Logs:Post-Rescue Relief
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| RL Date: 27 February, 2010 |
| Who: Taikrin, Tiriana |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: After the convicts have been rescued and safely ensconced in the infirmary, Tiriana comes around to bash some heads in. |
| Where: Infirmary, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 25, Month 1, Turn 22 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: K'del/Mentions, X'en/Mentions, Sh'drian/Mentions |
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| For Tiriana, there's been lots of yelling in the aftermath of the cave-in, although at least most of it hasn't been done in the infirmary. Yelling at K'del, yelling at miners, yelling at poor random bystanders... You get the picture. Now, there's no yelling, only waiting: waiting for the handful of convict-candidates to come around. Now, Tiriana has arrived at Taikrin's bedside, and if the hurt girl's asleep, she's content to wait for her to wake up, too. And if she's already up, well. Taikrin is awake! Well, sort of. More like dozing with her eyes cracked open, really. She's just aware enough of her surroundings that, as the sound of footsteps come near to her bed and then stop, an eye cracks open to catalogue the visitor. It's a testament to her frame of mind (and fantastic drugs) that it takes a full five seconds for realization to set in and Taikrin to pop until full awareness. She even makes an abortive jerk upright, though she only makes it an inch or two off the bed before jostling be-slinged right arm and falling back with a hiss of pain. "Uh." Taikrin's voice is still hoarse, despite all the time now free of the cavern. "Uh. Weyrwoman?" "Shouldn't move," says Tiriana, as though Taikrin hasn't figured that out for herself by now. She herself is pulling up a chair and sprawling into it, stretching her long legs out in front of her. "That's me," she agrees with the latter then. "And--Taikrin, s'what they said?" Her brows lift as she doublechecks on that front, then blazes on ahead. "So. What happened down there?" "Uh. Taikrin. Yeah." A swipe is taken at her bleary eyes with the non-bandaged hand, and then through her poorly-shorn hair. "Not s'pposed t'get up, yet. Healer said somethin' 'bout ribs. Uh. Ma'am." She subsides, though she doesn't look precisely comfortable with addressing Tiriana while flat on her back. "What, you mean a'fore the ceiling came down on our heads, or after? 'Cause I ain't real clear on a lot of the after." All that unkempt hair is just eyed for a long moment, Tiriana's lip curling in distaste; but she doesn't say anything about it. Instead, "How long until they let you out again? And, any of it. All of it." That's in answer to the latter question, as Tiriana leans forward again, frowning now. "Where it went wrong, that stuff." "I dunno, said he was gonna take another look in a coupl'a hours. Maybe t'morrow. Not gonna be swingin' a hammer fer a bit, though." Taikrin pauses, then, forehead wrinkling with the effort of rememberence. "I'm... not sure. Me an' Xeo were patchin' up part of the inner wall, an' it kept flakin' off. An' then there was a crack an' the beam came down an' then the rest of th' roof. Lots'a screamin', lots'a dust. Hard t'see anythin' for a while." "Not any more," is Tiriana's firm answer on hammer-swinging. "At least not until after the hatching, if I have to take a shovel to the miners myself. The fuck were they thinking, sending /our/ candidates down somewhere like that. "Not any more," is Tiriana's firm answer on hammer-swinging. "At least not until after the hatching, if I have to take a shovel to the miners myself. The fuck were they thinking, sending /our/ candidates down somewhere like that." Agitating herself up again, she stands, pacing a few steps around the bed and back. "Does this crap happen a lot? Faranth, you'd think a bunch of miners would know how to build a damn tunnel. It's not hard, not like they haven't been doing it hundreds of years already." Taikrin draws back further against the bed as Tiriana rises, wariness vying with exhaustion on her pale features. "Well, dangerous business, mining. We figured that's why y'all had, uh, our sort doin' it. Ma'am." Her gaze follows Tiriana's progress back and forth in the way a gazelle would track a lion's. "Happens in the new tunnels, sometimes. Used t'work in the mines, when I was little. My da lost his leg in a crash like this'n." The shoulder of her good arm lifts in a shrug, fatalistically. "Happens." A pause, then: "We ain't goin' back t'diggin'? Even if we got time left?" "Well, yeah, but that was /before/," Tiriana says, waving a hand about as though that makes that statement any clearer. "We can't go sending pieces of candidates out there, missing like all their limbs and with their skulls caved in. Iovniath won't have it, not for her eggs." And that earns a firm little nod, her mouth set as she leans against the foot of the bed and eyes Taikrin. "If you don't impress--which you won't--," she only belatedly seems to remember that