They come in all sizes[Tags Saeo, E'rro, Open]

[Rowana]

G'tor was in bright spirits as he made his way back to the Weyr. He was feeling much better than he had of late, partly because of his bag full of presents. He had decided to give the egg to Saeo. He wasn't sure what was in it, but he hoped it would still help cheer her up. She seemed to be having a harder time with everything than many of them. He was pretty sure E'rro would be in the infirmary somewhere, but he wasn't sure where to find the Weryling.

Rusk? Can you ask Cherilith where Saeo is for me, please? Of course the brown dragon agreed easily. He sent out a call for the young blue. Cherilith? My Tor would like to find Your Saeo. Do you know where she is? He should know, after all, unless something was very wrong.

[nightingale]

Oh, hello Ruskeath! The little blue chirruped a soft welcome as the brown’s voice entered his mind. My Saeo and I are in the infirmary...well, she is in the infirmary. The healers told Frosstyth and I that we are too big to go inside, so we are waiting outside. Would you like me to tell Mine that Yours is looking for her?

The midday sun was luxuriously relaxing as it spilled from the infirmary windows, and so for the last few hours Saeo had been alternately dozing in it’s warm embrace and trying to keep her eyes from slipping shut, though her smudged eye paint proved that this task was far more difficult than one would imagine. She was slumped low in the chair she had ‘borrowed’ from the examination room, head cradled in her arms, which rested on the very edge of C’oar’s mattress.

He was going to be alright -the healers had told her that he’d been awake earlier that morning- and so she was trying her hardest not to think about his current state. Sleeping made it easier, as did the happy little thoughts her dragon kept sending her. For the last half candlemark he had been telling her of the progress of a spinner as it made itself a home in the branches of a nearby redberry bush, casually adding in bits and pieces of fantasy nonsense about the places it had been and the friends it had made before deciding to come and live as Selenitas Weyr.

The girl shifted slightly, pressing her face against her arm to keep the sunlight from blinding her through closed lids. As long as the sun kept shining, she had very little to worry about.

[dragon]

Frosstyth had his snout crammed through an open window. He couldn't see inside the infirmary like that, but ... he could sorta smell what was happening inside the infirmary. He really wanted to be inside ... and he really wanted to be in that window over there that was closer to where his was laying. But that window wasn't open. And Cherilith's hadn't liked it much when he had blocked all the light pouring through it trying to see. If it had been anyone else? Frosstyth wouldn't have cared, and would have stayed there anyway. However, he was aware that his went to great lengths to keep Cherilith's peacable, and Frosstyth wasn't going to start paddling the opposite direction from his.

But in any event, he was certainly glad to have Cherilith next to him. It was better than being alone. At least his wasn't so badly off anymore. The feeling inside his' mind was changing for the better.

[Rowana]

Thank you and no, Ruskeath told Cherilith with a rumble of gratitude. I believe Tor has a surprise for her. To his rider, he went on, He says she is in the infirmary. Is she? Why? Though that certainly made life easier. She could be hurt or Cherilith and Ruskeath would have told him. Then it struck him. C'oar had a bad case of poisoning, she was probably visiting him. Thanks, Rusk.

G'tor was as quiet as possible when he slipt into the infirmary. He knew that the Healers were flooded with work and many were recovering from near misses with poison, as he had been days before. Add to that the usual cases of illness and injury and the infirmary was quite crowded. He found Saeo easily enough, dozing on C'oar's bed. G'tor winced to see the boy looking so pale and still. Had he looked like that? No wonder Ruskeath had panicked.

Gently, G'tor rested a hand on Saeo's shoulder to rose her. Hopefully she wouldn't jump out of her skin. "How is he?" he asked with deep concern.

[nightingale]

Unfortunately, saying that Saeo jumped out of her skin when she felt someone touching her shoulder would have been a gross understatement. She snapped awake instantly, throwing herself upright with a soft gasp of alarm. The violent movement also managed to overbalance her chair, meaning that the girl only had time enough to flail miserably before hitting the infirmary floor with a fleshy thud.

“OW.”

She enunciated the word forcefully in order to compensate for how quietly it was spoken. Something that had probably been intended as a glare was thrown in the G’tor’s direction, but the expression came out as little more as a frustrated pout.

“I don’t know how he is.” The girl huffed sullenly, glaring at the floorboards as she set about righting both herself and the chair. “Why else would I be hovering around here like a canine by his feeding dish?” She levered the chair upright, but refrained from sitting on it again. Instead, she gripped the backrest and pretended to take great interest in something written on the back of her hands. “Sorry.” She murmured apologetically. “I’m a little tense right now...the healers say he’ll be fine. I just like to know for sure that he’s still breathing.”

