Logs:Important Secrets
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| RL Date: 6 January, 2016 |
| Who: Lys, V'ret |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lys and V'ret nearly talk loyalty and do talk secrets. |
| Where: Tiny Glacial Valley and Pond, near High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 4, Month 10, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Farideh/Mentions, H'vier/Mentions, Irianke/Mentions, Jo/Mentions, Z'riah/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Slightly back-dated. |
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>---< Tiny Glacial Valley and Pond, near High Reaches Weyr (TP Room - HRW) >-<
Not far from High Reaches Weyr, this sheltered, shallow valley tucked
into the mountains is reachable only by dragonwings, and is home to many
ponds and hardy trees, the former thawing only in deep summer. During
summer, it is also festooned with wildflowers and scrubby grasses. The wildflowers have begun to die off with the first cool weather of the autumn, but that doesn't mean that the valley is markedly less pleasant, just less beautiful. There were some nerves in proposing they go somewhere together as opposed to just staying in and doing the usual, but with the suggestion well received, Lys seems well pleased to be here now with V'ret. The later afternoon swim while nippy was encouraging of hotter activities in its wake, and in the wake of that, there was the matter of tamping down grasses and arranging rocks to make a small space that would be safe for a campfire. Now, snuggled up beside V'ret with a blanket shared around their shoulders, one under them and one for their laps, Lys seems utterly content. This whole not talking thing really works for them! Until, "Can we talk?" There's talking and then there's talking. Coordinating a fire, that kind of conversation V'ret is perfectly happy to have. Surely, someone will be proud of their survival skills, keeping themselves fed and also that all-important prevention of hypothermia with body heat. But just now, he's settled into that cozy sort of mood where the next thing one suggests should be a nap, say, not an important conversation. The biggest thing he's been concerned with in the last five minutes is idly toying with her hair. Now, unprepared, ambushed: "Sure. Okay." Okay, maybe it's more like, lured into a false sense of security. It was probably no accident that they made love or fucked or whatever the flavor of the survivalist action took long enough ago now to let drowsiness fade without yet really moving into 'let's do that again' territory. Lys' hands have found a comfortable rhythm, her fingers stroking across his chest and sometimes down to his thigh, in easy soothing sort of strokes. "It's been a while," she starts, softly. "Loyalty." She says the word carefully. "And what you want to do." She looks up at him. "I wouldn't like to have us at odds. Ever." Nevermind all the fights, though with sticking to safe conversation since the last time and a lot of really great sex, they've done fairly well with being in tune with one another in the last month, particularly with flaming to distract them. At least while it's so nonspecific, V'ret seems a little easier about edging into this topic of conversation than he might have been the first time it came up. Especially with that reassurance. "You and I, we should be partners. We are partners. Us and them." The them might be a bit easier if Zoth showed the slightest sign of warming up to Evyth; he's perfectly content to have this time to himself, apparently, doing the sort of hunting he much prefers, which is the kind where things aren't all conveniently penned up. At least he hasn't showed much sign of warming up to any of the other greens, yet, either. "I don't want anything to change that." Evyth, for her part, seems to have no qualms with Zoth's lack of warmth. She's warm because she just is, even she's mad, she's warm. She doesn't lack for warmth and affection where some of her clutchmates are concerned and the proverbial olive branch is ever extended to the bronze. A lot of things can change with maturity which is still months off for Evyth. It doesn't seem to impact the greenrider's feelings for her counterpart at any rate. In the wake of his words, Lys has to lick suddenly dry lips, and for once it's not just to be provocative. "I'd... like that, Ev." But. It's there in her words even before she says it. "I have debts, too. The kind that never get paid." The blonde shifts a little so she can study his face. "Right now, I think we're on opposing sides of a thing." What thing, she mightn't be sure. "Just not sure how to get us on the same side now." But she wants to, that much is plain from her expression. This is a productive, problem solving talk. Hopefully she's not the only one who intends so. "I'm not," V'ret protests, "on anybody's side, unless it's mine and yours. And