A Lesson in Life, ~ ~ : Tag Zulu/Salmai

[Saone]

It was well into the night, that much was blindingly obvious as the young man urged his bronze into the air, leaving the Weyr behind them as they moved over the forested lands that surrounded their home. Mikhaelth wasn't the sort of dragon that would normally be out at this sort of hour, but his rider had been fairly adamant about going out for a training session of some sort, so the bronze had finally given in after about two candlemarks of arguing with the man, setting out for a course that would take them some distance from the Weyr proper. Thankfully, they were still staying on the island itself, and Mikhaelth was full grown at this point and strong enough to defend them against whatever nature could throw at them, so he was confident enough in their safety to allow him this small freedom. Tell me again why we're sneaking out in the middle of the night to do this? he asked as they flew past the watch dragon, Mikhaelth offering a reassuring croon to ensure that the brown wouldn't tell Zulendath or Saolsolath about their little midnight flight right away. What's the point of this sort of training? It's nearly pitch black out here, so I doubt either of us will really be able to see much.

You'll just have to trust me, Mikhaelth, the bronzerider responded with a chuckle as he heard the great wings of the dragon settle a little, announcing that Mikhaelth was settling into a glide at this point. He knew, of course, that the dragon was just as likely to trust him as he was a wild feline at this point, but they were out of the Weyr for the moment, weren't they? And with the pair being recently graduated and all, the other riders were already beginning to respect him and Mikhaelth enough that they wouldn't question them straight away when it came to something like this, so it wasn't like they would immediately be caught and whisked back to the Weyr any time soon, either. Besides, I figured that you'd like this sort of thing, he added teasingly, grinning a bit when he felt the aggravation leaking through the bond that they shared. Did he honestly like making the bronze irritated like this? Sometimes, since Mikhaelth was simply nothing short of stuffy too much for him to be amusing or a lot of fun in any way, but the bronze quickly shrugged off any aggravation caused by Rh'van's words, so that in and of itself was enough to make up for anything that he did.

Finally, after perhaps a few agonizing minutes of utter silence, he decided that it actually might be a good idea for him to at least attempt to explain what his exact thoughts were concerning the situation at hand. Look, Mikha, I know this is against the 'rules' of the weyrlinghood we just went through, he added, heaving a heavy sigh as he patted at the dragon's shoulder as a way of reassuring himself before continuing on. However, you know as well as I do that it would be a good idea to get a better feel of flying about in the dark. You never know when we'll be called on to do something like this. He felt the dragon's irritation start to fade, which caused a relieved smile to start tugging at his lips as what few moments of worry he had allowed himself to feel started to fade away. There, see? Was that so horrible? he asked, chuckling a bit as he heard and felt the somewhat amused rumble from deep within the great bronze's chest. And with that, the young man fell silent, instead taking a look around him as he tried to get a good idea of his surroundings as Mikhaelth continued to fly towards the woods that surrounded the Weyr. He discovered after a few moments that, while he couldn't really see the trees below him all that well, he could make out roughly how far from the Weyr he was by glancing behind him and making out the outline of Monachikos along the horizon.

Really? I could have told you that, Mikhaelth commented drolly as he continued to fly, glancing down at the forest below for the telltale signs of any sort of clearing that he could land in. He allowed the faintest of draconic smirks to enter his faceted eyes as he felt those of his rider looking right at him, as he felt the irritation slipping through their bond. Ah, that made him feel good, he thought with a pleased rumble as he started to spiral down into a fairly large clearing that he had just discovered in the dense forest. Got you back, he added with another pleased rumble as he touched down, crouching right away to allow the young man to slide off of his shoulders and land in the soft grass at his feet. Don't forget your glows, Rh'van, the bronze reminded his rider, glancing around the pitch black forest around him, trying to get any sort of bearings that he could find. He found that he was able to see a little better once his rider had opened up the small glow basket that he had brought with him, removing a few of the glows and placing them in a glass container that he had commissioned from one of the Weyr's glass-smiths before closing the glow basket, tying it back to his dragon's flying harness. So, what is it we're out here to hunt? The only thing that I can think of would be felines and whers.

