Logs:Wingless
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| RL Date: 12 October, 2015 |
| Who: Telavi, Solith, Keysi, Neianth |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Two Savannah riders reflect on loss, and the losses to come. |
| Where: View to a Kill Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 23, Month 13, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: R'hin/Mentions, Bristia/Mentions, A'gon/Mentions, D'kan/Mentions, M'kris/Mentions, Oriane/Mentions |
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>---< View To A Kill Weyr, High Reaches Weyr >-------------------------------< It's a step up from the ledge and its heavy curtain into the elegant, dark-flecked weyr. In the depths of the cavern, a short spiral staircase rises even further, ending abruptly in an alcove that extends over the dragon couch; bright, colorful scarves adorn its iron railing like so much festive fringe. To one side of the balcony but on the main level, past the hooks that keep straps and stray gear contained above a small press for shoes, three more curved steps rise high enough to double as additional seating before they reach the archway to the inner weyr. (+detail inner weyr) Despite the dark elegance of most of the furnishings, the bones of the weyr are quirky, charming like the ledge-cluster outside: each room slightly smaller than average, their heights staggered, growing stuffy in the summer while in winter remaining cozy and warm no matter how cold it gets outside. There's been no reflection in Neianth's reflective mind these intense days following. His rider's moods so powerfully influencing the dragon that is so like herself. But ripples do reach, for perhaps the first time, to a mind that hadn't first sought out his own. Ripple after ripple on a surface that is not so serene, carrying sensations of vague request. His mind's mirror a vacant blackness that reflects little at all, disturbed only by the rings that pulse gently to Solith's mind. « Mine wishes to visit yours. I wish to visit. » (To Solith from Neianth) It doesn't disturb her, or at least, not negatively; « You are welcome, » Solith encourages from her little weyr, her littler ledge. « We are home. » And for the moment alone, though they have visited and been visited in these past days. It is even, unusually, quiet. Outside, the air is clear and crisp as the icicles that adorn the several little ledges like so many playful teeth. Inside, Solith is curled up in her wallow, so he has the choice of half-wallow half-walkway or else outside in the air; there is glowlight enough to see by, and even more past the tapestry. Neianth's shadowy wings beat awkwardly, though with some familiarity, in angled landing on Solith's unique ledge. His agility makes it nothing so difficult as much as requiring just a bit more effort. His talons scrape stone before there's gratitude that laces a few more ripples that soon smooth out to nothing but a flat surface, simply a sensation of being 'there'. Keysi drops from the straps, her usually energized and agile swing a lethargic one. "Telavi?" She announces herself, as unnecessary as it may or may not be. Neianth follows as far as the half-walkway. Rider's stormy grey eyes look across the weyr, a quick survey to find Tela, Keysi's arms folded tightly in theory against the cold but likely not only that. Solith reflects them from eyes wholly unlidded, entirely opalescent, the light here not too bright. Here is good; being there is too. "Coming!" Tela calls, half-muffled until she emerges, hands above her head as she finishes doing up her hair. "If you want, we can stay with him," Neianth, "or--" backlit, it took a moment. "Are you cold? You're cold. Come in." At least she can do something about that, if not the rest. The small brown settles, tail and wings tucking against himself to make him look even smaller. Here is good. Keysi's stride is deliberately slow, her gaze focused on the greenrider, studying her expression as much as actions. "It's snowing." She says instead of 'of course', though that's certainly little surprise given it's High Reaches. "Tela..." She tries to interrupt, but ends up following inside anyway. "Are you going out?" The question she chooses instead of the one she wants to ask is spoken uneasily. By the look of her, Telavi hasn't slept well, hasn't been sleeping, unless she's been sleeping too much; hers isn't the easy exuberance of a hostess the way she'd welcomed Keysi before. Her gaze, greener in the yellow glowlight, flits to Solith who's still quite a bit smaller than he, to the dragons making themselves less uncomfortable. Past the tapestry, Keysi's met with literal warmth, the fireplace stoked higher than she can really afford to keep. A glass sits next to a bottle on the cedar chest, which might look as though she's moved on from drinking from the bottle except for how the glass is clean; Tela's moving to the armoire to collect a second, looking over her shoulder at Keysi now. "Out? No?" Her sweater is