Sick Visit
Location: Infirmary
Time: Evening on Day 23, Month 2, Turn 4
Players: Roa and Sefton
Scene: When Sefton is (mostly) coherent enough for visitors, he gets one.
The quiet buzz of the infirmary is a little quieter, as the dinner hour drags on. Fewer people show up just now with everyday injuries, having other pursuits to occupy them. Nevertheless, the duty healers and attendants go about their work quietly, none venturing too near the curtain at the back of the infirmary, that shields the bed of the healers' ranking patient. Behind that curtain, Sefton looks to be asleep -- paler than usual, and still. Someone's recently straightened his covers for him, and he's still and quiet.
Sometimes high rank has its perks. Being able to walk into a room and go exactly where you like and not be questioned about it, for example. Roa swishes in, chin up, shoulders back, satchel bouncing at her hip, and moves briskly towards that singular curtain that everyone else seems to be avoiding. She nudges it aside carefully, lets it fall shut behind her, and takes up a silent spot in the chair beside the worn Headmaster's bedside.
The Weyrwoman gets a bit of silent thinking time to herself, for it takes the Headmaster several minutes to stir. He lifts one hand to brush his curls from his face, and that movement tugs at his side. With a wince, and a catch of breath, he comes awake, lashes lifting with a faint grimace. So then he spots Roa, and his eyes stay open, so he can focus a slightly dull gaze on her.
The weyrwoman is very good at making use of thinking time. Her hands rest lightly in her lap, satchel on the floor, gaze on Sefton. When he is finally peering back at her, Roa offers a faint smile. "Hello there. It's awful, isn't it. They're tied to near everything you can think to do."
He blinks at her slowly, and thoughtfully, and processes what she says. Then his lips twist to a quick smile -- one of the safe movements left to him -- and he clears his throat so he can speak. "This has turned out to be the case," he agrees quietly. "Not something to which I had given a great deal of thought, before now."
"You'll have a new appreciation of your midsection forever after," Roa advises with mock solemnity. "Kelar informs me that he and few other of your brothers and cousins will be arriving this evening. I was given very strict instructions on the things I was meant to smuggle you in the meantime. Do you feel up to eating or drinking anything?"
"I suppose that was to be expected," Sefton concedes, a wince briefly touching his smile. "I could drink, I am not entirely sure about eating. If you could help me get a pillow behind my head, please."
"I think I can manage that." Roa leans forward to gather a pillow from beside Sefton. "Relax," she says quietly. "Tilting your neck forward is going to do it, too, but it's better if you can keep from tensing up." Her fingers curl behind his head and lift gently, the other hand moving to nudge the pillow behind him. "There's tea. Wine, though Neiran will skin me if he hears about that one. Something a bit harder, Kelar says only to be added to other things. Fruit juice. Anything appeal?"
Sefton manages, more or less, not to tense. A small wince bespeaks the fact that it's only more or less, and not entirely. "Mix the spirits through the juice," he replies promptly. "And if Neiran raises a protest, I will find a way to have him posted somewhere so isolated that they can't spell the word 'healer'."
"You will do no such thing," Roa says crisply, even as she pulls juice, glass, and amber liquid out of her satchel. A faint clink suggests the other two items still within. "The man saved your life and is doing his job. You will suppress your inclinations to have everything exactly as you wish it and acknowledge that the Journeyman is being only that." She pours a splash of amber into the glass and then fills the rest with juice. "You owe Neiran a great deal, don't you." Her lips twitch. "Penny would skin me too, you know. Where shall you banish her?"
"Surely you do not expect me to modify my very nature on my sickbed?" Sefton asks mildly, amusement surfacing in his gaze, though it's slightly less alert than usual. "Though I am given to understand deathbeds can be places of transformation. Given that I am past that now, I rather think the opportunity has slipped us by." He's watching the glass now, rather than her. "Neiran was, as you say, being a Journeyman. He would say I owe him nothing, and that it was his duty." For Penny, his lips twist again to that suggestion of a smile, but he says nothing.
