Neiran

Into The West

2007-09-08T05:37:47Z

In a few days, Leading Edge MUSH will close.

As the sole MUSH I've played regularly on for the past few years, I can confidently say that LE has earned itself a place in my heart. More importantly, all of the people involved in it have done the same. I'm going to miss the fantastic RP as well as the wide-ranging and sometimes choke-on-tea worthy banter we all got up to.

I haven't been as RP-able lately as I would have liked to be. Summer slumps, the knowledge that any enticing scene threads started now will have nowhere to go, and the start of school are all to blame for this. It's mostly because of the last factor that I'm taking the time to say my official goodbyes now, in case things get too hectic in the coming days. I don't want to miss the 'deadline.'

Some of you have tremendously flattered me by asking me to play on several other games. But, I haven't decided officially where, or even if, I'll continue to MUSH. I do still enjoy it, very much, but the call to do better in my schoolwork and devote myself to writing and other RL things gives me some hesitancy. If I do join somewhere, I'll be sure to post my whereabouts and character name here and/or email you folks to let you know where I migrate to. I definitely want to keep in touch. I'm also very interested in wrapping up character storylines, through actual RP and/or discussion of 'how things are likely to go.' I just can't bear to see story threads dangle. You can all reach me at caergwyn at gmail dot com (put Leading Edge in the subject line the first few times until I add you to my address book so that I don't lose you in the spam filter) or via CaergwynAeryn on AIM. Don't be shy!

I've greatly enjoyed playing Neiran. It wouldn't have been the same without such fantastic characters surrounding him, manipulated by players curious and fun enough to happily poke him every which way to get the most out of him - and that gave me some of the best RP experiences I've had. I'll be taking my +comps with me in case I need an ego-boost in the future, too ;)

Characters, staffers, players. I'm lucky enough to stand here and say I've been spoiled by the quality you all possess, that you've shared with me over the past two years.

It's been a blast, and I'm sad to see things go into the west, so to speak. I'm leaving LE with creative ideas I hope to use in writing in the future, and a newfound love of medical history I'm already pursuing in present studies at university. (That "A" paper on Vesalius and Roger of Parma I owe completely to LE's spark of inspiration, and it remains the most satisfying university paper I've produced to date.)

Thank you, everyone, for a wonderful time.

R.I.P Leading Edge Mush
October 2005 - September 2007

I would like to begin this letter...

2007-08-11T17:38:08Z

A letter to Master Ceregar a few months after his visit at Turn's end, in which Neiran displays the gamut of new emotions that have arisen from subsequent developments.

Note: There are a lot of character tags because many people are mentioned at least obliquely, if not by name.

Dear Master,

I would like to begin this letter by thanking you for your visit during Turn's End. It was the most pleasant surprise I have yet had the fortune to receive during my residence at this Weyr.

Neiran's mind drifted back to that encounter. The Master had surprised him in the exit tunnel just as he finished a long shift, and the glint in the older man's eyes told him that he had been up to no good; perhaps watching him in his duties, or asking others about him. The first thought filled Neiran with pride, for he'd been especially diligent in his duties that night. Ceregar would have been pleased to see him fulfilling his duties so well, he thought. But the latter thought worried him. Not because he feared his reputation, but due to how his eccentricities might have been reported.

He couldn't begrudge Ceregar for having done either, if indeed he had. He was so pleased to see his old Master's warm, understanding smile, that he would have forgiven him almost anything.

Neiran thanked Issa in the back of his mind again - it was the back room in the lower caverns that she had once shown him which they took their snacks to for their ensuing conversation. Remembering the cordial meeting that had transpired warmed Neiran more than the tea he was sipping.

They had spoken of nothing, at first. Simple trivialities about this or that incision, what herbs grew most potent in which soils, the health of various old faces at South Telgar, and the latest long-legged runners. They reminisced briefly about old Hauberon, the retired Harper who had been kind enough to teach Neiran to enunciate in the Fortian way while he soaked his old bones in the mineral springs. Neiran and Ceregar had drank their tea and eaten the flatbread and cheese and pickled vegetables they'd taken from the living caverns.

Unknown to Neiran, Ceregar had thrilled inwardly while talking to his own pupil. Just as he had thought, the Journeyman seemed like he had grown taller. Perhaps his height was the same, but his bearing was altered. He was still palpably different, considerate with his words and spare with his direct glances, but there seemed to be more a force of personality behind his words and the eye contact he made was often for emphasis, not out of shy and fleeting observance of a social contract. The Journeyman's face seemed more mobile than ever before; he pursed his lips, he raised and furrowed his brow, and didn't hide those little expressions the moment they came. Ceregar caught more subtle, deadpan little jokes that proved to him he had been right about some sense of humor hidden beneath the stony facade.

Ceregar had long believed that no truly intelligent being could subsist in life without being able to laugh at it.

As for Neiran, he had been pleased to find his Master unchanged by the Turns, as youthful and soothing as he had ever been. He spoke with as much kind and engaging charisma about the bone diseases of the elderly as he did about particular cloud formations he'd seen in the prairie skies that he assumed Neiran would have enjoyed witnessing. He spoke of girls to Neiran, who affirmed again that his first marriage was to the Hall, and he had no patience for fanciful pursuits with either gender.

Did he never get curious? Not so much that he wished to tackle the awkwardness a courtship would bring, especially as there were no likely targets. He was content to keep his studies of anatomy within textbooks and upon the operation tables. What social interaction he received was almost exhausting as it was. No, he had no intention of initiating a charade of romance to appease expectations.

That had made Ceregar smile.

They spoke of his condition. It was not worsening to an extent that would cause alarm. If it was caused by some cluster of malevolent tissue deep in his brain, as Neiran feared, that thing did not seem to be growing or threatening him any more than usual. His medicines were partially effective, less so than before, but not discouragingly so.

There had not been an unpleasant moment in the hours that they spoke, despite the gamut of subjects their conversation ran. When they finally parted ways, Neiran had been surprised to find lunch being removed from the living caverns; they had begun their conversation at the end of his shift the previous evening.

When Neiran woke from an exhausted but satisfied sleep, he'd found a note from his Master saying he'd returned home on a convenient dragon, and he was sorry to have missed a proper farewell. Even the hasty departure didn't sour their meeting. Neiran took such heart at his Master's presence that the memory of that meeting would sustain him for long after the reality faded.

Neiran dipped his pen and continued writing. With their meeting fresh in his mind's eye, he felt inclined more than ever to be frank and to offer Ceregar his innermost thoughts. He trusted the man with them, and, he realized ruefully, it was becoming a relief to share so candidly.

You will have no doubt heard that I had the misfortune of being the surgeon to tend to Headmaster Sefton. Or perhaps you have not heard; I am unsure of the speed by which such messages travel, and with what accuracy. Despite what you may have heard, it was appendicitis, successfully dealt with in due time.

It was an unsettling event for many reasons.

To find the Headmaster crossing from the sphere of mentorship to patienthood displeased me, I admit. That the care of him fell to me and not a more appropriate Master was a cause of distress. If he were to die, even as an indirect result of the surgery, I knew that my self-confidence would be shattered and my career ruined. I felt cowardice in the face of an operation for the first time in my life, and I yearned more than anything to pass him off to someone else. But my diagnosis suggested time was of the essence, and I was required to push the idea of surgery even while I knew that I was condemning myself to the job. It was emotionally awkward, and I regret to say I did not put forth my professional front as solidly as I would have liked. Fortunately once he was unconscious I was able to concentrate once again, and the operation itself was not unenjoyable and resulted in success.

You will remember in a previous letter I triumphantly informed you that I found no difficulty in treating those with whom I had become acquainted. Perhaps I spoke too soon, and suffered appropriately for my premature pride. I do not know precisely what differentiates the Headmaster from the rest of those whom I now call my close associates. Be it respect or fear or wariness or something else, it overshadowed the entire pre-operative briefing, and I am troubled to think that if I had failed his last experience would have been witnessing my incompetency.

I do not recall learning how to gracefully recover one's respect and honor in a patient's eyes after such an occasion.

Perhaps worse than my unsteadiness was that I indirectly shed doubt on the operation's outcome by saying some words which I would probably not speak except to one I expected never to see again.

I regret expressing as much sentimentality as I did. My instincts since youth have warned me that it is better to be steady, if cold, in most circumstances. I went against them in an attempt to convey a portion of my indebtedness to Sefton, both as a teacher and as an influential person in my life, but perhaps I should have avoided such sentiments altogether.

It embarrasses me to admit this to you, because I feel that you have come to expect better from me, but I confess that now that his complete recovery seems assured, my thoughts have occasionally turned towards conceiving of how this might benefit me. I would never want to hold a patient accountable to me for saving their life, but I cannot help but think that having done so in the case of a man of Sefton's position will only make my requests and petitions louder in the Headmaster's ears in the future. Is this scheming the result of Caucus, or a latent quality in myself I have managed to suppress until now? You have watched me grow with more attentiveness than a parent, so I do not believe I am wrong to ask you if you have seen such an inclination in me during my younger Turns.

I can only tolerate these thoughts because I hope they will amount to something that will benefit any number of people in the future. I might propose my notion for some system of cadaver donation program to the future Lord of Fort, though not so soon that the stitches are still figuratively in his scar. That would make my request all too blatantly a request for a favor in return, though I wonder if even Turns of patience would ever be able to eliminate that suggestion from any serious request I put forth to him.

Neiran rested his wrist and thought back to the moment when Sefton had opened his eyes after the operation. He had been caught in a moment of elation almost indescribable. The realization of what he had just done had struck him full force, and the Headmaster's eyelids had flickered open just as he was reassuring himself of the man's reality by touching his forehead. He was retroactively embarrassed to have been so demonstrative, and he thought he even remembered feeling his own lips curve upwards under his fingertips, though he could not be certain.

The Journeyman's thoughts turned then to the argument that followed with Penny, as well as what he had learnt about the Smith and the Headmaster. That information was something he would not share even with his Master - at least, not if he was not asked. But Neiran exhaled softly and dipped his sharpened quill in ink again. There was more about himself that he had learnt which he felt Master Ceregar deserved to know, that no grades report could tell him.

I worry that I'm becoming increasingly selfish, as well. Where before I would endeavor to hide my displeasure with a situation, I find myself almost deliberately expressing it. It is such a self indulgence to burden others with my opinions, and I am ashamed that I have indulged in that egocentric behavior more often at High Reaches than anywhere previously in my life. I wonder if this is not part of the cost of having friends; losing the solid boundaries of one's own self, so that where your thoughts end and theirs begins blurs, and you find yourself compelled to share things you would otherwise withhold in order to close that distance and further blur those borders, like impulsively smearing charcoal lines.

In some situations I am glad to be able to express things to ready ears, but I would not wish to lose my grasp of tact and diplomacy. I believed myself to be well schooled in concealing my emotions and restraining my thoughts, but now I realize this is because my countenance and opinions were never put through such scrutiny as they are here. You suggested that a stone wall invites chisels, and I have endeavored to be more like a river as you suggested. Chisel blows may wound more easily, but rivers are also easier to force to change course, and to alter with introduced components; a wall may be effaced, but with a careless upturning of a flask, an entire river can be poisoned to its depths. I do not wish this to happen. Please advise me how I may retain my dignity and composure yet come to convey an amenable presence that deflects ill-will.

Neiran thought about writing his opinions of the political atmosphere, but his hand was getting tired, and there were still some last-minute revisions on his dragonhealing treatise he wanted to accomplish before submitting it to the Weyrwoman. He cast his eyes over his letter and frowned. It seemed so long, and perhaps a little plaintive. He worried that his Master would feel like he had to counsel him to the utmost, and taking the liberty of asking repeatedly for his assurance and advice unsettled Neiran despite their long association and the mutual understanding of their mentor-mentee relationship.

Could he adjust his letter? No, he would have to rewrite the whole thing if he wished to change the tone of it, and the very thought fatigued him.

