Logs:Three or Four
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| RL Date: 13 November, 2015 |
| Who: Ebeny, E'dre, Laurienth, Wroth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Some arguing, some reasoning, and some not arguing. |
| Where: Ebeny's weyr, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 4, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Elayne/Mentions, Hattie/Mentions, Dahlia/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions |
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| Perhaps it's a sense of self-preservation - in more ways than one - that keeps Ebeny from lingering too long in the caverns of an evening these days, her retreat one made fairly early and not so long after the first servings of the evening meal. Even Laurienth sticks inside for once, her adopted wallow home to cushions and a tangle of blankets that are clearly more suited to someone rider-sized rather than dragon-sized. Nothing much has been put away in the weyr they've moved themselves into, the furniture sparse and almost everything that they own still in crates and piles across the place. Even the bed is only home to a bare mattress. The main indication that the Weyrlingmaster is home is that the weyr is full of sound - full of her voice - the melody nothing sweet and instead full of the other side of the emotion spectrum. Her back is to the entryway as she builds up the fire, Laurienth curled nose to tail and watching her. Wroth should have asked for permission, or even announced their intent, but does neither as the brown angles into the skies and lands roughly on the empty ledge that is now Laurienth's to claim. He does extend an apology: more a feeling than an actual verbalization. He lingers on the ledge with his straps still on, fully prepared for their eventual fleeing. E'dre lingers on the ledge near Wroth's shoulder as he listens to the sound of his weyrmate's voice resonating from inside. He takes a few steadying breaths in the moments between his pause and eventual entrance into a space not meant for him. He doesn't rush in far - knowing his lack of announcement may cause more problems than help - but he unbuckles his jacket as he continues to listen to Ben. Finally, he says, "We should talk, Ebeny." Laurienth lifts her head, her low rumble one that weaves below the notes that her rider belts out in a fashion that's not so kind to her voice, but the behaviour is so typical of the green that she's ignored, and so it's E'dre's voice that abruptly kills the melody and makes Ebeny start, a syllable of sound caught in her throat. Crouched there before the hearth, she watches him, all tension, like a predator might focus on prey, yet soon she slowly rises, even if she does have to grab at the mantle to maintain her balance. She doesn't move from where she is, and nor does she speak, muddy-green eyes sharp and narrowed. It is certainly awkward to continue to stand where he does and yet E'dre doesn't move forward. He clasps his hands in front of him, shifts to folding his arms, then resorts to shoving his fists into his jacket's pockets. "Thankfully," he begins, "I've already got the girls home. There's a lot of serious things going on outside of the Weyr," he continues, whether or not such line of conversation is patronizing to Ebeny, "and I don't feel comfortable with our fight nor with you moving out. We need you home. I need you home." He takes a breath, shakes his head, and looks out towards the ledge where Wroth still has yet to settle. "I don't know exactly what to say to make anything right between us. But, Ben," he looks back to her, seriousness and concern fixating his features, "people are going to die. I can't face all of this with that thought, knowing that we may not--," he shakes his head and grows quiet. "Whatever I say, I guess it's manipulative of you. But I don't want things to end between us." The slight twist of her lips and tilt of her head conveys far too much about how she feels about being patronised. "You don't feel comfortable," Ebeny echoes, words slow and drawn out. "How awful. I'm sure it's better than the alternative, which you think is me deliberately hurting you, so what do you want from me? You need me to look after the children you've brought back to somewhere so ridiculously less safe than where they were?" It only becomes a demand as she reaches the subject of their daughters. "Or are you worried we won't be friends before one or both of us gets sick? Is it guilt?" Only after she's said it does she seem to regret it, her gaze suddenly directed down towards the fire sparking to life. "...It's more likely to be me, anyway," she murmurs. "The healers said so. The baby, my age... I don't have a lot going for me." "Yes, Ebeny," E'dre snaps, so easily pushed towards a display temper, "that's exactly what I came here for. I demand for you to come home and care for our children. Whether you believe they would've been safer with strangers," he emphasizes that point, something he has not gone so far as to say in regards to her family, "watching out for them when mass panic is likely to befall Pern if what they say about this illness is true." He gestures towards the entrance of the weyr. "I've got an entire population here at the Weyr to look out for. I took the time to come and look to my family. Don't act like I'm so busy I don't care about our children!" He doesn't care if his voice has elevated in the course of his tirade. It lessens to some extent as he tightens his lips and listens to her last words. "It can be anyone. Illness is not kind. Of course I'd feel guilty if you died and we had this," he gestures between them, "distance between us. I feel guilty every day that is how things ended with my sister and my niece. I've experienced this, Ben." "My family aren't strangers just because they're not your family!" Ebeny exclaims, only the moment that she summons the fire to retort so is the same one that it dies. She turns, resting her arms against the mantel and leans there, hanging her head. "If you've just come here to shout at me, or so that we can say we forgave each other in-case one or both of us ends up ill, then just... go," she quietly pleads. "I don't have the energy for this. I moved out because you said I was making you miserable; there's no use in us both being miserable, together. I'm trying to do the right thing." "I feel like you want me to be miserable," E'dre counters, not fully prepared to let go of anger though it is beginning to lessen. "I feel like no matter how I proceed through this pregnancy of yours, I'll do it wrong, and you'll throw it at me as a reason. Isn't that why you moved out? So you could avoid the fact that I'm not as upset about this as you want me to be?" He shakes his head and takes a few more steps further into the weyr. "The right thing is never going to be you leaving me," he tells her, his tone finally settling into