Logs:Mercy's Burden
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 11 October, 2015 |
| Who: Jo, Tacuseth, Keysi, Neianth |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr, Monaco Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Shared, a secret and burden to carry to the grave. |
| Where: Hidden Secrets Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 20, Month 13, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Steady snow. |
| Mentions: Bristia/Mentions, M'kris/Mentions, R'hin/Mentions, Aishani/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Sad things. So sad. |
    |
| It hasn't been long since R'hin's passing that Tacuseth reaches out to Neianth. Desert winds are gone, lost in a dead wasteland as he sends to the brown, « We hope we're not interrupting. My Jo would like to come visit yers. » His presence is near, as if expecting the confirmation for him to drop onto the ledge. Neianth, who usually resides as sentinel out on his ledge, lays on his draconic couch within, focus clearly distracted even as another mind reaches for his. It was not the first to seek, to 'check-in' as many had done given the outburst. But this touch of Tacuseth draws more than a vague sensation from the brown. His ripples are slow to come in response but do, his deep baritones offering, « You do not interrupt. She would accept a visit from yours. » As if she had declined others. Tacuseth is smooth in his thanks, and the bluepair arrives shortly after. The blue is off-color - a bit grey tint to him as he sets himself up as a sentinel while Jo dismounts. On Jo, her face isn't a mess at least from the last time they met. She moves to Tacuseth's side to pull free a fine bottle before she goes into the inner weyr with a tentative but stoic, "Keysi." The young brown's welcome is faint, touched over the ripples that fade down to smoothness. The bluerider's alert is met with a level, "Come in." Crescent-touched faceted eyes of the small brown, curled off to the side of the room upon his draconic couch, watch Keysi. The rest of his form remains particularly still besides the slow rise and fall of breathing. The brownrider sits on the edge of her smallish bed, holding one of the daggers that must've been hung on a wall considering there's an empty place above her where it'd had been, slowly rotating it in her hands that rest on her lap until Jo may be visible. "How are you?" It's not really a fair question, but more than simply a formality in greeting. The blue's presence in Neianth's mind lingers, his dark shadows murky but unpleasant. It's a presence of mourning as Jo walks in upon hearing Keysi's voice, and she pauses to take in the space. The mat and the punching bag, particularly, belatedly holding up the bottle she holds before her gaze meets the brownrider's. To her question, there's a pause. The bottle lowering a bit, "I keep expectin' him to show up. Come 'round," she says, hollow. "I'm sad.... 'n I'm pissed off." Pause. The bottle lifting again, "He liked nothin' but the finest," she says in indication of it. "If ya drink. If not, I imagine it makes a lovely sound thrown against a tree. Might not wanna do that, though. This was one of his." Brown's mind doesn't withdraw from Tacuseth's touch, but his usually clear reflection pool that shares such vivid imagry with his own touch is nearly equally as murky; nothing shared to be seen or felt within. Evidence of the internalized mourning of his own. But as the bluerider enters, Neianth does rise, shaking himself once, resettling wings, and then moves out onto the ledge with the blue. As presence, if not a talkative one. Keysi stands as Jo answers, setting the knife down behind her on the perhaps overly-made bed. "Aye." Is all she manages at first, pale stormy eyes looking over the other rider and then to the gift she brings. There's almost, almost the hint of a sorrowful grin, short-lived, "I didn't used to." She begins, a shake of her head as he moves towards the chairs before the hearth, a hand gestured outwards as indication for Jo to join her, "Then R'hin came along. He changed many things. Everything." While Tacuseth settles so that he and Neianth are a pair of sentinels on watch, Jo watches Keysi with the knife as she stands there. Her study is equally intense, as Keysi approaches, and her response draw the bare bones of a sad smile. "How things change," she says to doing things one didn't use to do, following her towards the chairs. Sitting, "Not surprised to hear it," she tells her, her dark gaze going towards the hearth. "He had that effect, darlin'. That sort of influence. I