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Tyila was an utter nervous wreck as she perched beside her green at the far end of one of the dragonhealers' ledges. Despite not all having dragons of their own, most did have ledges, she'd found, to accommodate their winged patients. In the last handful of months since their arrival, Tyila had become increasingly, painfully aware of how...small, frankly, her green was. Oh, she had length enough to not compare to a white, but...she was so slim. More than one rider had looked in askance at her, and she'd felt horrible to think she'd done something wrong. She adored the green as much as any rider, she was the other half of her heart, and to think that perhaps she'd been suffering silently to spare Tyila's feelings? It'd resulted in an hours-long debate between the two of them when Mishaath overheard her rider wondering if the green had picked her simply because there was no one else at the time and place she'd hatched to pick.

Now a sevenday later, all the young woman's fears had come rushing back. Mishaath had been slow to rouse that morning, and looked particularly pale. Her eyes, usually a vibrant, loving blue, were similarly dull, almost as if a milky film had been cast over them, leaving them murky and greyish. The sudden awareness that she could lose her dragon was enough to finally shake the girl out of her intense introversion, and she'd urged the green to her feet long enough to glide, weak and stiff, to the nearest dragonhealer.

Now the green had slumped back down, doing her best to keep happy and positive, but Tyila could feel through their bond that something was certainly wrong. It really isn't so bad, I promise...just feel a little... Tyila hurried to mentally shush the green, stroking her headknobs and eyeridges with agonized affection.

"H-hello?" She called out at the same time, too afraid to abandon the green to enter the weyr further to find the healer. "Please, muh, my dragon...she's sick, I think!"

She could almost cry with relief when a capable looking young man came out to ask what was the matter. She hovered, torn between trying to move out of his way and the primal urge not to break touch with her dragon. Surely he'd understand, if he was used to dragons and their riders. "I'm n-not, not sure," She managed, gasping at the pathetic croon Mishaath let slip, glazed eyes fixing on the one her rider believed could help her. "S-she doesn't want to eat and she seems stiff, almost b-bloated?" For a dragon so small and thin to be bloated couldn't possibly be good. "She, uhm," Tyila swallowed her nerves, determined to take whatever punishment her mistreatment of the green would lead to if it resulted in Mishaath living. "They said she wasn't eating enough, but it was the same as we've always had, so. So, so...So I was having her eat more, and she seemed happy to do it but..."

The green whined again, her distress more and more apparent now that a hopeful solution was near at hand. It nearly shattered her rider's heart, and she only just managed to not start tearing up. If there was some way she could take the green's pain, carry it for her, she would..."I don't know what's wrong with her, but, c-can you help?" Wide, wet, hopeful eyes turned up towards Dristan, begging him for anything he could offer.

She felt some relief hearing that she hadn't been entirely in the wrong. She would have just flung herself between if she'd been the cause of her dragon betweening (or honestly even if it'd not been her fault, but still) though she still felt terrible about it. She nodded timidly at his questioning—now that she thought about it, Mishaath hadn't hopped between in the last day or two, nor had she gone out into the fields to pass anything...The green brushed a gentle tendril against her rider's mind, trying to reassure her that it wasn't her fault for not noticing. "I didn't mean to give her too much...she just seemed to be enjoying it so much, and it seemed like there was enough to let her have all she wanted..."

"Ah, oh, uhm, I, I'm Tyila," She ducked her head bashfully. How rude, to ask his help and have him delve into this mistake of hers and not even introduce herself. Her mother would be turning in her grave to know it. She passed along his question just to confirm, and then nodded shamefully up at him. "She hasn't, in, in a day or two. Is that why she won't eat? Why she looks so..." She had to fight off tears again at the sight of her precious, vibrant dragon gone so dull. "I just want to do right by her, and...you're right. Where we were...there was only one other rider," She admitted, "And he impressed the same time I did. If I'd known...!" She shook her head, there'd be time to handle the throbbing ache of knowing she'd failed her dragon later. "What can I do? Can I help somehow?"

Knowing the problem was common soothed her a little, but among 'young dragons'? She distantly wondered if six turns old still counted as young. Maybe. There still was just so very much she didn't know about her dragon, things she hadn't even thought to realize that she didn't know before. Part of what bothered her was that she didn't know how much she didn't know; her education had been entirely lacking. She nodded meekly at his...not accusation. He didn't seem upset with her for being ignorant or having failed, which was not what she'd expected, but was nice enough. "We didn't," She shook her head. "I mean, it was just us. No one else. Not in the weyr." Or the hold, even, but she was yet to decide if the man's kindness would extend to a band of holdless and exiles.

She brightened noticeably at the thought that there was something she could do to help. Nothing was worse than being helpless. "Can you..." She cleared her throat as she ordered her thoughts. "Can you explain to me again, uhm, what's...wrong?" She meant that she wanted to know how to prevent it from happening again. Poor Mishaath shouldn't have to suffer like this, and if that meant being extra alert or taking another candlemark to feed her, slowly, the right amount? Well, obviously Tyila would do it. What rider wouldn't?

"Do I...have to leave her here to get the aloe? Will she be okay?" The green was firmly telling her rider that yes, she'd be just fine, but Tyila still was worried. What if something went even more wrong while she was gone?