I don't intend to be." It's a protest, but it's a lazy one. He's comfortable, he doesn't intend to shift from this particular position, though his eyes seem caught more by the fire than by her, when she's looking at him. A log pops and splits with a spray of sparks, then everything settles again. "I don't know what I need to do to convince you of that, but it's true." Lys looks at him some long moments and then sighs. Obviously, something isn't going as she hoped. "Jo." She doesn't look at him now, her own eyes finding the fire a better place to direct her dissatisfied gaze. Good, they can trade, let V'ret seek out the light on Lys' hair, at least, if not her eyes. "Is this about you wanting to sleep with her, or about what she wants from me?" At least he's asking instead of plowing ahead blindly with his first impulses. "If I'm not your lifemate, it's not fair of you to expect me to know what's going through your head." But it's a very gentle chiding--entirely too fond. A slight rearranging of the blankets is an excuse to put his arms around her again afterwards. His questions draw her eyes, a look that says he should know already. It makes his next words all the more deserved, but that doesn't stop Lys from sighing again, though the sound is more abbreviated. "Point," she gives it to him verbally so it counts. "I'm not going to sleep with Jo." There's a pause and then, "There are 'unless'es there, but I don't think you want to hear them." So she'll leave that be if he does. She snuggles into his arms. "About what she wants from you. About what you might have to give her. About where the lines you won't cross are." She's looking at the fire again, thoughtful and perhaps a little distant. "I don't, really," V'ret admits--admits, like it's a failing. "But those are your decisions to make, not mine." And if he repeats that enough times, he'll really believe it. Effort should count for something, shouldn't it? "If I knew what it was going to be, all of it would be a lot easier. But I don't. I intend to do whatever keeps us safe, first and foremost. I'm not shedding blood for her, if it comes to that, but I don't expect it to." Not for her. For himself, for someone else, he doesn't rule out, of course, but who knows if that distinction is big enough to be worth noticing. Lys shifts to become all the more intimate in their repose, her legs moving to drape over his lap. Her eyes study his face as her hands make moves across his chest. She looks troubled as she thinks in some long moments of silence. "It was-" she starts then sucks in a breath and let's it leave her before trying to press her cheek to his chest, something suddenly a little desperate in her demeanor. Whatever the reason for it, V'ret holds her the tighter for it, hand cradling her head, fingers in her hair. "What is it, sweet?" Careful. Lys being troubled can mean no good for him, can it? He's not going to dig that hole any deeper without knowing what he's digging into. "Nothing. It was probably silly of me to bring this up at all," which is all lie and not cleverly told. Lys looks worried and dejected all at once. It's clear that she's trying to make a dragon into a firelizard by strength of will alone and not doing very well with that. "This is why I didn't want to say anything in the first place," says V'ret after a breath that was... very nearly a sigh. Probably a sigh. "It wasn't silly to bring it up, I just don't know how to fix it. I'm... from a world where people die for getting caught up in the wrong shit. I haven't made it happen, but I've seen it happen." Okay, maybe not seen as in being in the room, but maybe. Hard to tell, from the lack of inflection just there. But, after a pause: "I think you and me, together, we're clever enough to make it out of this." "That's a world we all live in, Ev. Just some are more blind to it than others." Lys looks up at him. "I have a secret." It's a bit different than their usual sharing, but perhaps not being asked says something. "I'd like to trust you with it but I'm worried." Arguably, it's fairly adult of her to express as much. It's not a push, there, just... a nudge. "Worried about what?" V'ret's tone is coaxing, like the easiest way to handle this at the moment is to keep her talking without injecting his own thoughts. Trust is one of those tricky subjects, after all. "Worried that it's something that will break us. And if it breaks us and you want to ruin me, what I could become-" Lys looks up at him, her expression frighteningly sure, "-what I want to become will--" She looks up at him, steadily, and then there's a small shrug of her shoulders. "Trusting with this means putting my future in your hands, not to make happen, but to allow." Clearly she's not sure how she feels about that. If she trusts him that much. "If all my screw-ups haven't yet broken us..." It's intended to be light, but the tension is impossible to completely dismiss. Secrets