hold your head high, heavy heart. [tags: meira]

[Avu]

…managing fine enough on his couch. Meira wasn’t quite able to hide the flicker of guilt from her eyes, and turned her face towards the cradle instead, rocking slightly on her feet. She nodded, though; it was kind of odd to try and figure out what went where when they were missing one of the main pieces of furniture: The bed. Still, it would be difficult to paint if they didn’t know where everything was going to end up being, wouldn’t it? And, while she was thinking of the bed, when would the next Gather be? They came often enough, every few months, but there’d been one not too long ago, so…hmm. She was sure one of the Holds would end up hosting one eventually, but the sooner the better; having R’wign sleep on the couch in his own weyr never failed to elicit a pang of guilt from her. Not that he seemed to care, but – still. And somehow, she doubted Ka’rys would be delighted to have to make a bed for R’wign, in addition to the cradle. Not that she, personally, would ever have asked him, but – even if R’wign decided to ask him.

Wait – four months? She didn’t know how quickly babies progressed; she wasn’t close to anybody who had a baby – Meira had been toying with the idea of asking the workers at the crèche about it when her due date was closer, but as of the moment, she knew only the absolute basics, and even what she did know wasn’t something she would trust implicitly. Just because Meira liked babies didn’t mean she knew all about them…“Isn’t Asharra – the Master Healer – she specializes in midwifery, doesn’t she? What shifts does she have? I’ll ask her about it…” If she wasn’t on shift in the middle of the night, anyway. Her dreams were rarely pleasant ones, but she did try to sleep reasonable hours, more for the baby than for herself. Midwifery was different from raising babies in general, but – either Asharra or the crèche workers would do; though, she kind of wanted to talk to Asharra about the actual delivery, too, which the crèche workers probably couldn’t help her with, because – put simply – she was terrified by the idea. Five months till, so plenty of time to settle her nerves, but…for the moment, she was scared.

This did not need to be said aloud, however.

“I’m – I don’t think I know K’lir or Kahrelir,” she added absently, though Calistoth she had heard of before: Z’hin had…ahem, mentioned…the green dragon. Suffice to say they’d only met once, and said encounter had been anything but pleasant. But, Calistoth’s problems with timing aside, she didn’t know about the green or her Rider. Meira glanced sideways at R’wign, curious despite herself: He wasn’t normal – ? “What’s – what’s ‘not normal’…?” she questioned softly. The idea of there being something – something wrong with the baby had never occurred to her until that very moment, and she resisted the urge to look down at the slight bulge, as if just by looking she could reassure herself that there wasn’t anything wrong, that everything was perfectly fine. Babies being born with – imperfections. It didn’t happen often, that she was aware of, but – but then, Meira was hardly an expert.

She nodded absently, glancing around at the weyr. The decorations (or rather, lack thereof) weren’t exactly cheerful, but – R’wign really wanted prancing firelizards and Salamandyrs covering the walls of his weyr? Blankets, maybe, or flowers or ornaments of some kind, but – a little corner for the baby would be cute, wouldn’t it, with the painted firelizards and Salamandyrs restrained to that corner alone? “Right…” she murmured softly, crinkling her nose slightly at the correction; she’d forgotten about the white Salamandyrs simply because of the lack of them. Yes, she’d forgotten Shadow. For some reason, she kind of liked it better when she did manage to forget Shadow; the white Salamandyr was disconcerting at best. “Um…could we get – a rug, or something, to put between the cradle and the fireplace?” she suggested. “Then it wouldn’t be too close, and it’d give us – the felines – the firelizards, if they wanted – a place to sit?” A cheerful rug, she added mentally to herself; surely a cheerful rug, a rug intended for children or something, wouldn’t be too difficult to find…? “Or would that still be too close…?”

Not that it’d be good for the rug to catch on fire, either, but hey – better rug than cradle.

