Difference between revisions of "Logs:Anybody's Missing Kid"

It's either time for a really late lunch or a really early dinner, and so a few people at least are hitting the Living Caverns for an evening meal of some sort. They will, however, find that the area is short one entire table, as healer Hypatia's managed to take up the entire thing. Sketchbooks, reference texts, some food and four glasses of water are taking up the majority of the table, and her ball of yarn is encroaching on a pushed-in chair. She's also muttering unclearly to herself as she scribbles notes on -- something. Paper.

One thing Emme has never been shy about... making room for herself at a 'full' table, so that she can eat her dinner near a familiar face. Thus, she hooks her foot around a neary chair and drags it over to the papered table, while juggling her tray. Then, she settles in and places her tray in her lap (where she is sitting lotus style). "Hey, 'Patia. You should take a break and eat." Dimple.

Sa'zl didn't exactly plan to make a pincer attack on Hypatia, but here he is, showing up at more-or-less the same time, with a more-or-less identical tray of food (overflowing slightly). He doesn't add a chair to the table, but rather manages to juggle tray, table-stuff, and the ball of yarn, so that he ends up not making a giant mess anywhere, somehow, but instead just... has a tray of food, on the table, stacks of her stuff, and the ball of yarn in his lap. She's not using it anyway, right? "Brought enough for you," he adds cheerfully. "Hi, Emme."

Hypatia started to look up right as Emme spoke to her, and then continued to look up -- much more up -- at Sa'zl as he helped himself to reconfiguring her table without so much as asking if she was okay with it. Now, she's straight-out staring at the bluerider as he works some kind of sleight-of-hand magic shifting things around to calmly fit himself in the midst of her things. "... You should've asked before moving all that, I had a system," she lies neatly. "And I have been eating. Periodically. But I've certainly managed to prove my own point to myself three times over in learning about this stuff. Anthropometry."

"Oh hey, Sa'zl. How's things?" Emme wonders, just before spooning a mouthful of stew in. Her lips twitch when he moves things around, and a smirk threatens when Hypatia calls him on it. But she refuses to comment on that. Instead, her head tilts at the new word. "Anthropometry? What's that?" A briefly distant expression suggests she is not the only one who wants the answer to that, by the way.

"Tiring," is apparently Sa'zl's answer to Emme's question; but then, everyone knows that Yggdratth enjoys chasing his ladies. "You'll be able to reconstruct your system once you eat this," he adds to Hypatia quite earnestly, holding out a monstrosity that, upon closer examination, actually looks to be a really delicious sandwich. (It's just that it's the size of Hypatia's head.) "I'm sorry I didn't ask. I didn't want to drop anything!"

And Sa'zl was expecting Hypatia to stop staring? That isn't quite working out very well for him, but she sighs and takes the sandwich from him anyway. "How do you expect me to be able to bite into this? And since when is it so important to everyone else that I eat?" Because she does, in fact, have two people and two prying dragons basically all piling on her and going so far as to actually give her (giant) food to make her eat, and that's a lot more than zero. "Anyway. Anthropometry's the system of bone measuring to identify people I told you about; it's obviously very fallible, because people can have the same measurements, and if you don't have baselines it doesn't work very well. Which is why I'm still not convinced. About Thedrin. That body could've been anybody's missing kid." Because the High Reaches area is just rife with missing children of that size.

Emme can't quite helped the snorted giggle that escapes with Sa'zl's answer. "Rhaz has nothing on Yggdratth when it comes to chasing the ladies. But, ..." oh right, serious conversation. Ahem. "You're my friend, and I don't like to see friends work themselves to the bone. Not when you have the option of food, anytime you need it." she replies quickly to Hypatia. Though, her spoon pauses halfway to her mouth again. Yay for conversation about dead people! There's even a flash of guilt there on her face for the fact that there are /missing children/ out there somewhere. They need to be /found/. And Thedrin! And... and... she clears her throat. "Unless you are allowed to see the body, it may not help in this case you know."

"How long was he missing, again, before the dead kid was found?" Maybe it's the fact that Sa'zl grew up in the Weyr; maybe he's just kind of callous when it comes to babies. Who knows. But that's how he asks, right before tucking into a second monster-sized sandwich, answering Hypatia's semi-rhetorical complaint/question with a demonstration as he smooshes it flat -- well, flatter -- and then very nearly dislocated his jaw in order to take an appropriately monster-sized bite.

"Oh, I know," Hypatia tells Emme once she's taken a bite or two of the monstrous sandwich. "I don't expect to. The conclusion has been made, and just because I don't believe something doesn't mean anything to anyone. I just can't be convinced, you know? And it was -- uh -- six or seven months. So it's not that I'm insisting it isn't Thedrin. It's just that I can't say I'm entirely on board with that idea either. But I don't know anything; I'm just an apprentice." A workaholic apprentice who knows more about grisly death than can possibly be healthy, but still just an apprentice. "I had to study it anyway, it's just quite timely. And very interesting. And ... can't prove that body belonged to Thedrin or anyone. It's a Harper problem, anyway, if any other kids were reported missing. Just, they were smugglers, yeah? So who knows they didn't kidnap a bunch of kids from random traders, or something, that went unreported to anyone?"

"How is that humanly possible. That's what I want to know. See how his jaw all but unhinges like a tunnelsnake? See that?" Emme shakes her head in disbelief at the sandwich eating abilities of the bluerider. "Well, maybe I'll ask if there's been any side investigation into the smuggling part of things. And other missing children. When I'm at the Hall for my next lesson." she murmurs. "Maybe I should drag you along with me next time I need to go on one of our wing search and rescue sweeps." Hypatia, that is.

