K'dir ambles in from the center bowl.
K'dir comes in, head all wrapped in helmet covered by a shabby knit scarf, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. "Hllmffkmlp". This is the muffled greeting you receive from him.
"Come back in a sevenday, same time, and we'll see how you've gone," Ilesyn is saying, escorting a young woman out of the infirmary door, into the Inner Cavern. "Yes, you're going to be fine." The door shuts, and the Healer scowls, "if you ever learn to listen to what's good for you, that is." Still muttering, she about, eyes catching upon K'dir. "If that was a greeting, you'll have to excuse me for merely blinking in response."
K'dir blinks at you, then nods and pulls off the scarf from around his mouth. "Sorry," he says. THen he translaes. "Hello. I came to see if I could help."
Ilesyn's right eyebrow lifts, followed, expressively, by her left. "Help?" she wonders. Her eye is still darkened, although the bruising is slowly healing. "With what?"
K'dir shrugs and looks around. "With anything. Want me to empty the trash or something? Bring you some hot klah or something to eat?"
"So," Ilesyn begins again, tilting her head to the right, some confusion evident upon her face. "You want to help me, specifically? Or just generally?"
K'dir replies simply. "Whatever is needed. It's sharding cold outside, and invariable, when it is, there's something not getting done somewhere because someone can't handle the cold. I thought the Infirmary would be the worst place for something not getting done that should."
Ilesyn accepts this, nodding her head several times, slowly. "Well, you're correct in that nuch," she agrees, indicating the rest of the infirmary with one hand - it's full to bursting, healers rushing this way and that. "Although I don't know what my superiors will think of a /rider/ helping; we're supposed to be," her voice turns darker, "support staff to you. Not you to us."
K'dir leans forward towards Ilesyn. "It's all right. I'm small. They won't notice," he says in a soft voice, then straightens up, looking rather casually business-like, as if it is the most reasonable thing for this person to be there.
Ilesyn darts her head about, looking in one direction, and then the other, and then nods, furtively. "All right," she agrees, "Why don't you help me fold the towels and sheets? It's the one thing the /normal/ healers seem to want to trust me with, and I'm due to work on that now that my patient has gone, anyway."
K'dir smiles and says a cheery "Sure!" as he starts pulling off his gear and hanging his jacket and helmet and scarf neatly over a chair. "Where do I start?"
Ilesyn lifts up the chair from her desk, bringing it over so that it's set beside K'dir's. This done, she fetches the basket of clean, hearth-warmed sheets and towels, setting it down in front of the two seets. "You're really sure that you want to do this?" asks the healer, as she picks up a towel, folding it in half, and then in half again, smoothing the edges. "I mean, it's boring. And it'll probably give me a chance to examine your head."
K'dir smiles and giggles. "As long as its helping, I don't mind," he says as he takes a towel and folds it up. "Like this?" he asks, showing the folded towel to Ilesyn, to make sure it's coming out the right way.
"You're too nice, that's your problem," declares Ilesyn, peering at the greenrider thoughtfully. "Does it ever occur to you to do things for yourself, and not bother about what other people think?" She gives his towel a nod of approval, indicating an empty basket, within which she places her own towel. "Like that."
K'dir nods back, and sets the towel down on the pile, and starts with another. "People can have a lot worse habits than being "too nice", he says in a casual manner. "And I do things for myself all the time. I'm used to living in the woods on my own...well, almost on my own. As for what peopel think," he says as he flips a towel this way and that, and places it on the pile, "Well, I suppose people will think what they want. I just don't like to see people all upset about things, that's all."
Ilesyn mms, standing up to give herself the arm span and height necessary to fold one of the sheets from the basket, stretching her arms out as wide as they go to get to the edges, folding efficienty. "True," she agrees, levelly. "But it also means that people are liable to walk all over you, because they know you'll say yes."
K'dir says "Eh...then I'll just bite their feet off!" He places the towel in the basket and retrieves another one. "You don't seem to mind doing things for people."
"You have a peculiar tendancy to say things that confuse me," returns Ilesyn, brow furrowing. "Bite their feet off?" She places her sheet into the basket, adding, "What do I do for other people? My job, yes. What else?"
K'dir giggles. "I mean, I won't let them take advantage of me." Then he echoes. "I confuse you!" and he chuckles as he takes up a pillowcase to fold.
Ilesyn gives her feet a wary glance, as she sits again, but grins. "You have an interesting turn of phrase, then." Working lazily, the corners of her towels never quite matching, the healer adds, "Yes, you confuse me. You seem perfectly straight forward, but then there's layers, too. Depths. Fascinating. But confusing."
K'dir gives you a funny look. "Lawyers? Who are they?"
