Logs:R'oan's Son
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| RL Date: 10 January, 2016 |
| Who: Breirande, Dahlia |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dahlia makes time to meet with R'oan's bastard son, Breirande. |
| Where: Dahlia and Taeliyth's Weyr, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 10, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Adra/Mentions, Blume/Mentions, R'oan/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Death/loss triggers. Mild angst. |
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>---< Dahlia and Taeliyth's Weyr, Fort Weyr(#1064RJs$) >---------------------<
In a time long past, this spacious and well appointed weyr belonged to the
legendary Moreta. Though the time of legend is past, it still serves its
purpose. The first room is a lopsided cavern that would be longer than it
was wide were it not for the bulge that provides space for the be-pillowed
dragon wallow. On the long side of this area is set a trio of finely
furnished comfortable chairs, two fine chaise lounges and a short round
table that must be meant for entertaining company. Hung on the wall
opposite the dragon couch is a fine tapestry, though it doesn't fill the
length of the space, depicting dragonriders meeting Thread over a Hold.
Farther back there's a square table with accompanying chairs for taking
meals beside a small hearth. The walls here are plain stone with glows
hung at even intervals.
A rich tapestry covers the person-sized entrance to the tip-tilted oblong
sleeping room at the rear of the weyr. The room houses a bed broad enough
to be comfortable for two with sinfully soft pink sheets and a grey
blanket covering. The decorations and small hearth here are homey with a
tropical bent. The furniture doesn't quite fit the theme, being more
elegant and finely upholstered than what would be found in a Southern
bungalow. The oddest part of this private space is that one side of the
sleeping chamber has looks like a construction zone, with piles of
reclaimed wood, tools and other odds and ends.
At the far end of the sleeping room another curtained arch leads to a
small bathing room with a hot spring and the necessary shelves, hooks and
cabinets to contain items for personal care.
At the far end of the sleeping room another curtained arch leads to a
small bathing room with a hot spring and the necessary shelves, hooks and
cabinets to contain items for personal care.
-----------------------------< Active Players >-----------------------------
Breirand M 17 6' athletic, dark blonde hair, blue-grey eyes 1s
Dahlia F 19 5'9" sturdy, dk. brown hair, hazel eyes 0s Weyrwomen lead busy lives particularly in a Weyr with only two goldriders to their name. It may be unsurprising then that it takes a pair of sevens before Dahlia can carve out an evening meeting for Breirande. It's after dinner that the appointment is to take place but in spite of that, a small array of food sits on the table in the section of Dahlia's weyr that is for receiving less personal company. Wheaten Taeliyth is settled in her wallow on one side of the huge oblong space and Dahlia lingers by the entry awaiting Breirande, dressed in her riding pants and a pale blue blouse while the jacket of the ensemble hangs on a hook with the rest of her gear. Well, nobody ever said the Breirande was good at sticking to one avocation. Because -- now that he's (quickly) met his half sister, and is discovering how much more interesting the Weyr is than being a laborer in Crom -- he's decided to stay for a little while, and check things out. And when Dahlia's 'summons' comes, he's only wincing a little to enter her presence in the outer part of this weyr...the tall teen sporting a black eye, already, plus his still vaguely surly manner. "Ma'am?" his transitional tenor/baritone notes politely as he steps slowly, cautiously inward. No doubt Blume's staff has found Breirande a way to put his life experience to work to pay his way at the Weyr during his stay and no doubt Dahlia has checked up between the time that they met in the Fountain and tonight. Nevertheless, it seems Dahlia is not all knowing for her lashes flutter in rapid blinks as she takes in the black eye. "Breirande," Dahlia greets placidly enough after a brief pause. "Come in. What happened to your eye?" She would ask that first, of course, making an inviting gesture. "I wasn't sure if you'd be hungry so I had some food sent up. If not, we can just sit." One gesture indicates the food on the for-eating-and-things table toward the