Logs:A New Diagnosis
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| RL Date: 16 May, 2015 |
| Who: Hattie, Casseny |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Casseny presents a new diagnosis for Hattie's... troubles. |
| Where: Infirmary, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 4, Month 11, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Ebeny/Mentions |
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| Infirmaries don't have 'regular' hours-- especially in a storm's aftermath-- so cleaning's often done in rounds. There isn't anyone on this cot this instant? Redo its sheets. With sevendays past, the manic edge has waned off most injuries, however. Near the front, an older healer tests along the back of a rider's thigh for an earlier sprain. The young man's casual insistence that it's improving goes ignored, as he's much better at talking than he is at hiding the gradual winces of pain. Further in, Casseny and another apprentice trade off between chores and checking each other's work. "It's almost nice to be bored, huh?" offers the blond Enna in a burst of attempted camaraderie. Casseny glances over her shoulder at her peer, looks her up and down a second, then turns back to the last drawer she's closing and the clipboard of inventory that now reads its contents. Face clenching to preserve her embarrassment, Enna coughs and turns a shoulder away, muttering to herself as if that's what she meant to do all along. Thus far, Hattie's day has been split between visits to various working hubs within the caverns and time spent with her queen, answering summons from the latter with good grace, no matter how it might interrupt the flow of her work. So much has she been rushing around that she looks quite harried when she reaches the infirmary - and rather pale beneath the flush of increased heart rate. She doesn't edge her way into the cavern, but arrives with an edge of both frustration and a hint of something akin to worry, perhaps for fear of embarrassing herself, for she presses the back of her palm to her mouth for a moment before she swallows and asks, "Could someone," anyone, "give me a minute? Soon?" Now? Each of the healers looks up instinctively-- Enna with something akin to guilt; as though her words have somehow summoned the beset Weyrwoman-- but the eldest, his hands full of thigh, turns to Casseny when he jerks his chin. None of Hattie's rush infects the apprentice. With both hands, she places the clipboard down, sliding it just away from the precious edge. Going to the first line of cots, she touches Enna on the elbow, "Check my numbers?" Then she positions herself at the same station, a hand stretched behind her to hold the privacy curtain in anticipation of using it. Here, she casts Hattie an inviting glance-- if you like your glances penetrating. Otherwise, she keeps it casual. Perhaps hoping to dissolve some of that fear by acting like this is all very normal. For a split-second, it looks like Hattie would like the ground beneath her feet to dissolve and swallow her up under the weight of so much healer attention, yet she remembers herself a moment later and meets Enna's gaze in a vaguely challenging fashion that becomes nothing more than that, whether she heard her or not. Not the time. She follows that silent chain of orders given, to track Casseny to the cot, though motion brings her hand back to her mouth with a low growl of annoyance that does nothing to conceal the pained pang of humiliation. "I just need something to settle my stomach," she says lowly. "I don't have time for this." This being a gesture to herself, like her body has utterly betrayed her. Shht. Casseny closes the curtain on Hattie's heels, cutting off the rest of the infirmary-- though anyone can still hear Enna digging around in the supply drawers a little too loudly. The Weyrwoman's mention of her stomach brings Casseny's look there, her chin dipping slightly to acknowledge that she's an inch taller than the goldrider. Only her eyes raise to Hattie's face after a second. It makes it harder to read precisely what the apprentice is pausing over. "Your morning nausea," she ultimately decides, a clipped enunciation short of asking it as a question. A couple of fingers wander to test the sheet corner tucks Enna just performed even as she glances over her shoulder where, past the curtain, the supplies rest. Such as: "Are you sensitive to any of our tea aromas at this time?" So she can get the right one. Irritation flares, features twisting as Hattie begins to repeat, "My morning--" only to shake her head and refute that statement, trying to hold on to some of her last shreds of patience as she lays her palms down flat on the cot, as if to keep them from gesticulating or otherwise giving her away while she responds. Except then the rest of Casseny's chosen phrasing catches up to her, and she begins to repeat that too. "At this time?" Another shake of her head. Deep breath. "Look..." she says slowly, attempting to keep her voice nice and even and not snippy. "I just need something to get me through the day." She looks a touch like a startled bird, holding her neck that straight, but though Casseny's widened her eyes, hesitancy hasn't broken that threshold. Weyrwoman or not, she's in the Infirmary, and Casseny has steady feet there. "Okay," is not argumentative or patronizing. "But it wouldn't make sense to make it worse." Or a little argumentative; at least, practical. Which is how she backs up against the curtain, pushes it away from one side with an elbow and shoulder. Enna looks up from inventory, but Casseny bypasses her, reaching unerringly for the cabinet she knows she needs. Some of the little containers are much emptier than others: verbena, for instance. Casseny finds what she needs, two clinking together, and uses the other hand to take the utensil from Enna and correct the inventory. Loosening one lid, the apprentice turns back to Hattie with the offer of a peppermint candy stick. Hattie looks faintly regretful when Casseny turns away, and directs her dark gaze down at her hands, fingers flexing against fabric as she tries to swallow down both nausea and guilt, though she also uses the cot to steady herself and keep