Difference between revisions of "Logs:Angel of Mercy, Devil with Dice"

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.

"Do you think you could make it hurt a little more? Really commit to it." N'thei's bedside ripples with complaints while a well-intending healer tries gingerly to remove a bandage stuck to the bronzerider's ribs with numbweed, the smell of redwort clogging the air. Most of the infirmary is quiet, patients released or dosed-and-dozing, quiet clink of plates being collected by a mild-mannered aide the only other sound as the afternoon draaaaags onward. A string of profanity then, "Just move, for the love of--" Grunt, peel, pant. More profanity. Long first day.

The dragon infirmary's higher ceilings would let the cursing echo better, would also keep the stink from stifling the air here, and somehow it's that much more different with human detritus to boot. Over by W'jar's cot, Leova doesn't have her sleeve up to her nose any longer but that's only because she's writing, slate on one knee, the other handling the stylus. And because earlier he wanted a story, something with a cadence martial enough to be reassuring, to imply this sixteen Turn boy is a man who's not going to be crippled and grounded for what may yet prove to be a very long life. It's supposed to be Interval, after all. It's when all of a sudden he turns white that she crosses the last 't' and stands, hand to his good shoulder and hunting out a healer to sic on him. Now.

Patience with patients, that's what a decade at healer hall teaches a man, that and how not to look smug at someone ripping off a bandage and causing themselves nothing but pain. When it's safe, when N'thei's red face drains to its usual color, the healer leans to lay a fresh square of gauze across the stitches; but peripheral healer spidey senses tingle. He looks up, across the row of cots, eyebrows raised questioningly toward Leova, toward W'jar. Yes?

There's a healer! Handy to have healers, unless maybe you're healthy: "He'd like a look-see. When you're ready," Leova adds, gaze traveling to N'thei and his bandage and back without further comment, whether W'jar really would like a look from the healer or not. Her hand's still on his shoulder, voice calm as can be, and if she's not looking at her clutchmate, why, that means he doesn't try to hide the grimace that's suddenly cramping up his jaw.

Let's see, let's see; grumpy weyrleader, prone to violence, in all likelihood going to live a long and mean life, or poor young man in pain. Words, quietly between healer and patient, N'thei unamused while the gauze is pasted into place with a thin paint of diluted numbweed. The two part company, leaving the bronzerider with a moment to watch across that same space. "And what seems to be the trouble," as if it's not immediately obvious, healer-speak for 'my word, you're lucky to be alive!'

Not Leova's business, not any longer: since ruffling her wingmate's hair would make him feel /so/ much better, instead she pats his shoulder one last time and murmurs, "I'll just let you men talk." W'jar almost manages a smile. And how to occupy herself from there? The obvious is to leave. Second-obvious, swap, leaving W'jar to the healer's tender mercies and ease past other cots, pausing here and there, N'thei's way. And look down at him, that big man who's sneered at her now gone pretty incapacitated as these things go, though it seems not so much that he mightn't notice her gloating. Conveniently. Except she's not: just looking, eyes grave, a slight furrow to her brows.

N'thei watches a while longer, even knowing Leova's coming over, betrayed by a quick glance to track her progress, a pull at the corner of his mouth-- attributable to the stitches on that side of his face. The curtain drawn around W'jar's cot breaks the spell of watching, so he reclines against pillows arranged to prop him up. Smock half-worn, bandages half-changed, attention half-cocked to the greenrider; "Likely to die, neh?" Always look on the bright side of life~

"One of these days," Leova says mildly, forgoing the angle's advantage to slip into a new crouch, easy as pie for someone without any stitches at all. Slate on her knee again, stylus in hand. "But if you're talking him, they should be... Well. We're hoping they'll fly again. Watching for infection." As usual. Stylus taps. Slate's still. He knows the drill. "They're saying you won't take fellis. Going to be by again, bringing him a distraction or two. Want something delivered, dice or whatever, let me know."

A long pause, a disinterested silence. "What are you writing." With N'thei's comfortable ring of demand, not question.

"Notes." She's been known to do that, sometimes.

Naturally, "About what."

"What he," tap of stylus, "says he wants. Need more room before the dancing girls." More people healed enough to be out of here, more cots folded up.

Truly truly mystified; "Why? Either he'll live and be out of here and get what he wants for himself, or he'll die and it won't matter." N'thei holds out a hand suddenly, reaches toward Leova crouched, wants the slate, thank you.

Mild as before: "No reason not to make life a little easier, meantime." He reaches. No automatic handover: instead she cocks both brows at him, seems she still can't quite manage just one. Lets a moment's pause linger, precisely defined, then hands him the slate after all. Turned so it'll be right way up, even: a young man's list, a badly wounded young man's list of particular friends, of his favorite blanket, of the wine they won't yet let him drink and the desserts they won't yet let him eat. There's dice there too. Angular doodles, cross-hatches and curves, along the side. She keeps the stylus.