"I'm not entirely sure yet, Mikha," he explained, grateful to be able to actually talk out loud, even if it was only barely above a whisper as he glanced around him, trying to determine if there had been any sign of any sort of animal passing through the clearing lately. When he couldn't find any fresh tracks, he glanced up at the bronze, pulling the large wherry skinner out of its sheath, which had also been tied to Mikhaelth's harness. "Tell you what... why don't you go up and see if you can't catch sight of anything? I have the knife here, so I'll be able to protect myself. Go on, now," he added, urging the bronze skyward and smiling when the beast acquiesced, taking off into the air with a heavy snort. He would be fine where he was, so long as he stayed in the clearing for the time being and kept his eyes and ears open to any signs of danger. Now it was only waiting and seeing if Mikhaelth could spot something in the low light that the stars and moons gave him to guide with, he thought with a smile as he hunkered down into the tall grass, holding his knife at the ready as he waited for any signs of any nasty creatures ready to try to take him on.

This post has been edited by Saone on Oct 20 2012, 08:12 AM

[zulu]

((I'm assuming they're still Weyrlings despite the graduation thread already being posted))

Had Salmai known that Rh'van was alone in the woods and wary of shaking branches and leaves nearby, she most likely would have given him far more to worry about. Just to see how he'd react. Shaking bushes would be the least of his concerns if he heard predator growls, grunts, and howls. Salmai was very good at mimicking many different animals, but she was excellent when it came to predators. Her frostfang mimicry was downright uncanny. And if Rh'van couldn't recognize a frostfang, a creature found nowhere near Monachikos, then it likely would have scared him witless.

But, as it was, Salmai was not nearby to take advantage of the practical joke opportunity (not that she would call it a practical joke to begin with, but she would laugh nonetheless). Instead, she was out in the mountains, tracking through the night, trying to empty her mind. So far, she was having little success with either. Still a Weyrling bonded to a very uptight gold dragon, she'd had to wait until dusk to sneak out with her quiver and bow. Those weren't the only weapons she carried, but she wasn't exactly planning on letting something get close enough to her for a knife to be handy. She always carried several--they had other uses besides killing, after all--but she didn't want to use one. Which that in and of itself was unusual. For Salmai not to enjoy the thought of killing prey, something had to be deeply wrong.

And indeed it was.

After the Weyrwoman's confrontation, Salmai had been thinking. She didn't like the conflict that Tsalani's words had fueled in her. The huntress was perfectly content living her own way for her own purposes. What made Tsalani think she would want to...help the sheep populations that made up the Holds and Weyr? They weren't worth her attention. They didn't understand life nor death, didn't know how easily death could replace life or how difficult it was to truly live.

Salmai growled under her breath, boots skidding over pebbles as she climbs the side of a mountain slope. There was a ridge above her, a spur of rock jutting from the mountain's face. That was her goal. She had made very good time here, and the better part was that Saolsolath--nor Mica for that matter--had any idea she was here. Salmai preferred it that way. She needed her privacy, needed space to think. She didn't like having to weigh these decisions. She relied on gut instinct more often than not, but her gut instinct wasn't working. Instead, emotions, goals, and desires stirred within her, ones she had long kept hidden from the world. No one else knew her motivations in life. No one knew she longed to seek out her brothers, to find information of their whereabouts. If they were still alive. The pirates that had overrun the Hold had overrun Salmai as well, despite her attempts to fight, and her brothers had disappeared from her sight. Being knocked unconscious aided that process.

She'd heard no word of them since.

And bonding 'Solath had slowed everything down. She had planned to search the moment she hit shore, but as she searched the Weyr, a gold hatchling decided she'd make a good rider. A whole turn wasted. But part of her, the part closest to 'Solath's bond--and how Salmai knew that was beyond her--that piece of her denied the wasted turn. That part told Salmai that the bond was worth more than anything in the world, including her missing brothers. It made no sense to Salmai. She had spent her entire life with only her family as her connection. When she had been captured, she had made it her purpose to find her brothers--if they lived--and make any pirates she came across pay with their lives. The Weyr had already taken care of the pirates who had captured her, but Salmai needed blood. She needed to avenge her father's murder, her brothers' captures. Her own capture.

Her feet skidded again, and Salmai leaned forward, gripping into the gravel and pebbles with one gloved hand. The rocks were ice cold to the touch. This part must have been in shadow for most of the day. When she had regained her balance, Salmai looked up to check the stars. Sure enough, the slope faced northeast, which meant it only received sun in the early morning hours before the sun's arc curved behind the southern side of the mountain. Resettling her quiver on her shoulders, Salmai started up again. Almost to the spur of rock, Salmai scrabbled for purchase.

