It's late afternoon in the infirmary, time for last calls of standard business. Xieli finishes with one pimply-faced candidate youth, all but patting the ginger-haired lad on the head before letting him exit. Her sympathetic expression follows him to the door, and then out. The woman reorients herself, picking up the next chart from the rack and peering at the name. "Doji?" she calls out into the waiting room.

While it may be safe to say that Doji's no stranger to the infirmary, it's a little different when you're the patient waiting. Even if it is just for a standard physical. The girl's not exactly anxious, but she is fidgeting as she's waiting for her name to be called. Eventually all waits must come to an end and she jumps up eagerly as her name is called. "Yes, ma'am." Polite nod, but she's ready to get this done and over with.

Xieli flashes the girl a smile of greeting. "Healer, aren't you? Before." She nods once towards the white knot on the girl's shoulder before leading her through the familiar twining of the guts of the infirmary, back to the examination cubes at the back. She opens the drape of one and gestures for Doji to go inside.

Doji will nod confirmation at her craft identification. "Yes, ma'am. Apprentice." Just in case she thought she might have been the world's youngest journeyman or something. The walk through is definitely a familiar one and once they get to the examination cube, the girl will immediately hop up on the table, feet swinging a little after she gets herself settled and looks attentively at the older woman.

There's a warmer smile for the identification, and Xieli taps out a new stylus. "On this twenty-fifth day of month two of turn eleven, documenting a physical inspection for fitness to Stand for the double clutch on the Sands of Igen. For the record, please state your name and age." She's already got that rank penciled in.

Probably could have had an apprentice pre-fill the rank on all one hundred plus forms that she'd be needing. The girl will nod at the question. "I'm Doji and I'm fifteen." Hands are clasped in her lap calmly, although her feet at still swish-swish-swishing away.

It's about here that Xieli places aside her hide and gives a once-over to the girl. "How's candidacy treating you, Doji?"

"Uh, good?" That wasn't a question that Doji was expecting and she tilts her head a little at it. "Chores aren't too bad. And the lessons are interesting. Some of the eggs are weird. But some of them weren't."

"I've never had the opportunity," Xieli comments offhand. "How would you classify them as 'weird'? What were the sensations like?" She seems genuinely curious.

Doji looks a bit surprised as the other woman says she never Stood, but doesn't comment on it out loud 'cause that'd be rude. "Weird, well, some of them are really hard to explain. A lot of them made me feel like I was drowning? There was one that felt like I was flying, but not a smooth dragon flight. I ended up feeling sick to my stomach at the end of that one. Others showed images of lots of blood. Some of the others said there was one egg that just let out a bloodcurdling screech."

Not everyone on Pern is fit to be a dragonrider. Especially not those who grew up in Interval when the need for dragons was far lighter than it is today. "Really." Xieli reaches out to a hide and deftly strokes a few words. "That's fascinating. Would you call your experiences positive or negative?"

Doji will nod confirmation. "Really. I don't think I could have come up with some of those images and feelings on my own. And I think positive? Although not all of them I'd want to touch again. They weren't all bad. Like one just was like the feeling of being in a jungle? And another one that was just large. And one just sent images of colorful puppies and the feeling that it wanted to be friends…"

"… puppies, colorful, friendly." Interesting is just implied, there. "What do you think of them?" It seems pretty open-ended, right? Xieli lifts her eyebrows at Doji curiously.

"The puppies? They were nice. Probably the nicest one." There was no blood, no drowning, no tentacles. Clearly that was the best one, even if it was the one that made Doji cry. Cause it promised to be her bestest friend and then left her all alone. But the bestest friend part was nice.

"What do you feel about Impression?" Is this really a physical, Xieli? You need to at least pay LIP SERVICE to the concept of making sure the girl's physically fit.

"About Impression?" That really wasn't a question Doji was expecting and her eyebrows furrow slightly at this. "I mean… if it happens, it happens? But it's still hard to think about it might actually happen. It always seems like the type of thing to happen to someone else? And that I'd just be an apprentice and eventually work my way up to journeyman and then maybe senior journeyman." Like becoming a master wasn't even on the girl's lifeplan. That point would be too far in the future for her to even consider. "Aren't there supposed to be questions about like health and stuff?" She may be starting to catch on considering she's seen physicals in the past. This are not the normal questions, Xieli!

"Yes, that's the physical component," Xieli replies with the slightest of frowns for the girl's evident impetuousness. "There's a mental component of fitness to Stand, of course." She'll even reach over for her listening tube, though she just appears to be warming it up. "You say you find it a concept that would happen to others. How would you feel if this future you have mapped out doesn't come to pass, and you do Impress? What does that future look like to you?"

