Difference between revisions of "Logs:And Fly Left"

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.

It's not the first summons to the dragon infirmary for the weyrlings, pair by individual pair having been called in at regular intervals through the the months, at least after the early period when the dragons weren't so mobile and tripped over each other enough to require house visits. Not to mention the other common weyrling ailments: thicktail and its cousin diarrhea, snagged claws and stomachaches and scabrous hide, all the glories of being a dragonrider! And flaming? Flaming's coming. This morning, with the fog lingering out in the bowl, watchful Vrianth's out of sight if not out of mind, perched upon a ledge that would afford a view of their comings and goings. Her rider's even easier to find: leaning against the counter as she updates notes, now and again trading the stylus for a sip from her mug. It's all very usual, very much like any other time.

Kinory and Ineuth have been very prompt, good patients during their time together; they show up when they're supposed to, follow recommendations to the letter and have both been in good general health. When their turn arrives for their month seven checkup, they dutifully make their way to the dragon infirmary as requested. Growing into an athletic frame, the brown is still a little lanky and overly curious, but presents himself with his rider as seriously and cheerfully as is his wont. Adolescence is a trying time for anyone, but the two seem to be weathering his fairly well, for now. "Good morning, " says Kinory politely during one of Leova's mug-sipping intervals. "I hope we haven't kept you waiting." They haven't yet, but it's a nice thing to say, right?

Leova's half-turned just as soon as they entered, Vrianth not needing to see to see, but now she turns the rest of the way with one of those slow, sideways smiles. "Not yet," she allows with some good humor, then drains her mug so she can swap back. Just one more line of notes, a few quick marks that might be corrections or times or measurements, and then she pushes away from the counter to give the young brown a longer look. Then his rider, amber eyes resting thoughtfully on the petite weyrling. Then Ineuth, for good. "Ineuth." Just his name. "How would you describe him? Just now." « How would you describe yourself? Ineuth. » Vrianth, with a distinctly different sort of humor.

Ineuth holds still while under scrutiny, but his eyes pick up speed into a thoughtful whirl of blue-greens. Kinory looks a little surprised at the question, but tips her head back to peek up at her brown. "I - would say that he's very much a kid at heart, but I can't deny that he's not exactly one anymore, " she offers after a few minutes. "He's steady, cheerful and eager to impress, if you'll pardon the pun." « I am me, » Ineuth answers Vrianth, much with the same polite confusion that one might answer that the sky is blue or the sun, warm. « I'm bigger than I was before. »

« Of course you are. Ineuth, » but then there's only a pause rather than further words, a pause that extends towards silence. Silence, and only half-hidden humor. Meanwhile, her rider rounds the young brown. "'Not exactly' a kid. At heart. Is it the steadiness? Or did you have more in mind." Leova doesn't seek to touch him, not yet, but rather to renew her sense of him. Now she gestures: would he stand over there, against the part of the cavern marked off for length and height, familiar from when he became too long to have a simple measuring cord suffice. More to the brown than his rider, "Let's see how tall you've gotten, hm? Stand square." Ground to withers, just as with a runner, though that comparison she doesn't make out loud.

"I mean, he is a kid at heart. Just - maybe not so much in other things, " Kinory elaborates oh-so-helpfully. Her subsequent shrug is awkward, for all that it's a smooth movement. "He looks at some dragons a little differently than he used to. So - not so much a kid. You know." Obediently, Ineuth moves where directed, carefully holding his head high and making sure his tail isn't curved too far about him. See, he's big(ger)! He's yet to actually outgrow even the largest of greens, but that milestone certainly isn't far away at all.

Those comments get a sidelong, rather wry look from the greenrider, even as she takes notes. "It happens. Can be disconcerting, though. Wouldn't say he's early, not unduly, but got to wonder if Hraedhyth's affecting them at all." She squints, steps back, jots a few more measurements. "Time for the cord, and aren't you a growing boy? Wings up, please. Kinory, here," and once she's freed the coil of knotted, marked-up cord from her belt, she aims to toss its weighted end over the brown's shoulders, the better to measure his barrel.