Once she crested the ridge, things went horribly wrong.

For one, in the darkness, she had misjudged the stability of the slope. She had scaled many a scree-covered mountain and was rather good as estimating the level of danger, but with only the moons and stars for light, she had missed a very important detail hidden in the shadows. The slope had recently fallen. The rock hadn't yet settled. That made it very likely to fall again. With her back turned to the mountain, Salmai looked over the ground she had covered. She wasn't as far away from the Weyr as she'd like--she could still see it in the distance--but at least she was far enough away not to feel 'Solath so intimately. The gold was asleep, which meant she couldn't pester Salmai about the decision she had to make, whether or not to become whatever it was Tsalani wanted her to become. She took a deep breath. On the exhale, she heard the rumble.

Even Salmai's quick reflexes couldn't save her this time.

When the rocks started to fall, Salmai ran to the end of the ridge, trying to avoid the main tumble. But, as unpredictable as rockfalls are, several medium-sized boulders found their ways onto the ridge. They bounded and rolled, and Salmai watched them, poised on the balls of her feet. She managed to dodge one, and a quick step allowed her to dodge the second. But the third and fourth caught her in quick succession. The third knocked her off balance, and she fell off the side of the ridge. Scrambling with a wordless cry, Salmai grabbed the nearest thing she could, wrenching her shoulder and elbow as one hand found purchase on the ridge. Her feet scrabbled against the steep slope, trying to get a toehold. That was when the fourth boulder found her. Having bounced off its neighbor--the third boulder--it too fell off the ridge. Salmai knew only the briefest of moment's respite before the large rock struck her outstretched arm. She felt her elbow buckle, and her hand let go instinctively.

Barely retaining any sense of the proverbial up, Salmai had only enough awareness to keep her head protected. She threw up her not-aching arm, wrapping it around the back of her head as she tumbled over the scree. She came to a very rough stop when something trapped her arm against the base of the ridge spur. Another wordless cry, and Salmai growled, feeling whatever her elbow had turned into worsen as the weight of the rock pinned her limb. Had the rocks not continued to fall, she would have tried pushing it off. As it was, rock still fell. Thankfullythe rock pinning her arm was upslope, protecting her from much of the remaining rockfall. Salmai drew her legs in and covered her head with her free arm. She'd survived worse than this.

By the time the rockfall ended, Salmai knew something was seriously wrong with her arm. Well. Besides the fact it was pinned. Carefully, Salmai tested the ground beneath her, not wanting to start another fall. When it didn't move, she tried shoving the rock off her arm with her free limb. But given the rock was positioned upslope, she couldn't get enough leverage with just her hand. So, wrenching her shoulder painfully, Salmai grit her teeth and put her feet to the rock. She heaved against it, feeling the rock scrape her skin but nothing more. The thing did not budge. Panting, Salmai kicked the boulder in frustration, growling. She'd lost her bow in the chaos, but, looking up, she could see it poised at the edge of the ridge. But she could also feel that at least half of the arrows in her quiver on her back were snapped. She was more worried about her arm. If she couldn't get this boulder off...

Knives were good for more than just killing.

((hope this works! We did plan for an extreme situation >3 ))

[Saone]

The young bronze glided over the trees, perhaps a bit more noisily than he would have preferred, but it wasn't like anyone would get him to admit to that sort of thing. Mikhaelth? Anything less than stealthy and quiet? Why, you must be fooling yourself. Either way, the heavy beast's wings were making quite the commotion when he was dipping so low over the trees that surrounded his rider. Above all else, Rh'van was constantly in the young dragon's thoughts, always at the periphery of his vision. After all, that was his beloved rider, and the bronze would never had allowed himself any form of forgiveness if anything happened to him while they were doing something that he felt that they shouldn't have been. Still, Mikhaelth kept an eye out for anything that could be potential prey on their little night hunt, though why exactly they were hunting in the middle of the night was well beyond his sense of logic at the moment. He quickly grew bored with the task after the first few passes, however, and his attention started to focus less on what they could hunt so much as what he could see. He was a creature of action, after all, and the endless searching was something that he considered tiring and tedious. But Rh'van wanted him to look, and it was only because of that that the young bronze was still in the air. Which was perhaps a good thing, since he wouldn't have been able to catch sight of something spectacular if he had landed just moments beforehand.

