Logs:A Trial
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| RL Date: 28 October, 2015 |
| Who: Ebeny, E'dre |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Ebeny decides that her turnday is the day to return home. |
| Where: Weyrleader's Office, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 17, Month 2, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: N'rov/Mentions, C'sel/Mentions, Elayne/Mentions, Eden/Mentions, Eryn/Mentions |
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| The door to the Weyrleader's office is wide open and the voices that are conversing inside are raised enough that they carry outward. "I don't care if they requested it," E'dre's voice is sharp and heightened, "They still need to go through the proper procedures. This isn't a game. We aren't above helping but they can't just flag you down for something like that without a serious cause." The male voice that follows is just as sharp, "I told them as much. We were already down by then though and what were we supposed to do? Deny them and fly off?" A female voice has more quiet and murmured agreement. "We'll discuss it later," E'dre's voice slams down with little room for argument. The brownrider and greenrider head out of the office in unison. For emphasis and possibly out of spite, the brownrider slams the door after him as he stalks away. Ebeny presses herself against the inner wall along the stairs up to the ledge to make room for those other riders to pass, her head tilted in such a way as means that she doesn't have to look directly at either of them, nor does she invite conversation - even passing pleasantries. She waits there, propped against rock, until she can continue on, if slowly and with rising hesitancy, until she reaches the entryway to the weyr and passes beneath it to get to the door that leads to the office proper. The Weyrlingmaster stands there, just staring at the closed door, for more than a minute, until she summons the courage to knock. E'dre's response to that knock is gruff, "Might as well come in!" He's not seated at his desk and so doesn't even bother to wait for the other party to open the door. He rips it open and freezes, scowl and all, as he stares at Ebeny. "I thought you were someone else," is close enough to an apology as he steps away from the threshold to allow Ebeny to enter. "It's been one of those mornings. Come in," he encourages after a moment's thought as he turns away from the now open door to head back towards his desk. He settles behind it and steeples his fingers on the desk, looking to her expectantly. "Are there issues you need to report?" She's half-turned to go when he opens the door, what she's gathered of determination fled already, and it leaves Ebeny staring - pale features, dark shadows and all - at E'dre like one caught in the feline's den when he appears. It takes her nearly as long to cross the threshold as it did for her to knock in the first place, the few steps that she takes after the Weyrleader slow and meandering - and designed to keep her near to the door, even as she closes it behind her. "...I just..." She swallows hard. "I just came to say that I want to sleep in my own bed tonight. Sama's couch isn't as comfortable as it looks. If you... If you want to sleep elsewhere, then... I guess you've got 'til tonight to figure something out." "I never encouraged you to sleep somewhere else," E'dre reminds Ebeny, perhaps unkindly, "so if you want to come home I won't begrudge you that. And I have no desire to sleep here or elsewhere. So you'll have to be prepared that I want to sleep in my own bed." He leaves that there and takes one look at her state before he rises from his desk to go and start a kettle of water over the fire to make klah or tea. He allows the task to occupy him and keep his gaze from Ebeny's figure near the doorway. "You never encouraged me not to, either." She's too tired to deliver that single statement of protest anything but flatly, leeching away much of its argumentative qualities before she's even begun. "...You don't have to pretend for my sake, you know? You don't need to say everything that you think you should or that I want to hear." Ebeny shoves her hands into her pockets. "You don't need to stay with me because I'm a duty or you think I can't handle it on my own." "Should I have sent a message from Wroth to Laurienth?" E'dre asks all too dryly. He's had too many days to stew on the tension between them and it has done nothing to dampen his temper. He gets the kettle on and situated. He swings around at Ben's last statement, his scowl fierce. "Why do you act like this whole thing is a reason to end what we've had for turns? You'd be content with this," he gestures towards her abdomen, "this unpreventable accident as a reason to say good riddance? How could I face our girls? Daddy let you go live somewhere else to be Weyrleader and when you come back daddy will have left your mother for having a fucking child?" Disgusted, he turns away from her and storms back to his desk. Ebeny rocks back on her feet slightly, as if she tries to literally dig her heels into the stone floor in an effort not to flee. "Like I said," she says all too calmly, "you don't have to stay just to make peace with yourself or because of what others might think. If you're sleeping next to me just so you can sleep, I'd rather you weren't there at all." She directs her gaze towards her feet. "...N'rov wouldn't agree to going Between any more than you did," she murmurs. "He suggested he'd see to the baby once it's here. So... there's that. Maybe we'll have weyrlings again by then and-- it kept me busy. After Elayne." A shrug. "Maybe I won't be such a trial." "If you have your way, I wouldn't be there to help you through that trial," E'dre replies far too quietly. He keeps his back to her as he rests a hand on the back of the chair, his stony gaze directed at the wall rather than his weyrmate. "The way I take your assumptions levelled against me, you believe me to be doing something noble in wanting to stay with