You are the only one to whom it does not shame me to admit this, but it has long been my desire to glide as effortlessly through life as do the men gifted with the natural grace we call charisma. My etiquette instructors have given me that as much as books alone make a surgeon, and without direct counsel in this endeavor I feel like an apprentice faced with his first operative task with no Masters watching over his shoulders. There is one here whom I would trust enough to counsel me in such matters without expressing ridicule, but unfortunately he is not precisely a model of eloquence himself. I cannot bring myself to regret that fact, however, for it is likely for that reason that we became associates in the first place. This association has led to the recent privilege of becoming an adopted uncle to his firstborn child, whom I also happened to deliver.

Neiran knew that news would delight Ceregar, and imagining his Master's chuckle of happiness when he read it heaped warmth on that sense of honor which came with recognizing he was acknowledged with a role in the life of a friend's child.

I am proud to say that I assisted in the caesarian delivery of another associate's child. I am grateful to my younger self for not dismissing the lectures which I received on the topic of childbirth, despite how my wishful thinking led me to believe I would have the opportunity to avoid it. It has provided new ground and experience for me as a surgeon and as a healer in general. As I have managed not to elicit mortification or physical rebuttal from any of my female patients or their male counterparts, I can only assume my bedside manner concerning delicate issues remains competent, if it is not improving.

The Master would understand to which incident 'physical rebuttal' referred, and Neiran hoped he would have occasion to laugh.

I would like to reiterate the joy I experienced in your visit. If this letter has suggested I am despondent and constantly in doubt, I wish to dispel that illusion; I am as content as ever, though perhaps more free with telling you what issues underly my psyche because your recent visit has reminded me of how much I benefit from and appreciate your counsel.

Rest assured that on the whole I am doing well. My dragonhealing manuscript is done in draft form. I have been meticulous in its initial composition in order to minimize the editing process, and I will be pleased to have finished it as soon as I offer it to the Weyrwoman to read. With minor revisions I expect the first edition to enjoy circulation shortly, political situation allowing. It is my hope that others who have made - or will make - the healing of dragons their life's work will continue to improve on the seed I've planted; it isn't my wish to pursue the matter any further. I am content to assist the draconic members of the Weyr when they receive injuries, but my main interest will ever remain in our own physiology, and it is to that I hope to turn when this manuscript is out of my hands.

Having taken up the greater portion of two sheets of hide, I imagine it would be polite and economical of me to conclude this letter. Before I do so, I would like to ask if you would receive me for a brief visit upon the conclusion of my Caucus term, an event which is approaching with startling rapidity. I understand it will be more difficult for you to leave your post than for me to postpone my proceeding directly into new employment, in order that we may visit one another again. It occurs to me that a vacation from High Reaches' climate may quell many of my doubts. It is difficult, I am finding, to analyze who one is when everywhere in the faces of acquaintances you find your expected image projected back upon you. And I miss the Telgar air. Returning there after so long away would please me to no end.

Please tell me what season is most convenient to you. Of course I will also put my Journeyman's knot at your disposal while I am there; I do not wish to put up my heels, but only enjoy a brief change in scenery.

This was the first time the desire to return to the place of his apprenticeship had materialized so strongly. Perhaps he'd recognized a nebulous urge to do something upon graduation, but he watched the words flow from the tip of his quill like a secondary reader, surprised by his own request. He did not know if his impulsive request was readable as such, just as he didn't know what tone a large portion of his letter conveyed. He had to trust in his Master to receive it rightly.

I wish you luck in the coming months, and eagerly await your reply.

Your devoted pupil,

Neiran

#12: The Skin of Your Teeth

2007-07-30T19:02:11Z

This vignette takes place during Neiran's Turn as a freshly minted Journeyman at Fort Hold.

A spring gather turns out to be far more action-packed than he would have liked his entire Turn to be.

    "You are incorrect."

    Neiran was almost surprised to hear the words come out of his own mouth. He had planned to call attention to himself a little more tactfully, but now it was too late. His accusatory words almost seemed to ring in the sudden silence of the classroom.

    Almost every last first-year Journeyman in the room turned and fixed their eyes on him. Neiran fought to keep his gaze level and ahead, but he could still see their expressions in the corners of his peripheral vision: amazement, amusement, skepticism, worry.

    The student whom he'd addressed was in the very first row, and he had been the first to turn around. Neiran had always thought he looked better suited to the occupation of a miner than a healer, and his suspicions had been proven correct time and again when he failed to adequately answer many of the Master's questions, and just now had presented a case study with conclusions that were entirely inaccurate.

    The student narrowed his piggish eyes at Neiran in warning. Neiran was vaguely cogniscent that that particular Journeyman had some connection to someone of the Blood, and that that connection was often made out to be stronger and more important than it really was. The student threw his weight around without a brain to back it up, and Neiran had been frankly surprised to see him walk the tables shortly before he took his own Journeyman's examinations.

    The Master at the head of the class wrung his bony hands, unnerved to be put in this position. His frame was as wispy as his courage, and Neiran would have thought him a poor charicature if he hadn't proven himself to be a brilliant mind in the lectures he had given - lectures which many students seemed to think were soporific. He saw students with closed eyes far too often than he was comfortable with. While the Master was a marvelous healer, he left much to be desired as a disciplinarian, and at the moment he struggled to decide whether or not he should interject.

    Neiran was nervous. He didn't like so many eyes trained on him, but he was determined not to be cowed. The situation required explanation. "I'm sorry to be frank, but the course of action he postulated was incorrect." The Master had not stepped in to correct him before Neiran had cut him off; that breach of discipline on his own behalf caused the greatest part of the unease in his belly. He told himself that the Master wouldn't have corrected him. It was another of his teaching faults, overlooked if the students grasped the principles of his lecture well, but painful to witness when students gave erroneous replies and were only mildly corrected on some accounts.

    Bypassing the Master's opportunity for mediation entirely, knowing it would not come, the should-be miner piped up. "Oh yes? And who're you to correct me?"

    "I am sorry. But I am someone who appears to have read the assigned texts more closely than yourself."

    The hushed sniggers told him that his response had been provocative. He hadn't meant it to be so, not at all. Neiran was painfully aware of his social difficulties all of a sudden, and his unease grew. He did not like the way that student was looking at him, squinting to size him up.

    "Per-...perhaps Neiran would like to propose an ah, ah, a more thorough answer?" The Master's reedy voice interjected unexpectedly.

    After trying to defer with a moment of long, solid silence, Neiran followed through with his intention to correct the student's misconceptions of the surgical removal of neoplastic tumors. From the way the student's expression remained steadfastly peevish, however, he suspected that his words floated through his ears rather than lodge themselves between them as he would have liked.

    When the surgery class was dismissed, Neiran felt defeated, and on edge. His worry was not for nothing; when he hurried to escape to the safety of one of his reading niches, he turned a corridor to find the student standing there, feet planted firmly in the ground. It was obviously his intent to block Neiran's way.

    "You made a fool out of me," he growled.

    Neiran felt it was in his best interests not to respond, so he simply stared. Unfortunately he was unaware that his facial expression, even with innocence behind it, looked like a stoic challenge to the outside world. The boy folded his arms. He was a little shorter than Neiran, but probably weighed as much as three of him. There was plumpness, but there was also muscle.

    "You don't have anything to say for yourself? You know I could tell my cousin about this?" There was that connection, dangled threateningly. That failed to impress Neiran as much as the hostility radiating out from the piggish face itself.

    "I...I have apologized to you. Your knowledge was incorrect, I was only remedying that."

    "So you think you're smarter than me?"

    I know I am smarter than you. "It is the duty of a Journeyman's peers to correct him when he is wrong in order that lives will not be risked in the future."

    That starchy response seemed to make the rippling heat of confrontation ebb. Or maybe the other Journeyman simply had somewhere else to be. Neiran didn't dare think he had actually talked him down from his anger. The fact that other healers and Fortian visitors to the Hall were passing by in this public area probably saved him from discovering a meaty fist in his eye socket.

    The bully leaned in, and Neiran shrunk back reflexively. The slow smirk that lifted the Journeyman's features was a darkly satisfied one. "You'd better watch yourself, Keroonese. You can talk like a Fortian, but I know you aren't from here and you don't know how we operate."

    The threat hung ominous in the air long after the stocky Journeyman strode off.

    Neiran was almost distracted during his lectures and his rounds at the Hold all afternoon. What could he have meant? How did he know he was from Keroon? It wasn't something he advertised. Perhaps that connection was more substantial than he had supposed, or the Journeyman had ears or eyes somewhere he did not expect.

    After Neiran was edgy for that day, he was disheartened the next. How could something like this fester in this Hall? He made a promise to himself to bring the issue to the attention of a proactive Master, but his desire to perfectly word his report and his own shyness prevented him from bringing it to anyone's attention promptly. And then the whole Fort area was abuzz with preparations for a gather, and Neiran became sufficiently wrapped up in his own studies and his role in the broader gathering that he actually forgot.

    The Journeyman had not made good on his threat for three sevendays now. Neiran wouldn't have ascribed a large degree of patience or forethought to him, so subconsciously, he presumed himself safe.

    He was proven wrong on the evening of the gather.

    He had volunteered his time at one of the infirmary stations situated not far from the dance hall. He had refreshed his memory by reading about the cures for alcohol poisoning, sprains, muscle cramps, nausea, dagger wounds - anything that could happen in a courtyard full of inebriated revelers on a spring night. He had re-read a chapter on dealing with hangovers, as well. He planned to be working from that evening until the next afternoon.

    He enjoyed listening to the music. He would miss his proximity to the Harper Hall if he attended Caucus, as he had recently been invited to. He was postponing his decision until he acquired more experience at Fort and the Hall itself. But with the suspicion that this was a fleeting treat, he enjoyed the aural experience of the gather in-between telling foolish young drinkers not to mix their alcohol, and to take more water than they had been.

    It was almost the second hour of the new day when Neiran received a message from a runner. He was required to attend to a patient who had fallen down the steps to the drum heights and had sustained an open spiral fracture of the tibia, and possible concussion. Other assistants had been summoned, so he would not be alone, of course. Visualizing someone with a twisted leg - bone jutting from the skin - laying at the bottom of the drum heights, Neiran quickly excused himself from his station and rushed to the Harper Hall. He wondered now if whoever had first etched those steps into the stone hadn't put the Hall's infirmary close to them in anticipation of this sort of thing.

    The voices of quieter revelers drifted from some of the rooms, peppered by the tuning strums of guitar, harp, or lute. He passed these pockets of musical communion and made his way to the foot of the drum heights stairs.

    When he arrived, he saw that there was no one. There was no one injured, no Masters, not even an apprentice standing by to tell him they had already gone to the infirmary.

    He stood, staring and puzzled for a few moments. He decided that perhaps the messenger had gotten to him late. It wasn't uncommon for communications to get a little garbled when there were celebrations afoot. The loud talking, music, and abundance of liquor made it difficult for oral missives to be delivered intact.

    Neiran turned around and bumped squarely into someone.

    He inclined his upper body in a bow, a ready apology on his lips. He felt air whoosh above his head, and heard a grunt as the man's punch missed and swung through the air where Neiran's head had just been.

    Neiran straightened in alarm, and saw that it was that brutish Journeyman who had just swung at him. The scent of good wine and meat on his breath bubbled out from him as he growled.

    His instincts saved him. Instead of turning around and fleeing up into the darkness of the drum heights, which was inevitably what the other wanted, he pushed quickly past the other Journeyman and back into the hall behind him. He intended to only walk quickly away, but he heard thudding footsteps and realized he was being chased.

    He hated running. It made him look so foolish.

    But he ran, nevertheless, down the corridor and out into the night air. His first thought was that he would be abandoned when there were plentiful witnesses about. But a glance over his shoulder proved him wrong. The Journeyman was advancing, clumsy with drink, but also with the violent purpose the alcohol had inspired in him.