N'thei looks over the list with a deepening frown, his fingers rolling along the edge of it. "Tragic." Disdain. Held by a corner, he dangles it back down for Leova to retrieve with a look toward the still closed curtains. "You ought to get out of here, get some air, don't mire yourself in the melancholy of the wounded. Not healthy."

She takes it in any case, clips the stylus back in place. "Mm." Leova checks the writing again. Eyes him. "Oh, I plan on it. Any time now." She lets there be another little pause. "Convenient, that you have a ground weyr. Maybe limp out a little sooner that way. But I like the view from ours."

"Do you." N'thei tries for a time to extrapolate that into something further, some way to bridge that into the next hopefully innocuous comment. Instead, he knuckles down the scored side of his face, takes count of the number of stitches, one set of lashes kept open to eye Leova right back. "Hate small talk." /Hate./

Does she laugh? It's in her eyes, escapes for a moment in her voice, though her mouth retains its casual curve: ledges apparently are fair game for comparing, if not injuries. "Then move your hand, let me see."

Knee-jerk; "No. Don't like you." N'thei's two fingers glide down from his forehead again, gap over his left eye; he peers at Leova through that triangular opening. 'Sorry' would be the appropriate word to match the quick change in his expression, the sudden drop of his hand to the sheets; let-me-see away.

Does it matter? Through that lens, her own demeanor does shift, more of a heels-rocked twitch: it can't match the healer's ten Turns of patience with patients, but neither does it degenerate into didn't-think-you-did or don't-like-you-neither or, worse, a whyyy. She lifts a shoulder. Lets it fall. Lets him see it. Leans just enough, no more, to look. "They let you have a mirror yet?"

N'thei shakes his head, shrugs, shakes his head again. "Haven't asked for one. F'rint will come by sooner or later, man can't keep a poker face to save his life, good barometer." Settled with the fidgeting discomfort of someone unaccustomed to long periods of inactivity, his eyes skitter back and forth and back and forth between Leova's, can she keep a poker face?

"Lucky you didn't get your eye," Leova observes mildly, and poker itself she's none too good at, but her tells when the cards are dropped are subtle forms of the usual variety: expression, hands, voice, sometimes also designed to distract, reassure, convey. Mildness is a usual one. "Bar that? Don't reckon it changed too much." There's a quirk to her mouth that feints at a smile. A moment or two later, she presses palms to knees and starts to stand. Only to pause partway, ankles and knees still flexed. "Viviana wants to know why you broke formation. Don't think she's going to ask, though."

Lucky-- "Have a spare." That one he closes tightly, squints shut. N'thei looks at Leova through the lucky eye, shadowed and bloodshot but fully functioning. "Viviana wants to know why. Mmn. She knows where to find me if she gets up the gumption to ask." He swipes a hand over the sheet across his legs, opens his palm to imply his long-term commitment to the cot.

"That trick'll work once," Leova agrees, smile sparking bright for an instant. "And so she does. Think she'd rather talk to the rest of us, though... How's this. You don't transfer her into Snowstrike for good, and I won't point out how she'd have you at her mercy if she just comes and talks about the weather and the china and clothes." She gives him a hopeful look, one that doesn't try too hard.

Out of all that, here's what bothers N'thei, what knits his brows: "Why don't you want her in Snowstrike."

Leova straightens back to standing, head tipped: had she gone back to that full crouch instead, it would have hid her expression altogether. She searches out those gray eyes. Both of them. "Complicated. Don't know that details matter: not as though it's something I can't handle."

"Seeing as Viviana's terrified of me, your threat's a little empty." N'thei has no trouble looking right back at Leova, only a little puzzled by her demand. "Why don't you tell me the details and let me decide if they matter." Bed-ridden, pained, commanding; he sits up against those pillows like he's got any business giving Leova orders.

"You look terrifying, right there," Leova points out, with a flick of her fingers towards what injury's made of him, towards the healers and others in sight as well as earshot: no cavern alone, no able body for combat, though no doubt voice and intent can still be commandeered. "She gets the nerve, she could take you. Wouldn't even have to go for a gut-punch, just some talk-talk-talk." But. Maybe she's indulging him, maybe she's saving the healers, maybe it's something else: but she aims to sit on the corner of the cot by his feet, see if he wants to know that bad.

