Logs:AU - They Had To Be Perfect
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| RL Date: 15 December, 2008 |
| Who: K'del |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: What if K'del had Impressed green instead of bronze? |
| When: End of turn 17 until mid-late turn 18 |
| Three days before the hatching, Nabolese Briora broke her ankle. The tragedy spread through the candidates like wildfire: imagine! To be so close, and then, after all that, to be unable to actually stand. But there weren't so many thoughts in her direction, once the eggs started hatching. She watched from the galleries, and the candidates thought only of eggs and hatchlings. Of Impression. Kasadel's eyes narrowed as a blue on the sands sent an egg flying. His favourite egg. "Look at that blue. That was my favourite egg, too, that it just hit. Hope--" Hope my bronze is inside, he finished, though there was too much else going on to verbalise it, just then. He gave his robe a tug, and then another, uncomfortable with so much airflow to his legs. He saw the arrival of the spring green from within that egg, moments later, and turned his head away. A green. His favourite egg, and it was a green of all things. "And another green. Where're the bronzes already?" He took a deep breath, he shuffled his feet. And then, it was like his legs could no longer hold him up: they wobbled, they buckled, and his arms, without any conscious thought instructing them, reached around to wrap about the spring green's head that was angled up at his. Lost within her gaze, suddenly entranced, he gasped. "Ousath. Oh, shells. Ousath." The rest of the night passed in a blur. Ousath was perfect. She was also green, but he refused to let that thought rankle him, nevermind the jibes of some of his fellow weyrlings, or the sight of H'tram and M'kend with bronzes Rousath and Cadejoth. Ousath was enthusiastic, she was big and solid, she delighted a part of him he'd never known. But the days that followed? They were harder. « Don't you love me as I am, K'del? » she'd ask him, when he pulled away from her, tried to clear her from his head for a while. « Was I supposed to be bronze for you? Am I not enough? » And, shells, of course he loved her. Of course he did. But... anyone could ride a green, almost. That is, there were plenty of greens. Plenty. But there'd only been two bronzes, and he'd been so sure... how was he supposed to stand out, if he was just another greenrider? Just like P'ax, like G'gor, like U'zin. He didn't feel like them, though. He felt... Special. I'm supposed to be special. Supposed to prove myself. Have a purpose. He tried to hide those thoughts, away from Ousath, along with the ones he couldn't help, the ones that led to shudderings and gasps in the dead of night, if he wasn't too tired to stay awake that long. So he doubled his efforts. And at least Ousath helped with this: her enthusiasm, her dedication, all of those made it pretty easy to be good at things. They worked their arses off, though at least she was sensible enough to avoid wingstrain, injuries, anything that might hold them back. His ego had taken quite a beating, but, damn it, he wouldn't let it hold him back. She was graceful, despite her size. She took to flight as though she was made for it, unlike some of her clutchmates. K'del took some pleasure in watching M'kend struggle with teaching Cadejoth to land properly. He couldn't envy M'kend too much, though, despite Cadejoth's bronzeness; K'del suspected the bronze would have driven him nuts. But they weren't close, K'del and Ousath. She wanted him, and he couldn't... he burned inside. Wanted. And she couldn't give him what he wanted. The longer weyrlinghood went on, the more he got teased about his sexuality. The more people assumed things. He made it up by breaking weyrling rules. Getting caught with Nieve in the storerooms that night was probably a big part of the reason why he wasn't chosen for the silver thread leadership programme. It burned, though: he watched them, that initial group, and he swore he'd prove he was better than all of them. « You already are, » Ousath reminded him, again and again. It warred within him, this needing, on one hand, to prove his masculinity, and, on the other, to prove that riding green didn't change his abilities, make him any less capable. That there were two greenriders in the leadership group didn't help much: they weren't him. They weren't... him. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't really succeed at either of these objectives. He'd hoped he might still be added to the silver threads, maybe a late edition, when he proved his stability, his inner strength. He tried to tone himself down, look more responsible, but his short fuse, his refusal to let a jibe pass him by, undid everything he tried. As the eighth month of weyrlinghood drew to a close, and a particular conversation among the silver threads blew his temper sky high, he strode outside, and mounted himself up. C'mon, Ousath. We'll show them. Ready? Why didn't she turn him down? Why didn't she insist otherwise? They weren't a close bond; perhaps that was it. She knew how he struggled. She knew how he pulled away from her, sometimes, and she wanted, still, to be closer. This was something... they were doing it together! But the image wasn't right. They hadn't learned, yet, hadn't quite worked out the kinks. He gave it to her, told her to go, and the weyrlings below watched as the pair popped Between... and never came out again. It took M'kend and Cadejoth an extra month to perfect their images. No one was going to take a chance. Maybe K'del and Ousath had been stupid, maybe there'd been good reason for their failure, but there was fear in the weyrlings after that. It could happen to them. They had to be perfect. |
Comments
Comments on "Logs:AU - They Had To Be Perfect"Eliv (Eliv (talk)) left a comment on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:25:52 GMT.
Oh my god this just made me cry at work. Thanks!
K'del (K'del (talk)) left a comment on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:33:47 GMT.
Mave (Mave (talk)) left a comment on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:27:24 GMT.
Ouch ouch ouch ouch. I love this. And I'm not sure why I don't remember reading it before!
K'zin (Wakizian (talk)) left a comment on Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:30:57 GMT.
Awwwwww. =(
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