Sylvan Weyr

[Hooxeii]

If dragons could blush, Holmth certainly would be doing so now.

He hadn't meant to do it, really! It wasn't his fault that the roof of his and S'lock's hut was just a bit too low, or that the random visiting flitter had landed on his front right claw, spooking him. And it certainly wasn't his fault that when the flitter had startled him awake, he'd shot his head up and punched a hole right in the roof of the hut.

But it was embarassing, especially as he was now stuck. He was not especially worried; he could break himself out of this predicament rather easily. It would only take a bit of struggling and he'd be free...but the roof would not survive that effort. It was looking to be on its last legs as it was. The supporting beams cracked and moaned ominously.

It was good that S'lock was not here. He'd surely be poking fun at his lifemate, finding the humor in the situation despite the damage to the hut. Holmth had a mind to remind S'lock of the time he'd gone to the restroom in a patch of itchy plants, or the time when, during weyrling training, S'lock had wet himself after his first trip between.

Still, it would be good to have S'lock here to help him get out of this situation without collapsing the entire roof. He wasn't sure how to move without causing more damage. The bronze sighed deeply. This was a fine predicament, and he'd likely never hear the end of it.

The random flitter from before landed on his nose as his head poked out of the roof. It chittered and chirped in delight at what was evidently a hilarious sight to behold.

Holmth snorted, causing the little brown flitt to scatter to a nearby tree branch. The dragon's eyes whirled yellow with annoyance.

Help. He called for only other dragons to hear.

[obeah]

Habit was in a good mood. She had finally saved the marks to buy a decent pair of crutches, so she could forever return the old Infirmary-issue ones she still used on occasion, and keep these lovely mahogany ones that matched both her skin and her pegleg and had some decent padding around the top. Maybe she'd burn the old ones, that was how much she hated them. Chalk it up to an inventory mistake.

She was practically skipping, the woodcrafter-turned-rider's handiwork slung merrily over her shoulder, when a loud crunch made her leap nearly out of her skin. She had always been a bit jumpy when it came to loud noises, probably from working in one of the quietest parts of a weyr (when there was no screaming) for so long. By the time she steadied herself, using one of the crutches like a cane, she couldn't immediately identify where the sound had come from. There were huts all around, but the shifting of thatch and the scraping of support beams wasn't hard to mistake, so she headed toward the telltale sounds. A snort, and a brown firelizard came flipping down from the sky, tumbling in a strange gust of wind before Habit's face only to settle in a tree.

The Weyrhealer looked up only to notice a bizarre and frankly hilarious sight before her. A fully grown bronze dragon, head poking out of a roof that now seemed imminently close to collapse. She was laughing before she could help herself, but stopped once she noticed the yellow of annoyance or frustration in his eyes. "I take it Yours isn't in there..." she said, looking up at him. "Do you want me to find him, or are the beams too unstable?" She leant the crutches against a tree and approached the hut, looking around for others. She realized belatedly that nobody knew better than the dragon where his rider was, but decided not to pursue that misstep of thinking for now. There was a hut about to fall around its inhabitant's shoulders if they didn't do something.

"I'm Habit," she said, peering into the hut that currently encircled his neck like a ruff. It looked like she could brace two of the beams against each other if she just had the leverage... but what could she use?

[Hooxeii]

Oh no...someone had found him at last. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but the bronze had hoped to delay his public embarassment as long as possible. He was a bronze, and wingthird at that! He was NOT supposed to do things like this. He'd led entire troops of dragons and riders (along with his superiors) into threadfall, but he couldn't free himself from his own hut.

The human girl before him was a healer of some kind, he could tell. She had a wooden leg, which brought to mind again the incident of S'lock and the itchy pants. He'd mentioned something about being embarassed in front of the young woman with the pegleg, and Holmth had been too busy poking fun at his lifemate to really pay attention to that detail.

So, perhaps, the healergirl would be discrete. Maybe she'd not tell? They were supposed to keep their patients secrets, right?

I, Holmth, am stuck. The roof is making sad noises. S'lock is not here. PLEASE do not tell him. Tell him it was thread, or a tree branch, or something. He shot into the girl's head, keeping one eye on the nasty brown flitt that had caused this mischief in the first place.

