fin - quitcherbitchin (tag La!)

[tuathade]

"For Faranth's sake," C'ross sighed, leaning himself against a darkly mottled bronze flank, "do we have to go through this every season?"

Merceth hissed balefully, tail lashing in displeasure - rather like one of Pern's wild felines, really. He turned one orange-yellow eye towards C'ross, the hue only slightly tinged with grey. There is nothing wrong with me! he huffed irritably. The green-tinged lines on his neck and chest said otherwise. None of the scratches were deep enough to be serious. Merceth had, predictably, balked at the thought of going to the healers over what he insisted was 'nothing'. At C'ross' insistence he reluctantly agreed, but the flight over to an open clearing by the river had re-opened a few of the worst ones. A few small, sluggish trickles of ichor clung to his hide where the bronze wasn't quite flexible enough to clean them off himself.

Nicoth's Flights were bloody affairs. Not that Merceth would ever let anyone else catch her - he'd probably try to tear a wing off any dragon that attempted it, poor sonsofbitches. The scratches and bites themselves didn't trouble Merceth anyway. No, it was always going to the Healer afterward that he objected to. For reasons known only to the bronze, he loathed the resident dragonhealers. He loathed being handled by anyone except his rider, really, with only a very few notable exceptions. This made the job of patching up his injuries incredibly unpleasant for everyone involved.

The slim young Healer apprentice who’d come over to investigate slowed as he approached, then wavered, clearly uncertain about the wisdom of further aggravating an already agitated, pissed-off dragon. Merceth rewarded this prudence by lowering his head to within face-eating range and roaring at maximum volume. The sound, at short range, was outright deafening.

C’ross himself was in a much gentler mood than his dragon. (Though he was sorely wishing he was back with his weyrmate - just once, just once, he would have liked to spend the day with I'saac after one of Nicoth's Flights.) He waved the boy off as soon as they could both hear again over the ringing in their ears. “Go on,” he urged the apprentice, in his best I’m-squadleader-don’t-bother-arguing-with-me tone. “Go fetch one of the Journeymen. Tell ‘em it’s Merceth, and Nicoth got him. They’ll know who you’re talking about.”

After three Turns, they’d sharding well better. C’ross and I’saac were fairly well-known among all of Warden’s, but among the healers Merceth had a particularly infamous and unpleasant reputation. Reluctantly, the boy headed back off the way he came. Merceth subsided back into low, uneasy growling.

This was going to be a long day. C’ross could tell already.

[giftwrapped]

As was so common for the Master Dragonhealer now that she had acquired a bad-tempered baby firelizard, Lanakirene was bent over her desk in her office at the riverside, applying a mixture of zinc and oil to a particularly itchy patch of the little brown's hide when Ralvyn came to get her. And though she sighed, setting Jackass aside with little ceremony and straightening up in her seat, she fixed her apprentice with a curiously sharp expression, listening to him intently while he explained the situation and then picking up a large basket and filling it with bottles of redwort, a large pot of numbweed, and a double armful of bandages. Injured dragons were no good to begin with, but an injured bronze was even worse.

She didn't recognize the names beyond the cursory, though. 'Merceth' came up in her head as a Squadleader, and also, if she recalled correctly, a fairly well-respected former Watch wingleader. But her personal experience with the bronze was nonexistent, and 'Nicoth' rang only the barest of bells in the back of her mind. Curious to see if her dragon could offer any insight, she nudged him firmly with her mind, laughing as she felt the sleepy blue presence waken to curiosity. Kith, dear, I have a question for you. Nicoth. Which of the dragons is that, do you know?

Nicoth? For a moment, Kith seemed quietly thoughtful, and then he gave a ferocious yawn that left La stifling one of her own and rolled over onto his back, wriggling down into his wallow and beginning to fall back asleep. Yes, it's a familiar name. A green. She Rose last night, in fact. The last sentence was accompanied by the cheerful excitement of dragon memory; Kith had pulled up an event all on his lonesome! But when he spoke again his tone was dulled with mild irritation. I did mention it. You wouldn't let me chase.