    Neiran wove his way through those milling about, but the crowd just outside of the Hall was not thick enough to conceal him. He managed to avoid his pursuer without running for a time, but he could not shake him off. His eyes scanned the crowd for a Master's knot, but found none in the area.

    Realizing he was without aid, hesitant to bring his confrontational pursuer into the midst of other partygoers up near the dance floor where he might find aid, he decided to double back and hide in the lower rooms of Healer Hall.

    He knew those rooms well. And he had a suspicion he knew at least one room that he would not be followed into.

    He quickened his pace once he was in Healer Hall. If the Journeyman caught up to him now, it would be disastrous. While Harper Hall had held a handful of lingering individuals, the subterranean quarters of Healer were all but abandoned for the fair. It smelled like dried herbs, here, and the charts and diagrams of various anatomical components gave the very walls an eerie feel in the illumination of fading glows.

    "You're gonna regret what you did!" The slurred threat echoed from around a corner. Realizing he was out of his pursuer's sights because of that corner, Neiran hurried ahead. It was only a matter of three more turns, a set of stairs, and a door, and he was in a haven.

    The air in this room was cool. Big blocks of ice ferried from the mountains lined the interior walls, covered in straw. There were shelves along one wall, half-lit jars with things floating in them scattered on all levels of shelving.

    There were also crude cots in this room. All of them were empty except for one. A thin sheet covered him entirely, but unmistakable beneath it, even in the darkness of this chamber, was the form of a man. The sheet was insufficiently long enough to cover his feet perfectly. A tag dangled from one of his toes.

    He had to have died recently, for even under the cloying herbal and straw scent here, there was no detectable decay. He would be given to the sea or buried under stone as his family wished. The Hall had the duty of holding the bodies of the suddenly deceased before proper disposal, but not the privilege of using them to increase their anatomical knowledge.

    A crash echoed from the hallway, startling Neiran into remembering why he had come here in the first place. He feared that the bravado of alcohol would make the Journeyman open all doors and come inside. He would have locked the door as a safeguard, but after Turns and Turns of new apprentices being locked in with dead bodies as a prank, the lock had been removed.

    Neiran took a sheet from a shelf, and took off his boots and socks. He stowed them out of sight on a shelf, and laid down on the cot next to the body. He covered himself with the sheet, making sure to hide the absence of a tag on his toe, and laid as still as he could.

    The door flew open a few moments after he had gotten settled. Heavy breathing filled the silence for a long interval. Then, the hinges of the door squeaked a protest as the door closed once again.

    Neiran sighed. For a while, he was unnerved, frustrated, and embarrassed. How could his simple remark have incited such vengeful desire? How could the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol be permitted - even encouraged! -in society when it inevitably led to things like this? Who had seen him running about, no doubt looking a fool? Did they need him back at the dance floor station? Should he risk venturing out?

    With careful reflection, Neiran realized that he had probably been a superfluous addition to the corps of healers on hand to dish out mild reprimands and water. As the night wore on, more would be lost to the promise of fun, and get drunk themselves. In the morning, Neiran certainly would be needed to take care of the score of hangovers. But it wasn't in anyone's best interest for him to be rendered indisposed by a punch to the face, so he decided it was excusable for him to shirk his duties for the evening in order to remain out of sight and protect himself.

    The cot he was on was surprisingly comfortable, considering it was designed for the unfeeling. He adjusted the sheet, and found that after unsinching his belt, he was comfortable enough to fall asleep here.

    He hadn't been able to sleep in a room by himself for so long. Always there were apprentices or Journeyman in the dorms surrounding him, talking and snoring and farting the whole night through. He welcomed the company of this silent old man under the sheet on the cot over. It wasn't long before he drifted off, and slept on his back just as he would in his eventual death.

    The Master who witnessed Neiran emerge from the morgue the next morning yawning softly and rubbing sleep from his eyes was understandably surprised. And a moment later, suspicious and concerned.

    After the Journeyman was gone from the hallway, he crept into the morgue. He saw that there was a body in holding, and he frowned as his stomach knotted. After dithering and chastising himself over his own dark suspicions, he finally decided to be on the safe side and assessed the corpsee. He was concerned that the Hall might have need to put the lock back on the door.

    To his enormous relief, there were no postmortem incisions. Even more relieving, there were no signs of the more unsavory and disconcerting necrotic interactions he had feared. Even still, for the rest of the day the herbalist Master couldn't help but wonder just what kinds of Journeyman they were being sent these days.

    That afternoon, Neiran had the satisfaction of witnessing his assailant's reward for his drinking; he vomited the whole day entire after he was given a concoction to expunge his stomach contents when the risk of alcohol poisoning was brought up. Feeling fresh after a wonderful night's sleep, Neiran was even optimistic enough to hope, just for a moment, that while his peer crouched over his vomit bowl he would finally learn something useful.

Just imagine if this were accurate.

2007-07-25T22:55:21Z

Based on the lj interests lists of those who share my more unusual interests, the interests suggestion meme thinks I might be interested in
1. leading edge mush score: 4
2. mush score: 3
3. high reaches weyr score: 3
4. metro west score: 2
5. getting pussy score: 2
6. piper score: 2
7. trips to sc score: 2
8. west virgina terrorism score: 2
9. honda civic score: 2
10. pernmush score: 2
11. m&m score: 2
12. crab fishing score: 2
13. bridge jumping score: 2
14. foggy bottom score: 2
15. cessna 172 score: 2
16. getting laid score: 2
17. kick ass roommate score: 2
18. mailbox baseball score: 2
19. newark airport score: 2
20. igen score: 1

changed by ouwiyaru based on code by ixwin
Find out more

#2: Guilty Pleasures

2007-07-23T21:44:17Z

A very, very belated writing assignment.

    He had remained equable for so much of his life by allowing himself to partake of little pleasures; drinking and savoring tea, drawing subjects outside of the body's systems, reading and occasionally writing poetry, stargazing, runner riding, listening to music.

He was able to explain all of these away if asked, able to ascribe to them some purpose that made them more than just a pleasure, but a utility. Tea is medicinal. The art is practice in perspective, portraits commemorative. Reading poetry calms, writing it expands the mind, and both stimulate philosophy. Stargazing is a science, useful for navigation. Riding is exercise. Music is equally medicine for the emotions and stimulus for the mind.

    Even that, that one thing that some would call strictly self-indulgent pleasure - that was a biological necessity, and one which he dealt with as little as possible.

    He had arranged his life strictly so that he faced little guilt. Guilt was a useless, debilitating emotion, and one avoided with a little analysis and forethought. The pleasures he allowed himself were guiltless.

    But for one.

    Oh, he'd made excuses to himself, and to others, but ultimately they were flimsy things that glossed over the heart of the matter.

    He loved bathing.

    He could not remember if he'd had a natural affinity for it since youth, or if the enjoyment had blossomed out of his Turns at South Telgar where the mineral hot springs had wonderfully private alcoves for the shyer bathers, and the water itself had made skin fresh and soft with health. Bathing had become a luxury there, with both time and privacy at Neiran's disposal to partake of it, but it seemed retrospectively that the indulgence in hot water and cleanliness had always supremely pleased him.

    High Reaches Weyr's situation was displeasing. Bathing in winter became at best a necessity, but more often a hazard. The slightest bit of water left in the ear during a hurried run from the caverns to the barracks could strike Neiran down with a migraine, and had. There was not enough privacy even during the odd hours, where boisterous riders drunk or reeling from flights were prone to staggering in on Neiran's predawn ablutions.

    Even still. Even still, he couldn't bring himself to rush his baths or cut any corners with his routine. He would collect his half-dozen phials of creams and ointments and emollients, slip to the waters at a calculated time despite what weather there was, and stubbornly see to his personal grooming until finished or frightened away.

    He'd been asked on numerous occasions what anyone - let alone a man - could possibly need all of those phials for. It was a question he was used to, and one he patiently answered. The incredulous looks that inevitably met him afterwards embarrassed him, and his own acknowledgment of his flamboyantly extravagant toilette was what made him guilty.

    It was not necessary. It was excessive. It was positively hedonistic.

    He had even slept in the infirmary a few times when the weather was particularly bad and he wished a bath. That way he could simply slip through the Weyr's warm tunnels from water to the bed of a cot. The combination of that cleanliness and the privacy of a curtained-off bed was a pleasure he savored, and only permitted himself when he had been especially productive in his work and studies. Too much of it and he would begin to feel priveledged.

    The privacy of the infirmary's cots afforded him another enjoyable part of his routine, and one which he could not often execute to his satisfaction for fear of being observed. He would let his hair dry, and he would comb it slowly with two hundred strokes. He found he slept the soundest when he was able to observe that ritual before laying down.

He would cut it short and free himself from some smirks and jests towards his masculinity, but then he would have to have it cut more regularly to maintain a neat appearance. His head was where his surgeon's eyes and brain resided, and it made him uncomfortable for some chatty barber to brandish scissors around it. So he kept it long, and allowed himself the enjoyment of ensuring its healthy appearance.

    Bathing left his hair smelling like bergamot and his skin like thyme. It helped to hide the bitter scent of feverfew that lingered on him from eating it so much. It also helped to hide the cloying sweetness of the infirmary's scent, that muddle of illness and antiseptic solutions that he enjoyed, but understood displeased and offended others. That was the only concession to odor for the sake of others that he observed, but primarily he liked to smell that way only for himself. No one else would dare get close enough to smell the bergamot or thyme on him. Not if he had anything to say about it, in any case.

    It was all more than he needed. He usually soaked long, if his schedule let him get away with it. For cleanliness' sake he could bathe less than he did, for half of the time, and with a quarter of the lotions he used. But this was one thing he asked of himself that he could not execute.

He sighed, and resolutely gathered up his phials from his trunk. He'd lost the internal battle again, and he couldn't say that he was terribly upset about it; he was greatly looking forward to his bath.

    Even when he heard some girls in their cots exchange a giggle, knowing what he was up to, his anticipation didn't waver. He left the darkened barracks with feather-light steps, and snuck across the bowl to indulge himself again.

    He'd feel a little guilty later, but never guilty enough to change his ways.

Personality DNA

2007-07-17T01:46:09Z

Neiran's Personal DNA Thanks, Reyce ;p

Make public your sordid speculations!

2007-07-02T04:37:53Z

View Poll: #1013800

Quiz Dump!

2007-06-21T06:04:39Z

I'm on this bandwagon. And then some.

Your Score: The Oracle

33% Extroversion, 100% Intuition, 0% Emotiveness, 71% Perceptiveness

Heuristic, detached, and analytical to a fualt, you are most like The Oracle. You are able to tackle any subject with a fine toothed comb, and you possess an ability to pinpoint nuances and shades of meaning that other people do not have and cannot understand. Accomplishment and realization of ideas are, for you, secondary to the rigorous exploration of ideas and questions -- you are, first and foremost, a theorist. You hate authority, convention, tradition, and under no circumstances do you accept a leadership role (although, you will gladly advise leadership when they're going astray, whether they want you to or not). Abstraction and generalities are your interests, details and particulars are usually inconsequential and uninteresting. You excel at language, mathematics and philosophy.

You are typically easy-going and non-confrontational until someone violates one of the very few principles that you deem sacred, at which point you can fly into a rage. Although you possess a much greater understanding of process and systems than the people around you, you are always conscious of the possibility that you've missed something or made a mistake. You don't tend to become attached to particular theories, and will immediately discard mistaken notions once they're revealed to be incorrect (but you don't tolerate iconoclasts who try to discredit validated theories through the use of fallacies and bad data). Despite being outwardly humble, you probably think of yourself as being smarter than most other people. That's because you are. In fact, in your dealings with people your understanding of their motives is so expansive that you know what they're going to say before they say it, and in world affairs, you usually know what is going to take place before it actually does. This ability would make you unbeatable in debates if only you were a little less pensive about your own conclusions, and a little more outgoing.

