the ghosts are here (Kal!~)

[charyou]

There was something comforting about the dust. The way it settled and the way it seemed to be unbothered when it was sifted about or even recklessly thrown off of whatever surface it had accommodated previously. It always landed, and it seemed to never swirl about in a frenzy or irritate too much. It was Terrin's own fault when she inhaled deeply and ended up sucking a few of those motes in. It was her own fault that she violently sneezed, and it was some fleeting mention of basic courtesy in the back of her mind that caused her hands to fly up and cover her mouth and nose as she did so. She certainly didn't want to ruin the records she had open on the table before her. Some would think her a bit odd for spending some free time in the record room of all places. It was stuffy and packed with old papers covered in cramped writing, and there seemed to be a fine layer of dust over absolutely everything.

"Crackdust." The curse was slipped out between sneezes, the attack on the girl's allergies was relentless. Her eyes had begun to water with the force at which her body was attacking her with. The girl bent down, burying her face within her hands and attempting to take in deep, long breaths to try and calm the raging storm. After a moment she sat upright within her seat. One hand was still splayed against her face, and the other pushed at the pile of records that were stacked before her. The girl's thirst for knowledge hadn't been quenched within the last few days, and although she had stopped training a while ago, that didn't mean she had to stop learning. Her brain was a dry sponge, and she absolutely needed to whet it with a tiny bit of knowledge.

She had been sifting through the history of the Weyr, only because she had been so frivolous with the knowledge of Weyr happenings for so long. She had sworn off, during her time at the Healer Hall, to ignore the business of the Weyrs and to stick to her own subject. A small attempt to learn of the events had sparked when she did reach the title of Journeymen, and really all she knew of Selenitas was what she experienced while she was there. Granted, that has been a few turns thus far, but she didn't know the real history of the Weyr and how it had been founded. Since she had decided to try real Weyrlife, she figured she should know a little of what she was getting into. Terrin believed that history repeated itself, and the best way to prepare herself for the Weyr would to be to study it.

Or, well, that's what she figured in her own backwards, round-about way.

She had her face buried into the records concerning Selenitas' history before she had made her decision to train there. She was going backwards in time--she found that rather soothing. Starting from the beginning and working your way up always seemed too story-like, it was too easy to become disassociated with what was going on because it read like fiction--or like some Harper's wild tale. Reading it from the present back forced her to pay attention, it forced her to be sharp, and it forced her to keep careful track of things. She had skipped what she had lived through, he didn't need to be reminded of that, and for the love of little green dragons, she didn't want to be reminded of it.

She had just passed the mention of the C'leon and the raping of candidates, and moved on now to the mutated clutch in the records. Her attention had peaked at that. Terrin rubbed her face a bit, as if massaging it briefly would erase out all of the tension that had suddenly built up there. The sneezing, at least, had stopped. It had caused quite a ruckus, and Terrin didn't really feel like it was worth anyone making a scene over. It was her innate sense of curiosity that caused her to once again turned to the record that had caused her sneezing fit. Mutated dragons. Oh if she could look at those and pick them apart. A field day would be spent doing something such as that. As much as she hated it, Terrin's knowledge of wanting to know how something worked anatomically hadn't been relinquished like other things.

[Requiem]

"Must you always follow?" Protect. "From what, the bushes? The little pebbles? Just...at least ride on my boot." No. "Fury." No. "You are driving me crazy. You know that?" No. "Is that all you remember to say now?" No. Kalierre stared down at the little bipedal salamandyr for a long moment, then covered the amused smile flickering over her lips with a hand. (As if Fury wouldn't be able to tell through their bond.) Her head had tilted to one side, the gray-green little creature's tail twitching back and forth slowly in mild agitation. L'rine. That did cause laughter. "Lust is a bad influence on you." His name for Kalierre when he was displeased with her was a 'clever' adaptation of dungeater. Latrine eater. Fury considered the comment for a moment. Yes.