At first, all he could see were the mountains, looming overhead like some massive creatures, larger than dragons and capable of swallowing even a massive beast such as himself without so much as a second glance. But really, he wouldn't have even been a mouthful for such a beast, and he needed to focus on other things than his imagination. Which was growing by the day with Rh'van, but that was beside the point. The bronze's keen hearing picked up on the low rumble of rock shifting, and his eyes immediately turned to the nearby ridge to his right, the eyes themselves nothing more than glowing pinpricks in the vast darkness of the island at night. As he watched the ridge warily, the young bronze was vaguely aware of a shape running along the ridge, and he audibly rumbled in concern when he realized that this was a shape he actually recognized. And there were very few things that he recognized so well, considering that draconic memories weren't the grandest things on Pern. But no, he knew who the person was running along the ridge; and why shouldn't he, when he'd seen her only hours ago? He was about to call to Rh'van, to tell the man that the young woman was there, but even his mindvoice grew silent as the scene continued to unfold in front of him. What could have been a good chance for his rider to test out his stealth against a person who had been forced to perfect the ways of stealth for survival purposes quickly turned into something that the bronze wished that he could forget right away.

The rocks were falling, and the young woman was trying her best to avoid them altogether, but such things never managed to work out in one's favor. And as he feared, several mid-sized boulders, each easily half the size of the flimsy human trying to outrun them, rolled down the ridge towards her. She managed to dodge the first two admirably, but the third and fourth managed to hit her, the third grazing her and knocking her off balance while the fourth continued to roll towards her, making the fact that she had nearly fallen from the ridge something of a trivial thing. The fourth boulder fell off of the ridge in nearly the exact same spot as the woman had, knocking both of them down to the bottom of the ridge. A surprised roar escaped the bronze then, startling all of the wherries that had been sleeping nearby and sending them scattering in every direction possible to get away from the dragon flying overhead. We have to go, Rh'van! Mikhaelth announced as he quickly circled back to where the young man was waiting, landing with a heavy thud as he crouched down to allow the man to easily hop to his shoulder. Now, now! There's no time to waste!

Catching the unusual sense of sheer urgency in the dragon's voice, Rh'van quickly sheathed his knife, jogging over to where the bronze had landed and hopping up to settle on his shoulder. The young man barely had enough time to grab on to the safety straps before Mikhaelth took off, nearly dislodging the man from the dragon's back in the process. Rh'van was utterly confused as to what was going on, and especially confused as to why Mikhaelth was suddenly acting as if whatever had happened was of grave importance to them. Mikha, what exactly is going on? he asked as the bronze sped off towards the nearest ridge, Rh'van himself squinting towards the ridge as if that would give him some kind of hint as to what was making his dragon so anxious. What has you so riled up all of the sudden? He was a bit surprised when Mikhaelth didn't answer him right away, but the answer came to him quickly enough as the bronze settled down next to a boulder that had seemingly fallen from the ridge above. At first, the young man didn't seem to think anything of it, since rockfalls happened every day, but something was definitely strange about the ground beneath the rock. The young man tilted his head for a moment before deciding that a closer look was definitely needed, and he slid down off of his dragon's shoulder, grateful that Mikhaelth hadn't given him the time to actually connect the straps to his belt.

As he carefully moved around the rock towards the farther side of it, he noticed that the bronze was already twisting his way around the boulder, crooning softly and encouragingly at whatever lay in wait for him on the other side. Rh'van eyed his dragon for a moment before finally moving to the other side of the boulder, a gasp escaping him at the sight that awaited him there. There, laying beside the boulder with her arm pinned painfully beneath it, was Salmai. His Junior Weyrwoman, as well as the goldrider that he had gone through weyrling training with. But something wasn't right with this picture, he thought as he glanced around for a moment, searching in vain for the bright golden hide of her dragon. If Salmai was here, then where was Saolsolath? And Mica, her little firelizard? Though he had to admit that he had specifically chosen a time that Cailain had been asleep so that the little blue wouldn't bother him, so the green's absence wasn't so unusual to him for the time being. "Salmai!" he gasped, shaking his head to clear his thoughts and refocus them as he knelt next to the young goldrider, glancing between her and the boulder for a moment as he tried to devise a way to get the sharding thing off of her. She needed to get back to the Weyr, back to her dragon and to healers that would be able to better handle wounds like this, but how was he supposed to move such a sharding heavy rock?