"You get enough without crashing established hierarchies, you stupid beast," La answered, sticking her head out the window of her office to grimace at the blue for a moment before she returned inside for the basket. So a mating flight accident. Not unusual, more common with golds than greens, but such was the life of dragonriders. So the bronze, poor dear, had got caught in the crossfire and the green had sent him packing when he strayed too close to another suitor. She patched injuries like that up all the time. Routine operation: clean, numb, bandage. Nothing fussy or worrisome at all.

Basket on one arm, she picked up her violet-wrapped cane with her free hand. Her silver hair was tied up in a matching violet headscarf, and for once, she had remembered to wear her appropriate knots. After a time, it got frustrating, constantly informing other Crafters that you held rank superior to theirs. So as she strolled out to meet the bronze and his rider (a tall fellow with white-streaked hair who, she couldn't help but notice, seemed none too pleased with the situation; they rarely were when their dragons lost, she supposed) she was, for once, almost cutting an impressive figure.

At least, she looked like a master-ranked dragonhealer. Which was, frankly, more than could really be said about Lanakirene at any other time of the day. As she drew closer to C'ross and Merceth, her eyes were on the dragon's wounds. Shoulder, chest, a bit around the base of the neck. Faranth, had he tried to catch her unawares only to be sent packing? These weren't pretty injuries. Nothing life-threatening, but....still. "Was that roar a summons for me? Because honestly, you'd do best to just knock; Ralvyn's better at opening doors than deciphering dragon-shouting," she called as soon as she was in hearing range.

[tuathade]

Hold on, who was that? The woman striding towards C'ross and Merceth was completely unfamiliar. Not any of the familiar Warden's regulars he knew... Shells, was that the Masterhealer? The intricate knots were unmistakable. This was definitely the woman who'd come with the Watch, then stuck around well after everyone else had left. And unbeknownst to C'ross, the boy he'd just sent packing had been her apprentice.

Just his luck, really.

Merceth's eyes whirled through a myriad of colors, none of them calm or friendly. His head whipped around, that blazing gaze now fixed on Lanakirene. The bronze's wings half-mantled as if he were about to take off again, but C'ross kept him firmly rooted to the ground. Still, the silent battle of wills currently occurring between dragon and rider was downright ferocious.

"Masterhealer," C'ross called back, polite but curt. "Didn't mean to bother you for something so minor - I was expecting a journeyman." This was going to be awkward to explain. C'ross felt Merceth's muzzle nudging insistently at his back, and he took a firm grip on the dragon's nearer headknob. It served a dual purpose; his free hand rubbed the dragon's eyeridges in a (somewhat futile) attempt at calming the stressed dragon. And as long as he kept that solid hold on Merceth's headknob, he would at least be able to keep his dragon's head still. Merceth wouldn't jerk around too much for fear of accidentally throwing or injuring his rider. And apparently the bronze realized this, because he started hissing furiously.

"He's not a fan of healers," C'ross offered by way of explanation. "But every time he catches Nicoth, she tears him up and we end up down here." The rider sighed. One of these days, he was just going to have to bite the bullet and get a healer to teach him how to patch up the wounds himself. It would be so much easier than going through this mess every time.

[giftwrapped]

La's first impression of the bronze was big. She'd worked with everything, from undersized green hatchlings to queens that could have stood to lay off a herdbeast or four a sevenday, so the impressive size of the bronze didn't shock her by any means. But she couldn't deny that in terms of dragons, Merceth was on the larger end. As opposed to Kith, who looked like he was maybe eleven months grown even twenty-three turns later. He had interesting markings, too, she noted, attractive high-contrast ones. Wouldn't be an easy dragon to mistake or forget.

Her second impression was nasty. But just like Merceth's size failed to startle her, his attitude failed to intimidate her. As the bronze stared her down, mantled his wings, and generally made a show of how big and tough and nasty he was, La continued her approach with calm dignity, keeping her eyes on the dragon while her attention was focused on C'ross. The menacing hiss didn't even elicit a change of expression. "It's no trouble at all, Squadleader," she answered the rider lightly, and had she not been carrying basket in one hand and cane in the other, she would have flapped dismissively at him.

"I've been assigned a permanent post here, so what better way to get to know my new Weyr than take the mundane - did you say he caught her?"