Kinory hurries forward to help with the cord, even as her dragon carefully lifts his wings to facilitate the process. "Hraedhyth, affecting them? Is she - " And the girl actually looks a little frightened at the thought. "He was especially keen to make a good impression on her when they came to visit the other day, but I - I didn't think much of it. I thought he was just being friendly and determined to seem like less of a little one to her."

Measuring, measuring, measuring: barrel, base of neck and up by his head, even tail and legs, and individual wings in their turn. it would be a longer process if they weren't so practiced at it, if Ineuth and Kinory weren't so obliging, but even so, it's time-consuming. "Likely that's what it was," Leova says as she works, matter-of-fact for all that she doesn't seek to reassure in more overtly emotional ways. "They do want to be recognized. And not like she's glowing or anything, just, she's... different, some, and Hraedhyth, she's not so subtle. If she were trying to press on him, reckon you'd know, hm? As it is... it's someone he wants to think well of him, like with Isath maybe. Or Olveraeth," in case that comparison's safer.

"No, " Kinory agrees with a little laugh, "she's definitely not subtle." Subtle like a charging bovine smashing into a trader's stall, perhaps. Still, the greenrider's matter-of-factness seems to reassure the weyrling in some way, for she nods a little as measurement after measurement is taken. "I guess I would know, somehow. And he wants everyone to think well of him, really. Even those he already considers to be friends." Perhaps feeling self-conscious about edging into rambling territory, she's quiet for the next bit, reaching over every now and then to rest a hand on whatever part of Ineuth is closest.

"Most folks do," Leova supposes, double-checking one measurement along his left wing. "Though mostly, most dragons anyhow, it's not so much in their heads. They know." Make that, triple-check, and it's back to his right wing. "Does it feel anxious, at all? Feel like someone could sway him where maybe he shouldn't be, to impress? Got to wonder if part of it isn't to do with not having a proper queen laying down the lines." Not the law.

"No, I - I don't think so. Nothing like that. It all feels natural enough, even if I'm still really uncomfortable with the idea. I'm just not ready to think about the consequences of him noticing female dragons." Ineuth gives the softest of rumbles, turning his head slightly to exhale a puff of warm air over Kinory's head. "He's fine with where he's going. I'm the only one who's anxious about it. Sometimes, I wish it wasn't part and parcel of being a dragonrider. It seems like it would make things - less complicated."

"Mm." It's a thoughtful, listening sound, and if the dragonhealer's stylus has flagged one particular point, it's nothing with which she interrupts the weyrling. Yet. Instead, "Going to touch you now, Ineuth. Keep following my lead, hm? Just like usual, starting with light slaps 'long your flank, checking the hide's resilience," this as much for Kinory as for the brown himself: it's all usual, nothing out of the ordinary, this much the girl needn't worry herself about. Getting back to what the weyrling's been describing, "Reckon it would, all right. They won't let us keep ourselves separate, dragons won't... we'll, they'll talk to you, if they haven't already, about things we humans can do to make things at least a little less complicated. You're weyrbred, as I recall," as she has in her notes, right there, "still, won't assume you know it all already. What bothers you the most?"

Ineuth shifts slightly as the examination continues, but seemingly more out of a need to move than out of any sort of discomfort. "I am weyrbred, " Kinory replies, "but that doesn't mean that I 'know it all, ' as you say." There's a sheepish sigh, an uncomfortable little cough. "Suppose he decides to try to chase in some flight or other in the next month. I'm not ready to face those sorts of feelings, not yet. I'm mostly afraid that I'll panic about it or that my fear will give him a bad experience, or - or something. I don't even know what a proper date is like, much less - the physical bits." That, it seems, is primarily where her discomfort lies.

For that, the greenrider slides Kinory a one-cornered smile, one that holds some sympathy for all that it doesn't linger: maybe easier for the girl's modesty that way, even over and above the work to be done. "Other parts of your life, too, do you not want to face the things you're frightened of?" She leaves a few moments, leaving that question out there, before stepping back with a murmur to Ineuth: not done with him yet, but he has a chance to wiggle.