"Neither do you owe him banishment. And as I hold something of great value," Roa lifts the glass a bit and moves it from side to side, "I might argue that negotiations, if not transformations, are still on the table." But despite her words, the weyrwoman lowers the glass towards the Headmaster's lips to offer him a tiny sip.
"Quiet, woman," Sefton murmurs, chancing the pain involved in lifting his arm, to see if he can take charge of his own glass -- in case he can't, weaker than her, he takes the opportunity to sip when the drink reaches his lips.
"Ha," Roa says with a small shake of her head. Her fingers carefully slip away once Sefton's curl around his glass. "Is there anything you'd like me to do for you while you're prone and helpless?" She cants her head to the side. "I really ought to be taking advantage of this somehow..."
"It is at times like this," Sefton observes, in a put upon tone -- his drawl acquires that amused, faintly mocking note to which it is accustomed after his first mouthful of the drink -- "that one discovers one's true friends. I see you for what you are." A provider of drinks, apparently, and he takes another mouthful.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Roa allows with a shrug as she leans back, hands resting in her lap. "But it was a good run while it lasted." She reaches forward to flick at Sefton's curls, ostensibly to ease them away from his face.
Sefton is quiet, making hay while the sun shines, and downing most of his glass before he speaks again. "Indeed," he agrees eventually, resting the nearly empty glass on his ribs, and breathing out slowly. "Well, Weyrwoman. You have laid eyes on me, and I am both alive and coherent. Do you intend on taking advantage, now, or are you content with having won my favour by delivering forbidden substances?"
"I suppose it depends on the level of coherency," Roa muses. "I'm happy to keep you company. Or perhaps I ought to slink off with the contraband and leave you to rest in preparation for your brothers who will not."
"I am not entirely confident that my coherency thus far has been as I might have desired," Sefton informs her, sounding only mildly regretful. "My brothers will make enough noise that if I do not speak, it will not be noticed." Then, after a beat, and absently: "Penny came by, this afternoon."
"Of course it will be noticed. They speak only to fill the space until you do. Give me your glass." The weyrwoman shakes her head still smiling softly, her hand again reaching forward for said item. "Did she? I would have expected she'd simply be sitting vigil."
"You overestimate --" Sefton begins, then smiles wryly. "At least a little, you overestimate." He yields up his glass with a careful movement, easing its weight off his ribs, and offering it to her. "She broke in last night, and came again this afternoon. She understands she cannot be here all the time."
"Then she is growing up a little, isn't she," Roa muses, taking the glass and this time filling it with only juice before handing it back to Sefton. "Perhaps I overestimate the wee-est small bit. Considering the circumstances, I believe I am allowed. You must be that much grander, now that you have survived certain death."
"Certain death," Sefton replies, this time making no effort to hide his amusement. "You are a cheering visitor, Weyrwoman. I take it you are plucking the very best of the techniques you encountered when you were laid low yourself?" He's still slightly disconnected, his gaze flickering past her every so often. He tries, however, to summon himself back. "Perhaps she is growing up. Perhaps we are both simply coming to understand." He takes his juice, subjects it to a glance that makes clear what he thinks of it, and then rests it on his ribs without drinking.
"Perhaps you're both--" Roa presses her lips into a thin line. "Of course I'm a cheering visitor. I said survived, didn't I? Besides, you should speak of cheerful. What was it you said to me when I was bed bound?" She quirks a brow, her attention flicking down to watch the way Sefton's gaze continues to drift. "She's in class," the weyrwoman adds, softer and more gently.
"I'm sure I don't recall what I said to you," Sefton replies, tilting his drink idly, and watching the liquid within it slop around. "I am sure it was appropriate and comforting." There's something momentarily more coherent in his gaze as it flickers up to her, the suggestion of a challenge. "Of course she is in class. Where else ought she be?"
The weyrwoman only observes Sefton with one arched brow. For several lazy moments, she says nothing at all. Then, "If you wish for anything else in your glass, you're going to have to lower the water line, aren't you."