you. You want me to leave you. Is it so you can go back to C'sel? Or perhaps you want something to come of this for you and N'rov? I honestly don't know. I feel like I can argue with you indefinitely on why I want to stay. You'll just keep pushing me." Still he doesn't turn to face Ebeny. "I don't know what you want from me." "Because C'sel would be delighted if I came back with another man's child again," Ebeny utters rather bitterly, not that it's outright denial of what he suggests. "And I think we both know that N'rov isn't in love with me; if anything, he must think I need a minder." Two slow steps back carry her towards the door, where she leans back and closes her eyes. "...I want you to do what you want, not what you feel you ought to do. This isn't going to make you happy. It sure as shells isn't making me happy. If I go like I did after Elayne, then all I'm going to do is make you miserable." "I keep telling you," E'dre counters, turning now to level his tight-lipped expression on Ben, "I want to be there. I don't mind that it's N'rov's child. These things happen. I apologized for my outrage over the flight, I've accepted the two of you slept outside of it. I keep making amends, I keep saying it doesn't matter, I keep trying and your only thought is to tell me I'm making it up!" He tightens a fist on the back of the chair and then slams it down for emphasis. "If N'rov wants the child and you don't, he can have it. If he doesn't and you do, you can have it. I'll love the child whether it's his or yours or ours! Enough with this!" The greenrider jumps at the sound of the chair hitting the floor, twitching back against the door, but what rises from that instinctive reaction is cold and fierce, Ebeny's focus fixing on E'dre with an intensity that that goes some way to imparting that she may dearly like to tear him apart. Only, when she takes a deep breath to lift her voice, nothing comes out, not until her words have dissolved into an inarticulate exclamation of just noise, as she sinks down to the floor and folds her arms over her head to try and smother the sound of her sobs. E'dre meets that cold and fierce reaction without backing down: his own glare and tensed features are not remotely that of someone intent on making amends. Even Ebeny's sobs do not bring him running as he watches her fold to the floor. He lets her cry, giving her the space to do so, as he rights the chair he had knocked over and takes a span of time to simply calm his own temper down. It feels longer than it is before E'dre finally makes his way to the greenrider. He kneels down beside her and wraps his arms around her shoulders, prepared to fight for the contact if she is intent on shaking him off. "I love you," he tells her, loud enough to cut through her sobs, "and nothing can change that." Ebeny is never going to be able to make herself small, though she does her very best to, curling in and in like she wants to disappear. She twitches again when she feels the touch of E'dre's hands, initially too unsure of what she should go to shrug him away, yet increasingly unwilling and too weary to do anything but let him hold her. Little by little, she uncurls and leans into him instead, staying there as her breathing eventually begins to even out again and she stops making those awful sounds quite so often. Once she's managed silence for a minute or more, she takes an audible breath and tells him, "...I'm sorry," in a very small voice. E'dre continues to hold her and shifts only when he moves to lower himself down to the ground. His arms disengage from around Ben as he settles back, folding in front of him as he dips his chin down to consider the ground. "There's nothing to apologize for," he decides to answer, looking up to try and catch her eye. "Let's just try and survive this like we've survived everything else that's come our way that we weren't expecting." He takes a breath and then stresses, "Let's do it together." Eventually, Ebeny leans against the door and drops her head back, eyes closed again in the picture of surrender. She spends a while just trying to keep her breathing even and steady, then slowly blinks her eyes open again and sneaks a look across at her weyrmate when he lifts his gaze to her. There's a moment of stubbornness and of her biting down on the inside of her lip, but she holds back what protest or argument she might wish to provide in response to what he says first, and instead provides a shallow, shaky nod in answer to the second. "...And you won't let your wing fall apart?" she presses, so quietly that the words are barely there. "N'rov isn't a cruel man and he is a solid rider," E'dre answers honestly, "so I will find peace with him and keep my wing from suffering from the tension. I," he hesitates then, brushing his fingers back through his hair as he lets loose a sigh, "will have to talk to him now." He looks to the door and then back to her. "But it doesn't have to be now." He reaches for Ebeny's hand to hold. "Let's go home. The rest of this can wait." He jerks his head towards his desk. "...No," Ebeny says slowly, letting her eyes fall shut again, "he isn't." She remains so as E'dre speaks, and must sense movement more than see it when she surrenders her hand to his and holds on tight - perhaps even too tight. More silence and more deep breaths later, she gives a single nod and murmurs, "Okay," then begins to get to her feet, using her free hand pressed against the door to support herself. E'dre's hand remains tight against Ebeny's even as her grip gets tightened towards a somewhat unbearable clench. He waits until she's steadied herself before he draws her closer for a brief hug. He presses his lips against her nose before he pulls back. He keeps her hand and leads the way out of the door and towards home. He won't bring up the pregnancy or any other issue once they're settled, choosing to focus on far simpler tasks like what they should do for a meal and later he'll curl himself firmly around her in their bed. |
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