer, I'd've liked trauma. Probably not children. Or trauma with children." Beat. "Do you have any?" Presumably children, not trauma. "Was it a consideration?" he wonders. "You becoming a healer, I mean." Once Oliwer has decided that whatever's in the jar is warm enough, he opens it and pours some into his hand. The jar is set down and then he's rubbing his hands together and finally touching them to G'laer's back. Which makes it much easier for him to hesitate over answering the question about children. "I don't have any, no. Do you?" The firelizard settles down somewhere nearby but seems to know better than to come and try a root around in Oliwer's bag. The muscles of the greenrider's scar-marked back do tense when Oliwer's hands make contact, a slight breath caught, but then used: "No. The Crom guard wanted me. Recruited me. My father was a fail-out who became a dragonrider. I think he wanted me to fulfill the duty he couldn't do his Hold." G'laer's answer comes fairly matter of factly. "But since I didn't get much of a choice, I spent some of my teen turns thinking a lot about what I might have chosen for myself, given the chance. I liked working with my Gran on the herbs well. Kept up with it." Hence the need for herbs for his salve. "Could've seen myself enjoying that life in another world." By the time all this is said, the muscles have started to relax again, and G'laer takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly before answering the other question. "Technically. Twins. I see them once a turn." He frowns, though it's hard to see since the pillow is smooshing up part of his face, "Their mother was here a couple days back and I'm to get them fostered here at the Weyr since my pay is reduced now and they're nearly of an age to apprentice, if they like. Better chance of that here than at her home holding." If while the adults are talking, Teisyth's hook-like tail snakes toward the blue... is anyone really going to be paying enough attention to mind? "I know that feeling. To some extent, anyway. My father is a master." Oliwer makes that sound like he thinks that's possibly worse than someone that had failed to become a proper healer at all. But otherwise he listens and while G'laer talks and relaxes, his hands start to move in a slow, firm, methodical sort of way. "Twins. You must be proud." Of his ability to have twins, maybe? "You and their mother aren't...?" Fill in the blank. The blue lizard is definitely watching Teisyth out of the corner of one whirling eye, and then both when he turns his head to look at her tail. He's less stealthy though and practically squawks before he's in the air again and circling the green's tail. "Like father like son then?" G'laer inquires, followed by, a curious, "Isn't mastery what you're aspiring to? At least, professionally." It must be how he takes the healer's tone that makes him ask the latter, though it's asked without the judgement that might normally come with such a question; it's just a question. "I wouldn't say I'm proud. At least of that. It's not like it takes much, for the fertile." Of which he is one, evidently. "We handfasted when we were barely sixteen. It didn't last beyond the twins' second turn." Teisyth can play this game. She swiftly looks away when the blue looks her way. She wasn't looking, la la la. Oliwer's response to the greenrider's initial assumptions is slightly delayed, he has to consider that. But it ends with a simple, "No." Fortunately his thinking and speaking don't take much attention away from what he's doing with his hands, firm without becoming painful. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says in regards to their handfasting not lasting. The journeyman doesn't ask anymore questions about that, though. He's trying to keep G'laer relaxed, after all. The firelizard chirps when he realizes the green isn't looking at him and he lands with a heavy thump right in front of her after a few moments. Look at me! G'laer's shoulders rise in a shrug; talking about his ex doesn't seem to be causing him additional stress, though the shrug might not be helpful to the healer's efforts. But the greenrider probably has never had a massage before, so he mightn't know the rules. "We were young. Caught up in all those 'blooming love' feelings. Pregnancy and the twins... it was a harsh return to reality." Now there's a touch more tension as he slowly articulates, "If I were a better man, I might've stayed. Or tried for longer." Beat. "In the end, I think they're all better off." Without him. Without preamble, he asks, "So if not mastery, what?" It could be that he's genuinely interested, or that he needs a break from the topic of his shortcomings or a combination of the two. In the meantime, there's temptation for Teisyth. She could look, probably wants very badly to look at the firelizard, but with a great effort of will, she doesn't. Firelizard? What firelizard? There's no indication from Oliwer that he has any idea what G'laer is talking about in regards to 'blooming love.' But it could just be that he's focusing on his hands and the muscles underneath them. The question eventually does make him speak again, though. "I'm a healer. That's what I want to do. It's what I'm good at. And I can do that without becoming a