Logs:Choose
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| RL Date: 30 May, 2015 |
| Who: Dee |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: The night of Elaruth's hatching is a rough one for Dee. |
| Where: Candidate Barracks, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 11, Month 12, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Hattie/Mentions, Kaelige/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Disclaimers: A bit of angst and perhaps not to be read during a meal? // Many thanks to Fort admin for the inciting event and to Lilah and N'rov whose scene (and particularly, the quoted line: "That it would be impossible-- How could she not have chosen?") inspired my very tired brain this morning. |
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>---< Candidate Barracks, Fort Weyr >----------------------------------------<
The Candidates' Barracks is longer than it is wide, with the head of each
cot head against one of the two side walls. Alongside each cot, there is a
hook affixed to the wall where a Candidate's robe may be hung, while
clothes and personal effects are usually kept in the trunks at the foot of
each. Designed to house about a hundred young men and women at any given
time, the place alternates between feeling cramped when dragons go out on
Search and very empty when there is no clutch on the Sands.
The beds are neatly made when Candidates are imminent and expected to be
kept that way by each young person who claims them. Between clutches, they
are stripped bare, with linens kept in cabinets along the walls nearest
the entrance. Candidate robes are stored in a large nook off to the side
for Candidates to pick and choose from; especially old or filthy robes are
discarded regularly, with new ones made by the seamstresses or apprentice
weavers in their spare time. How could the green not have chosen? Dee chose. All the questions that had been put to her by different people about why she chose and every way she answered was affirmation of her choosing. In part, she bore the repetition of the questions because it tested the truth of her answer and her resolve. She'd known she would need some element of the first and a lot of the last to actually step onto the Hatching Sands when it was time. What she didn't know was how-- or if-- she could find the resolve to do it again. Somewhere, somehow through her small part of the Weyr's shared grief, she'd heard Lilah's voice, the invitation to stand for Eliyaveith's clutch. She knew she should choose to Stand for it as well. But... what if that green had been her shot? Not that she'd wanted a shot, really... Not any more than any of the boys dreamt of bigger and shinier dragons. She didn't dream of dragons at all, not until that night. Dee had woken in a cold sweat; hers wasn't the first cry to interrupt the light sleepers in the barracks, of those few who remained, and it wasn't even the loudest. She'd heard the mewling of the little green, felt the heat of the Sands so intensely that it might as well have been them burning in some funeral pyre that would never be. She could hear her, but she couldn't see her. She couldn't find her. She wasn't even sure, in the dream, if she was supposed to find her. But she felt the visceral loss in the nightmare of Elaruth's keen, in the way it had been echoed by the whole community. In the confused moments that followed her waking, she was angry as much as frightened. How could Kaelige so readily dismiss the value of a single life? When a dragon died, the dragons of the world (or the Weyr anyway) collectively felt the life snuff out - felt the loss together, if some likely more keenly than others. How, when Hattie had pressed herself against her dragon, how when Elaruth and hers and their mates had so obviously mourned the daughter that never knew joy. Dee knew she was crying because her face was hot and she could taste the salt of her tears on her lips. She had half a mind to go and find Kaelige and throttle him. But even Kaelige's life counted, mattered, even if he couldn't see the same of the people who lived and breathed around him. (And he probably wasn't in bed when he ought to be, as usual.) She wondered, for a moment, how life would be if humans felt the loss of one of their own in their bones, the way she imagined dragons did. Would things be different for the Holds? For the Weyr? For the way they thought of each other? Would the life of one of the Weyr count the same as the life from one of a Hold? Would the fears of starvation for some-- too many-- be taken more seriously? Would-- She felt the nausea hit her ruthlessly and without warning. For a moment, she thought she might be standing thigh-deep with her back to the unpredictable ocean so strong was the onslaught and so undeniable was the result. She was overcome. She only had time to lean over the bed before she puked. It didn't make her feel any better. It didn't make her worry any less. It was just one more mess to clean up. |
Comments
Kaelige (13:41, 31 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
Love this. So much reaction and emotion. Poor sweet Dee.
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