And there, her attention wavered, expression fixed on C'ross in a manner that was momentarily sharp. So this was the winner of the flight? Bleeding sluggishly from shoulders and neck like he had been mauled by a wild feline? Well...it did explain the time gap between Merceth and the few unlucky losers she'd patched up the night before. "That green must be a real prize," she remarked drily, returning her attention to Merceth and striding straight up to him without even a second look at C'ross.

"You," she began suddenly to the dragon, tone going from cheerful to sharp without a discernible interval between the two, "can stop that. I wasn't born yesterday and I'm not an addlebrained apprentice. I'm not afraid of you and roaring isn't going to help. If you don't stop this noise and stand still, I will hit you with my cane." And she dropped the basket, raising the cane and taking it in a two-handed grip for emphasis.

[tuathade]

When La raised her cane and threatened to hit him, Merceth's eyes went immediately from greyish-orange to a pale yellow. The dragon's head jerked back in a sudden flinch, inadvertently dragging C'ross a good three feet or so as the rider refused to release his grip. (C'ross knew from experience that, given the opportunity, Merceth was not above trying to bolt - and he'd be scorched if he'd let La witness him lose control of his dragon.) Hunching up a little, the baleful hiss changed to a low anxious rumble as Merceth eyed this strange, nasty old lady with the cane.

I don't need a healer, Merceth informed La, speaking to her directly now. The tone of his mindvoice was only marginally less hostile than the tone of his earlier hiss. I'm fine. You can go back home now.

"Merceth," C'ross said softly, warning in his tone. To be honest, the squadleader wasn't entirely sure what to make of Lanakirene. On the one hand, it took a confident healer to approach Merceth in his bad moods without so much as batting an eye. She was efficient, he would give her that. On the other hand, he got the distinct impression that he was being... well, dismissed.

"Weyrmate, actually," he pointed out flatly, in response to La's remark. His free hand fiddled with the high collar of his shirt. Shards, he was glad he'd decided to wear that; he'd rather not explain the marks to her.

[giftwrapped]

The Bespeaking didn't faze the healer any more than anything else did, and La simply gave Merceth a wry smile and a one-shouldered shrug, the sort of expression that suggested she was mildly amused and not much else. "It's nice that you think so, dear, but those nasty cuts on you say otherwise, and they say it rather loudly." Her tone was no longer sharp, but moderately soothing, the gentle way of speaking that healers had when they didn't want to further upset their patients.

She was already getting to work, having laid the cane aside and begun digging in the basket for the things she needed. Unscrewing one of the jars of redwort, she dipped both hands into it, turning away from both rider and dragon to shake the excess liquid off her hands. Thus sanitized and desensitized to the numbing salve, she returned to her basket, pulling out the pot of numbweed and setting the lid back in the basket.

Then her attention went cheerfully back to C'ross. "Squadleader, my apologies, just wanted to get him squared away. And I meant nothing ill to Nicoth's rider, dear, but a dragon that mauls the winner of her Flights almost as thoroughly as the losers sounds like a particular brand of challenge you don't come across every day." Her words were light, cheerful, but for a moment, La's eyes lingered on the collar of C'ross's shirt, and the hand he was using to fiddle with it. High collar after a Flight was unsurprising, but with the nasty wounds on the bronze, she couldn't help but wonder. Were there marks to mirror Merceth's under there?

"Master Dragonhealer Lanakirene at your service, Squadleader. And while I know your rank just as thoroughly as you know mine, I can't say I know your name. Kith isn't one for humans, and I'm afraid I'm a bit behind. Warden gave me a list of weyrlings and wherhandlers to memorize, so I haven't had much time to find out about the rest of the Weyr."

"And you can tell Merceth that he needn't be such a fussy little thing, if you like. It would probably mean more to him, coming from you."

[tuathade]

I'm not fussing. Merceth's eyes narrowed, orange sneaking back into their hue as indignance replaced dismay, and his tail lashed furrows in the riverbank behind him. You're being condescending.

"Lanakirene." C'ross repeated the name to solidify it in his memory for future reference. "Name's C'ross. You already know my big idiot here... And I'm afraid nothing I could say would do much good." He spoke with the tired resignation of long experience. When the big bronze got it into his head to dig in his heels, it was like trying to drag a recalcitrant draybeast. A giant recalcitrant draybeast with wings.

