I'd Rather Be Threadscored (Marnark)

[Marnark]

"It was simply a pair of tinctures." R'gar answered, offering him the cup of sweetened milk. "Here, this will help kill the fire." He informed the lad. "How does your head feel? And what's your name?"

C'mar only laughed, leaning the back of his hips on a table's edge, and his palms on the same edge. "Kid, you weren't going anywhere fast. You were squatting on death's doorstep, judging by the looks of you. Trust me, I did you a favor in bringing you here. It was you that did you a disservice by not listening to our dear healer."

"Will you just shut up?" R'gar demanded, earning a laugh from C'mar all over again.

[Lady Smara]

Taking the milk quickly, he sat up fully once more and tilted his head back, finishing it in two large gulps more than happy to drink the much sweeter smelling liquid in order to get rid of the fire in his mouth. It worked, though only to coat his mouth and throat. Even so, with that little bit gone it helped tremendously. Wiping his nose on the back of his hand, he sniffed and wiped the tears that had escaped moments before away as well.

“Fine.” He said softly, his gaze falling down to the cup in his hands as he feigned studying it for a moment. With the fire gone from his mouth and able to breath, abet uncomfortably, it seemed the fire of his temper had gone out as well. Tschermak was rarely one to have a temper, generally the silent type who took what life handed him in stride. It had felt wrong to say what he had and already he was regretting his outburst. His head truly did feel better and while he didn’t really want to admit it, he was glad he had taken that awful stuff.

Letting out a similarly soft sigh, Tschermak shook his head, again not lifting his gaze from the cup still in his hands. “No, he’s right. Thanks… man.” He said after a moment, realizing that beyond ‘ponytail’ and ‘bignose’ he had no idea who these men were.

[Marnark]

R'gar was glad he didn't have to force that cupful down his throat, too. Not that he would have. This part wasn't medicine ... it was more candy to make the medicine go down easier. Picking up a small towel, he offered it to the boy to use as he saw fit. Whether for wiping off his sweat and tears, or otherwise, it was up to him.

"Good, good." He agreed, noticing that the kid still hadn't offered up his name. It made him wonder if this was one of the supposed Holdless that were supposedly wandering around illegally. Though, he really honestly couldn't hold too much against the Holdless for being foreign to the place. How was he any more suited to be here, having come from the other side of the world?

Granted, the North hadn't tried to assassinate any dragons. Not recently anyway ... drove them out, yes. But outright kill? He liked to think not, anyway. R'gar rested a hand on the kid's shoulder for a moment, in a small token attempt to be comforting. He had just been through a rather rough spell, after all. Between the headache and then the inhalation of the medicine ... ouch.

"No problem." C'mar answered. "You weren't in any condition to argue much, anyway." He answered. "Where are you from, anyway?"

Yay for C'mar lacking any tact.

[Lady Smara]

“Huh?” he said, blotting his face with the towel, even as he took another slow breath attempting to get his lungs to stop from burning. “Where am I from? Here. I was born in the Weyr and raised in the Creche.” He said, moving the towel to the back of his neck before letting it fall into his lap. Looking from one huge man to the other, he recognized again the similarities between them outweighted the differences.

“You two must be brothers.” He guessed before holding out a hand free of the towel. “I’m Tschermak.” He said with the silent T so despite it’s spelling it sounded more of ‘sure-mach’.

[Marnark]

Here. Interesting. "How often do you get aches like that?" R'gar asked simply, before C'mar outright guffawed at the comment on them being brothers.

"No, not brothers. Related, yes. Brothers, no." C'mar answered, before pointing at the other fellow who was barely any older than he was. "My uncle."

"Technicalities." R'gar answered with a shrug. "The way we grew up, we might as well have been brothers." He clarified, before accepting the kid's hand in greeting. Even if his own did rather ... swallow ... the youth's. "R'gar. And that douchebag is C'mar." he nodded at the smith.

"Hey!" C'mar protested, before pausing and getting a curious look. "How do you spell that mouthful of a name?"

[Lady Smara]

Tschermak could not help needing to press his lips tightly together to hide the mirth at hearing one of the grown men call the other by such a name. They honestly sounded like Weyrbrat kids or adults after having drank too much. It lightened the mood, however, and with his headache amazingly gone, the poor boy was feeling good. Great, in fact, as there wasn’t even a dull ache left over like so many of the other healer’s attempts. R’gar and C’mar. He would remember both names.

Managing to find his hand once more after it had disappeared in the adult’s hand, Tschermak turned green eyes toward the one who had carried him here. C’mar. Shards they were both giants compared to his small frame from which clothes always seemed to hang like tuber sacks.

“T-s-c-h-e-r-m-a-k.” he said, spelling out each letter before lifting a hand to the back of his neck and rubbing it. “I always got confused with the T, cause you don’t hear it.” Sniffing again as his nose continued to run slightly, he lifted the towel once again to his nose. A realization coming to him, he pointed back to R’gar.

“Wait a minute, your name has an honorific doesn’t it? How can you be a healer and a rider at the same time?”

[Marnark]

"Good golly miss Molly." C'mar commented. "I am glad I didn't have your mother. Why in the world did she name you that? OW!" He ducked and staggered sideways when R'gar popped him so fast that it stung more than it hurt. "What was that for?!" He demanded, rubbing his shoulder.

"Don't listen to him. He's a shrew." R'gar commented, taking a moment to pour some more milk into Tschermak's cup. Just in case the lad wanted it. "Yes, actually. I do have a dragon. A Brown, in fact. It takes up all my time, but I do get both duties attended to. I was a Healer long before I was ever a Rider, and I daresay that I'm probably the best Healer this place has. Official ranks aside."