Ilesyn shakes her head. "Layers. Like-- an onion."
K'dir says "Oh!"
K'dir laughs at that.
Ilesyn smiles uncertainly, gap-toothed expression hesitant. "So. Yes. What is it that makes you tick, I wonder," she muses, placing another towel in the basket.
K'dir says "Probably food!"
K'dir tries to fold up a sheet,but even reaching up as high as he can, it seems to be constantly threatening to overtake him. He turns it this way and that, tries flipping the corners over to each other, tucking bits under his chin...he tries, but he just ain't gettin' it.
Ilesyn stands, reaching to grasp two corners of the sheet from K'dir; "Let me help." Adding to this, as she attempts to bring her two corners to meet K'dir's two, she notes, "Ah, yes, food. Would you be more inclined to do something, if food was involved?"
K'dir matches up corners now, death grip easing a bit as you help to take out the slack and diminish the pull. "Hmmmmmmmmaybe. Depends what it would be. I'd like to think I still have some of the principles my father taught me."
"So you /can/ be bought - maybe. As long as it doesn't disagree entirely with your morals." Ilesyn considers this, letting go of her corners once you've got them, leaning down to pick up another towel. "What if it was a toss up between saving a friend, and keeping to your principles?"
K'dir says "I think saving my friend would be within my pronciples! I mean, if someone were to say to me, "K'dir, fly me to a warm, sunny beach and I will give you a cookie!" I'd say "Yes!" But if someone were to say, "Have sex with N'cant and I'll fix you a huge pheasant dinner complete with fresh garden salad and bubblies," I'd suddenly go on a diet. But to save a friend? As in, to save their life?"
Ilesyn's lips screw themselves into a smile at the examples, her head inclined forward in a nod. "Well said, and certainly understandable. But--" she nods, "If you had to have sex with N'cant to save a friend, because he was going to kill them if you didn't - purely hypothetical, and never going to happen, of course - would you?"
K'dir nearly drops his sheet. Or goes as pale as it. Or both. "That...is extreme!"
Ilesyn makes a dive for the sheet, just in case it does drop, and then nods. "It is. That's what these questions are about-- it lets me get to the heart of the issue."
"What's the heart of the issue?" he asks, wondering what you are tyring to get at.
Ilesyn explains, scooping another towel into her lap, "Your limitations. Everyone has them, and you, being as nice as you are, may not show yours often, but they are there."
K'dir says "I think I'd do what I had to do to save a freind's life. But with N'cant....Yuck! That friend would have to be in pretty dire straights! If...if I had to have sex with N'cant, /I'd/ end up being in dire straights!' Then he lowers his voice and looks around, hoping that no one is listening. Then he realizes how stupid that is, because the minute /anybody/ /anywhere/, on ?Any planet/ says the word for sex, /everybody/ is listening! "Uh, but...don't tell anybody I said that. He'd beat me up."
Of course, anytime /anybody/ /anywhere/ says "Don't tell them I said that", that's the /first/ thing out of /everybody'/ dumb mouth!
"Of course I won't tell anyone that you'd have sex with N'cant if you had to," insists Ilesyn, pleasently, if somewhat too loudly for the crowded infirmary. "I know that that wouldn't be a particularly nice situation for you to be in."
K'dir cringes, groans, growls, and blushes like an idiot. "Dang! I /knew/ that was stoooopid!"
There is first silence, then giggling and laughter and the sound of people whispering...and girls twittering.
Ilesyn glances around, and adds, somewhat belatedly, "Oh, sorry. That was tactless of me, wasn't it?" For once, she actually looks contrite, a flush spreading across her face.
K'dir says "I come in here with a busted arm and N'cant's fist impression in my face, you get to fix me up, Ilesyn!"
"That's pretty stupid," notes Ilesyn, "I think I'd probably make it worse than better. Besides, N'cant only really hates women. He'd probably just ignore you."
K'dir says "Lucky for me! Then the whole discussion is moot. Or that part of it, anyway."
Ilesyn nods, stacking another towel onto the pile of folded ones, although she refrains from picking up another unfolded one, lazily reclining in her chair. "Just a hypothetical, and certainly not going to have any repurcussions."
K'dir says "I sure hope not. I don't want any "hypothetical repurcussions" from him!"
"K'dir, dear," says Ilesyn, wrinkling her nose, "I don't think /anyone/ wants repurcussions of /any/ kind from him." She illustrates her point with a wave of her hand towards her black eye. "I'm sure people'd protect you, anyway."
K'dir looks at your eye more closely. "That does look sore. Des it feel any better today?"
Ilesyn nods quickly, letting her fingers rest upon the puffy skin, lightly. "Much," she agrees, "Swelling seems to be going down. It'll be gone in no time."
