Everything shook as she sat on the edge of her bed. Hands, legs, back, even her chest seemed to shake with every breath that Amra hauled into her lungs as she worked to calm her frayed and burned out nerves after the Touching she'd just participated in. Images of blood and falling dragons, riders thrown free to death or scored so badly that they might never fly again flashed through her mind unbidden. The swirling torment of her own mind came directly from the chaos that her Room had been thrown into but if she couldn't calm herself then she would never enter it at all to repair the damage done and file away all the new information she had gleaned.

"Find your center, that ball of deep black that sits inside your chest like a weight. Once you find it everything is easy from there." Her mother's words swam back to her from so long ago. If that particular memory was coming back without her consent then she was surely in trouble.

Lifting Whirlwind from his coiled spot on the bed and placing the indignant fire lizard on her chest, Amra laid down on her back and closed her eyes. The calmest spot in her body was still a great roiling ball of nerves, but it was there in the darkness behind her eyelids. The same loose feeling that came with entering her own mind sank into her skin and muscles. It hadn't been so hard to enter this time but when she opened her heavy gray eyes she saw the destruction that had become of her beloved Room and nearly rolled onto her side and cried in her own mind. This was going to take hours surely!

”The dark blue egg is off-limits for a while,” Talela's words came from somewhere behind her on a backdrop of screaming teenagers and dragon snarls.

She surely couldn't leave her own mind in such shambles.

A deep sigh that rocked her tall frame pushed from her mouth and Amra slowly rolled and raised to her knees to take in the cluster of images and sounds strewn about the floor. Entire shelves were ripped down from where they'd been mounted, books were thrown around and pages bent where they lay, the chains on the worst of her memories were still there thankfully. That was one of the few things that she could be thankful for. When she finally rose after deciding on what to do next, the teenager dusted at her long skirt as if to straighten it back out once more even if it was only a mental projection. Her movements were careful when she began walking, avoiding any pictures and sounds gently to get to the worst of the shelves that had been knocked about so thoroughly that Amra wouldn't be surprised if a dragon had entered into her own mind and caused it. As if that were possible.

Righting the shelves and organizing the books and files that had managed, somehow, to remain intact at their crazy angles, she turned back once more to the pile in the center of the floor. She had seen worse, the first time she'd even tried had been much worse and back then she'd only been able to stay in the Room for a few moments at a time before reality drew her back out once more. Much older now and trained in the ways of her own mind thanks to years of her mother's talks and her Master's wisdom she could spend hours upon hours in this Room if she felt the need. Today... today might have to be that day or she would lose her mind with everything the way it was.

Bending at the knees and reaching out towards the pile she meticulously sorted through until she had all the sounds, all the words spoken that day that had met her ears. Some came from Whirlwind, they were short bits when they came from the loyal little flit but useful none the less. The noises came from certain people that she knew, others from those she'd seen and even more from some High Reaches Candidates. The Candidatemaster from High Reaches made a few appearances as well, his words towards her master had been polite enough but Amra was quite skilled at reading subtext.

"A fine looking clutch." Gr'del's words sounded far away and ghostly within the confines of her Room. Amra narrowed her gray eyes even further at the words and lifted her head to look about the place. It was quite large with all that she knew, with all the years that had passed. It held many beautiful and some battered shelves and cabinets, images and sounds that had been heard recently and so long ago that they seemed faded. The level of concentration she'd had when hearing them decided how loud the sounds were and often how clear as well. Sounds from her childhood were garbled and she sometimes had to focus hard just to pick up what her younger self had been meaning to store.

All the size that she had in the room didn't allow for all this new information about High Reaches and the eggs she'd just been lucky enough to meet though. Certainly she needed more space. First thing was first though and Amra set about sorting out all the sounds, her master's voice and those of the other candidates she separated out and laid straight before one of the largest shelves, with each new sound she placed it below the other and soon had not a pile so much as what resembled a chart of voices. Sounds from the eggs, the growling, snarling, dragon noises as well as Vimiath and Blundarth's voices were in separate lines. Sitting down before the chart of sound she crossed her legs and kept her back straight as she focused on the shelves before her and pushed with all her might. A new shelf started to grow, pushing the other two to the side as the Room shifted to allow entry, becoming just ever larger with the addition. Pausing for just a moment and then pushing again, it responded to Amra's decision to make it even larger than the two that pressed it's sides.

Certainly there was enough information about eggs and about High Reaches for her to make it so large. With a methodical and quiet calm, Amra placed each sound on the shelf where she felt it should belong. Each reply from an egg that she received, the howl from the Werewolf, the shrieking of both the Banshee and the Mummy, though the last two made her want to close her eyes once more. But there was yet more to do. Picking up each sound she placed them in the appropriate places on the already existing shelves, filing them away where they needed to go as carefully as possible as they were all precious to her. With each sound that went up silence began to fill the room at last and her heart stopped beating as loudly in her own ears.