didn' wanna say much in front of that harper," she notes, cutting a glance towards her, "but he spoke me a lot 'bout ya. Said we were a lot alike. Ya'n me." Keysi leans over the back of the chair she'd intended to sit in at first, her expression still a stony thing, carefully controlled for the moment. Though when Jo says that particular sentiment again, it takes significantly more effort and she's forced to look away- for now, to the small, simmering fire that could certainly use a good stoking. "He'd mentioned we should meet." She says evenly, though in a way that doesn't seem like it was just once, "More than just in passing during darts." The thought of the game makes her straighten, a hand rubbing the back of her neck before she shifts one more time to turn over the glasses next to the decanter on the table between them. "He was.. special to you." More an observation than a question, "How long had you known him?" Jo watches her as she holds that bottle to her chest, the fire from the hearth lighting her eyes as she nods. "He insisted," she says on meeting. "All the folks we met, yer the only one he pointed out." And, there's a pause. "He still is," she answers on him being special, the words difficult from the rigidness of her posture. "I don' let many in, 'n the bastard managed to worm his way through my defenses. Girl like me, darlin'," she says with a dark smile, "gets judged often. He never judged me. He had plenty of reason to, but he never judged me. Not once." Her eyes drop back towards the fire before she answers the last with, "Can barely remember the first time I did. It's been many turns. It's been turns. At a hatchin', where the departed Aishani was still Brieli'n Savannah wasn' long in this Weyr." Pause. "How did'ja-?" Meet him. Keysi lets time pass between thoughts, needing it as much to keep her voice from cracking as being so for gentleness' sake. "He wormed his way into many things." She agrees quietly after listening, a faint twitch of her lips in fondness following. "In passing." Her answer begins with a slow shake of her head, "A simple conversation while I was a weyrling," A furrowing of her brow- "I guess it really wasn't that long ago. It seems like I'd known him for turns. I wish I had." She thought she would. "I thought I knew what I was doing then. He decided to prove otherwise.. Helped me with..." Keysi's words fade, her grey eyes turning to study Jo finally, "None of my reservations meant anything to him. He was like.." Words are difficult, and she ends up sliding into the chair instead of finishing that sentiment. "What really happened Jo? He doesn't do things by accident. He was acting.." she hunts for the right adjective, "off sometimes after wing assignments." There's raking husk of laughter for what Keysi reveals first, and Jo shakes her head. "That's how it starts," she notes on simple conversations. "Ya start seein' things ya wanna learn 'bout the person 'n the next thing ya know..." A shake of her head. But there was that pause from the brownrider on R'hin helping her, the older woman studying her anew in her silence. It's a silence of understanding, and the last is what has her head dip as she angles a look towards her. Her silence is heavy and long, but Tacuseth rouses. « How loyal are ya to him? » the blue sends, but the words seem not come from the dragon himself. Not the Weyr. Him. There's some ease that husk of laughter brings to the heaviness of the room, but not for too long. Keysi leans forwards in both thought and patience, forearms rested over knees. "It's all upside down." To finish that sentiment or to add a new one, that comment could be either. Intense but untelling gaze continues to lay on Jo, gathering whatever she can glean from expression or shared word. Then, silence is met with silence. Not uncomfortable, however, not to her anyway. Neianth stirs as Tacuseth does, his head angling slightly to level a greyed faceted eye at the blue, « Honesty was once everything. But in secrets, what matters is kept safe. » The last seems to not be their own words. « His honor will not be soiled. » The silence isn't uncomfortably by any shot, Jo settled in the chair with the bottle held in her lap as Tacuseth speaks for her. To Neianth's answer, the blue seems to agree since he returns with « A promise was made. » - "This must to kept to the grave," Jo speaks behind her dragon, her tone heavy and even as she leans towards Keysi. "I...can't tell it all. I don't have the stomach to, but..." There's a pregnant pause before she goes on with, "He was dyin', darlin'. He was already dyin'. Here," and she