Famous people like you: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, John McWhorter, Ramanujan, Marie Curie, Kurt Godel

Stay clear of: Apollo, Icarus, Hermes, Aphrodite

Seek out: Atlas, Prometheus, Daedalus

Link: The Greek Mythology Personality Test written by Aleph_Nine on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Your Score: Robot

You are 100% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 0% Brutal, and 28% Arrogant.

You are the Robot! You are characterized by your rationality. In fact, this is really ALL you are characterized by. Like a cold, heartless machine, you are so logical and unemotional that you scarcely seem human. For instance, you are very humble and don't bother thinking of your own interests, you are very gentle and lack emotion, and you are also very introverted and introspective. You may have noticed that these traits are just as applicable to your laptop as they are to a human being. You are not like the robots they show in the movies. Movie robots are make-believe, because they always get all personable and likeable after being struck by lightning, or they are cold, cruel killing machines. In all reality, though, you are much more boring than all that. Real robots just sit there, doing their stupid jobs, and doing little else. If you get struck by lightning, you won't develop a winning personality and heart of gold. (Robots don't have hearts, silly, and if they did, they would probably be made of steel, not gold.) You also won't be likely to terrorize humanity by becoming an ultra-violent killing machine sent into the past to kill the mother of a child who will lead a rebellion against machines, because that movie was dumb as hell, and because real robots don't kill--they horribly maim at best, and they don't even do that on purpose. Real robots are boringly kind and all too rarely try to kill people. In all my years, my laptop has only attacked me once, and that was only because my brother threw it at me. In short, your personality defect is that you don't really HAVE a personality. You are one of those annoying, super-logical people that never gets upset or flustered. Unless, of course, you short circuit. Or if someone throws a pie at you. Pies sure are delicious.

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Class Clown.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Hand-Raiser, the Emo Kid, and the Haughty Intellectual.

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

Be sure to take my Sublime Philosophical Crap Test if you are interested in taking a slightly more intellectual test that has just as many insane ramblings as this one does!

About Saint_Gasoline

I am a self-proclaimed pseudo-intellectual who loves dashes. I enjoy science, philosophy, and fart jokes and water balloons, not necessarily in that order. I spend 95% of my time online, and the other 5% of my time in the bathroom, longing to get back on the computer. If, God forbid, you somehow find me amusing instead of crass and annoying, be sure to check out my blog and my webcomic at SaintGasoline.com.

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Your Score: Bi/Slightly Gay

You scored -2 (-52 being completely gay, 0 being bisexual, and 52 being completely straight)

For the most part, you are bisexual. You have a slight preference for the same gender, but either gender would suit you. If you are sexually inexperienced, it is possible that this will change after you do some experimenting.

Link: The Sexuality Spectrum Test written by tall_man_54 on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Your Score: The Devoted Lover

63% partner focus, 38% aggressiveness, 25% adventurousness

Based on the results of this test, it is highly likely that:

You prefer your romance and love to be traditional rather than daring or out-of-the-ordinary, you would rather be pursued than do the pursuing and, when it comes to physical love, your satisfaction comes more from providing a wonderful time to your partner than simply seeking your own.

This places you in the Lover Style of: The Devoted Lover.

The Devoted Lover is a wonderful Lover Style, and is perhaps the best Lover Style when it comes to developing a long-term, caring and rewarding relationship. The Devoted Lover is a treasure to find, though it is sometimes difficult to time establishing a relationship with one just right; usually, this is the last romantic relationship you'll need to find, so sow any wild oats first.

In terms of physical love, the Devoted Lover can be shy at first but gradually warms and eventually can be a thrilling partner who knows every need of his/her partner. Given a strong and loving relationship, and the right lover, the Devoted Lover can be a delight in bed.

Best Compatibility can probably be found with: The Suave Lover (most of all) or the Classic Lover, or the Carnal Lover.

Congratulations!

If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in the following:

Nerds, Geeks & Dorks

Professional Wrestling

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

America/Politics

Thanks Again! -- THE LOVER STYLE PROFILE TEST

Link: The Lover Style Profile Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Your Score: Gust

~ 44% Water ~ 81% Wind ~ 44% Earth ~ 25% Fire ~

I want to live where the sky is big

Simple and free...

Let�s see... your personality reminds me of the...

...cool Sapphire, the non-red corundum, or its little brother, the Blue Topaz. Your colours are azure, indigo, and a bright yellow or gold.

Interpretation:

Out of the seven chakras, the Throat Chakra, which is associated with the element of wind and represents our desire to learn and communicate, seems to be predominant in you. Though this means you are probably the smartest one among your friends, it may result in feeling stressed or nervous or becoming too much of a perfectionist.

You can balance it by wearing a Rose Quartz; its soothing attributes help unwind, enable you to "love thyself", and accept limitations.

A Tarot references concerning your predominant element:

If you are a young lass or lad and still unmarried your card is the Page of Swords. Young women, especially married ones, identify with the Queen of Swords, also known as the Queen of Spades. If you are a young, unmarried man, you are the Knight of Swords, and married or �mature� males are identified with the King of Sword, commonly known as the King of Spades. Ladies and gentlemen, here is your intelligent man you�ve been looking for.

These are the results you will get if you score highly on...

None of the four elements: Balance Wind: Gust Fire: Blaze Water: River Earth: Valley Wind & Fire: Thunder Wind & Water: Clouds Wind & Earth: Canyon Fire & Earth: Lava Fire & Water: Tornado Water & Earth: Trees Wind, Fire & Earth: Storm Wind, Fire & Water: Stars Wind, Water & Earth: Forest Fire, Water & Earth: Avalanche All four elements: Harmony

Link: The Elemental Balance Test written by Nitsuki on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

#11: The Last Time

2007-06-16T04:30:51Z

A belated writing assignment.

He was old enough to bathe by himself.

This independence was appreciated; he'd never liked having to wait, beholden to some caretaker to prepare a basin for him.

The independence was also terrifying. To go unprotected through the Hold's stone corridors was worrisome enough, let alone what might happen where water was kept hot and towels and soapsand on hand for the populace of the Hold to use. At best, it would be embarrassing. His little imagination didn't dare conceive of what could happen if the other Hold children who plagued him were there. They'd already proven on a dozen occasions that their ingenuity for cruelty and humiliation far outpaced his.

He'd put off bathing for as long as he could, but his own fastidiousness compelled him to bathe long before he approached any line of hygenic indiscretion.

He stayed up, waiting for the Hold to go to sleep. He knew that some of the adults, finished work and dining and drinking late, would be late in getting to their baths, and they'd soak long. There wasn't a timepiece where he waited in his cot, so he passed the time by reading under the covers with a handful of glows. He knew how much time it took him to read five pages, and so he kept track of the passing hours by how much he'd read.

He had a volume of herbology Master Ceregar had let him copy before he'd left the Hold to take his post in South Telgar. It was easy to read the third time through; the hours passed quickly.

When the Hold was perfectly quiet, poised at that hour when the late sleepers were in bed and the early risers had not yet risen, he slipped from his bed and gathered his things. Soapsand irritated his skin, and made his hair a mess. Master Ceregar had shown him how to make things that would get him clean without those effects. He kept the phials of cleanser and emollients under his cot, wrapped in his clothing, away from prying eyes.

Dressed in sleeping tunic and trous, barefoot and clutching his toilette items to his chest, he moved off into the Hold proper.

He felt a sudden pang of longing for his half-brother. If Meridian had been here, he would have protected him. That was one thing he'd always done well, even if his father said he showed no promise with the beasts.

He made his way to the bathing cavern without error. The halls were easy enough to navigate in the light of fading glows, and the only person he encountered was a drudge, forlornly sweeping one dark corner.

Neiran found that the water in the large, communal basin was still warm, and clean enough for him to use. It had likely been replenished for the last bathers of the night, and left there to be dealt with in the morning. Neiran had counted on this.

After a surreptitious look around, he arranged his bathing things on the lip of the wooden tub, and shed his sleeping clothes. The water was warm and pleasant, the tub deep enough that it would lap at an adult's chin. At a small eleven years, Neiran could practically swim in it if he chose. But he chose instead to soak only a moment, and then see to what needed washing.

It was when he had his hands in his dark hair that something giggling staggered into the room.

A laundry girl and her paramour, their dark shapes visible in the fuzzy illumination of a glowbasket near the door, grappled playfully with one another. Hushed words were exchanged, titters and murmurs carrying to Neiran's ears. The taller of the two moved off, leaving the girl to make her way into the bathing room.

She came up short when she saw him, now hunched in on himself protectively.

"Hel-lo, little girl!" She said, fumbling with the laces of her shift.

Neiran blushed to the tips of his ears.

It wasn't long before the young woman and all her curves rolled into the bathwater, and she began helping herself to Neiran's bath things. His skin cream went into her hair, his shampoo was slathered all over her face, all the while the girl cooing pleasantly over the harmonious herbal scents. They didn't mask the smell of firewater on her breath.

Neiran found her eyes on his face, her expression the placid bonhomie of the inebriated. Hesitantly, hoping to gloss over his own awkwardness with as much casualness as he could muster, the corners of his lips turned up, and his mouth formed a timid smile. It was a smile already on the verge of extinction, utterly uncertain of itself.

This seemed to please her, for her smile grew, and she continued washing herself with the occasional little titter or murmur. Neiran felt a swelling of relief, but also tentative happiness. For once, his smile had done what it was supposed to.

Neiran rinsed his hair as best as he could, and decided to leave. Better not press his luck. He was clean enough.

It was when he rose and failed to grab the towel that she saw between his legs.

"You're a little boy!" She declared, slumping against the lip of the tub with her drunken laughter.

Neiran covered himself and stumbled out of the tub, but it was too late.

"You've got such a wee little thing," she crowed, holding up her pinkie finger. "I almost didn't see it!" She wiggled the pinkie obscenely. "You'd better eat more red meat if you ever want to be a man!"

Neiran scrambled into his clothing, still wet, and left the towel in a damp heap on the floor. He abandoned his bathing things to her, and fled the caverns with her laughter echoing after him.

He didn't go right to his cot. He needed to be alone, not with other sleepers surrounding him in the nursery dormitories. He found the storage closet that he usually hid in, and shut himself in there.

He cried. Her remarks had stung, had humiliated him. The veneer of bitter, predictable betrayal was smeared across the face of everything else; he had smiled at her, and dared to think for a moment he was safe because of it. It hadn't worked, she had thrown that away to torment him.

Once he had stopped crying, he went to sleep, disturbed by fitful dreams he didn't remember upon waking.

The very next afternoon, he realized that the torment ran much deeper. Suspicion was born when a gaggle of girls across from him at the dining hall glanced his way and had to hush giggles and comments. When he did his chores in the stables, he turned to catch two helping hands looking his way with their pinkies out. That evening, when he read quietly to himself in the living cavern, snippits of hushed conversation made their way to his ears.

"...even for his age...not a hair on them!"

"What a pitiful thing."

"It's no wonder, all he eats is rice and vegetables..."

"He's not full-blooded Keroonese, you know."

"That explains it. Half-Circle men must be...deficient. Probably why his
mother came here in the first place."

He didn't hear any more after that exchange. His ears had rung with the sound of vtol wings inside his skull, while his stomach turned to ice. There was a moment of chilled anger, which Neiran transmuted into resolve.

He took his reading and left the living caverns to the sound of giggles.

These crude, base, cruel people that surrounded him had laughed their last. He would no longer give them the reactions that made them crow, triumphant. He was leaving for South Telgar soon enough, and his apprenticeship. He would not let them dig their nails into his underbelly either.

He would never cry again.

More importantly, he would never smile again.

That was the last time.

Another overdue letter to Master Ceregar

2007-06-01T22:28:05Z

Lunchtime at the Weyr, the Infirmary quiet and chilly, the loudest complaints from young children with sniffly noses, or warts, or scrapes on knees and elbows. The pattern of Thread made infirmary work easy work today and it wasn't yet late in winter enough to expect the harder diseases or the broken bones of ice-related accidents.

