Difference between revisions of "Logs:Summer's Blown Away"

If they had been facing towards the bowl, they might have noticed someone approaching. Or maybe they would have been just too engrossed in each other anyway. Vrianth is crouched back on her hindquarters, wings out, letting the strong winds rock her. Leova is standing next to her, arms out, palms flat at the same angle. Vrianth's eyes are single-lidded. Leova's eyes are slitted. They play with the wind.

It is Bremuth who is first to intrude, the young brown making his lone way across from the barracks. His head is held lower than normal, on account of the wind, and a hint of tension even shows in wingarms as they hold sails safely folded. He stops a ways back from the pair playing in the wind. Watching. L'vae does appear shortly, however, long strides carrying him westward from the living caverns. He pauses beside the brown, sliding his hands in his pockets as a grin is lifted towards the other weyrlings. "Nice night," is called, for all his words may be whipped away by the gusts.

Vrianth and Leova look back at exactly the same time. Later on, perhaps, they will be able to perform the maneuver of Vrianth's circling to enclose Leova with her wings with more finesse, but as it is, Leova doesn't duck quickly enough and Vrianth doesn't lift her wings high enough and Leova gets knocked on the shoulder. Not hard. But there's anxiety on the wind now, Vrianth not keeping her emotions solely to herself and her lifemate, at least until Leova stands the rest of the way up again and rubs Vrianth's neck and the yellow sparks diminish in the young green's eyes in favor of rising, curious green. "What happened to summer?" the human calls.

(Bremuth to Vrianth) Bremuth loosens his own thoughts, soothing and placid. There is appreciation there also. For the wind, and the feeling of it.

Bremuth again is the first to act, the first to move. He pads forward slowly, closing the distance to Vrianth and Leova. His own sapphire gaze turns up to the girl and then settles on his sister. He stops a pace away. Close but not too close. L'vae follows in his brown's wake, a hand loosening from its pocket. The other remains buried, its wrist holding a book close against his hip. But that free hand, it gestures up. The wind catches at the palm, swaying the arm. "I think it must have blown away," is offered as he nears. His own eyes fix on Leova, smiling bright.

Perhaps, then, all became well that much sooner for the touch of Bremuth's thoughts. In any case, now Leova's smiling too. She hadn't been talking much at all since Vrianth found her, not in words. Perhaps the wind has begun to blow that away, too. "She wants to see summer," the woman says into the moving air, the dragon coiling about her even as Vrianth stretches out to sniff Bremuth, to sniff his rider, not touching. Not quite. "Nearly a Turn. Waiting."

"And what of winter?" L'vae asks curiously. Bremuth doesn't so much as shift as Vrianth stretches towards him, jade and cobalt chasing in a slow race across the facets of his eyes. His weyrling is not so immobile, turning a smile down to the exploring green. His own gaze tilts, lingering on that keen gaze before sliding to Leova. "You'll likely be joined in the sentiment, once the cold comes again. Do you think there's much chance we'll have another mild year like our last?"

"Winter comes," Leova guesses, looking at Vrianth as though that would help her check, only to become entranced with just watching her. Vrianth is, with the wind as it is, not nearly as inquisitive in motion as she might have been. Instead, she settles back onto her haunches where she can block her Leova from at least some wind, and looks back at Bremuth. And his rider. And how they touch, or do not touch. Finally Leova sighs and finds words again, a few at a time. "Yes. She knows it will be soon. Perhaps not mild. Not again. But she does love it warm so."

L'vae nods, his freed hand finding its pocket again. The wind forms small wings of his shirtsleeves, billowing them out from his elbows. Bremuth remains standing, giving himself to the wind. The gusts rock him, though he keeps his feet, and make pockets in his folded sails that mimic his rider's false wings. "How do you find it? Knowing now," the young man asks after a minute. "How it is." This seems to draw the brown's attention, for Bremuth turns his chin slightly up and towards his weryling.

Vrianth observes from her grounded perch, also, how Bremuth and his rider look at each other. Or do not look at each other. Bremuth looks, now, and she does not disturb it. Her rider has to think back, and then think some more. Eventually she murmurs, "Four lungs. Think it's four, anyway. Two hearts. Same breath..." Same blood. She starts to roll her eyes at herself but just winds up looking at Vrianth again.