The 'fussing' comment must have stung worse than C'ross thought, though, because with an angry snort Merceth parked his hindquarters on the ground and let his wings fold quietly to his side. He'd show her. Rude old healer lady with her cane and her... whatever that stuff was she was putting on her hands... Merceth's growls had mostly died away to an intermittent rumbling at this point.

Satisfied that his dragon was not going to bolt at any moment, C'ross let go of his firm grip on Merceth, letting his hand trail down the dragon's eyeridges to stroke his muzzle reassuringly. While his voice and expression might tell one story, the actions told another one entirely.

[giftwrapped]

"And you're being a bit of a wherryhead," La answered the dragon absently as she approached, "but I can forgive you. None of these look very nice to be dealing with, and I'd be a nasty old tunnelcat if someone came and bothered me while I was in pain." She paused for a moment then, glancing up at Merceth and giving him a brief smile. There, see, Merceth? She wasn't a terrible old monster at all. Well, maybe a very slight bit of terrible monster, but only because she needed to be or nobody would take her seriously.

"Now then, I want to get an idea of how bad this is, and at least get some numbweed on it so it stops hurting you." She spoke for the rider's benefit as much as the dragon's, though judging by the entire situation, he...C'ross (she reminded herself that a few times mentally so it solidified; La had a good memory for names and faces. Call it a gift) was used to this. And then as she got up close enough to Merceth, ducking under the dragon's neck to get at his shoulders and chest, she realized that he must have been. The fresh wounds were bad, but there were old scars criscrossing the hide beneath the new cuts. She gave a long, low whistle.

"Weyrmates for how long?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at C'ross and smiling when she saw that he was keeping the bronze calm. Big baby. Reaching bare-handed into the jar of numbweed (redwort: the most wonderful plant on Pern, whose oil served as both an antiseptic and a counteraction to the effects of numbweed salve), she scooped up a palmful of the salve and began spreading it over the cuts. Her motions were gentle but confident, and she moved as quickly as she could without hurting the dragon.

[tuathade]

C’ross. Merceth hissed softly. What is she doing?

Just hush and listen. She’s explaining.

Great. So Lanakirene had noticed the older scars, had she? Well, she could hardly fail to notice them. They were one of Merceth’s most notable characteristics. In the days after Threadfall, scarred dragons were less and less common… Barring oddities like Nicoth, anyway.

“Going on… three turns, now,” C’ross responded. “We’ve known each other longer than that, but we weren’t officially together until shortly after Warden’s opened.” The vague way he phrased his response implied that there was a story behind it, but C’ross didn’t particularly feel like explaining his and I’saac’s… colorful history to some healer he hardly knew. Lanakirene would probably find it out soon enough, if she poked around a little. They were a fairly well-known pair among the Warden’s riders. Nicoth’s flights in particular were… memorable. Yes. Memorable seemed like a good word for what they were.

Merceth cocked his head awkwardly, trying to angle head and neck so that he could keep watch on Lanakirene with one amber-hued eye. This was rather difficult, seeing as she was working on his chest at the moment. He fidgeted at first, a faint whine escaping his muzzle. But as the numbweed salve began to take effect and the fresh wounds stopped hurting, the huge bronze relaxed under her steady touch.

“So dramatic,” C’ross murmured absently.

[giftwrapped]

"So plenty of time to earn these, then," La remarked to herself in an undertone, finishing with the numbweed and stepping back as the dragon relaxed. She glanced back at C'ross, then, giving him a peculiar, searching sort of look and rubbing the back of her neck thoughtfully. Whatever the rider's relationship with his weyrmate was, it seemed complicated. And potentially problematic. Faranth, she ought to have gotten to know more of the squadriders. But she had been so preoccupied with everything else, inspecting the whers and the new dragonets...

Well, there was no use crying over it. She hadn't met squadriders early, so she was meeting them now. And that was all there was to it. She returned to her basket, returning the pot of numbweed and scrubbing her hands off on one of her rags. "And this happens every time she Flies?" she asked C'ross, glancing over her shoulder with a look that held more disbelief than it ought to have. She didn't want to believe something like that. Faranth; the idea that a dragon could do something of the sort to another dragon in a flight upset her.

