Office Hours :: Infirmary (Open)

[blueaid]

OOC Caveat: Infirmary RP is hardly the rage, I know, so I'm throwing this out there as a general state-of-affairs. It's open, but I don't expect to get attacked with people having a sudden need to visit the infirmary-- though if you want to make a delivery or pick up something for those sniffles, please feel free! Otherwise, consider this open call for anyone who might need a Healer down the line.

The infirmary was a mess. It had been for months. The old Healer, a well-intended but doddering mess of a man who'd been running an infirmary since before Rivaly was born (and had told her all about it on her first day), did not exactly keep things in order. "There's a system to it!" he proclaimed excitedly, waving a veiny hand toward the mess of ointments, herbs, and notes that littered the shelves. The keys for the locked chest? "Bah, probably in my other pants. Get them for you first thing in the morning!"

That was two days ago.

Not that it mattered. Rivaly spent her first two days on the job getting things in some sort of order, arranging this, rearranging that. She made little fuss about her presence, saw only a few patients in among the work of sorting out the infirmary and assuring that she was only here to assist, not to take over. A scraped knee, a worried mother, really nothing more than she could have handled as an Apprentice.

But today, looking around at everything gleaming and organized, herbs in alphabetical order, simples and ointments arranged by name, the keys finally in her pocket to put the locked cupboard to rights, Rivaly felt like she was really ready.

Then she chuckled quietly, commented under her breath, "Your own neuroses are legion, Riv, they really are." This while she was wiping her hands busily on a very-clean-rag.

[Invisible]

(OOC: So, I take a few liberties here, but anyone who wants to have been pestered by a worried Volsteath is welcome to come to the infirmary too and check out what really happened.)

No one would admit responsibility, but someone had done it. The thought that someone might have done it on purpose lent enough rage to K’mar that he could ignore both the throbbing pain in his head and back and the urgent crooning of Volsteath who wouldn’t just leave him be. It had been a normal enough day until he was refilling the oil vats, never a fun chore but necessary. As he went to the last one he didn’t notice the glistening on the floor and slipped where someone had not cleaned up their mess. His feet came flying out from under him and he lost what he was holding and ended up bumping his head against the wall as well as having a none too fun landing on his back.

Volsteath had woken up from his nap to race over to where his rider was and proceeded to get in the way as K’mar tried to get his feet under him. Upset though he was it leaked out just a little and K’mar was able to calm him enough to get up and lean against the brown. I’m fine. I just knocked my head. I’m fine. You are not fine. We must get someone. Come. You are hurt.[/color] I’m not hurt, Volsteath. Don’t send for I’dalyn. Please. But you are hurt![/color] I am not hurt. It’s just a bump. K’mar didn’t want to deal with the weyrlingmaster or any of the others. It was just a tumble, but Volsteath insisted on him doing something so he trudged, with a worried brown at his side, out to the bowl and towards the infirmary.

He wanted to leave Volsteath in the bowl, but the brown would hear nothing of it and so K’mar had to take the wider tunnel down to where the healers were so his dragonet could accompany him. And so it was worried brown with fast whirling eyes that entered the same time as K’mar did who was rubbing his head and holding himself up with a hand on his dragon.

[blueaid]

Fairly quiet in the infirmary today, with a stomach ache and a turned ankle the only in-patients, and Rivaly kept herself busy by sheafing through a bound volume of hides while sitting on a high stool at a tall counter on the edge of the room. It all smelled clean and antiseptic in here, and something of that very cleanliness affected her smooth-haired, perfectly tidy appearance.

A footfall drew her attention upward, toward the entrance, toward the man at the entrance. She had that perfect Healery look about her while she dragged a look across his person, some combination of "may I help you?" and "don't worry, it's not fatal." She slipped off the stool briskly, starting across the room with a simple, direct question: "What happened to you?"

The dragonet at his side merited a glance, but that was hardly her line of work.

[Invisible]

Volsteath’s eyes continued to whirl rapidly as K’mar came to a stop and waited for a healer to come to them. When one did the weyrling blinked and then sighed. Figures. A girl. And she can’t even be as old as I am. He started to shake his head but it just made the room wobble so he stopped. Volsteath crooned worriedly and settled down to watch his rider and the healer. “I, ah, fell,” K’mar said to Rivaly. It had to be a girl. And a pretty one. K’mar was no good around women and the prettier they were the harder it was for him. The head injury was not making this easier.

“I was taking care of the oil and when I got to the last one someone had spilled some and not cleaned it up.” He paused to press his hand against the small of his back. “I slipped and I landed on my back and I may have hit my head against the wall. I’m not sure.” He swayed a little where he stood as the room got wobbly again and Volsteath pressed his head against the back of K’mar’s knees. “Maybe I could sit down?” he asks the healer.

[blueaid]

Quick OOC, need permission to do some light poke-and-prod posing of K'mar if that's ok?

A girl, though Rivaly might have protested her status to woman. Another threadbare smile quirked toward the dragonet at his ongoing worry.

