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Bereck gave a short laugh that carried no humour and looked back up at the younger rider. "You obviously haven't met the people of that Hold. Believe me, they would have been much better equipped to protect us than we were them. I would rather have liked to hide behind Natai's brothers and father. And mother come to that, I've seen her swing a cleaver. It is the arrogance of dragonriders that they presume it is their lot to defend those without a dragon from all the world's ills. The only thing Holders cannot protect themselves from is Thread. No matter how good your intentions might be Kindra hardened men and women don't need teenagers - or anyone else - jumping around swearing to protect them from things they can combat themselves."

Perhaps Kindra was not all bad. Arrogant, and foolish, and very arrogant (it bore mentioning again) but in her own self-centred way she really believed she had been doing the right thing. The trouble was that she seemed to believe she was queen of the holds as well as one of the queens of the Weyr.

"Riders do not own Holders," he added more or less to himself. "Each is beholden to the other.... Mmh, regardless!" Now noticing that his attention had wandered for a few moments Bereck focused back on Kindra. "The wherholds may have been the instigators but that doesn't make employing poisons right. 'He started it' doesn't stand up in the crèche let alone in world politics where lives are at stake. I should very much like to return to my own home but I will not debase myself by killing for it. Stone is all it is Kindra, for all it may hold meaning to us it is important to remember what it is. Rock. Tunnels. A thing. A place. Taking Malvren back is not worth even a single life to me, and I hope you can come to feel the same about Benden."

Oh dear.

Bereck sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead, looking down at his flitts again.

He didn't want to feel anything but scorn for Kindra, he was trying really very hard to find some but currently he was failing. Fear for your family, for a relative who was unwell... he could relate to that rather more than he liked. He knew he should visit his own mother more, but given she hadn't a clue who he was and forgot he had been there two minutes after he left anyway it was difficult to keep motivating himself to do so. Berinya was just as happy being told by actual strangers that she'd hit her head but that she would be fine, and her son and weyrmate would visit soon as she was hearing it from him, somebody she believed was a stranger albeit with eyes like her boy's.

...Besides all that personal stuff he just didn't like to see other people unhappy. Life would be a lot easier if he didn't have to care about people.

"Why not send a firelizard?" Bereck asked softly after a long pause, raising his eyes to Kindra's face again. "Or if they don't know where to go, ask an inconspicuous greenrider to go in your stead and find out how things are. I remember well enough the position of your family... and given that, if your mother's condition remained poor Healer Hall may have been consulted. I can request a record check myself on your behalf next I go there."

"Of course," Bereck replied without pause, "it's no trouble to me." It really wasn't, and he really didn't wish her any ill. He wished she wasn't who she was, hadn't been given things she didn't deserve, but that didn't mean he would withhold help from her just to watch her suffer. Watching her suffer was in fact extremely unpleasant. "I'll just need a signed letter, or a family seal or similar," he added after a moment. "Master or not I can't just ask for case notes I've nothing to do with, healer patient confidentiality.... Though if they won't be persuaded by a letter I suspect I could persuade somebody to give me an informal wink on the situation as it were." There were oaths and then there were Oaths. Sharing a bit of information with your colleagues that you technically shouldn't wasn't so bad when there was good reason for it.

"Mmh, yes that would probably satisfy- Oh." He had forgotten about the meat, and his own well trained pets had been too polite to remind him. "Does your black need feeding?" he asked a little stiffly, the current civility was easier than fighting. Much as he felt he ought to keep fighting his points, whatever they had been, he was weary and didn't feel up to going looking for a fight.

"You could come with me if you preferred," he added a moment later as the thought occurred to him. "You could hear anything there was to know in person."

She'd called her black firelizard Brat. It was only a name and the firelizard didn't know what it meant but it gave him a slightly sour feeling all the same. "Well, alright then," he agreed with a small shrug. Maybe the firelizard was a brat, or the name had just stuck somehow... giving people the benefit of the doubt was not Bereck's strong suit. In his experience the majority of people were just selfish in the end, and some really were just downright cruel spirited. Perhaps Kindra was one of them or perhaps she was not.

"I couldn't give you a date," Bereck said after a short pause, shifting slightly against his pillows. He didn't know when he'd get out of here exactly - it depended on how well he healed, whether or not an infection developed - and he certainly didn't know when he'd be fit to between. Not long after he could he might be leaving Trine forever, but even if that was so he supposed he could take the time to do a favour for another human being that didn't inconvenience him. Even if Kindra was a basically terrible person - his jury remained out on that - he didn't find it statistically likely that her entire family was. They deserved to know she was safe... and entitled little girl though she was she deserved to know too. Probably.

"I'll go as soon as I'm able," the healer concluded eventually, his lips pressing together in displeasure at the uncertainty on that score. He was better off this time than he had been, far better, but he still hated it.

The red-haired healer nodded in response, partially keen to end this awkward encounter and partially just in need of the rest Kindra had suggested. "I will send a firelizard when I have more of an idea when I might be able to go, and Berath can confirm with Suunath closer to the time," he elaborated. His green would be less than pleased with him for agreeing to a favour for a gold - especially a gold with this particular rider - but he had no intention of going back on his word.