notion "--you can go back. Until then... we'll work something out." Taikrin, strangely, does not seem terribly reassured by Tiriana. "Ain't gonna lose this one," she is quick to assure the Weyrwoman as she ever so gently taps the casted-and-slinged arm with her free hand. "Healer says it'll heal up okay, in a few sevendays." Well, perhaps more than a few sevendays, but Taikrin is ever the optimist about this sort of thing. Hah. "Weren't thinkin' I was gonna, ma'am, promise, only it seemed..." Her voice trails off with a faintly sad note, and she stares vacantly into the middle distance for a beat or two before continuing on with a little shake. "Uh. How, uh, how soon is it they're supposed t'hatch, anyways? Uh, ma'am. I only got six more sevendays on me, see, so..." "That little?" Tiriana seems surprised by that notion, head tilting slightly. "Oh. Well. It'll be... a while yet, before they do. A couple of months, spring sometime. So... maybe you'll be free by then." That's a strange thought there, and Tiriana shifts her weight and finally ends up perching on the end of the bed itself, making herself at home. "What are you going to do then? Stay here and stand anyway? Or just--run for it first chance you get. Because we're not going to stand for more criminally behavior, you know. We're not like that." Beat. "Mostly." "Got a bed here, got food, got honest work." Taikrin lifts her shoulder again in a shrug. "Got nowhere else t'go. Figured I'd stay here. Didn't reckon it'd be so far out, though." The wariness returns full-force, though, as she adds, "If that's okay, ma'am. Ain't plannin' on doin' nothin' exciting. Had enough excitement, me, t'last a good while." There's a ghost of a smile, then, that flickers across her face for just a moment. "'Sides, don't think I'm gonna be hittin' no one fer a while. "There is that," agrees Tiriana, though she still sounds a little skeptical about Taikrin's sincerity. Still, she slides a little more on the bed, getting comfortable but at least not sitting on the convict's feet. "Good. Then you'll stay, and stand, and then--we'll find something for you, I suppose. Really it's not like--Iovniath says, if it wasn't for her, they'd have thrown me down there, too. In the mines." It's... kind of sympathizing. Mostly just awkward, as she shrugs after this admission. And adds, quite helpfully, "You got two arms, y'know." Taikrin's gaze lowers to her blankets, and when she speaks her voice is colored with embarrasment. "Ain't gonna be no bother," is her continued assurance. She goes quiet, though, as Tiriana mentions the mines, and as her full attention re-focuses on the Weyrwoman, it's with wide-eyed astonishment. "That ain't allowed, is it? Dragonrider, doin' mine work? S'dangerous!" Well, obviously. Perhaps she's missed the point. "That's... why I said 'if it wasn't for her'?" Tiriana looks confused herself, peering at Taikrin. "If I hadn't impressed. I mean, Faranth. Already got myself exiled from one Weyr even with her, right? Iovniath figures I've assaulted more people than all you convicts together, but I think she's kidding there. I don't know, I've never actually counted." And now she frowns thoughtfully, eyes her hands a moment like she's going to start ticking victims off on her fingers right there. "Oh. Y'mean... after. Uh, right." Taikrin squints, briefly, as if that would make things clearer. "You... really?" A hand swipes across her eyes again, but when it drops her expression is still dazed and confused. "Y'really... with th'fighting? I heard, but--" Apparently she thinks better of spreading rumor, because she breaks off that sentence abruptly. "I mean-- really? But yer so, uh... uh... respectable." "But what?" That has Tiriana's interest now, her mouth quirking into a pleased smirk to hear herself talked about so. Even if it's not stuff that most people would be pleased to have said about them. "Wait, I am? I'm not respectable. Faranth." The thought seems to scandalize her, makes her nose wrinkle up so. "/Iovniath's/ respectable. I'm a bitch. Used to get in lots more fights, back growing up--my daddy's a Weyrleader, or he was, anyway. So nobody messed with me. And now... Nobody really wants to try me at all, except the Lords and Iovniath insists I can't beat them to a bloody pulp." Sad. She sulks over this, too. "I, uh, heard..." Taikrin's reluctance is obvious, but given Tiriana's lack of apparent immediate violence, she continues. "Heard y'liked a good tussle, sometimes, maybe. Had a, uh, good cross. Uh. Ma'am." Perhaps it's the drugs, or perhaps the stress of the last day, or perhaps Taikrin has finally cracked because a crooked grin spreads, rather abruptly, across her face. "Had a real good one, me, 'till all this mess. My left ain't so good." "It's a damn good one," Tiriana agrees, smug to the last as she folds her arms over her chest, studies her nails. "My left's the good one; I'm left-handed, and all. You should work on that, never know when you'll need to use it. Not that I'm that great with my right, either, but, you know. Could still hold my