[dragon]

Despite being drugged sensless to make him sleep, the bang of the chair hitting the floor woke C'oar from his fellis-induced sleep. That, however, did not mean he was coherent in the least.

His face twisted into a frown of concentration, between the shock of loud noise making pains in his head. "Murk?" He asked, plainly garbled by the drugs in his system. He blinked a few times, and rolled his head to the far side, completely confused in directions. Not seeing anyone at all over there, he mumbled something else equally incoherent.

Frosstyth crooned through the window, releived to feel his awake again ... even if it was a murky awakening that was threatening to go back to sleep. Mine! Mine! You're okay! He announced.

C'oar grunted. "Implm ... mamy bimph." He slurred.

Pardon? Frosstyth asked, lost.

[Rowana]

G'tor learned down to offer Saeo his hand with a frown of concern. "Are you alright?" He really hadn't meant to startle her so badly. She must be tense with all that's been happening. He took no offense by her tone or frustrated explanations. He only nodded in understanding and offered his own words of advice. "I'm sure the Healer's know their business," he assured her. "He'll be up and about in no time."

As if to prove his statement, C'oar did begin to stir. G'tor was delighted by the site of semiconscious eyes that were sure to brighten Saeo's day better than anything he had brought. "Good to see you're back with us!" His smile wavered a little when the boy tried to speak. He might be a little addled from the head blow, he realized, but hopefully it would not last.

[nightingale]

An unintelligible but strikingly familiar sound drew the girl’s eyes up sharply from their sightless wandering. She heard herself murmur the brownweyrling’s name quietly, but wasn’t entirely sure how or why it had slipped out. By the time she registered the sound of dragons crooning -for Cherilith had added his voice to the song- she discovered that some part of her had decided it would be a good idea to scramble onto the bed next to him.

Of course, now that she was hovering awkwardly overtop of the semi-conscious boy it made perfect sense that she found herself with absolutely nothing to say. But then, he wasn’t really awake, was he? Shells, it didn’t even matter -this was the most moving and speaking she’d seen him do in almost two days, and so she was willing welcome any sign of life that he offered her.

The sudden, sharp jolt of adrenaline entering her bloodstream clued her into the fact that not only was it suddenly very hard to breathe without hurting herself, but a fresh battallion of useless tears were gathering behind her eyes. Crying was Saeo's default reaction when she wasn’t sure what to do in a given situation, meaning that she immediately had to focus her attention on fighting them back.

[dragon]

There were more noises, all of a sudden. And they weren't coming from that way. At least ... he figured they weren't coming from that way, since he couldn't see anything over there that would be making them. Not that he could see all that clearly, either. However, the continued sounds, blurry as they were, prevented him from just shutting his eyes and going back to sleep.

It was awful hard to stay awake. Almost like something was pulling his eyelids down. But the nudging from his dragon was also helping in keeping him awake.

C'oar rolled his head in the other direction, to look over at G'tor. He frowned again. Who the heck was that?? But he didn't have long to ponder that, as something ... someone? ... else launched themself at him, landing on ... whatever it was he was currently on.

The world went all wobbly for a moment, and then C'oar frowned deeper as he struggled to focus on Saeo. Okay. That one looked vaguely familiar. His face cleared slightly, as he wondered what she was doing up there looking down at him like that. "Oimph fiundt." He remarked.

He tried to lift an arm to scratch his face, but said appendage failed to report to duty quite as well as it should have. Indeed, it took far more effort than it should have to move at all. And when he finally got it moving, it failed to stop. Instead, it slapped him in the chest limply.

Plainly, he was still too drugged to be capable of much movement yet. At least, so long as no one knew the destination had been his own face, one couldn't tell that he was quite as limp as he truely was.

Storm crawled off the very cabinet that Zesa had kept her eggs in, and glided over to the bed, to land on the headboard ridge. Leaning forward, he peeped a question down at his pet. Only to get completely ignored.

I don't think his words are working quite right. Frosstyth commented, to Cherilith. Mine isn't making any sense.

[Rowana]

G'tor was feeling a little out of place. C'oar was clearly not completely lucid and concern for the boy was outwaying the reason for his visit. And now Saeo was crying. It just didn't seem like the right time for presents. Maybe later, he decided. While he was here know he might at least try to help his two favorite weyrlings.

