[Vignette] Nevermind / Forget It / Just Memory
Who: Donavon (NPC), Katric
When: Day 21, Month 5, Turn 2, 7th Pass
Where: Beach, Western Islands
What: On the islands, Donavon is in and out of things while Katric tries to tend to his wounds in the day before the Instigaor riders pick them up.
Donavon had appropriated, morbidly enough, Leyron's old room. The dead man's wife had moved back to the dorm after his reappearance as decoration for G'thon's bookcase; the only things she'd left were the bed and a few other large furniture pieces. The guards had already swept the room for clues, and the weyrfolk avoided it, as though it were cursed because of its former owner. Still, it was just comfortable enough for one fugitive's purposes, and Donavon sprawled lazily across the bed, flipping through an old children's book he'd found in one of the drawers of a chest.
Abruptly, the door slammed open, and Donavon, startled, dropped his book seconds before E'sere dragged him from the bed by his collar. The wall was cold when his back pressed into it, and he stared at the bronzerider's colder eyes.
"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, Donavon?" E'sere growled. Donavon opened his mouth to answer but E'sere wasn't done yet. Right in his face, he asked again, low and dangerous, "What. The fuck. Are you playing at?"
"The--the eggs?" Donavon squeaked out. He hated how his voice always rose when they fought--he never could keep his head and temper like E'sere could. Not that the bronzerider was really demonstrating that talent now, the thought popped into his head. E'sere stared at him a moment longer, then let him go suddenly. He paced across the room and finally leaned against the almost-closed door: it latched itself with a small snick, at which E'sere slid down its length to the floor.
"The eggs," he affirmed wearily.
"I... You wouldn't give the order, I knew you wouldn't," Donavon tried to explain, fumbling. "So I gave it." Pause. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," E'sere retorted, voice again sharp. Donavon just looked at him. "I--I saw Katric. Before all this. He thinks... fellis."
"The man knows his fellis," Donavon agreed quickly, eyes darkening. E'sere rubbed the palm of one hand across his mouth warily.
"Don't do anything stupid, Donavon. This was--you got him caught now. They're going to exile him. This was too far, Donavon--especially without consulting me," E'sere persisted.
Donavon was shaking his head already. "I couldn't ask you. Morelenth--I saw him today. He doesn't look good, doesn't look good at all. He'd of given us up just like that."
"That," E'sere drawled dryly, "should have been your first clue." He pauses, then softened slightly. Their fights grew briefer every turn. "But. Ganathon's body? That was... well, I wish I'd seen his face. That was good work."
Donavon cracked a humorless smile for that. "I wish I had, too. I just got... one more loose end to wrap up, Sere, and then I'll go. I'll head out to Tillek and see if I can't hook up with Luskian again," he finally decided.
"Me?" said E'sere, smirking at Donavon. The other man looked up sharply, eyes widening: E'sere had vanished, and in his place Aivey wielded her knife, advancing on him steadily. The wound on his stomach--how was it already there?--burned in sympathy. His hands were tied--shackled--together; he couldn't get away as she came after him, as she, Aida, bent over him and split him wider. There--he found E'sere again, just standing there, just watching with that blank impassive mask Donavon'd always wanted to break.
He was cold, shivering, and then burning up with fever again when the figures, ones he could no longer put a name to, withdrew. Only E'sere remained, leaning over him, eyes unreadable...
Donavon woke yelling, a weight pinning his shoulders and the eyes above him green, too green--he didn't know why he was yelling, didn't recognize the soothing voice telling him to calm down, I have to look at it, you're going to be fine if you just calm down. Another sharp burst of pain as fingers feeling of his blooded nose brought clarity to his senses.
"K--Kat--Katric," he finally gasped out the name.
"Hm? Ssh," the healer replied absently, staring at Donavon's now-crooked nose intently. He used his weight to help keep the unwilling patient still while he felt the injury carefully. "It's broken all right," he finally pronounced, "but there's not much I can do about that. I'll wait for the swelling to go down a little and then I can see if I can't straighten it out some, but."
He climbed off Donavon then, stepping over to get a large rock from nearby. He wrapped it in cloth--he'd cut the sleeves and half the legs of his shirt and pants off to accommodate the blazing weather of the islands--and then slid the rock under Donavon's head.
"There, that'll keep you from choking on your own blood, at least," he said in an unreasonably cheerful tone; it made Donavon's head ache worse to hear it. Katric, however, continued blithely, "I've already taken a look at your stomach--I figured better do that while you were really out--and it's... Well, it's not good, obviously, but I'm doing everything I can." He leaned over again to look at the wound again, meticulously rebandaged after his ministrations.
"You broke the stitches," he continued after a moment, "so I pieced them back together as good as I could--found a needlethorn bush further in, and I've been reusing the thread where I can, but I don't exactly have any redwort or anything handy to sanitize with. If you're lucky, it won't get infected--if we're really lucky, I'll finally manage to wave down one of those riders that keeps flying over. They've been out here a decade; surely they've got something I can use."
Donavon squinted against the bright light slanting through the trees and finally closed his eyes, listening to that voice chatter on with only half his mind. The other was still caught up in dreams of memories, and soon he slipped away again into that world half-remembered.