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"Telatl?" someone shook his shoulder gently. "Wake up dear, there's someone here who wants to talk with you."
"Tell them I'm dead," Telatl muttered and tried to slap away the offending hands. "It's not too respectful of them to disturb the dead."
"Oh hush and stop being so nasty! You should be honored that people are willing to brave your temper to console you!" the healer scolded.
"I don't need to be consoled, and I'm not honored, and I do not have a temper!" Telatl growled. "All I want to do is go to sleep!"
"You do, you should be, and too bad!" the healer snapped. "Fyraden is here to see you whether you want to or not! And you'd better be polite to him!"
"Why's Fyraden here to see me?" Telatl asked, recognizing the name as that of the dragonless rider who had recently arrived at the hold. Fyraden, previously Fr'den, kept mostly to himself, mourning the recent loss of his bronze. Whenever he was outside, he accepted no pity from anyone and answered pitying remarks with a cold glare. Overall, he was quickly gaining a reputation as a grumpy old man.
"Because he wants to be, and what more reason does anyone need?" the healer sighed and shook her head. "Really Telatl, you'd think we had to amputate your brain instead of your leg."
"I thought healers were supposed to comfort their patients, not scold them and tell them they're stupid," Telatl complained.
The healer smiled sweetly. "We comfort most of our patients. We save our tounges for the very special ones who won't shut up and heal."
The healer left, muttering some remark about difficult patients. Fyraden walked up to his bed and took a seat on the seat that had somehow materialized next to Telatl. "So you're the cripple?" he asked in a harsh tone, dark eyes sizing Telatl up.
Telatl bristled at the name. "Is that what they're calling me now?"
Fyraden looked innocent. "Well, no, not really. Word is that's what you're calling yourself, though. What's so bad about someone calling you what you are?"
"Well? I am, aren't I?" Telatl sighed, lifting his bandaged stump beneath the thin covers and letting it fall back to the bed with a disgusting thump.
"You're missing a leg," Fyraden reasoned, "and you're laying there and telling yourself you're a cripple, so I guess that makes you a cripple."
"Would it matter if I weren't telling myself I were a cripple?" Telatl snarled. "I don't see what else I could be. I can't run races, I can't tend a field, it'll be hard to ride a runner even. And when I can finally walk again, it'll only be with crutches. I think that makes me a cripple."
Fyraden held up his weathered hands. "Hey, don't get mad at me. But it's disgusting to see a perfectly healthy young man, with plenty of years left in him, laying there and calling himself useless."
"Well I am!" Telatl exploded. "I thought at least you'd be sympathetic, seeing as you don't want any pity, but I guess you're here for the same reason as anyone else: to pity me. Well, I don't want pity either. So either say something useful or leave."
"Don't be ridiculous, I'm not here to pity you. You don't deserve pity. I came here to tell you how stupid you're being," Fyraden scoffed as if this should have been painfully obvious.
"And I suppose you would be just perfect if you were laying here, unable to do what you'd been doing for as long as you could remember," Telatl drawled.
Fyraden chuckled grimly. "Do you remember who you're talking to, boy? You only lost a leg! Two months ago I'd have given anything for those threads to have taken my leg instead of my Ladurith. Your leg is attached to you with flesh and blood. Ladurith's death was like someone ripping half my mind away. You only lost a measly leg, and you have the gall to tell me I don't know how you feel?"
Telatl was silenced for a moment. "I... Well, I'd say I'm sorry, but then neither of us want pity, so I won't. I'll just admit that maybe you do know how I'm feeling."
Fyraden's weathered face broke into a wry grin. "I think we may understand eachother, boy. I thought you would, and now that I know that, I think I can get out of this whole usless-cripple mindset."
"Fyraden, I appreciate your empathy, but I don't think usless cripple is just a mindset I can snap out of," Telatl told the former rider wistfully. "It's who and what I am. And I don't think I'm even going to let myself live like this, so don't waste your time on me."
"I knew you'd be thinking that way," Fyraden sighed, "and I can't say that I blame you for it. But, much as it might seem this way now, your leg isn't worth dying for. Now, I bet you think that's a bunch of wherry dung, just like I did when people told me. And I'm going to do the same thing they did."
Fyraden reached into his riding jacket and pulled out a firelizard egg. "The little babe in here came from the best place on Pern to get a friend for life, the Falas Genetic Program Center. He, or she, as the case may very well be, is going to keep you alive." He placed the egg in Telatl's hands and cupped his fingers around it. "They did the same thing to me, and I hated them for giving me a reason to live. But it worked, and here I am."
"So where's your flit?" Telatl asked, hands curling protectively around the egg in his hands.
Fyraden smiled, his dark eyes showing happiness and pain at the same time. "They didn't give me a flit. They gave me an orphaned weyrbrat who needed a Da. But I don't think you'd appreciate having a kid around."
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