So far, Tarie's time at the Weyr had been uneventful. In addition to the Harper classes, exercise, and Weyr-specific lessons, Tarie had chosen to learn from the Weyrhealer as it seemed the most interesting occupation--and, which the Weyrhealer had correctly guessed, it would give her chances to work with dragonriders.
The Weyrhealer was unassuming upon first glance, with light-brown hair that was slightly shorter than most men's, and not much aside from his knots that Tarie could pick out. But he was much more approachable than Dayffid was (which relieved her) and much less stern than the Hold's healer.
"A lot of Candidates come to me hoping they'll become a rider's personal healer," Keghan smiled at them. "Especially the girls. Maybe you will, maybe you won't--just remember, some of you may become the rider in question, and it gets old once the excitement wears off. But we could always use more healers, you know. Now, the two most common medicines are numbweed and fellis. If you only know to use these two properly after I'm through with you, I consider my job done."
-
Healing, even the basics that Tarie and the other seven Candidates were learning, was more complex than most had thought. After a brief explanation of numbweed ("Use a lot of it, and use it as fast as possible without getting sloppy," Keghan told them) and the first few lessons about the most common illnesses and injuries, they had moved to the most urgent lessons: How to treat Threadscore.
"In theory, treating Threadscore is simple," Keghan explained. "Clean the score, dump some numbweed on it and bandage it. But there's more to it than that--you have to keep the patient restrained--and they're riders, so they'll be hard to restrain--find out how serious the wound is, and most importantly, keep calm. In the worst-case scenario, both dragon and rider have gotten scored, and they'll be thrashing around because Threadscore hurts. T'ren, if you please?"
He turned to the mounted bluerider who'd come to help for the lesson, whose dragon began swinging his head and tail about in feigned pain. It struck the Candidates how large dragons were then, and even though T'ren's blue was careful to keep from hitting anyone, it was clear that a truly injured dragon wouldn't be so considerate. The others were as hesitant to get close as Tarie was, and Keghan motioned for T'ren to stop.
"Thank you for the demonstration," he told the pair. "I don't expect you all to start jumping in and helping the rider off yourselves--leave that to the experienced healers. However, if there's nobody around to help you, you can ask the dragon to keep still. It might take a few repeats, but they will hear you and they'll stay as still as possible. Now, the first kind of score is simple--a strand of Thread may have hit an arm or leg..."
-
Over the next two sevendays, they continued through the basics: how to treat colds, fevers, and minor to moderate injuries. Upon hearing that Thread was to fall the next morning, Keghan held another lesson involving the lesser-seen Fall injuries--concussions, dislocations, and sprains.
Dayffid called the Candidates together for an announcement once everyone was accounted for in the Barracks. "You all know that Threadfall is tomorrow," he began. "As important as you are to the Weyr, you need to do something useful during Fall to get a feel for what it's like--unless you're under fifteen. Now, could half of you move to the--"
"Sir?" Amirsa asked. "What jobs are you assigning us?"
"...Right," he paused. "You know the firestone I had you all breaking for the last sevenday? Half of you are going to help the weyrlings transport it. The other half will be helping the healers in the Bowl. If you're in the group who's been taking healing lessons, move to the left right now so I don't put you somewhere else."
The groans of disappointment as Dayffid headed to the center gained a frown from him as he divided them into two groups. "None of that. If I stuck all..." he paused to subtract the six youngest Candidates. "If I stuck all forty-eight of you in the Bowl, it would crowd things too much for the healers. There's plenty of Thread anyway--you'll be rotated every Fall."
-
Thread's coming, Zedorianth said in a rare moment of seriousness as Gisellaine headed back from dinner. Is our wing flying?
"Yes," she answered. "Remember, Zedo, don't try to flame every clump of Thread without telling the wingleader where we're going."
I will, the green assured her. I like Corelth--he's less stuffy than our other wingleaders were.
The brunette suppressed a chuckle as she took her harness from the wall, inspecting the leather for cracks or stretched areas. "I'm just glad that S'ramol doesn't yell at me for not predicting your every move. Drills went well today, though."
Harkness was watching!
"Really?" Her harness was more than acceptable as she placed it back on its hooks, moving on to her helmet and goggles; nothing was wrong with them (although she did check them out of habit), but they needed last Fall's ash cleaned off.
He likes watching us practice, she informed her rider happily, curling up on her couch. But he's always worried when Thread really comes.
"So is everyone else," Gisellaine pointed out too quickly, polishing away the ash with sudden interest.
You don't like him?
"Of course I do, but it's--you're overreacting… Fall's tomorrow, let's get some sleep." Gisellaine said, covering the glowbaskets and stumbling into a chair before feeling the way to her bed. "I'm fine!" she insisted upon hearing her dragon's alarmed squeal. "Now go to sleep or we'll be tired during Fall."
But why don't you like him thinking about you? The green asked as Gisellaine settled under the sleeping furs, her eyes tinged yellow in the darkness.
Go to sleep, Zedo, she repeated firmly.
-
Even with a good night's sleep, Fall was less than pleasant--wind and subsequent clouds after an hour made Thread hard to see even for the dragons, and harder to predict which way individual strands would fall. Several of their wingmates had nearly run into each other, with two counts of Threadscore so far.
Zedorianth banked to the right instinctively as another green came from between, flaming a strand of Thread a few dragonlengths away. Gisellaine adjusted her goggles and checked her firestone; only a third of it was left.
The weyrlings are coming with more, Zedo informed her. I told them we need to refuel.
Oh, good; you need any right now?
