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Blink. If he hadn't been a bit short on blood, Aleck might have blushed. "Oh. Well - be gentle?" he suggested lamely, only realizing what the words implied in context once they were out of his mouth. He fell silent as Rochelle worked at the knot, gaze drifting to Becka while she leaned over Bereck. The numbweed was fading; as the stained bandages peeled away, the air prickled at the edges of his wound. It wasn't until Rochelle spoke again that he glanced back.

"Oh, uh.. wher. In the back room. It was going for Dad." The brunet didn't say more than because just then Becka was back and his upbringing took over. When a Healer was seeing to you, you were quiet and let them go about their job. It was a better explanation than 'two girls fussing over him - or a part of him - was a new and slightly awkward experience.' "Thanks," he told the apprentice just as Berath's good voice brought good news. His shoulders relaxed a bit under Rochelle's hands before a crisp voice rang out.

The weyrbrat sat up to listen, expression intent. The first voice was that new crimson wingleader ('head stuck in a harper's tale,' Bereck had grumbled, 'and won't stay still') but the silvery one that came after was..

Aleck's expression shifted as the archer stepped in. He was vaguely aware of Becka's return - pictures, in his hands; his good arm cradled the little frames to his chest - and her starting to panic while a low-grade verbal spar went on in the background. Most of his attention was on the advancing trio.

'..defend you.'

"There's a wher," Aleck blurted, "In the room with the bed against the door. Brown. We don't know if it's dead." It was a clumsy response; his blue eyes were watching V'eck stare past his father without a word.

[Calrtis]

Well.

Fine.

So now he was good for sweet ******** all.

Carltis folded his arms across his chest and looked at the floor. Might as well wait to be told he was needed to hit or lift something, seen as that was his only value so far as he could tell from today.

"He's the wher whipper," he informed Rochelle, "Wrestling them doesn't seem to be all that advisable." So Aleck and Rochelle were a thing now, and he was on the outside, as ever, because he was him, and an idiot, and just not that likeable. Least he had a whip. He gripped it hard, the only thing he could count on in the world just now.

************

[Kleos]

This would not be the first handler that did not stand with the revolution, but it took a moment of studying her to make a call. She was magnificent. Perhaps Kleos' already erect posture straightened a little more as she strode towards the handler. "My Lady," she called, sweeping a bow, "you are welcome here, if you stand with our cause. I am wingleader Kleos, and I stand by you as I do by any true-hearted woman, child, or man of Malvren."

'Not well'?... She could see that.

She turned back to the young healer, with a shade of disapproval on her face.... But she was a young girl afraid. She could not be criticized for her hostility to a possible enemy. "We have brought no Healers, apprentice," she said more softly, "but we have no serious injuries either. Mine look far worse than they are, the remainder we think need only a little time to recover and rest... though if you would look over my fellows I would be grateful."

And there was a wher in here.

"V'eck," she turned sharp green eyes onto the lean old man. "You wish something to do? Put that last arrow to use, and slay the wher."

************

[V'eck]

What else could he do but what the girl wingleader ordered? His expression did not change, and he did not allow his aching eyes to flicker down to the man on the bed. On the bed. Hurt. Maybe dying....

He had a wher to kill.

Squaring his shoulders he strode to the barricaded door, and kicked the bed before it aside.

The door closed again behind him.

For a few moments only the faintest noises were audible to those outside, but then there was a tap, tap, tap of light boots.

V'eck emerged holding a pair of glasses, the left lens cracked, and missing a large chip at the bottom outer corner. "...Do these belong to somebody?" asked that soft distant voice. He did not meet anyone's eyes, nor even look around. Instead he moved quietly back to where he had stood before, the only change being the glasses he held loosely in his right hand in place of a single arrow.

************

[Bereck]

Things faded in and out. Something made him angry, something from long ago that screamed and burned and made him hate the world. Something else made him annoyed, but some of the anger of long ago went into the thing that annoyed instead of the thing that truly tore at him and he opened his eyes to look at Rochelle. His expression was.... It was not hard. It did not have the focus or strength for that, but though the expression was weak it was clear that it was not a look of pleasure, pride, or anything else positive.

"D'not... b'little... be'little anything... of this craft," Bereck whispered, struggling for each and every breath and sound, his eyes drifting open and closed, failing to focus. "More to it th'n y'credit. 's...hard. Has t'be right. Perfect, over top and underneath it, s'don't... Roche... don't you dare. Not after all th'time y'spent here."