kinder tones. "I need you by my side. Even more now." He's slowly closed the distance between them and reaches a tentative hand out to rest on her shoulder. "Please come home." "I want you to do what you want to do and not turn to me in another decade and tell me how tolerant and sacrificing you've been when I inevitably do something you don't like," Ebeny insists, closing her eyes as if she could block him out. "Don't go telling me that I gave you a choice just because I wanted you to scream and rage at me. How sick in the head do you think I am?" She presses her eyes shut even tighter. "Or is that how you've seen me, since Elayne? Wrong in the head?" When he rests his hand on her shoulder, she starts and abruptly angles a long look back at E'dre before telling him, "...I can't. They're converting the barracks into space for the sick, if people get sick. You shouldn't stay, either." "That's exactly what I'll do," E'dre replies blandly, "because as you've told me in the past, I'm a child who throws fits. I'll use this as a strategy to punish you for the fuck-up I'll inevitably become." He sucks air through his teeth sharply at her mention of Elayne. "No," he tells her, eyes sharpening and frown not one out of anger directed towards her. "I saw how deeply I hurt you and the mistakes I made with Elayne. It was never your fault or your head that was wrong." His brows shoot upwards at her mention of their home and he takes a moment to register what she's saying. "Under whose authority?" he demands. Though she's still turned towards the hearth - and soon to have rather toasty ankles, with the way the fire is rising - Ebeny watches her weyrmate closely, her focus turning inward for a moment while she tries to gather words that are ultimately scattered by his enquiry. "...The Weyrwomen?" she says slowly, as if it's obvious. "If they need the space, they need the space. If what's happening at Boll happens here, they'll need more space. Not living in that weyr's a small price to pay if it means not getting sick, or quarantined for being too near anyone who falls ill." E'dre still seems defensive about that, "It's our home." He pauses, looking away from her and towards the ledge. "Where will we go? My old weyr, I think some weyrling took it turns ago now-," he shakes his head and grows silent. "We just got the girls back and now we'll have to uproot their routine yet again," he mutters and looks back to her. "If we move out- will we move as a family?" "...The Weyrleader's office is large enough; it is a weyr." And yet, Ebeny doesn't sound so sure about that course of action. "The right to it depends on Wroth's ability to catch a queen," she says more quietly, as if she could avoid mentioning any uncertainty there at all. "You're the Weyrleader. You could take any empty weyr that you choose." There's guilt there, her discomfort with using the knot for personal gain clear. She looks up and around at the rather rustic state of the small cavern she's recently adopted as a home, and slowly shifts her weight as she turns to face him more directly. "...This place isn't big enough for Laurienth and Wroth. Or," she hesitantly reaches for his hand, intending to rest it against her stomach, which is nearer than she's let him in the recent past, "three children... or four." She struggles with that last word, her apprehension still all too plain. "It's an office, not a home," E'dre clarifies of the Weyrleader's space, "And whether or not I may wish to remain the Weyrleader of Fort for the foreseeable future, with the size of Wroth, I am not entirely sure that'll ever be a possibility. No matter that his color is a subject of disdain for some." She may have discomfort for the knot but E'dre does not as he muses, "We could move into a junior weyr, so we remain on the ground. And it should be big enough for both dragons." He pauses when she takes his hand and rests it against her stomach. He goes entirely still as he looks to the bump his palm is resting smoothly against. "Four," he murmurs, stepping closer to her then. "I wouldn't mind it being four, Ben." He lifts his other hand out to brush his fingers against her cheek. "I love you," he tells her, "and we'll figure the rest out." "It's only not a home because N'muir and the Weyrwoman live together..." Ebeny says quietly, and one thought leading to another brings her to, "...and there's a empty junior weyr just below their weyr... and another next to the one in use. It was... suggested that we could do that, but I felt... awkward about it." She shakes her head, dismissing further musing of her own on that subject, too encouraged when E'dre steps closer to her to focus on much else. Her fingers flex as hers brush her cheek, and her own, "I love you," is near lost in her sudden rush to press her lips to his, one hand winding its way into the fabric of his shirt. "Then we'll move into the Weyrleader's weyr," E'dre makes a point to emphasize the name change. "If the Weyrwomen feel the need to take over the barracks, I feel the need to have a home." Whether or not such a decision was a sound one to make, it's clear from E'dre's tone he disapproves of the entire venture. And then whatever further rantings and ravings the brownrider may have fallen to on the subject are silenced when Ben's lips press against his. He moves the hand from her stomach only so that he can rest it against her back to urge her as close as she can comfortably. He returns her kiss with another and however long time may pass beside the fire kissing will be more than welcomed by the brownrider. Soon, the heat of the fire begins to become too much to ignore, and Ebeny's forced to begin to take shuffling steps away from it, though she refuses to let go of E'dre unless she absolutely has to. "...Stay?" she asks, her voice almost not there at all. "...I don't have a bed," well, she does, but it's a shell of a thing, "but Laurie could... go outside with Wroth..." Yes, she must have been sleeping in the wallow right alongside her green, so far. Said green gives another low rumble, though at least this one is less warning and more comment. "Let's use the wallow," E'dre's voice is husky as he steps back as Ben does. He's loathe to relinquish his hands from her body and finds reason to hug her towards him again. He gives a playful kiss to her nose and smiles, earlier tension and anger gone with the promise of staying there. "I'll collect the children," he pauses to kiss at her neck, moving towards the wallow with little focus to anything else, "after." And how long into 'after' that may be is entirely dependent on how engrossed they can become with each other. Wroth doesn't fuss with the straps still on his body when Laurienth moves out to join him, content with the situation going on inside. « This is better » the brown shares with the green. « Now we can focus on other things. » |
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