[glamourie]

R’wign winced at the mere mention of Asharra. Yes, she was a specialist in midwifery and for all appearances, a gifted healer. MasterHealers weren’t common, after all. He himself wasn’t one (though being a Senior Journeyman at twenty was not something to scoff about and was, in fact, a tribute to his prowess as a healer -- it would be another twenty turns before he could even hope to be considered a ‘master’ at anything) after all. But … R’wign did not like Asharra. It was personal, too. She disliked fire lizards. He could handle that, but fussing over them being in the infirmary -- that he couldn’t handle. She was at a Weyr. Dragons were very similar to fire lizards in anatomy, if considerably more intelligent, and learning to deal with fire lizards was the first step in learning to accommodate dragons. The woman struck him as hideously incompetent in a Weyr setting and he was bitter that all of his and Kalierre’s pleas for help went answered in sending them a woman who was ill-suited to treating day-to-day Weyr injuries. No doubt she was proficient in her expertise, that she knew well how to handle anything that came up at a Hold, but Selenitas was an entirely different animal. That he knew more than her about most Weyr injuries robbed him of his ability to view her as a superior in any manner, and he had the distinct impression that she was no more happy at having to listen to a twenty-turn-old than he was at having an old, bitter, grouchy lady to have to deal with on a semi-regular basis. He’d put her on the night shift solely to avoid a pissing contest - metaphorically speaking. His ego was not up to dealing with a woman he viewed as being at the Weyr by mistake.

Still, she probably knew enough about pregnancy to be an immense help to Meira. There were others, though, who he felt would know more -- and would have trusted Meira to confide in more. Not that it was his right to tell Meira who to trust or confide in, but he didn’t think much of Asharra’s people skills. Old women tended to gossip. He doubted her ability to remain quiet over something so intensely personal and Meira did not seem ready to tell all of Selenitas that she was having a baby, a sentiment he didn’t fault her on; he’d told almost no one (only his closest friends) and that was mostly out of the need to vent his stress. It seemed so surreal, like staring through a tunnel only to find blackness ahead. No light to guide, no illumination in the darkness…

“Asharra is on the night shifts, decidedly away from me and Kalierre,” the brown rider said with a slight shrug. “You could ask Savitri as well. If I recall correctly, her family at Southern Hold had a lot of children and she would know, since she’s about to have a child herself. In case you’re more comfortable with her, I mean. I personally can’t stand Asharra.” He reached one hand up to rub his nose. “S’rei of Salenth might also be someone to ask. He’s got a few children and I believe in asking people with experience over healers. I know the basics that is taught when you go through apprenticeship as a healer, but actually raising a child and simply talking about it is the difference between night and day, if you ask me. The choice is yours. I’ve settled for talking to K’lir and Ka’rys because I know them - maybe Savitri later once her baby is born.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I believe she’s on the middle of the night shift…” His head tilted to the side slightly. “Exact hours escape me at the moment, but she’s usually around throughout the night if you’re determined to ask her.”

Shifting his weight, R’wign glanced sideways at Meira and then raised an eyebrow. “Oh, he’s not sick or anything -- if that’s what you’re wondering. Kahrelir is actually a perfectly healthy and very intelligent child.” He brought one hand up to rub his nose and shook his head very slowly. “He’s mute. He doesn’t talk. K’lir says he can, that he spoke to D’nar’s bronze Olanreth, but that he just doesn’t. He doesn’t make much noise period. It’s a little unusual. It’s not any problem with his development or intelligence though. He’s a very smart kid. He just… doesn’t speak. I suppose considering that he lost his mother.” He shook his head, then glanced at Meira again. “I can introduce you. Kahrelir is a nice kid, and I’m sure -- you’ve met Lir, actually. He threw a little temper tantrum at one of --” One of Zesa’s hatchings. “He’s who Showoff looks to,” he finished lamely, not wanting to touch an unpleasant subject. “He’s not all that bad usually, though. Grumpy but with good intentions.”

Thinking about a rug distracted him and R’wign ambled over toward the hearth before giving a curt nod. “I think we could probably arrange that. A nice rug, and then turn this particular corner over to the baby.” He indicated the corner of the room. “I could get a bed and put it longways, that way we’ve got a little more room. It’ll be an odd sort of layout, but it’s something to think about. We’ll have to get to work on it soon… I think Kali’s leave ends shortly, so we’ll be able to take one of your off-shifts. Speaking of which, we’ll need to schedule you maternity leave too, for later on. Competent as you are, I don’t like the idea of keeping pregnant women in the infirmary around diseases. Or are you going to be Savitri the Second and ignore that request?”