[Rochelle]

"I still say you've been wrestling whers in your spare time, Carltis," Rochelle said easily, plucking at the bandages a bit to keep them in good order as she put them on. She did know a thing or two about wrapping - nearly the entirety of a turn in the infirmary, hours on hours a day... An observant person picked a few things up on a base level. Being an accident prone weyrbrat didn't hurt either. "To impress the ladies - or men, I don't judge. Did I mention you're a sharding wall?"

Right, wher. No time for flirting. She slid a glance to (tense, grumpy) Carltis and a smile. Aleck got a light pat on an injured part of his arm, an offhanded, "Wherwhipper, then." before V'eck came back with the glasses. They were cracked, undignified. It sent a queasy feeling through her and a good amount of anger: anger to the Revolutionists, the wher in the room, the ******** glasscrafter that made the glasses crackable.

She stared down at Aleck's wound, cleared her throat from those pesky knots and went about wrapping it. Bereck shifted and spoke, to her harsh words that threw Rocham and her childish devotion back in her face. That hurt. Cheap shot. She added another mental note to continue avoiding the infirmary. Forget about the apprentice, just disappear again.

Right. No place for self pity here, like none for flirting. She clenched her jaw in an attempt to hide the hurt feelings and... ignored Bereck. Nothing could could be said of that. Pity later, when things settled and she holed herself up in her work again. ******** all of this. ******** past kindnesses, the time, the rebellion and whers, the twisted words, being nice. ******** Carltis and Aleck just for being there, and the scent of numbweed clinging to the irony blood.

Rochelle went dead quiet and continued on with her work.

---

[Siata]

Kleos did a wonderful job of banishing the brief shrieking flash of '********, they're going to kill me'. Out of anything considered for the Crimsonrider to do, the lavish bow and Harpers words did not rank. The bronze handlers misshapen eyebrows rose.

"Uh," she said, ever graceful. "Thanks. Do you always talk like that? I like it."

Granted, she liked a lot of things right now. The blood, the baldness, the fact there was blood on the womans face. But - bow. Yes. She'd bowed and Siata shifted from foot to foot, still blinking. Some of the fog left her, a thinning of the hot and bothered as Siask started back towards them.

Being useful was first on her mind. Siata took another second of confusion before she grinned - a weak, watered down version of her usual beam, but a grin never the less. "Well, my boy is on his way. He's kind of ugly and bloody, you know, people were trying to get in, I was all unarmed and s**t. But! If you don't mind handing me that meat cleaver, I can get us some big sharp wher teeth from the brown."

Siata eyed up the woman with the cleaver, cocked her head to the side. "I can do it," and she could, her arm muscles were huge under that shirt. "And if you wrap some leather or bandages around the base of the teeth, they can be used for mini daggers. Just in case y'all are worried about my big ugly going off and being stupid."

[Carltis]

"Uh... I think you did," Carltis replied to Rochelle vaguely, perking up slightly at being noticed again. Not that he was pathetic or anything....

And then Rochelle closed up and went quiet. He frowned. Something the healer had mumbled had upset her? Angered her? Damned if he knew. And Aleck was looking up at V'eck with the glasses, and was it him or did they look something alike?... Aleck, Bereck, V'eck. Well s**t, what kind of family mess had he just happened upon here?

And now Becka was hyperventilating. Well that just took the cake, didn't it? "It's dead Becka," he said curtly, "gramps here shot it. Presumably." He eyed the white-haired man with some suspicion; everything else seemed to be abruptly going to s**t, so maybe he hadn't shot it after all and was a secret agent for the revolution just waiting for a chance to kill all of them.

*************

[V'eck]

As the brat questioned him V'eck focused at last, his gaze as sharp as a dagger as he turned it on the muscled young man. "You will address me as Sir, Silver Rider, or V'eck," he said, voice still quiet but carrying an edge now. "You will not question my integrity. I do my duty. If you feel the need, go and check that I finished the job yourself."

And... and the glasses.

He'd known, or deduced at least, but he hadn't wanted to say so. "I see." The edge went out of his tones again and he turned his head towards the boy with her blue eyes but didn't meet his gaze, unfocused again instead, looked past him. "You had better take them then, boy." Grasping the bridge of the damaged glasses between long elegant thumb and forefinger he held them out to the young man he still wasn't really looking at.

