Logs:Incapacitating Dragons
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| RL Date: 19 June, 2014 |
| Who: G'laer, Leova |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: How would you do in a dragon? Leova and G'laer discuss. Hypothetically. |
| Where: Dragon Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 12, Month 1, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Rone/Mentions, Varian/Mentions, Veylin/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: So way, way back-dated to before G'laer and H'vier were friends. But, like, when else do people talk about this! Many thanks to Leova for being flexible about so very very back-dating! |
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| 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.
G'laer isn't a dragonhealer. He isn't even properly a trainee. But he has been helping for some time with mixing salves and tinctures and poultices for the stores and he occasionally imitates a trainee with surprising focus and interest. But since he's not really official, he keeps his own hours and is rarely predictable, but since he come often enough that stock is never low (unless the greater stock of the Weyr is low), not many mind. He exits from the storerooms carrying an empty crate and stowing it where it belongs for future supply runs. He yawns on his way over to Leova, not bothering to cover it. "Busy day," is his greeting comment, in his usual neutral tone, though a slight twitch at the corner of his lips might suggest for one who's paying attention the facetiousness in the words if the words don't do that for themselves. "Might run out of numbweed, this rate." Leova's low, smoky voice alludes to a chuckle, for all that her own expression doesn't alter. She watches him a few steps' worth, then returns to her work. The movements of her quill are longer than writing would have required, precise, exact. The sketch expands. It's not quite a facsimile of the original: here and there are sections simplified, others detailed. "I guess that's how things go in Interval." G'laer returns with another slight twitch to the edge of his lips, though it's no less serious. "So long as no one takes it into their heads to start attacking dragons," what with the crazy things that have happened with the Holds in recent turns, "we'll see a lot more like this I shouldn't wonder." "So long," Leova affirms: heard and witnessed. She cross-hatches the beginnings of the border. Doesn't look up. Does say, a few strokes onward, "Could do with less damage dragon-to-dragon too." "Yes, but at least how that happens is fairly straightforward." G'laer observes, his brow wrinkling, still apparently stuck back on the last. "How would they even do that? People to a dragon, I mean." Maybe he's thinking of Teisyth who spends so much time with him at Crom where the Vijays are wintering. Certainly those people have no love of most 'Reaches riders, one would think. "'Very carefully.'" Leova looks up, now: to study the other greenrider. "How much hurt we talking about? Vrianth doesn't care much for high shrill noises." Such as the twins'. Not quite on the other end of the spectrum, "Arrow to the eye, you tell me: how tough a shot you reckon that is." "I don't know. How much hurt would they want to do, do you think? I mean, killing a rider is probably easier than killing a dragon, but I suppose they do have some weaknesses that could be exploited?" G'laer sounds uncertain, possibly thinking to his knowledge of dragon anatomy, or perhaps simply deferring to Leova as the expert. "Arrow to the eye wouldn't be overly difficult if the dragon weren't moving. Are the lids terribly thick when they're all closed? Do you think a person could get close enough to the average dragon without them waking to make that kind of a shot on a still target?" "Depends on the dragon," says Leova, wry. She's capped her ink and now begins to clean her pen. "Tend to sleep better at home, mostly, though. Not so much out and away. Be interesting to test them, actually: not the arrow part," of course! "but the sleeping and sneaking." A dark splotch threatens to stain one finger. She keeps working, looking at the other greenrider now and again. "Arrow... you might lose the eye." Her nostrils flare, her lip curls, but her voice is steady as though she's unaware of either. "Don't think it would get up to the brain, though, not 'less it was a hatchling. You seen any hostility out there, to dragons?" As opposed to their riders... "Not in any real way. Doesn't mean I don't wonder what the Vijays think every time they see a 'Reaches dragon on the Crom heights." G'laer relates what might be either reassuring news or the stuff of nightmares. "Get many more days like this one and you'll have to undertake the study. I'd volunteer to do some sneaking, but I wonder if it doesn't matter whether it's a rider or someone unbonded. I wonder sometimes if our minds end up more receptive to dragons on the whole in some way, sort of akin to those who can hear all dragons or if it doesn't matter. Could make a study of that too, with the right assortment of volunteers." The male greenrider's stance is ever at least a little at the ready, though he's more or less relaxed in his philosophical