back of the room and another the more comfortable chairs around a closer low table. The look 'Rand gives to the wallow and the gold within still holds echoes of the owl-eyed expression the youth had when he first arrived, and Taeliyth gets a faintly nervous, abbreviated bit of a bow before Breirande sweeps onward, inward. Of course she'd have to bring up his eye, and after a faint expression of displeasure, the teen murmurs, "Someone here thought it'd be funny to... mention my appearance. In a *rude* fashion." Yep, he's scowling now, for a moment, then looking pleased as punch on its heels before he can stifle himself. Apparently, he gave as good as he got, and perhaps first. Food, though? He's still of an age that this means pleasant things -- like shutting up a seemingly constantly hungry stomach -- so Dahlia first gets a small bow before 'Rand moves over to the chow and starts picking out things to eat. "Thank you, ma'am. I'll do both, if it works." Smirk-grin. Eat and sit. Taeliyth's breath in the wake of Breirande's abbreviated bow is a little heavy, as if she might have wanted to snort but truncated the desire. She watches him without any evidence of shame, of course. "Violence is discouraged in the Weyr," Dahlia says simply. "There are better ways to communicate your feelings than with your fists." In a way, her age being similar to his makes the way she moves along to host him seem a little ludicrous, something akin to playing house, only this is her real life and she's rather serious about it. She moves to the table with the food and settles in one of the chairs there, making gesture that e should do the same. "I'd rather not have food on those. They're new to me." The upholstered chairs. And there are chairs here, so that will have to do in Dahlia's domain. "Would you like to eat and then talk or talk as you eat? I'll do my best to answer what questions you have about R'oan." At least the queen didn't corner him and force him through inspection. Whew! Dahlia's words of remonstration meet with another flicker of irritability from Breirande, which he quickly schools into neutrality before he answers with a bit of pointed emphasis, "*I* didn't throw the first punch, ma'am." Nom. He only told the other, weyrbred teen that said teen's mother was a good fuck, last night. "I defended myself." Shrug. "Yes'm..." is noted to the woman wanting to keep her more pricey upholstery clean, one of the chairs she indicates where he settles his middling frame into. For a moment, when Dahlia offers him a choice, the teen looks impulsively ready to make one. But then something makes his mouth snap shut, makes those grey-blue, slightly-hooded eyes study the junior weyrwoman for a long moment. Ahem. "Let's try both at once. Please." First off, he's carefully shoveling more into his maw (somehow without looking too much like a cretin), and chewing, swallowing before he clips off a low, "What'd he look like? I take it we're... well, enough alike, but still..." Shrug. Dahlia doesn't answer the matter of violence; would whatever she said really matter under the circumstances? Perhaps she thinks not. It's possible that the goldrider is more prepared for this first question given her thoughtful study of Breirande's face. "Quite alike," she says, rising from her chair. "Would you like a drink?" Obviously, she needs one, but that she didn't have one in hand probably means she'd hoped to get by without one. "He kept his hair longer than yours, but I can see him in your face and build. I'm afraid I'm not an artist or I might have a sketch to offer." As she moves to her sidebar to fetch two glasses and a bottle of quality whiskey, she elucidates, "He was good looking, like you, same sort of eyes, though his were more green and yours look more blue. Your lips are a little different, and the angle of jaw's just a little different." For some reason, Breirande personally thought he'd wind up looking *less* like his deceased father, so when Dahlia says otherwise, the teen gives her a vaguely-surprised, slightly critical look before answering, "Yes, please." At some point, as the weyrwoman continues to speak of R'oan, he starts fidgiting just a little, as if all this attention (in the name of paternity) makes 'Rand somewhat uneasy. Even when the goldrider mentions his good looks -- something most teens might enjoy hearing -- he can't help but ducking his chin just a fraction, eyes traveling to his food...which the youth continues to eat heartily. After some moments spent not only chewing, but regaining some of