Logs:Living With It
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| RL Date: 23 October, 2015 |
| Who: Hattie, E'dre |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: E'dre shares his news. Hattie tries to be objective. |
| Where: The Glass Fountain, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 28, Month 1, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Ebeny/Mentions, N'rov/Mentions, C'sel/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions, P'draig/Mentions, Tabitha/Mentions, Harriet/Mentions, Elayne/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Discussion of termination of pregnancy. Potentially upsetting material. |
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| The Glass Fountain is relatively quiet for the evening, the draw of the living caverns having the larger pull with the entertainment provided. The Acting Weyrleader heads into the facility with a glance to the few people within and a look of relief flashes across his features when he doesn't find a single Hematite rider within. E'dre heads towards the bar to order something stiff to down followed by a mug of ale. He lingers for a moment to chat off-handedly with the barkeep before he takes his drink and moves to settle at a table nearest to the warmth offered by the hearth. He kicks his feet out on the nearest chair and slouches into his chair. The ale is sipped in a methodical manner as he stares into the flickering flames. In one corner of the bar, in one of the back booths, the Weyrwoman stands to carefully transfer her sleeping youngest daughter into the arms of her eldest, the move one made without a murmur from Harriet, though Tabitha can be heard to offer soothing nonsense to her all the same. After a few murmured words, the two women part ways, recordskeeper departing for the caverns, while Hattie lingers to tidy up hidework and stash it in her satchel before easing out of the booth. She surveys the bar as she slings the satchel's strap over her shoulder, and though she seems set on heading after Tabitha, when her gaze rests on E'dre, she hesitates, and instead she moves for his table. "I'm horrible company at the moment," E'dre drawls out without looking towards Hattie as she nears. "You'd be better off heading home." He takes a larger gulp of his ale and leans his head back and to the side to give Hattie a glance before he returns to looking at the fire. Anticipating that Hattie may not leave after such a declaration, E'dre heaves a sigh and shifts his feet off of the chair to allow her to sit. "At least my mood isn't caused by X'vin or other riders. They all seem to be behaving lately. Aside from Flint's tendency to allow their riders to drink first thing in the morning." He shifts further to straighten in his chair and tosses a glance towards the door Tabitha had exited. "Was that your oldest daughter? She must be visiting. Really, go spend time with them." He waves a hand. "No offense," Hattie says in that dry tone of voice that only makes the utter lack of attempt to avoid causing such all the more obvious, "but rumour has it that you're not the best company at any moment." And so she adopts that seat regardless, letting her satchel slip back to the floor. "Stop fixating," is much the same response he's earned of late when mentioning said bronzerider, the words delivered a little too as one might speak to a child. "Tabitha works in the records," she says slowly. "Not that I expect you to know that. Her twin left for Ruatha River several turns ago now." Informative only, she doesn't exactly invite enquiry, and so settles in to wait E'dre out. E'dre has an answering smirk to that dry tone as he assures, "Those rumours are likely true. I'm a real pain in the ass and better off avoided. Only, I think, Hematite puts up with me mostly because they find me enjoyable after hours when we're drinking." He hefts his mug up in answer to that. "See? I'm trying here." Her mention of not fixating earns a disgruntled and murmured, "Fine, fine," in reply. Her explanation of Tabitha draws him towards a frown. "I should know that. I'm sorry. That's entirely rude of me. Though, with the rumours, you'd also know I care little to put names and faces together for our staff." He rubs at his chin for a moment and then grows silent as he looks down at his ale. "You'll likely hear another rumour soon and I suppose it'd feel better if I told you directly. Ben's pregnant again." He hefts his mug again with a bitter-edged smile, "So I'm celebrating." "There's a phrase to play with. 'Enjoyable after hours'." Hattie arches a brow and lets herself smirk the tiniest bit, yet she doesn't openly tease him any more than that, not with the information that follows. She pauses to choose her words more carefully than blurting out the first thought that she has, not that her attempt is necessarily all that successful. "...I thought you had sent your children to live with family? Was it so you could--?" Try for more? Then, all in a rush: "Why aren't you with her?" "Let's make that my title, hm? 