Logs:In the Midst of Lemosian Chaos
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| RL Date: 11 March, 2015 |
| Who: Kyouri, N'rov |
| Involves: Fort Weyr, Benden Weyr, Lemos Hold |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lemos is thrown into chaos when Kyouri's Torith rises unexpectedly. |
| Where: Lemos Hold |
| When: Day 12, Month 3, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Storyteller: Rose/ST |
| It's a Fortian hatching, about nine turns ago where Kyouri is in the stands. And afterwards, at the hatching feast, she passes by and says some kind words to one of the new Impressees, a young man who has just Impressed a new bronze. Nothing complicated, just a "good luck" and an appraising look. He has enough complications, the new-made N'rov. He hadn't said Vhaeryth's name to begin with, had kept it to himself, but it spills out of him with every Boll-drawled word and the loping way he moves; those stars in his eyes aren't going anywhere. He's unabashed about it, too; she gets a quick grin in reply, maybe even thanks, but people just aren't registering. What does he need luck for? He has Vhaeryth. The two of them will visit Benden when their time comes; they don't linger, especially, not even later still when Vhaeryth's there for other reasons. Messages. Acquaintances. The odd green. The odd could-be-friend. Playing amused, grey-eyed escort to another, during another hatching altogether. She's nearly a decade his senior, could-be, but never quite. But she's cordial and kind, her voice a soft-spoken sort that seems to hide a far more playful nature. But he might catch her in her off hours, shooting the breeze with the guys, shedding her weyrwomanly demeanor and swearing like a sailor or at least drinking like one and playing cards fast and loose in those moments. When she hears of her death, a note is sent, among many he's surely received, expressing condolences. It's nothing above what polite etiquette would require of an acquaintance. But Torith likes him and speaks with him on occasion, delighting in his youth, his personality. She keeps touch and connects in a way Kyouri never aims to. It's no surprise leading up to the day of the actual flight she flirts and flounces and beckons. Those ways of catching her, none of them are unfamiliar when it comes to women (not now that he's well out of his Hold), but weyrwomen? He's pleased to see it, even pleased to see her in passing, guy to not-quite-guy instead of any covert or less-than-covert flirtation. Someone opens that note she sent, and the others. He's in no position to. Whether they were burned or kept... Eventually Vhaeryth's back to connecting, greyed at first with his rider but eased by Torith's sweet uncomplicated warmth, and he's metal-bright that winter's day at Lemos when he comes to her. Brighter, a honing mirror for her heat, when he kills for her. N'rov has to come with him; it's N'rov who doesn't realize, who has to make his excuses to the friend from back in fosterage, the syllables startled and swift off his tongue. He doesn't even know where she is. It's Vhaeryth who knows these things, who presses close and then away, who hunts and hungers and even teases, lest it all be accomplished too soon. The hunt is on. It happens almost as soon as Vhaeryth arrives, a non-sleeping Torith suddenly rising and leaping into the pens wretching a cry from Kyouri's throat. "STOP." It's one moment of lucidity from the gold's rider who spends the rest of the time being guided to a room by a headwoman, led through crowds of residents who don't seem to know what to do with themselves. Those unlucky enough to be caught outside are mesmerized by what happens above, even as their body's seek as Torith seeks. Those within? Many are like the bleating cattle outside, frightened but animalistic, seeking but completely afraid. There are Weyrbred among the Hold's residents, whether by choice or accident, and they have the presence of mind to break open a keg in the kitchens and distract and deaden the senses with liquor. It's a wrong kind of chaos, the kind that seems too fraught to actually be chaotic, and yet it is. N'rov doesn't get a headwoman, even; he has to thread his way through the chaos, deeper into it, into the storm's eye. Someone tells him, someone else tells him again when he misses a turn; another takes his elbow or elbows him, he'll never be able to say. She's not where they said she'd be, but in the next place, or the place after that, she is. There are only four of them, and Torith. This is no depopulated island, no young queen sent off with Weyrwoman-chosen maybe-mates. Beyond the five riders there are others, people who aren't used to this, people who have taken vows and people who mean to. People who didn't expect their desires to be upended... or revealed. The aftermath won't just be slain bloodstock, livestock, no-longer-live stock that's now mere meat. The aftermath, the emotional and human repercussions are not Benden's concern, nor Kyouri's, though it's later, after Torith is caught and they've coupled and lie there with torn clothes, spent, that she broaches the subject with, "Well, this is a pickle," unable to relax into the restful sleep so often following a flight's activities. She's wired, even as her dragon and his come to rest along the shores of an iced lake, not so far away. Rest. They get rest, cold as it is, Vhaeryth quite as pleased with Torith as she is with him; heat all but steams off that dark ruddy-bronze hide, his wings an easy sprawl behind him where they aren't along and over her. Vhaeryth's rider... slits open one gray eye. "You're awake," he observes of Kyouri, his voice deeper and that