Logs:A Choice
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| RL Date: 5 October, 2015 |
| Who: Ebeny, E'dre, Laurienth, Wroth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: The truth, an argument and choices made. |
| Where: Autumnal Eventide Weyr, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 3, Month 13, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: N'rov/Mentions, C'sel/Mentions, X'vin/Mentions, Eirlys/Mentions, Taessin/Mentions |
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| It's late when E'dre and Wroth finally make their way home, having taken a trip outside of the Weyr to seek the dry heat of Igen. Wroth is all tangles and snarls, his usual mental storm a raging whoosh of wind and rumbling thunder as he reaches towards Laurienth. He only touches her awareness, knowing better than to release the full wrath of his still uncooled temper on her. E'dre's state is no better than his dragon's as he heads into the weyr. He shucks off his riding gear and hangs it roughly up. A hand is scrubbed back through his hair, sending the still sweat-soaked strands spiking as he moves throughout the weyr. He doesn't call to Ben nor announce himself as he heads directly towards the cabinet where he stores there liqueur. A glass of whiskey is poured and downed and then refilled before he slams himself down into a chair. Laurienth has secured herself a perch somewhere up high, balanced precariously as she lets the autumn winds and breezes rush through and beneath her wings, leaving her clinging by her very claws in some moments. She acknowledges Wroth, between one blink and the next, unwilling to get dragged into those snarls, and perhaps it's this understanding of brown and rider being home that draws Ebeny from the bedroom, the greenrider in the process of pinning her hair up. The dress she's wearing is only a shade lighter than her lifemate (who cares if green is unlucky?), skirts short in the front and long in the back, ruffled and designed to take advantage of the fact that she's nearly all legs. Ben regards E'dre for a moment, silent, then simply just slips another pin into her hair. E'dre's attention gets turned towards Ben as she exits from the bedroom and the appreciation in his gaze for her dress is there and then gone in a snap of realization. He grips his hand tighter around the glass and then releases it, grips and releases. "You look nice," he tells her in a tone that seems more accusatory than complimentary. "Are you heading out to sing?" He's clearly tense from the feathering muscle of his jaw to the rigidness of his posture. Wroth shakes himself before he enters the wallow he shares with Laurienth and considers joining her on that perch. Still, he seems to know better than his rider not to engage his mate when he's in a foul mood. The brown disconnects from the green, leaving her to her fun and him to his temper. A smarter move than the tense and brawly-tones that E'dre seems intent to use on his own mate. "I don't sing anymore." Ebeny delivers that statement matter of fact and nothing else, no regret or invitation, just an easy, careful blandness. "So, no." As if it needs further clarification. She reaches for a length of ribbon that she's temporarily stashed under one of the straps of her dress, then winds it around the next pin she intends on using. "Where have you been?" For Laurienth didn't think to ask. She does a good job of pretending that the picture she sees before her is fine and nothing out of the ordinary, features schooled to a cautious distance. "So then who are you dressing up for?" E'dre asks with a furrowed brow, "and why didn't you tell me you stopped singing? I thought you were enjoying that." He takes another sip of his whiskey and then sets the glass down, trying to not rush the consumption of it as he did the first glass. "We went to Igen," he tells her with a twitch of his shoulder. "I needed to clear my head and Wroth wanted to settle in the warm sands." That seems like enough of an explanation if the tightening of his lips didn't hint at more to be said. "I was." Ebeny lifts the pin to slip it into place, then begins to weave the tail of the ribbon through a small, loose braid. "Maybe a little too much. It wasn't... practical. I'm not a young girl with time to kill, or who can afford that time for herself. So. That's that." The twitch of her shoulder echoes his. "Laurienth is taking me dancing," is all the explanation that she offers so far as who. "So we'll be out of your way for the night. I know you've got a lot to deal with, and I'll just be cluttering up the place or waiting on weyrlings if I stay. You can relax." That seems to annoy E'dre more than anything else. "Why didn't you ask me if I'd like to join you?" he asks, frowning at her as he eyes her dress and hair with even more focus. "Do I even want to know who you're expecting to join you instead?" he asks, sounding more resigned than angry now as he slouches back in his chair and heaves a sigh. "I can't relax here," he tells her, waving his arm towards the entrance of the weyr. "I have too many people breathing down my neck blaming all the shortcomings of the Weyr on my leadership." "Because I didn't know where you were and I didn't want you thinking you had to dance attendance on my whims," Ebeny replies just a little too evenly for it to be natural, looping the braid back up to secure it with the same pin she's anchored the ribbon with. With both her hands free, she lets them fall to sit on her hips. "What exactly are you trying to suggest?" she questions. "I didn't take you for being so petty about my putting on a dress instead of living in my leathers." "Ebeny," E'dre answers with a lifted brow, "do we not have dragons who can ask each other where they are? It's not as if my absence was long. Laurienth could have asked Wroth and we could've decided whether or not I wanted to go dancing with me being in Igen and you being here. We're rider's, aren't we?" He reaches for and grabs his drink to down in one gulp that leaves him shuddering against the alcohol burn down his throat. He snorts out a sound that might've been meant to be a laugh, "I'm trying to suggest that you're purposefully leaving to go dancing - and your claim you're going alone seems unlikely to me." He shouldn't say it and the pause he takes signals his attempt to withhold the comment, but then he says it anyway: "Is N'rov going to meet you there?" "I was trying to," avoid you, "not put any more pressure on you by making you think you had to come home or had to do anything!" She doesn't raise her voice, but there's a clear lift in pitch towards the end of Ebeny's exclamation. The only