[SRP] Post-Fall Check-in (Reya, T'of & dragons)

[Princess_Feylin]

Reya and Raqi were neither of them badly injured enough to necessitate a prolonged stay in the infirmary. The scoring on Raqi’s wingtips and side had been shockingly painful, and Reya’s burned leg was alarmingly red and blistered, but the flame hadn’t completely penetrated all the layers of her skin, thanks to her boots. There was even a possibility that there would be minimal scarring, if she took very good care of herself. Reya planned to do her best. She knew Raqi was consumed by guilt for her part in Reya’s injuries, and she didn’t want the green to be reminded of a mistake she made every time she saw Reya’s bare legs.

Doing her best was awkward though, because the burn spanned most of her lower leg from the knee down, and was worst where the skin was thinnest, over her shin and knee. The thick socks she had worn to fill out her slightly-too-large boots had provided some insulation and protected her feet from being badly damaged. She could walk and she even got to keep all of her toes and toenails.Ordinarily this location would not have been inconvenient for her, but the injury she had done to her elbow throwing firestone was on the same side, which meant she could only bend and straighten that arm with care.

She was in the process of changing bandages in her weyr when Raqi let her know they had visitors.

Who? she asked, a little more sharply than intended. There were any number of people Reya didn’t particularly want to see in general, and a certain few she didn’t want to see while she was in the middle of attempting to change bandages on a burned and blistered limb.

Makhmilith and T’of, Raqi replied, an echo of hurt feelings in her mental voice that made Reya sigh. She knew the dragon felt bad, and she didn’t want to compound it, but it was frustrating not to be able to show any discomfort or unease about her own injuries for fear of upsetting her already-insecure bond. It was, she could not avoid thinking, much like the more tiresome parts of parenting.

Shall I tell them you’re not available? Raqi asked when Reya didn’t immediately respond.

In all honesty, Reya would have preferred not to see Makhmilith and T’of right now. Actually, she didn’t really want to see T’of. She would not have minded seeing his blue. She appreciated the dark blue dragon’s realism and dry humor. She appreciated those things in his rider, too, but she didn’t have the same reluctance to have Makhmilith see her changing the dressing on her leg as she did T’of.

I think it’s a bit late for that to be believable, Reya replied ruefully. Just give me a moment, please, to finish up.

Reya had not actually finished saying the last part when a dragon’s dark blue head emerged from the weyr’s entryway, followed shortly by the rest of the dragon. He was larger than Raqi or her green weyrmate, but there was still space for Makhmilith to make himself comfortable if he kept close tabs on his wings and tail. His head turned first toward Reya, and then to Raqi, and then back to Reya. It was hard to tell exactly where a dragon’s faceted eyes were focused, but Reya could guess he was taking in the sling on her arm and the bubbling flesh on her leg.

“Makhmilith,” she greeted him. “I’m not quite fit for visitors. Would you and T’of mind waiting below? Raqi and I will come down shortly.”

We will do that, the blue agreed, reversing his entrance and gliding lazily from the weyr to the bowl below. Take whatever time you need.

Reya hurried through the rest of her task. At least numbweed made it so she needn’t feel the results of her less-than-skilled ministrations. She would become more adept, no doubt, but right now the job looked slipshod and she was not pleased with it. She longed to redo it, but she and Raqi had people waiting on them.

“It will do,” she told herself firmly. To Raqi she added, Let’s go.

They did not bother with a saddle or harnesses for the descent. It would have been too difficult for Reya to manage on her own with her elbow injured. Besides which, the pair had been gliding together for months now. They could manage the descent from their weyr without embarrassment or injury.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

Makh and T’of had intended to check in on Reya and Raqi much sooner, but after Fall ended they had been informed the pair were in the infirmary being treated, and they were not welcome to wait around, which meant they had no idea when they were released. When they returned the next day, the weyrlings had apparently been released, but that meant they were on their usual training schedule once more, and largely without free time. It had been impossible to pin them down ever since.

Today’s weyr visit was not the first such they had attempted. It was just the first to be a success. Even the hours when weyrlings usually had free time, Reya and Raqi had not been in any of their usual haunts. It occurred to Makh that there was the possibility they were being avoided, and T’of’s mindhealer training said there were any number of reasonable causes for that, but neither of them had the personality to allow someone to avoid them when they wanted to see them.