The crippled dragonhealer resumed her trek up to the surface and the outbuilding that housed the records beyond. I really wish you would let me fly you, KaliMine. It is far to walk. The cane fell in steady rhythm, her stride sure. No need to bother yourself, beautiful. I just want to take a look at some things before I go on shift, and you must sleep at night, beloved. You won't if I have you ferry me everywhere. The winds are high, too. She could feel the mental sigh that was Phremath's only protest to Kalierre's continued protectiveness towards her. Even though Hers was never less than supportive, she also often refused Phremath's help when weather conditions were less than ideal for the green with her stunted wings.

Minutes later, the dragonhealer was plunging into the cool depths of the archives, the obligatory sneeze marking her entrance echoed by Fury. The small salamandyr flailed at the air with her small forelimbs, claws raking at the dustmotes that swirled and danced around them. A hiss left her throat ominously. Away. Away! Kalierre tsked. "The dust isn't attacking me. Or, at least, not in any way that will hurt me," she amended, squinting as some got into her eye. She blinked rapidly to clear it. A stirring in her breastband marked Lust's awakening, the bronze salamandyr curling tighter in an attempt to warm himself. Such cold weather lately didn't make him a very happy salamandyr.

After a brief, hushed conversation with one of the archivists, Kalierre was pointed to an obscure portion of the archives, the woman carefully navigating around what looked to be an attempt at reorganizing the room she was currently in. Fury trotted alongside her foot, head swiveling back and forth, the baleful gleam of her orange-tinted eyes sweeping the room for any sign of danger. Hers must be protected at all costs, yes.

For salamandyrs, the dragonhealer's two were relatively behaved. Relatively.

It was Lust, oddly enough, who recognized the other figure in this side room, his brilliant frill flaring slowly out of curiosity. Each spine twitched as he considered her. The name...was what...again? Merrin. Terra. Tiara. Riiinnn. Something like name is. Bonebag name, much weird, forget. LoveMine! Nameless shakyhand there is! Kalierre sighed. "Must you broadcast when you're being tactless. Tch," she murmured beneath her breath to the creature who's head was peering up from her neckline. "It's Terrin, by the way." Not that Kalierre remembered too much about her, considering the siege had taken her off infirmary duty until the plague...when the healers were so busy that associating with one another was practically impossible beyond the most cursory of professional conversations.

"Terrin? What do you have there?" Kalierre questioned, leaning against the edge of the girl's desk in lieu of her cane.

[charyou]

Much to the disappointment in the interested little phantom, Terrin couldn't satisfy the frothing excitement and curiosity that sky rocketed as she glanced over the same record page over and over. Why? A small frown crossed her lips, pulling the edges down. It was bad enough that her lips were already down turned a bit in their natural state, frowning always made everything worse. The girl bit on her lip, flipping through the next page and the one after that. With each scan over the page the crease between her eyebrows deepened. Scowling was something that Terrin had done enough of that a nice line already marked that ever-telling crease on her forehead in a faint wrinkle even when her expression was flat. It was a most unfortunate thing, some would comment on, but then again, people commenting on wrinkles or the such at her age really had bigger things to be concerned about.

She gritted her teeth as she moved back towards the original record of the mutated hatching. Why wasn't there more detailed information? If dragons were mutated, one would think that they would study these mutations in detail to see what exactly happened, which parts didn't form or which were changed by, well, whatever it was that made them this way. A hand moved to cup her shin as she looked over it, her eyes half-lidded now in simple distraught. She wanted pages explaining the differences, shouldn't they harness this knowledge to be better prepared if something akin to this would ever rear it's head again? Terrin had to bitterly remind herself that people weren't always so investigative and interested in the oddities of life as she was.

Well, she thought quite disgruntled, they should be.

Granted, dragonriders and Weyrfolk had always been a bit over-protective of their dragon counterparts. History had shown that any maladies, no matter how small, always sent them into a tizzy.