When Neiran found himself with some free time, he already knew exactly how to utilize it.

Dearest Master,

Once again, I have waited overlong to write you. You will understand that I have been busy, especially so now with the passing of High Reaches Weyr's late Weyrleader G'thon. I feel that in order to make up for my helplessness to revive him, I must make up for it in some manner, by being exemplary in my Craft more than ever before. I know we are warned as apprentices against this attitude of compensation over the loss of a patient, but I cannot help it. I do not think I am erroneous in assuming you understand this of me; that much, at least, has not changed.

I do feel changed in other respects, however. If you will permit me frankness, Master, it is unnerving and frightening at times. I have assumed to know the full breadth and depth of my being for several Turns of adulthood now, yet now at the age where many of my peers are latent in discovering themselves and settling into what men and women they will be for Turns to come, I am finding that I may not be entirely who I was so certain I was, and sense I am moving in the opposite direction from everyone else.

It's when I think these thoughts that I miss you most, Master. Your skill in listening without judgment but with wisdom comes to mind. Sometimes I feel I would sacrifice my present knowledge and experience in order to be an apprentice again so that I may have the boon of your tutelage in matters outside of the medical realm, now that I am finally prepared to listen and apply what you might advise, unlike I was then. I cannot express exactly what has changed in me, and this inability to articulate the symptoms for the greater disease is a source of disquiet. Nevertheless, I feel I am on the cusp of something, and I do not know whether or not resistance is the best course of action.

Please do not form an image of me wasting my time in woe; as ever, I have been productive despite what minor difficulties the season has brought in terms of the 'personal life' I find has grown on me like an irremovable, malignant lump. My dragonhealing manuscript is nearing completion of its first draft, with the greater part of its delay lying not in a lack of time or application, but my anxiety in ensuring it is a perfect debut. Caucus has made me all too aware of how vital one's first step into wider political awareness is, however tentative and restricted to one's own Craft such a step may be.

I know you have not applied yourself to the science of dragonhealing, but I would appreciate your service in editing and revising whatever portion of the text you feel you have time to digest - if that is none, then I shall seek an editor elsewhere, though I doubt I would find one as judicious as yourself. I have included some of my anatomical sketches in the chance you would be so kind as to review them; you do not risk offense if you return them unremarked upon. If you have the time I would call particular attention to my reconstruction of the draconic gastrointestinal and cardiac systems. They are pure conjecture, of course, but I believe what I have proposed there is anatomcially sound and logical, and is at least vaguely backed up by what records and first-hand accounts of riders and their dragons I could garner.

I also turn to you for advice towards where I shall turn next, when this task is done. Although considerable in volume, and I hope utility, it is not in the main of what I pride myself on as a healer, and I would rather increase my fame in other departments. It still galls me that so many old denizens of the Weyr are slid between, into the sea, or under stone without once coming under an examiner's knife. The frustration of being utterly unable to examine a dragon's inner workings due to their habit of dying between has only inflamed my irritation at this juvenile squeamishness surrounding the examination of the dead body. If it applied only to loved ones, perhaps then I might understand - but criminals are still staked out to Thread instead of dispatched and sent to us. How is this humane, just, or advantageous to society as a whole?

I hope that did not seem too vehement, but it is an issue that pushes itself to the forefront of my thoughts whenever I concern myself with the direction of my career. How is a sailor to be a good Master of his vessel if no one has given him charts of the oceans? Weavers need their patterns to create their garments, and harpers need their musical scores to learn and teach others. I feel my patience wearing thin when I recall that the oldest Craft on Pern is yet denied the essential blueprints it needs to advance itself.

I have half a mind to make advocacy for a more thorough knowledge of the human body my goal, though it is not one I suspect I would be wise in pursuing immediately, and so I look for other smaller projects which I might pursue, perhaps to contribute towards my consideration for a Master's knot in the eyes of the Hall. I should want it shortly after graduation, and do not wish my lack of it to be due to a defect of industry on my part.

The Caucus' anniversary fete is approaching. Is it too much to dare to hope that you will be in attendance? I understand that you are managing patients and apprentices both, Master (and no doubt in a perfectly admirable capacity), and so I shall not be greatly disappointed if you are not amongst the visitors, expecting that your absence is more likely than your presence.

I have managed not to alienate what friends have formed themselves around me, despite my persistence in maintaining a strict schedule that's attentive more to duties than frivolities (though I will admit it is more lax than in previous Turns). It would please me if you were to meet them at the festivities, should you be able to come. Some of them are also or have been my patients, both short and long-term. It is a juxtaposition I am pleased to say I do not feel has compromised either professionalism nor courtesy as a friend; I will not deny I find some pleasure in being able to endure the overlap of these two spheres without much difficulty. One fear in forming friendships with those in an area where I serve active duty is thus overcome; it is as easy to stitch an associate as it is a stranger.

I believe many would be interested to know you. I will confess I do not speak widely of you, but I think that when I do it is in such terms as to gain attention.

I shall make efforts to write more regularly in the future.

Your devoted pupil,

Neiran

He had more he felt he wished to say, and there were some passages that he felt could be shortened, revised, or even eliminated. But he did not like to edit his personal letters too much; that was one field where he attempted to spare himself the burden of his perfectionism.

The writing of that monster had left his wrist aching, so he'd made his parting words quickly so his wrist would not cramp. He was expecting a minor surgery in the morning, and it wouldn't do to be stiff-jointed while he worked.

He folded the pages together, and tucked them into his bag. He'd tie them more firmly and address them tomorrow morning, and see them off with the earliest messenger.

Catch-Up Month

2007-05-28T05:12:50Z

View Poll: Prompts

Best to write back promptly...

2007-05-24T05:27:31Z

A response to the letter you can find here.

I like Jarvais' method of spacing out the letter with narration - watch me steal it.

The Journeyman was surprised to find a letter amongst the notices requiring his attention in the infirmary. The ribbon and seal were not Master Ceregar's, which was what surprised him more than the existence of the letter itself.

Taking the curious thing, he went to a nearby desk and commandeered it for his own use simply by sitting down. He opened the letter, and read it.

Jarvais. He should have known that most cordial of Caucus-goers would see fit to send some kind of missive to those he had met while he had been here briefly. But to him? Neiran stifled his skepticism and faint alarm, and read on.

His brow lowered, relaxed, once he recognized it was what it first appeared to be: a polite letter merely checking in, and reestablishing ties. He would not be the one to drop the strings that had been passed to him. Quill and ink were readily at hand, and he had a few moments to himself before his shift began. Best to write back promptly; it would convey a good impression, and keep this task off of his already mounting pile of hidework.

He retrieved a sheet of parchment and readied his quill with a few deft motions of the penknife.

Jarvais,

I will be honest and state that this letter does not find me 'well' entirely. However, you may rest assured that it finds me to be at least in adequate health, and acceptable spirits. I am sure you are already aware of the passing on of High Reaches' late Weyrleader, G'thon.

A more curt letter opener he had not penned, but he didn't have the desire to correct himself and waste more parchment. He anticipated that Jarvais would breeze over the somewhat brusque first lines and forgive him for them. He had the dual excuse of the difficult burden of G'thon's death - more so than anyone other than Sefton knew - and his own nature. On occasion being a stoic could save him time in excusing himself; this was one of them.

He dipped his quill tip and continued writing in angular, painstakingly prim lettering.

You have no need to ask for my apology concerning anything, least of all the tardiness of a letter I did not at all expect, especially if you have already forgiven me my unappealing behavior at Turn's End.

I am somewhat pleased to hear you will attend the next Reachian soiree, as I hope to be given the opportunity to present myself in a less reprehensible light. I hope the company is not so sparse or displeasing that you are forced to seek out mine, but be aware that it would not be unwelcome if that proves to be the case.

As usual, the Journeyman regarded his own remarks with a degree of wariness. He was never certain if he came across as too self-depreciating, or too wry. Sometimes people smiled oddly when he said certain things, so he'd come to assume he must cause some manner of amusement. Perhaps this missive would make the recipient smirk. The thought troubled him, but he wouldn't allow himself to fret over it.

It would not hurt your case in returning to Caucus, I imagine, to bring it personally to the attention of our Headmaster while you visit. I recall your interpersonal skills were such that would make a favorable re-impression.

Whatever your course of action, I wish you good luck. The Caucus relies on sensible students to perpetuate it.

Sincerely,

~Neiran

The speedy flourish with which he wrote his signature drew a startled look from a passing healer which Neiran missed, busy drying the ink with a sprinkle of sand. Once it was dry, he folded it into a compact square, and tied it with some suture scraps. He had no wax or seal, so simply wrote 'To Jarvais' on the front, with 'From: N' on the opposite.

He tucked it into the messenger box and hurried to sterilize his hands up to the elbows for work.

<3 The Onion

2007-05-04T19:34:20Z

Neiran's youth, anyone?

A truant's apology...

2007-04-29T16:14:56Z

After looking forward to last night's masque for some time, I arrived home after work only to find myself too zombified to play.

I apologize for not being there, with a special apology to Reyce, who came up with the neat idea of descing one another, and who took the time to do it:

Dark hair falls down to this man's neck and dark eyes glitter from behind his mask, but otherwise he is completely white. A white mask wings back from his nose and eyes, lengthening the sharp lines of an already accentuated jawline and angled chin. The cut of his clothes pulls his trim frame into geometric sharpness, the flat bar of his shoulders and shallow-edged triangle of his upper body brought into clear focus by the crisp white of his jacket. Ivory buttons, fixed all the way to the raised collar on his neck, and gossamer strands of embroidered silver offer texture and contrast from up close; from afar, his pants ease the bright glow of his upper body with a warm wash of pale cream.

Presume the white guy made a brief, aloof appearance during the milieu of colors and hidden identities.

Too nifty not to do...

2007-04-27T17:18:03Z

#10: What If...

2007-03-27T02:41:18Z

How Neiran could have been if he was N'ran.

This sat on my desktop for a while as I poked at it, and I decided it was time to post it before I left it overlong. (Even though I think it starts out better written than it ends, but shhh.)

On the day of a Fall, a bluerider ruminates as he watches the rain.

N'ran stood at the lip of his weyr ledge, his pale hand on Vesaliuth's blue neck as they watched dark rain pour from the bellies of spire-torn clouds into the bowl proper. He knew if he stood here much longer, he would get one of his ear-aches. But the cool wind was refreshing on his cheeks, the reaching damp welcome on his scalp. Both helped to dull his throbbing hangover.

Rivulets of water snaked down Vesaliuth's dark, dark eyeridges and the curve of his jaw when he extended his neck beyond the overhang of the weyr. His narrow, faceted eyes whorled faintly red. He was hungry. He would hunt soon, when his lifemate acknowledged his own hunger.

He had been a rider for eleven Turns exactly, this day. The difference between the confused, frightened young boy on the Telgar sands and the cold man standing in the lash of the rain could not have been greater. He had worked hard to become who he was now, and there was still work to do.

Sensing his disquiet, Vesaliuth's presence crept to the forefront of his mind. < < We are the best at drills in our Wing. Our leaders are proud of us. We are models for the Weyrlings. You are perfect. > >

N'ran recalled the first time he'd heard that voice in his mind. The firm, confident voice of the blue that made him from Neiran into N'ran. He hadn't expected it. He was barely old enough to be a candidate, and he was fed up with living in a Weyr, where the older kids made him their perpetual game.

He learnt quickly that surprising everyone by Impressing, even a blue over the green everyone predicted, was by no means a guarantor of respect. He was still the littlest weyrling, awkward and shy and moody, and a perfect target for the weyrbred lads. Even the girls had the nerve to look at him with derision at worst, and open pity and confusion at best. The blue was the cause of his problems, because now he could never go home - but Vesaliuth was also his helper, the other voice he'd always had in his mind as a conscience, now loud and clear.