"Yes, " the weyrling admits quietly. "I was afraid to stand for Rielsath's clutch, too. But I couldn't not do so, in the end." And wiggle the sandy-hued brown does, permitting himself a tiny, shimmying little shake from head to tail, a shifting in position of his paws on the floor. "I know what's best for me to do, but I don't know if I can get up the nerve. I suppose most anything is better than being embarrassed or crying in front of someone later. And I should be - at least somewhat prepared for his sake."

Rielsath's clutch. Svissath's clutch. "Why?" Just as quietly, as though there could be more than one reason. As though there could be many. Leova watches the brown, watches him shimmy, and if she particularly watches the lines of his wings... again she doesn't speak of that. Mildly, "Reckon what's best is to talk to a healer about such things. Madilla, I know she's the Weyrhealer, but she'd be good for you. And there'll be talk about how to avoid pregnancy, too: don't want to have to go /between/ for that... anyhow. Kinory. Lot of people get embarrassed. Cry, even, early on at least. Sometimes... sometimes because it's such a relief." Her gaze rests on Kinory again, has for a little while now, quiet if not stony-impassive.

Kinory's eyes are wide when she lifts them to meet Leova's, brows scrunched into a frown. "I didn't think my family really wanted me to, because then I'd have to ride here, not there. And - I guess I was afraid of what it might mean to me, if I did or didn't walk away with a dragon. But I wouldn't trade this experience, now, for the world." Except for the fear of intimacy bit, so she seems to latch onto this concept that not everyone throws themselves into relations with the enthusiasm that some people are wont to brag about. "They do? Really? Maybe I won't stick out so much, then. I just don't want some casual - thing with someone. It sounds awkward."

Has Leova heard of that family's visit, so shortly after the hatching? It doesn't reflect in her thoughtful gaze, even with Kinory looking right back at her. "Glad that worked out, at least." Her smile quirks up. "Now, if that other thing would always be that good, well, that would be more of an incentive, hm? As it is... it is awfully great, when it's happening. We're so close. Like to think it'll be that way for you and Ineuth, close to each other. And yeah, riders are supposed to do right by each other." Don't point and laugh! "And yeah, it's awkward, some, but I favor the head-in-the-sand approach." The ruefulness in her low voice, the returned quirk of her smile, they're all practically inviting a laugh.

Kinory can't help it; despite the awkwardness of the topic, she giggles, a faint laugh that as of yet carries more of the child than the young woman in her with it. "I'll take your word for it, " she says, still smiling on the tail end of that giggle. She lapses back into a brief, thoughtful silence; maybe it won't be so bad, after all. "Thanks for the perspective." Despite her now-pink cheeks, she straightens a little and casts another look at Ineuth. "How is he doing? Everything still looking okay?"

And all of that must please the former weyrlingmaster's assistant, her smile widening considerably. "Glad to. Not that you won't get more of a talk later. Quinlys, maybe... Who knows, maybe down the road it'll be you helping some new rider figure things out. Dragonhealer. Assistant weyrlingmaster. Wingmate or friend." By then, though, she's studying Ineuth. More soberly, "Pretty well. I still have to look at his jaws and all, but pretty well. Tell me, though: seems like his left wing's a tad more developed than his right, muscles-wise. Does he like to turn right, given the option?" Somebody's been listening in, asked to or not: Ineuth gets a sense of turning, whirling, dizzying spirals. To the right.

And if Kinory spends an extra few minutes studying Ineuth's wings before she mumbles that she's already talked to Quinlys, she's probably just trying to verify what the greenrider is asking about. "To uh, turn right? He does say that it's easier to make right turns and banks. I've never actually paid attention to that before." She looks abashed. "I probably should have noticed that. Is it something we can easily fix with guided exercise?" Ineuth does like to spiral to the right, says his favorable breeze to that sense of turning. Much like someone would be right-handed, he just prefers to turn on that wing.

That raises the greenrider's brows a fraction, both of them at once, but she doesn't return to the topic. Yet. Maybe she won't at all. Maybe she'll tattl... look up Quinlys later. "Right. Sorry. Guided exercise, yes." Kinory might have seen one of her blue clutchmates doing such things, before, if with a different issue. Might have heard complaints, even. "Not a particularly big deal now or anything, but better that he practice extra going the other way. Sorry, big boy. Open wide?" Leova's got a maw to inspect, even setting down her notes to do so as she adds, "Thing is, easy to train them young, before they settle in even more. And little things, as don't seem like much now, turn into big things when they're older." Or when there's Fall, but they don't have any of that. None of that. Now.