have become such a huge part of this. But the only one that's set them against each other so far has indeed been his screw-up, so perhaps V'ret should just keep his mouth shut. He does, for at least a few moments. Then, more serious: "I don't want to spend my life wondering if you're only staying because you're afraid to go." "So I shouldn't tell you," Lys concludes uncertainly. Is that what he meant? "If I don't tell you, Ev, there will be things about me that you can never know, that I can never tell you. But none of them would ever mean that I don't love you." She seems to mean this earnestly, but there's something worried in her expression. "Can you still love me if you're protecting me with your own ignorance of me?" V'ret presses his lips to her temple. "I want you to tell me," contradictory. But: "I want you to tell me, when you feel safe. Not when I tell you it's safe, but when you know it." Deep breath. "There's nothing will take me from you. If I lose you," though something about the tone suggests an inevitability, like the word should have been when, not if, "I will take everything you've ever told me to my deathbed. And happily. But what good is saying that if you don't believe me?" Lys' eyes search V'ret's face as he speaks. She seems to accept his words as truth (except for the one intonation that makes her wrinkle her nose briefly). "Okay." She replies earnestly. "That one will wait then. But your secrets are safe with me. And I'll tell you another one. Something I've never told anyone but Evy." This secret telling seems to require a great deal of resettling so that Lys ends up straddling his lap, one blanket drawn around his shoulders and one around hers, creating a little pocket of warmth. Of course, with him facing the fire, she has the advantage in seeing more of his face, hers backlit. The secret is no doubt coming, but she pauses to lift a brow, to silently ask if this suits him. "I trust you," V'ret says, "but I would trust you even if I knew I shouldn't." One could probably argue that this has something to do with his brain being very easily preoccupied by her sitting that way, hands wandering as she settles. He squints up at her, but smiles nevertheless. "What is it you've never told anyone but her, then?" The anticipation is apparently sweet. She has a smile for his wandering hands, for the way he smiles, one of hers coming up to brush fingers across his cheek and draw the line of his jaw before she kisses him. It's probably not done to intentionally draw out the suspense, but she does so enjoy kissing him that she doesn't rush to lean back to tell it. "Only three people visited me when I was trapped in the collapsed tunnels. I mean, there were people who visited. One of the candidates was trapped with me and so candidates came around, but three people who were there for me." Lys draws one of his hands up in both of hers, pressing down fingers until only three stand, thumb, index and middle. She kisses his thumb, "Z'riah," then a kiss and a trail of her tongue on the index finger, "Farideh," and the last, the longest gets sucked into her mouth, toyed with as if it were a different body part entirely, and upon the wet-popping release of it she names, "Irianke." She looks at him through her lashes for a moment before saying, "Irianke came every morning to bring breakfast. To talk to me through that horrible-wonderful tiny tunnel in the rock." Nor does V'ret hurry through them, though what comes afterwards, the look on his face shifts to something pained. "Oh, sweetheart." The pitying tone is possibly tempered by his great degree of interest in what she's doing with his fingers--what he is letting her do. His free hand raises to stroke her shoulder, but it's hard to tell how much is comfort and how much is encouragement. Maybe it's both. She doesn't keep up with the fingers, though she does move to lace the fingers of one of hers with his while the other one moves to push through his hair, nails grazing scalp lightly. "H'vier didn't come. Later, he said he was sorry." There's a pause as Lys considers. "I knew him a lot longer than Irianke, but I never felt so much love and joy and relief as when she held me when they got us out. I stank, I was a mess, and she held me until I stopped crying, as if there wasn't anywhere else she needed to be or anything else she needed to do." She strokes through his hair again, her eyes there instead of on his face now, something self-conscious in hers, something vulnerable. "Are you in love with her?" But it's just a question, not an accusation; V'ret's tone is still warm, and he's still looking at her, which is a good sign. Blue-green gaze drops to meet his, searching for something. Maybe she finds it, or maybe she doesn't, her tone doesn't seem like it comes any differently. "I love her," Lys doesn't seem to have trouble admitting that. "Wouldn't you love the first person who made you feel you were