The first thing she was aware of was the feeling of Talmur's soft skin against the curve of her neck. She smiled and tried not to move to much and wake the sleeping flit as she tried to figue out where she was.
You're at Falas Weyr, in the infirmary recovering from a very bad injury to your leg and the loss of blood from it, a voice that, for some reason, registered in her mind as blue Siyeth's told her. I'll tell P'mir that you are awake. You have been asleep for nearly a sevenday since we found you.
It didn't seem like she'd been asleep for a sevenday, Lirris mused. She couldn't remember having any dreams, all she remembered were brief images of unfamiliar faces. And where had Siyeth said she was? Falas Weyr? How in Faranth's name had she ended up here? The last thing she remembered was Benaret leaving for help... was Benaret here too?
You think about this Benaret a lot, Siyeth mused. He was very special to you. I wish we could find him for you.
Find him? Why would she need to find him? Wasn't he in one of these beds? Lirris lifted her head as far off her pillow as she dared but didn't see Benaret anywhere in the infirmary. Maybe he was well, and he would come with this P'mir person to see her.
Benaret is not at Falas.
What? How could Benaret not be with her? He had gone for help, hadn't he? She couldn't remember him coming back, but how else would she have ended up here?
"Ah Lirris!" a man, P'mir, it had to be, exclaimed as he strode into the room. "Glad to see you awake! We were afraid you weren't going to for a few days there."
"Where is Benaret?" Lirris asked. Could it be true? Was Benaret really not here? Was he dead? Had he abandoned her?
"I do not know where he is," P'mir shook his head sadly. "We searched for him in the area you were found but we have not found him. He could be anywhere."
"He's dead," Lirris sobbed. "I just know it, he's dead. Oh, I should never have asked him to go for help!"
"Now, don't go assuming the worst," P'mir cautioned sternly, "he probably just found his way to a hold or cothold somewhere. He'll turn up eventually. You've got to concentrate on getting better."
Yes, she should do that. She had, afterall, promised to go on living if he died, though she had thought, at the time, that he would be the one who had to keep the promise, not her. "Yes, I suppose I have to do that, don't I?"
P'mir chuckled. "It is generally what you do after an injury like that. Do you have parents we need to contact about you?"
Lirris swallowed. "No. My parents are dead. Benaret was all I had left and now..." she choked and paused for a moment to recover her composure. "No parents."
"Then I feel even better about what I'm going to say next," P'mir replied. "Siyeth and I wouldn't have come across you if we hadn't been traveling to a hold to Search. Siyeth said he sensed a good Candidate in the forest, and we found you. We weren't sure if you'd live, so we didn't tell you before, but you have been Searched to Stand here at Falas."
"Searched?" Lirris asked, bewildered, her newly-recovered conciousness too unsteady to realize what that meant. "How?"
"Siyeth said you're Candidate material, and he's very rarely wrong," P'mir explained tolerantly. "I'm guessing, since you've nowhere else to go, that you'll accept?"
Lirris leaned back on her pillow. She couldn't go back home, and she had no idea where to look for Benaret. He might even be dead anyway. She was going to be stuck here while she recovered, why not Stand, if she was acceptable? "I guess I will," Lirris replied.
A sevenday later...