'Acting Weyrleader: Enjoyable after hours'," E'dre falls to sarcasm with an accompanying smirk before he finishes the last of his ale. Hattie's mention of his current children draws a pinched brow and a tightening of his lips. "We weren't trying," he tells Hattie, lifting his gaze to settle it on hers. He continues, testing perhaps, whether or not someone other than him would be faster on the uptake of the truth behind the pregnancy. "We've been so busy that we've hardly you-know and then there was the flight with N'rov and the tension there--," he takes a breath, looking to the bar in a subconscious desire for more alcohol as he delivers the rest, "she's four months along." "It's a bit late now, if you weren't trying." It's not condemnation, but delivered matter of fact. "Just as well that the weyrlings are soon to be not-weyrlings, I suppose. I wouldn't say that she's of an age for it to be easy on her, and you're both older than I am. Not that--" Hattie looks away and towards the hearth. "Well, Harriet was difficult for different reasons," is what she settles for, murmured. Whether pushing at it or just seeking an answer, she presses, "Why aren't you with her now?" again. "Even if you're not ecstatic about it, it's not just her fault." "It isn't my fault either," E'dre delivers deadpan without looking at Hattie. "She didn't want me around, so I left." He pushes to his feet and excuses himself with a half-worded be-right-back as he heads towards the bar. He doesn't linger long this time in his pursuit of more ale and he returns with something that Hattie had been drinking earlier. He sets this down in front of her and then eases back into his chair. He looks down at his refilled mug and then up at Hattie. "Figured it out yet? I didn't get it at first. I was thrilled with the idea of having another child. And then she announced it was N'rov's and even after I declared I didn't care she insisted on Betweening it and insisted on leaving. I left first. She was," he pauses and shakes his head. "She's not going to handle this well." Hattie stares after him, yet opts against throwing any questions at E'dre's back, and when he returns with the drinks, she eyes the mug of cider without reaching for it, not drinking and not truly refusing it either. Ultimately, she declares, "A flight is a flight," and, "She could have tried going Between without telling you at all." Of all the things she could ask, she chooses, "...Why don't you care that it's his?" "I may be Holdbred," E'dre answers, shifting his gaze to the fire again as he holds and refrains from drinking his ale. "But I've been a rider for a good portion of my life. A flight is a flight and perhaps if I hadn't overreacted when it happened she wouldn't feel so distraught about it now. It's not the child's fault, after all. And she didn't notice. I didn't notice when--," he shakes his head and skews a glance towards Hattie, gauging her reaction. "Would people expect me to care it's N'rov's? Am I seen as being that cruel?" "No, but people generally aren't so forgiving." Or so it must be in Hattie's world. She finally reaches for her mug as she says, "...I thought I didn't mind about N'muir and C'stian's mother, not when it was all those decades ago, and before we'd even crossed paths, besides. The thought that I should be jealous was - is - ridiculous. It had absolutely nothing to do with me. But..." She sighs and shakes her head a little, struggling to get out the words that might make her seem fallible, or emotional. "I made it not an issue because I love him. It wasn't that I didn't feel anything about it, or could reason it all away. And he found that out, in the end." E'dre takes a long pull from his mug and then slouches back in his chair. He looks to Hattie as she speaks and keeps his silence as he listens. "She confessed they'd slept together outside of the flight," he confesses in his own right to Hattie, "and she implied that because this is N'rov's baby that perhaps she'd sleep with him again." He can't hide the flash of anger that settles over his features. "I thought if I accepted the child and moved past its parentage that we'd be okay. My family wouldn't suffer, we'd gain from the addition. It's the idea that," he takes a shaky breath, "that this is the start of what I feared. I'm C'sel in this now, aren't I? The weyrmate one step to being forced out of the relationship. I lost more than I thought in that flight, Hattie. It scares me." Hattie lifts her brows. "I don't think it can be proven that being pregnant with someone's child definitely makes you want to sleep with that person," she drawls just a little too dryly. "And that person has to be willing, mind." She watches E'dre over the rim of her mug before she sets it down. "You'd have more to worry about if she desperately wanted to keep it. If she's so set on getting rid of it and as upset as you say, you've not got