*************

[Kleos]

...People kept asking her that today. At least this time she was being asked in a positive light rather than insulted. "Indeed," she replied after a brief pause, including her head slightly for emphasis. Ah, and her wher was coming... which was good, but as the Apprentice clarified why she had told the handler to stay back she had to admit it was a good point. "Ah.... When your wher arrives, perhaps you could keep him over by the doors," Kleos said quietly so that her voice wouldn't carry to the bed. "I think that some in here might not deal well with his presence. He is not at fault but the situation...." Was getting worse. The healer apprentice was hyperventilating. Too many things were happening at once, she couldn't deal with all of them! She had to hold this place together, but she had no idea how, had no idea what to do for Becka, no idea of anything!

As she always did when she felt weak Kleos reached out for her dragon's mind, for her utter self-assurance, but her beloved was too busy to acknowledge her. She had to do this on her own then. Giving Siata an apologetic look she turned quickly to Becka and laid her hands on her shoulders. "Calm good healer," she said, her tones firm but caring. "It is as Carltis said, V'eck has ended the beast. You have nothing to fear. Have I not sworn to protect you?" How was she going to protect them? What was she going to do if they couldn't defeat their enemies? She wished Moriath would answer her; Moriath would know what to do, her beautiful red lady always did.

*************

[Thria]

Thria gave the handler a speculative look, and then looked down at the cleaver in her hand. She wasn't especially inclined to give it up, even for a little while, especially to somebody she had no reason to trust. "I expect there's bone saws somewhere around here," she said eventually, "Wouldn't one of those be better?"

*************

[Bereck]

Voices.

A panicked voice.

Becka?

"What's happening?" Something bad? He couldn't make out anyone's faces, they were all just hazy blurs. Something bad, and Aleck was in here, and Rochelle too, and Becka. He needed to get up, work out what it was that was wrong and deal with it, but his body wasn't listening to him. Increasingly confused and afraid he turned his head to where he thought Aleck and Rochelle had been. "Can't fix it. Y'both... keep safe. Take the others.... Trine?" That seemed like something he had said recently.

There were a score of things happening but for the moment they were far away, like sounds heard underwater. What he saw now were similarities - the brow, the hands - in stark contrast to the unfamiliar ladylike shape of the mouth. The eyes that denied him.

Boy.

"Aleck," he said quietly. He- he had no hands, didn't he? The brunet shifted the portraits, maneuvering them to the bed without moving his injured arm. He was careful but the attempt was clumsy by its very nature and he winced faintly as the little wooden frames clattered to the sheets. Two landed face up - a tiny woman with jewel-like eyes and a green dragonet, blocky beneath the baby curves.

Aleck turned the third over without looking; apart from that brief, darting glance as they fell, he'd kept his eyes steadily on V'eck. They stayed there while he reached out now, closing a hand around the glasses with care not to touch the man's skin. "How's gran-" No. "Where's Berina." He would ask. If not for himself then for someone else, and someone was panicking in the background.

"Becka. If we go, we're taking him." Quiet, controlled, even. "No one's leaving anyone behind."

[V'eck]

The painting of the woman drew his gaze inexorably. Her eyes, so bright and clear and full of life. Her face so young. Had they ever been that young? It felt like more than a lifetime ago.

...The painting, lost for so long, was here in the infirmary. So he had taken it, he had always suspected.

Longer fingered hands reached towards her, and then stopped as the boy said her name.

He did look up then, and meeting those startling blue eyes stabbed him as deeply as ever. It wasn't fair. It shouldn't have happened to her. He didn't know why the boy even bothered to ask, she'd been dead in every way that mattered for forty years. "...She is safe. Uktith and I made sure. A little cove along the coast. A friend of mine is staying with her." The silver rider's voice, quiet as ever, took on a dull, lifeless tone as he spoke. He looked back down at the painting and fell silent, his eyes cold and his face set against expression.

***************

[Carltis]

Becka seemed to have calmed, thankfully, and so with nothing else to do he moved to sit beside Rochelle. She had offered earlier, she couldn't complain... and so Aleck was related to the silver rider. Well then. Maybe he shouldn't have come to sit down after all, he didn't want to get involved in whatever this was. Help came in the form of another's distress; didn't that just make him a lovely guy?

"I'll get it." Carltis got to his feet - ow, he was getting really quite stiff - and strode over to the cupboard where he'd stored the supplies they still had. Bandages were grabbed, along with gauze, and numbweed and retwort. With his arms full he couldn't grab the jug of water still next to the blood soaked bed on his way over, but he could go back for that. "Here," he held the healing supplies out to the handler, who was incidently now sans shirt apparently. "Take these, I'll get water." Practical stuff, stuff he could do, stuff so he wasn't just sitting around thinking about what was happening. Defence wasn't enough, he needed to go back on the offensive and soon... or maybe he could go get those wher teeth or something; maybe Aleck and his father would like... souvenirs? Maybe not. He supposed he could ask, if a moment came up that wasn't packed full of awkwardness or crisis.

