Logs:How I Spent the Gold Flight, an Essay By Kh'tyr
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| RL Date: 2 January, 2016 |
| Who: Catling, Kh'tyr |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Kh'tyr could write an essay about this delightful flight time activity of explaining sex to a holdbred 15 turn old while minding a bunch of weyrlings at the lake. |
| Where: Lake Shore, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 17, Month 9, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Blume/Mentions, Dahlia/Mentions, Druala/Mentions, N'rov/Mentions, Olivya/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Discussion of sex. |
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>---< Lake Shore, Fort Weyr >------------------------------------------------<
The lake's shore is a broad crescent of golden-hued sand, stretching from
the southwest wall near the feeding grounds and around to the southeast
where the sand gives way to soil and leaf detritus from a cluster of hardy
mountain trees. Where the lake deepens, clear blue water darkens to murky
teal, hiding stony depths. Dragons often sun here and riders use the lake
for dragonwashing in the warmer seasons, while all of the Weyr's denizens
may enjoy walks and picnics among the large, smooth boulders that
interrupt the smooth flow of sand. Many of the Weyr's children also play
at skipping stones with the wide variety of rocks available along the
water's edge.
Thunderstorms have rocked the area off and on all day, retreating at times
to let lighter skies dominate, but soon enough the clouds thicken and
darken again with rain pouring down, thunder growling and lightning bolts
flashing.
-----------------------------< Active Players >-----------------------------
Catling F 15 4'10" waiflike, copper hair, green eyes 4s
Kh'tyr M 33 5'9 solid, dk. brown hair, dk. brown eyes 0s The sun is shining brilliantly this late morning as the hour heads towards lunch and suddenly there's a stir of activity. Zaisavyth is up and gone and Vhaeryth with her. Taeliyth wings across the bowl, her wheaten hide glowing with the surprisingly sudden onset of imminent flight. The bronzes and browns of the Weyr and those unlucky enough to be stopping by flock to the feeding grounds. But not Mograith. It's not easy to muzzle a beast that wants the freedom of flight, but today, the day is won by Kh'tyr, the brown mastered by his duty to the handful of very young weyrlings bathing their tiny lifemates in the shallows of the lake and Mograith minding them, eyes only casting jealously toward the sky. The assistant werylingmaster is standing on the shore, jaw tight and eyes observant of his charges, only now and again grinding his teeth but otherwise remarkably in control. Catling is walking towards the lake, lugging a bucket of cleansing sand with her. It requires all of her strength and most of her concentration, as she is still limping from her long journey. She has a perplexed expression on her face; apparently she has caught on to something of the emotion running through the Weyr, but she is ignorant of the causes. She brings the sand over to the weyrlings, then walks away, shyness and caution and curiosity mingling. She backs away, then walks over to the assistant weyrlingmaster and clears her throat. "I... ah... I've brought towels and oil and sand and cloths extra. Is there more needed, sir?" Kh'tyr turns at the address, just enough to take in the girl and keep an eye on his charges (and his brown lest he try to slip the leash), a single brow arching slightly at her. "You!" He calls and points to one of the weyrling. "Yes, you. Come get this from her. It's for you lazy lot anyway." He's a particularly loving assistant as these things go, but the 'you' identified is a young man who's grinning as he trots up to alleviate Catling of her burdens with a quick 'thanks' before he's taking them back to the group at large. Rather than answer her question, Kh'tyr studies the girl. "Shouldn't you be inside hiding in some cavern somewhere? Or do you have some special power for fending off lustful losers? Maybe your figure does that for you," he observes, thoughtfully, if also insultingly. Given the way he doesn't seem to think about it's being insulting to say so, he probably doesn't intend it that way, but good intentions oft go awry in practice. "Hiding?" Catling frowns, looking up at the man. "I've got chores I promised to do, and so I will do them., Well, have done. But...." She chews the inside of her lip for a moment. "Lustful losers? I'm not entirely sure