"Records. Dusty, rotting old records." She didn't jump at the sound of the dragonrider's voice, in fact she rather expected it. She turned her head so she could look at the woman, her chin still cupped within her hand. "About what happened here before I dragged by sorry behind from the Northern Continent." She turned back to the record then, as if giving it some time to think about what vital information it was missing would suddenly make it reveal what secrets it held back. Unfortunately, the record didn't comply with Terrin's wishes. She looked back to Kalierre then, gathering the mob of words she somehow attempted to spit out within her mind.

"I mean, in particular the records about the hatchings. Well, one hatching really, the one with the strange dragons." It was an afterthought that suddenly interjected her speech. "Oh I hope I'm not trespassing on something that's considered something someone shouldn't talk about, I was just wondering about what had happened before I got here, and this is interesting. I don't really know much about this place--" the Weyr "--and so I figured I should study up a bit. Sure I could ask people, but records don't try to hide some things politely when there's company." Ah, yes, Terrin's rambling. She didn't just answer a question, she had to explain as to how she went about answering it too.

Absently, as she was looking at the greenrider--Terrin had always been a big supporter of eye-contact when communicating, something which always seemed to throw some people off--she caught sight of the thing near her neck from her peripherals.

Oh shards.

Salamandyrs, in her opinion, were strange. Really strange, almost comically so. Although that's a bit of her, being the pot, and the salamandyr, being the kettle, and some name calling about being black. She hadn't heard much of these things back up in the Northern Continent, really because she hadn't been interested in anything besides her work up there.

[Requiem]

The hatching with the strange dragons...What was considered strange? Four wings? That had come out of Millieth's last clutch, just two Hatchings ago. Two tails? Four turns ago, Millieth's Hatching again, the dragon of the acting Weyrhealer. Kalierre could sense Phremath stirring uneasily in her mind, the green's mostly well-disguised anxiety due to her wings bubbling restlessly to the surface. "The histories aren't the most well-maintained," she mused aloud. "You're looking at those and not clutch records, right? Clutch records won't give a lot of details. Which one...?"

Leaning over Terrin a little further to answer that question for herself, Kalierre continued to speak thoughtfully, half to herself, "With all that goes on here and losing some of the records in the fire when Fort came looking for those High Reaches refugees, it's little wonder that some of the records keeping fell behind. I swear, it seemed like there was less going on at Benden, even though we were losing dragonpairs almost daily. I guess it's more shocking when it's not...consistent..."

Her voice had trailed off, and she could feel the mounting sense of inadequacy from Phremath, knew her to be coiling tightly on the ledge, pressed against Dohulth. Beloved... The strange dragons. That's...they're too nice to say it now, but that's what everyone thinks, isn't it? Not everyone. They love you, beautiful. And the ones who don't...well they're just stupid. There was hardly a dragon on the face of Pern nicer or sweeter than Phre. And the green had done the seemingly impossible...could fly even without Betweening in any condition except when there was absolutely no wind to provide lift for her stunted wings.

The dragonhealer's finger traced over the names, one-by-one. Paryal and Aezanth. Goldweyrling. She'd stood up for Kalierre when the Weyrlingmaster insinuated that the dragonhealer was falling asleep in class because she was spending her nights hopping furs. Others that had died in Benden's clumsy attempt to cover up the drugs they'd administered to Fath, now called the Weyrling Massacre: T'ren and Kasraith, the bronze missing his forelimbs below the joint; V'nus and Vemorath, brother to one of the harpers here; A'en and Ayisseth; Liamorth and Alene; Q'ell and Euciath; N'vis and Reenith, the green so emaciated she could barely carry her own weight over the ground. The screams...were still alive in her head. Her eyes closed. That had left only two of the 'strange' dragons, the mutated ones, left. Her Phremath and Adith. W'liam and P'tol, E'nor and Z'hin. All dead in the Benden Siege. Ciara in the plague. And then Adith, the photophobe that Phremath had always favored because he was different like her, an outcast because of his mutations. He and Uu'n had been lost in Fort's attack.