lifts one long finger to tap the side of her head. "I've never heard of this happenin'. Of....a dragon forgetting their own rider. Leiventh was. I've seen it too many times for myself," the last given quietly. "It was affectin' him, too." Neianth's ripples smooth over to a glassy surface of a reflective pool, deep, vast beyond word alone; a sensation of a dark mirror of Tacuseth's reply. An agreement, a promise in its own. Neianth's stirring had reached Keysi, but it only extended that patience within silence. And when Jo speaks, her gaze on her remains steady. It doesn't surprise her, a preceeding clause such as that, but she does nod her own value of promise. But the news, the actual story that follows, does not contribute to that steadiness. "Why couldn't.. why didn't he tell me?" Her fingers weave together, stopping the trembling that threatens them. The strained look she has denotes she already knows that answer. "How could that be? How long did he know? When.. when did he tell you?" A jumble of questions, rambled together. While Tacuseth lets his shadow winds ride on those ripples, Jo watches those fingers tremble before she meets Keysi's gaze and shakes her head. "Only one other knew," she says soberly to her. "He didn'....I don' think he wanted to put that burden on ya, darlin'. He kept yer secrets, but somethin' tells me ya carry some burdens of yer own. That he told me at all..." There's an exhale and she slumps, her grief evident now on her features. She answers the rest now. "He knew for a long time 'n only told me towards the end. Told me there was a Weyrwoman that had what he had, 'n she withered away. That...he wouldn' go out like that." Meeting Keysi gaze, "So, M'kris was set up," she says, her gaze hard and measuring. "He wanted it to mean somethin'." The words ring with significance, her gaze not wavering. Keysi's fingers are white as she holds her hands tighter, listening but on edge as she does. With each added word, she seems to want to say something to interrupt, to question, her expression cracking from the steel it had once been. But she manages not to. Not until Jo finishes. There's no disbelief there in those stormy eyes of hers. Maybe a turn ago there would've been, but now? "Who doesn't have their own burdens?" Is what she finally comes up with, her frame tensed. "That's no excuse.. He was like a father, a-" Anger wrinkles her face, "That's... horrible." The word isn't terrible enough to describe R'hin's fate. Any word seems not enough to do it near justice, and her disturbed silence portrays its insuffiency. "Did Bristia know? Did anyone else?" But on the last that Jo shares, the wavering of her face and tone steadies abruptly, focus back on the bluerider, "Is the history you told the Harper part of it?" Jo watches Keysi closely, taking in any nuances she finds with her grave demeanor. The anger seems to be expected, for she states to it, "He is. When it comes to it, part of me rather not have known. There's better peace in ignorance." Shaking her head, "He chose how he wanted to go," she reiterates, the words being significant. "We can' deny him that. As much as I...I keep askin' myself, if I was in his place, would I had done the same? If I knew my time was limited...to make a choice...She was the only other," she answers now. Bristia. "That's what he told me, so I have to believe it. The history....yes," she says with a nod. "Monaco. It always stemmed back to them, didn' it? 'Least there, he kept his secrets close. I never learned the full story between him'n that Weyrleader, but I've seen 'nough with him to guess the temperature whenever I was down there." "Peace." Keysi parrots the word in a fierce mutter, "There's innocence in ignorance too. But it's not real." Vehemence courses that tone, but when she words his choice as such, she clenches her teeth. "No." Is all she can manage in regards to denying him his last wish. About Monaco, she nods, not unfamiliar. "But if it was so.. much that M'kris was set up," the brownrider continues evenly after Jo confirms that piece of story, "And it was his wish to- whatever end." A beat, "You were the only other one in the tent." There's no judgement or accusation with it, there's no pressure within her words at all, "Did M'kris do it?" It's direct this time, if almost whispered. "I've had a good few months to cope with this over ya," Jo notes to Keysi's refusal, her smile sad. "The first month will be the worst." Keysi's working it out, though, and the bluerider falls silent. It's almost as if she's expecting that question, so when it does comes, there's no flinching. There's