"It's alright, Saeo," G'tor made an attempt to comfort her. "See? C'oar is a fighter. No poison is going to keep him down for long." He smiled as warmly as he could. He was still worried about the brown's weyrling's speech being mixed up, but he was no Healer to know how bad that was. It might just be a side effect of the fellis or the bump on his head.

[nightingale]

The blueweyrling seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she was being spoken to. In fact, she probably would have been oblivious to just about anything short of a knife in the ribs when she was hovering this close to hysteria.

“Well don’t just make stupid noises! Say something you sharding idiot!”

She tried to spit the words at the boy pinned underneath her, but only managed to make her voice crack pathetically. It seemed that she couldn’t even bring herself to get properly angry, which certainly spoke to something she would be loath to admit under questioning. Saeo? Cherilith crooned worriedly up at the window. My beautiful do not be sad. He is alright. Frosstyth says that he is, so you do not need to worry. But the girl just couldn’t seem to keep from acting the fool. If there was something really, seriously wrong with him because of that fall, she knew that would never be able to forgive herself for letting it happen.

She had to bite down hard on her lower lip as that thought threatened to push her over the edge. Her eyes dropped along with the rest of her face as one of her arms shifted slightly, allowing her forehead to lay gently against C’oar’s chest. Just that small shift in position and being reminded what he smelled like was enough to set her into a proper fit sobs that she couldn’t manage to strangle fast enough. This whole thing was absurd! People like C’oar did not get hurt. It went against the natural order of things! What next, felines stealing redfruit from the trees?

G’tor’s pocket chose that moment to start moving. To be more specific, something in his pocket chose that moment to start moving. A poor show of dramatic timing to be sure.

[dragon]

He must be dreaming. He had to be dreaming. Or having a nightmare, one. He wasn't sure which. But even with that, C'oar was starting to doubt even that theory. Because with every moment he spent awake, the closer to reality he managed to get. However, that didn't make any sense, either. Cause the closer to reality he got, the less Saeo was making sense. She certainly wasn't acting like Saeo.

And that was scary.

Saeo didn't blubber. And she certainly never sprawled on him and bawled her eyes out. Had something happened? Raylin died, maybe? That was ... no, that felt wrong. If Ebolath was gone, Frosstyth would have been upset. And if anything, his brown mind mate was elated. So ... why wasn't life making any sense yet?

C'oar grunted, and pulled a deep breath as the fog started to lift from his mind. His bond to his dragon got a lot clearer, then. And that happened before anything else got clear. He just spent a few moments of frowning at the room and in general just focusing on breathing ... having someone leaning on his chest wasn't making that task any easier, but he was managing. Once he could focus on any given object and actually see it, rather than a blurry outline, he decided that maybe he was in the real world again.

Because he was pretty sure the real world wasn't fuzzy. But then ... the real world wasn't usually like this, either. And that was a little disconcerting. Where, exactly, was he? The last thing he remembered, he was finishing up those pails, and then heading off to get a bite to eat before feeding Frosstyth.

So ... where was he? C'oar looked around again. This place looked an awful lot like the infirmary ... only from a different angle. Why was he in the infirmary? Shards! He hadn't fed Frosstyth! But a quick check with his dragon told him that Frosstyth wasn't overly starving, either. That was a releif. So ... who had fed his dragon? Setting that problem aside for later pondering, he focused a little closer to home.

"Saeo?" He managed, fairly clearly. Lifting his previously acting up hand, he poked her in the shoulder, as if to see if she was real. "Awe bu ovay?" she certainly didn't look okay. Was she seriously crying on him? This wasn't the right reality, he was pretty sure of it.

Frosstyth: Not hungry? Saeo: not only touching him and not hitting him, but crying? And there was this other person standing there with a twitching pocket. Who was that? And why was his pocket twitching?

[Rowana]

G'tor relaxed. Saeo's cursing seemed to do the trick. C'oar was at least speaking more clearly. He was about to mention as much, when the movement in his pocket commanded his attention. Shards, it was hatching! Why now?! G'tor hid his slight panic. He didn't even know what it was! He didn't have any food! What if it was a fire lizard? Would it go wild? There was nothing for it, but to give it to Saeo quickly and hope he had enough time to run for meat, or what ever it ate.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, as his mind raced through the possible things that could hatch out of the egg. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, a little sheepish. He passed Saeo a pair of violet shaded gloves, with a shaking egg wrapped between them. "I got these for you. I know you like to wear gloves and, well," he trailed off, slightly embarrassed that he had picked such a bad time for this. "Thanks for saving my life and everything."