a soft coral-pink, as though she'd deny winter that way too. "What?" Keysi spends too-long being quiet. There's no pretending or acting this time, there's just her, focused on a steadiness that's she's been terrible at keeping. "You've done your hair." She explains after a while, moving closer to the well-fed hearth, "I thought-" She stops. It doesn't matter. "What are we going to do?" She skips whatever else, and the question she'd come for is simply there. Glass clinks, a quiet unsteady tinkle, Tela's hand rising to touch her hair instead. "I just--" it doesn't matter, but it matters-- "I had to get it out of my way." It's her hair, how she copes. "I don't know. Let's drink some more." Cope that way, too. She takes the glass after all, closes the armoire's door so quietly nothing else shakes, takes it to the couches and the partly-worked embroidery she tosses off onto the bed instead. "What have you heard?" Keysi doesn't argue about drinking. She has no reservations against it now, but she also doesn't press, only following Telavi in that same lethargic manner. These days have been exhausting, and her level expression is not difficult at the moment to keep. "Only mumblings." The brownrider closes the distance to the couches, standing over a spot to stare at the fire as she speaks, and then sinks into it, "About the possibility of them.." She can't give further description to 'them', "Going back." "They did before," so painful in Tela's soft voice. Before. She doesn't press the glass into Keysi's hand literally, only sets it by the others and keeps moving, keeps moving while the brownrider sinks and sinks. She's gathering an afghan now, one that she brings to the fire and holds partway before the hearth. "I was just barely not a weyrling then. They just went." Silence, silence, silence until, "Would you go?" Keysi, delayed, reaches for the glass. Had she not seen it when it was in Tela's hand? She stares at the alcohol within it, stares as Tela speaks and then allows that silence to stretch. What words are there? "They, you. I belonged, Tela. I was happy. And they're going." It may not be a set thing yet, but she feels it is. Without him, why would they stay? "You just started teaching me. I thought I was doing okay. And now it doesn't matter." It doesn't matter, because that's easier to say. "I-" All that rambling, and she never made it to the difficult question Telavi had actually asked. "I can't. Reaches is what we were doing all that for." Tela's looking so pained, the firelight can see it even if Keysi only has the subtleties of the tilt of her shoulders and the way they compress, the tightening of her neck. Sick to her stomach even. "They couldn't... if M'kris were still, he'd never let them, would he? Tainted with the same brush. They'd have to stay." A little silence. "Oriane resigned, but would that really get rid of him? What if the Weyr Council kept him anyway?" Keysi can't look at Telavi anymore. Her pain too evident. Fingers curl tighter around the glass, though before she tries to manage an answer, she downs what she's been given with a grimace after. Would it help? "Would they?" Have to stay, she asks, uncertain and not trying to hide it. "They're loyal to.." She doesn't say his name, not right now. "But they're still of Monaco. What if he'd demand his riders back if he's.. kept? Would they want to stay?" Tela had known them longer, even if the short time she had seemed like so much longer. "Would you go?" "He couldn't, not when they were kicked out before," but the undertones of uncertainty are there in Tela's voice, without any real attempt to hide them from her wingmate. "K'del wouldn't make them go," she thinks. "If they could go back-- I, I won't. Not now." Not now. "It's pretty there, Keysi, but it's not like... if they leave, all their stories will too, all our pretend-people dying or leaving too, did you think of that? All those people." Keysi rotates her empty glass in her fingers. She's uneasy, the steadiness not faultering in her voice, but her inability to be still says more than enough. It becomes worse the more Telavi reveals of things she hadn't even considered, "...No." It's all she can manage, all that comes in the face of longer and longer stretches of silence. "What would we do." It's almost a beg, that repeat question. "if they leave us." It's no longer leaving the Weyr, but leaving them. "Maybe we should stay with them." With more difficulty, she finally looks up at the greenrider, "All those people protect so many secrets.. places.. things." She spreads her hands, a hopeless gesture. "They can't be lost." "Maybe, they would stay for them? But then if they're Monaco, should they be in our territory?" Telavi comes to Keysi then, with the afghan to wrap around her if she'll have it, fire-warmed and faintly fragrant with herbs and the ghosts of perfume. "We could keep ours up," she says. "We could help each other, regardless." Keysi falls into a serious, thought-filled quiet, leaning sideways to think. To