Logs:Moving Forwards

From NorCon MUSH
Moving Forwards
« Are you not yet brave enough to let go? »
RL Date: 25 August, 2015
Who: Keysi, Neianth
Involves: High Reaches Weyr, Ista Weyr
Type: Vignette
What: Savannah taps Keysi, a celebration is held, and she finds all the doors laid open for her to walk through.
Where: Main Beach, Ista Weyr
When: Day 4, Month 8, Turn 38 (Interval 10)
Mentions: R'hin/Mentions, K'del/Mentions


Icon Keysi amused.jpg Icon Neianth ripples.jpg


>---< Main Beach, Ista Weyr(#444RJ) >----------------------------------------<

  The coastline of black sand stretches out in either direction, tropical   
  waters lapping ceaselessly against the subtle decline of the main beach   
  that rests at the base of the plateau cliff. To the northeast, water from 
  the upper pool cascades over the plateau's edge, its destination shrouded 
  in the lush fronts of the jungle's edge and a hint of blue-tinged mist.   
  The Sandbar, Ista's seaside tavern, stands to the south beside the long   
  branching structure of the docks.


Virtue of Growth: Courage

The night grows later and later until it can only be described as early. The stars show brilliantly and beautifully above, making the Istan beach bright as in daylight and the shadows more dramatic cast by the stark rise of the plateau and the invasion of jungle fronds reaching outwards to brush the black sands that glitter as much as the sky above.

The bonfire licks ever upwards with its hungry flames being endlessly fed by the Savannah wing. The laughter and shouts grow all the more wild and boisterous as the hours wind onwards. The general camaraderie is nigh tangible in the warm and clear night, exacerbated exponentially by wine, flasks, games and stories.

The night had started off as what could best be described as awkward, with reserved and embarrassed half-grins and mumbled refusal of drinks after Savannah had abruptly stolen her away. But her willpower was eventually swept wayward. Call it a weakening of resolve. Call it peer pressure. Call it loosening up a little. Whatever one would call it, it certainly ended better than it began. Eventually, riders begin to depart the tapping celebration. Keysi rises after enough had gone, her shadow dancing out in front of her as she walks unsteadily down the beach. Her face is flushed with color not caused by anger, her smile creases her face into something not so rigid, not so serious, not so plain.

The small brown dragon is close enough to the party that by the time he rises for her approach, Keysi reaches for and is steadied by his black-hewn forelimb. Neianth's crescent-touched face swings down to shove her shoulder, which doesn't help her tipsy stagger, but he's there to catch her. As he had been since he broke shell.

« You are happy. » The distortion of Neianth's ripples are minimal on the vast reflection of his mind's fresh water pools, giving more and more the sensation just how big of a dragon he is, if only on the inside. Sharp peaks of mountains rise ever higher beyond their mist-covered bases, threatening to touch the sky itself. His amusement is felt within the touch of brief choppy ripples cast over that imagery, giving that reminder that it is just that, a reflection. A mirage of something that's not really there. « Happy. » The first is a note of cautious observation that has waited throughout the evening to be expressed but with approval, followed by the more important, « And not angry about it. »

"Yeah." Keysi focuses down at her bare feet as they disappear partially into the soft black sands, more appreciative that Neianth picked that and not the fact she'd indulged in so much wine. Or, rather, wine at all after all the fuss she'd made, after all the resolutions she'd given so much weight and bearing to.

« But are you ready? » Mind a little fuzzy and potentially as giddy as the serious once-healer ever has been, Keysi pauses and Neianth does too. Clarity comes slowly, but it comes. Did his question matter? The time had come and gone. The tapping was done.

« He laughed when you called him sir. » Neianth reminds, searching her memories, pulling one after the other to the forefront steadily. Ripple after ripple. Each one kills the buzz just a little bit more until he's sobered her. « It won't be what you expect. But what you expect isn't what you need. And what you need isn't comfortable. »

"I could have gone anywhere. Avalanche maybe. Or Alpine with H'kon. Snowdrift-" The word fades, "Search and rescue was what I was supposed to do."

« Supposed to do. » Neianth echoes in a ripple that reflects back off an unseen border.

"Expected to do." She clarifies, though it's no better than her word choice of before. Isn't it what K'del wanted of her? Both girl and dragon begin to sink in unison until they're lying in the sands, Keysi reclined on a draconic limb, looking up at the infinite constellations above and the small brown curled 'round in a circle with her as its center. Medicine is not easy, but one could get lost in it. Lost in the studying, lost in the hours, lost in the detachment of faces from the signs and symptoms that make them little more than connecting lists with lines of texts from the bound hides. It left little for bedside manner, but nobody ever said she had much of that.

Ultimately, it was just another safety net. Just another comfort zone helping to create walls. The HealerHall served a purpose, but wasn't that in her yesterdays? There's a certain amount of pleasure she took out of her healership, certainly, but she'd gone so far that the lines of why she pursued it are grey at best. She doesn't know what she wants. That's uncomfortable in and of itself to realize. The only thing she knows in certainty, now, is that she wants more.

« Little fighter. » Is almost condescending in the way disappointed amusement colors the surface of his reflection; the mirror of her now that it is, « Are you not yet brave enough to let go? » The sensation of let go ripples back to the brownrider over and over again, but Neianth is not gentle. Those ripples sting. The brown's affection for her has never been sweet nor kind, but rather made of harsh realities and lessons from which they both thrive. It's the unforgivingly strict baritone of a master instructing a student, of the continuous revelations of hard truth. The alcohol in her keeps her shoulders from gaining the tension they would have, keeps her from having the full reflexive response of putting up her ever-ready guard- mental or physical.

There's a silence from the brown as he waits for her to uncoil, one that speaks so much more disapproval and disagreement than any projected word or sensation could ever deliver. They- all those who have tried to tell her the same thing all this time- had all provided her the tools to grow, provided the words of wisdom and of security to peel off her shell. She could choose to believe them, or not. She could continue to hamper herself as she'd done thus far. Or she could turn around and face her demons.

But that would require revealing weaknesses.

« Think how much you could accomplish, » Neianth follows her thoughts, pushing her as he always pushes her. Stepping over her limits as he always does, and finding more elasticity, more give tonight, than ever before, « if you just stop running. »




Comments

Squishy (20:02, 26 August 2015 (PDT)) said...

<3 This was amazing. I always love getting more insight into Keys

Alida (22:21, 26 August 2015 (PDT)) said...

I like seeing not only more about Keys, but about Neianth, as well. :)

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