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Cetalese was liberally applying numbweed to the worst of Halith's wounds, and ignoring the minor scratches she had received. Those would heal on their own and do no more than sting; the larger ones would actually need attention from a dragonhealer when this was done.

"Don't worry," Cetalese said as she carefully dabbed more numbweed into the wound so it would take effect before she tried to touch the area more firmly, "We'll get you better in no time."

I will be fine, Cetalesemine. They do not hurt at all now. We need to get those herdbeast dropping-eating whers.

Ceta shook her head, but she was smiling now, and Halith noticed.

You see? It is not so bad. We are ready to go again, if you are all right.

I'm fine. I have bruises, not the gashes you do. A few aches are a blessing compared to Eliza or D'lin.

Then perhaps you should help them so we may go. Plexith will not want to wait, and I do not want to wait either!

Relax. Are you sure you can't feel anything? Cetalese finished rubbing the numbweed in while Halith considered.

I am sure. Let's go, Cetalesemine!

Cetalese shook her head, exasperated, and turned to look for D'lin or Eliza. Plexith was the easiest to see, being one of the largest dragons present. Although the short time back had helped Cetalese to tamp down on her panic from earlier, she was still feeling... unhappy with the decisions D'lin and Eliza had made. She knew D'lin's choice had been the only one he could make with his personality, but it didn't stop Ceta from feeling overwhelmingly... afraid and upset-- the former for him, and the latter with him. The same went for Eliza, though Cetalese was most certainly going to talk that out with her where she might not do the same with D'lin. Eliza's reaction had been completely a result of her own inability to control her temper. That wasn't a noble pursuit the way D'lin's actions were.

She caught herself staring at D'lin and quickly looked away to recap the numbweed jar, brow knitting faintly in confusion. They had bigger things to worry about.

When the numbweed jar was safely tucked away, Ceta turned and went to see if D'lin needed help, or at least what his next orders were. She brushed her hands together, careful not to let any numbweed slip from her glove onto her clothes or her bare skin.

"Do you need a hand?"

Cetalese looked at the wound with concern and then sank to her knees behind him and plucked the numbweed jar from his hand. She smiled when she saw the awkward globs of numbweed, but said nothing about his inefficient attempt to self-medicate. Her hand smoothed the numbweed back to where it should be, easing it over the gash.

"Wher or weapon?" she inquired, ignoring the sudden tightening in her stomach at the reminder. As her hand focused on the one gash, her eyes were already inspecting the rest of his back and what of his arms she could see for other wounds that might need it. "Is this the only one that still needs numbweed?"

Cetalese nodded and offered the jar back to him as she ran her hand carefully along the wound one more time. She leaned back and began stripping her numbweed-covered glove off. She would need to wipe them down, but whatever excess was on the glove and still usable would go to Halith's lesser cuts, now that the rest was being returned for use on worse patients.

"What did S'kor and Wingleader N'mol say when you told them we were coming back here?" Ceta said. "Are they returning when they're done as well, or will they stick to the original plan a few dragons short?"

She removed her other glove as well and set them on the grass. The next subject she brought up following D'lin's answer was a bit more touchy. "Can anything be done for the Weyrling and her dragon?"

When they had returned to see to their dragons and discovered that a Weyrling pair had gone wandering off into the forest alone, resulting in the pair nearly being killed, Cetalese had thought D'lin was going to end up shaking another rider. Thankfully, it seemed the Weyrling who had found the pair had only dared to leave the clearing to chase them down when she realized they were gone, and the shaking had been avoided. Whenever this fighting cleared up the pair was going to be in for quite a lecture and punishment. Assuming the girl and her Green lived.

Cetalese shook her head. The Golds were always prideful, but there was reason behind that. Much as there was reason that Bronzes were often the same way. They were bred to rule, and that usually meant refusing to be bossed around when they didn't have to be.

They fell into silence as the numbweed dried, each lost to their own thoughts. Cetalese shifted slightly, then slid back so she was sitting with her legs cocked to the side rather than resting on her knees. It was beginning to become uncomfortable.