Sefton smiles properly for the first time, a flash of his white teeth, and tips his chin in a small nod of acknowledgment. "You'll run a weyr yet, Roa," he observes, with what sounds like approval. This time, he's motivated to lift his own head, and drink cautiously.
She shakes her head, eyes rolling fondly. "I hesitate to ask what you think I've been doing so far," she notes quietly. Roa waits until the glass has been lowered to her liking before she uncorks the second bottle to add another small splash of amber to the remaining juice.
Sefton watches his glass refilled, and smiles faintly at the sight. "Will I tell them to come and see you, after they've checked I am still in possession of my limbs and senses?"
"You will have to -tell- them? You mean to suggest they won't shove doors and propriety aside in their overwhelming haste to visit? They haven't seen Jashin yet, you know." Roa's expression softens into something more genuine. "Do. Thank you."
"We are men of good breeding," Sefton informs her loftily, the curve of his mouth betraying his momentary mirth. "They had best see Jashin, then. How old is he now?" A more preferable topic to that of his lover, it would seem.
"A bit over three months," Roa says, seemingly just as willing to change topics. "They've been truant, your boys."
"It has been very cold," Sefton offers, turning his head away and using his glass to muffle a yawn. Then, in the absent-minded tone of one drugged, he continues slowly. "They do not know your Captain, Weyrwoman. I told Kelar he should send gifts, and take his flirtation elsewhere for a time."
"Then you do not know my Captain, either," Roa informs the headmaster gently. She reaches for his glass again, though this time to tuck it back away if he allows it to be purloined. "Sleep, Sef. You need the rest."
He does allow it to be purloined, glancing back across to her, tired. "I know that very few men need eight others showing up to behave as though they own a piece of the mother of their son. He has enough of it, I think." Another yawn, this time smothered by the back of his hand, and as though in obedience, he closes his eyes.
"Perhaps so." Her fingers briefly brush over Sefton's forehead and smooth back his curls. "I'll stop in later," Roa offers quietly before pushing into a stand and slipping back outside.
Time: Evening on Day 23, Month 2, Turn 4
Players: Roa and Sefton
Scene: When Sefton is (mostly) coherent enough for visitors, he gets one.
The quiet buzz of the infirmary is a little quieter, as the dinner hour drags on. Fewer people show up just now with everyday injuries, having other pursuits to occupy them. Nevertheless, the duty healers and attendants go about their work quietly, none venturing too near the curtain at the back of the infirmary, that shields the bed of the healers' ranking patient. Behind that curtain, Sefton looks to be asleep -- paler than usual, and still. Someone's recently straightened his covers for him, and he's still and quiet.
Sometimes high rank has its perks. Being able to walk into a room and go exactly where you like and not be questioned about it, for example. Roa swishes in, chin up, shoulders back, satchel bouncing at her hip, and moves briskly towards that singular curtain that everyone else seems to be avoiding. She nudges it aside carefully, lets it fall shut behind her, and takes up a silent spot in the chair beside the worn Headmaster's bedside.
The Weyrwoman gets a bit of silent thinking time to herself, for it takes the Headmaster several minutes to stir. He lifts one hand to brush his curls from his face, and that movement tugs at his side. With a wince, and a catch of breath, he comes awake, lashes lifting with a faint grimace. So then he spots Roa, and his eyes stay open, so he can focus a slightly dull gaze on her.
The weyrwoman is very good at making use of thinking time. Her hands rest lightly in her lap, satchel on the floor, gaze on Sefton. When he is finally peering back at her, Roa offers a faint smile. "Hello there. It's awful, isn't it. They're tied to near everything you can think to do."
He blinks at her slowly, and thoughtfully, and processes what she says. Then his lips twist to a quick smile -- one of the safe movements left to him -- and he clears his throat so he can speak. "This has turned out to be the case," he agrees quietly. "Not something to which I had given a great deal of thought, before now."