But the matter of K'mar and his injuries were her immediate occupation. "Might have hit your head?" she asked as if casually entertained by the idea, keeping the worry concealed behind soft eyes. "Here," she directed with gentle command, with the half-ordering tone common of those trained by Healer Hall-- not bossy but not to be ignored either.

Rivaly patted the end of a white sheeted cot with the flat of her palm and stood to the side of it. And, for K'mar's peace of mind, seemed decidedly unfeminine against the backdrop of redwort and numbweed. "I'm going to feel poke around at your head, and my hands have a tendency to be cold, so brace yourself?" Her laugh was brief and self-deprecating.

[Invisible]

(OOC: Feel free to poke and prod away. K’mar would suffer such indignities!)

All too grateful to let the room wobble without him K’mar sat at the end of the cot indicated. Volsteath maintained his distance only because he was told if he did not then the healer could not tend to K’mar. Closing his eyes the weyrling let out a sigh. “Just do what you have to do. I shall endeavor to get through it all.” And have a stiff drink when it was over to make up for the indignity of being prodded by a girl. Girl or woman he still didn’t approve of women in crafts. Certainly not healers. They were much too squeamish to handle the job well.

From his spot nearby Volsteath continued an intent watching of the proceedings. While he did not interfere it was possible the brown's air of urgency and the sense he might pounce would not relieve any tension. K’mar was aware of the urgency of his brown, but couldn’t do much to sooth him at the moment. The room continued to spin with his eyes closed and his back was starting to ache.

[blueaid]

The cold hand warning was indeed necessary, proven when she laid chilly fingers across K'mar's forehead, testing for that tell-tale fever. "Endeavor to get through it all," Rivaly echoed over quiet laughter.

Those same cool fingers lead down to his wrist, her eyes distracted momentarily while she counted the rhythm of his pulse, textbook movement through the motions of malady. "Don't you think that's a bit of a defeatist remark?" she asked with innocuous humor.

Almost absent in her movements, her attention turned to the weyrling with one last sideway look at the dragon, she gestured to the pillow at the head of the bed, saying, "Rest some, please, and we'll see how cracked your skull is. I'm Rivaly, by the way, Journeyman." The perfect pause followed, the smile touched soft eyes; and his name?

[Invisible]

Even with the warning K’mar was not prepared for the cold hands. But, he showed no signs of being bothered by it and just endured what the healer did. He had no fever and his pulse was normal. One eye cracked open and he looked at Rivaly. “Don’t like healers or what sorts of things they force down your throat,” he answered in a soft voice. Quiet because loud noises were no fun at all when matched with a wobbly room. When she gestured to the pillow he let his shoulders sag. A nap sounded good. Closing his eyes and sleeping for a month seemed like a good idea. With great care he stretched out on the cot and tried to find a comfortable spot for his back. “K’mar. That’s Volsteath.” The only words he could get out before his eyelids drooped closed again.

[blueaid]

A *snap* sounded next to K'mar's ear, the clap of Rivaly's cold fingers just as his eyes dropped closed. "Don't fall asleep, K'mar. You can rest when we're all done here."

There are times when a new acquaintance utters a name that it sounds odd and ill-pronounced, a foreign word; Rivaly avoided this with the ease of her utterance, with her soft but not quiet voice. She sounded comfortable with the words and the command behind them.

Expecting her words to be followed, she slid her hand along the back of K'mar's skill, started at the top with just enough pressure to penetrate his hair. Her hand was cool now rather than icy, and she leaned conscientiously-- conscious of his anti-girl opinion, perhaps?

To keep him awake, she prompted with glib insult in her mobile tones, "So, if I don't make you drink anything foul, will it improve your opinion of Healers at all, K'mar?" Her hand moved smoothly across his skull, looking for lumps. Or worse.

[Invisible]

At the noise K’mar’s eyes flew open and he narrowed them into a fuzzy glare at the healer. “Just need a nap and I’ll be fine,” he mumbled. Open your eyes, K’mar. Look at her. She’s very well put together for a woman do you not think?[/color] Huh? What? Yea, I guess. Probably earned her knot by being pretty. K’mar was in no mood to be nice, but at least he only said that to Volsteath who withdrew some from his mind, offended more at his rider’s inability to see an opportunity than his disparaging of the healer’s virtue.

A rather large lump could be felt forming on the back of his head. There was no sticky blood feel so at least he did not crack his skull open.”Always a foul thing to drink. Doesn’t matter what you say. There’s always something foul.” His words were slurred, but not horribly so. His eyes started to drift closed, but then they opened again. “Got no opinion either way of Healers.”

[blueaid]

Having accomplished her purpose with finger-snapping, Rivaly allows a smile to edge her lips-- not much of one, but she must want K'mar to know she's pleased with the outcome, else why let it show? That very smile is what answers the weyrling's blurry look.

Her fingers found the lump, moved lightly across the distension, took the measure of it with her the slightest brush, all feather-soft so as not to cause undue pain. But anyone's fingers, even trained fingers, touching a knock on the skull are bound to hurt, and maybe that's why her other hand had settled on K'mar's opposite shoulder, ready to stay a jump or a twitch in response to the delicate prodding.