worth something after living your whole life sure you weren't?" She seems to realize that all might seem like evasion. "I love her in a lot of different ways, but I don't think I'm in love with her. At least not the same way I'm in love with you." "I do. I am." Is that maudlin enough? V'ret can just keep making heart-eyes at her, so he seems to be taking it relatively well. "I guess that's fair. It's not as though I can claim to know the first thing about love, really." It's not an irrelevant dismissal of the importance of it. To the contrary: "I don't get the feeling that H'vier was very good at anything to do with... feelings. I used to wonder, if my mother could have gone to the Weyr, why she... things could have been different." He really ought to connect those dots, right? "But then I met him." Lys makes a little face that's no, and then uncertain as she searches his face. She can't really be the first person who's made him feel worthwhile, can she? It might just be V'ret being smooth again. Only something in what he says or how he looks at her makes her buy it and he can barely be done speaking before she's seizing his lips for a heated and thorough kiss, her hand tangling in his hair, the other slipping free of his to curl around the back of his neck and her hips rocking as she scoots toward him in his lap. It's the sort of kiss that leaves a girl breathless, and so she is when she presses her forehead to his. She might not even know why she says what she says next, possibly just feeling something needs to be said, "He was betrothed once." H'vier. "Had a couple of kids with her. But he lost them somehow, I guess. I guess he probably wasn't very good with anything to do with feelings. He gave me a bag of marks after-- well, I guess he was paying for his mistakes." Literally. It's a welcome distraction, but it's not one that can last, though that doesn't stop V'ret from putting his hands on her hips, after that, hyper-aware of her closeness, his own breath less than even long after he's had time to catch it. "He paid for a lot more mistakes than that, eventually," he observes; not distraction enough. "I'm trying not to wind up like that. Even if I'm glad he didn't--if you'd done more, this would be weird." Because that totally might have given him more than thirty seconds' pause. Possibly as much as forty-five. Lys is distracted, her hips moving under his hands, rocking a little in her attempt to get closer (even though she's as close as clothes will presently allow). And so it's distractedly that she asks, "Why would it be weird?" "I don't know. It was weird, that we shared taste in women. Not that we were that close." Does V'ret think what's been said has been enough to make it obvious? Or maybe this is just backtracking, to a degree, if it isn't. "I guess I can hardly fault a man for wanting you. I want you." She's right there; it's not like that's going to be a secret. "H'vier's taste in women was nearly any woman that would have him, at least since I knew him." Lys shakes her head a little. "Blondes, brunettes, redheads. Big tits, little tits, curvy or thin." She shrugs. "I can't fault him for most of his taste in women, even if I could fault some of them for how they let him treat them. But some women like assholes," that makes her smile. "And some women-- one woman gets very, very lucky and gets someone like you." Whatever that means. Does it matter? She wants to kiss him now, seeks to do so. "One," V'ret agrees, too readily, too emphatically, enough even to repeat it: "One." Saying more than that is impossible, though, because she's kissing him, and he's kissing her back, and apparently the talk of tits is reason enough for him to want to get his hands on hers. "More than one would be okay," Lys murmurs, still lacking in breath, in the wake of more kisses. "Blonde, brunette, redhead," she suggests teasingly, suggestively, "Big tits, little tits, curvy or thin. It wouldn't make me any less lucky to have you when I do." Even though she's talking, she's moving to pull up her skirt, moving back enough that they can deal with his pants. At the redhead bit, V'ret winces noticeably--though he's clearly trying not to. "I don't need anyone else," V'ret insists. Devotion. Maybe it's as much a defense as anything? "Only you." After which point, he is quite happy to show her how. "Don't like redheads?" Lys murmurs, clearly not thinking anything of it. "You don't need anyone else right now," is added even as she helps him in his aim, "but if you wait too long-- I'll start thinking I'm too special and be hurt later when you change your mind." She says 'when.' "How could I want anyone else when I have you?" But it's clearly a hypothetical question: V'ret kisses her too quickly to be expecting her to be using her mouth to answer him, and by the time he relents on that, it's only to go on to other things. |
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