Difference between revisions of "Logs:Home is Where Something Is"

Sunset Across the Lake Ledge, Which is Vrianth's

Broad and flat, this large ledge could likely hold a bronze dragon and a visitor comfortably, if with little room to spare. Slanting slightly downward so that any rain may spill over the unsheltered outcropping, the bumpy ledge has smooth grooves that travel like wagon wheel tracks from where the weyr entrance begins to the very edge, paths worn smooth by turns of wind and running water.

Framing the weyr entrance, plus a smaller opening off to the side, are three retaining walls recently fashioned of smooth river rocks. About the right height for a tall man to sit comfortably atop and admire the ledge's sunset views, their smooth arcs contain the dirt and roots of the young apple and plum trees that are espaliered against the cliff. (+views)

Once upon a time, there was a dragon who had a ledge, and it was hers, hers, hers. It was a nice big ledge, too. She liked to sit on it. Pretty much all the time, that was wonderful. She could sun (when there was sun) in several different orientations. Sometimes, it even involved a sunset. She could have visitors whom she wanted to see, sometimes several of them. She could, and did, have her rider install decorations of both the rocky and floral varieties. She could even be oiled on the ledge, which is what is happening right now, and which is the best of many worlds because: oiling. Her ledge. All good, if one ignores the recent death in the family, which is very hard to ignore indeed, and which may be a reason why she's been getting as many oilings over the last couple of days as she has been. Which is to say: Pretty much all the time, it's wonderful here. But then, there are the other times.

Enter the villain, stage left. Wyaeth's blindside approach brings him fast around the inner wall of the bowl, a loud thump and a snapping fold of his wings to drop him abruptly on to-- his ledge, her ledge, the ledge. No sooner does the bronze light than the man slides down, slings the sack off his shoulder so it lands beside his feet, and utters the predictable; "Get out." Two days ago, he was a sentimental wreck; today, although he doesn't look like he's seen quite enough sleep and he still hasn't managed to rouse the energy it would take to shave himself, he's found enough of his alpha-male stride again that he doesn't even look at Leova, just expects that his word is law. Another bag, this one strap-clipped, comes loose immediately following those words, and Wyaeth contributes with a cheerful-seeming, « Warned ya. »

Sure he isn't a character actor? The invading bronze is greeted with a snaky stare, Vrianth's wings hissing out, though it turns out to be even less for the big dragon himself and more for the proprietary thumping of bags. And which also turns out to be none too good for her rider, who has to duck away from what could have been a thump on her head. The greenrider narrows her eyes against the late-afternoon light. Against them. And deliberately sets the lid atop the cask of oil, smooths a palm down the tension of Vrianth's neck (Vrianth, who is eyeing those bags as though they contained a nest of tunnelsnakes, each), and says plainly, "No." Vrianth: « Mine. » Mine-mine-mine-mine-/mine/.

« Think so? Guess we'll see about that, huh? » The third bag to hit the floor must comprise the entirety of N'thei's extensive wardrobe. Also, that's all Wyaeth's carrying, so it leaves N'thei to haul one onto his shoulder and advance a few steps across the ledge, perfectly willing to breeze right by Leova and Vrianth, neither of whom seem to bother him especially. "Either you're going to leave willingly, or I'm going to start chucking your shit." A glance catches her 'improvements,' and he adds, "Suggest the former."

« Guess so. » "Mortared rocks," Leova points out with a lift of her chin. Those improvements, at least. She's not asking to get onto those sands anymore. "Sorry. N'thei. Not your place. You left it." And seeing as he's lugging one of those bags (heavy bags?) she'll aim to stride steadily towards the cavern's mouth, the better to intercept. Should be Vrianth, really, except humans and edges of ledges don't go so well. And Vrianth's busy. Unattended bags? She's spinning sharp-faceted eyes at Wyaeth and staying where she is, for the moment, but if the man keeps walking... keeps leaving those other two bags unattended... /well/. She can move fast. And it mightn't take great aim to send them flying down below.

Wyaeth, who has spent enough time with N'thei to guess who would be held accountable for any actions of Vrianth, advises with perverse chivalry in his tone, « I wouldn't if I was you, sugar. »

Wyaeth, who has spent enough time with N'thei to guess who would be held accountable for any actions of Vrianth, advises with perverse chivalry in his tone, « I wouldn't if I was you, sugar. » Whether or not he'd move to stop her or enjoy his rider's suffering... "Now I'm coming back to it. Again-- you can either get out, or I can throw you out." The bag's not so heavy that it really slows him down, but it doesn't make an already blocky gait any more maneuverable, and he stops a sudden step short at Leova's interception. "End result's the same for me either way."