They had agreed, however, that Makh should make the initial approach on his own, because neither Raqi nor Reya was very good at telling the blue “no,” where Reya could certainly say the word to T’of without any qualms and Raqi could simply play at overwhelming shyness and refuse to converse with a human outside her bond. In the back of his mind, Makh also entertained the thought that one or both of the weyrlings could have been injured in such a way that their physical appearance had been permanently, negatively altered, and they preferred not to be seen just yet. If that was the case, draconic eyes were almost always preferable to human ones. Beauty, after all, was a fairly human conceit.

It was a good thing, Makh decided, that he had entered first on his own. From what he could tell, Raqi was all right. A little minor scoring, maybe. Reya, on the other hand, looked less all right. Her right arm was in a sling and her right leg - what he could see of it - looked like it had been roasted. It took a second for him to realize she had gotten in the path of a dragon’s flame when he failed to see the telltale pattern of Threadscore. That was unfortunate, and he had no doubt Raqi was blaming herself even though it had definitely been an accidental flaming, but what made Makh feel relief that he had been alone was his knowledge of how Reya’s burn would look to T’of.

How are they? T’of asked from the ground. The ridiculous human tried to make his mental voice sound nonchalant, as if such a thing was even possible when one’s interlocutor could sense your thoughts and emotions. T’of was deeply concerned.

They will be fine, Makh relayed. They will join us on the ground shortly.

T’of may have thought he had the monopoly on being able to wall off his most private thoughts, but Makh, too, knew how to do that, and he was making sure to keep his human companion from seeing the angry, blistered flesh of Reya’s leg in his thoughts. T’of wouldn’t be able to help recoiling if he saw that. Skin conditions were especially problematic for his rider, along with bodily fluids, physical contact, and pneumatic eruptions like coughs or sneezes. The blue dragon had a very good idea of how poorly things would go if T’of physically recoiled and pulled his sleeves down over his hands, and he would like to prevent that outcome.

T’of watched his blue drop from the elevated weyr with the sort of casually dramatic flair he’d always cultivated in his flying and smiled. Makh’s assurance that Reya and Raqi would be fine released the vise which had seized his chest since learning they had been in the infirmary. By the time Reya and Raqi joined them, flying with significantly more care than Makh had done, T’of’s expression and posture were easy, and there could be no disguising his obvious pleasure at seeing the weyrling pair had come through their first blooding largely unscathed.

“We heard you were sent to the infirmary after Fall,” T’of began as Reya slid from Raqi’s back. “How are you doing? Both of you?”

Raqi’s wingtips have been scored, Makh reported, in case T’of failed to notice. As has her side. But it doesn’t look too bad. Tender, I would guess.

Reya’s response was similar to Makh’s observations, but she also lifted her right arm with an irritated expression and muttered darkly about a sprained elbow. T’of nodded, still smiling broadly, and closed some of the distance between them so that he could inspect their injuries for himself.

“We’ve been trying to check in on you. I had begun to wonder if you were avoiding us.” T’of’s eyebrows wiggled to turn the suggestion into a joke, but in truth he did wonder.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

Raqi took some time to arrange herself on the ground so that she was neither uncoordinated looking nor uncomfortable. The process itself was not comfortable, but the end result was worth it and in short order the slim green occupied an easy crouch with her scored side concealed by her haunches and her singed wingtips tucked neatly back and out of sight. Then, and only then, did she turn her full attention to Makh and T’of, despite having been extremely aware of their presence the entire time.

For her part, Reya found herself returning T’of’s infectious grin. She was glad to see that he and Makh seemed to have made it through Fall unhurt, and could not help but be a little more than glad to learn that they had been trying to catch up with her and Raqi. She explained about Raqi’s injuries, downplaying her own except to scowl at her treacherous elbow. She didn’t want to bring up her burned leg and make Raqi feel guilty all over again.

“We weren’t avoiding you,” she assured T’of. “They kept us in the infirmary for ages and then released us at a ridiculous hour of the night and we were straight back into lessons.”

Well, Raqi elaborated to Makh. We weren’t badly hurt, but we were a little hurt, so we weren’t treated right away. They weren’t keeping us because they were incompetent or anything.