Hypatia looks impressed, and it's unclear entirely by what -- if it's Sa'zl's jaw or his assessment. But Emme's comment gets a quick wicked grin and a, "So I could be the first person to get at the body next time," said rather calmly. "That way I wouldn't have to pepper you with questions." As clearly there's going to be another body? Maybe Emme hopes not, but Hypatia is another story. "Not that I would actually do something like that, go on wing sweeps. I'd be completely in the way. And -- right, sort of, about Thedrin, there was no baseline. And he could've grown in the time that he was missing. And that body was just a mess, waterlogged. Squishy, she said!" For whatever reason, she sets aside any comment about Sa'zl's trick jaw.

"NO. I mean... no, thank you. That's perfectly alright. Though, Rhazekth would like for you to show him later." Emme relays, deciding to rather rapidly stuff her face with the rest of her meal before someone makes her regurgitate it by accident. But then she shakes her head to Hypatia, and wags the spoon at her chidingly. "I would not say you'd be in the way, nor do I mind answering questions. I just thought it would be handy to have you there, just in case. Like, a healer on the scene ya know?" She carefully avoids talk of squishy bodies.

Sa'zl just grins at Emme, of course, in the sort of way that involves thoughtfully moving his jaw about in its sockets, but not quite going so far as to actually dislocate it. (This time.) He pokes at his food for a moment, then picks up his cup and swirls its contents about, considering his words, then: "You wouldn't be in the way," he states, as if this is absolute fact and not simply his opinion. "One more set of eyes is all to the good, right? But if you're worried about it, you could always try to find a dragon of your own to ride."

"You know that's actually bad for it," Hypatia challenges Sa'zl, narrowing her eyes and not quite uptalking the question enough to make it entirely sound like a question; half-question, half-statement, and entirely ignoring the rest of what he said, at least at first. "Well, if you think you're actually about to find a body, you're welcome to come swoop me up. A living one would be rather more productive than a dead one as far as having a healer on site goes, and would give me a lot more to do -- and you'd have to pay me to Stand, thanks, no."

Emme mock growls at Sa'zl. "Brat." she mutters, making a face at him much like she would a sibling. "Rhaz is more then happy to serve as transport for you, so long as you answer all his questions. I warn you though, he has a lot of them. A lot. A -lot-. And he will judge your answers." she forewarns. a faint smile appearing at Hypatia's reticence to Stand. "It's not so bad. Harder for some then others to adjust, I suppose, but I think that has a lot to do with how strong your bond with the dragon is. Would you agree, Sa'zl?" Anything to make him stop with the jaw thing.

"What sort of payments do you like?" But Sa'zl is, of course, only teasing, says his grin, and then he's knocking back a good half of whatever is in that cup before he answers Emme. "And I wonder if your problem is with the Hatching or with the Impressing, Paysh? I'm sure you're quick enough on your feet to keep from being maimed, and I doubt you'd have a problem with all the butcher-work, so is it just that you end up not being able to become a Masterhealer?" All right, maybe that isn't really an answer directed at Emme.

"Right. I have lofty goals," Hypatia says in a high-and-mighty but kind of floaty voice that really isn't clear as to whether she actually means it or is being mockingly sarcastic. "They include lofts, I suppose. I'd like to live in a loft, that might be fun. Loft above an infirmary all my own -- that is, until I become the Masterhealer of Pern and won't need to do any of that. Which, actually, I would hate, so never mind that bit of the lofty goal. I think raw meat is disgusting, actually; I don't mind being judged. By Rhazekth, anyway. By people, yes. Humans." Is a dragon a person?

"He's pretty fair. As far as judgements go." Emme adds, conversationally. "No Sa'zl. I'm pretty sure she's worried about a baby dragon unhinging it's jaw the way YOU do and devouring her whole. Forget about mauling." she jokes, a bemused little smirk appearing. "A loft, and an infirmary. Those sound like worthy goals. I recall when keeping the food down that was served here... was /my/ goal. Anything after that was a step up."

"Nothing says you can't have a loft over a dragon infirmary," Sa'zl tells his sandwich very quietly, but that's about the sum total of how far he's going to push it, and they're in the noisy crowd of the Living Cavern, anyway. The words are probably completely lost. Much louder, he adds: "I'm very glad I have Yggdratth, and patrols really are more interesting than wrestling herdbeasts into submission, but being a healer is very important!"

"Thanks for the respect," Hypatia says, not actually commenting on how if she ever ends up on the sands -- because someone offered the proper bribe, or something -- she'll never live it down with these two. "Though wrestling herdbeasts is important too, even if I can't imagine you were really wrestling. Emme -- yeah. I remember. How sick you all were. Defined my career, kind of, seeing something like that. I can't imagine what you'd been through and I know my parents are pretty decisively anti-exiles and were deciding to entirely deny your existence for a while so -- I can't remember exactly where that thought was going." More sandwich.

Sa'zl just raises an eyebrow at Hypatia, turning his expression into a sly, wicked sort of grin. "Why don't you think I was really wrestling them? Didn't you know I was one of High Reaches Weyr's champion wrestlers?"

Hypatia replies, deadpan, "I didn't know High Reaches Weyr had wrestling competitions." And takes a long sip of her water, before picking up the pencil again. You just stop her, Emme and Sa'zl. You just try.

"Well, Gathers, anyway," Sa'zl answers vaguely, and he at least knows how to appreciate his food, even if Hypatia seems to think the pencil is a better choice. Sooner or later, though, Emme and Sa'zl manage to finish feeding the healer apprentice, and even themselves.