Of that clutch, Kalierre and Phremath, six turns later, were the only ones who remained.

"Fath's clutch. The first and last time I ever stood on the Sands as a candidate. You should have heard how deafening the silence was...when Kasraith broke shell missing the lower half of his forelegs. He writhed over the ground. And my beauty...she begged me to accept her, to love her, even though her wings were so small she isn't capable of generating lift on her own to fly. She promised me, in the first words she ever spoke, that she would fly some day. And she did. Does. They're gone now. All but us." Kalierre smiled at Terrin, a rather...sad...expression. The topic wasn't a happy one, but it didn't seem to pain her. "I was the acting Weyrdragonhealer back then, though someone else held the actual title. You can ask me if you're curious; I'm not in the habit of hiding things."

Most would call her too blunt, actually, but that was another matter.

[charyou]

She should have clarified, she should have clarified. A mental beating was brought down upon the girl. The first hatching that had started everything was the one she was referring to, or at least she assumed it was the first, so the records told her. If she got any further into the history of the Weyr perhaps the other clutches would prove to be different, but she had a feeling about this one. Normally, when Terrin got feelings, she knew to listen to them. They had proven to be exceedingly helpful when she had been learning and studying. Not always had she been right with these feelings, but she certainly learned from them, and that was the important part. "Oh, no! Not the clutch records. I'm looking at the histories. They're kind of jumbled, but I do suppose that's to be expected."

She chewed at her cheek as the dragonrider leaned over to take a look. Some people might object to have others lean in close and read things next to him, but Terrin wasn't bothered by that sort of thing at all. Terrin's personal space bubble is nonexistent.

She listened as Kalierre went over and mumbled about the records and their keeping. True, it was a wonder that they had managed to keep any archivist around long enough to jot things down. Selenitas of course had bad luck--something which Terrin still denies ever exists. Some would call the odd looking dragons at the Weyr bad luck, but by what grounds could they say that? Yes, the dragons looked different, but they functioned. Perhaps it was because she was trained and interested in the physical workings of things that she relished in what they were able to do. If something works, than it works. It could look like the most shoddy thing ever, but if it reliably works, than there should be no qualms about it. Terrin's blunt perspective on this didn't usually smooth over too well with most people.

Unless, of course, they were as equally as tuned in as she was.

Terrin's vision, which had been glued to the record as the rider had skimmed over the names, now turned back to the woman who had begun to talk once again. Her expression loosened a bit as she watched when Kalierre spoke. ',,last time I ever stood...' At once it snapped within her mind. Terrin was talking to one of the riders who emerged from that clutch. A blush rose on her cheeks, but she didn't pull her eyes away whatsoever. She felt a bit shamed about not being more careful with the subject, but in all honesty she didn't intend for anything she spoke about to be confused with ignorance or rudeness. Her eyes widened a bit when she caught 'missing the lower half of his forelegs', could that happen? Shards. It wasn't disgust or anything that stood over her features, it was interest that dominated that ground.

"She does! Well, that certainly shows what determination and fight can do. I personally find it fascinating that when given disadvantages, other portions of the body will strengthen to make up for what isn't working to it's fullest potential. Even us humans do that too with an assortment of things." Her mind strayed again to the other dragon with the mentioned missing leg-parts. Some men had stated that, when loosing a major limb, they had phantoms of it's existence still there. Could the same be said for dragons?

Her curiosity about the subject was darting into territory that Terrin herself wasn't particularly fond of. She had relinquished that part of her, but oh she wanted to know still. "Although the dragons did have shortcomings, could you see that they were able to work around that? Surely it took work and bouts of mistrials and experimentation to see what they can and can't accomplish, but were they able to make up for it in other ways?" She certainly enjoyed the fact that the woman had opened up for questions. She would pick at her brain until she understood the twists and turns in there. How do they work? That's what Terrin wanted to know, that's the question that she wanted to ask, but it went against what she had decided. The answer she sought was within the realm of dragonhealing, healing.

