Memories Fade [Open]

[Arcane]

"Head trauma, likely a severe concussion, can lead to memory problems," Actaeon said, with a nod. The incidents he'd treated had been comparably minor, the loss of a few candlemarks, not an entire lifetime, but his patients were not usually dragonriders and their injuries had been from the ordinary sorts of falls and collisions.

He wondered if the telepathic bond riders shared with their dragons, or whatever mental quirk it was that allowed Impression in the first place, had any impact on the symptoms of concussions. Perhaps it would be worth surveying the records Fort's healers so diligently maintained, "Do you suffer short term memory loss as well, or only long term? How long does it take for your recall of an incident to become unreliable? Have you experienced any other alterations to your mental state and did they predate your trip through time?"

Actaeon felt decidedly on less firm ground discussing the flirtation proclivities of riders than the results of head trauma. He tried not to sound out of his depth, "I understand weyr manners are more...casual on these things. Likely a result of differing family structures, economic necessities and more accessible birth control leading to long term cultural changes. I will attempt to interpret any such interactions in context."

[Fel]

Yun blinked slightly at the man's sudden barrage of questions. Yes, he was definitely a Healer. One of the more academically inclined ones, she suspected. She'd met plenty of those, both in her own time and here. There was never any shortage of questions with them.

"Um... both," she said, deciding to try to answer his questions in order. He'd been polite, after all. "And... I guess it depends. Some things I lose track of quickly. Others I p-probably already forgot but just... don't know. I don't even know exactly when... when... I..." She took a deep breath. Her situation was, unfortunately, common knowledge at the Weyr thanks to someone going through old storerooms, but that didn't make it easy to talk about.

"I had a weyrmate. Before. Her face is i-i-increasingly hard to remember." Hopefully he wasn't one of those Hold-bred people who didn't understand the concept of two members of the same sex being together. "And yes. There were... other effects, even after I was doing better and learned how to do things again. Emotional ones, and words are difficult to think of sometimes."

She didn't even try to understand his reasoning about why Weyrbred people were more permissive. All she knew was that at the Weyr, she'd found freedom to be herself. The reasons were immaterial. Instead she simply said, "Yes, manners are quite different. That never changed. The Weyrs have always been more open."

[Arcane]

"We don't have to talk about your injury if the subject makes you uncomfortable," Actaeon said, as Yun seemed to grow distressed discussing the failings of her memory. It was important for a patient to knowingly consent to any medical consultation or treatment, "But while every brain injury is slightly different, your situation is not entirely unique. Should you ever so wish, a healer might be able to help you better understand and manage your symptoms."

Actaeon had learned enough of the world, and riders in particular, that the mention of Yun's weyrmate's gender elicited no particular reaction beyond sympathy, "Have you tried drawing her? Or having someone draw her for you, if you lack the skill?"

Actaeon had seen lords and ladies wearing small portraits of their loves in lockets around their necks. He had sketched faces from his home he similarly feared forgetting, because memories could be fickle, fleeting things for all of them, in the margins of his childhood notes, before he was old enough to be embarrassed by the show of sentiment.

Actaeon nodded as Yun confirmed the weyrs had always been this way, "I suspected as much. Even in the oldest harper stories- the weyrs were clearly different." Actaeon's childhood harper class had found the song about a weyrwoman with two weyrmates quite scandalous, even if none of them fully understood what a weyrmate was.

[Fel]

"It's not that," Yun said, shaking her head slightly. "It's just... knowing I'm starting to forget Kya that's difficult. Everything else is what it is. I don't miss anything else so much, but her..."

She closed her eyes, trying to summon an image of her face. It was fuzzy at best. How had her chin looked...?

"I worked with Healers before. To help me return to duty. Though I don't remember a lot of what was immediately after. And then when I first came here. They thought I had lost my mind. Or was lying about what Turn it was." In a way, she had been losing her mind, just not in the way they'd thought.

She nodded in response to Actaeon's question. "I learned to draw when I was younger. It was n-necessary for a woman of my station to be... accomplished. To attract a husband. I tried to draw her when I realized things were slipping but... I'm out of practice. Both drawing and remembering her well."

[Arcane]

Actaeon had no tonics or treatments to restore Yun's fading memories. He didn't know the right words to say, to bring her comfort. He wasn't often called on to soothe. But beyond that- Yun's experience was all but unique, to mourn someone long since lost to the fogs of history, "I understand. Kya, and your memories, can never be replaced in this time."

There was no one even to mourn with Yun. To the rest of Pern, Kya was not even an echo of a memory.

"How did you convince them you spoke true about your era of origin?" Actaeon asked, "I did not believe the story myself, when I was first told. I imagine the healers would be glad to work with you again, if you ever wished to be reminded of what you forgot- or find a different approach." She probably knew that already. She was a dragonrider and all but unique on Pern. Of course every healer would wish to help her, out of respect or for the glory of being the one to provide aid.

"Were you a lady of the Blood- back in your time?" Actaeon guessed, because it seemed a safer topic than anything of the other unfair things that had happened in Kya's life. Crafters and weyrfolk did not need husbands to survive and commoners had greater worries than a wife's artistic skill.

[Fel]

"I couldn't convince them," Yun admitted ruefully. "There were some surviving records from my time. That was the only evidence they would accept. But between that and my clothes and... Nimbus Wing. It doesn't exist any more. I suppose during an Interval it became e-ex-extraneous."

It was likely Wings had come and gone over the centuries, but nobody ever really thought about it. By the time a new Pass came, those who remembered the Wings from the last were long gone. She knew there were fewer dragons during an Interval, so of course it stood to reason that some would disband during that time.

"Oh. Not of the Blood, no. Nothing so important. My family had a minor Hold. They had hoped I would marry into the Blood of a major Hold, but... I got Searched."

Had she ever considered what they might have thought, when they had received word of her apparent death? Had anyone even known where to find them to tell them? She'd never introduced Kya to them. They wouldn't have understood. They'd barely understood why she would want to be a rider, but having a relationship with another woman? No, they never would have accepted that.