[obeah]

It always took Habit a little longer than most weyrbred people to assimilate dragonspeech into her mind, a place she had always regarded as a sanctuary. But by the time Holmth mentioned mentioned S'lock, Habit was able to grin in spite of herself. Sure, there was a code of ethics regarding patient confidentiality, but patients couldn't see you giggling behind their backs. She remembered S'lock, although he probably wished she didn't. She wondered vaguely if Tirean would tell her about an itchy plant that she had read about but never seen before one of these days. Then Holmth pled with her not to tell his rider, and her grin deepened. She thought she remembered S'lock mentioning something about how much he wished Holmth could not know about his accident with the plants somehow. Then again, that could easily have been someone else. Some riders always seemed to wish there were things they could keep secret.

Then a thought struck Habit. She didn't really know how much a dragon could pick up with people who weren't their rider, and how much distance had to do with it. Was mental sound like physical sound or something--dropped off with the distance squared? Maybe he could tell exactly what she had been thinking. Momentarily, she worried that a miffed bronze dragon could squish her and take the hut down with him for her laughter. Then she worried that he could sense other things about her--the hurt she hid about her leg, the dreams of candidacy. He was a bronze, after all, not typically fit for Search, although she'd read that they used to find queen candidates that way.

The healer in her suddenly snapped harshly into gear, and unnecessary, self-centered thoughts blew away like the wind currently playing at the edges of the hut roof. She strode sharply back to retrieve just one ornately carved crutch from against the tree.

"I won't tell, but if you want him to believe that, you'll have to find a tree branch," she pointed out. The roof shuddered ominously in response, and she drew back from the hut entrance for a moment. When it did not fall, she peeked back in. "Sad noises indeed," Habit murmured, looking up at the beams as she focused again.

"Hey, do you think I could climb on you? There's a supporting part that I think I can repair enough for you to get your head out without taking off the whole roof. We'll have to move fast, though," she explained. "And if the roof starts to fall, I'm going to have to jump off of you and hope you can protect me from falling beams. What do you think?" She knelt, as to take off her leg. She was sure Holmth wouldn't want to be poked with a stick much more than anyone else.

[Hooxeii]

Holmth thought hard for a moment as the roof made yet another strange creaking noise. The human was offering to aid him, but he did not want her to get hurt doing so. If the roof got too unstable he might as well just bust it totally and have her stand back.

You may climb on me if you wish. The roof might fall. I don't want you to hurt yourself. He said, eyeing a nearby tree. I do not think S'lock would like it if I lied. No branch could make this sort of mess. That last sentiment he'd said with a small, impish amount of pride.

He glanced around him. The flitter was still up in the nearest tree, laughing in its own little way. Holmth wanted very much like to whack it with his tail-fork, but it was out of reach and the movement might well down the roof.

The bronze sighed and waited for the healerwoman to make her move.



Meanwhile, not far away, S'lock was making his way back to his hut. The bronzerider was feeling good this day, having taken a nice long walk and even getting to meet some of the few candidates the weyr had. He liked being able to talk to them about his experiences and had enjoyed the meeting very much. Why, the young ones had been most interested in his Holmth, and, S'lock thought with pride, that much the bronze deserved.

It struck the dragonrider that something was terribly out of place as he approached his quarters. The scene did not fully hit him until he was nearly upon the hut...was that Holmth's head sticking out of the...roof?

Oh shards. What now?

"HOLMTH! WHAT ON PERN HAPPENED HERE?" He shouted, his eyes as wide as they'd ever been. He spied a familiar face just then, a healerwoman he knew from a previous incident...with plants...and itching...and a visit to the latrine...

"Healer! Uh, Habit, is it?" He yelled, waving at the girl. "What...happened?"


Inside of his self-inflicted prison, Holmth could only manage an embarassed sigh.

[obeah]

"I think we can do it," she told Holmth, face straight, eyes calculating. Her tone implied more confidence than she felt, but not much much more, which was a good sign. She straightened abruptly at S'lock's call, almost tempted to give him the sort of improvised salute the groundcrew had once used to signal to a rider that their orders had been heard, for some reason or another.

"What happened?" She opened her mouth, than reconsidered. "I am sworn to secrecy," Habit fired back in a jesting tone, then paused for a moment. "Although truth be told, I know about as much as you." Holmth's sigh shook the rafters and she stepped back cautiously, but again the arrangement held. "Well, I do know a little bit more. There's a supporting beam out of place, and I think with Holmth's help, we can get it back in if we move fast." She unbuckled her wooden leg, surprising herself by not feeling self-conscious at all. "Otherwise the whole roof's coming down around him," she warned. And me, I guess, she thought, eyebrows tightening a bit.