Doji will look at least a little sheepish at the frown and the reminder that mental health is important too. Considering mindhealing really isn't something she's spent much time studying at all. "I mean, if I do Impress, I'd have to make new plans. But like, its hard to make plans for that because there'd also be a dragon involved and the dragon might have an opinion too, right? But, even before I was a candidate, riders kept telling me if I Impressed 'You could be a dragonhealer and your skills won't go to waste.'" The girl even does air quotes as she quotes that verbatim. She certainly heard it enough over the past turn, even when there weren't any eggs on the sands.

There's a head-tilt here, as Xieli considers not only Doji's words, but the delivery thereof. "And what do you feel about that? Do you want to be a dragonhealer?"

"I don't know?" Doji's going to be not making eye contact at that confession. The floor seems pretty interesting right now and she's going to stare at it. "I mean, I like healing and I like helping people. So if I Impress, I'll probably want to train as a dragonhealer. It makes sense. But if I don't Impress, I don't want to spend the next ten turns with people telling me every time there's a clutch that I should stand and I could be a dragonhealer."

It's likely that at this juncture Xieli was prepared to go on to the physical aspects of this inspection, but that — there's meat on that bone. Her voice is gentler when she asks the next question, less sterile, more genuine. "As if upon the occasion of your non-Impression, you somehow were picked out on merit of future dragonhealing rather than merit of Impression?"

Doji will let out a sigh and shift awkwardly a bit on the table. This was not what she had been expecting when she was told to get a physical. "No… it's just, dragonriding isn't for everybody? I mean, probably almost everybody has dreamt of it at one point or another, but the reality? I've seen the injuries, regularly. I've been there when a weyrling died of a horrible score to his belly and heard his dragon keening the entire time, among countless other injuries and deaths. Recently I dug through every single injury report for the weyr for the entire pass looking for information for the weyrleader. Yes, if there is a dragon for you, they're like your other half and nothing else like it and all that they say. But if there's not? Plenty of people can and do live perfectly happy lives without a dragon. Most people in fact." And muttered as an afterthought. "And most of them live longer too."

"It is certainly not the pipe dream they sell to backwater farmers and holders," Xieli agrees, sitting back and reorienting herself. "But it is a noble profession. Perhaps even as noble as healing." Her smile admits to a certain self-satisfaction with the turn of phrase, before fading. "It is a violent and, as you mentioned, often short career. Do you feel up to the task of the physical intensity that dragonriding presents?"

Doji sighs as she shifts again. "It is. And if I didn't think so, I know I could say no and turn in the knot and go back to being an apprentice at any time." Which even with all she had just said about knowing all about the dreadful details of dragonrider mortality, she hasn't done yet. "Healing can be just as violent though. Except for you're just fighting the injuries after they happened and sometimes there's cases where you can do absolutely nothing except possibly give fellis. With riding, it's a bit different. The risk of injury to yourself is greater, but you're probably not going to be injured every fall. And there is clearly something riders and dragons can do about thread." She'll stop as she considers if she's physically up for it before giving a small nod. "I think so? I mean, I couldn't throw full firestone sacks through a full Fall right now, but it takes months before weyrlings can fly and go between and there's even more PT to get them ready for that."

"And mentally? Do you feel up to — in the best case scenario — a long life of losing wingmates, of losing friends, possibly lovers? Of watching death and violence, skimming by with your life oftentimes miraculously?" Xieli's voice is serious, her dark eyes on Doji with a more penetrating expression that she's apt to give to the average joe. Being a Healer ups the stakes, evidently, and the mindhealer isn't playing softball over here.

"As up for it as anybody can be," Doji's keeping her head down, staring at the tips of her shoes, but she can practically feel that stare. "I'm choosing a life of death and violence either way." One is just a little bit more passive than the other. "And living in a Weyr, I'm going to have friends that are dragonriders and facing those dangers even if I don't Impress."

There's a weighing moment, a discernible pause as Xieli absorbs Doji's response. Then she smartly picks up her listening tube and starts warming it up. "Sounds reasonable to me," she says, of Doji's practical reaction. "Do you have any ailments or maladies to report since your last Healer visit?"

Is Doji holding her breath while she waits Xieli's response? She didn't actually realize she was doing that until after she does voice the approval. And then the girl takes a deep breath and shakes her head at the next question. "No, ma'am. I did scrape some of my knuckles while scrubbing some stairs, but aside from that, no ailments, injuries or maladies to report." And really, the knuckle scraping wasn't something to report, although fresh enough that there are still some signs of it present.

Xieli shifts her attention to mentioned knuckles, and obligingly notes it upon the report. "Date of the last day of your last menses? Has your cycle been affected at all with the different schedule?" She sketches some other datapoint into the sheet and then glances up at Doji, eyebrows lifted briefly in gentle inquiry. "Any chance of being pregnant?" she rolls all the awkward questions together in a way that makes them seem natural and not-embarrassing at all.

