Logs:Wounds
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 16 December, 2015 |
| Who: Dahlia, N'rov |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dahlia and N'rov have common experiences and similar wounds. The conversation is deep and full of feelz. |
| Where: Weyrleader's Weyr, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 26, Month 7, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Piling up during the night, the clouds darken and thicken oppressively in the early part of the day. At first distant, thunder roams closer so that, before lunch, the rain and lightning arrive, coupled with a quick, directionless-seeming wind. Throughout the afternoon and evening, the storm continues, eventually petering into a light rain that lasts through the night. |
| Mentions: Aishani/Mentions, Ebeny/Mentions, Giarnon/Mentions, Mirinda/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions, R'oan/Mentions, Sherida/Mentions, Tavish/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Angst. Death/mourning triggers. Slightly backdated. |
  |
>---< Weyrleader's Weyr, Fort Weyr >-----------------------------------------< This weyr is a room of wonder and embellishment, with no worldly comfort gone amiss between its warm walls: clearly decorated by a prior occupant. The wallow is deep but unseen beneath a thick, plush fur-covered mattress that pools within it. The mattress is littered with pillows of every colour, fabric, and size. Above the wallow, the wall is a mosaic of mirrors, each one unlike another but all of them beautifully framed and staring in from the concave wall to reflect the soft glowlight opposite or the rare beam of bright sunlight sneaking in from the world beyond. On the other side of the room, beneath the sconces fixed into the stone wall, a cluster of furniture turns this dome into a sitting room, with luxurious blue and gold wing-back chairs softly buffeting an elegant gold and silver chaise longue. There are delicately carved side tables to subtly complement the richness found here as well. This space looks achingly plain in contrast to the weyr beyond, and appears to be used more as an office and storage than actual residence. A large, plain table with seating for six is situated in the centre of the room with easy access to both the bar as well as the hearth and klah pot. Deeper in the weyr is a large bed and a storage chest. At the far end of the room sits a small archway that snakes back into the bath, the room's shelves stocked well with clean towels and the typical accessories necessary for personal care. -----------------------------< Active Players >----------------------------- Dahlia F 18 5'9" sturdy, dk. brown hair, hazel eyes 6s N'rov M 32 6'1" lean, dk. brown hair, gray eyes 0s It's a great time to be looking for a secret hiding spot on Vhaeryth's ledge for whatever small object is hidden in Dahlia's hands. With light rain coming down, it's not a good time to be out and about and the Weyrleader isn't at home, so what are the chances he'll be coming from wherever he is right now? Dahlia's short hair and clothes are damp, no umbrella brought with her here, from the walk from one end of the weyrleaders' complex to the other. She's not invasive in her searching, but rather looking for somewhere that's in plain sight but not immediately apparent. It's a good thing the weyrleader isn't here because Dee is humming to herself as she looks. It's hardly a good habit of someone trespassing. He wasn't here, but now he is, taking the stairs from Zaisavyth's ledge and her access to working areas; while N'rov's characteristically quiet about it, his footfalls are no pitter-patter of rainbow showers. "What are you after now," he questions, amused despite the long day and the shadow along his jaw that isn't just stubble. "Nothing!" comes with the predictable abrupt turn and thrust of whatever it is back behind Dahlia's back. "I'm never after anything, Weyrleader," it's almost coquettish, except it's N'rov so it ends up more like innocent-not-innocent little sister. She takes in the stubble, the amusement and asks with a lift of her chin and look along her nose, "Long day?" N'rov eyes her, half-squinted, then crosses his eyes as though to look at his own nose before he shrugs; "No, this is just my costume to slow down," not 'fend off' apparently, "impertinent questioners. You can come in if you want." He's heading in, to the mirror-land that used to be N'muir's. "With that kind of warm invitation, how could I resist." Dee answers wryly, following the bronzerider inside. "I can't believe you still have these mirrors. It's so--" She doesn't finish, but her tone suggest something 'not good.' "Do we need to talk work tonight?" She asks, as if perhaps he sought her out here, on his ledge. Dahlia is nothing if not attentive to the needs of the day. "Bijedth, yes," where N'rov could as easily have said 'N'muir.' "You should have seen it with all his glittering straps hanging about." Instead it's Vhaeryth's, dark and well-tooled. The weyrleader's shedding the most obvious sign of his trade, that coat with that knot, en route to the food shaft; before he goes entirely off-duty, though, "That depends. Do you have any new news? Has