Difference between revisions of "Logs:Well"

The night I'zech caught them, even when Telavi could sleep she couldn't sleep, or at least not well. Not like falling into a well, floating down that black channel until at last it opened up to the night or closed in and swallowed her whole.

She had told him that she didn't think I'zech would turn them in. Her gut said so, and the best of rushed calculations, but that didn't stop her gut from knotting itself up anyway. Even if he did, she didn't think it would matter much, by now, and she was pretty confident she could talk them out of it. But she didn't want to have to, she was exhausted and unsatisfied and all too raw, while every sound she heard was about to be a woman reaching for her shoulder, hauling her out of bed with lights and yelling and the whole barracks staring.

The air was so stuffy in the barracks, it smelled, yet she couldn't trust that that wasn't Solith's thinking.

Telavi must have slept, because this time what woke her was her nerves twisting white-hot like she'd walked into nettles. 'I don't know what to do with Solith.' It was her own voice, maybe not the exact words, but it's what she'd said right out loud for him and the whole world to hear. What had she been thinking? She refused to answer herself, because she didn't want to think about that either, how easily that had slipped. Maybe K'zin hadn't noticed, but when he'd asked if she wanted to be alone, it was with her thoughts and not with her.

She remembers the first time she found Solith beautiful. She doesn't remember which day it was, exactly, and maybe she should have written it down, but she didn't; she thought she'd remember, but in the end it wasn't important beneath the running and working and running some more. And then there was the thrill of sitting in on the wingleaders' meetings, supposedly to take notes, and she did do that, but really to hope that something exciting would happen: some argument, some mischance, some glorious agreement to make up for never having a needle in her hand except perhaps for minutes stolen from lunchtime, when there was sunlight to see by. Even then, it was mostly mending.

But all that thinking was fencing around the feeling, fencing it away from feeling it. So was this: the niggling ache of her phantom, embodied limb who couldn't wait to fly, and then could, and didn't want to do anything else. The sitting and later standing to stroke the green hide with oil, painstakingly maintaining it like a good leather jacket, or possibly a set of boots considering how frequently Solith got muddy. Sometimes she'd pet Solith's neck, gingerly, remembering the brownrider's words. She could see Solith's enjoyment of it, could even feel it... but felt uncomfortably like she was leading on, no, taking advantage of a crush. But it was so much better than having the crush go the other way.

The next time Telavi woke, unless she was still dreaming, she found that she couldn't move her head, as though it were imprisoned by an arm or by chains. She could roll it from side to side, a little, but not lift it. It hurt, dully, when she tried. She thought that that should bother her more than it did. She hadn't fallen, had she? She hadn't broken more than Sabella's arm?

Then she realized that it was her hair. She was lying on her hair, and she wasn't used to it anymore, not after keeping it pinned up for months. So that explained that.

She used to have no problem writing mail, lots of mail, and now the messages stack up without her. If this keeps up, and she keeps them all, there won't be enough room for her tunics in her press. She answers most of them, at first all but for the ones whose handwriting she recognizes and which she doesn't even open, but others have slipped by the wayside since, and her replies are increasingly brief.

She's twice found herself writing what might as well be study notes, things nobody back there will care about, and they'll think she's being a swot besides. She hopes she's caught them all.

The mail is generally addressed to Telavi on the outside, but on the inside there are Niece, Ela, Ella, Avi, Tell-All. She always answers her uncle, sooner or later. She thinks his dragon has tried to bespeak Solith, but after the first time, he hasn't written about it.

It's strange, Solith's been asking her more questions lately, questions that don't seem quite like her. She wonders if she should be reassured, that she's developing more of a sense of Solith, or not, because it is Solith asking and so it seems she's been getting it wrong. She doesn't care for the questions, or maybe it's what they might mean. Some aren't so bad, but why would Solith possibly ask if she were jealous of Sabs? She answered No, of course, and she'd never have doubted that's true, but what if Solith knows something she doesn't?

When she does get to sew, little clues find their way into her rare embroidery and even that mending, sometimes into the seams where no one will read them, and even that's okay. Keep-safes, tell-alls. Little clues shaped by little stitches, parts of this new life despite herself, the old flowers and leaves and patterns just not enough. Or maybe they're just named differently, because one of them she thought was too-obviously her dragon's eyeridge until the next day, when she was folding the laundry and found the same design. She'd called it a mountain, then.

Sometimes she hates them for making her think this much, take things apart, calculate whys and wherefores. She never expected to be in a place for it to matter. How is she supposed to ever stop?

And if she embroiders what turn out to be answers into her cuffs, is that cheating?

She's realized that maybe how she doesn't like mending too many times is maybe how she is: mending a favorite garment that's seen good use is one thing, that's special and saving it, but mending and mending and mending things over and over again and nothing else, she'd sooner poke her needle into her arm. (She's pretty sure. At least it would be dramatic.)

One night she got to thinking that training weyrlings seems like only mending. But is it really making garments? Or fitting them? She still isn't sure.

By now, Telavi couldn't see any change in the dimness of the ceiling, but she knew that outside it was getting light. She could tell herself that the rustlings and shiftings she could hear were only the others, waking. Her eyes were dry. The light summer blanket didn't quite seem warm enough, though earlier in the night she'd thrown it off, sweating. Cool air moved over her left hand, flung over the side while the other stayed knotted in the blanket. She realized, after a while, that it was Solith's breath.

She thought and thought and thought.