Just a little. The "little" turned out to be half of what was left, and both were relieved when a brown weyrling betweened above them, laden with a full sack of firestone.
The wind's shifting, Gisellaine warned Zedorianth as the other pair swooped to transfer it, faltering slightly but steadying half a length above while she grabbed the other end of the rope.
A particularly violent gust twisted the sack sideways a few feet above them, with the now-awkward weight making Gisellaine lose her end of the rope. The last thing she heard was the brown's warning bellow before she got knocked off Zedorianth's shoulders, hanging half-consciously in the straps.
Gisellaine? The green's eyes whirled yellow as the silence stretched between them. Say something! Wake up! Are you okay?!
Zedorianth, what happened? The wing-third's brown came from between as Zedorianth, by now completely panicking, started vocalizing her distress.
She isn't talking! The wind shifted and she got hit with the firestone and now she's not answering--
Calm down--we'll take you to the Bowl. He flew underneath the pair, and Zedorianth settled onto his back while his rider got a firm hold on Gisellaine. The greenrider's eyes were hazy, and though she was awake and breathing steadily, she didn't quite seem able to respond to anything.
"Two scores and a concussion, all in our wing," S'den muttered under the wind. This is a bad Fall, Mellith, he said to his brown before they went between.
-
Tarie had been loosely assigned to the journeywoman healer Dida, who was efficiently cheerful in spite of their hectic surroundings. There had been a lot of injured riders--many with Threadscore, but a surprising array of unrelated injuries had cropped up; broken or sprained limbs, burns, and the results of mid-air collisions.
"What a horrible Fall," Dida remarked. "Five collisions and it's barely half-over? The weather must be murder up…" The arrival of a green being carried by a brown stopped her mid-sentence. "Oh, Faranth--that's Zedo!"
They headed over as the brown's rider unbuckled Gisellaine's riding straps--she was limp, but conscious enough to mumble something as the two placed her onto a stretcher. Zedorianth's distraught moaning filled Tarie's ears, and her hide was even tinged with gray as her eyes whirled a painfully bright yellow.
"Tarie, could you get a cup of fellis?"
She nodded and left at a fast walk--running was hazardous during Threadfall, with all the dragons' takeoffs and landing from between--and returned with the fellis to find a slightly-exasperated Dida both checking Gisellaine's vitals and trying to coax an answer out of Zedorianth.
"--Faranth's name do greenriders manage it?" The journeywoman took the fellis with a grateful smile and set it next to Gisellaine's stretcher, catching the brownrider's arm before he remounted his dragon. "She wouldn't have told you how Gisellaine got concussed, by any chance?"
"Oh, sorry--she got hit with a firestone sack," he told her. "The wind shifted before Zedorianth started shrieking--the sack probably fell by accident."
"Thank you," Dida sighed as he remounted and took off. "All right then, Tarie, let's get that fellis into Gisellaine's system. I'll hold her head up."
"--answering," Gisellaine mumbled. "She's not answering…"
"Go ahead," Dida encouraged Tarie as she hesitated. "She won't choke."
After the first two sips, though, Gisellaine sat up in an unexpected burst of consciousness. "You need any right now, Zedo? Ack--" she clutched her temples as Dida pushed her back down, motioning for Tarie to keep giving her the fellis. "The wind--"
"Why do concussed people always try to get up?" Dida complained, seeming to ignore the greenrider's constant questioning.
"…What happened?" she asked, no longer struggling after half a cup of fellis but still questioning her green. "The wind's shifting…. Zedo? What happened? You need any more--"
"Why does she keep saying that?" Tarie inquired as they lifted the stretcher to take Gisellaine to the Infirmary.
"In a few minutes, she'll stop," Dida assured Tarie. "Twenty pounds of firestone isn't a bump on the head. Thank the First Egg for her helmet, though, or she would have been knocked out."
-
The Candidates returned to the Barracks to find Dayffid sitting in the common room, with mugs and a kettle of heated klah on the table.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he told them after they sat down. "Most Threadfalls aren't even half that bad."
He paused, but nobody asked anything. "Once you Impress, you will never be able to back out. A dragonrider's life is far from luxurious or easy, and it's definitely not for the faint of heart. Now that you know what Fall is like for one side, I understand if some of you are starting to have doubts."
Another silence; most of the Candidates were too tired, shocked, or both to do much.
"If you feel like it, you can go eat dinner now," he finished. "If not, just go to bed."
-
Tarie ended up awake anyway, with Threadscores, blood, and screaming dragons running through her head. Dragons make the most awful sounds when they're worried…
She was brought out of her thoughts by someone getting up and running to the privy, following them there and uncovering a glowbasket to find someone with familiar long black hair bent over the latrine.
"Amirsa?" Since the Holder's daughter was in no state to answer questions, Tarie simply went up and held her hair back.
"Thanks," she said feebly after wiping her mouth and straightening up. "Sorry for waking you up."
"Actually, I couldn't get to sleep," Tarie admitted on the way to the common room. She took a mug and filled it with lukewarm klah, keeping the jug uncovered for a moment. "Do you want some?"
Amirsa shook her head. "I might throw it up again."
"So…" Tarie took a sip of klah. "What were you thinking about?"
"The… Threadscores," Amirsa answered. "The noise, the mess, and how painful it all looks--and the dragons," she finished. "I've never seen dragons like that before. Even if their riders are the ones hurt--they make such terrible noise."
"But Fall's not always going to be that bad," she pointed out, to an affirmative nod.
"Even so…" Amirsa sighed. "Well, Impressing the queen from the next clutch would mean I'd be in less danger. Responsibility I can deal with; constant peril, not so much."