Logs:Isolation
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| RL Date: 5 November, 2015 |
| Who: Ebeny, E'dre, Laurienth, Wroth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Things go downhill. Fast. |
| Where: Ancient Baths, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 12, Month 3, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: N'rov/Mentions, Casseny/Mentions, Elayne/Mentions, Eden/Mentions, Eryn/Mentions |
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| It's mid-morning in the baths and for the moment no one else seems to be in need of a scrub save for one brownrider. E'dre's in the deepest pool, hunkered to his chin as he tips his head back against a rolled towel that is serving as a pillow. He occasionally rubs at his shoulder, lifting it up and out of the water to try and stretch the taut muscles and nerves. Hematite's drills are long since over, leaving a handful of dragons to lounge near the bowl and watch with interest as another wing goes through its paces. Wroth is out there, storming and thoughtful, as he reaches towards Laurienth. Just a reach, a check-in, that his rider would never do. The Ancient baths are closer than the depths of the caverns, or perhaps it's just that Laurienth can pace alongside her rider for longer than she might before surrendering her again with this option selected or surrendered to, not that the green would admit that she is at all protective in her nearness to Ebeny. As the entryway to the baths is approached, she tips a look up, less in search of Wroth and more an assumption of his presence being somewhere closer than she may think, though only once the greenrider has crossed the threshold and left her behind in the outside world does she ask, « Where? » with only the colouring of her query with her sense of E'dre to make the distinction between brown and rider. For Ebeny, still sleepy from the lie-in she's insisted on this rest day, it's too late for that question, for she discovers the brownrider only a moment later. Wroth's answer does not come in time as E'dre's headtips up at the sound of someone approaching and his eyes settle on his weyrmate. The brown snorts, disdainful of these events, as he crackles with static. « She found him. » Clearly. And then: « Join me? We are laughing at some of these drills going on. » He's there, see? With another blue and green. E'dre doesn't move much more than he has to look at Ebeny, though he allows a tired smile to surface. "You wanted to get warmed up this morning too?" he asks, reaching out with his good arm to send ripples out into the pool. "It's nice and quiet at this time, though once more drills end I'm sure it'll become a more popular location." Laurienth continues to look towards the gloom of the cavern's entrance, though then she sighs out a low snort and abruptly turns away, padding only as far as is needed to clear the wall of the bowl when she unfurls her wings and launches herself off to join Wroth. Ebeny has no wings to carry her away, nor any blankets to cocoon herself in, as she's taken to doing of a night, and nothing to hide behind but a change of clothes and set of towels. For a moment, she stares at E'dre quite as if she doesn't know him at all, then drops her chin in a wordless nod. And yet: "...I can go if you'd prefer the quiet," are the words that slip from her mouth. A flash of something close to annoyance registers on E'dre's face as Ebeny's words spill out. "Why do you always do that to me? I want you to join me," he answers with a sigh he can't quite hold back. He returns to rubbing his shoulder, easing his neck to the left as he does so to try and continue to work the lingering tension out. "I was speaking to when large groups come splashing in. Or when the looks begin between two people who you know and you're sitting there holding them back." He looks at her then, lifting a brow up as a cocky-grin that fully erases his earlier flash of annoyance pushes forward. "We could make such looks now if we want." "I'm not... doing anything," Ebeny says slowly, struggling to find the answer she wants. "I'm giving you a choice. You've already had work to do today; I haven't." Unconsciously, she tilts her head in the opposite direction to that which he does, watching him through distant, yet focused eyes, and when she finally allows her attention to square on him, there's a flash of something that might have started out as an attempt to smile, yet all that surfaces is a twitch of apprehension. Moments pass, then she gives another nod and skirts the edge of the pool until she finds a spot that she likes in which to set her things down. She turns away as she undresses, though has to turn back to slide into the pool, which she does as quickly as she possibly can. "I'll have work to do when I'm done," E'dre adds with a shrug given by his good shoulder. "The pace of my work is always higher than yours when you haven't the weyrlings to tend." He watches Ebeny for a moment and then sensing she may want privacy, he turns away from where she's stationed herself and then begins to soap