I understand." She looks down at herself, then shrugs. "I'm not horrible to look at, though. I mean... people don't run when they see me..." Kh'tyr stares at Catling a moment with narrowing gaze. Taking his eyes off his dragon and their charges (hopefully they can manage not to drown in these few moments), he makes short work of the space between himself and the slip of a girl, placing his thick hands on her shoulders to spin her 'round and step up behind her, though not touching save for a lingering hand on her shoulder, the other pointing over her shoulder skyward. "Use your eyes, girl. Taeliyth seeks a mate." And all those bronze and browns are winging away from the pens after her glittering self up into the blue, blue sky. "And when all but one of those males lose, their riders will be looking for something to sate their need. Drink or a dip in the lake-" the one right behind them, "-if you're lucky. If you don't feel like taking a roll in the hay or on the stone or wherever, you'd do well to sequester yourself with the rest that have sense." Catling does look up, and her eyes grow wide and round, and her mouth opens in a soft O of wonder. "It's so.... oohhh... so wonderful," she breathes, his warnings quite lost in the raw power of the sight. She is utterly still for a few moments, then blinks and looks over at the brown. "And your own dragon.... oh. Poor thing." She flushes. Oh. I... I don't know any of the safe hiding places anyway, sir." She looks flustered, half conflicted. Kh'tyr's eyes narrow again as he looks down at the girl, lifting his hand free of her shoulder but not stepping back. "Don't pity him. He's an asshole." The dragon. Dragons can be assholes. Mograith hisses from his position in the water as if to prove the point and the little dragons titter in response. "He's more mad that I'm making him stay in the water lest the little ones get too adventurous." The assistant weyrlingmaster considers the girl and then sighs, "Stay here. With me and the weyrlings. They," he lifts his voice to make sure they can hear, "are forbidden from tasting that kind of fruit until their dragons are older," and some of the teenage boys grumble accordingly. "And we are on duty," which seems to matter. "You'll be safe here, if safety is what you want." Then, with a little more gentility as he steps back from Catling, he asks, "First time?" nodding toward the dragons in the air. "First time for everything. I just Turned fifteen a sevenday .... ish.... ago, and I just got here a couple of days ago." Catling inclines her head. "Is.... erm. Is it hard on you to not be...." She points to the sky. "And is there anything I can do to help? I mean, everyone's been so wonderful to me..." She looks down, flustered again. "And I feel badly for both of you. I've had to babysit when I wanted to do other things. Please... if I can help--" "Fifteen, sweet Faranth." Kh'tyr's hand is up and scrubbing over his face before gesturing her past him and a little more toward the weyrlings as if he might corral them all as one herd of ovine to watch and protect. "First," he holds up a finger, "Stop saying things like that. I'm feeling that," he gestures skyward, "and begging to help is-- not helpful. Make me feel like a dirty old man." He might well be that anyway, but he's on duty now. "I've been a rider for more than half my life. It's not the first flight I've managed to keep him from, but a lack of vigilance would be inadvisable," he explains, clipped. "The weyrlings are learning to manage their lifemates, so all I've got for you to do is stand here and talk to me and stay safe. Tell me about where you come from." That ought to be sufficiently distracting. "And your name." That too. "You don't smell dirty," Catling says, turning her head to really look at the man. "Don't look dirty either. Just rumpled." She rubs at the back of her nexk, then frowns and pulls the pins from her hair, letting the mass of it tumble down. Stray bits of hay fall from it. "Oh, that's better. Hay was baking my scalp itch." She sighs. "My name's Catling, and I was born here, but I don't remember it. My father took me when I was three. I don't remember any of it. He was a farmer. Ovines and grain..... mostly." She sighs. "And then he got married. TO my stepmother. And she sent me away two.... ish.... sevendays ago. My father.... he died in the plague. And so did her unborn baby. I carried a sick child home to a neighbor. Got the plague. Brought it.... it home." Her voice cracks. "No compliments," Kh'tyr half growls, as if those qualify. "Best if we