Difference between revisions of "Logs:I'm Counting Sheep But Running Out"

Edeline had been installed as Lady Tillek. She was expecting her first child in the spring. The deal to buy the brewhold had worked out. Pieces were falling into place.

So why wasn't N'thei sleeping?

He lay stretched on his back, staring at the ceiling, his mind working relentlessly. It was late, and he'd gone to bed more than an hour ago after divesting a few of his wingmates of ridiculous sums of their hard-earned marks. He had no need of them at this point; it was just winning for winning's sake. But they expected him to play cards and win, so he played and he won. They expected him to loiter in the Snowasis and make people he didn't like - which included just about everyone who didn't fly in Glacier with the exception of a few men he'd known during his tenure in Snowstrike - uncomfortable until they left, so he loitered and they left. They expected him to be drunk and loud and brass, so he gave them a good show. But it was all becoming so fucking rote.

Where was the excitement? Where were the things worth fighting for? The things worth hurting people and being hurt for? Was this really all there was to life in the Interval? How did dragonriders survive two hundred Turns of this... this... this boredom?

He fluffed a pillow and committed himself to falling asleep, dammit. As if will alone could overcome insomnia.

People kept saying Teonath was going to rise soon, and he sifted through his emotions for one that fit the thought. He couldn't find ambition in there anymore. He had carved out this place for himself, this symbol of a man that people could hate without guilt, and he tried to force that man to want it again, to want it badly enough to take it. He knew what had become of his predecessor, knew exactly who stabbed the metaphorical knife in R'hin's back, and he knew the thin ice he skated with that woman these days. But fuck all if he could find bitterness or rage or disappointment in the thought that she'd do it to him, too. Weyrleader... Weyrleader... He didn't love power enough to cling to it, not when push came to shove, and he felt no desire in him to better this place. High Reaches wasn't in his veins the way it was for some people, though he'd tried his damnedest to make it his purpose.

There was a cold, hard fact to face: N'thei hated them as much as they hated him.

And maybe that's all that kept him going. He'd put Wyaeth to pursuing Teonath when the time came not because he loved this position and loved this place and loved these people, but because he hated it and here and them. Spite could accomplish what ambition wouldn't. Because he wasn't a man who lost. Because they were afraid of him. Because they would break against him. Because it made him laugh in dark ways, their stupid goodness and rightness. They thought he was a villain. He let them think he was a villain-- especially since it meant most of them left him alone, certainly kept them out of his fucking business-- and the struggle seemed to make them happy, to give them purpose. He wasn't even doing anything, nothing but amassing a small fortune in the Snowasis for no other reason than lingering fear that the Interval would get awfully cold again somewhere down the line, and now at least they could buy their way out of trouble if it reared its head again, but he looked at them just right and refused to answer for himself and they-- in their needly little minds-- assumed he was up to no-good. Funny thing, that; these "good people" had the most suspicious minds, neh?

One sheep... two sheep... three sheep... four Milanis... five sheep... six sheep... seven L'vaes... eight sheep... nine sheep... ten sheep... eleven Leov... sheepies... sheepie sheepie sheepies...

Snoring.