much more of a drawl. It's a long, appreciative moment before a deeply eloquent, "Fuck." Torith is absolutely oblivious to the damage her flight has caused, to a Hold that has given over to the exhaustive sleep the emotional and physical trials a dragon flight in their immediate skies has caused. She only knows that she's happy, relaxed finally, and at peace with her new mate. Her tail twines again with his, slipping sinuously and with a mind of its own, to lap over his and claim it, and her longer neck ducks to slide sensually along the bronze's neck up until the top of her head butts against his. "I am. Fuck," she repeats his expletive with the vowel elongated and, for a moment, curls into his side, breathing in his smell, her hands touching in intimate ways that weren't so foreign just moments prior but are different now. She's trying, but failing, to recapture some sense of irresponsibility and lack of caring. "Fuck. We should leave, before everyone else comes to their senses." Like thieves in the night. A correction, "You should leave." He breathes her in, Vhaeryth does Torith, much as her rider does his: her scent, different now, intermingled with his and more. It's only fair (not that Vhaeryth's much minded towards fairness) for her to claim him as he has her; he breathes in her pleasure and breathes out his, the better to have them intermingle too... right before he bumps her back. Dragons. His rider's hissed a breath; his hand reaches for, spreads across, the small of the other rider's back and then just beneath. Leaving might be a different temptation; he could read her subsequent words one way but instead, "'Abandon you.'" "You sound so chivalrous." These are not the kind, sparse words she's said to him over the turns. These are the slightly caustic, real words from a woman who has no reason to hide now. Not in this tiny room with a Hold of people outside who will regroup. "Holders won't know or differentiate. There's no reason to bring your name and your Weyr into this. Not now." Not yet. Kyouri pulls a sheet over her body, handing N'rov a pillow in lieu. "I wish I could sleep," is her muttered groan. "It'd be nice to just... sleep here, with you." "A rare occasion, I know." N'rov duly accepts the pillow from Kyouri; perhaps he's going to be this amenable about everything. Of course, then he goes and pokes the pillow (which, given his wry look at her, is not the same as what he'd had before). It's not so long after their dragons' flight. But if he really has to think... "Not like they aren't going to find out," he notes. "In the meantime," he gets up. Not without his own grumbled mutter, not quickly, not without stretching pleasantly worn muscles, but he gets up nonetheless. Obediently? He's scanning the little room, though seems to have missed his mislaid clothes. "Find out. Sure. But will they care later after I've made restitution. No." The distinction of personal failure is clear in her statement, and the longer she's not on her back, or on him for that matter, the more aware she becomes. Most of the vestiges of wanting, desperately, to sleep are shaken off. "It's my fault anyway. I should never have. I... How could I be so stupid." Kyouri draws that sheet around her, a brief glance for the pillow being thus poked, and a wry smile breaks her self-flagellation. "Try under the bed." Leaving restitution for now, "What happened, anyhow?" comes with a tap of his head and a slant-smile as though N'rov had missed most of it; he's unabashed about bending before her eyes to check beneath that bed, but comes up empty-handed. Of course, there's that boot he'd passed over last time, one of his good boots. He doesn't put it on. He pads, instead, over to the door and wedges it with a heel-kick into place. One doorstopper, done, but that boot's never going to be the same. Kyouri says, "Miscalculation," but her arched brow and the vague, unapologetic, smile says I just met you for real. You think I'm going to tell you anything real? "She was due. I just... miscalculated. I don't really know." The doorstopping boot is eyed, "Hey...! What the hell do you think you're doing?" 'Miscalculation' gets a crook of his brow, a distinct lack of argument; her exclamation, a glance over his shoulder and then a turn to lounge against the door. "Ensuring you can't be barged in on," N'rov steals her pronoun choices to say, pressing away from it to walk back. "Before you're ready," he adds, toeing clothing more or less in two appropriate directions along the way. "Unless you want to meet them in a sheet?" Would that be for real, too? Kyouri's hackles lower, the defensive bristles fading away as he speaks. "Right." Right. She gets up, the sheet around her and starts hunting, piecing together her riding leathers, finding her knot (missing a tassel). Clothes found, her modesty loses itself and the sheet falls as she shrugs into her under garments and her blouse, which is in no real state to be worn. But hey, there must be her jacket here somewhere. "Any other time, I'd wonder if you wanted a second round." Any other time, this would have been a much more pleasant post-flight affair. It's the second time she's said something like. N'rov glances back at her from fastening what remains of his shirt over an already-buckled belt. "Next time," he allows with dry humor, as though they're going to make quite the habit of terrorizing holds; maybe Ruatha or Keroon will follow. As it turns out, he doesn't have her jacket, but that tassel... before they depart, he stops rolling it consideringly in his hand and secures it to her shoulder as though girding her for battle. "Onward." |
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