***************

[Kleos]

"Good girl," Kleos offered Becka a smile and released her as she turned away to go back to the master healer.

She missed the rest of what went on over there, her attention having been diverted by looking around for the handsome wherhandler. When the woman returned with word that her wher had lost his eye she started forward, and then paused when she noted that her shirt was missing.

It was very rude to stare, but her muscles!

Carltis' voice snapped her out of her reverie after a few moments, and she moved forward again. Once he had spoken his piece she put in with; "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

***************

[Thria]

The small woman shrugged and had been about to reply when the handler vanished... and shouted. She felt bad for the woman when she returned with news like that, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it. Best she stay here, and in the absence of other orders she moved over to the trio of her fellows who were seated together on a bunk in various stages of battered and exhausted.

***************

[Bereck]

Familiar voice.

Now he felt angry again, and opened his eyes once more. Blurry shape, but the shape of a tall lithe man. Why was he here? He tried to think of something to say but words scattered like a shoal of fish. He needed to think more, because there was definitely something he wanted to say. Just had to catch hold of it.

[Rochelle]

She glanced at Carltis for a small smile before he got up again, before V'eck and Aleck once more stole the attention. Carltis was more use to the half naked man with the wher than he was with this old silver rider. Aleck moved his arm closer and Rochelle squeezed, her fingers brushed the skin of his inner elbow before she pulled back to finish with the bandage.

Let him ask about the status of the fight, she was nearly done with the wrapping. The Weyrbrat tied it off and glanced over to the apprentice healer. She paused, looked around for any sort of sling and... ah ha! Large triangular sort of bandage. Another touch to Aleck's arm, though this time she tapped him gently with her index finger. "When you're done with her, I need you to bend your arm for this, Aleck," She murmured, eyes slanting back to V'eck again. Ugh. So close. Why.

----

[Siata]

"You are wonderful, thank you!" Siata beamed at the young man with the supplies. She took them gratefully, cradling them close to her bandaged chest protectively. "The big smoosh likes to pretend he can lick his own eye clean and heal it or something. Idiot."

A growl sounded once again from the hallway and Siata just shook her head. "Really, I mean it, even if he's snarling, it's not something I can do on my own and he's not bad. Handlers just -" She shook her head. They used their powers for evil. Her arms tightened, edging back towards the door. "So yeah, the water would be appreciated like madness. Thanks."

But look! Wingleader with no hair and cheekbones to die for spoke. Siata looked back to her from the near-doorway, and the beam faded to something softer, her gaze more appraising. With the feeling of blood-in-mouth and eye-seeping-gross mixing with the remnants of Run-want, she did her absolute best to not be...

Weird.

She opened her mouth to say something not explicit, thank you, but Aleck decided to be all productive with his questions. "It sounds like you have more important things to talk about than me, Wingleader. If you want to hold down a wher head while I go to town cleaning out an eye socket, feel free to look me up. It's not exactly fun." She winked anyway, jostled the items in her arms to continue the edging back towards the door. She'd flex later.

Siask poked his head in, Siata's shirt half-wrapped, half-draped over his head. He rumbled. Siata didn't even look at him, just kicked back a heel slightly to send him back into the hallway, unhurt and hissing. "See? Big baby. I just need to sit on him to clean him up."

[Mazamath and Adi]

Mazamath was done fighting. Others could disapprove if they wished, but he was finished. Twice now he had fought his fellow dragons, and both times he had been forced to retreat. His had nearly died the first time, strangled near to lifelessness by a crimsonrider, and he had wanted to stop then, but a sense of obligation had to wing and Weyr had prompted them to try again. Even with others fighting alongside them, things had not gone much better, and when the blue appeared from between outside the infirmary, he was still oozing ichor from clawmarks, bites, and even whip-lashes.

He landed and set Adi down gently, steadying her when she swayed on her feet and crooning when she turned to embrace his head. She was shaking all over, and crying. Seeing her so was what hurt most of all. He hoped that here, they would be safe, at least for awhile. His whirling gaze, yellow and gray, sought the dragon who was supposedly here and had called for loyalists.

I am Mazamath, and I and Mine seek friends.