Tavish developed too much dandruff with his new locale? The Conclave wouldn't like that, you know." Dahlia says nothing and even her expression doesn't react to the first. To the rest, she purses her lips and comes to a stop along some section of wall that makes a good leaning point. "If you want news about Tavish, you'll have to ask Malachite." She's not mad, exactly. Surely, she sees the political merits of doing things as they've done them, but this has been her pet project. "Ruatha, on the other hand," she gives him after a beat, dangling it. Let him reach; they're almost off duty. "And here I thought they talked to you, too," N'rov says easily. There's no immediate grab; rather, he shouts down for food, light, for two. Straightening, turning back, he prompts: "Ruatha." "I think the wingleader is intelligent enough to not want to tempt me into indiscretion." Dahlia answers ruefully. "Taeliyth is not as inconspicuous as Vhaeryth, especially with as frequently as we've been seen there. "Ruatha's steward tells me that they've had three prospective heirs arrive within the last day and that word has come of more coming in the next seven. Apparently Giarnon's remaining nephews, nieces and cousins have decided to 'help' with the restoration efforts. It seems that the claim there might not be as clear cut as some would hope." That's the problem when all the obvious heirs die, really. "He snorts at the mere thought of 'inconspicuous,' even relatively," N'rov will have her know; for that, he probably gets another. Though, "Three. Impressive. I can only imagine the gambling has started. Still, there's something to be said for 'may the best man win,' or at least the most leveraging man, over the one that popped out first." "Taeliyth snorts at his snorting," Dahlia counters breezily, pushing off the wall to (with her hands still behind her though probably empty now), meander around the room to look things over. "So have you not made it your own because you share his taste? Or because you haven't had time? Or have they not been foisting off the best furniture from the weyrs of the dead on you?" There's a little something bitter in her saying of that, but she doesn't linger on it. At least she keeps her hands to herself in the exploration. "If you want to work more tonight, you could probably corner running the pool on the Weyr's betting, not that it's ever as lucrative as where it matters. We're all just spectators to the play of politics." Maybe she read that somewhere. If Vhaeryth snorts at her snorting at his snorting at his rider, N'rov spares both of them the continuation; "It hasn't been important," he says instead. "Maybe I should go steal your furniture. Save you, save the world." His furniture is more or less all still visible, just not the chaise. "But yeah, no, I'm not going to run the pool. Speaking of not having time. Where'd you get that 'spectators to the play' line?" "If you do, I'll tattle to your favorite aunties and let them bend your ear," Dahlia threatens elegantly. "I finally got things I like, even if I don't like how they became mine." She looks at N'rov, oddly, a moment and then says quietly, "There's a weyr I have to go clean out. I've been putting it off." Then there's a little roll of her shoulders, "It only makes sense, doesn't it? Our hatchings are exciting dramas for the Holdbred. The dreams of dragons and courageous acts and ends worth singing about." She makes a little gesture to the whole thing in the air, a whole thing she surely does not buy into herself. "That would be difficult," N'rov says, his voice scraped rough in that moment. He's got a short nod for that weyr, gray eyes to hazel that's explanation right there; for those dreams, those dramas, he's got nothing. The food clatters up. Dahlia doesn't swear. It isn't the moment. Instead, she moves to the bronzerider and aims to put comforting hands, one each on his nearest forearm and shoulder, standing rather at his side. "I'm sorry," it's quiet, but so sincere. She doesn't need to say that she wouldn't have said if she'd known. There's a gentle squeeze and then her hands are dropping away, the goldrider stepping back (without even trying to hug him). N'rov doesn't push her away, but muscle is tensed under her touch. It's after she's gone that far that he says without inflection, "Sherida, the youngest, they said she never did catch the plague. But she was sick in her lungs, and the healers were all busy or dead." "A lot of good people died. It doesn't make any single loss less tragic or less felt, if you don't numb yourself to the whole." Dahlia says it quietly, solemnly. "I-- read the list of names. Before bed. I'm sure my mindhealer would've had it taken from me if she could find it," see, it's a secret, N'rov, "but I need to remember them. All of them. Even the ones I didn't know." "Dee." N'rov looks at her, and his hands move, so he puts them to work: ladling out the brothy soup, the light dumplings, without care for the garnish some cook might have hoped he and his guest would like. Finally, "I heard about R'oan." Not just about R'oan. Dahlia sort of ignores him. Not rudely, exactly, but she turns away from him and laces her fingers into one another and then