Some of them might’ve been incompetent, Reya grumbled mentally. Being hastily smeared with numbweed and left for several hours while more serious injuries were treated was understandable, but she hated to wait and she’d known from the start what the healers would tell her, at least about her leg, and she’d had a pretty good guess about her elbow, too.

They were saving lives, Raqi retorted. Unlike Reya, she had watched relatives fall from the sky, too wounded or worn out to fight on, and she was touchy about implications that their bravery was anything less than heroic.

“Did the two of you make out all right?” Reya asked, her dark gaze traveling first over Makh’s dark hide and then T’of’s form.

We were fortunate, Makh told Raqi, who relayed his response to Reya. No injuries.

Reya slanted a look at T’of. “Really? No injuries?”

Like T’of, she had moved closer to ascertain for herself whether the blue and his rider were well. By all appearances they were, but she wasn’t certain she would believe T’of if he told her so. Riders, she was already learning, fell either into the category of making light of their own injuries or exaggerating them tremendously, and she suspected T’of and Makh fell into the former category.

“Promise,” T’of replied with a theatrically earnest expression. It sobered as he continued, “I wish you two had been as lucky.”

“We will get better,” Reya and Raqi said in unison, bringing back T’of’s grin. “We just need more practice.”

Practice never hurts, Makh agreed. But I think you might benefit more from a swim.

Raqi was not sure that was true. She liked swimming - it was a good way to build strength while keeping slim - but the idea of salt water on her scored hide made unpleasant sizzles of imaginary pain shimmer through her nerves. She looked to Reya to get her out of it, but apparently Makh had only directed his words to her. Neither Reya nor T’of gave any sign they had heard his suggestion.

Won’t it hurt? she couldn’t help asking, and then wished she hadn’t.

Some. At first, Makh allowed. He was always brutally honest with her in a way even Reya sometimes wasn’t. But the water will feel good after the initial sting.

As always, Raqi decided to trust him, letting Reya know her plans and reminding her not to attempt to climb up to the weyr without her, but to summon her back when she was ready to go home, so that Raqi could fly her up.

I’m not going to attempt that climb, Reya promised, though in the back of her mind there was a clear yet.

Good, Raqi said firmly. Making sure Reya could hear her, she said to Makh, Please ask T’of not to let her try to climb back up.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

It was good to know that Raqi and Reya had not lost their confidence when it came to fighting Thread after their first experience doing so. Few pairs did, truth be told, for it was in a dragon’s nature to destroy Thread and to Impress to humans who could share that calling, so neither T’of nor Makh was surprised by the green pair’s determination that they would practice more and get better. That was, after all, their answer to just about everything. It was better, in T’of’s opinion anyway, that the weyrlings had not been avoiding T’of and Makh for the past few days.

That raised the next obvious question: why had they been in the infirmary? T’of was certain he was not going to get details out of Reya, but Makh would probably have more luck with Raqi. T’of had to content himself with making sure Reya really was okay. He didn’t like to see her arm in a sling, but he was relieved she didn’t seem to have been scored. It was an experience he would spare her for as long as possible, if he could.

We can’t, Makh reminded him. But I can learn more about how Fall went for them, if you like.

Please, T’of replied.

After watching Raqi twist herself into a position that didn’t look particularly comfortable, Makh felt no remorse in suggesting an alternate activity which would force her to move around rather than curl up. Swimming was always good, even though it would hurt at first. Plus it would make it easier for the dragons to talk without having to constantly have humans relaying their words aloud. Of course he and Raqi could always allow both humans to hear their mindvoices, and sometimes they did that, but it always made Raqi a little self-conscious and Makh prefered to preserve an air of mystery by speaking to as few humans as possible. Even ones he liked as individuals, as he did Reya.

“Apparently, I’m to stop you if you try to return to your weyr on your own,” T’of remarked in the wake of their dragons’ departure.

Reya nodded. “So I hear. Do you plan to?”

“Are you ready to go now that Makh’s not around?” he countered. The friendship between his blue and Reya never failed to amuse T’of, who was accustomed to his dragon holding the opinion that everyone in their acquaintance were idiots, including T’of on occasion.

Reya seemed to consider his question, but eventually she shook her head. “Is it all right by you if we find somewhere to sit though? I got a bit of a burn on my leg and it works, but with numbweed I’m wary about pushing too hard until the bulk of the healing’s done.”