"You'll have a new appreciation of your midsection forever after," Roa advises with mock solemnity. "Kelar informs me that he and few other of your brothers and cousins will be arriving this evening. I was given very strict instructions on the things I was meant to smuggle you in the meantime. Do you feel up to eating or drinking anything?"
"I suppose that was to be expected," Sefton concedes, a wince briefly touching his smile. "I could drink, I am not entirely sure about eating. If you could help me get a pillow behind my head, please."
"I think I can manage that." Roa leans forward to gather a pillow from beside Sefton. "Relax," she says quietly. "Tilting your neck forward is going to do it, too, but it's better if you can keep from tensing up." Her fingers curl behind his head and lift gently, the other hand moving to nudge the pillow behind him. "There's tea. Wine, though Neiran will skin me if he hears about that one. Something a bit harder, Kelar says only to be added to other things. Fruit juice. Anything appeal?"
Sefton manages, more or less, not to tense. A small wince bespeaks the fact that it's only more or less, and not entirely. "Mix the spirits through the juice," he replies promptly. "And if Neiran raises a protest, I will find a way to have him posted somewhere so isolated that they can't spell the word 'healer'."
"You will do no such thing," Roa says crisply, even as she pulls juice, glass, and amber liquid out of her satchel. A faint clink suggests the other two items still within. "The man saved your life and is doing his job. You will suppress your inclinations to have everything exactly as you wish it and acknowledge that the Journeyman is being only that." She pours a splash of amber into the glass and then fills the rest with juice. "You owe Neiran a great deal, don't you." Her lips twitch. "Penny would skin me too, you know. Where shall you banish her?"
"Surely you do not expect me to modify my very nature on my sickbed?" Sefton asks mildly, amusement surfacing in his gaze, though it's slightly less alert than usual. "Though I am given to understand deathbeds can be places of transformation. Given that I am past that now, I rather think the opportunity has slipped us by." He's watching the glass now, rather than her. "Neiran was, as you say, being a Journeyman. He would say I owe him nothing, and that it was his duty." For Penny, his lips twist again to that suggestion of a smile, but he says nothing.
"Neither do you owe him banishment. And as I hold something of great value," Roa lifts the glass a bit and moves it from side to side, "I might argue that negotiations, if not transformations, are still on the table." But despite her words, the weyrwoman lowers the glass towards the Headmaster's lips to offer him a tiny sip.
"Quiet, woman," Sefton murmurs, chancing the pain involved in lifting his arm, to see if he can take charge of his own glass -- in case he can't, weaker than her, he takes the opportunity to sip when the drink reaches his lips.
"Ha," Roa says with a small shake of her head. Her fingers carefully slip away once Sefton's curl around his glass. "Is there anything you'd like me to do for you while you're prone and helpless?" She cants her head to the side. "I really ought to be taking advantage of this somehow..."
"It is at times like this," Sefton observes, in a put upon tone -- his drawl acquires that amused, faintly mocking note to which it is accustomed after his first mouthful of the drink -- "that one discovers one's true friends. I see you for what you are." A provider of drinks, apparently, and he takes another mouthful.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Roa allows with a shrug as she leans back, hands resting in her lap. "But it was a good run while it lasted." She reaches forward to flick at Sefton's curls, ostensibly to ease them away from his face.
Sefton is quiet, making hay while the sun shines, and downing most of his glass before he speaks again. "Indeed," he agrees eventually, resting the nearly empty glass on his ribs, and breathing out slowly. "Well, Weyrwoman. You have laid eyes on me, and I am both alive and coherent. Do you intend on taking advantage, now, or are you content with having won my favour by delivering forbidden substances?"
"I suppose it depends on the level of coherency," Roa muses. "I'm happy to keep you company. Or perhaps I ought to slink off with the contraband and leave you to rest in preparation for your brothers who will not."
"I am not entirely confident that my coherency thus far has been as I might have desired," Sefton informs her, sounding only mildly regretful. "My brothers will make enough noise that if I do not speak, it will not be noticed." Then, after a beat, and absently: "Penny came by, this afternoon."