But on the plus side, she felt wholly gratified that she had refused to permit Kith from chasing. And Kith, looking through her eyes, had to acquiesce. The last thing La would have needed was her little blue torn up like this. Or worse, like the chasers who hadn't won. "So," she said lightly to C'ross, picking up one of her redwort jars and a handful of thick cloth pads and returning to the dragon. "I patched up a few unlucky males last night. Same Flight, I assume. They were worse off." She quirked a smile that didn't have as much humour as she would have liked. "Did he take after them as well, then?"

"This might sting in spite of the numbweed, dear," she added to Merceth, and poured the jar of redwort over the cuts. She didn't like wasting redwort like that, but Warden's wasn't quite as well-stocked as her infirmary at Igen had been, and she was still negotiating terms for regular deliveries of her preferred antiseptics from Healer Hall. But at least redwort applied after numbweed didn't negate the salve, and it would rinse out any sand or dirt particles. And that done, she set about securing the folded cloth over the wounds. "At least she mauls cleanly," she remarked, again in an undertone. Nothing about this was positive.

[tuathade]

…and there she went. C’ross knew that look, the searching, disbelieving I-am-concerned-about-you look. Making assumptions. So many people had made assumptions – depending on who they met first. Either they saw Merceth’s scars, or they saw Nicoth’s. Either they saw an aspiring bronzerider who threw his career away to move to a backwater prison, or they saw a mild-mannered greenrider a little too devoted to a wingleader who took advantage. People saw problems before seeing the good. And none of it was theirs to judge, it was none of their business. C’ross was sharding tired of it.

“Her Flights are rough, yeah.” There was something sharp and defensive about the rider’s voice and expression now, where before he’d been solely focused on Merceth’s distress. Lanakirene had struck a nerve; even C’ross had to admit, sometimes, in the aftermath of her Flights that Nicoth was… not normal. Merceth was a problematic and often unpredictable creature, but Nicoth was something else entirely. “But Merceth can handle her. And he doesn’t take kindly to other males getting in the way.”

Merceth hissed softly, flinching back a bit from the redwort, then fidgeting as the cuts were bandaged. The bronze could sense his rider’s rising temper, as well as the cause. And, considerably blunter than his rider, Merceth went for the obvious solution: clearly, he should just explain to Lanakirene. Then she would understand. I chase Nicoth because I want to. Her rider and my rider belong together. I’saac is very nice, and hardly ever bites except when Nicoth is proddy - and I don't think C'ross minds.[/i]

The look on C’ross’ face was momentarily horrorstruck, as he realized what Merceth was doing too late to tell him to shut up. Fan-sharding-tastic. "...Apparently my dragon is a deadglow, and after this we're going to be having a talk about how much information is too much information."

[giftwrapped]

And that was the point at which Lanakirene burst out laughing.

She shouldn't have; the idea that the bond between rider and dragon was strong enough that Flight behaviour could breach it to that point was worrisome, but there was no other way to go about considering this. Faranth, the dragon and rider had seen right through her, and while C'ross was clearly the type to get angry, his well-meaning bronze was just trying to smooth things over. Well, at least he had managed to lighten Lanakirene's thoughts on the whole thing. At least the relationship wasn't abusive - just a little bit kinky.

Pfffffft, it took all sorts, didn't it. Getting herself together just as she finished tying off the bandages, La turned away from Merceth and gave C'ross an apologetic little smile. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. It's just, well, him." And she patted Merceth affectionately on the neck, above the highest reach of his scrapes. "And I take it you..." she trailed off in a question, hand going to her neck and indicating the high collar of C'ross's shirt. The laughter in her voice was barely contained as she continued. "I can get you something for bruises if any of them are really nasty."

In fact, she was going to do it anyway. Sending a quick mental command to Trouble, she only had to wait a moment before the fat bronze appeared with a small pot of something, dropping it into La's hand before catching sight of Merceth and making a noise that could only be described as 'eep!' He disappeared with the faintest of 'pops' and La shook her head, walking over to C'ross and offering him the pot of salve. "Just topical....but it should last a while. Until she flies again, I imagine."

"Don't be a stranger, C'ross," she said lightly. "Though I doubt you will. Take care!"