T’of could not help glancing down. He had, until this moment, failed to notice that she was wearing slippers instead of her usual sensible footwear. Now that he looked, he could see bandages peeking through the gap between her slippers and the hem of her trousers, and he frowned.

“Of course we can do that. How badly were you burned?” he asked. “And what idiot dragon flamed you?”

“It wasn’t an idiot. It was Raqi. She got scored close to my leg and she panicked and flamed to make sure the Thread wouldn’t spread. I just got a little bit roasted is all.” Reya glared defiantly at T’of, daring him to call her dragon an idiot again.

“She must be taking that hard,” he said instead of rising to the bait.

Reya nodded. “I’m trying not to pay it too much mind, or mention it too much, to keep it out of her mind.”

T’of had mindhealer-type thoughts about that, but he managed - barely - to keep them to himself. How Reya related to her dragon was her own business unless she asked for his input. It was not an easy thing for him to bite his tongue when he really wanted to tell her that it would do Raqi no good to be babied, and that she maybe should feel ashamed for flaming her own rider in a moment of panic.

His opinion must have shown in his expression because Reya said, “It was an accident and I really will be fine. The healers say it should be about three sevendays.”

T’of automatically recalled what he had learned of burns during his early days at Healer Hall, when he had been in training to be a healer. Twenty one days meant she had been burned in the second degree. It certainly could have been much worse, but he imagined that whenever the numbweed wore off Reya must be in screaming discomfort. He would be careful not to walk her too far.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

As they walked in a slow circuit of the weyrbowl, keeping to the cliff side of the caldera, Reya found that she was relaxing for the first time, really, since Threadfall. She could sense Raqi’s contentment as she swam in the frigid water nearby and Reya, herself, could not help being entertained by T’of’s dramatic rendition of his own first Threadfall. Apparently another neophyte in his wing, C’lin, a bluerider with flaming red hair and no fear, had crashed into a rock formation, knocking it to bits, and then he and his dragon had shaken it off without any sign they were even aware the collision had happened. Watching T’of play C’lin and his dragon and the doomed rocks, and their wingsecond had her sagging against the wall for support as she laughed.

“And what became of C’lin the Indestructible? Why haven’t we been introduced?” Reya asked once she recovered her breath. And then she realized why they probably hadn’t been introduced. A dragonrider could have a very short life. T’of’s first Threadfall had probably only been two turns ago.

“You haven’t met him because the b*****d fell in love with some minercraft girl and left the Weyr.” T’of replied, reading her expression and guessing correctly what she had assumed. “He didn’t die. As you say, he is indestructible.”

“Do people do that often? Leave the Weyr?” She had never been in candidate lessons, and none of her weyrling lessons had mentioned that as an option. Not that Reya wanted to leave High Reaches. She didn’t even want to transfer, if she was being completely honest with herself, even though transferring would have allowed her son to live with her again.

“Some do,” T’of acknowledged. “But not often. Not completely, the way C’lin did. Mostly they’ll transfer. When his lover was transferred to the Southern Continent, he followed her.”

Reya frowned her disapproval. Even though she knew she had more or less abandoned her son, she still looked poorly on others who abandoned their duties. “Dragons can get anywhere in the world in eight seconds. Leaving seems unnecessary.”

“Maybe he wanted an excuse to get away from the cold,” T’of said with a shrug accompanied by an upward glance. When she followed his gaze Reya saw that the sky was a pearly grey and snow was beginning to fall. Reya hated snow.

“I should call Raqi back,” she said. “Before my slippers get wet, and my dressings, and everything.”

T’of nodded, the good humor in his expression somewhat diminished, and then he gestured to one of several points of ingress to the Weyr. This one was one typically used by visitors, and had something of an interior staging area where they could sit while waiting for things to be loaded and unloaded, or for a dragon to become free to ferry them to wherever they were going. Reya thought it might even have been where she and R’bin had come in for the hatching where she Impressed Raqi.

She accompanied T’of into the tunnel and let Raqi know that she was ready for her ride. Not four paces into the tunnel, her slippers lost their purchase and she was on her bottom before she even had time to flail. T’of, who had been slightly ahead of her, whirled and grabbed for her, but missed. It was almost a full second before Reya realized she had come down on her burned leg, but realization came when it became apparent that numbweed was insufficient for that sort of abuse.

