Logs:Careful (Perhaps)
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| RL Date: 31 October, 2015 |
| Who: V'ret, Zoth |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Someone is dead. Others are still alive. |
| When: Day 25, Month 2, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: H'vier/Mentions |
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| It woke Zoth, but whatever he thought about Reisoth's departure, he didn't wake his rider, or at least not until it was properly morning. He was uncharacteristically mellow enough to allow V'ret to go get breakfast, where he found out from his peers. But they didn't talk about it. The day went on in the way that was becoming completely ordinary. Feeding, oiling, lessons, meaningless small talk with the others. Zoth slept--or pretended to--long enough to allow V'ret both lunch and dinner. Maybe, he thought, maybe the worst of it is over. After dinner, in the caverns, a passerby touched him on the shoulder, smiled, and passed him a little package bound up in rough cloth. It went into his pocket and he moved on without even looking at it, without letting himself even think about it until he was back in the barracks. Until he'd passed an evening with reading a history of the Ninth Pass. Or staring at the pages and attempting to will the black marks there to cohere into words that made sense. A headache settled in behind his eyes, a cold pressure, and it lingered there until he was laying awake in a dark cavern listening to every little creak of bed frame, every little cough. He found it in the dark, slow, careful, soundless. The contents of the flask burned going down, but the burning settled warmly into his stomach. « You aren't supposed to have that. » You're supposed to be asleep. « The rules do not say that. » The rules are broad enough for any idiot to enforce them. Do you trust Quinlys more than you trust me? His heart raced, sure any moment that Zoth was going to wake someone, but no weyrlingmaster descended upon them. It was quiet. Someone was snoring, but not loudly. « You thought-- » He might have known my mother. I should have asked. « A lot of men knew your mother. » Would you go back to sleep? « Why does that upset you? » It matters, in this world, where you came from. Who your parents were. « You could ask her. You have always been able to ask her. » I'm not going back there. Not ever. « Not even when the man with the belt is dead? » Not 'gone'. No mincing around the word, for Zoth. It sits there with an awful finality. H'vier is dead. The man with the belt will someday be dead. Someday. « Why didn't you do it? » V'ret had another drink. This was supposed to last him. It wasn't going to last if he kept drinking it that way, he realized. He carefully put the cap back on and then slipped the flask between the mattress and bed frame. He shifted onto his side and looked off into the shadows, trying to make out the lines of his dragon laying there. He was a good man. « He was not. But why should that matter? Why do you care? » We could have been friends. « Perhaps. » Zoth's voice is smoother than the liquor, but the warmth is still there. It feels like good wine. Like Benden. It washes over him, and eventually, he sleeps. |
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