"No opinion at all?" she asked, leaning to push away some of his hair, to try and get a visual read on the lump. Busy as she might be, there was a professional aptitude to her ability to maintain the conversation as if idly, as if chit-chatty while she checked him over. And then her voice was lower, a lyrical lilt when she echoed Volsteath without having a clue that's what she was doing: "Open your eyes, K'mar." Like she meant to stir him from a dream without startling him awake.

[Invisible]

There wasn’t even a twitch as fingers probed the bump on his head. He just groaned quietly and tried to let his eyes close again. Between the healer and Volsteath he wasn’t going to get any rest. Just a nap would cure everything he was quite sure. Prodded again his eyes opened and he let out a grumpy sigh. “No opinion that needs repeating. Healers are just something to be suffered if you can’t keep well. I try not to have to come here.” K’mar! Be nice! You mustn’t ever ruin a chance to make an ally.[/color] Volsteath had settled down some since Rivaly had started tending to K’mar, but his words were still hushed and worried. That nearly there party in the background had almost entirely retreated as if everyone listened for footsteps that would signal the end of the fun. “Sorry. No offense,” the weyrling muttered. “Nothing against you or anything.”

That’s better, K’mar. A healer could be quite useful to us. You should make friends with her.[/color] Volsteath was always thinking ahead. K’mar was more content to not worry about the future, but what could he do when prodded by Volsteath but comply? “Haven’t seen you in here before,” he mumbles as his eyes think about closing again.

[blueaid]

Something knitted the Healer's brows, something cast a brief flash of concern across her tranquil expression. Her fingers grazed across the lump one last time, then she withdrew them and loosed a resolute breath. "If it's any solace, K'mar, it's hardly an insult that most people would rather be healthy than Healed. Don't you think it's a perfectly healthy state of mind?" As if she was the expert on perfectly healthy states of mind, so certain she sounded.

Rivaly left him briefly, bringing a stool over to place next to the cot, bring a wheeling-tray along with it so she had a variety of particularly unfriendly looking instruments at her beck-and-call. Forceps, snippers, suture kit, everything all ready and willing to inflict pain and suffering on anyone fool enough to wind up in the infirmary. All she reached for, though, was a tongue depressor held up in front of her like a little sign-post. "I'm worried about your head, K'mar," she confessed matter-of-factly; granted, he probably wouldn't get the joke-- Mindhealer, worried about his head-- but she didn't mean it that way, so let's move on. "Follow this with your eyes, please." And so it went back-and-forth, up-and-down across the weyrling's field of vision.

She watched his eyes. Even preoccupied, Rivaly had a certain intensity of presence, as if the whole world were distilled into this single interaction, as if there was nothing more interesting or more worth her time than talking to the brownrider, making small-talk like it were riveting conversation. "If you make it a point not to come into the infirmary, K'mar, why would it come as a surprise that you haven't seen me in here before?" she asked in amused response.

[Invisible]

The tray was eyed in a distant sort of way as if focusing on it was not a task K’mar was up to. When Rivaly produced the tongue depressor he just blinked and tried to focus on it. When she moved it he closed his eyes. “Makes me dizzy,” he mumbled. His eyes stayed closed for a minute before he forced one of them open. Likely at Volsteath’s behest. “Don’t feel so good,” he said and indeed he looked a little off. Like maybe he was going to be sick, but didn’t actual do it. For now anyway at least he was spared that embarrassment.

“Know people. That’s all,” he offered to answer her question about her being unknown. “Even healers I don’t ever see.” He tries to shrug, but in his current condition it just doesn’t happen. “M’fine. Need to get back now. Got chores to take care of and he’ll be getting hungry.” Volsteath showed no signs of hunger, but his biggest concern was making sure his rider was ok. He switched his attention from K’mar to Rivaly. As if expecting her to read that look as a demand she make his rider better. Right now, thank you very much.

[blueaid]

In that easy voice again, Rivaly insisted calmly, "No, K'mar, you need to stay here." She watched his eyes, his dizzied reaction to the tongue depressor with an honest frown this time, no point pretending it was just a kiss-and-make-it-better booboo. From there, it was an easy thing to look across at worried Volsteath, to accomplish the shrug that the weyrling couldn't-- they'd both just have to keep weathering the brownrider's stubbornness.

The reed stick went back to the tray, and she replaced the occupation of her hands by setting a little metal basin on the edge of the cot near K'mar's hips, just the sort of thing a person could sick into without making a big chunky mess all over the floor. She said nothing to its use nor his green-around-the-gills state, just answered to the matter of her familiarity: "We're acquainted now, hmn? And we'll have all night to get better-acquainted." In the context of an infirmary and a light-headed brownrider, that was a purely innocuous comment, thankfully!

Then, placidly, "You've hit your head, K'mar, and it's probably nothing serious, but nothing-serious has a knack for becoming very-serious if it's not looked after. You're going to stay here overnight so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you're as fine and fit as I think you probably are. Do you understand?" She'd found a soothing tone, and it was fast becoming obvious that she didn't intend to force him to stay conscious for much longer.

As if to reveal her blanket unfamiliarity with the workings of weyrlinghood, she added, "Do you need anything, or is there anyone who should be told of your whereabouts?"