Logs:We Owe Them More
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| RL Date: 13 August, 2015 |
| Who: Ebeny, E'dre |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Ebeny and E'dre try to face facts. |
| Where: Autumnal Eventide Weyr, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 9, Month 7, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Eden/Mentions, Eryn/Mentions, Elayne/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, Ali/Mentions, Hattie/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions |
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| It's been another understandably long day for Ebeny by the time she's ready to close and lock the door to her office and step through into the adjoining weyr, to become weyrmate or mother instead of Weyrlingmaster. Night has fallen before she's able to make that change and shrug her jacket free of her shoulders, both literally and metaphorically abandoning her knot as she settles the garment on the back of the nearest chair. "E'dre...?" she calls, not so loudly while she doesn't know who is in residence or their current status on the exhaustion scale. At first the weyr seems to be unoccupied with the general quiet of the space. Further inspection will find E'dre dozing amongst the bodies of their children. A book is splayed on his chest and Eden and Eryn are draped across his feet. Elayne, being the oldest (and in her mind, too mature to behave like her sisters) has fallen asleep curled on her side near her father. Wroth hears Ebeny and alerts his rider with a loud enough nudge to bring E'dre to full awakeness. He peels himself from the arms of his children and slips out of the bed. It doesn't take him long to enter the main living room of their weyr and find Ebeny. He's still dressed in his more formal attire, the knot on his shoulder crooked from his nap. He moves to wrap his arms around her and hug her, taking a moment to simply inhale her scent before he steps back and rubs at the back of his neck. "They'd already eaten when I got them from the nurseries and so I read to them. We all fell asleep." He looks towards the direction of the bowl and sighs. "I'm going to have to go out and talk with the Headwoman and check on the caverns staff soon. I promised a meeting once you were able to be home." He moves to settle on the couch and beckons her to follow. "How are the weyrlings?" Ebeny lingers a little in the doorway to the bedroom, expression caught in some odd middle ground between regret and fondness, yet she retreats when E'dre does, unwilling to risk waking the children, for now. She pads back out to the living room and lets her weyrmate catch up to her, tilting her head against his when his arms go around her. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, sweeping a hand through her ruffled hair when she steps back and begins to move towards the couch. "I should've tried to settle things earlier. I'm just... waiting for the next meltdown and watching them more closely than I should. They're not... who I thought they were, some of them." The greenrider shakes her head, clearly unwilling to think on it any longer this evening. "It's okay - I can be mama now. You go do what you need to do." "What do you mean?" E'dre's question is immediate and the frown that puckers his lips and draws his brows downwards makes it clear it is that other side of him - that side he has slowly developed over the course of months - that the Weyrleader desires the answer. He shakes his head after Ebeny does in a mirroring behavior as she moves to sit beside him. "Let me have a moment to be your weyrmate and husband," he tells her, drawing her against him to hold. He moves his fingers out to comb through her hair, meaning to be soothing in the action. "Has there been any word from your family for someone to come help us with them? I don't want the girls to be raised by the caverns staff... family should be tending to them. We can't help our knots. But we owe them more," he decides, sighing as his shoulders slouch. Ben shakes her head a little again and sighs out, "It doesn't matter," not entirely dismissively, but dismissive of her own feelings. "They're just... kids. They do stupid things. I should embrace cynicism and start to hate everyone. Sometimes, I think that'd be easier." When she settles, she slumps against E'dre and curls up slightly, so that she's more half in his lap than leaning against him. "One of my cousin's girls is supposed to be considering it, but I think she's daunted by the whole thing. She's barely seen a Weyr, let alone lived in one. I think it'd either be an adventure or a disaster for her." She twists a touch at the waist to look up at him. "...If we want them to have more consistency... the other option is to send them to live with some of my family. And that's... family, but not us." E'dre nods his head in answer to Ben's explanation. "I start out hating everyone," he agrees, "and it seems to help. Though you remind me being an asshole and temperamental is no better than being a toddler throwing a tantrum." The idea of sending his children away draws a flash of pain across E'dre's face. "I don't know if I could part with them for any length of time. It's one thing to request help here but an entirely different thing to send them away." He stills his fingers in Ebeny's hair in thought, sighing again. "I wish I had family - or knew of them more - to rely on. We'll all just have to... keep doing our best." He seems resigned to that reality as another sigh escapes him. "That's all I keep telling myself to do. I don't know if it'll make things work out." "Maybe there's some middle ground between cynicism and... assholeism?" Less savoury words have never sounded right from Ben. "I'll adopt that." Not that she sounds remotely convincing, her tone too light to be truly deadpan. She closes her eyes and just lies there for a little while, just registering the motion of his fingers through her hair, until they still. "...Is it a case of what's better for them or better for us?" she says softly and not at all like she really wants the answer. "We could... send them to my cousin's for a holiday and hope someone gets attached enough to them to want to come back with them and help out?" Then: "...Or I could resign. I'm the one of us who could." "I have yet to find it. I wish you well. I figure being an asshole means people at least choose their words carefully around you," E'dre muses, his fingers