Naturally, Rh'van's quick mind settled on that look in Salmai's eyes, the one that had been there right before he approached her. That was the look of someone who had potentially started to give up, someone who knew that drastic measures would have to be taken in order to ensure one's survival. But Rh'van knew people who had been forced to amputate limbs in dire situations like this, and rarely did it end well for that person. The few that he knew were somehow able to stop the bleeding in time, but he breathed a sigh of relief now that he knew that Salmai wouldn't have to go through an experience like that. No, definitely not that he and Mikhaelth were there to help her, and he would certainly make sure of that. "Don't worry about a thing, Salmai," he commented to her as he surveyed the rock for just a moment before stepping off to the side, motioning with one hand that he would return so that the goldrider didn't berate him for leaving her like that. Within moments, he came back, brandishing a large portion of a thick branch, one that he felt would help him gain enough leverage over the boulder that kept his fellow dragonrider pinned down. "Mikhaelth and I are gonna help you get out of here, okay? Just bear with us for a moment, and for Faranth's sake, keep still. Can't have you thrashin' about while I'm working."

[zulu]

If there was one thing Salmai hated, it was being helpless. Yet here she was. Her arm was pinned behind a boulder. Her dragon was asleep. Her firelizard was also dead to the world. Not that Salmai would have trusted the frivolous thing. Still, even having Saolsolath awake would have been better. Then Salmai wouldn't have needed to swallow her pride and call the dragon. But, at the current moment, the fact she was bonded to one of the largest creatures on Pern didn't even occur to her. With Solath asleep, the bond was minimal. So Salmai forgot. Every instinct reverted back to when she lived in the wild. Being pinned like this was a sure death sentence unless she could get herself free.

And given the fact the boulder was not moving no matter what pressure she put on it, and she had to try a different route. So instead of using her feet to try to push the boulder, she twisted her shoulder as much as she could, gritting her teeth against the cry rising in her throat, and grunted as she managed to rotate her arm just enough to put her shoulder flat against the cliff face. Then, using what leverage she could, Salmai tried pushing the boulder off another way. Her chest and arm burned with the effort, and she grunted, unable to remain totally silent as the boulder shifted. But when she stopped pushing for a mere second to readjust her feet, it slammed home again.

That time, she couldn't hold back a sharp cry as she felt something pop. She had no idea what or where in her arm. The entire thing was one throbbing, burning pain. Gritting her teeth and growling, Salmai tried yet another tactic: pulling. That got her about as far as the other two techniques had, and it only left her weaker and more bruised. Breathing heavily through her nose, Salmai leaned her head against the cliff and tried to collect herself. There was only one option she had left.

Drawing her knife, Salmai closed her eyes, mentally preparing for what she had to do. She didn't even notice the flight of a dragon overhead. Her blood roared in her ears from the adrenaline rush this experience was causing, and breathing through her nose did not help the sound issue. Part of her knew she was on the Weyr island, and thus not really in any danger from predators, but her chest still constricted at the thought of how vulnerable she was. Any scavenger would see her as easy prey despite not being dead. And doing what she was about to, she very well could end up dead. She'd known a couple people to die after trying to escape a similar situation. Blood loss. Hardening herself to losing her right arm, Salmai cut a strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and tied it around her arm as close to her shoulder as she could get and pulled it as tight as she could make it. Another cut, and she bared her bicep.

It wasn't until the blade flashed in the moonlight, on its way to her skin, that she heard--and felt--something land nearby. That's when she caught sight of the bronze's head peering around the boulder and the rocks his landing caused to skitter passed her. A couple hit her legs, but those were pricks compared to the fire in her arm. She was shocked enough that the blade stayed mid-air, and her fear was evident in her eyes for that brief moment. Then the sound of her name let her know it wasn't just the bronze. It was Rh'van.

And then Salmai felt something very conflicting indeed. Part of her rejoiced in his presence and that of his bronze, yet another part of her hated the fact he had found her in such weakness. She grit her teeth and closed her eyes, forcing herself to hear him despite her desire to growl at him. To tell him to leave her alone, that she would fix her own mess. Yet part of her, the same part that was glad he was there, was even more glad to not need to sacrifice her arm. Of course, this was also the same moment that she remembered her own very strong dragon. Who she was not about to wake.