"I'm glad you're all right. The last fight could have been much worse. How's your head?"

Ceta's jaw tensed and she looked away, staring out at the dragons and humans assembled around them. She nearly swallowed her tongue, not wanting to delve into the particulars of Eliza's case. The whers were another topic Ceta wanted to steer clear of, though she had brought up the fight herself, which meant discussing both of those topics.

Ceta was actually glad that Eliza wouldn't be allowed to fight again. It meant one less person for her to worry about, and since Eliza was the one who tended to be the most hot-headed, she was the one Ceta probably would have had to worry about the most. Yet D'lin was still in the fighting, as was she, and they had a great deal of work left to do.

"You're lucky you aren't in her shoes," Ceta said quietly as she stared at the distant healer's tent.

Ceta did meet his gaze, but it told D'lin far less than he likely would have liked, at least for the moment. She did drop her eyes when he pointed out he wasn't sorry, knowing that she couldn't fault him for the cause of his actions. That wasn't the problem, though she was struggling to put her finger on the precise cause for her panic.

"I don't expect you to be sorry. It's your personality to protect and someone needed to go down once she jumped. But... it would be different if it was me protecting her. If it was only my life at risk. Watching both of you--" Cetalese put a hand to her forehead and turned her head away again, feeling tears coming on the broken end of her wavering words. There had been long moments there, moments she hadn't been able to think about when she was in charge of keeping the whers distracted, where she had thought she was going to end up losing one or both or seeing them both mauled at the least. Thank Faranth the handlers were the kind to keep their whers on the dragons and not really let them near the humans.

Now those feelings surged back up and filled her throat, causing her to gasp for air for a moment before she tried to choke the lump back. She had to stay calm. She knew she was approximately the same age as D'lin, but it was important for a rider to appear mature in front of others to balance out their age, especially when they were young. Usually, that wasn't a problem for her, but Cetalese was having a serious problem with it now. She didn't know why it bothered her that D'lin would see her like this, except that he was her Wingleader. Maybe the part of her dedicated to her work desperately didn't want her leader to see her crack under pressure. That sort of reaction said that she wasn't fit to ride in a wing and that simply wasn't true.

Cetalese knew she had to say something more, but she wasn't capable of it. She brought her other hand up to her throat, as if that would somehow comfort her enough to let her speak. She swallowed hard again and forced words out without putting as much thought behind them as she usually did, keeping her voice low to mask any additional oddities to her speech.

"I wasn't just worried. You're my Wingleader, but you're also my friend, D'lin. As close a friend as Eliza, and more, in some ways." She swallowed again and very quietly cleared her throat, trying to force her way back to normal. Her hands briskly brushed at her pants as if removing invisible dirt. Her voice was more steady when she continued, and at a more natural volume. "Knowing you may die during Threadfall is one thing; watching you both get mauled to death is another."

There was always the possibility of death as a rider, but Cetalese wasn't going to argue that point with D'lin. She had likely come across as enough of a child. She did smile when he asked who was going to ground them in sanity. The offer was nice, even though she knew that D'lin would be off throwing himself in the path of other people's hurts the moment it came up again. She couldn't ask him to change that and she just had to be what he needed her to be when he asked it of her, even if that meant sitting high above the fighting and watching. Especially since she wasn't turning out to be much of a hand with the fighting anyway.

So Ceta let it go. She'd said her piece and it was comforting to know that D'lin also considered her a good friend. It helped to balance what had been a slightly uncertain relationship. Before D'lin had become a Wingleader and chosen her for his wing, they had been friends. After, Ceta found herself unsure about how much she was able to treat him as a friend when he was also her Wingleader, which generally meant treating him only as her Wingleader when people were around or when they were in an "official" capacity as a wing. She still intended to follow that newly established pattern, but now she thought she had a better understanding of when it might be acceptable to treat him as much as a friend as Wingleader.

She turned her hands over under his and squeezed his hands in reply, feeling relief in the action.

"I think S'kor would do an admirable job of keeping the wing sane," Ceta offered with a smile, "if they ever needed it. Let's try to keep the Weyr in one piece and under our control, though, hm?"