[Requiem]

A faint smile touched her lips. "Phremath is my eternal optimist." The statement was as much sad as it was affectionate. How many things had happened to the pair of them? And yet, still, Phremath never once had an ill thought of anyone. There was something unbelievably pure about the green, the dragon that loved all with her simple logic, but never hesitated or faltered when Hers needed her. How Phremath could remain innocent through the Weyrling Massacre, through the Siege, Kalierre wasn't sure. All she'd ever gotten out of Phremath by way of explanation was, They must protect Theirs, and I must protect Mine. Everything else doesn't matter. And to Phremath, it truly didn't; she forgot almost all details involved. It was a blessing that Kalierre sometimes wished she had.

Blinking down at Terrin, the dragonhealer rested her weight completely against the desk, ignoring the throbbing in her hip with the aid of turns of practice. "Does it not mention the massacre? They had just learned to fly...not even a turn old. Phremath was carried by a sibling into the air so she could get above the cliffs. I'm...sure that most would have overcome their problems eventually. Kasraith's rider had fitted him with...basically prosthetics? Or stilts, if you will. They were wooden. It was still difficult for him to get around on the ground, but dragons don't really belong on land, anyway." Most of them. Her Phremath could run as well as any runner, and for longer. Such was the natural result of not being able to fly well. Initially. "I'm sure they all would have, if given the chance."

Glancing at the record Terrin had laid out before her again, she eased her good hip up onto the desk directly, leaning over to pull out a different scroll. "Here. Uu'n and I recorded what we both remembered of the massacre ourselves, if you're curious. It's...well, you're a healer, so the blood won't bother you. The violence might." Her eyes flicked toward the candidate briefly. She could have said that Terrin was a healer, but that didn't strike her as true; you didn't stop being a healer simply because you weren't working as one anymore. Kalierre had yet to meet an 'ex'-healer who could simply walk away from the injured or the sick, just ignore someone who needed them. "My Phremath didn't really begin truly flying until her Flight. We worked around her - handicaps - by working tirelessly on Betweening. Now I think I actually held her back with my own worries. She has to use wind currents, isn't able to generate her own lift, but she's probably better at flying than a good portion of the dragons here who never knew a moment's hardship."

A hand moved up to the string of fangs around her neck, toying with them absently. Uu'n's gift to her. Handmade. From feline fangs, no less, felines that he'd killed himself - ironic, really. Those same fangs and claws had crippled her hip and scarred her face - as well as several other parts of her body that usually went covered - well after he gifted the necklace to her. "Uu'n's Adith was photophobic. He couldn't fly during the day. Even when Uu'n had goggles crafted for him to keep out the light, he still could only fly during the twilight and dawning hours. They went on to form the Nightwatch with the whers. Just before the Siege...when he vanished. I...never did find out what happened, even when he returned. Now I can't."

The woman shrugged. "So, yes, given time I'm sure they all would have. Many other of our dragons have mutations. And they're all learning to deal with them. Checkoth has two tails. He turns and maneuvers better than any other dragon his size, but originally he was unbelievably awkward. Feyrianth and her four wings...she won't be on our normal wings, but she can manuever in ways no other dragon can. We have a female blue, too. Some dragons missing claws, with extra ones, with long fangs that protrude. Others are...mutated in behavior at times. The newest clutch has a dragon that only speaks in rhymes. The more obvious physical mutations...well it's just like anything else, really. If they're too weak, don't overcome their limitations in time, they tend to die under pressure. The survival rate for dragonpairs since Selenitas was brought into the war - has not been high."

She tsked softly to herself. "Thirty-four, I believe. Out of six turns. And half of those are the ones in the weyrling classes now. I'm afraid it's hard to say whether or not the mutated dragons would thrive. In a regular environment..." Then she smiled briskly. "I doubt you want to listen to me ramble all day. Anything more specific?"