his aplomb, 'Rand, again looks up to Dahlia, murmurs with some teenaged brusqueness, "My mother's got a squar-ish jaw, light blue eyes." Shrug. Not that said mom's own good looks likely mattered too much. A faint clench of teeth sends jaw muscles rippling for a moment, presages a vaguely touchy, "Kinda weird, seeing some people here give me double-take looks, act like they're seein' a ghost." Those hooded eyes narrow a fraction, focus even more intently on Dahlia. "Like you did, weyrwoman." Dahlia is careful pouring the drinks, standing next to the table to do so. She slides the glass intended for the young man to him before taking bottle and her own glass to her seat on the opposite side. Lifting her glass, she considers him, this young man with the face of a ghost. "You're considerably younger, of course, but particularly when you sit in the Fountain at the bar, you're likely to get that sort of reaction. R'oan rode for Fort Weyr for over twenty-five turns. He was something of a fixture. The sort of man who had a polarizing effect on people. You enjoyed him, or you wanted to punch him." Her eyes linger on that blackened eye. "Salut..." Breirande murmurs to Dahlia once he accepts that glass of booze, and casually tosses back a solid third of the glass without even blinking. Blue-grey eyes crinkle up a little in humor at their outer corners as he listens more to the young woman on the other side of the table, and at some point 'Rand murmurs, "Lot better stuff than the crud I could afford back in Crom." On his former, small salary. "Not that I could afford anything with alcohol, much." Laborers are near the bottom rung of the Craft 'pecking ladder.' Even Craft-skilled ones. More eating, listening takes place, the teen's head quirking intently as he takes in all of what Dahlia has to say, his gaze watching her intently between sips, bites. Until -- at her latter statement -- there's a strangely adult reaction from the kid: a somewhat bitter, yet knowing half-smirk which presages his darkly droll, "Apparently I'm just a chip off the ol' block. I've been told I can be *both* at the same time." Bitter-bitter. On to other niceities, though! "Tell me more about him, his life. What was he like...?" More detail, please. "You have a similar smile," Dahlia says abruptly before focusing on her glass. She clears her throat and takes a sip before finding any words to answer his question. "This whiskey was better than what he could afford. He drank, too much. The healers said if he'd drank less, he'd have stood a better chance of surviving. He needed it. The drink." She flicks her eyes up at the young man, her look a little stern, "Try not to fall into that trap." She doesn't linger though, she's not his mother. "He Stood and Impressed before he knew what that meant. He loved his Etrevth. A brown. He rode for Sandstone. Poorly and well, depending on whose standards you judge by. They were lonely. Both of them. He had a lot of company in his loneliness." A pause, "He didn't feel he had anything to offer the world or anyone in it." They might be hard truths, but they're truths. Okay. Now *Breirand's* officially creeped out at Dahlia's word of his smile, and something of such shows in his eyes, on his face for a few moments before he looks down at what remains of his drink, turns it some in his hand. There's old irritation and new understanding in his gaze before he murmurs a little tightly, "When I turned sixteen, my mother's weyrmate took me out to this place in Ista...some dive down on the beach. Could've sworn he was too sober for 8 drinks, but we matched each other." Lips pull thin, grey-blue eyes narrow in a little anger again as he continues, "All I remember about that night was waking up the next afternoon and throwing up everything, including air, for the next set of hours." Another look at the drink in his hand soon finds it lifted to his lips, sparingly sipped from, until, "This is only the third time I've dared to try more, since then. No more beer for me." Perhaps his mother set her progeny up, after seeing what happened to R'oan? Balanced between the teenager and the man, 'Rand straddles both as he finally looks back up into Dahlia's eyes, stares, then looks back down to his food again. His nod is scant, but there. Though he might not give the impression of it, he's still listening amidst his inner turmoil, something a little lost touching the Cromese's features when word of R'oan's loneliness is spoken of. Just like a teen, however, he mutters a hint sourly, "Maybe he didn't. Except his