up his hair and body as a means of a distraction. He takes his time with this act, something he usually rushes, and then busies himself with dunking and rinsing. She's up to her chin in water only seconds after she's entered the pool, even her shoulders tucked as far beneath the surface as she can manage, only the ripples that cross the water threaten to make breathing a rather difficult affair if she sinks any lower, and so she's forced to lift her head and straighten a little as she leans back against the rock lining the pool. For a short while, Ebeny just keeps her eyes closed, though after a time she wearily blinks them open again and returns to watching her weyrmate without seeming to watch him at all. It takes her even longer, but soon she pushes away from the edge and slowly crosses the water to lay a gentle palm against the blade of his bad shoulder. Relief resonates within E'dre's tone as he tells Ebeny, "It's really been bothering me of late." That gentle palm on his shoulder loosens what remains of the stored tension in his body as the brownrider reaches a hand back to reach for her fingers. He's careful not to push physical contact, aware of the space between them that she may wish to maintain. "The healers have told me there isn't much they can do but give me numbweed. It's all scar tissue." He reaches up to finger-comb his hair with a sigh as he allows his eyes to close briefly. "How are you feeling?" he asks tentatively. "The cold won't help," Ebeny says quietly, carefully pressing her thumb in along a line where muscle meets bone. She pauses in her exploration when he reaches for her hand, and allows him to capture her fingers, save for her thumb, which she manipulates to apply more pressure along the same two or three inches of skin. "But the heat should." There's a long silence before she answers further, then the water ripples with the motion of what could be a shrug. "...Tired," she murmurs first. "Stupid," follows after, more easily. "...Mostly tired." E'dre inhales sharply between his teeth as her thumb finds the right places to apply pressure. "That's why I'm in here," he tells her through another intake of breath, "that hurts and feels good," he tells her, encouraging her not to stop as he lowers his hand back into the water and tilts his head down to fully allow her to work at his shoulder. "Stupid? I hadn't realized that could be a side-effect," the brownrider tries for a dry tease. "Is N'rov," he pauses, lifting his head briefly, "treating you right?" "It's an unfortunate side-effect of being me." Ebeny states that matter of fact, despite the quiet of voice. She lapses into silence again, perhaps stubbornly ignoring E'dre's enquiry, and sets both hands to working at his shoulder, not that she might be perceived to be terribly kind about it, not when she keeps applying enough pressure to get muscles to surrender and relax, to the point of pain and held there until she can manipulate it as she wants without any resistance. "...I haven't spoken to N'rov since I told him," she finally admits, even softer than before. E'dre doesn't answer either of her comments immediately, too focused on breathing through the various levels of pain induced by her hands against his shoulder. He is a willing patient otherwise, turning his neck in different directions to encourage her manipulation against his stubborn shoulder. He finally has enough and steps forward, pulling away from her hands to fully soak his shoulder again in the warmth offered by the waters. "Thank you," he tells her as he turns to face her, "I really needed that." He doesn't ask anything further of N'rov or the pregnancy, content to simply look at her and let the silence fall between them. Ebeny presses her lips together in a substitute for a nod, and though she spends a long moment staring at E'dre, there's only so long that she can blink steadily at him and remain so still, and so she turns to make a retreat back across the pool, where she resumes leaning as she was before, the waves of her hair beginning to fluff up as the steam gets to them. She stares down at the surface of the pool, then sneaks a quick look back up at her weyrmate, biting down on her bottom lip. "We have the place to ourselves and we're barely speaking," E'dre notes with a crooked smile. He lifts his hand out of the water to brush against his forehead and then up into his hair, sending it spiking in all directions. "I don't like it." He shifts and begins to move forward, intent on closing the distance between them - at least physically. He doesn't do more than settle near her, leaning back as she is, and continuing to allow the heat to work against his shoulder. Under the water, he reaches out to find her hand to hold. "Have you told Casseny? I haven't told the girls yet. I thought you'd want to do that. Have you thought about bri-," he shakes his head, cutting off that thought he so carelessly begun, "nevermind." "...I don't know how to talk to you right now," Ebeny confesses, her voice uneven around the edges. "...I don't really know how to talk to anyone." She lets