Sometimes the combined noises were too much for her.

Now to do something about the images that littered the floor. Hands instinctively reached for the ones that she knew, the ones that had been in her Room for years, and she resorted them into their places with little thought. She knew exactly where she had pulled the images of food from when she'd offered them to the Ghoul and they slid back in without much thought to the scents that they evoked or the hunger that pulled at her own hollow belly. Anything she might eat would have to come later when her mind was in a better place or she might just sick it back up!

Candidates and riders had their own separate sections on different shelves. Healer riders and Masters were further up than the odd Wingrider that she'd seen, but not as high as the Weyrwoman or Weyrleader sat. Those shelves were thinner than others as she hadn't the honor of much more than the occasional glimpse of either. She could hardly expect them to go running around with Candidates could she? Master A'ral's shelf was larger than most, but then she'd had quite a few interactions with him and he'd taught her so much that it seemed correct to honor the kind man in such a way. Purposely ignoring a certain image of a certain candidate in her interest of dealing with such emotions later, she skipped around and put each in it's place, stepping over that girl's face so she didn't have to remember just yet, she wasn't ready.

Now for the images of dragons they went on a very special shelf, filled with many a dragon over the past year as she'd seen more in one year in a Weyr than in a lifetime running around all of Pern's Holds. Vimiath had her own section alongside the other Queens of Western Weyr, though she was an older Queen she was no less important, but certain images of her lay still on the floor, not to be moved just yet. Last, those would be last. Amra's fingers traced over a dark blue dragon with rather stunning markings, he'd brought a healer in hadn't he? What was his name again? Looking through the shelves until she found it she smiled, Corymth. It was rare to see such dark blues but she found the stunning. Placing him up alongside the other blue dragons she turned to look at where she'd gotten.

Quite far, though it had taken a much longer time than she'd even imagined. How long had she been in here filing things back into place?

Eyes skating over the beautiful shelves to the floor where the worst of the day resided, Amra let a frown pull on her features and bowed her head briefly. These were just memories and could not hurt her now other than to drum up feelings she wished to keep at bay. The moment was past and certainly that was good, though her thoughts of the future dimmed the light in the room briefly, when she noticed she returned them to positive thoughts and they brightened once more.

Lifting up the images and sounds into her arms gingerly she made certain to look at each one in turn before placing them back down in a neatly stacked pile. Akaris' face glared up at her from one image after she'd reprimanded her, a clear sign that the girl hadn't taken any of the words to heart, though the consequences that Amra had mentioned had instantly come to bare. Foolish brat, though if memory served a brat older than even herself, only one Turn or not a fool was a fool. The next image of her body framed in the sharp, strong jaws of a Queen caused the angry teenager to pause though and her thoughts swirled angrily. Did dragons truly hurt humans? Her master had always told her that they weren't violent creatures, she had promised her!

"If anything ever tries to harm you I'll be there to stop it, don't you worry little fool." Haunting words filled the Room and nearly drove Amra to her knees, the image in her hand falling to the floor in a slow flutter. Those words were not at all fair now so long after her death, how dare her own mind betray her in such a manner?

Stretching out her arms in front of herself Amra summoned up a set of chains that she swiftly wrapped around the stack of images and sounds that had occurred during the Touching. Thoroughly chained up and contained the noises stopped and everything was finally completely quiet at last, no more unheeded words, no more snarling noises. Placing the stack up on the shelf she had created for the Touching, her first, she turned to begin sweeping up the area of any dust that had collected, just to make sure everything was completely neat and clean. However she saw it then, lying on the floor just at her feet, the image that had drawn out her master's voice.

Picking it up and studying it with a careful eye, she saw the razor sharp teeth digging into Akaris' body, through her clothing to press skin. Had she bled? The girl had begun to cry when she'd crumpled to the ground, though Master A'ral had lifted her up to cover the worst of her embarrassment Amra had made sure to keep an eye on her as she'd walked off the sands. Did she actually... did she owe Akaris an apology for possibly calling down a dragon upon her? Though in her right mind Amra knew that it had not at all been herself that had brought Vimiath to action, rather Akaris' own actions with the Mummy had done that quite well. But all the same, the scene just before it rattled in the chains and all the moments after tried to release themselves.

Ripping the picture in half, the picture gone from her mind forcibly, though many remained locked in it's place, Amra closed her eyes and snapped awake in the real world. Darkness met her eyes and a growl pulled from her stomach, surely it was near time for dinner and it wasn't like she could apologize just yet. Akaris was likely in the hands of a mind healer and it would be quite some time before the woman would even feel like talking again, or at least that's the state that Amra might have been in. If Akaris had been much taller her fool head would have been tickling the back of Vimiath's throat and Amra herself was more than tall enough for that, she was taller than some of the tallest grown men! Certainly she wouldn't be ready to hear an apology for a few days, so there was nothing to do now but get some food and quiet her stomach for sleep. Master A'ral would be talking to all the Candidates soon as it was.