don't talk about me, at all," he suggests-slash-orders. "Catling," the repeat of her name is barely more than a grunt, but he's silent for the rest of her tale and then he pinches his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again, "Lot of people got the plague. Lot of people brought it without knowing. Lot of people died. Doesn't make your loss less but don't blame yourself for what you can't have known." He reaches out a hand to her shoulder again, patting it awkwardly. There there. "You lost someone too. I'm sorry for that." Catling reaches up to pat his hand, and then she clasps her own around it. "I miss him. He's.... well. Gone. Only one who ever cared about me." She frowns slightly. "But... at the same time.... he didn't make Druala be any nicer to me. He loved me like people love their favorite canines or runnerbeasts." She shrugs. "But. That's what was. I don't want to be a blubbering baby about it. Is what it was." She motions to the buckets. "This is what is." Then she looks up to the sky. "Who knows what will be." Kh'tyr's eyes go to those joined hands and linger. Then slowly he removes his hand, possibly seeming as if he might think he needs to wash it, despite the fact that Catling is a perfectly nice young woman. "Sometimes fathers can't be what their children need them to be. Sometimes, fathers are failures. Take the good and remember it. Cherish it. For their humanity, their fallibility, forgive them." He recommends in too somber tones. "Anyway, you're here now. Here's a good place to be. There'll be eggs soon and they'll be wanting bodies for the barracks soon enough." Such a nice way of putting it. "You think on that. A dragon doesn't love like a canine. Of course, some of them are assholes," he warns that again, glancing back to Mograith. "And you love him all the same, don't you?" Catling draws her hand back, looking over at the dragon. "What's his name?" And then she blinks, whirling to look at Kh'tyr. "Bodies for the barracks?" She looks up at the sky again. "I suppose there will be more work with more weyrlings, linens to wash, floors to sweep...." She frowns, then looks thoughtfully at the dragon again. "Love," Kh'tyr repeats the word as if surprised. He looks to the pale brown with his angular build; the dragon looks, balefully, back. He looks back to Catling, "No, I wouldn't say I love him. Do you love the pebble in your shoe? The pain in your backside? The headache that never leaves?" Clearly, they have a healthy relationship. He flicks a hand toward the dragon, "Mograith." Then he explains, "Bodies for the candidate barracks. They had to borrow candidates from Monaco for this lot," fingers flick toward the small group of weyrlings. "The Weyrleader stressed the involvement of a dragon in Search, but who knows, there might be one that likes you for it. You're the right age, anyway. Though that limp..." The one that Mograith must have noticed when the girl approached, "Is that a permanent defect?" "Me, a candidate? Me, Impress?" Catling blinks, then laughs softly, almost incredulously. "I...." She pauses, then looks down at her feet. "The limp? No. I.... walked here from my father's cothold. The farm.... is between Gar and Fort. A bit of a way." She shakes back her mane of hair. "And the boots are too small." She shrugs. "And had pebbles in them. But... I can't imagine that any dragon would want me." "Could be," Kh'tyr has for the first, adding, "dragons want odd things. I've seen enough weyrlings to know that as a truth. One might even want a girl like you. Think on it. Dragons change everything. Not always for the better." He's a cheery sort, obviously. He looks down to her feet. "You should see one of the stores assistants. They could likely help you to better boots. Not now. The stores are probably locked lest someone want to make use of one of the caverns for something other than requisitioning supplies. And some people don't have the self control they ought. Gold flights are an excuse for all manner of torrid behavior." "What sort of torrid behavior. Druala said people did unnatural things here in the Weyr, and the Weyrleader seemed amused by that... sort of. But... I'm not sure what he means by that. Druala made certain I was raised a proper Holder lass." She looks around, and her face flushes. "I don't think I want to be a proper Holder lass." "Sweet Faranth," Kh'tyr swears, rubbing that hand across his face again. A glance toward the weyrling, then one back to Catling. "This is my punishment, isn't it. Did you arrange this?" It's a question to the brown who