An Unexpected Meeting
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyrhold
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Elsewhere on Pern
NPC Weyr (NPC)
River Bluff Weyr
Seacraft Hall
Writers: Avery, Yvonne
Date Posted: 23rd January 2021
Characters: Kadira, R'hil
Description: Rushil looks for the Infirmary and finds Kadira.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 7, day 16 of Turn 10
It was just a scratch. He'd had worse. Rushil grumbled to himself as he wandered through the Weyr looking for the Infirmary, one hand clapped over the back of his head and leaking blood on the floor. He'd tripped while running backwards to watch a dragon take off and taken a header into some rocks. He'd seen stars for moment, but it wasn't a big deal.
But he couldn't find the Infirmary. The Weyr was a worse maze than a mine.
Kadira was going to be late to her afternoon shift, and it was going to be all her brother's fault. Him and his ideas of her Standing this time, and how long that discussion had gone, and how she'd actually started _thinking_ about it this time as opposed it it just being the old routine argument, and now she had to make it into the Infirmary before Master Norvad showed up because he was _always_ hard on everyone and -
She rounded a corner and saw someone standing there with Candidate knots on his shoulder. It sparked her irritation, because great, she really didn't want to think more about Candidates right now. Then she noticed he wasn't just standing idly. He had a hand on his head and it seemed to have something on it.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"Uh." Rushil looke up to find a young woman with short brown hair looking at him. "I'm supposed to find the Infirmary. Do you know where that is?"
"I'm going there," she informed him, tapping her knots. "What'd you do to yourself?"
He glanced at the knots but they were an incomprehensible tangle to him. "Just tripped and hit my head. It always bleeds a lot when you do that but it's no big deal."
"It is a big deal. You could have a concussion. Come on, follow me," she said with some resignation.
"Nah, I'm fine. Just a little blood," he said. There was no way that he'd admit to an injury to a pretty girl. "When I was eight my cousin got a concussion though. He threw up and then couldn't remember what happened to him."
"And do you remember what happened to you?" She asked.
"Yeah. I tripped." He shrugged. "Why are you going to the Infirmary? You look pretty healthy to me."
Well, at least his memory was sound. Point against concussion but she'd see what she could see at the actual infirmary. She started walking and watched him come with her, assessing his gait.
Her own stride was nearly thrown off by what he asked. What a rude question. She wore her knots with pride. Had he never seen Healer ones before? Did he just not believe them because she was a girl?
He did have Candidate knots and didn't know where he was going, she reminded herself; maybe he was just extremely new and overwhelmed. "I work there. I'm an apprentice Healer."
"Oh. Neat! What do you do there?" Rushil asked.
"I'm a Healer," she repeated. "I fix people. Like your head. When we get there. It's just to this left by the way, through the doors."
Rushil followed her through the doors and paused a moment to take in the sound and smell. Numbweed, he thought, and the herbaceous scent of a clean room. And other scents, things that he couldn't identify but made him feel suspicious. Who knew what kind of herbs and potions that they made up in here? After a moment's hesitation he continued to follow the girl deeper into the Infirmary. "I didn't get your name?" he asked.
"Kadira," she said over her shoulder.
She trotted up to the Master on duty, a short man who seemed wide as a barrel and had a very gruff face. "Master Norvad? I found this Candidate who scraped his head and who needed to be brought here, but he was lost. Can I treat him and have you check it over?"
"Kadira, you're late," he grumbled in his deep voice, gesturing at the time marker. "But for helping bring in a patient, I'll allow it. Yes, you can."
"Thanks," she said. Then she turned back to Rushil. "Come on and follow me."
He hesitated briefly, then followed after Kadira. If she tried anything funny he was pretty sure that he could take her. And besides, his head did hurt.
She guided him to a private cot and pulled aside the curtain. "Here you go. Take a seat," she invited. "I'm going to wash my hands with redwort so they're clean and then take a look at your head."
Rushil sat as directed and watched as she watched her hands. She was about his age, he thought, and the way the curls of her hair brushed the nape of her neck was oddly endearing. "So. Um... are you from here?" he asked. It seemed like the standard question at the Weyr.
"I'm weyrbred, and I've been living at Dragonsfall awhile. I'm from River Bluff, though." She'd turned to face him as she said it, so the quick flash of pain that crossed her face was visible.
Picking up gauze, she daubed the blood from his head. "Head wounds always bleed a ton. Sorry if the gauze feels rough."