Watching Leova intently, L'vae listens. Strains to hear those murmured words before the wind takes them. He is quiet in their wake, following his friend's eyes to the green that has claimed her. "Physical." The single word is dropped. Bremuth shifts again, this time sinking to his haunches while his gaze levels back to Vrianth. "Allowed, to be me." He offers his own perspective. "And in that, to be one." But there's still a curve to his lip, still self-conscious. "I don't know that I've... let go. As much as you." And hasn't that always been true?

"Part." Vrianth's gaze rests on Bremuth, brighter now for the attention. She sees how long he will look. "Good for him," her rider says. Has Leova let go? Or has she been swallowed up? Vrianth's eyes can fascinate, the keenness to their glow, the colors within them. The totality of her would fascinate even more. "Or wings I never had.... Do you need to?"

Bremuth's serenity isn't hoarded, nor is it forced outward. It is merely there, warmly coalescing about him. His being is but another lake, whipped by the wind - changed yet unchanged, cradled by old stone and blanketed by a sky of older stars.

L'vae seems he may be considering those very questions, even as he gets swept up in watching the currents of Vrianth's keen gaze. "Yes." He answers absently. As the word fades from his lips, he tears his eyes away from the green and swings them back to Leova. "No... I don't know." Again his gaze moves, now dropping down to the brown at his side. The brown whose eyes, sparkling pools of tranquility, have yet to leave Vrianth. The arm without the book lifts again, hand rubbing up behind his neck. It's a long moment. "I don't know who I am." Softly. Honestly.

Vrianth witnesses the lake. She observes it for some time, more time than her lifemate may be aware of. And since Bremuth's presence is what it is, changing and unchanging, she finds a great need to throw a rock into it. Which is what she does: or tries, a curious ball of her-ness sent on a high arc up and then down towards it, to try and splash and see just how deep he goes.

Leova, meanwhile, is listening. Mostly she looks back at L'vae, but sometimes she checks on her dragon and his and then hers again. She doesn't say anything for some time, amber eyes reflecting him and what he's said. "Guess you'll find out," Leova finally says, a little wry: she's there too. Not /there/, but there. She remembers to flex her knees a few times, the way they had been taught for the sands, and smiles a little in remembering. And then Vrianth makes her move.

"Yeah," L'vae agrees, a smile curling softly back on his lips. Fingers slow to a halt, still hanging from the back of his neck. The bent elbow sways, buffeted by the wind. His eyes remain on Bremuth, and there is perhaps the smallest of twitches to his brow. But, mostly, the brown's calm seems to have extended to his weyrling so that the young man lapses into silence without tension.

What is water, to a rock? Bremuth neither flinches, nor resists. His peaceful fluidity parts, yielding to her plummet. Action, without action. Strength in flexibility. Bremuth, quite simply and serenely, is. There is no core to drive to, no bottom to scrape. And yet, currents stir - softer than the winds that scour their physical forms. As a stream may erode stone with time, he courses gently over that balled Vrianth-ness. More inviting than insistent, that envelopment in the awareness of all that surrounds them. A thought rises, its foreign concreteness echoed in the odd accenting of the words. « You seek. »

She falls. No bottom. No core. Simply velocity. Through. Within. At some point out of time she responds: from awareness of invitation to willingly shifting her shape to see what the currents make of her, and then that rough gravel answer, « You. » But the way Vrianth shifts is an even greater reply, awareness growing and changing, until as swiftly as she had made her earlier decision she decides again. And diffuses. It's intimate, her-ness increasingly all through his-ness, as though atom touched atom. They. Enlightenment, perhaps.

Leova must be aware of some of this, of her lifemate's startling leap. She starts to say something, eyes gone black in rings of amber.

Closer. Less diffuse now, and more... dissolving. Too far. She seeks to breathe. Panics. The water electrifies with her shout.