breaks them and rejoins them again as she says, "It's really doesn't take long. Under three minutes if I don't cry." Nevermind that this is Dee and she probably always cries. "It's important to remember them," she says this quieter still, hollowly, as if it's an idea that can't touch the pain deep within. "I have to clean out R'oan's weyr." She amends her earlier statement, perhaps saying his name for the first time since-- N'rov exhales, a puff of his breath that is not calling her on the crying. "It's not like we'll forget," he tells her. "Not even when we finally wake up and it's not, quite, like it was." "We're already forgetting." Dahlia says it, means it, and yet her tone is devoid of feeling. "The memorial should be at the bowl falls. It's peaceful there and in just the right place. Not too in the way and not so far off the beaten path." It's a pair of moments later that she says, "How did you do it? With Aishani's place?" "Set in stone." N'rov could be quoting, or not. The broth is getting cold, or rather lukewarm, closer and closer to the temperature of the cavern that summer isn't quite reaching. When she speaks, his jaw tightens, and N'rov looks toward her and not away. Nor does he reply. Not for a beat, and not for another. He says, finally, "Most of her things were rightly that Weyr's, in that weyr, of course." Now, Dahlia-the-touch-addict doesn't try. She doesn't even go near him. The curl of her arms around her middle and the growing whiteness in the fingers that grip either elbow aren't a sign of comfort, but rather the opposite. Each alone in their personal version of hell, their own losses, their own grief. Tears well but don't yet escape and she doesn't look at him. "R'oan's, too. Everything, really. No family." No one to claim what might actually be his. No one but her, and isn't she synonymous with 'the Weyr' as any of them? "I saw, later, a woman wearing her shirt. A shirt that was hers." N'rov doesn't move. His knuckles don't even whiten. "Transience is a hard truth that no one likes to face." Dahlia might be murmuring to herself. Suddenly, Taeliyth's presence is near Vhaeryth's, tense. "Reminders are hard. Reminders are always hard." "Would you rather forget?" N'rov doesn't weight any of the words, not one. Vhaeryth... attends. "Sometimes. Sometimes it's nice to think things go on forever." Dahlia's voice is pained. "It makes the truth hurt more, if you pretend." "Afterward," N'rov supposes. "Do they talk about him to you?" "The mindhealer tries; the gossips have but learned quickly." Dahlia's tone turns almost wry as she adds, "Acting out of known character is terrifying." Imagine, a mean Dahlia. "To whom?" N'rov double-checks with a lift of brow. "Or does it feel... comfortable. Or exciting. Or--" "The gossips. Exciting, too, I imagine. New gossip. 'Don't ask Dahlia--'" Dahlia's tone does manage to get all the way to wry now. "How do you like being terrifying?" N'rov has some of his own wryness, asking Dahlia. "It's a useful tool." Dahlia tells him, but more soberly. "Like being numb. The mindhealer doesn't think so, but the mindhealer has never been a weyrwoman." Evidently, Dahlia is only willing to listen to a point. "Nor will he." N'rov, dry. He sits down, and he eats; if the broth isn't ready for him anymore, and even if he's not ready for it, it's still fuel. The garnish has gotten sodden, and sunk. "It's a tool that likes to stick to your hand, that likes to be carried around." "That makes it dangerous, not less useful." Dahlia's arms finally drop and she moves to join him. Her movements are wooden. There's no joy in eating, not for her, and especially not now. "I can't use it, when I go to his home." She doesn't say it wouldn't be right, but... His chuckle doesn't carry humor. He keeps eating. Until, "You don't have to deal with all of it." Unless she thinks she does. "Want to." Dahlia answers quietly. "It's my last chance." She doesn't look at N'rov. "'Last chance'?" N'rov asks. "To do something for him," Dahlia's explanation comes after a moment of picking words. "To demonstrate my love. Even if he'll never see it." She swallows hard, but not the broth. That comes next, mechanically. "Ah." N'rov eyes her consideringly. A dumpling or two later, "You do like to help, yourself, don't you. Shani... would have looked at me, if I did more than attend to the cream of the crop," and said more than that, but that's where he leaves it. "I do. Spending time with people, doing things for them, that's... I don't know how to express my love differently, more powerfully." There's something raw in the way she says that. Perhaps that's why Dahlia's little surprises for N'rov are always less about the simplicity of the thing itself than that she takes times to hide it in a new place every time. "I think R'oan wouldn't actually appreciate it," Dahlia adds a moment later, laughing a little, but then there's suddenly tears welling again and she's setting down her spoon and swallowing hard. This look is different, obscure; then N'rov rubs his jaw and has more soup. Then she's crying and he's rising, getting a napkin. Another napkin. "You two kept it pretty quiet," he says gruffly. "It's nothing compared to what you and Shani had," Dahlia