"Two sevens ago, no and NO." The healer may have been trying to make the questions seem not embarrassing, but this is Doji and the girl is starting to turn red. Even though she knew those questions were coming and why they needed to be asked. She'll just be holding onto the edge of the table here and continuing to not make eye contact.

Something that looks an awful lot like sympathy lifts into Xieli's face for the younger Healer, before it smooths out under her mask of polite clinical interest. "Have you been sexually active recently?" she adds one follow-up embarrassing question, and not just to see if Doji will turn super-scarlet, promise.

Too bad Doji's refusing to look Xieli in the eyes to actually see that sympathetic look. "No, never." And she's definitely turning a special shade of super-scarlet. IT's really impressive when combined with her red hair and normally super pale skin.

"Ah." Xieli doesn't sound surprised - sorry dear - but neither does she sound condemning. Nor approving, actually. Just accepting. "Any strange weight gain or loss? Is your sleep cycle similar to what it was prior to your search?" Standard questions. There's only a couple left of these, thankfully - Doji can almost count down to the actual poking and prodding and blessed freedom thereafter.

Doji shakes her head. "No weight gained or lost." The girl doesn't look like she has much to lose and any gained would be fairly noticeable. "And I sleep well." Unlike some, she's been used to living in shared spaces and doesn't really remember much else. Though this is definitely the most crowded place she's been in. And with the return to less sensitive questions, she'll turn less red. And eventually look up again.

When she does look up, Xieli gives one of those slender smiles of hers, a visual encouragement that doesn't need to go on the record. "Very good," she approves. "Last question before I give a listen," she nods down to her listening tube. "How's PT treating you? No aches or sprains, excessive soreness?"

"PT's fine. I'm not the worst and not the best." Doji's solidly in the middle of the pack for running. Long legs help with that. "And no excessive soreness." She does make sure to a nice, hot soak afterwards. "Oh, and I did get kicked by a goat the other day." So there's a bruise on her hip that's a few days old. Billy's not a big goat, so it's not a big bruise. But he may have won the wrestling match in the courtyard the other day.

Pause: "A goat?" Xieli's voice asks for further explanation without need to actually vocalize all those extra words. She's especially tidy in that manner.

"Yes. It was only a little goat. He was trying to get something he shouldn't be getting." And Doji's going to conveniently not mention it's her goat. Hopefully it'll be assumed that it was some sort of candidate chores?

Xieli has no reason to think there's any hijinx happening here, so she glosses over it. "Well, if you make a habit of getting abused by goats, please pass it on. I happen to rather enjoy goat curry." Listen, she doesn't realize they're fighting words. "Lung check." She feels it unnecessary to tell Doji further, queing the girl to breath in as she places the listening tube in all the spots to hear all the things. Ever.

"Oh no. He's normally a very good goat." Doji's going to go ahead and make excuses for Billy. She really doesn't want him to become curry, although she's not going to yell at the healer that she can't eat him. And the girl does know exactly what to do for the lung check. That's something they've covered in apprentice lessons. She'll breath when she's supposed to breath. This is the easy part.

Xieli furrows her eyebrows briefly at Doji's loyal statement about the goat, but she figures it's a flight of girlish fancy — she was once Doji's age, many moons ago — and tops off her listening with the remainder of standard protocol: eyes, ears, and throat. She'll spare the girl with the reflex test, provided the other three come back clear. Only after, she leans back, and smiles encouragingly at Doji. "Any questions for me?"

To be fair, the whole Billy thing was a flight of girlish fancy, normally pretty untypical for this girl, but everyone's got their weaknesses. Apparently Doji's is baby animals. There's nothing wrong with here eyes, ears or throat, so guess that's the end of the poking and prodding. At that last question she blinks and shakes her head. "No, ma'am. So, that's it? I'm mentally fit to stand?" The physical part she wasn't unsure of, but mindhealing is a lot more abstract to her still.

"I think you are as stable and well-reasoned as any candidate I've had the pleasure of examining," Xieli states, her voice gentle but firm in that casting of judgment. "You are of sound mind and capable facilities. Regardless of if you find a lifemate upon the Sands, I've every thought that you will carve out a lovely life, Doji." It's a blessing as much as benediction, and as Xieli settles back it doubles again as a dismissal.

Doji is a little surprised by the rather pleasant sounding result. Doesn't everyone also have a little kernel of fear that something horrible will come up in a healer's examine? Even if they have absolutely no reason to think otherwise. But the dismissal is pretty clear, so she'll be hoping down of the table. "Thank you, Journeywoman?" Is that the right response to that? Regardless, she doesn't know what else to say and to try to avoid having to come up with any further words, she's going to give a polite nod of her head and then turn tail and run… err, make her way out of the infirmary and back towards the barracks at a reasonable pace.