Bremuth welcomes her, sharing his unpresuming certainty and his peaceful compassion. If she seeks him, this is what he is and it is given without hesitation. Undemanding intimacy, yes, and serene ripples of something like joy for their harmony. A harmony that is then broken by her panic - Vrianth's electric discord is acknowledged by chasing flashes of silver across his awareness. Beacons, perhaps, offered for her guidance. « There is not control. » Words come again, calm and in that accented tone. « Only be. » A flicker again, light dancing on the planes of certain motes within the cloud. « You. »

L'vae is alerted, possibly through Bremuth, perhaps in noticing that Leova seems about to speak. Now there is certainly a furrow to his brow as he moves, taking the steps that bring him closer to his friend. Her face is searched, the look in her eye met with worry. "Leova?" he queries, his hand now reaching out for her shoulder. A glance is flashed towards Vrianth, towards Bremuth. "What is it? Are you all right?"

Concern swarms hotly in L'vae's mind, shot through with stabs of helpless confusion. "What are you doing? What's happening?" (To Bremuth from L'vae)

L'vae senses that Bremuth is untroubled. « Vrianth seeks. » And to him, that explains it all.

Bremuth senses that L'vae isn't exactly satisfied by this, confusion only growing as he tries to properly comprehend the dragon's meaning.

She hasn't words for it. Leova doesn't. Not that Vrianth...

She will not relinquish. Will not float. Will not drift. It is well that he does not seek submission, for she will not submit.

She begins to raise her hand. Nerves and muscles trigger in minute electrical impulses. She breathes neither in nor out.

Remember, however... that, she might do. She is herself. And more: her other self, her heart's delight. Spread her out, disorient her, still she is her selves. She is not to be disconnected. And much as those silver flashes signal himself within his self, all the elements of her are stars within her constellation.

Leova and Vrianth> « We are us. »

Their hearts beat.

They are. They are not calm, but they are no longer frightened.

They breathe.

One of them senses, through the other, this not-place for the first time. These currents. These glints of silver light. Her exclamation is wordless. They do not need words. They buoy each other.

Which of course means that the first one wants to experiment again.

The second one, after a fraction of a heartbeat that is forever, reminds her of a different sort of lake. With pebbles. And fish. Little flashes of silver... that she can eat. « Look around again, and then we will go. »

She is still raising her hand. She has that distant, inward, talking-to-dragon look that is still so new. She's smiling.

Frowning, still searching, L'vae watches Leova. Watches as the rise of her breath halts, and then resumes again - takes in her smile and that distant look without being wholly reassured. A deep breath of his own is expelled in a quiet sigh. His eyes close, and he fades back a step, then two. When they open again, it is after his face has turned towards the barracks. "I was going to read." There's little emotion in his voice. "Try not to get swept away, out here?" There's little expectation that any attention will be given to the words. So little, in fact, that without a glance back the young man leans into the wind and starts for the barracks.

Bremuth serves witness to the ebb of fear, the refusal to surrender. There is a brief, discordant crystallization that rimes about his thoughts. Disappointment. But it is not dwelt upon. He's flowing again, balance without stasis. And now changing, even more. Evaporating, moving away, distilling his essence from Vrianth's.

They look. They notice the crystallization, the not-liquid, the not-lake.

She looks, her hand lifted, only to find him already moving away. Near-gone. It's as though time has sped for him and not for them, as though he's been driven by the wind instead of into it.

And as they simultaneously notice Bremuth's slow distillation, Vrianth's immediate pleasure overrides Leova's confusion. That they can do! The green dragon deepens her appreciation for his hospitality, as it were, and in the next instant her constellation has vanished. Back into their own heads. Quicker than a heartbeat, more final than between.

Leova's smile has deepened, but it's Vrianth's, confusion still in her eyes. "Good night?" she thinks to call, after, and it's a tossup as to which will dominate her voice. Quieter, "Good night..."

As their thoughts draw apart, Bremuth's posture finally shifts. His chin inclines downward, lids sinking lower over facets dancing with cerulean and jade. The wind seems to take hold of him, too, lifting along his keel until haunches are raised. The bleak length of his tail snakes out as if caught up in the gusts that rustle and sigh through the folds of his sails. The stark brown blows away across the bowl, towards the young man who holds against the wind to wait for him - L'vae, who pauses to turn a look back and lift an arm in a broad arch to Leova and her lifemate before the pair continues on their way.

Leova lifts her arm. An arch. A mirror. And then Vrianth takes her out, back out into the wind.