TW: injury
The whispers are so much louder in your new, “temporary” home. The minds around you are not muffled by the rock, and you hear and feel what feels like a thousand different ones every day.
Most of them are focused on dark, heavy thoughts. They focus on the Senior. The Weyrwoman, the heart of their Weyr -- among other injuries and heartbreaks that surge and overwhelm -- the emblem, for if the Senior and her Weyrwoman stand strong, so too will the Weyr. Bits and pieces flicker from different minds, and soon you grasp the issue:
Issrodeth has been laid in a deep sleep by the healers so she can heal for a few days. She was in a ground weyr during the quake and the rocks fell on her, breaking one of her headknobs as well as damaging her keel and ribs under the tons of rubble. Nillipa suffered mentally while her bonded was in pain and unable to speak properly, and for now has been put to bed rest so she does not stress her limbs or heart during the cleanup.
No one knows when it will be safe for Issrodeth to wake, or if she will be “all there” when she does. Nillipa says the bond is still strong, and there is as much hope as confidence when she says it. The older gold’s bones are not as strong as they once were, and it will be months before she can chance straining her keel with flight.
Around and around they fret, worries for their Weyrwoman hiding sorrows for lost friends and lost futures, for now giving Gwillanth and eggs some necessary peace.
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The people -- both dragonkin and human -- of the Weyr put a lot of responsibility, but also trust, at Nillipa and Issrodeth’s feet -- why? What makes them different? How do you feel about them, as infrequently as you’ve been near them? What are your thoughts for Issrodeth? Do you feel pity, sympathy, empathy, fear, disgust? What do you think will happen if she does not recover? Why? Who will benefit, who will lose? Would you ever want the same fragile power Issrodeth wields?