Vignette: Lost
When: 2/20/21
What: After the abortive rescue attempt and Fasha's death.
Nenny and Chaes, if anything needs changing, lemme know.
It had been a while since he'd lost one.
P'draig remembered the first like it was yesterday. Her face streaked with ash, sweat and blood from the oozing, ugly score that had taken away part of her scalp. There were other scores all over her body. It had been a very nasty tangle of Thread.
He'd held her in his arms on the Bowl floor while they worked on the wound they said would kill her if they didn't get the bleeding stopped. The scalp problem was just surface, they said. Head wounds always bled a lot.
She'd been looking up at him with glazed eyes, half-mad with the pain. "I'm sorry, sir. I was off-sides. Won't happen again. Promise." And then she'd closed her eyes and drifted away, her green screaming in terrible grief as she launched up and away and Between.
He'd barely been aware of the tears streaming down his face as he let them wrap her in a blanket, murmuring about 'nothing he could've done' and he'd carried her body Between himself, gone to the little cothold where her mother had wept inconsolably on her son's shoulder and her father had turned and walked out without saying a word.
"Sorry" had never been enough.
He'd started drinking then. First just a glass or two to take the edge off. Then more and more as the deaths stacked up until it was half a bottle nightly. It had been gradual enough that no one really noticed. No one except maybe R'us who'd always quietly watched. Or Persie who'd caught him at it, who'd tried to --
He cut off that path of thought and stared out moodily into the gale. He'd checked in with all of the weyrlings here in the caves. They were grief-stricken, tired, wet, uncomfortable, but otherwise alive and mostly well. He'd spoken a word of comfort to each, squeezed Nenita's and then Ch'son's shoulders in passing then come to sit here right in the cavern's opening and leaned against the glistening rock.
He was getting wet again, but P'draig didn't pay any attention. Aath knew of course, over there on the other island and she'd passed along reports of everything being all right with them except for a couple of sprained ankles a broken leg and some slight wingstrains. Their position wasn't as good: just a leaning rock and a lot of huddled dragons for the humans to shelter under. It was going to be a miserable night over there.
Paddy longed to be there, or to have them here. He wanted to wrap his arms around T'mic and lean against the greenrider, share the grief, let go of some of the fatigue. Not be in charge for five minutes.
He heard sniffling behind him and P'draig straightened his shoulders, turned back inside to hunker down next to Es'ver who was crying into his muddy knees again. "It's okay, let it out," he soothed the younger brownrider, rested a comforting hand atop the lad's head. Lightning and thunder crashed outside and several trees toppled over, making those nearest the cavern-mouth jump in alarm. "Everyone scoot back a little further in here, please," he said in a firm, mostly comforting tone.
Sivra walked past, hand scrubbing through short, damp hair and he nodded towards the sacks of supplies in the back. "Find me a couple of dry blankets?" he suggested to her and she nodded, went off with a purposeful stride. She was competent. Level-headed. But the type who needed something to do.
It didn't take long and when she came back, he got Es'ver wrapped up in one of the blankets, then held the kid's hand while he cried himself to sleep.
Later when most of them had curled up in little piles of joint misery, he stood watch again at the cavern's entrance watching nature's fury lash the island until not a tree remained standing and water swirled several feet deep into the jungle, drowning the beach camp and much of the space between. It never got close enough to actually threaten the caves, but Paddy watched and waited to make sure it didn't.
He'd be damned if he lost another one tonight.
It never got any easier.
And he didn't have any fucking whiskey.
In the morning, they went out and found the body.
She'd slipped and fallen and hit her head. Broken her neck.
They wrapped her in a blanket.
And again, he carried one of his weyrlings Between forever.
What: After the abortive rescue attempt and Fasha's death.
Nenny and Chaes, if anything needs changing, lemme know.
It had been a while since he'd lost one.
P'draig remembered the first like it was yesterday. Her face streaked with ash, sweat and blood from the oozing, ugly score that had taken away part of her scalp. There were other scores all over her body. It had been a very nasty tangle of Thread.
He'd held her in his arms on the Bowl floor while they worked on the wound they said would kill her if they didn't get the bleeding stopped. The scalp problem was just surface, they said. Head wounds always bled a lot.
She'd been looking up at him with glazed eyes, half-mad with the pain. "I'm sorry, sir. I was off-sides. Won't happen again. Promise." And then she'd closed her eyes and drifted away, her green screaming in terrible grief as she launched up and away and Between.
He'd barely been aware of the tears streaming down his face as he let them wrap her in a blanket, murmuring about 'nothing he could've done' and he'd carried her body Between himself, gone to the little cothold where her mother had wept inconsolably on her son's shoulder and her father had turned and walked out without saying a word.
"Sorry" had never been enough.
He'd started drinking then. First just a glass or two to take the edge off. Then more and more as the deaths stacked up until it was half a bottle nightly. It had been gradual enough that no one really noticed. No one except maybe R'us who'd always quietly watched. Or Persie who'd caught him at it, who'd tried to --
He cut off that path of thought and stared out moodily into the gale. He'd checked in with all of the weyrlings here in the caves. They were grief-stricken, tired, wet, uncomfortable, but otherwise alive and mostly well. He'd spoken a word of comfort to each, squeezed Nenita's and then Ch'son's shoulders in passing then come to sit here right in the cavern's opening and leaned against the glistening rock.
He was getting wet again, but P'draig didn't pay any attention. Aath knew of course, over there on the other island and she'd passed along reports of everything being all right with them except for a couple of sprained ankles a broken leg and some slight wingstrains. Their position wasn't as good: just a leaning rock and a lot of huddled dragons for the humans to shelter under. It was going to be a miserable night over there.
Paddy longed to be there, or to have them here. He wanted to wrap his arms around T'mic and lean against the greenrider, share the grief, let go of some of the fatigue. Not be in charge for five minutes.
He heard sniffling behind him and P'draig straightened his shoulders, turned back inside to hunker down next to Es'ver who was crying into his muddy knees again. "It's okay, let it out," he soothed the younger brownrider, rested a comforting hand atop the lad's head. Lightning and thunder crashed outside and several trees toppled over, making those nearest the cavern-mouth jump in alarm. "Everyone scoot back a little further in here, please," he said in a firm, mostly comforting tone.
Sivra walked past, hand scrubbing through short, damp hair and he nodded towards the sacks of supplies in the back. "Find me a couple of dry blankets?" he suggested to her and she nodded, went off with a purposeful stride. She was competent. Level-headed. But the type who needed something to do.
It didn't take long and when she came back, he got Es'ver wrapped up in one of the blankets, then held the kid's hand while he cried himself to sleep.
Later when most of them had curled up in little piles of joint misery, he stood watch again at the cavern's entrance watching nature's fury lash the island until not a tree remained standing and water swirled several feet deep into the jungle, drowning the beach camp and much of the space between. It never got close enough to actually threaten the caves, but Paddy watched and waited to make sure it didn't.
He'd be damned if he lost another one tonight.
It never got any easier.
And he didn't have any fucking whiskey.
In the morning, they went out and found the body.
She'd slipped and fallen and hit her head. Broken her neck.
They wrapped her in a blanket.
And again, he carried one of his weyrlings Between forever.