much to fear of being left. How the two of you deal with whatever happens now, that's another matter." For a moment, she bites down on the inside of her lip, but then she tells him, "It's no good trying to accept it for her. How long will you live a lie?" "I'm not lying on the fact that I accept it," E'dre counters as his fingers tighten on the glass, "I was stating that in being so accepting I thought we'd be okay." He looks to her with a deepening frown. "Hattie, I'm not a woman and not a Healer to know about pregnancy in any detail but I imagine Betweening at this stage would be more than dangerous. She told me she'd have to go multiple times and try to stretch it out. That risk just doesn't seem worth it to me." Hattie keeps her gaze fixed on the hearth when she stresses, "To you," in a voice that's almost not there at all. "Not worth it to you. She's the one going through it." She reaches for her mug again and takes a long drink, then cradles it between her palms. "...After--There was a flight. Elaruth and another queen fought." She still won't look at him. "...Elaruth obviously couldn't fly and... time passed. I realised I was pregnant and-- I didn't know whose it was." One shoulder twitches in a too forced attempt to make it seem like a careless thing. "P'draig said everything that you're saying now. He accepted it. He'd love the child, regardless. He'd love me. It didn't matter. I couldn't--" She shakes her head again. "I couldn't. So, he took me Between. It's not the same, but... she has to live with what she does." E'dre lets silence stretch between them after Hattie's admission, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the hearth. When it seems like he would continue the silence he finally breaks it with a sigh as he looks to her. "I'm sorry you had to go through that," his voice is soft and the weariness that's fallen onto his face is mirrored in his continued tone, "And the choice you had to make was a difficult one." He takes the time to sip from his ale as he looks back to the fire. "When I asked her to carry Elayne, I did everything wrong, I treated her wrong, and after it nearly," he sucks in a breath and lets it out in a whoosh of sound. "I don't know how C'sel handled that either," he adds, thought of the man draws an embarrassed flush to his cheeks, "and now perhaps it is my turn to be on the other side of it. As retribution." "...I'm not looking for sympathy," Hattie answers not unkindly, but near enough to clipped to sound colder than she may mean, for whatever her reasons. "...I'm trying to say... that what you say might only have so much of an impact. She shouldn't be made to feel bad, whatever she chooses. And then there's N'rov..." She blinks her eyes wide and only now looks back to E'dre. "You need to make your decisions for you, so you don't throw blame at her or him however many turns down the road. Thinking it's your turn or due... I'm not sure that's going to help any of you. You can't make up for what you did then by bearing with something now." "It's not my choice to make," E'dre decides after he's nearly finished his ale. "I'll have to give her whatever space she needs, or take whatever is thrown my way, and endure." He looks to Hattie and allows a harshness to enter his tone, "But as I told her, if N'rov proves to be a problem," he pauses, considering his next words carefully, "I'll be more strategic with his placements." He shakes his head and sighs, looking prepared to leave as he shifts in his chair and looks to her. With E'dre seemingly ready to leave, Hattie reaches down and tugs the strap of her satchel back over her shoulder. "Think better of him," she states. "You're a Weyrleader first, as far he's concerned, and her weyrmate second. Maybe you should always be a Weyrleader first and weyrmate second." She rises from her seat, lips twisting in a small, bitter smile. "I'm sure my Harriet would tell you that I'm a Weyrwoman first and a mother second." Having allowed herself that moment of self-loathing, she swallows hard and says, far more gently, "Be careful, E'dre." Before Hattie can leave, E'dre catches her arm and waits until they make eye contact. "I won't be so selfish as to make exceptions for my family that you aren't able to make," he tells her and then he's letting go of her arm and gathering their mugs into his other hand. "I can talk all I want but the actions won't come to back it up." It's as close to a promise as he's ever likely given her on minding his behavior. He lets her go then and then drops their dishes off with the barkeep. He hesitates over accepting another shot of whiskey and then he does. It's not home that E'dre goes next. Instead, there'll be reports of the Acting Weyrleader having spent a good portion of the night in Dice. How well he does at gambling was never the point and if he returns home to an empty weyr, no one can blame him for the marks that might've been lost. |
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