that slight change of her gaze on the brownrider - a look that says 'What do you think?' once realized. Eyes cut towards those knives as she says, "I've done anythin' he's ever asked of me. Even when I didn' want to, 'n that's only happened once. It's the one time I couldn' refuse him. It's the one time I hate him for." She shifts to turn more towards Keysi now, "I tell ya cuz I saw yer face when tried to get into that tent," she says quietly, watching her face. "He meant a lot to ya, 'n ya meant a lot to him. That is why ya know now, 'n ya'll have the same burden as I in takin' his secret Between. For better're for worse now." Given the puzzle had already been put together in her mind, the click of completion with Jo's words doesn't elicit anything abrupt. Keysi becomes resolved in a stillness, her eyes focused on the ground ahead of her. Searching, glazed. Shifting out on the ledge signifies Neianth stirring again, a rumbling that's somehow managed quietly likely an overflow between the two of the too-much that's internalized. When she moves, it's a quick movement to pick up one of the still empty nice glasses that she'd flipped over for wine and fling it across the weyr. It smashes into a shower of shards, loud in contrast the quiet that stretches. And while she doesn't look at Jo, that didn't seem directed at her. "It's better." She says eventually with intense difficulty. A minute, or more, may have passed. "Cruel," Falls quieter, "I'm sorry." That she had to do the deed, she seems to imply. "I can't imagine how you.. managed." To the end, "He's left so many memories in his wake. Changes. He always wanted more. Was he.." relieved? settled? happy? there's no word, "with that.. end?" Neianth shifts and Tacuseth watches. Jo doesn't even react when that glass thrown. Her breath comes out long, like she was expelling something, and she looks where the glass has smashed. It's the apology that has her jaw working. "Who else but I that he could trust to follow through?" and her words fall bitter as her watery gaze lingers on the shattered glass. "I whose held a knife in one hand for too many turns?" Dark eyes cut to Keysi now, the grin self-deprecating as she says, "The girl whose innocence was taken by bein' accused of murder all those turns ago....made to be locked up for it. I managed 'cuz I've lived a life doin' what I had to to get by. Even to the detriment of others, darlin'." Her eyes are caked in her own secrets, and perhaps the brownrider could see the pull Jo was for the late bronzerider. Clutching the bottle to herself for her last, the last has her lingering in silence before she quietly says, "He touched my cheek, 'n he thanked me. He wasn' alone, Keysi. I sat with him until Leiventh went Between. They were finally free." It's the last that has a tear sliding down her face, and she angrily wipes it away. "I couldn't." Keysi says darkly and reluctantly, in what one could say is some measure of agreement. As Jo describes herself as such, the brownrider finds herself shaking her head, "You can hold a knife to a stranger. But to hold one to R'hin." His name is sharp, accentuated by a crack in the sturdiness of her voice, "That's not the same. It's not the same." Of doing what one has to, of holding a knife for so long. Her repetition comes mingled another slow shake of her head. When she speaks of the last moments, she doesn't lose it- not yet. But it's a close thing, the brownrider drawing her knees up to her chest, pulling her arms and head against her thighs as they tuck in tightly to her. The lump in her throat of being 'free' shuts her down, and she can't say a word for a good, long, drawn-out while. Almost croaked, all she's able to follow with is: "I couldn't say goodbye." "Ya don' wanna know the things I've done." Jo's words are heavy. Dark. Raw. "It's not the same, but his alternative was....." That was worse, she implies, looking back towards the hearth. "R'hin knew I could," she states with certainty, nodding. "He knew my past. He knew what I was capable of. He didn' judge me, 'cuz of his own past. I respected that. I respected him. I ain' the sort to respect many, darlin'." Her eyes look on mournfully towards Keysi as she tries to maintain composure, and on goodbyes, "I'm sorry, Keysi. I really wished ya'd gotten that chance. I don' think...I think he would've lost his resolve if he saw ya." Silence falls before she says, "It's....good, that ya can'. That ya have some decency left in ya." Shaking her head, "Don' end up like me." "Ignorance." The word from earlier is mumbled just loud enough to be audible, reminding