Tyila fiddled with the hem of her tunic as she thought back. "W-well, she's, uhm, six turns old now..." She watched as he looked over the now-dozing green again, wondering just what he saw, and what he thought, and how much he blamed her for the problem. "So...six turns?" She shrugged helplessly. Of course, when Mishaath had been smaller the amount of food had suited her better. There hadn't been enough to spare to increase her portions they way they should have been as often as they should have been. It made sense to think that now, with more food than she could hope to eat, the green and herself both had become overeager. Tyila, certainly, had felt pressure from other riders to bulk her dragon up. No one had explicitly said it, but she'd seen the lingering stares on Mishaath, and seen herself the more robust, muscled forms of just about every other dragon.

"She usually, uhm, she'd eat...maybe once or twice a week," She finally explained. "She never complained, of course, though when she was littler she was hungry all the time." Her people had been more eager to spare her food back then too, as they thought of it as an investment. Once the green was grown, that was when it'd become more about what she and Tyila could bring to the group. "The last few days...every day?" Was that bad? Well, obviously it was bad, but was it bad? "Until yesterday, I mean. That's when she started..." Mishaath sighed, and she had to fight the urge not to leave her side again. "But you said just aloe, right? Can...could we get it now?" Her hands flew to a small pouch at her side, and she started rummaging inside. "How much? I mean, h-how much for the aloe? I only have a few marks, b-but once Mishaath's better we could work to help pay..."

Nothing had been free before the weyr. The desperate look in the rider's eyes made it clear that even if Dristan had told her that she needed to chop off a hand and feed it to the green to heal her, she'd do it without thought.

She was taking detailed mental notes, furiously eager to do it right this time and avoid further hurting her green. Dristan wouldn't need to worry about her not taking to the lessons well, if he did end up recommending them. She was like a man stranded in a desert, being finally pointed to an oasis—except instead of water, it was full of knowledge. Anything to make Mishaath's life better, she was determined, even if it meant having to take private lessons, or ridicule for not already knowing, or having to pay for it right out. Though then again, he'd stayed her hand from paying for the aloe (she let the marks she'd plucked from the bag drop back in slowly, uncertain with not paying)...She almost teared up at that.

"O-okay," She nodded, the line of her stance and subtle shifts making it clear that she was ready to follow when he led the way. "On the way, can, can you tell me what the aloe looks like?" She didn't plan to ever let Mishaath get this 'thick tail' again, but...just in case. Or in case she ever met someone like herself, who didn't know and had done their best, but gotten into trouble. "And then...once she's better, you said we'd work to get her eating right. Is it...more often for larger dragons? Or do they just eat more...?" The need to learn more and his kind willingness to help had loosened her tongue, and the questions were stacking up inside her now. "What about, uhm, you? You said the weyr pays you? I didn't, I mean, please don't be mad, but, I thought, I was told that...that weyrs got rid of thread a long time ago, so, uh, wh-why would they keep paying you to heal dragons? I mean, before thread came back, obviously, and I guess a dragon could get sick or hurt any time and ah—..." She'd gone and asked something stupid now, hadn't she? Oh, she'd best just keep her mouth shut until they got the aloe then!

The plant grew poorly around here? Was it really something she'd not have to pay for then? It sounded unlikely, but he'd insisted. Already she was trying to think of some way to repay him, despite his refusal of her marks. She eyed the tools he'd picked out, wondering if getting him new ones might be an idea to look into. Then they were off, down stairways and through halls, and she had to focus more on keeping up and not getting lost than worrying over gift ideas. She had been in the weyr long enough to know her way from dining hall to weyrbowl to a number of other places, but she felt it'd be turns yet before she knew where everything was.

"They burn each other...?" That sounded scary. Didn't it make riders scared to compete again, or make it hard to trust each other? Of course, she didn't think that any of them would try to hurt each other, of course. Still. She didn't like the thought of making Mishaath do that. At least until she was better. And stronger. And they were trained up right. Right now all she wanted to do was to help fight thread, then go back to her little weyr and make sure Mishaath was safe.

"You know a lot of things...are the other animals, the herdbeasts, I mean. Are they at all like dragons? Inside?" Not outside. Outside they were about as different as night and day. "What's a...'succulent'?" The rest of his description she'd more or less understood, but aside from someone calling food 'succulent', she hadn't heard that word used before. Could a plant be succulent? Did he mean the taste? If so...well, he HAD said Mishaath wouldn't mind eating it, right?

That was certainly true. She'd seen firsthand the devastation that ensued when there were no dragons, or only untrained dragons to try to fight thread. It was part of why she'd taken up T'rel's offer on joining High Reaches—even in the wilds of Pern she'd known about 'that crazy weyr' that insisted on preparing for a threat that would never return. Obviously they'd known the truth, and been ready. She wanted to help.

Her people had stolen Mishaath's egg. She owed them something in return.

She stepped into the greenhouse all wide eyes and wonder. It felt...warm! Not that the weyr itself was cold, but...well, it was cold! At least compared to this. The humidity too, it reminded her a little of the wild jungles she'd spent more than one season trekking through in her youth. She listened dutifully to his summation of the differences between animals, but parts of it were a bit above her head. Metabolisms? Well, she didn't want to point out that she didn't understand it all.

"O-oh, like, uhm, these?" She pointed to a plant that seemed to match the description. It saw odd to think something so small might help her dragon. Even a green was large compared to non-dragon animals.