Difference between revisions of "Logs:Uninvited and Unwelcome"

It's late when H'vier returns to his ledge. A dragon and rider who aren't paying attention to their surroundings might overlook the few additions that have arrived in their absence, but surely even if H'vier misses the changes, Reisoth won't fail to notice the woman wrapped in a long, soft-looking charcoal grey knit over-wrap. It's like a sweater with buttons up the front, a tie across the middle, and a hood. The hoods been pulled up around her face to shield her from the chill of the autumn night, and she's just inside the edge of the entrance to the weyr, where the wind isn't quite so bad, but she didn't invade further. Her legs are outstretched and a basket that takes up her whole lap rests there, covered with one of her many colorful scarves (that are so often hanging from Yvalia's ceiling). Her arms are slack across the top of the basket, probably once holding it in place, now merely balancing as Tayte has fallen asleep while waiting. She's snuggled as close into her clothes as she can get, and should he touch her to wake her, she's chilled to the touch, her skin pale in the light of the moons.

Reisoth notices the visitor almost immediately. It's kind of his thing. But apparently he doesn't relay this information to H'vier because the bronzerider doesn't notice Tayte until he practically trips over her. He's not used to having to watch where he's going in his own weyr, after all. "What the fuck are you doing up here?" is his greeting despite her being kind of, you know, asleep. There's a growl from the bronzerider but he walks past her into his inner weyr to mess with the hearth and apparently start going about his usual night-time routine, which includes pouring himself a big drink, like she's not curled up out there.

Tayte probably come to full conscious around 'the fuck', so she's blinking sleepy eyes up at him by the end of his question. Her body shivers as it registers the chill. "You were out late," She observes sleepishly. Or he must have been, because she's cold now, and wasn't before. The basket slips to the side and she get to her feet, eyes tracking the rider into the weyr before she glances back at his dragon briefly. Then she follows him. "Here's the only place I know of where you were sure to be." She has the basket in hand, but her feet are hesitant as she comes part of the way, but not quite all the way into the weyr.

"Then I guess you're lucky I decided to come home tonight," he says, starting to strip out of his leathers so he can change into something a little more comfortable for being in for the night. "Get your ass in here and sit down by the fire," is added when H'vier realizes Tayte it being hesitant about coming in. "You can freeze to death on your own time. I'm not taking responsibility for that." Once the woman is further inside, Reisoth moves to settle into his wallow with a great sigh. He was probably looking forward to getting his straps taken off but now his rider is distracted and he might have to carry the woman back down to the bowl.

The first words have Tayte freezing where she stands. After a moment, she asks, quietly, "You don't come home some nights?" One hand reaches to pull uncomfortably through her locks. She takes a pair of steps, her hand returning to the basket's wicker handle, grip twisting there. If she looked hesitant before, now she's downright uncertain. None of this changes that she's cold though, and she shivers again involuntarily.

"No." It's not a hard question to answer and H'vier isn't going to feel ashamed about it. In fact, he looks quietly challenging as he makes his way to sit down near the hearth himself. He doesn't tell her to do the same again, though. "What do you want, Tayte?" This is definitely not the sweet(ish), affectionate H'vier that came to her room the other day. This is the angry, resentful H'vier that left it the same day who seems to have no trouble treating the woman he might have loved like any other woman.

The answer stings. That much is obvious on her face. Tayte's answer is much slower in coming. "You. I thought. I think." She sounds confused on this point as her eyes drop to the basket in her hands. "I came to talk." She adds a moment later.

With his big glass in hand, H'vier slouches into what is obviously his favorite seat in the weyr and puts his feet up on the little table in the center of the small seating arrangement around the hearth. He takes a long drink and focuses more on the fire than the woman. "I thought you wanted me, too," he tells her after a few moments. "Talk, then."

"Havi, I haven't even kissed anyone other than you since I told you about the baby." Since the first time he expressed real interest in her. "Not Jo. Not anyone. I didn't even ask Jo to visit me as a friend in Southern because I didn't know how you'd feel about it." Why Tayte starts with all this might be a mystery. Although, it might also be that she's suddenly trying to process that after one fight, H'vier's back to being H'vier. She's staring at him - well the part of him she can see from where she stands relative to how he's sitting. She falls silent, likely because there's too much chaos in her head to sort the words properly and find her focus.