"Of course it will be noticed. They speak only to fill the space until you do. Give me your glass." The weyrwoman shakes her head still smiling softly, her hand again reaching forward for said item. "Did she? I would have expected she'd simply be sitting vigil."
"You overestimate --" Sefton begins, then smiles wryly. "At least a little, you overestimate." He yields up his glass with a careful movement, easing its weight off his ribs, and offering it to her. "She broke in last night, and came again this afternoon. She understands she cannot be here all the time."
"Then she is growing up a little, isn't she," Roa muses, taking the glass and this time filling it with only juice before handing it back to Sefton. "Perhaps I overestimate the wee-est small bit. Considering the circumstances, I believe I am allowed. You must be that much grander, now that you have survived certain death."
"Certain death," Sefton replies, this time making no effort to hide his amusement. "You are a cheering visitor, Weyrwoman. I take it you are plucking the very best of the techniques you encountered when you were laid low yourself?" He's still slightly disconnected, his gaze flickering past her every so often. He tries, however, to summon himself back. "Perhaps she is growing up. Perhaps we are both simply coming to understand." He takes his juice, subjects it to a glance that makes clear what he thinks of it, and then rests it on his ribs without drinking.
"Perhaps you're both--" Roa presses her lips into a thin line. "Of course I'm a cheering visitor. I said survived, didn't I? Besides, you should speak of cheerful. What was it you said to me when I was bed bound?" She quirks a brow, her attention flicking down to watch the way Sefton's gaze continues to drift. "She's in class," the weyrwoman adds, softer and more gently.
"I'm sure I don't recall what I said to you," Sefton replies, tilting his drink idly, and watching the liquid within it slop around. "I am sure it was appropriate and comforting." There's something momentarily more coherent in his gaze as it flickers up to her, the suggestion of a challenge. "Of course she is in class. Where else ought she be?"
The weyrwoman only observes Sefton with one arched brow. For several lazy moments, she says nothing at all. Then, "If you wish for anything else in your glass, you're going to have to lower the water line, aren't you."
Sefton smiles properly for the first time, a flash of his white teeth, and tips his chin in a small nod of acknowledgment. "You'll run a weyr yet, Roa," he observes, with what sounds like approval. This time, he's motivated to lift his own head, and drink cautiously.
She shakes her head, eyes rolling fondly. "I hesitate to ask what you think I've been doing so far," she notes quietly. Roa waits until the glass has been lowered to her liking before she uncorks the second bottle to add another small splash of amber to the remaining juice.
Sefton watches his glass refilled, and smiles faintly at the sight. "Will I tell them to come and see you, after they've checked I am still in possession of my limbs and senses?"
"You will have to -tell- them? You mean to suggest they won't shove doors and propriety aside in their overwhelming haste to visit? They haven't seen Jashin yet, you know." Roa's expression softens into something more genuine. "Do. Thank you."
"We are men of good breeding," Sefton informs her loftily, the curve of his mouth betraying his momentary mirth. "They had best see Jashin, then. How old is he now?" A more preferable topic to that of his lover, it would seem.
"A bit over three months," Roa says, seemingly just as willing to change topics. "They've been truant, your boys."
"It has been very cold," Sefton offers, turning his head away and using his glass to muffle a yawn. Then, in the absent-minded tone of one drugged, he continues slowly. "They do not know your Captain, Weyrwoman. I told Kelar he should send gifts, and take his flirtation elsewhere for a time."
"Then you do not know my Captain, either," Roa informs the headmaster gently. She reaches for his glass again, though this time to tuck it back away if he allows it to be purloined. "Sleep, Sef. You need the rest."
He does allow it to be purloined, glancing back across to her, tired. "I know that very few men need eight others showing up to behave as though they own a piece of the mother of their son. He has enough of it, I think." Another yawn, this time smothered by the back of his hand, and as though in obedience, he closes his eyes.
"Perhaps so." Her fingers briefly brush over Sefton's forehead and smooth back his curls. "I'll stop in later," Roa offers quietly before pushing into a stand and slipping back outside.