own, I think, if I have to." There's a long, frowny pause then, before she ventures, "Should try sparring with me sometime or something. Faranth knows nobody else would, except somebody who's already proven to be a criminal." "Well, I ain't usin' my right, now, so, maybe--" Taikrin frowns down at her left fist with such intensity that it might very well contain the secrets of the world. Or, at least, secrets for how she arrived at this strange junction. "Once I'm up, that, uh, might be nice. Been a while since I got t'do an honest spar. Mostly just been quick one-twos on the guys what get ideas. Ain't no talent in that." It apparently doesn't occur to her in this state that attempting to hit the Weyrwoman might not be the brightest of ideas. Tiriana snorts at that, conceding, "Yeah, once you hit about fifteen or sixteen, they all outgrow you, pretty much. So then you just have to sucker-punch them, which is maybe not quite so honorable but it works pretty good still. You should have seen me get K'del, this one time." And her expression is almost dreamy at that memory. Poor Weyrleader. "They let me teach a self-defense class, last group of weyrlings. That was--not as fun as it sounds, actually, because too many of them were idiots and /girls/." Bad word, that; her disgust with the weaker sex--nevermind it's her own--is evident. "They ain't honorable, most of th'time. S'only fair." Taikrin is wise to the ways of how to beat up boys, indeed. "Never learn, neither." A quick bark of laughter meets Tiriana's reflection on the weyrling class. "Can't teach a girl nothin'. Too soft an' pretty t'get their hands dirty. Don't know how they don't go gettin' themselves carried off right an' left." Very, very gingerly she props herself up a bit against the top of the bed, her face screwing up into an only very moderate grimace, and only for a moment. "Maybe some of them girls could use it, now. Some of those guys what got put in ain't so--" Common sense does finally seem to make a grab for the reins, though only enough to interrupt that sentence before she continues a bit more judiciously, "Some of them girls could use a lesson'r two. Ain't got no idea 'bout life, them." "Right?" It makes Tiriana huff a mildly annoyed breath out at her fellow females. "Idiots. Couldn't stand up for themselves if their life depended on it. I mean, okay, so maybe my daddy was a Weyrleader and now I have Iovniath, but that doesn't mean it's been just /easy/. And anyway, I can still handle myself, if I have to," says she of the silver spoon. And only then does she seem to remember that Taikrin is supposed to be recovering, and the Weyrwoman adds, rather solicitously of her, "You should probably sleep more. Or something. That's what the healers always say, isn't it? Sleep and drink lots of fluids and that stuff." "S'important, bein' strong enough t'protect yerself. Most important thing." Taikrin nods sharply at this -- perhaps too sharply, given the following hitch in her breath. "Life ain't never easy." Despite herself, she slumps back against the headboard, her body betraying exhaustion that she's now loathe to give in to. "Slept like fifty hours in that cave," Taikrin mutters. Which is quite a feat, given they were only trapped for thirty one. "An' another fifty when they dosed me after we got out." "Exactly," Tiriana agrees, quite readily with that statement. Even so, she's standing now, smoothing down the front of her shirt as she straightens. "Still, should rest. And I probably got more crap waiting on me, too--damn assistant went and got herself searched, too. Not that I actually /need/ her or anything, but." She flounders only a little, shrugging it off. "Anyway. I'll let you know, you and the rest of them, about chores instead. For when you're up and moving around again. And if the miners start giving any of you candidates--" candidates! not convicts! "--shit about going down there again, just let me know." Taikrin allows herself to slip back down the bed, unable to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn despite her best efforts. "Guess so." There is, in fact, a healer finally making his way back down towards where Taikrin's bed is located. "Lookin', uh, lookin' forward t'bein' up again. T'chores what ain't underground. Uh." She pauses, eyes darting back and forth as she searches for words, until finally: "And, uh... thanks. Uh. Weyrwoman. I will." Tiriana, quite pleased with herself, "Bet you are. And--of course." The last is a little bit more self-conscious, accompanied with an awkward smile like Tiriana's not quite sure how to contort her lips into that feature. But she manages, in the end, as she steps away to let the healer do his work. "See you around, then, Taikrin." Taikrin's expression remains more than a little dazed as she calls after Tiriana, "Uh, see ya, I guess. Weyrwoman." And then the healer with his prodding hands commands all of her attention as he begins the potentially lengthy process of treating all of the convict-candidates battle wounds. |
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