« He behaves, I won't need to. » Rangy as her sire, the younger dragon eases closer in slow prowling steps, though she stops just short. For now. And oh-so-casually lifts her wing to nose beneath it, quite as though she'd forgotten, which, not so much with the subtle, but there you have it. « Anything he'd miss? » Her rider, standing square, just some flex in the knees: "You'd have to. Throw me out. Made it /mine/, see."

Hah! He behaves... Wyaeth doesn't even have to rumble for his laugh to reverberate from his mind to Vrianth's. « Big damn if, idn'it. --Beats hell outta me. I don't pack, I just carry. » Simultaneously; "Good for you, made it yours. Problem is, it was mine first, and I want it back now." Some people express what they /want/ in terms of if-they-had-their-druthers. When N'thei says it, it's more like an absolute truth in the universe that he will get what he wants. The bag, hefted and lowered and hefted, is now lowered again so it folds to rest against his shin. "Do you believe," in even the smallest, farthest corner of her mind, "that you can win this dispute?"

"Should've saved it," Leova says plainly, tension working along the line of her jaw in the moments afterward like she'd say more, but doesn't. His lowering the back, his staying /put/, that's a help if only to keep it from getting worse. She can frame a deeper breath, then, control her voice: "Don't matter what I /believe/. Doing it anyway." And Vrianth? For the bronze's /just carry/, he gets a long look from alongside her wing, her angular muzzle half shadowed by its thin membrane, half not. « Thought you liked it up high... Wyaeth, » muses her gravelly thoughts, with just a hint of humor's spark here and there when they click just right. Behaving... well. /Think of the Star Stones instead/, come her wordless thoughts, images shifting in and out like a town of ghosts. The Star Stones. The Rim. Could be, some other bronze's up there, lording it over the place by now. Or about to be. Seeing as how he's not there, himself.

Ah, but Wyaeth's known loss too. He may be faster to forget, quicker to find his ease again, but two days of N'thei's melancholy and the memory of losing Teonath are still fresh enough that his jealousy is mere, powder but no spark. All flint's there in the man's eyes when he reaches as if to lay hands on Leova's upper arms, to impart the simple reality of his physical presence, no hurting but sometimes it's important to be tangible. "No, you're not."

Then surely he won't bridle if one of their wingmates, her clutchmate, has pushed off his ledge and is sweeping out over the Bowl in great, not-quite-placid circles. Certainly it might give Sevierth a better look at Iovniath, but there are also the Star Stones to be viewed. And her ledge, where they sit. And stand, her rider's mouth compressed, not budging. Leova should dodge, maybe, should run around, gather up her precious things, should aim to kick him in the shin the bag's not hiding if it comes to that. Instead: "Like I said. You'd have to." She swallows, keeps looking at him, like that could help her ignore the mass he's got on her, those hands if they've indeed closed around her arms. "/Lived/ here. Those walls there?" She nods that way. Back to the side there. Like it could make him look too. "Worked on them with, with I'daur. Months. All us, and the smiths and the farmers that looked at the drawings. Lugged in the stones, the soil, the /trees/."

"What a lovely story." The glimpse of bronze wings from the corner of his eye essays, from N'thei to Wyaeth, a reminder, a twitch at of his eyebrows at whatever words go between them. It resolves in a certain /settled/ quality to the bronze's posture, a resolute blind spot to Sevierth out there. High Reaches Weyr? That's somebody else's problem. /This/ weyr? Yeah, that's the matter at hand. "Do you want to hear mine? It ends with 'and the man went home.'" The hands fold around her arms, tighten, find pressure meant to move Leova to one side.

Back and forth Sevierth flies, this way, that way, around. No puppet, although he also isn't the brightest glow in the basket, still he's flown with Vrianth since they /could/ fly. Minus a few days, of course. His trajectory changes a breath after the big hands close, when Vrianth hisses, but a step later she stills and really, Oranyuth may have been designated Acting but Wyaeth's been in charge for longer. So. They wait. And Leova's already saying, her eyes narrowed as his hands clamp about wherhide and her arms inside them, as her hands knot to fists at her side, "So make another place your home. /Not/ this one. Not yours, anymore." It's hard work, trying to relax her arms, trying to keep her legs planted, to be dead weight that's tough to set aside.