Kinory's ears are still a little red, but she's paying close attention to Leova's assessment, nodding and patting Ineuth reassuringly every now and then. "We'll turn it into a game, somehow. He likes those very much." The brown gives a small (for a dragon) sigh before obligingly lowering his head toward Leova and letting his maw drop open. He'll hold it there for as long as she needs it, herdbeast-breath and all. "I do want him - us - to learn to do everything properly. There's so much to remember." On another, it might be a whiny statement, but for this weyrling, there's just some awe injected there. Dragonriding is far more complicated than it appears on the surface, even to a weyrbred child.

« Careful, » Vrianth warns, just in case, through that turn-turn-turn that, every now and again, loops the other way. Just because. And, also just in case, Leova's quick about this part. Teeth. Gums. The roof of his mouth. It's stinky, but she'll cope. « Wherries are better, » Vrianth's somehow reminded to note. « Better when they aren't clipped. » Not huddled up in a pen for the small, the injured and the old, but wild, and there's a flavor of that that isn't entirely physical on her own, curling tongue. While Leova's still staring at Ineuth's, she says as afterthought, "Take off your jacket, your sweater if you've got one, so I can see your shoulders. Sometimes the humans develop the same, or cross-wise. 'S an interesting part, how we correspond... yeah, he's good." She steps back, too. Just in case. "You take notes, right? Not as how it's always the sort of thing that can. Be written down."

Ineuth promises to be the most careful dragon ever, says the gentle push of tide onto sand, nudging bits of it up into a little heap. Curious, he follows this thread of thought about wild wherry - sounds delicious. He might salivate a tiny bit just before Leova takes her step back, but only because mm, wherries. As the brown closes his jaws and turns his eyes on his lifemate, Kinory blinks a little before hastening to pull off her jacket and sweater, haphazardly bunching the two up in her arms. "I do take notes as much as I can." That might be the hint of a wince as she rotates her shoulders before relaxing them.

The most careful dragon ever. That, or maybe it's the nudged-up sand-heap, that leaves the electrical sense of Vrianth rather... bemused. That sense of wherry manifests into mental presence, showing off its plumes, fluttering, all ripe for munching. If he's quick. Leova is quick to stand back, as though she's overhearing her lifemate or just sensing: to stand back, to step away, to wash her hands, to bring over a stool upon which Kinory's gear might be set. "Good on you. Pity, no silver thread in your class..." The way she says it, it's not like Fall. It's special. Her touch is brief, exploring but impersonal: size, check. Rotate again... "That one's stiff, isn't it." The left. This time, assuming Kinory continues to stand for it, she presses along the muscle along the weyrling's upper shoulders with purposeful, deliberate care, checking the girl's responses. "Your writing hand, or no? Wonder if you're reinforcing each other," and there's an intrigued sort of note in the dragonhealer's voice, right there.

Kinory dumps her outerwear on the stool, careful to remain still while the dragonhealer examines her shoulders. Another wince. "Oh. Yes, it - it is, isn't it? I hadn't noticed that, either." Her muscles are fairly hard to the touch - not just the firmness of consistent buildup over time, but also, quite tense. "No, I'm right-handed. ... is this my fault?"

"No." Then, "This might be uncomfortable." A trigger point: the sort of thing that might cause a wince and then release. Hopefully. "Better?" And, "Enough with the blame, hm?" Though the dragonhealer doesn't sound as impatient as her words might imply. "Causes are complicated. Don't know which of you started, but I'd be surprised if it weren't connected. When you're writing, think about relaxing that shoulder, not bracing it. Roll your shoulders regularly, both of them, both directions. But as long as I was going to have you look up Madilla, be sure to mention that too, and she'll put you right as rain." Leova stands back, brushing off her hands. "We'll get you situated, Kinory, best we can. You two, you'll do just fine." After that, there'll be some more questions and evaluations, mostly involving Ineuth's feeding habits, discussion of his speed and his endurance, and so forth. Simple things, before they're released to a warm, fog-free lunch.