"Just hurry," she managed to choke through a very parched throat. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. At this point, she just hoped Rh'van wouldn't hasten her death by moving the boulder onto her instead of off her arm and that she didn't bleed to death from the hundreds of scraps and cuts she'd earned already in this little adventure. She could feel that he good hand was missing most of the skin on her palm--no doubt the one trapped beneath the boulder was worse--and she had no doubt her clothing was ripped and torn and bloodstained where rocks had broken her skin. Not that Salmai cared about appearances, but actively bleeding was weakness she'd rather not show. Not that she had much of a choice.

[Saone]

Rh'van held back a brief smile at the way that Salmai urged him on, choking the words out through a throat that sounded drier than the rocks around them. Above all of the things that he remembered about the young woman, it was that she had a strong sense of pride, and being found in this sort of situation was already bad enough without him going and saying something that he knew would just make it worse. So he merely nodded a bit in acknowledgement, checking the area of the boulder around the young woman for any sort of notch in the stone that would provide him with the leverage that he needed in order to lift the boulder from her arm. Shaffit... there's gotta be one, the young bronzerider thought, his chest starting to rise and fall a bit faster out of concern when he didn't seem to find one right away. Mikhaelth crooned to reassure the man and calm him, and it was only when he started to force himself to relax that he saw a miniscule crack near the bottom of the rock; it wasn't much, but hopefully it would provide him with just what he needed. "And don' act like I'm gonna push the sharding thing on you, by the way," he added with a shake of his head as he glanced towards his dragon, jerking his head backward just a bit to gesture to the bronze to head in their direction.

The young man was grateful when the bronze not only complied with the silent command that the gesture signaled, but also aided him further by rearing back onto his hind legs, spreading his large wings to steady himself as he gripped the crest of the huge boulder with his claws. "Alright, brace yourself now," Rh'van muttered to Salmai, offering a slight smile to the goldrider in an attempt to reassure her that she would be alright before applying pressure slowly to the thick branch that he held, making sure that he and Mikhaelth had complete control over the boulder at all times. "Slowly now, Mikha! Don't get ahead of yourself," he warned the bronze as the rock was lifted slowly from the goldrider's arm, finally reaching a point where Rh'van could carefully pull the woman out from underneath. "Hold it steady for a moment, lad!" he told Mikhaelth as he dropped his branch to one side, kneeling down and offering a sigh of relief when he saw that the rock was indeed off of Salmai's entire arm and hand. "Gonna pull you out now," he muttered to her as he carefully placed his hands at the side and shoulder closest to the stone, just underneath her body to provide a good grip on her. Within a breath, he lightly pulled, and it wasn't much longer afterward that Salmai was free from underneath the boulder. "Set it down gently, now," he ordered his bronze, smiling towards the earthen-toned beast before turning his attention back to the goldrider whose arm, and likely even life, he had just saved.

If one had to be perfectly honest, the young woman didn't look very well off at the moment; the skin on her arm was, for the most part, missing, and there were many various cuts and scrapes scattered across the rest of her from the fall she had just taken. "Shards, Salmai, what are you doing out here? And without Mica or Saolsolath, at that?" he asked, golden brown eyes narrowing in order to give the woman a hard look as he himself wondered why she was out there. What could have possibly motivated her to sneak away in the middle of the night, without even her gold nearby in the event that something happened? "You could have died out here, you know!" he told her harshly, shaking his head in disbelief as he settled himself down to the ground next to Salmai. "I've heard about people who get caught in your situation... many of them don't survive. You should count yourself lucky that Mikhaelth and I were here," he added with another slight shake of his head, glancing towards the bronze when the dragon rumbled in their direction.

We should be going, the bronze told his rider, shaking his head slightly and crouching a bit to signal that Rh'van should help Salmai mount before anything got too much worse. She has wounds that need tending to, and there's little time to waste, he added, urging the young man on with a quiet croon before glancing towards Salmai. He assumed that, since the young woman was foolish enough to come out here on her own and nearly get herself killed, that she would at least accept some courtesy when it was given to her.

"Right, we should get you to a healer right away," Rh'van commented, pushing himself back up to his feet before turning on the ball of one foot to face Salmai. "Come on," he added, reaching out with one hand in a gesture of concern and friendship before jerking his head slightly as a signal for her to take the proffered hand. "Your arm's in pretty bad shape, after all, and you're also bleeding fairly badly." As he waited for her response, he couldn't help but wonder; would she accept his help, or would she try to spit in his fact? Well, whichever the case was, she was going to get his help, with or without her approval. He wasn't about to leave another human, let alone another dragonrider, fend for themselves this far from the Weyr, and with wounds as serious as Salmai's were. Would she like the fact that he might go directly against her wishes? More than likely not, but the simple truth was that she would just have to get over it, because he wasn't about to take 'no' for an answer. Not in this situation, and that was just how things were going to be.