dragon." "I'm sorry," Dahlia murmurs, picking up on something in the young man's expression, "if you find this unnerving. It's no less so for me." Perhaps that's meant to make him feel better. At least she has a drink, which she finishes and carefully pours another before offering to do the same (retaining careful control of that bottle). "Maybe he didn't," the young woman concedes the possibility quietly, "but for whatever it's worth, I thought he did. He always offered me a safe space to hate the world or my lot in life or the decisions I made that landed me where I was at. I don't think what he had to offer the world would have been enough for most people. I don't think it would have been enough for you," she regards him candidly, "but I was grateful for him." A pause, "For whatever that's worth." It might not be much, truly, and she seems to know that. There's a quick, negating headshake to Dahlia for her sorry, 'Rand puffing up a little, being the good little tough boy-teen. To her second offer of another drink comes a jerk up of the young man's eyes to study her for hidden intent, after which he nods once, gently pushes his now-empty glass a little towards her upon the table-top. And then he's once more all ears for the goldrider, watching her intently, even as his fingers pluck up some of the remaining bites of food, secure them into his still-growing mouth. Surly-boy scowls a little again; not enough for him, indeed, and then quiets himself to finally allow another small nod...and finally, a somewhat tentative, though brave, "You two were...friends." A couple of seconds later, "Maybe more." It's not quite a question, not quite a statement. "More." Simple, direct. "If we hadn't been..." Dahlia starts but then shakes her head, not finishing. She manages to keep her look fairly even as she draws her gaze back to Breirande's face, but her eyes betray deep emotion where her face does not. "There are too many 'what if's to know how life might've been different. I was with him while he was dying. Taeliyth saw to it that he and Etrevth were able to be together at the end." It's then, after another sip, that she looks earnestly at the young man, "What were you hoping to find here, Breirande? Before you found out he was dead, what did you want? Just to know him? More?" This time, for Dahlia's admission, there's no nod or headshake, merely an intense study of the young woman who's apparently more grown-up than her Turns might say...especially when Brierande can't help but notice the depths of emotion in her eyes. Light skin, beneath fading tan, pinkens some at his cheeks, and his gaze drops to that drink again, which is lifted, quickly pulled from. Dying. Word of that makes the young boy-man squirm a little more as yet more within him is stirred by conflicting reactions and memories, his fingers tightening on the glass, while the other hand's digits aimlessly push food around his plate, now. Blurted: "What was Etrevth like? I hear lots of, 'like rider, like dragon' around, but mostly from those without." What the shell do non-riders know about that bond...or so says his slightly accusing eyes. As for his *own* reasons, there's yet more inner push-and-pull going on, seen in flashes and clouding of eyes and upon his jaw, lips as they subtly move. When he finally can speak, it's low and tight. "I was thinking I'd find out about the... rider who'd charmed *my* mother into the sack and then couldn't be assed to bother with her afterwards." The rest of that drink is downed without a thought, leaves him room to add, "I won't lie to you; I've dreamed of punching him the fuck out many nights." While howling angry, bitter epithets, no doubt. "And now..." that R'oan's beyond umbrage...now that the kid knows at least *something* of his sire... Once again, in Dahlia's presence, that fist curls up, slams down upon table top...then suddenly jerks back to his lap. Damn it. "Sorry. You don't need this shit." Dahlia doesn't flinch at the fist. "This table isn't R'oan. This Weyr isn't R'oan. There's very little left of him anywhere." The goldrider's chiding is gentle. "If you need to take your grief out on something, there's a training room in the Weyr that you're welcome to use." She studies his expression before going on. "R'oan couldn't be much bothered with anyone after," Dahlia say this without rancor. It's just how it was. "Unfortunately, Taeliyth and Etrevth didn't get on. They had a thing against goldriders and the hierarchy of dragon kind. I don't really know what he was like and she doesn't