"It's all right." Her touch was much gentler than the way his Mam had tended his scrapes and bruises growing up. He hesitated, not knowing if talking about River Bluff Weyr's collapse was a good idea or not. His Mam said that bandits had blown up the Weyr, but he'd heard differently from the men working the mine up the road from their cothold. After a moment he decided on what he thought was a safe statement. "I'm glad you're all right."
"I get to see snow, now. That's something. River Bluff was by the beach and we didn't get snow. What about you, grow up in - Amber Hills? Opal Cove? Amethyst Cliff?" Those were the big Hold regions for this Weyr, right? She was forgetting one... "Malachite Gulch, maybe? Any of those regions?"
"Yeah. Near a mining hold, but my family lived in a cot by ourselves on our farm," he said, a bit vaguely. His Mam hadn't truly answered the Search dragon either when they'd met the pair on the road, and as much as he wanted to like Kadira, she was still one of _them_.
"Oh, so you probably saw snow before you came here. What about dragons, had you seen them much?" She pulled the gauze away and looked. Without the blood, well - he was right, it wasn't so bad. "That looks not so horrible. You'll still have to do chores and all."
He looked up, surprised. "You mean that if you hit your head bad enough, you _don't_ have to do chores?!"
"Yes, if you had an actual concussion," she said, flicking fingers back and forth in front of his face.
The movement made him blink but he refrained from batting her hand away. "Back at home, Mam said if you could stand you could do something useful."
"Well, you're tracking my fingers...the cut doesn't look like it needs stitches...your pupils seem the same sized...how's the headache? Not feeling like you're gonna vomit?"
"Naw." Like he'd vomit on a girl's feet. Then a thought occured to him. "Do people do that to you?"
"Do what?" she asked. "Try to fake sickness to not do chores?"
"Vomit on you."
"I've been thrown up on, bled on, pissed on, shat on. Part of being a Healer," she said. "Babies especially aren't great at controlling things. They're not my favorite. But people who are real sick sometimes puke too."
Rushil whistled low, impressed. "That's really gross."
"Part of being a Healer," she said again. "My mother's a Master, and she stitches people up after Threadfall, if you get scored and need major stitches or a limb removed, she does that kind of thing and I've got to watch and help it."
The Candidate blinked, turning over what she'd said in his head. "What do you do with the limbs you chop off?"
Kadira paused. "I dunno, the Journeymen handle it. Dump them /between/ maybe so they don't contaminate things. I mean, works for dragon waste."
His imagination had been sparked by the idea of a mound of limbs somewhere at the Weyr, but a new thought occured to Rushil. "I wonder if /between/ will ever get full of all the things we put there."
"I don't know, but you ask really good questions, you know that?" she said. She then mentally ran over the list of things to check him for, with a head wound. She'd cleaned it, determined it didn't need stitches, checked for concussion... Then walked around behind him to see if it was bleeding again."How's the pain now?"
"It's fine." He was silent as she prodded the back of his head. He didn't want to wince. "How come... you're really good at this, but how come you decided to be a healer instead of a dragonrider?"
She noticed a little more blood was seeping and went to a basin that had chilled water, dipping a rag in it. "Hold this to the back of your head, just to cool the area and make the last bit of bloodflow sluggish."
"My mother's a Healer, and her work's _important_. We save lives down here. Without Healers, dragonriders - and other people - wouldn't stick around long enough to do their jobs." Then she sighed. "My brother's getting on me to Stand like he does before I get too old. I talked to another Healer who's also a rider who agrees. And I should talk to my dad about it too."
"What do you think you should do?" Rushil asked.
"I think I should..." her voice trailed off as footsteps happened outside the cubicle. "Get back to work," she murmured softly.
Master Norvad pulled open the curtain. "How's the head wound, apprentice?" he rumbled.
Kadira said, "Bloody as usual for the head, but patient reports no headache, no signs of concussion such as memory loss, pupil changes."
"Needs stitches?" he asked, coming around to look.
"No sir."
"No need for an infection poultice. Seems minor but messy. Still, he'll need to stay awake for at least the next five candlemarks. If a headache develops or you have trouble seeing, come right on back, you understand, son?"
"I ain't your son," Rushil muttered as he slid off the table. It was just a bump on the head. He turned to Kadira. "Thanks for... stuff."
"No problem. See you around," she said as he departed.
"You took awhile. Was it that complicated?" the Master asked.
"No sir, just checking for concussion by making sure he could engage in conversation," she said.
The Master looked amused, and said. "Very well. So, tell me about your choices..."
As he led her out the cubicle, talking about her performance, she saw Rushil walking out the door, and tried to catch his eye to wave another little goodbye.
Last updated on the February 19th 2021