The Bitter Taste of Poison [Open]

[Dragon]

Amaata felt awful, but she wasn't worried about herself. Certainly eating was an issue for her at the moment with the state of her stomach, and what she did eat wasn't staying in her very well. Yes, she was dizzy, and her scalp itched, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. She had been dealing with it by drinking as much water as she could handle, eating a little, and generally staying in bed as much as possible.

Then, about an hour after taking down a herdbeast, Kuroth had gotten sick. That had alarmed Amaata in a way that her own illness and her dragon's accompanying fretting hadn't. Kuroth was nauseous, dizzy, and had stumbled in the weyr as he tried to lay down. He was positively morose as well, as if a bleakness had overtaken him. He was not a maudlin dragon, and seeing him like that alarmed Amaata more than the rest.

Weaving a little as she made her way down the hall, Amaata managed to make it to the infirmary by keeping one hand on the wall the whole way. Yes, she was miserable, and had been for about a day at this point, but she could manage. It was a little easier to handle the dizziness if she kept her eyes on the floor as she walked, too.

She stumbled just slightly as she lost her hold on the wall at the entryway to the infirmary. Carefully, trying not to trigger her own dizziness too much, she said, "Hello? My dragon's sick."

[Fel]

Aan had been working for... actually they weren't exactly sure how long. Long enough that they were fairly certain a shift change had to be coming soon. A Healer couldn't afford to be mentally compromised, and they would be if they went much longer without sleep. The poisoning cases just seemed to keep coming. It was almost headache-inducing trying to wrap their head around how so many people could be afflicted over such a broad time period, so they tried not to think about it too hard. They had a job to do, after all.

They glanced over briefly as a woman came into the infirmary declaring that her dragon was sick, then turned back to the anti-nausea medicine they were mixing. The Weyr had gone through a lot of that lately.

"That's unlikely. Most dragons rarely if ever get ill, and I haven't seen you around here often enough for yours to be one of the ones that does so regularly. It's far more likely that they've been poisoned." Aan brushed back a strand of hair that had escaped the braid, then looked up again, their eyes narrowing as they realized what they'd thought was off. The way the woman was all but clinging to the wall. "Or you're imagining it because you yourself are either ill or poisoned. Or it's both of you, which would be a decidedly unfortunate and unpleasant coincidence."

[Dragon]

Inappropriately, Amaata noticed that the Healer was pretty. About five turns older and of a height with Amaata, they had lovely dark hair braided down their back and dark eyes. It was a strange thing to notice at the moment, running through her mind as though trying to chase away the accompanying words.

Poison? When that finally wormed its way into Amaata's brain, she blanched. Her voice was thin and breathless when she spoke. "Why would anyone - poison? Really?"

She sat heavily, leaning against the wall, worry for Kuroth stealing the strength from her legs. "He ate about an hour before it started. Nausea, dizziness. He's clumsier than he was freshly hatched, and he's positively morose. He's never been a gloomy dragon. He's not really interested in anything."

Her own symptoms were nothing, less than nothing. It didn't matter if she was sick, not next to Kuroth. "I can't even interest him in stories. Not that it's easy to read right now, but he loves stories whether or not they come from books."

Poison? Kuroth would want to hear about that. It was one of those things he'd want to know, want her to remember. "Why would anyone poison dragons?"

[Fel]

"There have been several cases already," Aan said distractedly, checking over their stock of emetics. Not likely to work if symptoms had been ongoing long enough to be described in such detail, and not likely to be needed if the dragon was already nauseous, but it was difficult to say.

"How long ago did he start showing symptoms?" they asked, looking up as the woman described apparently attempting to tell her dragon stories. As though that would somehow cure anything. Honestly, and people wondered why Healers sometimes got frustrated by occasionally being thought of as people who were redundant and just lucky with cures. "And same question for yourself."

They closed their bag and stood. Dragons were not their area of expertise, but they were what the Weyr had right now. Besides, it wasn't like they hadn't treated dragons before; it just wasn't their specialty. But the woman's dragon--blue, apparently--was clearly not in dire need of a specialist unless she was holding something back.

"Also, exactly what symptoms are you experiencing? And I don't know why anyone would poison anyone else, but figuring out why that sort of thing happens isn't my job. Dealing with the effects of it is."

[Dragon]

Several cases already. Amaata felt positively numb; there was no reason for this! None at all. Dragons were precious, the only true protection Pern had from the ravages of Thread. If a dragon or its rider succumbed to poison, that was one less dragon ready to defend the Weyr.

The idea that someone might have done this was unthinkable, but neither could Amaata wrap her head around how accidental poisonings might progress to the point of a notable pattern.

Symptoms. Right. Focus on what was important.

"About - four hours, I think? Maybe six?" Time was especially hard right now. "It was about an hour after he took down a herdbeast ..."

Amaata considered herself unimportant in this case. Her worry was for Kuroth. Still ...

"I suppose I've been sick since yesterday morning," she admitted awkwardly. "I'm dizzy, and my head feels strange - tight and itchy - and I've been having stomach troubles." She blushed a little. "Things aren't really ... staying in very well." She shifted a little. "I've been drinking as much water as I can. I know it's important to keep hydrated."

[Fel]

Aan stared at the woman, at once at a total loss for words. Four hours. Maybe six. Over a day for herself. Faranth, was she trying to complicate matters? There were Healers right here in the Weyr, it wasn't as though this was some backwater cothold where they weren't around. They took a deep breath.

"Okay, you waited... a while," they said, refraining from berating the poor woman even though they really wanted to. It wouldn't do any good at this point, even if they could have been of more help if she hadn't waited. It was the sort of impulse they'd been warned not to indulge many times over as an apprentice. "That... limits our options."

They really were trying to be diplomatic. They pushed the escaped strand of hair out of their face again and went to a cupboard to pull out a box of dried mint, ginger, and fennel. Maybe if they made enough of the tea it could help the dragon too, at least with the nausea.

"Tea might help, maybe both of you. Hopefully both of you. If your dragon's coordination is impaired I'm not going to try to suggest he come down here on his own, and I assume you won't agree to stay here while I bring it to him?" Riders could be difficult like that.

[Dragon]

"I wasn't sure at first there was actually anything wrong with Kuroth," Amaata said apologetically. "It didn't come on all at once, and - well, then it wasn't exactly easy to get out of our weyr and down here."

Tea. Well, Amaata would accept anything that helped Kuroth. "He's seven and a half feet at the shoulder, and thirty feet long," she rattled off, knowing that size could sometimes be an issue when it came to the dosage of medications. "Small for a blue. And of course I won't be staying. He needs me to look after him."