N'thei's finger drum. He listens. He doesn't like listening, but he suffers it with only the twitch of digits over scratchy sheets. "Thing is, hadn't even thought of transferring her before. But since I don't like you, and I am actually as big a bastard as you all say I am, starting to warm to the notion. Also feeling particularly hateful." A nod implies his disabled state, another for the collection of things on his cotside tray-- flask, wingsecond's knot, two letters. "Convince me." Nothing he can do to stop Leova sitting down, even bends his knee to drag his foot out of the way for her.

"Thought about that ahead of time," Leova says. Mildly. Only the faintest trace of sing-song. Her glance sweeps over the tray, spots knot and letters. Sharpens there. Slows, back to his face. More slowly than the words account for, "Besides. Not like it was real blackmail to begin with. If I had a real problem? Would have talked to B'yan, K'del first. Not over their heads." And she sits, not just on the edge either, one hand planted wide enough to support a casual-looking lean. Slate goes on the sheet. Glance slides to the knot again. Back. What tugs at her mouth isn't a smile. "Thing is. Given the /choice/. Want to work with people who can speak up when they got something going on. Who can deal with it instead of snaking around."

Bland; "Model citizen." Praise eludes N'thei's tone. The rest, Leova's real response, solidifies his attention back upon the greenrider, focuses his gaze sternly on her too-comfortable position. "Do you think, if Viviana had spoken up, had told me she was upset that Glacier wasn't in top form, it would have done her any good."

Which earns him a dry, sideways glance, though she neglects to roll her eyes. When he goes on, that gets more of Leova's attention back, until he's done and she claims a moment to look away. To think, rethink. Then, plainly, "She must have said something, to someone, else she wouldn't have been practicing with us. Not everyone would take on the extra work, come to that. But on the other hand, she said she's said maybe two dozen words to you since she got here, so even double that for exaggeration, my guess is it wasn't to you. Do I think it would have done her any good? Yes. Changed your decision? Probably not. But a wingrider's got to be able to talk to her wingleader even if he doesn't change his mind. And I don't got confidence that she'd talk to B'yan either, something comes up with /him/."

"Listen; I know this may come as a shock to you." N'thei lays both hands out in front of him, hovers them in the air toward Leova, flat palms except where he has to curl his pinky and ring finger on the left to keep from stretching stitches laid across the back of his hand. He's really trying to brace her for the staggering philosophy he's about to impart. "Some people. And Viviana might be one of them. Just. Follow. Orders." His eyebrows climb questioningly, his ear cocks toward her, yeah? Magical concept?

Leova obliges N'thei by looking at his hands. Very impressive? Looks back up. "You don't say." And, "Appreciate that even more, when they're able not to whine about it to everyone else."

Smile. Recline. "Long as it's not mine, doesn't really matter to me whose ear they chew. --Viviana thinks the two of you are friends?"

"Kind of got that." And, "She says I'm, ah. Scary." Go ahead. Laugh.

No, not laugh, but look puzzled? Yesss. N'thei mulls over that idea, looks at Leova with the word 'scary' in mind, rakes a tooth across his lip thoughtfully. "Hasn't got a lot of adjectives for people, has she. Are you?"

Leova gives him a flat-eyed oh-really to go with her, "Blueriders quake in their boots when they see me." Which is to say: not. With the possible exception of W'jar. "Anyway. Want to get along with her, easier when I don't have to count on her, and will survive if you're still feeling, what was it, hateful." This, while she's easing off the cot, careful enough with the invalid to not give it too much of a jolt. "Sure you don't want those dice?"

N'thei's sure, nods to prove it. He tries, unsuccessfully, to reach for the tray that someone had the malice aforethought to push away from the bed a few extra inches-- healer joke? Arm lowered, hand empty, he concludes, "But give that to whoever you think could use it the most, neh? Not a favorite blanket, but it's... well-intended." Presume he means the flask, not the knot.

Slate in one hand, Leova eases over to the tray, lets her fingertips slip through the assorted flotsam: flask, letters, flask again. Nowhere near the knot at all. Do the letters turn over, before she pockets the flask? "Will do." Magnanimously, she even eases the tray a little closer with her hip, enough to be in reach.

A glance at letters reveals so little; the writing of women, two separate but distinctly feminine scripts, no signatures to be helpful in the prying. Trusting discretion, or fear, N'thei settles back to his pillows in invalid silence, ready for the one sure-fire way to while away the hours: nap.

That was what, half an hour, or an hour by now? "Good luck being stuck," Leova wishes him amiably, makes to fluff a pillow, and moves to disappear before she can get caught laughing. When she shows up an hour or two later, she won't linger: that favorite blanket is indeed there for W'jar, tucked in neatly, and a few other things including one of the milder, healer-approved desserts that's pureed but still hopefully tasty. This and that for others. No flowers, but there's dice in individual cups for everyone with hands to hold them /but/ N'thei, and if that means he has to listen to the rattle all day long... well, she gave him a choice.