Verethi

"What's this, another patient?" Verethi pushed her goggles up with one carefully extended claw and peered over to where two eyes had become visible over the lip of the platform. How on Sornieth was that dragon managing to stay so still? Certainly they weren't hovering, or the strong winds that kept the platforms aloft and rippling in the air would have moved them apart by now.

The eyes blinked once, twice, then dipped briefly before resurfacing. Verethi stifled an impatient sigh as the dragon's mood shifted from curious to mischievous. Far too many dragons around here had a sense of humor that would not have gone amiss in a Shadow clan.

Still, she had survived everything the Scarred Wasteland had thrown at her, and those eyes had glinted with a redder tint than the purple hues that Shadow dragons tended to have. It wasn't Deimos, at any rate, or she would have thrown the pus-covered bandages at him, clan sensibilities aside. They could all do with a little less prissiness about a slight chance of infection.

And if Deimos really cared about his own health, he'd stop trying to sneak up on the one he trusted to have care of it.

"Just come up here," Verethi sighed. She turned away, though she kept her senses attuned to that side of the platform. Sure enough, she heard the distinct scrabbling sound of claws hauling a full-sized dragon up and over the side. "Did you want something? Are you having some sort of problem?"

"No problem," a familiar oddly-accented voice said. Noelani always pronounced every word as though it took up too much space in her mouth, flinging emphasis willy-nilly as she tried to get everything out as fast as possible. "Watching."

"Is it really that interesting watching me clean out an infected wound?" Verethi craned her neck over her shoulder, but Noelani just trotted up to her, more akin to a puppy than the fully-grown Pearlcatcher that she was. "That's not something that most dragons here would admit to."

"Interesting," Noelani parroted back. She batted her small pearl back and forth between her front claws for a while before abruptly changing direction and sending it rolling towards Verethi as though it were nothing more than a toy. Verethi startled, spreading her wings to hop out of its path, and it came to a stop as it bumped gently against the shelves full of medical equipment.

Verethi stared at it, then over at Noelani, whose whiskers wiggled before she bounded after the pearl and pounced on it, laughing with a wild abandon that Verethi very rarely heard in her place of work. "This isn't a playground," she chided. "If you get sick because your pearl picks up an infection and you lick it— yes, like that." Verethi snorted as Noelani's whiskers wiggled again. "If you're trying to get me in trouble…"

"No." Noelani kept licking her pearl, but her whiskers stopped wiggling. "I'm not trying that."

Verethi stared at her for a long moment. Finally, she sighed again. Well, as long as Noelani wasn't inclined to blame her for any germs she picked up, there were enough dragons here from the Wasteland that Verethi would have people on her side if anyone decided to get up in arms about it. They'd reassured her, before, but she hadn't quite been able to bring herself to believe it yet; the last clan had been interested in a doctor, after all, but somehow they'd turned into a mess of paranoia and suspicion when they'd all come down with a common cold that Verethi's immune system had batted away like a tiny fly.

"In that case," Verethi said, "why don't you make yourself useful instead of pretending to be some sort of hatchling? I have a lot of bandages that need washing."

Noelani's eyes fixed on her instantly. "The caves!"

"No, we'll be using the rainwater." Verethi gestured to the row of cisterns lined up past the curving wooden roof. Ziya had taken to her idea with rather more enthusiasm than she'd expected and now dragons from all over the clan were delivering rainwater even when she knew perfectly well it hadn't been raining. "We wash it in the cistern, and then we disinfect the water before dumping it."

"Disinfect?"

Verethi fixed Noelani with a look. "I do have magic, you know."

"Oh." Noelani sounded almost disappointed. "Magic."

Verethi tapped a contemplative claw on the bundle of cloth and waste. "…There are other methods, as well," she said, and Noelani perked up. "Do the mundanities of sanitation really interest you?"

Noelani's gaze grew shifty, her ears going back for a moment before she admitted, "No." But she offered no other explanation.

Verethi supposed, as far as help came, she wasn't going to turn someone down just because she was suspicious of their motivations. Unless that someone was Deimos. With that thought in mind, she nodded. "All right. We'll try non-magical methods of sanitation, but I'm still going to use my magic afterwards to make sure." She really didn't want to be kicked out, after all. "But if you see Deimos anywhere near us, you have to throw things at him."

Noelani hefted the pearl with a wicked gleam in her eye, and Verethi huffed a quiet laugh as she turned towards the bundle of cloth.