Dead Ends

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 25th February 2009

Characters: Ylisahn, K'hetah
Description: K'hetah speaks to Ylisahn about her problem.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 1, day 14 of Turn 5

Ylisahn's office was spotless by the time the Cyclone Wingleader arrived, as promised, before breakfast.

The Weyr's Headwoman had found it difficult to sleep so had tiptoed away from her sleeping weyrmate and come back to the familiar surroundings of her office. But even there she hadn't been able to settle to anything and so she had started cleaning.

The small night shift had been amused to see her disappearing into her office with scrubbing brushes and buckets, and had offered to help.

The early shift of bakers had made a point of saying good morning to her and admiring her efforts. They had also offered to help, though she knew very well they had little time to spare if the breakfast breads were to be ready on time.

And by the time the Wingleader arrived the dressed rock walls had been washed, the floor scrubbed and every piece of paper or hide filed in its ordained place.

The office was pristine.

Ylisahn was a wreck.

K'hetah, who believed in (and maintained) a perfectly bare desk saw nothing unusual in the state of the office, other than perhaps thinking it smelled rather like the infirmary after its every-sevenday cleaning. Decoctions of cleaning herbs and a faint overlay of redwort. It was a smell so familiar to him that he would have dismissed it from his mind if it hadn't been for the state of Ylisahn's clothing which bore evidence of exposure to water - and redwort.

"Have you been cleaning?"

"Yes, Wingleader. I have."

K'hetah winced at the woman's tone, so different from the friendliness she usually offered him - offered most people. "Ylisahn -" he sat down without invitation, guessing that one wouldn't be forthcoming. "What's the problem?"

"There is no problem."

For a long moment there was silence in the office and Ylisahn realised one of the benefits of a cluttered desk. At least then she would have had something to pick up, or move, or just plain fiddle with.

"Ylisahn," K'hetah started again. "Look at yourself. You're awake when you should be asleep and you're barely eating." He couldn't have been the only person who had noticed the always slim Headwoman's weight loss. "And then there's the problem with the dining cavern."

If she could have Ylisahn would have kept denying it but that mention of the dining cavern was a blow. K'hetah, with his sharp eyes and healer's observation habits had seen what she hoped most people hadn't.

Was she tired of denying there was a problem? Her children and Wirril asked often but she always told them that she was fine. And if they didn't believe her they were kind enough not to press the issue - but where had that got her. As K'hetah had said last night, the problem was getting worse. Those dark moments when everything thought fled in the face of the wave of panic _were_ becoming more frequent.

"When the storm surge came in," Ylisahn said, not meeting the light coloured eyes of the bronzerider, "I was in the dining cavern. I lost my light, and my footing." Her tone was almost emotionless, as if she was describing something that had happened to somebody else, because she didn't think she could get through an explanation any other way.

"Pretty terrifying, I guess," K'hetah finally prompted in a gentle tone when the Headwoman's silence looked like it might remain unbroken.

"Yes." Ylisahn seemed to gather her thoughts together and smiled at the bronzerider, meeting his eyes for the first time since his arrival. "There was ... current ... Pushing me across the cavern toward the corridors. Some of them are dead ends, you realise."

He did realise, but not in the way Ylisahn must have come to realise what that meant as the tide of water swept her toward the tunnels in the dark.

"But you survived," he said, even more gently.

"Yes. Yes, I did. I managed to get back to my feet and get to the stairs. It was an awful moment, but over quite quickly. It's ridiculous that it can still be worrying me months later."

"Not ridiculous. Not even all that uncommon."

Ylisahn snorted in an unladylike dismissal. "Among dragonriders perhaps."

She had seen some riders who lost the ability to function in the Wings, sometimes at _all_, but they were under truly terrible pressures fighting Thread. Her situation was _nothing_ compared to theirs.

"It's a brain thing, Ylisahn. You have a brain and it has been affected by what happened to you; no different to a rider being affected by what happened to them. It's not about what _happened_ it's about the affect of the event on the brain. There's no benchmark above which it's all right for this to happen and under which it's unacceptable. It happens. We don't know why, or why to some and not others. And the healers _know_ about it. They know things that can help. But you haven't been to see them, have you?"

Ylisahn laughed, feeling a little relieved now she had told _somebody_. "No, I haven't. It's such a stupid thing. But you were a healer - _are_ and healer - and I've spoken to you about it now." She put a hand up to tuck a wayward strand of blonde hair behind her ear, then found another and absently worked at tucking it into the braid that hung down her back. "What would you recommend?"

"I wouldn't recommend _anything_ without knowing more," K'hetah said bluntly. "And then I'd probably only recommend you went to see a healer who didn't have half his mind on his Wing."

The Headwoman shrugged. "They won't be friends of mine, as you are. Just give me something I can work on, K'hetah. Something that will stop me remembering every time I catch sight of one of those corridors out of the corner of my eye and something that will slow my mind down. I feel like I'm always expecting another storm surge. Always having to be ready for it. And it's wearing me out."

The bronzerider sighed. There were no simple answers; no miracle cure. Ylisahn would have to find solutions to the problems her brain was causing her, and she would have to learn to avoid the triggers. It wasn't going to be easy and she was going to need to consult with working healers with better knowledge of such things than he had.

But still, a few ideas now would give her something to hold on to. Some sense of relief that she could do something to help herself.

"Shall we get some klah and breakfast and have a bit of a talk about it?" he suggested.

Though she wasn't hungry Ylisahn nodded. Maybe she could eat a little more than usual, eating in her office, away from the dining cavern and the gaping mouths of those dead end tunnels.

Last updated on the February 25th 2009

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