state of mind, content to linger where he is and talk just now. "Mm." Leova says it mildly, but then, her various roles in the Vijays' capture aren't at all well-known. "Reckon it might. Openness... and plain and simple smell, one way or another." She leans her elbows on the counter, leans over them. "Don't imagine there'd be a hard time finding volunteers among the younglings, not if they think there'd be a chance on Impressing easier. Dragons, now..." "True. I suppose smell and their vision helps them well enough when they're awake, in terms of if they were to get attacked." G'laer muses. "I wonder if the younglings would really serve well for it in any case. If someone were to take it into their heads to take on a dragon, wouldn't they pick somebody who was trained, to do the job?" One hand reaches to scratch a finger against his jaw briefly. "I can only imagine Teisyth volunteering. She'd be so excited about it that she'd never manage to get to sleep in the first place. Then sleep through anything because she was so tired when she finally did sleep." Oh, Teisyth. Oh, Teisyth. Leova spares a slight but abiding smile for his dragon. Though, "Younglings will do about anything, sensible or not, if they get it into their heads. But. Meant them for the study. Receptivity." "Oh, I see." G'laer acknowledges the correction. "I was still thinking about what a dragon might have to defend against. The guard in me." The last is offered by way of explanation. "Hamstringing." It comes out flat. "Hind leg'd be the worst." The dragonhealer considers the man. "Something tossed that sticks and flames at the same time. Run across anything like that? Acid, the strong stuff smiths have, again to the eyes. Headknobs. Lower muzzle too. Or wing membrane, worse'n a cut." "Hamstringing. Suppose that would make getting off the ground nigh impossible." G'laer's tone is thoughtful, and he turns toward where there's a poster of dragon anatomy mounted on the wall. "Tar would do well enough for that sort of thing. And Crom has a bountiful supply." What with all those coal mines. "Hm," is all the reaction the acid idea gets. But probably just because he's not a Smith; where would he get any experience with that kind of thing? "How would you toss the tar? Slingshot? Then again," Leova says. "There's always a flamethrower." Speaking of acid. It's as dry as, "Half-surprised we didn't see that in Nabol. Maybe the price's too high." "Personally? I'd do it on an arrow. The tar ought to stick well enough for the flame to do damage." G'laer answers back, "But a slingshot might do. If it were coated so the tar didn't stick to it." His lips twitch and his brows draw together just a touch as he considers, "Holders do have an ample supply of flamethrowers. Maybe we ought to be tracking how much fuel for them is being traded to where." To be prepared in case anyone gets funny ideas. "We were fortunate with Nabol." Now he does frown. "Most would've been completely unprepared if it'd gone a different way from what I can tell." "Maybe so. Maybe some of 'em would be glad to get the flamethrowers off their hands, come to that. For a price." The older greenrider stretches her knuckles, just short of cracking them. "An Interval price, not like they don't have to be kept up. But. Different way, which way? Rone?" "Seems the sort of strategic thing a Weyr might do to reduce the possible negative outcomes as the Interval draws on. We're still so early in it." G'laer's words bring to mind the thought: what else might yet happen? "A different way, in the way you suggest. If Rone had decided to come against the Weyr. If dragons had been targets. I don't think most who Impress now, or even many who've Impressed these last turns understand what it is to be a warrior; not like it was when there was Thread to fight. I imagine." He can only do that. Imagine. "Mm. Can't count on another comet, one way or another." A moment passes. Leova says, "Quite the difference, fighting Fall. Fighting your own kind." If not for all. "If it came, I wonder who would fight and who would cower." Obviously G'laer thinks some would. Slowly, he shakes his head. "Now? Too many." Leova glances outward, towards where the Red Star would be, as though she could see it through solid rock. Or the comets. "Back then, we were used to it. What we were meant to do. Never truly knew, when it trickled off, which would be the last." G'laer nods slowly. "I think in some ways we were better off then, but I suppose I can't really speak to that, never having known it but as a child." Surely his parents fought, and that is something more than ignorance but less than knowing. "Which." The elder greenrider looks at the younger with a different sort of focus: the lines about his eyes and elsewhere. The way the flesh sits on his bones, head and neck and hands. The line of his hair, its color, its density. The lift of her brows makes her words, at last, a question. "No wasting time-" G'laer begins after a thoughtful pause, but it's just then that there's suddenly no time to waste, a draconic cry heralding the arrival of the injury of the day, effectively ending the philosophical discourse and putting all hands to work. |
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