murmurs, apparently aware of that much. "It was complicated, but I loved him. I loved him for not wanting me to be what I am, with me, when I needed someone to hate my knot with me. I loved him for making a haven for me, even if it only existed when we two were there," the repetition of here earlier observation, here in context, is almost wry, "pretending things go on forever. He was what I needed then. He wasn't perfect, but he was honest about his imperfection," unlike some secret keepers she doesn't now mention. "In our dying days, we dreamed a future, N'rov." The tears finally spill and she looks at him through them. "Then I didn't die." And she feels so guilty for that. It's guilt he can read; it's guilt that clenches most visibly at his jaw. N'rov says, carefully, "You sound like you think you should have." There's a war here, within, on that point. "It feels disloyal to him, even if he wanted it. For me to survive. Really, it should be him feeling sad and bad that he's not here with me. But I don't think you can feel in death, in Between." She probably hopes not. Dahlia reaches for N'rov's another napkin to use it to pat dry her cheeks. "I don't get to throw away my life when I still have something to offer the world. I couldn't ever have left Taeliyth anyway." Wouldn't, but so much so to her core that it's become couldn't. "See, that's why you got a low ledge: so you can't throw yourself off effectively unless you land really wrong," N'rov tells her. "It's good that you and Taeliyth are still around. Not saying he wouldn't want you weeping and wailing for him, but it looks like you've done that. How many times is this, now, that you've had to reimagine your future?" "Many." So many. "N'rov," Dahlia steels herself. Her next words warrant steeling. "Mirinda isn't forever." N'rov looks at her, his gaze slate-gray; he rests his forearms on the edge of the table, spoon unmoving on the side of the dish. "What are you thinking?" "We." Dahlia corrects. "Go on." N'rov regards her. "Mirinda said she wants to get Fort back on its feet," it's carefully said because the topic is delicate, the trust in it, too, "but that after..." The Fortian weyrwoman contemplates the next, choosing to paraphrase, "I can have the knot. I believe her," whether she should or not. Dahlia looks levelly at N'rov, "I will be senior, N'rov." Not because she's power hungry, clearly. "Mirinda doesn't want the seniorship and I do." A breath is taken before the willing admission, "But I need her to train me, first. She wants to. When the time is right, we will decide how best to do that. I don't think we can afford to wait too long. If Zaisavyth clutches a gold, things become complicated inside two turns." An unknown third that can't be anticipated. She lets that very heavy admission sink in. N'rov's expression isn't too easy to read, but part of that is that there's so much there. He breathes a little more quickly, a little more deeply, but for the one that's held. Even that passes; his cheeks, not his ears, have darkened with color and his eyes are darker too. "If she does. Yes." Then, "Have you decided how you'll know when that time is right?" "No. I've learned so much already." There's a distinct pause before Dahlia says, quietly, "I like her, N'rov." She's looking at him intensely. "Whatever happens, we'll all have a say." Then, "But it may need to be before Zaisavyth rises again. If Vhaeryth didn't catch, a new Weyrleader could be--" Awful, "Problematic." "I like her too," N'rov says frankly, though in the moment (for the moment?) it bears a new, equivocal tinge. "I see." He's sitting straight; there's no slouch in him at all. "It's going back up in the air sooner or later." "Sooner or later," Dahlia agrees. "Dragons are unpredictable. We'll have more time if Zaisavyth doesn't clutch a gold. If Taeliyth waits to rise." Then Dahlia's abruptly pushing back her chair. "Maybe I shouldn't've said anything," it's tinged with regret. "One of you should have," is N'rov's dry refutation, brows drawn. "Or both." "We haven't-- It's not a conspiracy," Dahlia glowers at him, perhaps in play, but- "We've been busy doing the work that must be done. I didn't even believe her, for a long time." What's changed? Who can say. "But... I did tell you. Before there was Mirinda." He's not playing. N'rov does nod for working and again, less deeply but with that same acknowledgment, for not believing. "That the hope was that Taeliyth would rise soon." "That I would fight when I was well," Dahlia's shoulders straighten and when she looks at him, she's there: the picture of a Weyrwoman - young, certainly - but with an understanding of the weight that would lie on her shoulders and a will to bear it well. "Would you have me not?" It's a genuine question, but her eyes are weighing him. N'rov gives her like measure; "If you and Mirinda are of one mind," there's not quite a pause, "I can support it freely. Benefiting you both and Fort in the same note, how could I not?" He reaches for, and takes, a deliberate drink. "If matters were diffierent, given her work in good faith, it would be... more complicated. Regardless, I suspect Zaisavyth will be less sanguine," and here there's the slightest of tugs to