returning to their idly movements through her hair. The other subject causes him to draw in a sharpened breath. The tightness of his chest takes a moment to ease as he fights with the sudden onslaught of emotion the continued conversation draws from him. He masters any potential tears that might've been threatening but his voice sounds constricted from his struggle within. "No one can be as attached to them as we are," he manages to say, "I'd rather them be weyrbrats who know their parents than children who are raised by someone else." He shakes his head, looking away from her to hide the haunted flash across his face. "Even other family members can be cruel... despite the blood connection." Her offer to resign has him looking back to her. "It won't be like this forever," he tries to reason, "the weyrlings will graduate and eventually I'll lose this knot." Slowly, Ebeny shifts to sit up straighter and eases one leg over his lap to straddle him purely because it allows her to press herself closer and drape her arms over his shoulders more easily. "...If Thread was falling, we'd hardly see them at all," she says gently. "We probably would have had to give them over to foster parents almost as soon as they were born. ...If Thread was falling, we might not have managed to have kids at all." She dips her head to press a kiss to his temple. "So this isn't what either of us thought what family life would be like, but I can tell you I didn't expect to have this knot either. I didn't expect to be a rider. It might not be like this forever... but if you can't bear it being this way, I'm the one with more room to manoeuvre." "I will not tell you to walk away from your knot, Ebeny," E'dre's voice is low as he looks seriously at her. He moves to rest his hands against her hips, seeking the comfort of his hands on her body as she moves to settle on his lap. "We don't have to play the if game with Thread. It isn't falling." He shifts his head against her lips and closes his eyes for a moment simply to breathe and work his way through his feelings. "We don't have to decide anything today," he states, reopening his eyes to lean forward and press his lips against her nose. "If we wanted, we could even go and find someone.. who isn't family.. to come and stay with us. To help us with the children. To bring them that normalcy. I don't know." He shakes his head, trying for a smile that falters on his face. The worry and strain of the last few days shows clear in the haggard lines of his face and the bags under his eyes. "I can't bear the idea of losing them. For any length of time." "I'm not asking you to tell me. I'm offering." Certain or not - what she wants or not - Ben makes it sound like an option as much as she seems to shut down that part of the conversation with her blunt response. "...What I mean is... I figure maybe we need some perspective. As difficult as this is... we might not have each other, or them, or Laurienth and Wroth, in another world. Whether Thread or one of us taking just a slightly different path... we might not be here." She curls her hands over his shoulders and leans to rest her head against his. "I should pass more of the work onto my assistants. It's not like they're not capable... Laurienth could keep an eye in the barracks... I could be home earlier." E'dre rests his head against Ebeny's and allows silence to fall between them. When he opens his eyes again he has to blink a few times to clear them of moisture. He tips his lips forward to press against hers, a small kiss offered before he nods his head. "Let's see what changes we can make. I'll have to eventually speak to Hattie and most likely N'muir about how to handle everything with Lilah's.. disappearance. I wish I could call for Ali to come and return to us here at Fort. At least I have history with her and we work well with each other. What the Weyr faces now..," he shakes his head and moves a hand up to cup her cheek. "It makes me realize what we're discussing here is a small issue compared to the greater picture. If we want to be people our daughters are proud of, we may very well have to find other arrangements. More than our family depends on us." In the wake of that kiss, Ben agrees, "Ali would be good for Fort," in a murmur. "But I guess she's good for Southern too, and Faranth knows what everyone would say if she 'abandoned' her Weyr to come back to us." She rolls her eyes a little and sits back for a moment to regard her weyrmate. "It's not a small issue; not to us," she quietly insists. "But... maybe doing the right thing is hardest sometimes because we don't want it to be the right thing. You need some rest... I need some rest... I don't think either of us are going to get that until we figure things out and make a decision, even if it's one we don't like." She tips her head forward against to rest forehead to forehead. "But not now. You've still got a meeting and I've still got hidework to do once they're asleep." "Probably that Fort breeds wish-washy weyrwomen," E'dre answers dryly, "or some sort of nonsense like that." The reality that they seem unable to avoid draws another sigh from E'dre as he nods his head. "Let's make a decision. Let's give ourselves two days to consider all our options. Only because if I do not set a timeline for it, I'll continue to avoid it." He leans forward, wrapping his arms around her to hug her closely against him. "I love you," he murmurs into her ear and then presses a kiss against her cheek. "I'll be home late, I imagine. Please don't feel the need to wait up for me." He slowly begins to shift her towards the couch and moves to his feet with a groan he can't suppress. "My body is angry with me," he mutters, shaking his head. "But what can I do?" He turns then, moving to kiss her once more. "I love you," he repeats and then he moves to collect his jacket and head out into the night. "...Okay," Ben agrees, pliant as she slips back to the couch and tips her gaze up to E'dre's. "I could make it less angry with you when you get home..." she tells him in the moment after she draws away from his kiss, trying for what she can manage of a smile. It might seem promising in that moment, but reality is reality, and though the girls will be safe and sound and fast asleep in their own beds when he returns, his weyrmate will have all but literally passed out on theirs, fully-clothed and atop the covers, pen clasped in one hand. |
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