You speak the truth, Vesaliuth, as always. But there is more than that that I want. There's more I can do to be better, more I can do to make things better.

< < You must feed yourself first. > >

I will eat shortly, before Fall.

< < More than just leaves. > >

I will.

N'ran felt a chill come over him at last, and he turned to return to the relative warmth of his weyr. A mental nudge urged Vesaliuth off of the ledge, and the lean blue disappeared with wings spread, bound for the hunting grounds, to kill with swift efficiency.

That grace had finally won him a partner in the sky, just a few months ago. N'ran knew that his mental demands could have held out against Vesaliuth's urges and his skill in the sky for only so long, but the inevitability of the result didn't make it any more comfortable in his mind.

It had been his first time.

It had not been the greenrider's first time, by any extent of the imagination. He didn't remember much of the act itself, and for that he was thankful. But he remembered very clearly waking up to the feel of a hand creeping below his waist, encroaching upon his privacy even after the deed had been done, regrettably but excusably, in the height of flight passion.

Feeling that hand on him while he was sober and himself again sent a cold shock through his form. He'd leapt out of bed, taking the covers with him, leaving a naked man sprawling on the cot below him.

The man, some brown-haired greenrider from another wing whom N'ran only vaguely recognized, laughed and stretched. "Your face is priceless, bluerider," he drawled, mocking N'ran's Keroonese accent. "Though, your expressions last night were considerably more delightful. Who knew such a stern visage could be so...pleasantly mobile?"

The greenrider's purring laughter was short-lived, curtailed by a strong slap to the cheek. He lifted his hand to the red sting on his cheek, and turned up his face to grin his surprise, a witty retort ready on the tip of his tongue for the surprisingly fiery bluerider.

But N'ran's expression was solid ice when he saw it, and it chilled the greenrider's mirth more effectively than a splash of icy lakewater.

"You will speak of this to no one," N'ran hissed, pushing himself close to the greenrider's face. He had learnt the expensive lesson that if he had to, he could be intimidating enough to frighten certain others into temporary acquiescence. The greenrider looked sufficiently cowed, but for good measure N'ran tossed the blankets on him, and quickly retrieved his clothing while the man struggled free of the heap of blankets and furs.

N'ran had dressed, and fled the scene only to spend the rest of the day scrubbing his skin and being soothed by Vesaliuth while soothing the blue, in turn.

His only small relief was that there was no possibility of a child to haunt him about the day. Still, N'ran worried the greenrider would talk, and tarnish his reputation in any number of ways.

The bluerider sighed. So the alcohol and the icy rain hadn't calmed his mind as he had hoped it would. His mind was always moving, and behind his own thoughts he was aware of Vesaliuth claiming a second herdbeast in his claws. It reminded him of his promise to eat something. He hoped he'd be allowed to get away with a bit of wherry and some greens. He never enjoyed eating too much the day of a Fall, and although takeoff was some hours away, he preferred fasting to feasting when the deadly rain was due from the sky.

Vesaliuth was eating carefully now that he had killed, and N'ran wasn't hungry enough to rush him to return to him. The bluerider drew his thoughts back to himself, away from destructive reveries and thoughts of what might have been. What if he had not been Searched, Impressed? Would he be a happier man now, during his twenty-third Turn?

It didn't bear thinking of. He was content enough now, and should be thankful for what he had, and most of all Vesaliuth. Surely an unsavory night here and there could be weathered as the price for the blue's love and guidance. N'ran turned back towards the interior of his weyr, to seek out a book of poetry to truly distract him from his brooding. That night he would be upon Vesaliuth's back, battling thread with one mind - if today happened to be the day that they went between forever, he wouldn't want his last mortal thoughts to have been self-pitying and fruitless.

< < You do well to think of nicer things. Your mind is better suited to poetry than to brooding. > > Vesaliuth's voice touched his mind, mellow and tamer than his backwater tones, calming and controlled and everything he wished to be, no matter what.

Comics

2007-03-24T03:51:34Z

What they really teach you in Healer Hall.

This is Neiran's stage of grief.

Healer Links

2007-02-22T18:21:00Z

I'll be adding to this list periodically, so Healer types, do check in. Each summary is geared to inform you of the link's importance, and in the case of large or daunting sites, point you towards what's most relevant to Pern MUSHers.

The Medical Research Process: An Overview Showing How Long Doctors Have Known How To Research: This page has several good quotes from historical medical sources all intended to illustrate the principle of medical research, and the awareness of bygone physicians towards certain maladies. Of particular usefulness is the "Examples of Medical Knowledge" box, which will take you to several key moments in history to demonstrate the approaches to medicine in that age. If you're wondering if Pern could have re-invented a tool or a medical philosophy, this is a good place to start. You might be surprised at how much we used to know.

PernMUSH's Healer Hall: This is the ultimate reference resource for the Pernese healer. I can't tell you how many times I've needed to look up the effects or availability of an herb, by name or by the symptoms I need to combat. Their extensive description of medical procedures has also proven invaluable to me.

Jenaith's Weyr: I've referenced this site for its information on dragon anatomy, mostly, although its section on gathering and preparing herbs is also of practical interest.

Eliara's Pernese Herbarium: As the site describes, "a compendium of Pernese and Earth herbs, their uses, and reality checks." The reality checks are, for me, the best part of this site. Toxicity, the improbability of the successes attributed to a herb, etc.; most can be found here, practically outlined so that the apprentice or Master healer can gain more of a realistic awareness of herbology.

Dragonhealing: A nice, comprehensive site that's pretty self-explanatory.

Human Anatomy Online: A very visual, interactive, informative site for those looking to find the name of a specific part of the human body, or understand the overall systems more. It's chok full of interesting facts ready to be plucked and dropped into RP.

The CCOHS's Workplace Health Risks/Hazards Page: A lof of the professions listed here are translatable to Pernese Crafts and common tasks. This is a gold mine for coming up with ideas for injuries for NPCs, or PCs if they come to you curious about something that could waylay them for a while. The CCOHS website also has a useful page on diseases, injuries, and disorders, as well as a page on environmental factors in occupational and workplace safety. Denizens of High Reaches may be particularly interested in the cold environments page.

Medieval Medicine: A good, concise overview of medieval medicine. Although the section on the four humors probably isn't of relevance to Pernese healers, the remainder of the site offers general knowledge from which to launch a deeper examination.

The Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum: A popular 12th-13th century anonymous poem that seems to be the basis for many of our commonly held health beliefs today. (I never knew my mother's advice about not drinking liquids during a meal had a medieval legitimization!) The poem demonstrates how well misconception (harmless or perhaps more dangerous) could be mixed in with sound medical advice; it also shows the emphasis physicians put on prevention and a good diet. For those that think being diet-conscious is an invention of the twentieth century, go here. As a bonus, it's annexed to the Boke of Gode Cookery, which is a fantastic resource for anyone needing to desc a banquet, or cook a real medieval feast.

Historical Anatomies on the Web: This site will be of particular use to surgeons. It offers vast access to images taken from the National Library of Medicine's collection, which spans many centuries and continents. It shows in crystal clear images how anatomical texts evolved along with the artistic style of the period, and understanding of the workings of the human body.

ResidentNet Sutures: A quick reference for the types of suturing.

Trauma One Manual: An invaluable resource about stabilizing all manner of emergency conditions. It's indexed by body part so it's easy to grab what information you need in the middle of a scene. This goes beyond the Healer Hall website's page on emergency assessment, so if you need or want a little more information, this site's for you.

Medical Jargon: An alphabetical listing of various medical terms. Using your browser's 'Find' feature will help you find what you need quickly in this considerable listing.

Disgust

2007-02-17T08:00:35Z

A belated response to my own writing prompt outside of the regular, numbered and official writing prompts. Written in one go, with little premeditation and no revision.

This takes place very shortly after Neiran, at Fort, obtained his Journeyman's knot. I hope it shows a bit of how far he's come in terms of personal skills and healing skills, as well as conveying what it takes to disgust him.

Abscess within; may upset recently filled tummies.

The stifled chuckling from near one of the inpatient cots made the hairs on the back of Neiran's neck stand up.

"I believe this would be an...educational case for our newest surgical resident, don't you?"

"Why yes, what a splendid idea."

The overheard exchange made Neiran's heart beat faster, and he fought to maintain a neutral expression, and to continue nonchalantly drying the metal of the sterilized scalpel in his hands as he heard footsteps drawing nearer.

"Neiran."

Neiran turned to see the man he expected; the Master in charge of Fort Hold's ward, who was presently bearing an amused smile, doing a poor job of hiding his mirth at some situation. This put Neiran on his guard, and although he placed the scalpel down precisely before he turned, some stiffness in his neck or shoulders must have betrayed his wariness, because the Master chuckled and made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

"No need for that dreadful expression. You're not in any trouble. It's just that a patient has come in with a... a little something which you might be able to treat, while gaining some experience with the knife. What do you say?"

"Yes," Neiran murmured dutifully, staring at the Master's neck.

"Come, then."

He followed the Master to one of the cots, and was surprised to find a young man with a harper apprentice's knot occupying it. At first glance, he appeared in perfect health, if you could excuse the scarlet blush on his cheeks. Neiran stared at this only symptom, puzzled, but his internal check-list of possible surgical remedies was interrupted by the senior Journeyman who was also loitering at the bedside, bearing a much less tactful grin on his face.

"Journeyman, this will be your first time handling the scalpel in a professional capacity, will it not?"

"Wh-what?" The apprentice's voice cracked and his blush grew, and he looked desperately at the senior Journeyman.

Neiran nodded slightly, feeling his internal organs squirm with discomfort. He didn't like being put under a lens, while those watching smiled at his expense.

"Fanelli, if you could please show the Journeyman what you came to us for?" The Master managed a soothing smile for the apprentice, but it was still with visible reluctance and embarrassment that he complied.

Neiran soon knew why. The boy rolled over on to his front, and reached down to tug the hem of his trous just below the curve of his gluteus maximus, revealing a large, swollen abscess that was angry red and oozing oxidized pus.

It was an embarrassing, disfiguring and unappetizing condition, and in a humiliating locale. It would be best dealt with quickly.

Neiran turned to retrieve what supplies were necessary, already going through the steps of extraction in his mind. He recalled the lessons on abscess removal from apprenticeship. It would be simple enough, and his memory spared him having to ask for clarification.

But the attendant Journeyman's voice again broke into his thoughts as he strode away.

"Journeyman? Are you not forgetting something?"

Neiran paused and looked over his shoulder, blank stare expressing his uncertainty in lieu of words.

"One has to address their patient - console them, and outline the procedure to them," the Master reminded him gently.

Neiran returned to the bedside and stared down at the back of the youth's head. It was easy to imagine that the boy had put off this visit for sevendays, perhaps even a season, owing to his own reluctance. And now he would have to suffer all the more. "You have erred in delaying your treatment this long," he stated.

Master and Journeyman looked at each other. One held back a smirk, the other rolled his eyes softly.

"I shall render the surrounding area aseptic, benumb it, and proceed to lance the abscess. You will remain still and experience only mild discomfort. Afterwards I shall cleanse the cavity and give you further recommendations."

Feeling that he'd given an appropriate briefing, Neiran turned again to fetch his tools and was pleased to not be interrupted. Not long after, his sleeves were tied at the elbow, his hands from fingertip to mid-forearm were tinged the ruddy hue of redwort solution, and he was lowering the scalpel's blade to make the first incision.

Although he tried to scrape carefully to coax the skin apart, with a small sound a gob of pus spurted from the abscess, released at last from the immense pressure. It landed on the hand Neiran was using to hold the skin taut while the apprentice shoved his face against his pillow for shame. The small incision proceeded to ooze, and the almost fecal odor that rose up out of it confirmed a deep infection. The Master discreetly lifted his hand over his nose, but the Journeyman gagged and had to leave the bedside.