simply makes an amused snort. If only he could plan such tortures and so timely, too. The assistant looks to the teenager, "The Weyrleader would be amused by that." And leave him to explain, thanks N'rov. "Sex. I mean sex. People have a lot of sex when there's a flight. The lust gets around. Clouds the head. Booze does more and natural inclinations take care of the rest." He makes a dismissive gesture. "Your step-mother was probably referring to men lying with men and women with women and probably oral sex, too," if he's going to shock Catling, he might as well get it all over with at once like removing a sticky poultice. "Holders have a way of thinking anything but a man grunting over a woman to seed her with his child is 'unnatural' and they're wrong." His arms fold across his chest. "You can, I'm sure, go find a boy-- or girl-- your own age to find out about all the unnatural things you can do in a Weyr, particularly now, though I'd not recommend flight lust as a reason to acquaint yourself with the wild ways of the Weyr." "I'm people, you're people. We're not having sex. I haven't seen anyone having sex." Catling frowns. "Men with men and women with women? Where do they put the.... parts? And... oral sex? So.... so we're having oral sex right now, then? And.... am I old enough to be allowed to have sex? I mean, other than the oral part." There's some rapid blinking at Catling. There's a look toward the weyrlings and then his dragon. He might be dreaming this, mightn't he? He glances down: pants check. Yep, still on. Then back to the girl. "I'm an adult people with responsibilities, you're a teenage people without weyrlings to take care of, and in any case, those kinds of people are incompatible for having sex," so sayeth Kh'tyr whose arms stay firmly across his chest. It's probably only because he's given so many flights lectures in his life that his head doesn't explode in the face of these kinds of questions. "Oral sex means using your mouth on 'the parts'." Then, "Men put their parts in the only holes available to them," pause, "Think about it." Then, "Women get more creative." The fingers on one hand wiggle without moving his arm off the other off his chest. That kind of pose will protect him from this teenager, won't it? "Some Holders marry young," he shrugs, "other than that, it's generally a personal choice. Or your parents' if you're a holder with a betrothal." "Oh. I thought... that it meant you talked about it." Catling smiles shyly, flushing still more. "I... erm. Sorry. Druala didn't think it appropriate for me to know. She said my husband would teach me. She had.... someone she was trying to talk my father into betrothing me to. He was....." She winces. "Fifty, fat, and bald." She shudders. "I keep wondering if she'll send him after me. He has a bigger cothold." She looks away. "Fifty. And fat and bald and.... so old." She rubs her hands over her dress. She looks up at him again. "I'm sorry. I'm not your problem unless I become a candidate. I'm driving you mad, aren't I?" Kh'tyr's expression is impassive. "Well, the good news is that your chances of becoming someone's husband-- fat, bald, old or otherwise-- has drastically dropped. Far more weyrmatings than marriages in a Weyr. Now that you're here, no one can make you leave but by your own consent. Anyone tries and you shout and see that you're taken to the Headwoman. She'll sort them." There's a certainty in the way he says that. "If you were a problem, I'd not have invited you to stay," he makes a gesture to encompass the area with the weyrlings. "Your ignorance is, however, fairly astounding. Holders." What are you going to do with them? "You should count yourself lucky to be at the Weyr. You'll be a sight less ignorant soon enough." "As you said, my figure..." Catling shrugs. "Makes that prospect unlikely. Still.... it's nice to know that I won't be sent away if he comes. Or she does." She shrugs her shoulders. "My stepmother believed... or wanted me to believe that sex is for breeding... and for the man. Sometimes I wonder.... well." She lifts her head. "Are they still at it, up there?" "Wrong and wrong," Kh'tyr has no more problem insulting the stepmother's sense of the world here and now than he would if she were here and now. His eyes flick upward. "Yep." It's a single syllable that tightens his lip. "Mograith says it looks to be a long flight, not that we need it to be. Would be better if they wrapped it up quick and had a small clutch." There's some worry in his expression for that. "You probably have time to get back to