[nightingale]

Frosstyth, I think there must be something wrong with Mine. Cherilith keened anxiously, pawing at his clutchbrother’s shoulder as he tried to stretch his neck out far enough to see inside the high window of the infirmary. Unfortunately, the blue was simply too small to rest his chin flat against the window ledge, meaning that all he could see was the plastered roof. What do you see? Is she hurt? Is something bad happening?

Saeo had worked herself into such a lather that the happenings of the world around her were registered only peripherally. She felt someone poking her in the shoulder, and managed to assume it was C’oar when she heard what she remembered to be her name spoken in his tone of voice. If she did offer up an answer to his question, it was throttled beyond all semblance of speech as she focused all of her attention toward snuggling as closely against him as she could.

It was the aprehension in G’tor’s voice that finally caught her attention, and by holding her breath she managed to make out the brownrider’s hurried explanation about a pair of gloves he shoved toward her. She was slow in accepting them, partially out of confusion and partially because she would have been more than willing to just lay there sobbing for another twenty minutes until she calmed down enough to register the awkwardness of the situation. Still, the fact was that there was an egg...and...well, eggs didn’t wait on anyone.

“An avian?”

She murmured quietly, sitting up so that she could cradle the little egg against her chest. It certainly wasn’t a flitter egg. She decided this right away because it wasn’t cracking the way a flitter egg did. Hatching fire lizards sent cracks all across the surface of their eggs when they pushed their way free, but on this one there was just one very small spot where the cracks were gathering...and then all at once, a little black beak poked out of the center of those cracks.

“Hello.”

She sniffled, her voice an almost unrecognizable murmur as she watched the little beak work at enlarging the hole it had made.

"Did you know that I saved G'tor's life? No? Neither did I...but I suppose it would be rude of us to argue...would you like to come out? Well push...come on then...you can't give up before you're even born. Life only gets more difficult and if you give up now you'll miss all the good bits..."

[dragon]

Okay. Things were just getting weirder, instead of making more sense. C'oar was not at all sure he was awake yet. Or even alive, for that matter. Saeo was practically crawling into the bed with him, and he wasn't even sure why he was in a bed. Much less in this strange place. Nothing was making sense at all.

Though, he had to admit it did feel kinda nice - if awkward - to have Saeo not whacking him for whatever reason. Gentle attentions were something he could get used to. Though all the sobbing and excessive tears were a tad stressful. But then, Saeo was usually crying, for one reason or another. And more, of late, than usual. So it wasn't as bad as it could have been. C'oar still didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything at all. Instead, he wriggled his other arm free of the blanket, whilst again pondering why he was in bed, and why his limbs were acting like he was swimming in cold honey. Once said arm was free, he almost wrapped it around Saeo, in an attempt to calm or comfort her. But then she was sitting up again, as that other person ... whoever he was ... suddenly started handing her things and ... well ... almost blubbering himself.

Though, not in quite such a girlish manner as Saeo was pulling off.

This struck a few chords in C'oar. One, was strangeness. What in the world?? Another was curiosity. What had prompted this? Something about saving lives? And the third was one he was not totally unfamilliar with, but had usually buried fairly well, when it came to Saeo. This last one was jealousy. What was this stranger doing, hitting on Saeo?? Strange old guy?

But, again, used to burying that particular feature, C'oar didn't reflect that he'd felt it at all. Saeo and her wandering around with any and every one poked it often. And he always let it slide. And this time was no different. He let it slide. After all, he had rationalized, a long time ago, he had no place feeling things like that. Especially not when it came to her. Thus, he remained silent.

As Saeo sat up with the egg, and started talking to it.... talking to it?? ... C'oar kept his appendages to himself, not at all betraying the fact that he had been about to touch her. She didn't know, and that was okay. She'd probably chew him out and hit him for it if she did know, anyway.

Outside, Frosstyth dipped down low, so that Cherilith could stand up, using Frosstyth's shoulders as a footstool for his front legs, and thus allow the blue to see inside. Yours appears to be acting normal ... for being yours. Mine, however ... I am worried about mine. He's ... still fuzzy, plainly not entirely sure he's actually awake ... and swinging rapidly between thoughts. It's a little dizzying, even to me. I don't like it! Frosstyth remarked. I think Ruskeath's just gave yours an egg, and I think it's hatching. He said, filling the blue in on what was happening.