Sylvan Weyr

[Lyfling]

The steady thrum of cloth being moved over a wash board was all that could be heard from the infirmary, as well as the occasional slosh of water. If one were to snoop out of curiosity, they would simply find a Journeywoman performing a task many a Healer needed to perform. If one looked closer, they would see reddened hands and a sweaty brow. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. But it was the stern expression and the ferocity with which she was scrubbing that would cause some unease. Then again, everyone else was too busy to notice the absence of a single Healer. The Feast was no doubt being prepared and the rest of the Weyr's inhabitants were no doubt cooing over the new Hatchlings, thus leaving Esleren alone to her thoughts.

Steam twirled its fingers up out of the cauldrons. The water was boiling at a steady rate over the banked fires and several strips of bandages were already hanging on the line. It would have seemed out of place in any other area besides the infirmary and the laundry rooms but alas, Sylvan had been set up to include an area for the bandages to be cleaned. Traveling back and forth between the laundry and an infirmary would have been impractical at best. So instead, in a far nook, a small laundry of sorts had been set up. It was here that Esleren had taken refuge from the madness of the day and it was here that she was trying to avoid any and all contact with those who wondered why she had acted in such an atrocious manner.

The hot water was a penance of sorts, the steam creating an atmosphere that was just barely tolerable to the bare skin. The wooden ladle was dipped into the steaming vat until it hit the desired mass. Arm muscles strained and slowly, slowly a load of clean bandages was pulled from the cleansing mass. They were then transfered to a vat of much cooler water while those that had been sitting in the tub with the sweet sand and the wash board were transfered to the cauldron of boiling water. It was a process she had been working on for close to a candle mark. Keiona would occasionally stir but otherwise, the canine remained just outside of the door to the infirmary, a post she had been trained to keep.

[obeah]

Habit added her own onomatopoeia to the sounds of the nearly empty Infirmary hut. She dropped the waterskins on the floor. Three of them were full, causing a sloshing thunk. The one she had used to keep herself hydrated was empty, and she tossed it onto the clean surface of a table to sterilize and refill, a leathery slapping noise. Her uneven steps rang out over the sound of cloth against washboard as she walked onto the stone. She was limping the tiniest bit. Walking on sand was really the only thing guaranteed to give her trouble anymore. Habit resisted the temptation to go hide behind her desk and medicate the stump with numbweed. She'd had enough of showing weakness today, what with using crutches on the Sands.

Esleren may have thought that nobody would notice her absence from the feast, but it was almost as obvious as the currently painful-sounding grind of cloth against washboard to Habit. She looked over at the sweating journeywoman, face impassive, eyes calmly but quickly taking in every detail of the woman's appearance. As the boiled bandages hissed into the cooler water, she addressed the woman, still looking as solemn and unruffled as before. "Esleren," she greeted her. She had little else to say, however. The perfectionist journeywoman still seemed distraught, and Habit didn't think she could make an impression on Esleren in this state.

So she moved behind her desk, creating yet another thump as she opened a drawer, depositing a platter of food she'd taken from the feast. She didn't really feel like eating just now. It was going to fall to her to explain the new colors, and while she had just returned from examining them, she didn't want to bear responsibility if they suddenly suffered the effects of a hidden genetic defect, or couldn't bear flame in Fall, or anything else. It was hard to predict.

Then there was the matter of naming, she realized, as she started to complete a patient record for each new hatchling. She would prefer to just call them black, grey, and purple, but then again, she would have wanted to call Dafnierth red, and look how far that went. Esleren's heavy-handed washing, as a sign of interminable perfectionism, was starting to grate on the usually-patient Habit, and she dug around in the food she'd brought away from the feast. "If you're not going to go to the feast, at least have a yellowfruit," she finally called over to the girl, hefting a large fruit. She would lob it gently in Esleren's direction if the girl seemed willing. "You're no use to me if you sweat out all your potassium." She wouldn't address the scene on the Sands unless Esleren did first, not with the girl this ferociously penitent.

[Lyfling]

Keiona lifted her head from her forepaws and watched the Senior Healer enter the infirmary. She was quiet and unobtrusive, though she kept an eye on both women. Esleren's awareness of Habit raised the tension in her shoulders. Here was the woman she had avidly been trying to avoid. Though it was only a matter of time before they had this conversation, the young woman would have preferred for it to have been later rather than sooner. The words that came out of her superior's mouth, however, surprised her. There was no way she was going to get out of that so easily... Her stomach was what prompted her. A slight growling and twisting paused her work. Apparently it rather liked the idea of that fruit. The cloth was released into the water and she took a deep breath, steadying herself for the possibility of what was to come. She could either suck it up and face this head on, or she could hide like a coward and flinch. The thought steadied her resolve and the shoulders straightened, bringing the flash back to the grey eyes. Eslie dried her hands on her apron and turned towards the desk, taking the few steps to reach it. She accepted the offered fruit and, with a nod, bit into the large fruit.

The taste brought her back to her senses and she ate it in silence for a few moments as contemplation settled in. She had to address this; it wouldn't be swept under the rug like so many others would prefer it to be. She had failed - miserably - but was not going to run away from this, even if it meant swallowing her pride. It would be a difficult thing to accomplish, but it was something that needed to be done. She would not lose her position in the infirmary.

Esleren regarded the mostly eaten fruit. "My actions were inexcusable. I apologize for them. It won't happen again." The straight teeth sank into the fruit though the grey eyes didn't meet Habit's.

[obeah]

Habit closed her eyes for a moment, the scene from the Hatching playing out in her head. The keening, the candidate's eye wound, the wounded silver-hued dragonling. Esleren crying and disregarding rules of consent and propriety. She opened them again, face nearly expressionless. "I don't think you can tell me that," she said, closing her lips until they were nearly pursed after she had finished talking. She ran her tongue back and forth across the small gap between her front teeth.

"It isn't your call what is excusable and what isn't." She folded her hands, mostly to keep from drumming on the desk with them. It was an intolerable habit in others, let alone in herself. "From my perspective, many things are excusable in the face of dragon keening and new hatchlings. Emotions run high." She forcibly kept herself from making a face. Her own had run far worse than she would have liked. Sharding daydreams. Waste of sharding time and brainspace.

"What will be inexcusable," Habit continued, shifting her weight back in the chair ever so slightly, entirely off her bad leg, "is if you fail to tell me exactly what was going through your head to cause you to forget to ask consent, and to cry in front of a patient undergoing one of the most emotionally challenging experiences of his life." Yes, she was provoking Esleren a little with such a frank discussion of failure, but there were two reasons for it. One, it would help her remember better, and two, if she couldn't handle that, she wouldn't be fit for the infirmary in the long term.

"I understand if it takes a long time for you to figure out precisely what it was, or where it came from. Emotions are like that. But you're not working in my infirmary until you can talk about it frankly with me." Junctures for the conversation darted back and forth in her head. She was considering telling Esleren that perfectionism was a disease, that it could be treated. Mostly bunk. She was considering sympathizing the girl by saying that she had once been that concerned with failure as well. Mostly bunk also. Finally, she settled for something true. "I'm not trying to harass you, or make you feel worse. It's just that you've got the makings of a truly talented healer in you, and they're getting stifled by your perfectionist drive instead of bolstered by it."

Shells, Habit's mind snarled gloomily. She was starting to decompress, to feel tired after the emotional ups and downs. She wanted to get this conversation over quickly, before she got to thinking about Threadfall and dragons and prosthetic legs. It wouldn't do to fall to pieces after she just berated a younger healer for the same crime. She looked down at her hands, obviously preoccupied by something more than Eslie's mistake.