What Tayte might consider one fight could be something of greater importance to the bronzerider. But since he's not really that talkative about anything right now, she'll just have to be left wondering what the hell is wrong with him. "I would have thought you'd be between her legs as soon as I left. That's what everything was about, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Tayte admits, "And no. I thought that's all you were interested in me for." She makes a decision and moves toward him, not to him, but to the table his feet are on and she gently places the basket beside them. "The baby wasn't about sex. I wanted our baby. Not some other baby. With some other person. Our baby. Your baby. I wanted to have your baby. And that wasn't about sex." She doesn't turn to look at him, staring instead at the fire. "But after the baby was gone, I stupidly-" But probably understandably, "-thought the sex was what you cared about. And I didn't understand that it mattered to you." Now she turns to look at him, her expression managing to stay neutral. "You cared about me, and I don't know if you still do, but you did and I didn't understand. I thought I was the only one who cared and sleeping with someone else-" Someone else she cares about, "-would keep me from caring too much and getting hurt."

H'vier is silent for awhile, in no hurry to respond to any of that. Or it's possible that he's trying to restrain his impulsive reaction into something more reasonable. Or less explosive, anyway. "Why would sex be all I cared about, Tayte? I can get sex anywhere. I don't have a problem finding women that want to fuck me, if all I want is sex." The way he speaks is deliberately quiet. "Fortunately, you've reminded me why all I should care about is sex."

"Because in the three--maybe four turns I've been serving you drinks, sex is all you did care about when it came to women." The bartender answers, not letting her voice rise to the frustration that briefly flashes across her face. "And because I'm an idiot and didn't think--" Tayte starts and then sighs, "Because no one has ever cared about me like that. Because I didn't believe anyone could." Anyone who's lived turns in the world has scars and baggage. That's some of Tayte's. She lapses into silence for a moment before, "Anyway. I hurt you and I'm sorry. And I was an idiot and I'm sorry for that too. I-- didn't want things to be over between us. But..." She leaves unspoken that it seems like he does want that, and shifts on her feet, glancing back to the basket.

"When in those turns did I ever fuck just one woman?" It's a little more outburst than quiet question this time. But H'vier recomposes himself and says, "There's no reason you should think someone couldn't care about you, Tayte. I cared about you. I still do. But I'm not sure I trust you anymore. And I don't know how to deal with that." Except by sleeping with other women and going back to the way he was before almost immediately. That came pretty naturally. He glances at the basket but asks, "You want me to give you a ride back down to the bowl?"

Tayte's breath catches when he says he still does care about her. "You didn't, that's my point. That's why it was hard to accept. Hard to fathom." She chooses the last word with care. Fathom is what you do when things are so deeply perplexing it's hard to plumb the furthest reaches enough to even conceptualize it. "So, you trust me less because I brought my desire to you..." A desire she didn't, apparently, act on. "You don't trust me because I had a desire for someone else?" She asks this slowly. She's working her head around it. She glances to the basket and then back to him. She sucks in a breath. "Do you want things to be over between us?" It's not an answer to his question, but his answer might answer both.

"I told you what I wanted. You wanted something else. You'll keep wanting it, even if you say you won't do it. If you want it badly enough, you'll resent me for it. And I'll resent you for wanting it." H'vier keeps his voice calm now, resigned even. He's given this thought. Which might leave one wondering why he says what he says next. "I've fucked four different women since I left that night, Tayte." Maybe that's his answer? Maybe he's letting her make that decision for herself? Maybe he's just trying to make her hate him.

Tayte is silent. The silence stretches on some long moments, in which she doesn't look at him. It's obvious from her expression that she's working through something. "Isn't the point of you not sleeping with anyone else it that you chose me to be with? Isn't the choice what's important? Or did you stop wanting them? Any of them?" With four under his belt already, it wouldn't necessarily seem so. But she hasn't left yet. Hasn't asked him for a ride, or for him to ask the dragon on elevator duty to meet her. Her fingers find their way into the ends of her hair, the way they always do when she's uncomfortable or nervous.

"There wasn't anyone for me to want but you." It's a weird answer but it's the one H'vier seems to think is meaningful. "I think maybe you should go home, Tayte. Be with your daughter. Maybe her father." The one that isn't him. "And Jo." Can't forget her! "I don't want to do this right now."

Tayte looks at him a long moment, but then, simply, "Would you please ask Reisoth to ask Awvreth to come pick me up?" The elevator duty dragon, presumably. She starts to step toward the ledge, "This isn't over." Beat. "Unless you want it to be." She doesn't look back, she doesn't even stop. She just keeps going, to wait for her ride.

There's a small nod in response to summoning the rider on elevator duty but otherwise H'vier says nothing. He doesn't move. He doesn't watch her walk away. He just sits there, sipping at his drink while Reisoth speaks with the other dragon.

When H'vier eventually looks in the basket, there's four items. A note in Tayte's pretty scrawl, a knitted charcoal hat, scarf, and throw blanket. All the projects are things she started after finding out H'vier hadn't told her about his turnday until it was too late to do anything about gifts. The note has three words: 'Happy turnday, love.'