K'dir nods, but gives a little grunt as if he's neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "You keeping ice on it?"
"And raw meat," agrees Ilesyn, wrinkling her nose. "If I cared more about food, /that/ might turn me off it."
K'dir says "Won't numbweed work better?"
Ilesyn shakes her head, hands drawn together in her lap. "Numbweed would numb it, but ice, and raw meat, take the swelling down, and that's the important thing."
K'dir finds some small things to fold up, some hand towels, washcloths and more pillowcases. He makes quick work of them. "Just how is it that raw meat takes down the sweeling? I never understood that."
Ilesyn astutely watches K'dir work, doing nothing to help. "I don't rightly know," she admits, "It just does."
K'dir nods as he folds up a hand towel. "I will have to ask Eliwys to see if she knows." The towel goes into the near full basket. "Well, there are a couple of sheets left. Careto help me?...Please?"
"Eliwys?" queries Ilesyn, grimacing, but standing up again, with a nod of her head. "I'll help." It /is/ her chore, after all. "Why Eliwys, though?"
K'dir says "DragonHealer. She may have heard from a Healer."
Ilesyn ahs, nodding quickly. "Of course. I hadn't thought of that, but it's possible. Otherwise, one of the other Weyrhealers might know. I don't keep up with things like that. Boring as anything."
K'dir asks, "You're not into the physical much, are you?" as he finds a corner of a sheet to give you while he steps back holding the other.
Ilesyn accepts the corner, holding it between two fingers, and shakes her head. "Not at all. Hate bodies, hate anatomy, hate herbs. It's the mind that is important in a person, nothing more."
K'dir says "Herbs are good. Especially for cooking."
Ilesyn shakes her head, a wry smile spreading across her face as she pulls her corner towards K'dir's, "Which is just another illustration of why the mind is fascinating - what you think is good, I couldn't care less about."
K'dir says "What do you care about, Ilesyn?"
"My work." Ilesyn says this without a pause, and then goes silent. Finally, she adds, "That's the most important thing. I love my work - it's job, and enjoyment, all in one."
K'dir grins at you from the other side of the sheet as you both get it all folded. "I like that! That's the way I feel, too!"
Ilesyn, once the sheet is folded, steps back, grinning. "Do you really? What is it about it that you love, K'dir? I'm always curious-- it doesn't seem so interesting, to me."
K'dir chuckles. "First you tell me what I mean by "my work". Tell me the job you expect to hear about."
"I assume, automatically," begins Ilesyn, hesitating, "that you mean the work of any dragonrider. By your question, though, I might also assume that I'm wrong."
K'dir grins. "Ah-ha! You are wise, great Healer! I have come to think of dragonriding as being a condition, a state that I am in, such as I am a man, or as being alive. It is just something you are, or are not. My job is to fight Thread, or my work is as a dragonhealer...which I am still studying. Or my job could be as a hunter...and I still get to do some of that. Your job is something you train for, something that you do to earn a living, or to keep you alive. Being a dragonrider....that /is/ life!"
Ilesyn's lips purse, as she consider this. "By this reasoning, then, your love your dragonhealing-- the rest is just part of your life, which you also love. Am I right?"
K'dir says "Take out the 'just' and you got it."
Ilesyn's expression turns wry. "I can't understand it - and, by what you, and so many others have said, I could never even try to." She slumps back into her seat, shaking her head. "You all just look like heroic idiots to me."
K'dir laughs out loud. "Yes! Yes!" he says, pointing at you. "You do got it!"
"What, that you're all heroic idiots?" asks Ilesyn, sitting up straight.
K'dir nods. "Basically. But, as long as we do our job, then it doesn't matter, does it?"
Ilesyn honestly smiles, stretching out her legs in front of her as she notes, "You're the first rider I've met that agrees to that assessment. You're right - it's your job, just like Mindhealing is mine. Equally important, and no, it doesn't matter, if you're doing that job."
K'dir smiles. "And that was the last of the sheets, so that job is all done, too! I think we make a good team!"
Ilesyn glances at the basket, and smiles. "I think we do. Thank you, K'dir. Would've taken me /hours/ alone. I hate folding things."
K'dir says "Jobs like that are usually more fun if there si someone helping."
Ilesyn pushes the basket along the floor with her feet, disappearing over to the other side of the cavern, where she puts the folded items away, before she returns. "Yes," she agrees. "And you're an interesting sub-- companion to be working with."
K'dir is quiet for a moment, then just starts laughing! "Sub...companion!" he echoes, and goes out laughing, looking for the warmer way to the Living Cavern, and the food!
K'dir walks off northwards to the inner cavern.
Posted by Louise at January 29, 2003 11:17 AM