him find her hand without flinching away and automatically twines her fingers with his. "She knows," is sighed out with no great feeling either way, for all that it is not an admittance of having told her herself. Perhaps it's mere assumption, given her daughter's profession or the simple fact of who she is. It's when he mentions their girls that she does flinch, right down to the involuntary tightening of her fingers. "I can't go Between anymore," she says flatly. "I can't go and see them. The healers say it's too dangerous, with my age." Not that she sounds all that fearful about it. "...They might never need to know." Their daughters, presumably. E'dre's fingers are there to take that tightening and he squeezes back more lightly in reassurance. "I'll go and get them. We can bring them home. You don't have the weyrlings anymore. But if you can't handle it, if it'll be too much for you," he shakes his head and looks away from Ebeny. "Maybe it would be good to have them home and serving as a distraction. I don't want this to be like it was for you with Elayne." He sighs then, moving as if he'd take his hand back from hers. "I don't want to do the wrong things that only isolate you further." Ebeny bites down on her lip so hard that she draws blood and doesn't even notice it until she has to sweep the droplets away with the dart of her tongue. "Y-You're putting this all on me," she insists, drawing her hand from his at the first sign that E'dre has any intention of moving away, her own space reclaimed by inching a little way along at the pool's edge. "This already is like it was with Elayne," she blurts out, lifting both hands to catch in her hair. "All of us trying to pretend that it's fine when it isn't. I don't think anyone could possibly do anything to isolate me further. You're not happy. I'm not stupid." Despite previous declarations. "Either tell me what you actually think or we're going to be stuck like this for the rest of our sharding lives!" "You won't believe anything I say," E'dre counters, watching her place that distance between them. "Every time I try and explain things to you, you tell me it isn't so. I've told you and I'll tell you again, this baby is ours. N'rov can have part of it, I don't care. He can have none of it. We're a family, Ebeny. No matter how complicated we get. I won't take away from the children because I need to claim parentage to the child. It can be mine no matter what. Who knows? Maybe N'rov will give me a son I wasn't going to have otherwise." He's too angry to stay in the pool and begins to head out in a rush of movement that leaves him cursing when he heaves too much on his shoulder. "I'm getting the girls," he declares, "I expect you to help me with them when my time doesn't allow. I'm tired of them not being home. That's what I want." "...That's right, run away," Ebeny mutters bitterly, her focus fixed on the rippling surface of the pool, rather than E'dre. She has to lap at her lip again while her hands curl into fists with nothing to strike out at. "You think that bringing them back to this is going to be good for them? Is what you want more important than their happiness?" Her demands are made hoarsely, the water continuing to prove to be an ineffective and unworthy opponent. With no other way of venting her frustration, she just gives in to it, something that Laurienth must be delighting in outside. "About me," she snaps, voice lifting. "Not the baby. What do you think of me?" she invites. If she could dredge up any more self-loathing, it'd be a miracle. "How can they be happy living with relatives and not their parents?" E'dre snaps back, turning furious eyes down at Ebeny as he stands there and places his fists on his hips. "I know that can be miserable. I don't care how much you trust your relatives or how much they seem to be adjusting well. Nothing supplements a parent's love." He storms off to grab a towel to wrap around his waist, feeling ridiculous enough arguing with her naked to break his tirade. He levels a furious look on her, cornered enough and tempered to react. "I think you're being an ass. Consistently. To me. The one person who would support you. Go ahead, Ben," he's sounding far too bitter and tantrum-y even to his own ears, "continue to drive me away. I know it's what you want." He hesitates for a moment, giving her an opportunity to respond and then he gathers his clothes and stomps out to change just outside the baths. There's no response; not now. Ebeny's response only becomes evident later, when, despite insistences that it's her weyr, half of its contents go missing. Half of the wardrobe's contents, half of the riding gear, all of Laurienth's things. The far viewer and other items from the shelves. The spare key for the Weyrlingmaster's office. Gone. All of the children's things are left behind, their favourite toys brought out of storage and sat on chairs and beds. That night, Laurienth lands on a high ledge... though she allows herself a single glance down and towards the mouth of home. |
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