[zulu]

Contrary to popular belief, this was not Salmai's preferred way to spend an evening. Sure, she might enjoy a test of herself against whatever nature could throw at her, but getting pinned by a boulder and nearly losing her arm and her life was not her idea of a night well spent. In fact, this was the exact opposite. The goldrider had to focus very hard on not growling at her rescuer to hurry the shard up while he searched for a leverage point. She couldn't feel her arm anymore, a fact she was mildly glad of thanks to how much pain it had caused her but one she was also worried by. Not feeling was never a good thing. Salmai closed her eyes and relied on her ears to tell her what Rh'van and Mikhaelth were doing. Without the distraction of sight, Salmai could concentrate on keeping 'Solath from having any idea what was going on. The gold still slept, but she had stirred when the landslide occurred, at the height of Salmai's distress. Salmai would rather the dragon not know about any of this until she returned to the Weyr.

Too bad that meant she had to deal with Rh'van.

Salmai ignored Rh'van's comments when he found a leverage point. She suddenly had far more to sense than she cared for when the weight of the boulder began to move. She didn't feel anything at first, but as pressure released, blood rushed back into the limb. Salmai let out a foul curse at the pain of it but stayed remarkably still otherwise, gritting her teeth on any further exclamations of weakness. And she kept her eyes closed until she felt her arm completely free. Night air on raw limb was not a pleasant feeling, but neither was moving it. She growled at Rh'van when he helped her pull it out. Sharding bronzerider coming to the rescue. She could have survived. Minus an arm, but she knew enough about sacrificing limbs to know how to do it properly. She flinched away from his touch in order to reclaim her arm. The first sign of weakness she showed--besides accepting help, anyway--was when she tucked her injured arm to her stomach and bent over it, a small groan escaping between her teeth. She didn't want to look at the limb, knowing how bad the injuries would be. She'd felt something pop. A couple things pop, actually. She didn't think she could move her elbow properly, her shoulder burned, and her hand didn't want to obey. Not to mention the screaming pain that vibrated down her limb whenever anything touched or moved her arm.

It put her in no mood to be chastised.

"Right. Because I planned to get caught in a rockfall," she hissed acidly, looking up at the condescending bronzerider. Still. She'd rather deal with him than the sharding gold who shared her mind. But, lest she say anything that would reveal too much--because it was none of his sharding business why she was out here--she grunted and managed to rip her jacket off her shoulders, biting back a cry when the action forced her injured arm to bend in ways it didn't want to. Slinging the article over her shoulder, Salmai fastened a make-shift sling with her good arm to ignore whatever other degrading comments Rh'van might consider necessary to utter while he sat next to her. He was wasting his breath, really. And when he stood, Salmai didn't even bother to look up until he started speaking. Sharding Healers.

When he held out his hand, she stared at it, eyes cold and angry, both at this entire situation and Rh'van's assumption that she couldn't take care of herself. She was a survivor, shard it. She'd survived more than he would ever know. Gritting her teeth, Salmai looked the bronzerider directly in the eye as she braced her legs and tried to push up, using her relatively uninjured arm to balance against the rock behind her. Except then her leg decided it didn't like the scree it braced upon. Or the scree didn't like her weight. One of the two. Whatever the reason, Salmai slipped and lost her balance. Instinctively, she grabbed Rh'van's forearm near his elbow. It took a few moments for her head to stop spinning, and she was breathing harshly through her nose when she regained her balance and jerked her arm away lest he get the wrong idea. Without meeting his gaze again, Salmai scrambled up the scree slope toward the bronze dragon, occasionally having to use her good arm to catch herself when her feet slipped on the slick rock.

"Let's get to that Healer then," she started to say, voice more tired than she cared to acknowledge but also dripping with sarcasm. She didn't even bothering to look back at Rh'van, either, not wanting him to see just how close she was to collapsing from pain and exhaustion. "Wouldn't want me to bleed to death after nearly dying once tonight."

Not once did she consider waking Saolsolath. Having Rh'van chastise her was bad enough. She didn't want to deal with it from a voice in her head.