Drowning

Writers: Bree, Jane
Date Posted: 23rd November 2006

Characters: Shalai, Delen
Description: When Thread passes over the Hall, Shalai reacts with a violence that continues to perplex Delen.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 13, day 25 of Turn 3

Sometimes she felt as if she'd been dropped into the middle of a battlefield. The morning had started off so quietly, with just a few murmurs on the edge of her consciousness that drifted in and out without forming any sort of coherent words. She didn't mind the soft undertone, found it to be comforting background noise that could almost be written off as nothing out of the ordinary.

Then it would happen. Out of nowhere, she'd be surrounded. This morning she'd been finishing her breakfast, pushing berries around a bowl in endless circles. The sudden clamor in her head brought her fist down against the table, flipping the bowl over and spilling berries everywhere. She hardly noticed, bringing her hands up to cover her ears in a futile gesture that nonetheless was always her first response.

"No," she begged softly, clenching her eyes shut as the nearest patient nearly tripped over themselves backing away. There were so many voices she couldn't hear the distinct words, just the endless talking that combined into a roar that should have shattered her mind.

Maybe it had. She felt hands on her shoulder and she screamed, lashing out and not caring when her fist met flesh. The words pounding into her skull made everything tender and sore, and even the lightest brush of fingers on her shoulder felt like bruises being pressed into her skin.

A hand closed around her arm and she screamed again, wrenching herself away from the hands that tried to confine her. She couldn't stand it, couldn't listen to the hundreds of voices drowning her in sound and couldn't stand the brush of fingers. "Leave me alone!"

"Shalai--" She could barely hear the voice, drowned as it was in all of the others.

"--the left!"

"Can not--"

"--more now--"

"Shalai?"

"--mine is--"

"--back to the--"

"--now, Shalai, come--"

"--no! NO!--"

"--must go /between/--"

"--grab her arms before--"

Shalai screamed as strong hands trapped her arms against her body, gentle but firm as she was bundled into a thick blanket. Liquid sloshed against her lips as a hand cradled the back of her head.

"--find more fire--"

"--just needs a healer--"

"--come on, Shalai... drink--"

She opened her mouth to scream again, and the liquid poured down her throat. She choked and then swallowed, and could have cried in relief when the numbness started in her head and spread out. Numbness was a relief. Numbness was beautiful.

The voices couldn't find her there.

~*~

"Threadfall. Another exceptionally bad crisis with S. Her ferocity stuns me in events like todays. She's not a large woman but the damage she can do when this violence overtakes her is incredible. Curiously she seems to tolerate the presence of the female assistants better than that of the male healers. The problem is that the assistants aren't strong enough to restrain her and keep her from harming herself and others."

Delen sighed as he put down his pen, lifting a hand to touch the sore spot below his eye. It would be a black eye tomorrow, no doubt. He would be teased by the others at breakfast and have to laugh with his fellow journeymen when he got to the wing and they saw what Shalai had managed to do. They would be right when they said he was too experienced to be caught so easily but how could he explain that the unfocused blue-eyed gaze of a patient made him forget all that experience and instead left him feeling far too much empathy for her illness?

What had happened to her that had made her mind betray her the way it was? What was it that triggered these crises. If they knew that, then they could avoid the triggers and give her something approaching a peaceful life. He didn't like to admit it but that was probably the best they could hope to achieve for her.

Last updated on the November 23rd 2006

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Drowning