Logs:Complete
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| RL Date: 19 August, 2011 |
| Who: Iolene |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: Iolene struggles to come to terms with what being a dragonrider actually entails. |
| Where: High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 20, Month 7, Turn 26 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Devaki/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Nathalia/Mentions, Raum/Mentions, Riorde/Mentions, Seani/Mentions, Tomaeran/Mentions |
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| It had been less than a month since the hatching. Less than a month since her world had changed. In the end, she almost wished she hadn't struggled so hard against what would be the inevitable, and in a burst of uncharacteristic anger, she had wished someone had told her. The dragonriders, they all made it sound so simple. So easy. That suddenly you'd have this partner for the rest of your life who would match you so well and life would go on. It would all be well because suddenly, your life would be complete. They hadn't seen fit to mention that this partner would be in your thoughts constantly. There. Those incredibly internalized and compartmentalized thoughts Iolene had kept tucked away. Over the course of days, Ysavaeth had stripped her of all semblance of privacy and most of the time, in front of her dragon, Iolene felt naked and ashamed. It wasn't that Ysavaeth ever chided her, or even thought less of her except once and that was a sharp stinging lesson she had learned all too well. It was the realization that there was so much petty doubt and jealousy in her soul; the ugly things she tried to keep at bay behind her cheerful smiles and exuberance because no one liked an ugly person. She wept at night for her own lackings when she was sure no one was awake or listening, an arm wrapped about Ysavaeth's warmth, until eventually, somehow, despite Ysavaeth's own slumber, the thrumming hum of her mind's touch soothed the young rider to sleep. Complete. Yes, as Iolene looked to the dragon napping in the sunlight streaming across the lake shore, her life had completed itself, but in an unexpected way. She couldn't help the wistful turns her mind would take when her dragon was asleep, though, through trial and error, she was learning how to keep her own rush of emotions from affecting her dragon. She hoped to never make that mistake again, of making Ysavaeth feel like she had been a second choice, a wrong choice. While Ysa slept, she thought of Devaki, of where he might be. She thought of his arms about her and the brush of sweaty skin against skin. Of his eyes and jawline. Of the lines of his body she'd been too shy to look at afterwards. Mostly, she remembered his hair and the way it smelled while she was kissing it, and the way it felt beneath her curled fingers. It was always wrong, thinking like this, and it always brought with it the pang of shame, magnified now by the knowledge that it wasn't only her secret or his anymore. That there were others who knew, K'del, Riorde, Tom, ... Jaques. Knowing Dev was alive and knowing Raum was with him also brought doubts into her mind of just what they were up to. Naively, she believed in what Devaki was doing, what he had pushed for this whole time. The girl, Nathalia, had roused the deeprooted pride in her lineage, with her diatribe of the Blooded, and the heat with which she had responded had surprised even Io. But, past the naive, sheltered girl, going further to the woman she didn't want to become, that Iolene did not think there was a coincidence of Devaki and Raum disappearing the day Seani had died. It made mourning for the murdered islander hard, and she was sure the pretenses she made of feeling sad (for she did feel sad) weren't quite real or morose enough for others to believe. Keeping these thoughts shielded took much of the leftover brain power she had in any day, though, Iolene conceded to herself, Ysavaeth never really let on just how much she gleaned from her mind. Still, no one could know what she suspected, least of all the other islanders. It would serve no good and only split a fractured group even further and they needed each other more now than before. Besides, Jaques and Tom might murder him, not that they needed any more reasons to, and, she believed wholly, that the islanders' survival was somehow tied to Devaki. « You'll make a wonderful leader, » came the sudden, sleep-filled intrusion to her head. Startled and scrambling to cover her tracks in a sudden feather-filled image of obsfucation, she pushed forth a mental comment: » You were sleeping, I didn't mean to wake you with my thoughts. « « Oh, Iolene, » a little more awake now, a patronizing tinkle of bell-like laughter floated into Io's head. It'd be hardpressed to tell Ysavaeth was anywhere near awake from looking at the physical manifestation of her golden form curled on the rocky shores, « Haven't you learned yet? I know everything you do. » A beat. « It'll be our secret. » Why, oh why, did that last addition leave her unsettled? |
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