Then she put a hand on Holmth's side the way one might a jumpy runnerbeast. "Going up," she warned him, tactfully surpressing the urge to call him "hon", so silly was his predicament. She launched herself up the side of the bronze, to climb up Holmth's flank, one foot, both surprisingly strong arms, and one knee assisting her way up. "I think you'll need a lever. You might want to grab that," she gestured with the crutch she was holding at the other one resting against the tree.

You know, this is about the closest I'm going to get to riding a dragon as anything but cargo, something in her mind ventured simperingly, before it was cut off by the other part going RED STAR ON A RUNNERBEAST, HABIT, FOCUS ON THAT BEAM OR YOU WILL BE FLATTER THAN SYLVAN'S WEYRBOWL.

[Hooxeii]

A lever? The bronze knew what that was, but would the crutch work? It was nicely made, and very new, but would it be strong enough?

...and furthermore, grasping it might prove dangerous. Despite the silly nature of the predicament they were in, there was legitimate danger present. Holmth did not want the healerwoman to be hurt on his account, after all, and S'lock would surely not.

Holmth gingerly grasped one crutch in his left paw. His claws were a bit meaty, so it was more difficult than he'd anticipated. He took great care to handle it gently, and finally, with much claw-maneuvering, he managed to pick it up. Raising the relatively tiny crutch the the healer's height, he gestured for her to take it.

I do not think the roof would hurt me. But it might squash you, and that would not be good. The dragon said, trying to see what the woman was doing.


S'lock watched as his partner handed the crutch to Habit. She was handling this rather well, despite her disablility...

He scolded himself for thinking such a thing. The loss of one part of her leg clearly did not disable her much at all, and right now she was demonstrating much more capability than he. Also, he still owed her a great deal from his previous...problem.

"Can I do anything? I'm not so great with building and the like, but I can lift things if the need arises." He suggested, shrugging his shoulders.

"Holmth, try not to move much. You can explain to me how this happened later...I just want to get you out of there at the moment."


Holmth rumbled his assent. But where will we go if the roof DOES fall? What if it rains? I do not want to sleep wet! He said, eyes whirling yellow with a tinge of purple worry.


"We'll manage, you great infant! Now hold still!" Was his rider's response.

[obeah]

"I'll be okay," Habit reassured him, although it was technically against the healer code of ethics, as it wasn't a sure thing, and you weren't supposed to give patients false hope. Still, she believed it rather fiercely, and dragons were supposed to be able to easily pick up on that sort of thing. "Keep that end, and I'll work it under the beam on your shoulder. Then you'll pull down just a little, and I can seat it back on the supporting post."

Habit had started to answer S'lock's question, but when it became apparent that the bronzerider and his mount were having a silent... or in S'lock's case not so silent... row, the healer set herself to bracing herself against something somewhat less mobile than the rather nervous-seeming bronze.

"What you're doing is fine," she told S'lock almost too quiet to hear. "Stay clear of the beam we're working on." Though it was phrased as a command, she didn't seem particularly adamant about it, probably because nothing had gone wrong yet. She set about a third of the crutch Holmth was tenuously clutching under the beam, wedged against his thick bronze skin.

"Okay, Holmth... on 'three', you lift. Pull down about this much," she indicated a foot with her hands, "and I'll set it down." Either this was going to work delightfully, or the crutch was going to snap, the beam was going to tumble, and they were going to be buried in thatch.

[Hooxeii]

Stay where he was? S'lock was not used to being forced to stand on the sidelines. As a bronzerider, he was the sort who was always in the thick of trouble and working to resolve things. He supposed that the healer knew best, though.

He'd stay put and offer any encouragement he could. He wasn't exactly sure what he could do in this particular situation, but he'd try to be useful in some way.

"Holmth, do as she says. She knows what she's doing; she's helped me before."
He said, scratching his chin.

He really did have the strangest bronze on Pern!


Holmth, for his part, listened attentively and stayed as still as a statue. The dragon was unsure what he should do. The healer did sound like she knew what she was doing...but she was small. Her perspective was different than his.

But she was the only one who could help right now. Not even S'lock knew what to do. He'd had to trust her.

He clutched the tiny crutch carefully, preparing to lift.

I am ready. Count when you are ready, please.
He rumbled.

The bronze hoped this would work and that no one would be hurt.