Carrolyne woke and immediately thought she was better off dead. Her stomach ached, and her mouth - there was something in her mouth?!
She gagged hard and tried to sit up and yank this THING out of her mouth - but then she wasn't moving very quickly. Plus - she didn't have hands. She still had hooves at the end of long stiff leg-limbs.
Her panicky eyes and distressed sounds must have alerted the others, but to one member of the room Carol's movement was a bother.
"Keep her from moving," Dean said, professionally calm. "She's got to get the rest of this in her, and keep it down somehow."
Carol felt hands gripping her ankles and wrists, and she knew someone was actually holding on to her horns keeping her head straight while Dean poured something down her throat. Her big strange eyes teared up and she wanted to die.
She could see Diva there, and the elder Dean, Angela and Wade... What, had EVERYONE seen her shape now? Great... She closed her eyes and shook with a sob, but continued to swallow the liquid which was going straight into her throat. It bothered Carol that she was breathing AND swallowing, but... She wasn't going to complain right now. Later, maybe.
Carol waited it out. It was awful, her eyes kept tearing and she heard Angela say something about her being 'just fine'.
"I know you're in there, you've stolen for the last time you little--" someone yelled, an elder woman's voice. But it was Dean who stood and intervened. He handed the funnel and -- that was a rubber hose? -- to Angela, who carefully pulled it from Carol's mouth.
While Carrolyne was gagging and sputtering, still shaped like an Oryx (for that was what it was, an ancient Earth animal - not even an Alskyran creature) the others formed a sort of barrier between her and the hut flap. Dean went outside, and they could hear him speaking in a low voice.
"We had to use it to force feed someone - you know how thin Carrolyne is."
"That was her going in there earlier... I see." The woman conceeded, "but the thief is--"
"Diva went to get the broth when I asked her to, Temlan. Don't cross me. It was a medical emergency, and I can trade you for your broth. You'll get your jug back later."
There was silence, for a moment, and then, "I had better." They could hear her stomping away. Everyone inside the hut breathed a relieved sigh, everyone but Carol.
Dean came back inside, his handsome face lined with worry and a bit of anger. "Now, Carrolyne, you've got to get control over this. And I don't mean your shapeshifting." He stared at her, and Carol was unable to tear her eyes off his blue ones.
She shifted carefully back, and Diva put a blanket over her since it had come off while they were struggling to feed her. Carol looked down, ashamed. "It isn't like you think," she muttered.
"It is exactly. There is no reason in the world why you need to continue starving yourself, and I will personally make sure you eat if you won't do it yourself. Is that clear?" He said sharply, and Carrolyne started crying.
"But I'm f-f-fat!" she bawled. "It's awful!"
Dean had had enough, apparently. The blubbering girl would live, and Angela's touch would keep her healthy if she was injured. He strode to her side and lifted the feather-weight off the bed. With both hands holding her narrow shoulders, Dean growled at the girl. "What is awful is seeing a beautiful young girl like yourself wasting away to a mere skeleton. Now I mean it - you and your friends will have to agree on something, but you're not to vomit up anyone's well made meal, and you're not to skip dinners. You work yourself quite hard, and you're very good at your tailoring," Well that at least made Carrolyne perk up - he of all people had noticed this? "But if you work yourself to death, what good will that do? I knew your mother, Carol," he said in a slightly more soft tone, "and she would never have allowed this."
"But she was thin! And pretty!"
"She was THIN, Carrolyne," Diva suddenly blurted out, suprising everyone, she had tears in her eyes and was clutching the jug of broth to her chest, "she wasn't EMACIATED! You're -- you're sick, and I will help you get healthy. We all will, if you need us. I mean, Carol, everyone wants to keep their secrets, but you'd DIE from yours!"
Dean set Carol down on the bed again, and wrapped the blanket around her bony shoulders. "She is right. Everyone in this Clan has some special feature. You'd let yourself die before exploring your own? I don't think so."
He straighened her mussy hair, and then gave them all an appraising nod. "I'll be around if you need me, and by the way, you might want to clean up a bit, after you're feeling better. There are search dragons from Caer Mystrach coming tomorrow, and there's a chance that they might select some Triptych children for their bonding."
With a half a moment of silence, and then another half filled with eyebrows-shooting-into-the-air, the group left in the hut all glanced at one another. Their surprise at Dean's statement was only a bit of it. Diva sat down next to her friend.
"Now, I'm not kidding. You're going to have to keep eating. This was nothing," she sloshed the jug contents back and forth, and the sound almost made Carrolyne queasy. "This was just to get you back awake so you could change your shape. Which is really - totally - cool, by the way."
"... Do ... d'you really think so?" Carol said, "really?"
"I think so," Angela said. "You might be much stronger and agile in that shape, but only when you're healthy and well fed."
"Okay - okay!" Carol said, annoyed. "I get it. Look, it'll... take some time."
"Not much time, I hope," Diva said, "I mean, you need to get well for tomorrow."
"I can't show up to a Caer! I'm --" Carol started to say out of habit. "... I give up..." She flopped down on Diva's bed, and sighed. "I'm totally the worst idiot in the world, why would any search rider ever want me to come to a Caer?"
"Possibly because you might bond a dragon?" Wade said, and offered his arm to Angela, as they left the hut.
"He's right," Diva said, with a smile. "I mean, I want to go, why wouldn't you?"
"Well, I guess... Caers need tailors too, don't they?"
"Of course they do. And they need thieves..." Diva winked.
"It's huge!" They whispered, clutching each other. They were led into the Caer's lower underground entrance, and wandered a bit before finding where they would sleep. They could share a room, and they each even got their own bed!
It was while they were exploring after a tense dinner - tense because of course Diva glowered at Carrolyne every time she would try to get up and leave for the restrooms - that they located a little alcove with someone sitting in it. She looked old, out of place, and she had a basket.
"Here, here girls," she said, old bony fingers finally making even Carol wince with how thin she was - "this Caer don't have any good feathers... Them eggs'll only hatch dragon. How 'bout these?" She waggled her fingers at the tiny eggs in the basket.
"What are they? I mean," Carol asked, "they're eggs, but what kind?"
"You'll have to hatch one and see..." the old woman gave Carol one egg, while Diva declined. She would just be accused of stealing it anyway...
So while they waited the few days until the hatching, Carol intently watched the egg. Diva assured her that it would require actually feeding whatever came out of it, and not to spare any expense for her own meals - but not to share just because whatever hatchling would be hungry. "It should get its own meals..." Diva warned. Not too much later, and with a little bowl of scraps from dinner sitting nearby, Carrolyne watched as the egg hatched open to show a gangly long-necked alisGryph!
"You're so cute!" She exclaimed, and Diva handed her friend the bowl. "I wonder what your name is going to be..." Carol pondered for a minute, and then the little half-feline hatchling cried out in a honking hiss. "Honker- too loud! You'll keep everyone awake!"
Diva giggled, and they settled down to wait for the dragons to hatch...