have any memory of him directly. Dragons forget, within a few days, usually." Then she places both her hands around her glass, looking at it thoughtfully. "Some of his wingmates knew him turns longer than I did. If you wanted to know more, you might start there." She takes another sip, finishing off her second, but she doesn't move to pour more. "He wouldn't have wanted you to ever consider becoming a rider. That sounds pretty unrelated, still, the goldrider looks up, "But if you're staying around, you might be here when there are eggs and you're of an age for that sort of choice if a dragon finds you suitable. If that's something you'd give a thought toward, I'd ask you for R'oan that you find out what it means before you decide if you're willing to Stand. There's no turning back from this life. In it until the end." As R'oan surely found out. Breirande manages just enough grace to look both consternated and a hint shamed...whithin his teen outrage, the rest of the food on his plate finding itself shoved into his mouth and chewed with overactive zeal. Take that, you bastards. There's nothing else said or done, until he's finally looking up at the goldrider, and murmuring darkly, "Even *you*..?" R'oan used her, threw her away without regard to person or Dahlia's station? As for dragon heirarchy, nose-wrinkle. "From some of what I hear since I've been here, I can understand why. Most of a Weyr seems to be green and blue dragons, even more browns. Without *them*, there'd not really *be* a Weyr. Why do they have to kiss a... suck up to bronzes and golds." Again, he's a teen, through and through, when saying this: independent, unchained, a little overzealous. A sudden blink, and his cheeks once again pinken a touch. "No disrespect, ma'am." As for talking to R'oan's ex-Wingmates, there's a sudden, certain shake of head, that surly, angry darkness once again within 'Rand's eyes, which fires brightly at word of what R'oan might have wanted for his offspring...though he manages to keep his lips sealed, this time. Fuck what his absentee father would have wanted. Besides, "Do I *look* like dragonrider material to *you*?" Snort. Still, it's interesting, capturing the youth's imagination as nothing has before, and so he finally has to inquire of his tolerant hostess, "Since you've been...nice enough not to skin me alive, punch me in the face, call me names, and even tolerate my pretty ways..." smirk "...well, maybe you'd also be kind enough to give me your perspective, Dahlia." Beat. "Ma'am." And, somehow, 'Rand manages to say this with only the faintest hints of snark, here and there. Fucking teenagers. "He died before we really had the chance to find out." Dahlia's expression turns briefly pained and her eye close. "He did his best before that." To spurn her. She opens her eyes and there's further study of his face. She doesn't address the matter of the Weyr's draconic hierarchy. "I may," she pauses, "but not now. This has stirred up a lot of things for me and now isn't the moment to speak of more practical things. Weyrwoman or ma'am, Breirande. You may have much of R'oan's looks but we've none of that familiarity. Not yet." Possibly not ever. "If you stay and would like to talk again, we'll arrange it. Otherwise, I wish you well in you future endeavors," so formally, too. It might seem cruel save for the way her face looks so pained when she tilts it down to regard her empty glass. Again, he's got enough self-preservation left in his damned teen skull to not say aloud, 'Lucky you,' to Dahlia, Breirande instead nodding once and letting it be. She was so forthcoming about other answers that Dahlia's refusal to offer more catches the teen looking openly disappointed...until the goldrider explains. And 'Rand inwardly cringes just a little at the young woman's obvious pain. Well, at least he feels something for others. For now, anyway. Feels enough to look both sheepish and a tad pouty at being corrected over that one misstep of familiarity. "Yes ma'am." Yeesh; one misstep, and called out. "I'll think about all of it, weyrwoman." There; have a nice little title, now that we're all back to stiff and formal. Even the goldrider's pained expression cannot stop 'Rand from slowly standing, offering Dahlia a small bow, and noting just as formally, "Thank you for the time, and your attention, weyrwoman." And if there's a quick blossom of empathy in his eyes before he turns away and departs, hopefully she didn't see it...for he'd not admit it, anyway. |
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