his mouth. "Talk to her," Dahlia says without looking at him, without blinking, without even pausing to think. With that, she walks toward the ledge. Down goes the wine as up goes the man, without so much as a smash; N'rov's heading to catch her arm and swing her around, his long strides eating up stone. It probably say something that Dahlia doesn't expect to be caught; she looks genuinely surprised to find herself face to face with the bronzerider. She looks vulnerable in that first moment, then her chin tilts down and to the side, and her expression turns wary as though she were favoring an open wound or weakness, keeping it as much from whatever fight might be on her now. That's better. Until it isn't; then N'rov's skewing his head around, patiently, to try and catch (and keep) her gaze straight on. The guarded look continues some moments. It's not an easy thing to lower the defenses once they're brought to bear. Dahlia closes her eyes some moments and manages to smooth some of her ruffled feathers and so when she opens them again, she'll look at him straight on. She's offering him a shot to not take the sucker punch route. N'rov waits her out; his hand on her arm stays firm but not imprisoning, loosened but very present. He's looking at her straight back. "Dee," he says, his tone serious and willing her to understand. "I'm not running out on you." For the third time, tears well in Dahlia's eyes, but do not yet escape. "It feels like it." So N'rov reels her her in, the better to pat her back, to encourage her to cry on his shoulder. "Hey," he says. And a while later, "Tell me about it." Dahlia is a little stiff in his arms and no tears come, but by a while later, she's relaxed some. Quietly, "We're a team. All three of us. We all want the best for Fort. But you act like the best would be her, or this. But we can't be sure of this because dragons--" do what they want. 'Or this' gets a glance down, briefly perplexed. "'This,' what we have now,' N'rov supposes she means. "Look. We can't be sure of anything except you two," if they even can. "You've had the advantage of... how long have you known about this? What I'm saying is, this is brand new to me, it's the shell out of the blue. And about this 'the best would be her' thing," first he'll make sure she gets that much. "Yes," this, that they have now. "We talked about it the first time we met," Dahlia tells him, but stiffly. "I should have told you sooner. I didn't believe her. Sometimes I still don't. She probably didn't know you well enough to know if she could. If it were to get out..." Can he think of the implications for the Weyr? "It's hard for me, when I don't have your support. When it feels like your faith is placed somewhere else. You're-- my best-friend." She looks at him helplessly for that. "I've lost all the rest." Perhaps best-friend by default then, but surely he knows better. How can he not? "It won't get out. Not," N'rov has to say, though no less emphatically, "through me." He glances towards the ledge where Vhaeryth isn't, then back. "I think you're capable, you're learning, and doing right by Fort matters to you; Taeliyth is strong-minded and capable too. If you two work it out so you're Weyrwoman," presumably the human halves of the equation, "I already said I support that. It's not a who's-better who's-worse thing. We are in this together. What would, yes, have been complicated," he's eyeing her: is she ready for complicated? "Life is complications. Rare is the day when things are simple, especially for the likes of us." Leaders. The three of them, she must mean. "Even if it's complicated, I need to know you have my back, N'rov. I don't know anyone else who does, except Taeliyth." Dahlia's is a lonely life, it would seem. At least she sounds pained and not numbed when she says it. "Of course I have your back," N'rov says firmly. "This is not supplanting someone who came here in good faith." Not the way she's explained it. In 'trust but verify,' and his expression does suggest he believes she means it, the verifying can come later. "This is a deal." "It isn't," Dahlia doesn't have to think to agree. Because it isn't. But the way her look is impassive suggests that it isn't because it doesn't have to be. Dahlia might like to think herself better than that, but when the stakes are high, it's hard to say how she might behave if push came to shove. "Good." N'rov reads that look and he says, "No need to make it more complicated than it is." No need to draw boundaries, not today. He has her back, will have her back; it's just that much will depend on which way she shoves. "We'll pull together." Then, abruptly, gray eyes swing past her to something else as he straightens. "Ebeny's in labor." Time to go. The interruption is probably for the best. Dahlia's still stiff. Something doesn't sit right with her, but perhaps time and distance will soften whatever unhappy feeling she has now. "What?" is almost dumb, then "Oh! Go. Yes, go," of course he has to. And the suddenness of the departure snaps her into an honest hug and quick release. "Let us know if you need anything." Us, here, being herself and her dragon rather than the greater 'team.' "I'll think good thoughts." |
Leave A Comment