Master." Which probably isn't much of an answer, actually. The blue on the ground in front of Teisyth squawks. Look! When she doesn't look, he spreads out his wings and flaps them noisily. How can she not be looking! If all else fails, he's back in the air to put himself in her line of sight. Even with no indication, it's not a topic G'laer seems inclined to return to. Instead the greenrider's focus is shifted to the not-much-of-an-answer. He shifts his head on the pillow, "So, if not advancement, what is it about healing that you find rewarding-- validating?" Maybe he should have been a mindhealer after all. Teisyth can't help herself. When the blue makes that noise, her eyes flick toward it, but oops! she wasn't supposed to give in, and so away they go again just as quickly. She didn't look. No one saw anything, right? The journeyman's hands pause. And then they slide up to focus on the greenrider's shoulders. "Helping people." The way Oliwer says this is meaningful all on its own. It suggests he can't imagine there being any other reason for becoming a healer besides just that. When Teisyth glances his way, the chubby little blue pauses, mid-air, for the second that he can. But when she's pretending to ignore him again, he blinks between. Gasp! "But would you feel equally good about it if you were helping, say, replant the fields in Nabol instead of healing or is it helping people in this way?" is what the greenrider wants to know next. His shoulders shift under Oliwer's hands, the muscles slowly unknotting. But then they're tensing because he's craning his neck up to look over at his lifemate who's gotten up, quite suddenly and is sniffing about in the air as if that will help her find the suddenly vanished blue. "I don't know how to plant fields," muses Oliwer. "And I'm not sure I'm exactly the sort that would thrive with that sort of manual labor. Or actually be very helpful. But I would enjoy being able to help if I could, regardless." Oli glances over at the green when G'laer's attention shifts that way, but he doesn't seem to think much of it. "I don't really know how to help people outside of healing. I'm not, as my mother would say, socially gifted." G'laer's blue gaze turns from the dragon to the healer, one side of his lips pulling into a small smirk, "That makes two of us." Then he's shifting to lay his head back down. "But you seem to do alright with me. Maybe it's that we're equally poor in social gifts that makes it easy." Or easier. Teisyth circles the cot as far as she can and then draws closer, her attention drawn by Oliwer's hands. "Planting isn't so hard. The hardest is anticipating the weather, but that's what experts are for. The planting itself... that's easy. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty." "Perhaps," says Oliwer agreeably. "Healers are expected to have a certain manner. But we don't all fall neatly into that expectation." He's smiling when he says this, it can be heard in his voice. The journeyman does his best not to pay much attention to the dragon other than a brief glance. With his hands starting to work in a way that might not feel amazing on G'laer's shoulder, having the green closer is making Oliwer just a little more tense. "I do like to keep my hands clean." G'laer grunts. It's as much an answer as likely a response to the new way Oliwer's hands are manipulating his muscles. But it's not pain, so the healer is likely fine to carry on. "I would think with trauma that you'd like getting your hands dirty so long as you could clean them up after." The greenrider observes while his green observes the healer. She's watching his hands, specifically, sort of mesmerized by the motion. "This is supposed to help, right?" The man probably has never had a real massage before. Can he be blamed for asking? "I don't know if that's the same sort of dirty. Blood isn't dirty. Messy, perhaps," allows Oliwer, like there's a definite difference. "But not dirty." He doesn't seem particularly concerned by the grunt, anyway, especially not if G'laer isn't going to tell him to stop. "It's supposed to help. It's improbable that it will make it worse." Improbable, but not impossible. That ought to be comforting. "You might be sore tomorrow. But unless it's actual pain, there shouldn't be anything to be concerned about. We're almost finished." Oliwer will just focus on the muscles around the shoulder in question for a few moments longer before smoothing his hands more gently toward G'laer's neck and down between his shoulder blades. "So messy is fine, but dirty is not." G'laer repeats the clarification and there's just the tiniest hint that he's amused by the distinction. "You know, there's a lot to be said for dirt. Just like some muds can make a good poultice, even dirt isn't really dirty, unless you're mucking out the stables or a dragon couch." A task he's surely well acquainted with. "It feels more relaxed." If that is what Oliwer means by helping. "But I believe you when you tell me I might be sore tomorrow. But I suppose there are worse reasons for being sore." "Dirt has its place," is all he's going to say about that. Whether he has a place anywhere that dirt is will just have to be left to the imagination. "Some of your salve may help the soreness, too, but if it