Dead weight, heh. One hard, angry shake later, N'thei releases one of Leova's shoulder and drags her bodily by the other arm out of his way, toward the edge of the ledge, toward two dragons that absolutely would not allow him to dump her off the end of it, so at least that helps. "No. No, this is where I was when I knew how to live without her, and this is where I will figure it out again. Get out. Pack your trees before I rip them up. Collect your things before I do it for you. And get out." Shoving her, one drag, one push at a time toward Vrianth.

That shake sends Vrianth shuddering, /just/ poised on greater action. Now she's crouching low, back to hissing, enough that a smith could have dreams of harnessing her for power. The sacks are right there. WIthin reach, surely? And yet. And the pair of humans are getting closer. And yet. Sevierth's circling that much nearer. And... and Leova continues to resist, making him work for it, though she won't be able to outlast him this way: digging in her heels when she can, across the ruts that radiate out to the edge. Grabbing steps to the side designed to twist him or at least alter their path as long as she can reach the ground. Buying time. It's all she can do. Her eyes have gone white-ringed wide again, startled more for what he's saying than that he's actually doing this: what he said he would. "No. /Won't/ go, they'll /die/." And the one thing she has, worth more maybe than the rider's ring abandoned with boots and dirty socks, staring up at him still, "Satiet. Did she ever tell you, she loves you? Because she told me." Or maybe it will get her shoved off the ledge, after all.

« Leeeave off, » is Wyaeth's calming suggestion, not the command of a Weyrleader's bronze but the cool certainty of N'thei's dragon. If there was any real cause for alarm, any likelihood that someone would actually get hurt, he'd know first. Even now, even with her grasping both literally and verbally for some anchor, there's no real damage to Leova's person, though the last shove is one meant to quit her presence. He pushes her, he lets go of her, he tells her in a thick voice, "Do you think she needed to? Do you think I doubted it? I'm fighting with you over a fucking ledge, woman, because it's the only thing I can find to care about, and you're telling me this like it's news! Will you please. Just. Leave." Empty hands fall to his side and he stands there, staring at her, willing both of them to realize the lunacy of this situation.

« You will tell me. » Vrianth's tail is lashing for all that her hiss has quieted to a low, back-of-throat simmer. Her sire's daughter as well as her dam's, she can listen through her yearning for her rider. Through her warning for his. Hers scrabbles for footing, lurching halfway to one knee before she rights herself. Slowly. Controlling those hard breaths. "Didn't reckon she needed to," the greenrider says tightly, like that could ward off the way her eyes are filling before she blinks them back, still dry. Mostly. "Didn't /know/ if you doubted it. Just. Wanted to make sure. Because, because everyone should get to hear it, when it's true. And no." She's been here, what, three Turns? More? She knows how to move, where to step, where the opening is to her weyr. She doesn't look away from him as she steps back, not even to the abandoned oil cask. What's normally a smoky voice is just rough: "And I'm sorry, I'm sorry you care about it too. But so do I. And I won't go."

N'thei shakes his head, then he rubs it, the ends of his fingers to his temples, his eyes closed, his expression pained. Not with grief, with disappointment. "I will tear it apart when you aren't here. All the rocks, all the trees, the soil, all of it. You'll come home, you'll find it ruined, you'll know who did it. --Have it. If it means so much to you. Just have it, but don't act surprised when it's ruined." Again, shaking his head, now looking at her with a heavy lack of impetus, kinetic energy all evaporated, he collects the one bag. « Nothin' to tell, sugar. Go on and get oiled. » He... withdraws...

Her brown face pales, as much as it can. A shaken breath later sets her chin. "Find your own life, N'thei. Better things to be known for than, than /wrecking/." She's still at that simmer, adrenaline blackening her eyes with those huge pupils. As he takes up that one bag, she watches, and her Vrianth doesn't move any further away: he'll have to do it all but under the green's nose. "Wish it had gone a different way." Vrianth, for Wyaeth? « Later, » amid a brief, obscurely relieved, electric rush. Could be request, could be goodbye, could be dismissal. If he weren't already all but gone.

N'thei, Wyaeth, gone. Not the same kind of *between* as certain tragedy-inducing goldriders, but not here any more. Not talking to Vrianth. Not threatening. Not anything. Just-- somewhere else for now.