Unperturbed, Neiran laid his scalpel aside and applied pressure to the wound, to coax all of the infection out. It was a considerable amount, white and thick, which soiled many linen cloths. Finally he could use his forceps to remove the tangled knot of tissue that was at the core of the infection.

It was deep enough that after he had cleansed it, he was needed to suture it. Suturing he had practiced many times, on both human and inanimate items, so his motions were confident as he adorned the poor apprentice's buttocks with two stitches, and warned him to come immediately back if there was any sign of infection whatsoever.

The procedure had taken perhaps a quarter of an hour all told, but already the entire ward seemed to know of the amusing and disgusting situation. Neiran was displeased to see faces usually buried in work peering over towards them. He was dismissed to take care of the mess and re-sterilize everything, while the Master addressed the harper more congenially to reiterate Neiran's points.

When he had finished cleaning, the Master asked him to open one of the shutters onto the courtyard to get some air circulating. The smell was enough to warrant it.

Neiran opened the shutters, and his eyes caught the figure of the harper swiftly mincing back towards Harper Hall. There was already a throng of other apprentices waiting for him at the foot of Fort's courtyard. The notion that these were his friends waiting to console him after his ordeal was shattered by the tones of the greetings, the roughness of the back-slaps that greeted the thin apprentice. He saw his ex-patient cover his face with his hands, and pick up the pace towards the Hall as much as his recent injury would allow.

As the hurtful, singsong catcalls of the apprentices followed the boy, Neiran felt the lid on his emotions tremble and raise as disgust bubbled over like overheated broth, scalding and faintly nauseating him. It never ceased to amaze him how thoughtlessly cruel children could be. It had undoubtedly been the fear of their ridicule that had kept the apprentice from coming sooner - and now he paid the double price for being the victim of their harassment.

It was difficult to contain the noxious feeling once it had overflowed, and so for the rest of the day Neiran silently stewed in it while the rest of the ward overcame their disgust when the reek of infection was carried off by the wind.

LE: Around the World

2007-02-01T03:45:45Z

Dear Meridian...

2007-01-15T01:24:04Z

Because that scene at Turn's End just had to generate something like this...

Dear Meridian,

It is now some sevendays past Turn's End, and my conscience has not cleared of our interactions. I consider myself a patient man, and your ability to rob that trait from me and simultaneously instill a sense of guilt necessitates address.

You humiliated me in front of a minor lord, within the view of my colleagues and peers. I know, despite what opinions may suggest themselves to me in the irritated moment, that you are not an ignoramus who cannot recognize that I hold my position here with seriousness, and that the infirmary is my primary harbor of sanctuary. It is where I retreat to feel safe, useful, and respected, and on Turn's End you deprived me of that solace and shamed me in the eyes of others. I would ask your apology for these inconsiderations which I know you have the mental faculty to recognize.

This missive is not a strict demand for recompense, however. It is a proposition of peace, if we can come to terms. I am willing to open myself to discussion with you, because while we cohabitate here I would prefer our interactions to be harmonious - and the possibility of a more agreeable future is worth the risk of what present aggravation may result from airing this and all associated issues, in my opinion.

I recognize that I have not been the model of fraternal behavior. You said that I do not treat you with affection, and it is so. However, I know you are also aware that I treat no one with affection. If you would cease your aggravating behaviors towards me, then you would not find yourself regarded with negativity. I would hazard that cordial interactions are perhaps possible, but not if you insist on imposing on me in the manner in which you do.

It is impossible to offer someone what affections they feel entitled to when that person is constantly a source of displeasure. Surely you can recognize this. In that vein, I ask that you reevaluate your behavior towards me, as I have begun to assess my behavior towards you.

I do not particularly relish that I am recognized as the man who scorns his blood brother, even if the tie is somewhat tenuous. If we can overcome our disagreements, perhaps we will better serve as a model for fraternal interactions.

Sincerely,

Neiran

#7: Neiran's First

2007-01-08T08:06:24Z

Writing Prompt #7:
Write about your character's first. First anything. First love, first broken bone, first fall, flight, what have you. Anything they did for the first time regardless of their age.

Special thanks to Sefton for helping me decide which "first" to do, proofing it, and checking my nautical terminology.

I listened to the main theme of Shawshank Redemption by Thomas Newman while I wrote this all in a go. This is Neiran going from South Telgar to Fort Hold (indirectly) in order to take his Journeyman's exams. It's his first real sea voyage. He's about 19 Turns old here.

The scent of wildflowers and sun-baked grasses was yielding to the richly salty scent of sea air. The Telgar River poured here into Big Bay, and on the current of the ocean's allure, the trade ship Queen's Envy slid out to sea.

The schooner's untrimmed sails were luffing as she headed out into the Bay, but soon they were snapped taut and the ship was making neatly for an Istan port on fair-weather seas.

Thin fingers curled loosely on the railing at the starboard bow. Wind insinuated itself into a black queue of hair, lifting strands to make them wave like Gather pennants, and the young man with the apprentice healer's knot on his shoulder made no effort to tame them.

Neiran wasn't looking towards Ista Island, nor westward to his eventual destination of Fort Hold, but out at the glimpse of open sea that stretched beyond the encircling arms of the Bay. The openness attracted his eyes, and he stood firm on the deck watching the distant ripples even though the glare of Rukbat on the waters made his pupils constrict to tight pinpoints.

The openness of it was irresistible. It sang its own notes, a call to freedom. It reminded Neiran of the waving tall grasses and bobbing thistles and wildflowers of Telgar's fields, their own kind of sea that changed color with the seasons, and flowed just the same when the wind swept across the plains.

The sky seemed higher than it did on the plains. The horizon and the great blue dome with its islands of white clouds was almost attainable on the plains; you could ride to the edge of it, if you wanted to. But here it was more distant, blue meeting with blue, impossible to reach.

The grandness of the sky and the sea made Neiran feel small, but at peace. He looked forward to having more days of this. The Queen's Envy would discharge its cargo of medicinals at Sea Cliff Hold, then carry on with fruits in its hold towards Fort, and there he would go ashore with the crates of mangoes and cloves. But before that disembarkation, he would have this freedom to himself.

He had only to share it with the men who manned the ship, the crew of Traders who had agreed at his Master's behest to take him on their route. Neiran looked over his shoulder, and watched the men as dogged as trundlebugs moving fore and aft and manhandling lines and rigging in a mysterious dance he was not privy to. His line of sight followed the ascent of the fore-mast, up to the square topsail that was being unfurled as he watched.

Being aware of a ship's minutiae was a new pleasure to him, just as was being aboard one. By listening to the men aboard as they had guided the ship down the river, he had learnt a few of its parts. The burgeoning anatomist found enjoyment and comfort, somehow, in being able to put a name to each sail, each line, each piece of wood on the "body" of the ship. Just as he craved to know each term for every piece of the human body, he found himself wanting to be as keenly aware of the minutiae of the vessel he was aboard.

And despite the jocular warnings the sailors had given him as he had walked up the gangplank, his stomach had remained steady so far. Despite what tortures his brain might submit him to, his stomach had yet to ever betray him. He knew that even should the waves climb higher and rock the schooner, he'd have little difficulty with it. He couldn't help but wonder if this was a legacy of his mother's, the woman of Half-Circle Seahold whom he had never known. Did seaworthiness truly run in the blood, as they said?

The apprentice retreated to the cabin to give his eyes a rest from the glare, and to exercise his mind by reading what texts he had brought with him in order to study for his Journeyman's examinations.

But during the five-day journey, the deck always called to him after sunset as if soliciting his company, and he would go to the prow once again. It was disconcerting and unnamable, the power that the surrounding water had on Neiran, but without the scrutinizing eyes of anyone who mattered aboard, he allowed himself to entertain his fancy and whim each night.

Belior and Timor, both in their waxing phases, would be high above casting their casting bright, cool light on the rippling waters around the ship. The shifting illumination and the sway of the deck beneath Neiran's feet was enticingly hypnotic. The stars above were breathtakingly clear, and he observed them dutifully every night in mutual silence with the watchman, while below decks the other men laughed and sang and drank.

When the schooner's hull bumped up against the docks at Fort Seahold, it was with a sense of melancholy that Neiran reminded himself who he was and what he was here to do, and bid the Queen's Envy and the sea a goodbye. He parted from it not unlike he had parted from Master Ceregar, with a sense of reluctance to abandon something so reassuring and inspiring. It was only when he was on land that he admitted to himself how much he had enjoyed the brief journey.

When the Masters at Healer Hall asked him how he had liked the trip across the bay, he answered blandly, "it was uneventful."

Med Books

2007-01-02T20:32:42Z

At first, reading medical books (both fiction and nonfiction) was an idle pursuit geared towards giving me a little more insight into the life of a physician than I already have. But I've found it to be an utterly fascinating world which I keep wanting to revisit. Here are some books that I've read on the subject, which I recommend for the curious. (But perhaps not for the faint of stomach.)

This will be updated periodically as I absorb more books. Please also excuse the possible over-use of words like "thought-provoking," "engaging," and "amazing." (I've been fortunate in that all the books I've read on the subject have been good so far, but rest assured that if one isn't, I won't try to pretend it is!)

A Nurse's Story by Tilda Shalof: As the blurb on the back says, it's a "funny, sad, entertaining, and insightful book." Tilda Shalof relates, in unpretentious and very readable prose, the emotional and mental complexities of a Toronto hospital's ICU. It's a chronological narrative that strings together several true medical anecdotes, diverse in detail and the emotions they evoke. I read this on my bus rides on the way to university in fall of 2005, and I never knew if I would disembark laughing, or silent and contemplative of the human tragedy I had just read. At 337 pages, it'll keep you busy for a while, and never once bored.

An Alarming History of Famous and Difficult Patients - Amusing Medical Anecdotes from Typhoid Mary to FDR by Richard Gordon: You see some interesting books working in a library, and this was definitely one of them. I was shocked and appalled by the frequency (and contents) of enemas given to several Kings of England, amused by Pepys' proud endorsement of kidney-stone removal after his own was successfully removed (without anaesthesia), and entertained by the various attitudes of well-known men and women towards their physicians. It's a double whammy of history and medicine that I found impossible to resist. Kirkus Reviews called it "pretty low stuff...the National Enquirer for history buffs," and I'd agree - but that doesn't mean it's any less enjoyable.

Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask A Doctor After Your Third Martini by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D.: I have to admit that the title of this one grabbed me while I was standing in line at a bookstore somewhere. I don't regret the impulse buy. This little paperback is definitely an amusing read, and enlightening as well. Does drinking kill brain cells? What causes morning breath? Does the type of underwear a man wears effect his fertility? Does sugar really make kids hyperactive? Old wives' tales and popularly accepted knowledge is debunked with the accuracy and humor that perhaps only a satire writer and a doctor duo can accomplish. Best of all, you can use the factoids here at your next cocktail party to amuse and impress everyone.

The Illustrated History of Surgery by Knut Haeger: This isn't a beach read at all, but more of a shelf reference. As the title implies, it's illustrated, and very well. Paintings, original diagrams, and photos of recovered surgical instruments from antiquity litter the pages, spread liberally between blocks of enlightening text. This has been an invaluable resource to me as a Healer, for when I need to see what methods and approaches were probable for a certain technology level. It's amazing to see just what constituted professional surgical attention in years past. Leeching, trepanning, and cupping, on the more exotic side, and amputations and debris removal as more familiar procedures to the modern reader. Reading about the different cultural approaches to medicine over the course of history is definitely enlightening and engaging.

