A Wild Wherry Chase (2)

Writers: AL, Jane
Date Posted: 7th April 2008

Characters: K'hetah, Zelle
Description: K'hetah reluctantly shows Zelle his weyr, with unexpected results
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 9, day 16 of Turn 4

"Whoa!" K'hetah grabbed for the greenrider, caught her then, unbalanced by her weight, slipped himself, flailing with his free hand and hearing it connect with flesh and bone. Not his. "Zelle?" He was on one knee (and he had the feeling the knee would be protesting soon enough), holding Zelle's arm. "Sorry. I think I hit you." He edged cautiously to his feet and looked at her. "_Zelle?_"

"Yeah, you did." Her voice was tight as pain throbbed not only through her ankle, but through her side where she fell upon a rock and in her face where K'hetah had accidentally backhanded her, and rather hard at that. She tried to move and breathed in sharply, then let out a long, soft moan. "Ow."

"What's hurting?" he asked, crouching down though very wary of losing his footing again.

"Everything?" Zelle tried to move again and was rewarded with another sharp sting of pain. "Head, body, ankle. Oh shaffit." She tried to sit up, but the word began to spin, so lowered her head again.

"Broken? The ankle?" he asked, reaching carefully for her leg and hoping it wasn't that bad. "Uh-oh."

"Wha?" Even though Zelle was trying her best not to move, the dizziness was making the world rather shaking. She turned her head, but doing so only made things worse. She managed to glimpse something dark on her pants, but she couldn't really turn her head far enough without wanting to lose the contents of her stomach.

"You've cut your leg," the bronzerider said briefly, hauling up her tattered trouser leg and then pulling off his shirt to wad up into a pad. **Reassure Rillith,** he said to his dragon, before repeating the instruction aloud for Zelle. "We're going to sit here for a moment while I get some pressure on this, and then I'll get some help to get us off these rocks. All right?" Even as he worked on turning his shirt into both pressure pad and bandage he was keeping an eye on the greenrider's level of consciousness. Though the bleeding was the more immediate concern that blow to the head could cause more long-term damage.

"Yeah." Zelle managed to shift a little without making her head reel too badly to allow K'hetah better access to her leg. She crooned mentally to her dragon and hoped that the bleeding would stop quickly, because she really would like to get off the rocks. "I didn't realise you didn't want me to see your weyr that badly..."

"Mmm. You ask again and I'll have to break both legs. But here's some good news. I'm fairly sure that ankle isn't broken. Can you tell about your ribs? Have you ever broken them before?" He had, and he knew he would never forget what it felt like.

"No." Zelle tried to shift again. There was a rock jabbing into her and it honestly wasn't helping matters. "But it's rather painful to breathe at the moment."

"Then don't," K'hetah said, grinning at her. "Right. I've asked Loeth to pass on a message so we'll have company here soon. Just let me check your head."

"Touch it and it will hurt worse than it already is, so I'd rather you not." Zelle's throat was dry, suddenly and the dizziness continued to plague her.

"Come on, sweetling. I'm a healer, you can trust me," he said, glancing again at the makeshift bandage around her leg.

"Trust you?" Zelle laughed, then moaned, regretting the laughter. "I never could trust you. When did you start calling me sweetling?"

"When you put a handswidth of gash in your leg that's going to require more stitches than you've seen in your life."

"I feel special." Zelle paused, what little colour draining from her face as another dizzy spell hit her. "I feel nauseated."

"Not surprising. Help is here, though. We'll probably lay you down on a stretcher." And elevate that leg. "That may help."

"And fellis." Zelle added, her voice softer as she closed her eyes.
Her head was pounding, her ribs were pounding, her leg was pounding.
In general, her body was pounding. "Fellis would be nice. Very nice."

"Just a little," he said, worried about the blow to her head and the sedative properties of the pain relief. "Just rest up while I talk to this journeyman."

***

Zelle was quite grateful when the healers came and they were finally able to get her onto a stretcher. She vaguely realised that she probably wasn't really as bad off as she felt, but shock made her disoriented and dizzy. It wasn't a good feeling. She had sprained her wrist once before, but other than that and a minor threadscore to her shoulder, she hadn't really had any major injuries. The problem was, she was supposed to be back at her weyr, though she had a feeling her return was going to be postponed.

When they arrived at the infirmary K'hetah explained the injuries to the senior journeyman who met them, assured him that Loeth was in constant contact with Zelle's Rillith and then stood aside as the Weyr's healer's got to work.

"Zelle. Hello. Your eyes are open," the journeywoman said in an amused tone. "Are you interested in talking yet?" she asked the greenrider.
With numbweed everywhere it would do some good and those few drops of fellis earlier the greenrider had been disinterested during most of her assessment and during the treatment of the leg wound and the superficial grazing. Somewhere in the background the Wingleader who had brought her in was still hovering, and the senior journeywoman was glad that he didn't feel the need to interfere just because he had once worn healer knots.

"Are you sure?" Zelle blinked several times and then managed a half grin. Blinking was probably the only thing that wouldn't hurt without numbweed. "What do you want to talk about? The lovely day today? Or how big of a clutz I am?"

"Well, I won't comment on the clutz business. How about I go through your injuries so you know what the tally is?"

"If you insist." Zelle shifted a bit - at least, as much as she could.

"I could tell the Wingleader instead, if you like?"

Zelle shook her head slightly, which was probably not a wise choice considering that she was still reeling a bit from dizziness. "No, go ahead."

"Your ankle is sprained, not broken. It might take as much as a month to heal properly, but with crutches you can be mobile within a sevenday.
The gash on your leg has been cleaned and stitched. It was deep and we'll be recommending that you don't go /between/ for at least a sevenday. The general grazes are all cleaned and we've left them open to heal. Your ribs are bruised - and there will be some large bruises coming out - but we don;'t think anything's broken. You have a small cut on your head, an probably a mild concussion, which will ease over the next couple of days. And a bruise on your face -
The Wingleader said he hit you trying to save you from the fall. Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right." Great. She wasn't going to get home for at least a sevenday. Zelle supposed it was better than going /between/ and making things worse.

"That it was an accident?"

"I'm sure that he's wanted to hit me plenty of times in the past, but I think this once it was an accident." Zelle grinned then lifted a hand to her head as more dizziness attacked. "Sharding concussion."

"All right then. The Wingleader assures us that his bronze is in contact with your green so I think we can chance some non-sedative pain relief that should ease the head ache. How does that sound?"

"That sounds wonderful." Zelle managed another half grin. Sleep would be good too. Hopefully the pain would be gone...well, not gone, but at least more bearable afterwards. "Although something to help me sleep would be nice as well."

"Not until we're certain about that head injury. If there's nothing else you want to ask we'll get you settled in a bed and let you catch what sleep you can. The Wingleader said he would send word back to your Weyrleader."

She supposed that made sense, though she sharding felt like she could use about a sevenday's worth of sleep. "Thank you." Zelle murmured, wondering how bad she would feel once the numbweed wore off and not really looking forward to it.

"I won't be long." The journeywoman patted the greenrider's shoulder.
"Would you like the Wingleader to come and sit with you?"

"Sure. Then he can make fun of how I look." Zelle started to laugh, but stopped suddenly at the pang that it caused. "I guess I shouldn't do that."

"Not for a while," the other woman agreed. "I'll send him in."

Last updated on the April 9th 2008

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A Wild Wherry Chase (2)