your dorm and get under your covers. Really, if you're concerned about your figure deterring anyone, you haven't met enough teenage boys." He rolls his eyes a little. "If you really wonder, you can go find one of them in the caverns right now and I'm sure he'll show you what little he knows." Teenagers. Another eyeroll is necessary there. "What's it for, then?" Catling looks almost astounded. "She said it was my duty to please who I was betrothed to." Her eyes glint. "She said that was the duty of all females. And then I told her that wasn't what the Harpers taught, with the ballads of Moreta's Ride and Lessa's Ride." She shakes her head. "Black, blacker, blackest.... is it really? That was the last time I got sent for instruction. It's too bad, too." She shakes herself again. "I'm babbling on, and I don't know why. Right now I feel like maybe I could fly myself." She laughs, then looks down apologetically. "Maybe I'm helping leep your mind off other things?" She turns her head to look at the weyrlings thoughtfully. Kh'tyr gives a long suffering sigh as he looks at the babbling girl. When she's quite done, he enunciates carefully, "For mutual pleasure. Or just your own if you're selfish about it. Babies, too, if that's one of the things you're going for, but the healers have some teas that most times prevent it. You really ought to sit with a healer and make sure you have all the facts. They have diagrams and things," he makes a little gesture. Surely it would be much clearer. Your stepmother sounds like an insufferable cunt that ought to be dropped between," and he doesn't even know her, "Find new role models. Make new friends." He suggests, though his tone isn't unkind. "I imagine Weyrlingmaster Olivya would be able to explain to you everything you'd care to know about sex." And this recommendation is no doubt payback for her having this afternoon off. "Would she? I'll have to ask her, then," Catling says, all innocence. "Though she seemed awfully busy and the Weyrleader took me to the headwoman instead of her. Though they were in the garden toge-- oh. I hope I didn't interrupt them having sex. She called him darling or something. Oh shells, I probably did...." The girl covers her face a moment. "So I should go talk to the weyrlingmistress, erm, master, and then to the healers, and only then, if I want, go find a boy and have sex." She runs it off like a checklist. "And do it before the eggs hatch. Because you're not letting *them* have sex, so I suppose that means they're not allowed." She nods. Well. At least things are laid out straightforwardly." "Tell her I sent you and I'm sure she'll make the time." Kh'tyr has a nice, politic (if broad) smile for that. He waves that off, "She calls everyone darling. It's one of her weird quirks." One. Of many, his tone implies. "You, stop listening," he points at the nearest weyrling leaning to eavesdrop before lowering his voice to say to Catling, "Can't have them thinking she's less than perfect. "That sounds about right. Take care not to get knocked up if you want to Stand. They don't let you if you are, though it's not expressly forbidden for candidates. Only women reap the consequences if it should happen." He notes the unfairness of life. "I won't tell," assures Catling. "And I won't let anyone know that you are nice, either." A beat, and then she adds, "Wait.... want to Stand? I don't have to be Searched?" She blinks; this is a novel concept. "And if I do anything, I'll make certain not to get with child. Be half as big as me anyway." "Well, it depends on what the Weyrleaders say. Technically," Kh'tyr eyes his knuckles briefly, "any member of the Weyr of eligible age can ask to Stand. It's their right as part of our community," or something, his hand adds that general dismissal with a flutter of fingers. "And even if a dragon asks you, it's your right to say no. So yes, you'd have to want to Stand one way or another." He looks to his charges. "I ought to go check on them. Why don't you find somewhere to sit near by til you see a bunch of men coming to drown their sorrows in the lake, then stay closer to us til they have and gone." The assistant does seem to think it's about time to get back to his duties. "You can talk to some of them, if you like, about what it's like to Impress." Lucky weyrlings. "But not sex. They're probably having a hard enough time with that rule already without your stirring any of it up," he gives her a stern look, perhaps just to make sure she knows he's not nice after all. |
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