indication that his comment about N'rov stings at all is the slight narrowing of her eyes before she lets her arms flop back to her sides. "You're unbelievable, the two of you," she murmurs. "I'm the one who has to submit and be caught in flight, and you're the ones making a ridiculous scene over the whole thing." "Perhaps I don't find spending time with my weyrmate," E'dre stresses that title with a narrowing of his eyes, "as pressure. We don't have the children home," he continues, not bothering to censor a topic he has carefully avoided bringing up since that decision had been made, "so we should be spending our free time with each other if nothing else! It's a luxury we haven't had in turns without feeling one niggle of guilt, or need to come home at a certain time, and now that we've had it you think it best to spend all our free time apart!" It's Ben's lumping of him with N'rov into that 'two of you' statement that has E'dre rising from his chair. "What other scenes has he been making?" he demands, "I thought I made myself clear that he was to back-off." "Don't," Ebeny starts to say, the moment that E'dre brings up the subject of the children. "Just--" She's flinching away as she protests and tries to avoid it, hands up with palms out like she could physically shove it away, only when he gets out of his seat she drops them again and folds them behind her back. For a moment and more, all she can do is stare. "...We barely cross paths as it is, and you feel it's necessary to tell him to back off?" she asks, somewhat incredulously. "You spend more time with him than I do! D'you really think he's going to fall in love with me over a flight? No-one in their right mind would fall for me as it is, but over that? Really." "I did!" E'dre's shouting that out before he can settle his irritation. "I fell in love with you when Wroth caught Laurienth and kept catching her. Don't you remember? It matters more than we like to say it does!" The desire to continue to shout causes him to turn and walk away from her, stalking across the room and towards his riding gear as if he'd snatch it off the wall again. He stops short from yanking it down and rests his hand on the wall. He remains there, eyes closed, and waits until slowly he manages to control himself enough to turn and look towards her. The apology is there on his face with the anger gone and replaced with contriteness. "I'm sorry," he tells her, not moving towards her as he steps back to settle his back against the wall. "I got into it with X'vin and--, I shouldn't have redirected to you. And I shouldn't have redirected my anger to N'rov the other night when I dumped the ale on him. I'm beginning to fray at the edges." He shakes his head and sighs, hanging his head as he draws a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Words aren't sufficient." "I remember that you shouldn't have," Ebeny answers, her quiet all the more stark in the wake of volume. "I've never suggested that falling for me was your finest hour, nor the best choice you ever could have made." And she stands by that, so it sounds. "N'rov doesn't even like me," she argues, "and I doubt that seeing me up-close has really done anything for him. I told him to take Vhaeryth away next time. I tell everyone to stay away, every next time. He was only there because of you!" She shakes her head in the wake of that last statement, then hastily begins to pin up what's not yet styled of her hair. "Even C'sel..." But she doesn't finish, the ache there whenever she says his name more than enough to give her away. "I'm going dancing," the greenrider declares, aiming for a brightness she doesn't manage. "You don't need to apologise. I'll leave you be." Ebeny might as well have slapped him as the color drains from E'dre's face while he listens to her words. The hurt is readable in the gaze he directs upwards and catches hers with. "I tried making another choice," he reminds her, his voice strained against the control he's trying to keep in check, her naming of C'sel makes him catch his breath and hold it. "I never asked you to leave him," he has to say it to hear that confirmation aloud whether or not it is true. Whatever the fight was supposed to resolve for E'dre he now allows defeat to drag his shoulders down as he looks away from her. "Enjoy your night," he tells her, arms drifting up to fold in front of him and hug inward. "No," Ebeny allows, "you didn't." She steps closer to her weyrmate only to collect her coat, before retreating back again. "But he'd have kept me in his bed and marked me black and blue and his instead of accusing me of sneaking out to see the man who got to have me instead of him." And is that what she wants? Laurienth must already have her straps, for she doesn't move for those. "For what it's worth, I'm going with my brother and sister. I'll stay at the Hall tonight, with them." When she finally summons the courage to move for the entryway to the bowl, she pauses just shy of the outside world and glances down at her feet. "...It was twice. With N'rov. I was too caught up and-- It was me. Not him. There." She sighs. "That's the whole of it." E'dre isn't looking at her when Ben delivers her news and he refuses to look once it's hanging between them. "That's how it starts, isn't it? We fight because couples fight and then we're driven to another's arms," he mutters, shaking his head as his jaw tightens. "Enjoy your night," he tells her, gaze focused on a distant wall. "And be safe." He turns to her, the glassiness in his eyes and the flush to his cheeks clear even in the dim light of the glows. "It might be easier for me to understand if Wroth chased more. He doesn't. It's only been you since A'ryk. I suppose I have a choice you don't." He sucks in a breath and shakes his head. "The second time you had your choice and you made it. So did N'rov. I'm not all that surprised." He smiles without humor, "Because didn't I often seek the same from you?" He walks away then, letting her go without any further goodbyes. When she returns in the morning, he'll have already been gone and likely won't return home the next evening. She's only got that (now ridiculous) dress, ribbons, pins and her coat, but Ebeny turns and flees the weyr without looking back, the clatter of heels on the bowl floor a sound that betrays her departure at as much of a dead run as she can manage, as fast as her feet will carry her in those shoes. Whether she goes to meet Eirlys and Taessin won't be known; not this evening. All that's for sure is that Laurienth is gone and her rider too, to return, however reluctantly, when duty calls. |
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