C'mar grumbled under his breath, then shrugged. "Comes from the South not having an actual Healer hall, you know." He commented, to keep R'gar from sounding like a stuck up egotist ... which he certainly wasn't. C'mar knew that, but few others did. That comment on R'gar's part was merely his professional honest opinion of the state of affairs in the Southern Infirmary. But there was little either of them could do about it, especially when higher ranking Healers refused to listen.

[Lady Smara]

Opening his mouth to answer, he closed it again, thinking back to what little he knew of his life and his parents. Which was only what the crèche ladies bothered to remember. The woman had been un-liked and quickly forgotten after she had passed, leaving a nameless baby boy in the Creche’s care. Even the women of the Creche could not exactly remember who it had been who had chosen his name for him. Whoever it had been had a love for the complex.

Pity the boy did not seem to be growing into the embodiment of the name.

“Mum didn’t name me.” He finally answered, watching R’gar pour more milk into the cup he had just drank from. At the mention of a Healer hall, it took Tschermak a moment to connect the dots before opening his eyes wide. “You’re from the North?!”

[Marnark]

C'mar shut up finally, at the realization that the kid probably never knew his momma. Not because he said it, but because of how he'd said his mom hadn't named him. That ... was just ... wrong. He shut up anyway, feeling a tad awkward now.

Which was just fine by R'gar, actually. "Yes, we are actually. We came across the ocean on a boat and got lost in the jungle. After we got here, I'm not sure why, we were brought to attend a hatching ... at which we both ended up with dragons." R'gar explained, in very short turn with little detail. Mostly because even to this day he did not understand what exactly had transpired ... or why who had decided what. It was just a mystery to him.

"But yes, I'm Hall-trained. And I daresay that we've had a lot of advancements over the turns that ... didn't happen here. This place is in the dark ages." R'gar remarked sadly.

[Lady Smara]

Pulling skinny knees up, Tschermak wrapped his arms around them as he rested his chin upon them, listening to R’gar’s story. He did not notice the look upon C’mar’s face or the way he had gone quiet as being in response to his own words, his attention was caught by the idea that these two men had not only come from the north, but had been on a ship, through the jungle and impressed to dragons! What an adventure even said in so little words!

As only a young boy’s imagination could, Tschermak’s mind seemed to run away with it even as his green eyes found the slightest of sparkles. It had been a long time since he had the courage to dream, having settled into the habit of accepting what was given to him each and every day; be it in the form of headaches, blame swiftly placed on him or even some of the larger bullies taking a beating to him. Even so, the idea of their adventure made him smile and listen raptly.

“What was the North like? The boat and the jungle? Were you ever scared?”

[Marnark]

"The North? It was home." R'gar shrugged. "I never thought much about it. It's a lot colder than here, though. And we actually get snow. I have noticed that it doesn't snow here. There are also open, rolling plains, lots of grass, mountains, even a desert or two depending on where you look. Here it seems to just be ... trees as far as the eye can see. Which isn't bad, mind you. Just ... different. I'd never seen trees this big or in this quantity before I came here. It was a tad intimidating, sure."

"The boat was too small to hold all of us and N'var too." C'mar remarked dryly. "So I jumped overboard. You know. To make room."

R'gar sighed, and leveled a stare at C'mar. "That is not why you jumped overboard during a storm, and you know it."

C'mar only grinned in silence.

"When we set out on the ship, we were all pretty confident we'd find something. Even if it was only ruins. But all being young as we were ... and in some cases still are ..." he leveled a pointed gaze at C'mar. "... we really had no idea what we were setting out to do in reality. The ship stage of the journey was a tad harrowing at times, but we survived. Once we hit the jungle and the ship left, though ... then we started having doubts. None of us had ever seen a jungle before, much less ever tried to navigate through one to an unknown destination with no map and limited supplies. So yeah ... it was a bit scary. Terrifying is a better word in retrospect. But we had no choice, and didn't really think about it much. Honestly, I think that if our bumbling antics hadn't drawn the attention that it did, we might have all died out there without ever finding anything of note."

[Lady Smara]

Tschermak hung on every word of the healer as he spoke of their adventure, flicking over to C’mar as he spoke dryly of another Rider only to return back to R’gar. It was all amazing to the young boy who had only ventured far enough outside of the Weyr to make it to the beach nearby where they were instructed to collect things for the lower cavern women. Often times many of the young children would run off to see if they could find flit eggs, but it was rare that the small boy was out there without a headache and the sun always seemed brighter on the sand.

“Even if it was scary, you guys were brave. I wonder if I’ll ever be that brave.” He said, the second part muttered quietly. His eyes caught those of another, larger Weyrbrat as he entered the Infirmary. Tschermak sat still watching as the larger boy spoke with another adult.

“I should get back…” He finally said, sliding off the bed without asking to be actually released. Standing on his own two feet, Tschermak found himself forced to actually turn his head upwards at a steep angle to look at the two who easily made him feel tiny. “Thank you, for taking the headache away.”

[Marnark]

R'gar nodded. "If you get another one like that, you let me know. In the mean time, I want you to keep track of what you eat, alright?" He gestured for Tschermak to continue on as he saw fit, glad to see that the lad was feeling so much better.

C'mar stepped back out of the way, not having missed the looks the kid had given the other brat. For a moment he just watched the bigger 'brat, curious what was going on there. But he didn't say anything about it - yet. Instead he just watched as Tschermak snuck out the other way.

"That ... is interesting." C'mar remarked, only earning a glance from R'gar.