seems unusual, come see me. Did that work out all right? The salve, I mean." Oliwer's hands linger even though the pressure is mostly gone now. But after a few moments, he glances at the green, clears his throat and lifts them away to find a cloth in his bag to wipe away the oil first from his hands and then a brief rub over the greenrider's back. "It did," comes G'laer's answer a moment after the question is given. "I got some strange looks by some of the other weyrlings for working a mortar and pestle in the barracks, but that's only slightly different than the strange looks some of them give me anyway." It doesn't seem to concern him at all. The greenrider doesn't move under lingering hands and if he finds anything unusual about it, there's certainly no words to say so. The green, however, shuffles nearer and her nose might be in the way of some of that rubbing with the cloth. "Teisyth," comes the remonstrative use of her name and she backs off with a little huff, glancing then to the healer. Oliwer, for his part, seems patient with the young green and works around her as much as he can without comment. Maybe even a slight smile. "I don't know why anyone would give you strange looks. But I suppose they would know better than me. I think we're all done here," he continues the last without leaving much room for it to be a separate though from what he started with. "Is there anything else you can think of right now? I will expect to hear something from you, you know." And if not, the now departed firelizard will surely be able to get Teisyth's attention. "Haven't you heard, Healer?" The way G'laer uses the title is too casual as he shifts up onto his elbows and then rolls onto one side to award Oliwer with one of his extremely rare toothy smiles, dimple making its appearance and everything! "I eat weyrlings for breakfast." It's probably a joke, though the rumor mill might pretend it's true. "I'm old, and take things too seriously, and can't take a joke." He lists these things off in a way that certainly suggests these are the opinions of others. But now he's sitting up properly with his legs swung off the side of the cot, and he's stretching experimentally, arms over his head, then to the sides, muscles shifting under the here-and-there scarred flesh accordingly. "Nothing I can think of. When should I come back?" Because apparently, he's willing to give this another go. The journeyman doesn't seem entirely sure how he should take these rumors himself. G'laer has been mostly pleasant, after all, but it's possible he doesn't want to admit that, either. "I hadn't heard that, no. I suppose I don't gossip much with weyrlings, though. Or... anyone." That last word comes after a moment's thought and a small frown from Oliwer. "But, I'll admit, you're a bit older than most of them tend to be. I can understand the divide." Journeymen don't tend to run as young as weyrlings but by Oliwer's age, many of them are hoping for promotions. "It depends on how you feel, really. I'd say at least once a month, if you can manage. Once every other seven might be preferable for awhile. To see if you think it's helping at all." By now Oliwer has slid off of the cot to crouch next to his bag and make sure everything is put away properly, definitely not looking at any shifting muscles under scarred skin. Never mind if he's a bit flushed. Well, G'laer can help the poor blushing hold-bred healer. Even if he doesn't do so consciously. He rises from the cot and moves past Oliwer to where Teisyth abandoned his shirt, crouching himself for a moment to snag it up and flip it the correct direction. "Alright. So not next seven, but the following one? Do I schedule with you directly or through that appointment book in the infirmary?" The greenrider queries as he makes to pull the shirt on and sets about tucking it into the waistline of his trousers. Once everything is settled properly in his bag, Oliwer rises and slings it over his shoulder. "If you'd prefer I do it, you can schedule with me directly. If you don't care who does it, you can schedule... properly, I suppose." He tries not to watch the greenrider tucking in his shirt but only after he catches himself actually doing that while he was considering the question. In the end, the healer just smiles and gestures toward the infirmary he's more familiar with. "If you don't mind, I should be on my way." Never mind that Oliwer specifically scheduled this while he wasn't otherwise on duty. "I'll find you to schedule with, then." So that answers that. After all, Oliwer is the original salesman for the help these massages can be. G'laer's hands finish fussing with the tucking and there's a nod, "Of course." That Teisyth's head butts against her rider's thigh just before the man offers, "Thank you," is probably just a coincidence. Right? "Have a good night, Journeyman." "Right, then," says Oliwer like that's more or less what he'd been expecting. "Good. You know where to find me." He glances over at the thanks and gives his head a slightly awkward nod. "Of course. My pleasure, greenrider. Have a good night, as well. And you, Teisyth." He nods his head once more specifically in her direction, too, then turns to make his way back to the comfortable safety of the infirmary. |
Leave A Comment