as upright as she'd like without slouching or giving in to the urge to hunch over. She looks back up when she hears the loosening of the container's lid, focus latching onto the peppermint sticks with a mix of hunger and desperation, and once she's carefully extracted one, she promptly lodges it into one corner of her mouth, her, "...Thank you," mumbled somewhat impolitely in its lack of ladylike manners. Silence, while she just props herself up with the cot and foolishly waits for any immediate effects, then... maybe things start to add up. She lifts haunted eyes back to Casseny and, reluctantly, asks, "...What were you implying?" No obvious surprise at being asked. Graciously, Casseny lacks any smugness or the ilk as well. If anything, her rosy face-- sometimes too sweet for the way she stares-- appears vaguely curious. Setting the candy stick jar down, she reveals the other one she grabbed to be a container of similarly scented leaves, ready for brewing. A portion is divvied out into a soft bag, enough for a cup. And then another, another. More than for a sevenday, or even two; here, she pauses minutely, looks briefly at Hattie's figure, and then adds a few more to what will be the Weyrwoman's stash. During the process, her 'um' is unspoken but lingers between them. Um, "I only meant my mom had a lot of trouble with Caleb. Not with Caleb, but flavors and aromas. While." With Caleb. Fingers tie off the bag with a strict knot. "It's common." Continuing in the same vein of not being terribly polite, Hattie lifts a trembling hand to slightly adjust where she's lodged the peppermint stick, so that her voice isn't as slurred or obscured as it might otherwise be when she summons words again. It's all she can do to watch Casseny transfer leaves from container to bag, the motion observed as if it's something far more fascinating than it actually is - or maybe the reality of it (what it means) just is worthy of that transfixed, yet distant stare. "...I--" She fails to get any further and has to start again a moment or so later. "...I thought-- It was suggested that I-- I thought I was too... old." She can't be so dense, and still she requests clarification of the obvious. "What are you saying?" Subtlety's moment has come and gone, and Casseny celebrates with a soft exhale through thinned lips, bordering on relief. With a relapsing addict's vindication, she states, "You're pregnant, Weyrwoman." Briefly, she even looks a little dazed she had to say it at all. Eyes drift pointedly down and up Hattie, their motion continued by her eyebrows once she reaches back to the goldrider's face. Both lids affix back on their containers with succinct noises. Beyond the curtain, the pause seems surreally punctuated by the rider with the sprained hamstring barking his pain, finally unable to hold it in any longer. Casseny offers up the well-stuffed tea bag. "For the day. And then the rest of them." Hattie echoes that bark of pain with a strangled sound of her own, not regret, nor relief, or joy; just a noise that could be reluctantly processed shock or denial. "I can't--" she begins to say, to refuse that it's a possibility at all, only that would be pointless. "I thought--" Again, except those thoughts don't get a second airing, if only because she has to divert her attention to preventing the threat of tears from getting the better of her. It's impossible to tell just what has brought that shine to her dark eyes, for there's no clear evidence of how she feels, shock continuing to eclipse all else. Wordlessly, she accepts the bag of tea, fingers hooking loosely into fabric, and after another failed attempt to speak, she utters a hoarse, "...I think I'm going to need to speak to one of the Journeymen." Carefully, her lips puckered the slightest, Casseny rides out each mangled, untrue iteration. As Hattie's reactions fail to navigate into a discernible label, she chews gently on the inside of those lips, a cheek. She's starting to automatically undo the lid on the candy stick jar again when the pronouncement comes. Casseny's hands thud with cloth-softened purpose onto the cot. Palms stick flat to the sheets on either side of the peppermint arrangements, as though abruptly glued, extenuating her long arms. "Okay." 'It's okay, that's okay.' Not expressly excusing her lingering, voice soft and probing, "... Do you think I'm wrong?" She balances precariously between asking for an evaluation and suggesting Hattie do one on herself. And, originally, she means to give the Weyrwoman time to mull. Casseny slides her hands off the cot, turns to and pulls aside the curtain, then smoothly reverses it all. "I'm not." A milky dose of loose stubbornness, practicality; not arrogance, no, she's almost-- hurt. But that's not it? "Mama had Elayne." Nodding a little, Casseny sweeps back out a second time, letting Hattie have her moment, and to get her Journeyman. "No," Hattie huffs out, trying to scrabble together enough of her self-control or command of herself to conceal the wry, weary edge to her response. The idea plainly hasn't settled yet, but she aims to summon what reassurance - or is it just dignity? - that she can when she attempts to explain, "It's only... there are some things that... it would be better for a Journeyman to do to... confirm your diagnosis." Better for the Weyrwoman's pride, anyway, since even trying to broach the thought of those next steps finds her complexion darkening. She hangs her head rather than hasten to add any further efforts to better convey her reasoning for needing a more senior member of the infirmary staff, and offers only a murmured, "Thank you," as Casseny departs. Mere seconds pass before she has to turn around and sit down on the cot, lest her legs buckle and send her to the floor. She'll wait, quiet and obedient. She has good reason. |
Comments
Faryn (18:14, 18 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
Such a reaction to a baby. :c This will make for interesting play. <3
Kaleidoscope (12:07, 19 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
Ha, um. Excellent news delivery, Casseny! Hattie just keeps having good luck with unexpected news in this infirmary! Lucky Hattie~
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