Reya? came Raqi’s voice, full of alarm.

Embarrassed, she waved off T’of’s offer of assistance and Raqi’s concern. (Did T’of look relieved that she had done so? Surely not.) She made her way to one of the carved stone benches with as much dignity as she could muster and took a seat. Her a** felt bruised and the stone was cold and now her leg hurt.

“Are you hurt?” T’of asked, earning himself a glare for stupid questions. “Your arm, I mean. And your leg.”

Reya flexed her right elbow experimentally. It didn’t feel any different. Apparently the numbweed there was working just fine. When she looked down at her leg, however, she could see that the bottom of her bandage was trailing loose and the rest of it was beginning to slide down.

“Shardit,” she muttered, awkwardly hauling her leg onto the stone bench beside her.

“Let me,” T’of offered, moving to crouch in front of her before carefully shifting her so that both legs were once more hanging off the bench, but her right foot rested on his left knee. He somehow made the entire sequence look smooth enough that it could have been rehearsed, and accomplished it with the barest tug on her left slipper and right calf.

She did not miss the way he swallowed hard and flexed his hands before beginning to gingerly roll up her right trouser leg, nor how he used only the tips of his fingers to touch her trousers. Even if she had somehow missed that, though, it would have been more difficult to miss the obvious steadying breath he took before he started unwinding her fallen bandages, and the way he almost seemed to rock slightly while he bared her burned leg. There was no way she could fail to see the shudder that ran through his entire body when he looked at the bubbling blistered skin over her shin and the way his seemed to repress an urge to gag.

“I can manage,” she said stiffly, though she was not completely sure she could. Her leg really did look disgusting, she had to agree. The fact that several of the largest blisters had burst with the impact of her fall and were now seeping down her leg made it all the worse.

T’of had closed his eyes and was taking quick, shallow breaths. She hoped he wasn’t about to throw up on her. That would almost certainly mar the healing process.

“No. I can do this,” T’of insisted. “I just need a moment. I’m really not good with broken skin.”

“I thought you trained as a healer?” Reya asked, not so much to contradict him as to give herself something else to think about. She felt a little queasy from the pain in her leg, which raged as if she hadn’t bothered to put any numbweed on it at all.

T’of had opened his eyes once more and was looking into the middle distance as his hands seemed to move almost of their own volition, finding the end of her bandage and beginning to wrap it around her foot. Watching his hands, Reya recalled that was the way the healer in the infirmary had shown her to wrap her bandages. She had started above her knee and worked her way down.

“I did. But it turns out I am uncomfortable with many parts of healercraft,” T’of answered. Usually such a statement would have been accompanied by a self-deprecating grin or a wry smile, but it was obvious that he was barely keeping it together. Despite his evident discomfort, he was quick and accomplished his task as though he had been doing it daily for turns.

Something inside Reya went gooey at the thought that T’of was forcing himself to do something for her that came close to making him physically ill, but he was doing it. She told the gooey something to find something useful to do and set about rolling her trouser leg down. It was awkward, doing it one-handed with her opposite hand, but she couldn’t bear to put him through any more discomfort. The fact that when she finished, he slid her lost slipper on as if he’d been waiting his entire life to do made the gooey something jiggle, but she ignored it.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “It looks like I need to practice some more.”

“Or maybe don’t get any more burns,” T’of replied. He was trying for humor, she was pretty sure, but his tone came across sharper than that.

“Or that,” she agreed.

Reya, I’m here. I’m sorry it took me so long but we were out deep and are you all right? Raqi’s voice crowded her head just as her green body blocked the tunnel.

“I’m all right,” Reya told everyone. “Just embarrassed.”
 

[Princess_Feylin]

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” T’of assured Reya.

His stomach still churned, even though he had backed away several paces after replacing Reya’s slipper. He had not been so close to an open wound in turns, and he was surprised he hadn’t ended up embarrassing himself more than he actually had. He was absolutely not happy with how badly he had reacted, from failing to help Reya to her feet to his utter inability to conceal his revulsion, but he was still astonished that he had managed to do all that he had.

You saw, Makh said. It was not a question.

Yes, T’of replied shortly. He was not happy with his dragon. We’ll talk later.