Complications - A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande: Out of all of the books listed thus far, I think this one best strikes a balance between intriguing medical lit, and readability. I'm considering buying it, because some of the studies mentioned in here (covering the powerful psychological aspects behind chronic pain, the issue of patient autonomy, and surgical error) are incredibly interesting and surprising. The case examples, presented as anecdotes, really make for fantastic and thought-provoking reading.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach: This was a fantastic book. I've honestly never given much thought to the dead in present society, so it's an understatement to say that this book was full of eye-openers. Decay, the ethics of organ donation, etc...it's all covered, and with a witty and upbeat voice that's entertaining but never irreverent. Despite the contents, it's a very light read, speckled with intriguing facts all strung together in a well-written narrative. As soon as I return this book to the library, I'm buying this one.

Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? More Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Whisky Sour by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg: Sequel to Why Do Men Have Nipples?. I have to say I was a little disappointed. The wacky, madcap humor in between the informative and humorous questions and answers of the first one seemed a little forced this time, like Leyner and Goldberg were making too much of themselves. There was more interlude than answer. Nonetheless, it's worth a quick peruse. I learnt how Aspirin "finds the pain," which is something that'd always confused me. (Longish answer short - it doesn't. Of course not.)

Turn 2 in review

2007-01-01T02:32:48Z

Sefton bade me do it, and thus, here it is.

1. In Turn 2, I gained: New acquaintances, and valuable experience and knowledge in my Craft and other aspects of life.

2. I stopped: Being unsettled by every social situation.

3. I started: Trying to be a socially secure gentleman.

4. I was hugely satisfied by: My work in the infirmary. (Monitoring Lady Sian at the beginning of the turn, aiding K'sar's legs, ensuring Penny's health during and after miscarriage, diagnosing Jensen's heart condition, emergency surgery on T'zen, suturing Thread wounds, continuing the dragonhealing text, and more.)

5. And frustrated by: The difficulty of being in the midst of social webs of connection more subtle and complex than the circulatory system; interrelations which are as equally unforgiving of an incorrectly executed step.

6. I am so embarrassed that I: Was seen in the midst of a migraine attack. And tried alcohol.

7. Once again, I: Felt that my professionalism and seriousness was unappreciated and ridiculed in some circles - and again I was bothered by this.

8. Once again, I did not: Get as much accomplished as I would have liked.

9. The biggest physical difference between me last turn this turn is: None. Perhaps my hair is a margin longer.

10. The biggest psychological difference between me last turn and this turn is: That I feel more connected to certain individuals than I would have thought possible in previous Turns.

11. I loved spending time: Reading, and going riding.

12. Why did I spend even two minutes: In that outfit M'eri "gifted" me?

13. I should have spent more time: In the infirmary.

14. I regret buying: I bought nothing.

15. I will never regret buying: N/A

16. I was probably tautologizing way too much.

17. I didn't sleep or eat enough.

18. Headmaster Sefton drove me crazy.

19. This year was: Unexpectedly stimulating.

20. The most relaxing place I went was: The meadow outside the Weyr.

21. I feel so: Unprepared for forthcoming social developments.

22. Why did I go to: Nowhere outside Reaches at all.

23. The best thing I did for someone else was: Save their life, and/or limb, and/or that of their lifemate.

24. The best thing I did for myself was: Explore hobbies outside of work and class.

25. The best thing someone did for me was: Encourage me that the above was acceptable.

26. The one thing I'd like to do again, but do it better, is: Everything.

Neiran RL

2006-12-30T08:48:22Z

In (belated) response to my own OOC Writing Assignment post, here is Neiran's morning. I tried to keep it short, as "brevity is the soul of wit" and all that, but it seems I was unable to ramble. There was still a lot more I wanted to put in this - I feel like I could have gone on to make a novella.

Thanks in advance to the intrepid and loyal souls who slog through this, even if in a few sittings. The email from Sefton was composed by him, so I can't take credit for it.

Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat woke him every morning, at precisely six fifteen, after almost exactly six hours of sleep.

The gentle piano notes would waft from the small speaker of his bedside alarm clock, and perhaps two minutes into the piece, Neiran's eyes would slide open. He was always awakened by the first note, but he allowed himself to indulge in a few more moments of drowsiness in order to listen to the music.

His eyes opened, his feet slid out from under the covers and touched the wood floor. With a rustle of cotton against cotton he left his bed, and turned on his heel to put the covers immediately into order once more. When the bed was tidied to meet the requirements of an unseen drill sergeant, Neiran lifted the foot of it to return the pull-down bed to its place in the wall-covering shelving unit. The entirety of the shelving unit was taken up by well-thumbed books, not a single framed picture or nicknack to be spoken for.

The Nocturne was by then over, and a touch of one finger against the on/off button silenced whatever song would have been next. In silence, Neiran proceeded to the shower.

The ceiling fan timed itself off after eight minutes, and Neiran left the frosted-glass shower stall with a towel around his waist. The air smelled like the herbs in his organic shampoo, conditioner, and moisturizing bodywash; sage, lemongrass, and other 'masculine' herbal aromas.

The mirror wasn't fogged, thanks to the frequent spritzes of anti-fog cleaner Neiran used on it, as well as his careful use of the ceiling fan. A narrow face topped with wet, hanging black hair was all he saw in the brief glimpse of himself he took before opening the mirror to get at the little shelves inside. He bypassed the toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss to withdraw a small prescription pill bottle. After opening the cap and spilling one of the circular yellow pills into the palm of his hand, he capped the bottle and put it back in its place, closing the mirror on its hinges.

The pill lay there, ready to be swallowed, a cheerful yellow. But to Neiran, that yellow only reminded him of the risks of this medication. Ormond's disease. Retroperitoneal fibrosis. Renal failure. The word 'SANDOZ' lay printed in black block print on one side, and Neiran turned it over to see the '78-58' on the back. It was his little ritual, to look at both sides before he swallowed his Sansert, without aid of water.

After drying himself off and combing his hair back into the little pretentious black ponytail without a single errant strand which he was known for, he left the bathroom and went to his closet to pull out underclothes and his scrubs. Dressed, he turned on his small stereo system and allowed the tranquil sound of classic Chinese erhu music to expand in the small space of his bachelor apartment. The large windows were letting in the barest hints of dawn despite the gray sky and the half-opened blinds. In this predawn illumination, Neiran used his floorspace as best as possible to conduct his morning stretches and qigong routine.

By six thirty, feeling cleansed and refreshed, he went to his kitchenette to prepare breakfast. He had already calculated, to the blueberry, how much of what he was required to eat in order to begin his day perfectly. The juggling of minerals, vitamins, and calories had been an enjoyable exercise the previous week, and he looked forward to sitting down Sunday evening in order to calculate a new weekly meal plan for himself.

He ate while sitting on his loveseat, using the coffee table as his breakfast table, lacking anywhere else to sit and dine. Underneath the glass coffee table was a selection of recent magazines to peruse; the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Official Journal of the American Academy of Neurology, and the Mayo Clinic Proceedings. To his mild chagrin, he realized that there was an unexpected fourth magazine peeking out from under the most recent copy of JAMA. Pausing in his meditative chewing of yogurt, berries, and granola, he leaned down to retrieve the unexpected find.

PCGamer. His half-brother must have surreptitiously left it there last weekend. Thinking of the disgruntling visit was threatening to disrupt the feeling of well-being his morning exercises had cultivated, so he swiftly dismissed the issue from his mind and focused on his breakfast.

When finished, he took his dishes to the sink and placed them there, letting the tap run a little to rinse them. The niggling issues of family and social requirements which needed to be met would not leave him alone. This time of year was always miserable for retaining one's scraps of personal time and peace of mind.

After drinking a glass of water, and downing several vitamin supplements, he went to his small desk up near the windows overlooking Rochester, and opened his laptop.

Several emails awaited him, a few cunning penis enlargement pill advertisements and pleas for international banking assistance from princes in Zimbabwe in his Inbox despite the best efforts of the spam filter. He delegated those to the Trashcan immediately, and opened a new email composition.

---
From: n_crane@gmail.com
To: truebluedude@hotmail.com
Subject: Your last visit.

Meri,
I found your copy of PCGamer with my medical journals underneath my coffee table. I am not particularly impressed. I will return it to you when I next see you.

-- Neiran

P.S.
I do not plan to fly to Texas this Christmas, nor for New Year's and my birthday. Please tell Leonard and Nadine that I will not be present, and to not send me any gifts. Thank you.
---

After he had sent that missive to his half-brother, he checked the only other email in his Inbox.

------
To: n_crane@gmail.com
Cc: penny@caleng.com, roa@ss.myu.edu, res@math.myu.edu, ginny@law.myu.edu, bailie@fashionnyc.com
From: sefton@ss.myu.edu
Subject: Xmas Drinks

This is Neiran's reminder that drinks are this Friday at the Redwood Room, 6pm. I have a faculty dinner starting at 8, and no intention of attending it without a buffer of alcohol between myself and the dean. No doubt the rest of you have remembered, and will duly remember to harass Neiran at least once in the coming week. As every year, the following are not to be considered excuses for non-attendance:
10:0»
- too busy
- socially inadequate
- chronically shy
- dinner with boyfriend
- parents expecting you home
- general misanthropy (Res, I'm looking at you.)

Rest assured, Neiran. Should you discover a life-saving operating that requires your personal attention, we will not hesitate to shift locations, and bring the party to the clinic.

Merry Christmas.

Sefton
-----

He made a mental note to practice his calming qigong before checking his email in the future, especially during this season.

The Redwood Room would undoubtedly be busy. He made a mental note to take along some extra strength Aspirin in case a headache sprung up. He began forming plans to deflect the alcohol his ex-tutor would try to coax him to drink, from buying Sefton enough drinks right off the bat that he would purchase himself immunity, to sitting on the other side of Reyce and Issa in order to remain thoroughly entrenched in conversation with them. Perhaps both.

His eyes wandered to the digital clock in the corner of his screen, the display there affirmed his suspicion that it was time to leave.

He rose from the computer, and moved with steady swiftness to collect what was needful and be out the door on time. He doubled back into the bathroom once in order to brush his teeth, and ensure that his ponytail was holding its own and that there was nothing on his face. The little grooming tasks helped him to refocus on the present, to leave off speculating about the night's looming social requirements.

He put his lunch into his backpack. He would never truly trust cafeteria food.

A change of scrubs and day clothing was in his locker at the Clinic, in the event that the clothing he arrived in became soiled with any number of bodily fluids. He strapped his digital Timex to his wrist, and paused to slip into his black wool peacoat and wrap a purple scarf around his neck in the Italian style. Fold the scarf in half, sling it around the neck, and tuck the one end through the loop which was created by folding it over. It was the neatest, and warmest way to wear it, and with the snow coming down in little flurries outside, he needed all the warmth possible.

He tucked up his coat's collar to protect the back of his neck, and slid his hands into black, lined leather gloves. Sneakers for work awaited him in his locker, so he slid his feet into his weatherproofed ankle boots to brave the weather.

A brief check of his bag's outside compartment assured him he had his wallet and his cell phone, and he removed the keys from it to lock his apartment door. A Clinic keychain dangled from his keys as he secured his small residence.

He stepped out of the lobby and into the chill air just as the green Volkswagon Jetta pulled up in front of the apartment complex. It had been fortune alone that had him wind up with such a punctual carpool driver, and he was appreciative of it. Icy wind lanced against his shins, protected only by the thin layer of his scrubs, and stole away the sentences of morning greeting that he was forming in his mind. When he sat down in the passenger seat, his superior, a cardiac surgeon, greeted him in Chinese.

Had he gotten his hands on the reports from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons that year? No, not yet. Of course he was hoping to attend the next year or the year after - and he planned to work hard enough to attract the eyes of those who made such decisions.

Their conversation dwindled to a natural lull, Mandarin giving way to silence, and Neiran turned his face to watch the snowswept world pass by beyond the car window. But his mind was already inside the glass and concrete labyrinth of the Mayo Clinic with its welcoming scent of antiseptic efficiency, and its organized wards and the mental challenges that would rise to meet him. He hoped today wouldn't be one of those days that his mind and his Sansert betrayed him.

It was like any other morning.