consider. She's pulled back to the present at Telavi's approach, and she doesn't ward her or the offered warmth away. "Can we do it without a wing?" Is doubtful. "Can we do what we did with them?" The importance of it all. "Telavi," The brownrider strays from the struggle to ask something harder, "Were you there? At the Gather?" "Maybe not what we did, exactly, but something--" It might be a sign of Tela's sentiment that she sinks to the floor by Keysi's feet, only a quickly-borrowed couch cushion beneath her, when she hadn't even had the brownrider take off her boots. Backlit, she looks up, a slow shake of her head the questioning answer. Keysi shifts off the couch, foregoing a cushion, thumping to the floor beside Telavi. "I'll join you." Wherever that may be. Her steeled expression doesn't match the manner in which she draws the edge of the afgan to lay it over her wingmate too. Not touching quite, her reservation still in place. "I'm sorry." For her loss, for their loss. For something. For everything? It seems awkward somehow, misplaced and heavy. Tela's sideways glance holds a-- not smile, or an almost-smile, or the presentiment of one. "Watch out, I might lead you to weyrlings." So she won't have to decide more, not yet. But then there's that awkwardness and Tela, sensitive, turns that much more toward her wingmate. "Why now?" wonderingly. There's a grimace to that. Had Keysi forgotten about that? She must've. There were a lot of eggs on the sands. Two clutches worth. "I guess that's... a means to having.. time." To figure things out. She doesn't exactly spur much enthusiasm into it, however. The brownrider also too-often forgets Tela's observational skills, and she's quiet in consequence, lost in thought. She finds an answer eventually, "You knew him longer. All of them." Telavi's already slipped past, enthusiasm or no; she certainly doesn't elaborate on having time to not get to sleep. Grave green eyes consider Keysi in that lull, less focused on her wingmate's face and more drifting into the entirety until words bring her back. "There was a lot to know," she says finally. "I think we knew different pieces." Then, "They're not dead yet," but not with finality. "Aye." Keysi breathes her agreement, shifting her arms under the afghan to tuck it under her chin and rest her head. Her glass had been left behind when she joined the greenrider on the floor. "There were a lot of pieces. He seemed to be searching, I'm not sure even knew them all." The word 'dead' to accentuate her point is too final, and cutting, even if it's supposed to be somewhat reassuring. Tela bites her lip, quiet. Quiet even when she says, "Bristia..." only to have that too fade. "I want to ask things-- to remember-- stories, like when you met," but hearing herself, her eyes press shut in a wince. "Not now. Sometime. Now I want to collar her and demand she tell us everything." To make it all make sense. "Did they ever tell us everything?" Keysi answers, though her tone mildly drained, there's the slightest of twitch to the edge of her lips as if it's somehow in all the frustration it brings, a comforting memory. Because it was a normal. There's agreement to that desire to tell stories, to ask things, but since there's nothing beyond a nod, it's even moreso an agreement of 'not now'. Hushed, she continues, even if still stern by default. "If you ever want to talk, our weyr is open." For whenever those stories come. Telavi even laughs at that, somehow, hollow but there. It's muted in the hush. "Ours is too, you know," she says to Keysi then. Her eyes have widened, she's intent, she'd press it on the brownrider if she could. "I don't mean it like... you know when people graduate, clutchmates, 'oh, we'll stay in touch!' and of course you know yours, and even some of ours have but some moved, or died, and poker isn't the same without D'kan, but-- this is different, we're different, Keysi. I know it wasn't as long for you but you are right. It matters. You matter, we matter." Telavi stops her conjugating. "Remember. Okay? And," a tiny ghost of a smile, "you don't have to want to talk to find me either." "No more Bristia putting A'gon down in cards. And darts.." Keysi's fallen into as close to wistful as the stern girl may likely get, the twitch of her lips a little more evident for the slight grin it could be. It falters to the more seriousness again when Telavi presses her point. "I don't want to forget." About anything, "I didn't even get a good handle on my accents yet." She lays her head back on the couch she'd abandoned. Too much left undone. Her offer earns a soft grin though, as faint as Telavi's ghost of one. Just sitting, just being, seems just fine. "We can still work on those," Tela can assure that much, and settle in to watch-- and not watch-- the fire. To sit, and be. |
Comments
Alida (00:10, 14 October 2015 (PDT)) said...
Oh... oh crap. I just remembered... No more weekly darts between Glacier and Savannah. Whhaaauuugh! :(
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