the convict of her thoughts on it. Keysi lifts her head enough from her self-made caccoon so that her mouth is not so muffled. She watches the dying fire, but far be it from her to stoke it. She doesn't press harder for details. In light of everything, it's almost accepted. "If he didn't judge you, there is a different kind of good in you. I don't know you, you're right. I won't pretend to." With that, she does manage to look at Jo, not so intensely. More weary. "But I trusted him. I don't like trusting people." She adds, slightly harsher, and looks away, "He saw things in people." The heavy statement is left to linger, "Regardless of how, you did it." Bluntly, but not unkindly, "If I can do anything for you, you only need to call." Keeping of the secret, however, is already implied. The one word draws a genuine smile from Jo, it staying in place for a few seconds. It falls completely when Keysi talks of there being good in her, and the the look that marrs her features is reluctance. "He did see things in folks," she admits, a touch wry. "Yer pro'bly right. It's hard for me to see it myself is all." Pause. It's something the brownrider says that has the woman nodding before she offers, "He was right. 'Course he was. Guess we do have some similarities. I see it now. Tacuseth's ledge is open to ya. If ya come, ya won' be turned away. Whatever ya need, darlin'," and she finally gets up from the chair with the bottle, "ya ask'n I'll work to get it. Even if it's just to talk 'bout him." There's a fondness in the brief smile at it, nodding. "It's hard for me to trust," she says, "but he trusted ya'n so, I will. I think we should get to know each other." Keysi gets her measuring gaze before she offers over the bottle. "It's what he would've wanted." Keysi uncurls, one booted foot at a time set back on the rug shielding the hearth's corner from some of the cold of the stone beneath. "He always ended up being right." A hint of fond annoyance, not that it's any less shaky in the voice that struggles to remain steady. As Jo rises, Keysi does too, pulled by the movement almost reflexively, though slowly. "He would have liked that," on getting to know each other, "And I would like to." She reaches a hand out to take the offering, but all the attempt at steeling herself is shown to be only surface-deep when she almost loses grip of the bottle when it's passed to her due to the lingering shaking. But her second hand reaches to steady the first, and then it's clutched to her chest just as Jo'd been clutching it since her arrival. "Thank you." It takes effort, a lot of it, for Keysi to look to meet Jo's gaze. The delayed gratitude means to follow her offer of Tacuseth's ledge being open to her, but it doesn't just imply that. It's all-encompassing. "Good," Jo says on getting to know each other, facing her once she stands. "Maybe we can go to those desert tents in Igen. R'hin told me he's taken ya there, too." The bottle is given and her odd open look of understanding is there on her face. She's gained most of her composure by now, and so the thanks with all its meaning has a nod in return for it. She goes to touch the brownrider's shoulder if she can, giving in the end, "They're free, darlin'. Our loss won' be in vain." Perhaps meant to reassure as she steps away towards the ledge. Keysi accepts the touch, remaining still, and managing to continue to study Jo's eyes as she speaks, even with the closeness. "Aye." She breathes, the now-set expression allowing the slightest change of the edge of her lips that may be the attempt of a smile in regards to the offer of plans. Good plans, those. "It won't be." Assured, that. "He won't be forgotten." Not in all the change he'd left behind, all the people he'd left behind. ""Our ledge is open to you too." The brownrider says as the convictrider turns to leave, "Fly safe, Jo." Is not quite the normal formality, but said by necessity and with an edge to it. Removing her hand, "Damn straight," comes from Jo, firm and with a edge to the slight smile that comes. She makes it before the ledge before turning back on the offer, the convict rider nodding once on it along with a wry, "I'll be takin' up on that soon." Pause. "Thanks. Y'all take care of yerselves." Eyes looks toward Neianth briefly before she gone, the bluepair dropping into the sky moments later. Perhaps her thanks is oddly placed, but there was a taste of relief that could be heard in that one word, alluding to a burden shared as Tacuseth's presence fades. |
Comments
Alida (23:55, 11 October 2015 (PDT)) said...
- wince-ouch-owie-groan-sniffle* :(
Leave A Comment