Logs:Homes
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| RL Date: 28 December, 2013 |
| Who: Arekoth, H'kon |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: H'kon and Arekoth try to use physical space to solve all this unsettled family business. |
| Where: Various empty weyrs, one inhabited one, and Madilla's room. |
| When: Day 26, Month 8, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Dilan/Mentions, Haeron/Mentions, Kairek/Mentions, Kallia/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, Madilla/Mentions, Naelli/Mentions, Raija/Mentions |
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| H'kon held his glowbasket closer to one of those wooden panels, the light enlivening the designs. He studied it a moment, then swung the basket farther back, and reached his free hand for the edge of one panel itself. A hard push didn't much move it, though he imagined he could if he were to give a proper pull. There are chairs, at least. Dusty ones, he found, when letting a hand fall to the plush back of one. Carrying on, through the little maze of false walls, he found the bed. « That's massive. » It is. « You're smiling. » H'kon stopped. It's not a proper use of space, in a weyr this small. « Explains how a family got in here. Accident. » Paint stains are no proof of family. It could as well have been some... eccentric greenrider. « That would have made that bed a lot more fun, I bet. » The rider turned and worked his way back out to that little ledge, where Arekoth was crowded toward the weyr's entrance, lidding the basket before the light shone out, a beacon in the night. There's not much space here. He ran his hand along his dragon's straps, more habit than necessity; he might have found that handhold in his sleep. « It's... cozy. » It would be cramped. Awkward. « Well, that's family for you. » He swung up between Arekoth's ridges, and they waited in the shadows for a blue to pass before launching back out into the night. « How about, 'Mom and dad, guess what? Madilla's going to have a baby - oh, but not in the way you'd think?' » H'kon traced the walls of the narrow living space, his fingers adding to the strange shadows cast on the rough surface by the glowbasket he carried with him. I believe you've grown bored and are no longer interested in helping. He followed the narrow space, pausing just before it opened to look back toward the dragon's couch, where Arekoth had had to stop. « I don't know about that. Some of your suggestions were pretty funny. » And then turned his back and carried on, lifting the basket to inspect the rooms - four, counted - that opened into it. There is nothing the matter in trying to find accurate wording. « There is nothing the matter in just saying what's going on, either. » What's going on is uncertain. « Oh yes. Couldn't go telling your parents that life is uncertain. Their heads might explode. » H'kon couldn't quite make out the shapes of each of the rooms individually. He didn't dally to do so. All these rooms are open. « Scratch another one off the list. » There is nothing wrong with being a H'kon. He even smiled a bit for Lilabet's terminology, though there was still that tug at his chest, dissatisfied. His boots hit the floor, and he let his fingers trail from Arekoth's straps. This one at least has a couch. It was the first weyr on the list that actually seemed to take the dragon properly into account. That much was reassuring. With room enough that we might set up a brazier for you, come winter. The ceiling, as with all the other weyrs they'd visited in previous nights, felt low. « You look ridiculous when you duck. » He straightened. I'm not ducking. « You are too. You do know that you've got plenty of space above your head nearly anywhere you go? » I'm not ducking. « Well, not anymore. » It's a pity this weyr is not like the last, and impregnable by dragons. « Hal, nothing's impregnable by dragons. » There was a large table, but room enough also for some chairs, a bit of an actual living space. He held the glowbasket over it, trying to make out some of the etchings. The child had missed a letter here. H'kon reached out to touch the 'R' that had been squeezed in, barely fitting. He wondered idly if the child had caught it himself, or if his parents had seen to it. « I think you should, » Arekoth chimed, as H'kon did a closing circuit about this main area before entering the hallway. « Have her call you dad. » She has a father. « Who didn't want her. Oh, or daddy. You'd be a good daddy. It's longer, but it sounds shorter. » Or she might simply call me H'kon, as the other two do. The first room was decently sized. He backed out, and entered the other. Two rooms, only. Dilan and Lilabet shared already. Raija... he was uncertain of where to put her. It might be more complicated in some turns, even with Lilabet likely gone. Dilan would be wanting more privacy. Although, if it were only to be an occasional thing, everyone here at once... « I like this one. » H'kon did, too. It occurred to him not directly, but as he thought about how it might be made to work. But the ceiling was still low. H'kon sat with his back to his dragon's chest, carefully working oil across that twisted forelimb, more for the sake of massage than any necessity of caring for Arekoth's hide. He knew Madilla would be waiting for him, knew the children by now would have long been with Delinda, and sent off to bed by her, without his being there to bid them good night. He knew it all, but he sat with his dragon, eyes closed and mind attuned to the slowly shifting aurora at the back of his mind. This was not an act of rebellion. It had troubled him, and he'd thought it through, thought on it critically. This was not an act of rebellion, but simply the other side, the part of his life he'd moved away from, and rediscovered, time and again. The part of him. The part of him that Madilla might never understand - that he could not explain to her, even if he would try. The part that Dilan envied and wanted to bring into his own life. The part that Lilabet seemed to take so easily in stride, no matter her concerns about her ability to adapt. The part that made acting the father to Raija... problematic. In the end, there was this also. He thought over all the weyrs they'd visited in the past sevenday, almost in secret. None had felt as this one had felt, when first he'd moved into it - a place just for him and Arekoth, a place that embodied all they were. It is difficult to tell if this is a case of growth, or of overreaching. « It feels bigger. » The brown was quiet, almost somnolent; the Arekoth no one else knew. The Arekoth who lived in this weyr, alone with his rider, not surrounded by children and a healer. And also strained. « Nah, » and the colours danced up, just a moment, and fell away lazily, « deeper. » A word plucked out from his own mind, H'kon would guess, and he drew his legs up toward his chest, and rubbed thoughtfully at the brown's leg, for some time. You do feel it. He stretched one leg out. Through me. The love for them, all of them, rooted right near his centre, that place previously saved for Naelli, his father, his mother, even Kai. Right next to the place that was him, except suddenly one day was him and Arekoth both. Right next to it, but not a part of it. Naelli's death had taught him, corrected him in it. He'd have died with her, perhaps never come back from between. It felt wrong, to think it, to know, without doubt, that there was more, that there was a thing, a part of him, that they could never touch. To bring them in... H'kon forced himself still, in the quiet of his weyr, in the colours of his dragon. They stayed that way for some time. I would miss this. He came to Madilla much too late, and had solved nothing. |
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