Logs:The Quiver
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| RL Date: 17 March, 2015 |
| Who: R'hin, Torani, J'toran, J'sran |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr, Telgar Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: R'hin visits the worsening Torani at Telgar. |
| Where: Torani's weyr, Telgar Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 4, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
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| R'hin came, as he always did, unannounced, though this time with a bottle in hand. He could feel the pressure of Leiventh's nearness, a sensation he hadn't felt in Turns. Prinavi's dragon might be shielding the Telgar dragons from Torani's Yuraveth, but that protection didn't extend to foreign bronzes, and even the rock of Leiventh's normally stalwart mind quivered at the brush of Yuraveth's attention. Brace yourself. He wasn't sure which of them said it to the other -- maybe both. Torani's son J'toran sat in the outer room, his head in his hands. They'd met in passing over the turns, but didn't know each other well. It was the thunk of R'hin's placement of the bottle in front of him on the table that stirred the younger bronzerider, staring bleary and red-eyed up at the Reachian rider, drawing himself straight. "I'll find glasses," R'hin said, after the uncomfortable moment passed, striding towards a cabinet with a familiarity that, belatedly, he felt he should have obscured in some way from J'toran. In silence, R'hin returned, poured the dark, hefty liquid into both glasses, and they toasted and drank in silence. Two glasses of this passed before R'hin's eyes strayed to the bedchamber, and he pushed himself to a standing position. J'toran must have been watching, since he said heavily: "I'll save some for you," with a gesture towards the bottle, and an unvoiced you'll need it. R'hin nodded, tensing, bracing himself -- not helped by Leiventh's skittishness, an alien sensation in his mind -- went to see Torani. --- J'sran resembled his son, J'toran, and his presence at Torani's side represented a protective, watchful presence. R'hin fancied, when he first stepped in, that he saw the light of recognition in Torani's eyes. Maybe he'd been fooling himself, though, since her words were far from coherent. He held her hand, talked to her of the first time they met -- her not-by-chance meeting at Telgar Hold's gather, and the then-junior's frank assessment of the then-new Weyrleader of High Reaches as someone who surely wouldn't last. It had made him laugh, then, and it made him smile, now. J'sran frowned at him from the other side of the bed, and he stood, after a last squeeze of Torani's hand, and left. --- In the outer weyr, as promised, J'toran had a full glass waiting for him. They drank in silence for a time. "I'll let you know if..." J'toran paused, grimaced, and continued, "If anything changes." They clasped hands and parted. J'toran to join his father in standing watch over his mother, R'hin to depart, as far south as Leiventh could think of under the weight of Yuraveth's presence. Even the hot sun of the Southern continent couldn't burn away the anguish, the fear. Alcohol helped. --- The dragon hid it well, but four days later, R'hin could still sense the tiniest hint of that quiver in Leiventh's normally resolute thoughts. Leiventh pretended otherwise. And so, after copious amounts of alcohol, did R'hin. |
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