“Can you get onto Raqi’s back?” he asked. He already knew before she answered him what her answer would be, and he was correct: she considered for a moment and determined that she would, indeed, be able to do so.

They were making their way back to the bowl with shuffling steps (on Reya’s part) and flexing hands (on T’of’s). Outside, Raqi had already lowered herself to the ground as much as she was able, but she wore no harnesses. It would be a scrambling climb for Reya to mount her. That she did not need.

“Here,” T’of said, shrugging out of his topmost layer, which happened to be an old flying jacket. It was too beaten up to be safe to fight Thread in, but it fit him just right and he had held onto it.

Reya looked at him with an expression somewhere between incredulity and indignation and he explained, “It’s snowing. I know how you feel about snow. You made it abundantly clear last winter.”

Reya rolled her eyes and T’of’s knotted stomach unknotted just a little bit as he draped it around her shoulders. It would have been a pain in the arse to maneuver her arm through the sleeve with the sling, so he didn’t bother. Instead he tucked the empty sleeves into their opposite pockets so that it would stay on temporarily without requiring her to try to unfasten the frogs with one hand from inside the jacket at a later date.

How thoughtful, Makh observed wryly. You know you’ll never be able to wear that jacket again.

Shut up, T’of replied. I know what I’m doing.

And he did.

“Let me give you a hand,” he offered. Reya looked pointedly at the tucked-in sleeves and then back at him, her expression saying that he had better give her a hand, since he had effectively taken away her own.

“Hold your arms like this,” he instructed, demonstrating by clasping his hands together in front of him a little below waist level and forming a right angle with his elbows. “And lock your elbows and shoulders. Sort of like doing a plank.”

It was a little difficult to see if Reya had done as he asked inside his jacket, but he could see her arms moving and then going still, so he assumed that she had done as he’d asked. Touching only his jacket, T’of maneuvered Reya so that the outside of her left heel touched Raqi’s right flank. She was giving him a look that said she did not know what he was planning, but she was willing to go along with him for now.

Oh, I see, Makh said suddenly, and then communicated to Raqi what T’of planned to do. The green leaned slightly toward the humans, dipping her right shoulder and holding her right wing out of the way to the best of her ability.

“Are you ready?” T’of asked.

At Reya’s nod he stepped close and cupped his hands under her elbows, his jacket enabling him to do so without actually touching her. Then he bent at the knees and lifted, propelling Reya up and onto Raqi’s back. The little green, having received instruction from Makh, waited until the last minute and then settled toward her left again, her momentum doing the last bit of work to carry Reya into position. T’of smiled, pleased with his successful solution. His heart was beating faster than the amount of physical effort he had expended actually required, but he’d come very near to touching her, so that was no surprise.

“All right?” he asked as he squinted up through the snow.

“Thank you, T’of,” was her reply. Accompanied by a smile that made T’of feel about ten feet tall. It stayed in place as he waved Reya and Raqi off, but he was already speaking to Makh, as promised.

You knew, T’of accused the dragon. And you didn’t tell me.

I was unsure how you would react. You surprised me, and I’m proud of you.

What do you mean by that?

Only that your aversion to being touched is nothing compared to your revulsion when faced with open wounds or weeping sores, or similar conditions. I thought you might not be able to handle being around Reya while she exhibited those injuries. The dragon was unapologetic, as usual, and T’of was angry at him for it even though it was hard not to acknowledge that Makh’s concern was not entirely misplaced.

T’of scowled. What he hated most was that Makh wasn’t wrong. If it had been anyone else T’of probably would have been yards away in an instant, and he certainly never would have come near them again. Even knowing logically that things like burns healed and were in no way contagious, the nature of T’of’s mind made it difficult for him to actually believe he would not be contaminated by such things.

The fact that he had rewrapped Reya’s bandage was unusual in the extreme. That he had then lent her a favorite jacket was unheard of. Coming close enough that they were briefly breathing the same air was so far out of character it was shocking.

She matters to me, he told Makh, even his mental voice soft.

The blue dragon rumbled sympathetically. She matters to me, too. That’s why I acted as I did. I didn’t want to run the risk you wouldn’t be able to stand to be around her.

I understand. I’m still mad. But I understand. And I really need a bath. Because he was still T'of, and his skin was crawling.