A Whirlwind Inside of My Head
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Avery, Heather
Date Posted: 11th April 2024
Series: The Disaster at Dragonsfall
Characters: Kadira, Saibra, Ki'ben
Description: Saibra checks in with Kadira to get the full story on what happened with Naradis and to offer support.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 9, day 25 of Turn 10
Notes: Mentioned: L'val, Naradis, K'don, G'nir
Part of the "Everything You Say To Me" series
Once L'val was gone, Saibra glanced at the timepiece on her wall and
then exhaled a little sigh. **Tell Ishath and Setoth I am on my way to
visit Kadira.** She would normally have called the Weyrling to her
office, but since Ishath was months away from flying, she wanted to
give them the luxury of being physically together during this
conversation.
She was still in her riding leathers from the disrupted drills she'd
been trying to lead. They were comfortable for drills and Threadfall,
but not for casual wear. Swinging through her weyr, the Weyrwoman
changed into a more comfortable set of riding breeches and a thick
sweater before heading towards the temporary goldrider weyr adjacent
to the Hatching Sands.
"Kaibren..." she pressed her fingers to her forehead, "_Ki'ben_" she
corrected as she entered the weyr and looked at her son. "Thank you
for staying with Kadira. Could you give us some privacy?"
Ki'ben gave Kadira's hand a reassuring squeeze as he stood. "I'll
check in with you later," he told his friend. As he passed by the
Dragonsfall Weyrwoman, Ki'ben stopped and dropped a kiss to her
upturned cheek. "Mother," he greeted, the corner of his mouth
twitching with a little smile as he exited the bluerider's temporary
weyr.
Kadira's tear tracks had dried, leaving little bits of salt crusted on
her cheeks. Her skin tone was still paler than usual. She had a
blanket wrapped around her shoulders now, too.
"Thank you," Kadira said quietly to Ki'ben as he squeezed her hand.
She'd really appreciated him being there. Having to sit _alone_ and
wait to hear what was happening elsewhere and what would happen to
her.
"Weyrwoman," she said softly.
Saibra's smile was sympathetic as she took a seat near the Weyrling.
"Kadira," she said her name as an apology. "We, myself and the
Weyrlingstaff, should have been better prepared for something like
this. I apologize that we weren't. I guess it never crossed my mind
that someone might come from outside of Dragonsfall to accost you at
home." She shook her head. "It won't happen again. We're putting
better measures in place to keep _all_ of our Weyrlings secure."
Kadira listened, shocked by the words. The idea that the Weyrwoman
herself was apologizing to her about what happened… it felt strange
beyond measure to have a goldrider apologize to her.
“I know I’m being judged, Weyrwoman. I heard things that people said
the day of the hatching. I know people have been continuing to make
all kinds of speculations about me. Lots of people here at Dragonsfall
do - there’s some people who will say it to my face if they pass by
me,” she admitted.
“I know that whatever I hear, there must be things two or three times
worse said where I can’t hear. Because I know the people here in the
weyr respect you too much to cross too many lines. And I’m not stupid
- I know whatever is being said here where people can see me, is a lot
less bad than what people are saying at all kinds of other locations,
where they only heard it happened. I try not to think about what’s
being said anywhere else. Holds and halls and even other weyrs. I
bet lots of people have wanted to come see me and ask questions. And
since I’m the target of all of it, and _I_ didn’t think that people
would put the work into trying to come here and actually do it, how
could you have been expected to think about it?”
She’d been trying to keep a stiff upper lip like her father would do
and bear it, and since nobody had been as direct as Naradis, she had
been able to hold herself together so far. She had not reached out to
the staff to complain about it " nobody had directly tried anything
beyond just a moderate mean words about her where she could hear her,
so it wasn’t really harassment, not judgment, so nothing to be said or
done about it. She had never considered that not mentioning it
might’ve been a mistake.
"It's my job to think about such things," Saibra said lightly. "I had
considered, from the beginning, that people might not react positively
to your Impress to Ishath, but I didn't want to deny you the
opportunity of as normal a Weyrlinghood as possible. I had hoped that
Weyrpeople, of all people, would have the most common sense concerning
your Impression but... I think my hopes were set too high," she said
dryly. "My new hope is that as your Weyrlinghood progresses, and you
reach the same milestone as other Weyrlings, the new and shiny will
wear off and people will just see a Weyrling pair when they look at
you and Ishath. I can't promise that, but it is my hope."
Saibra paused, not really wanting to progress to the next part of the
conversation, because she didn't want Kadira to have to rehash
something so raw so soon but... She had to know.
"Kadira, you, Naradis, and K'don are the only witnesses to the
entirety of the conversation. I have what L'val heard when he arrived,
but I need to know from you what was said and how it transpired. How
things escalated to such a heightened state."
Kadira flicked a glance at Ishath, who had been settling down. **I'm
not going away, you can see me, but I need to talk to her about some
adult things. You can speak to Chioneth or Kyverth for reassurance.**
His tail twitched. }:I understand,:{ he said in a reluctant tone
indicating he didn't like it at all.
"K'don brought Naradis here. They approached me when I was carrying my
meal back here. And she asks if I am who she thinks I am, and then
asked me about if I was interested in girls. Romantically. The _first
words_ out of her mouth was asking a forbidden question. And like she
was the first person to ever ask me that, as though I haven't been
hearing it since the day I Impressed." She grimaced just thinking
about it.
"So I tell her I don't want to talk about it, that I'm tired of being
treated like everyone's favorite item to stare at, that I don't _want_
the attention of having Impressed blue. And then Naradis is like, well
if it helps I don't care about you personally, I just want to know
because it's important to her that I know if girls who like girls
Impress. As though hearing she doesn't care about me specifically, she
just 'wants answers' is going to make me feel any better! When all I
wanted was a meal and they accosted me."
Reciting the facts, she felt the agitation again. Ishath's tail began
to lash and he picked up his head to look up. Kadira shifted to press
her hands against him and she took several deep breaths. Suddenly,
absurdly, she began to laugh aloud as she recognized something. "I
never got to eat. Everything happened so fast, and then so much, and."
It was somehow funny to her enough that she began to hiccup.
"Sorry Weyrwoman, I don't know what's gotten into me," she said
contritely as the laughter and hiccups subsided.
Saibra reached over and squeezed Kadira's hand. "It's been a day. I
understand. You've had to balance your own emotions today plus those
of a young dragonet. That's a lot. Now," she approached the topic
gently, "I would like for you to start seeing a mindhealer, weekly.
This will be separate from your Weyrling classes.This isn't a
punishment."
Words just kept spilling out of her as though she hadn't heard
anything Saibra said, a pressured torrent of speech. She had to get to
the part about _what_ had set them all off so badly.
"Y'know, if she'd just asked about the...you know... maybe it would
have been okay. I told her that I didn't want _this_ - to be special
because of dragon hide. And she was getting furious and saying that
greenriders didn't _matter_, they never made history, that I was
special because I was riding a blue. She said I was supposed to be
like, some kind of inspiration for girls. And I said, there's nothing
wrong with Impressing a green, and maybe if she thought greens weren't
worthy to Impress, then that's why she never has, because she's so
selfishly focused on how she must have a special hide and never a
green."
Her hand squeezed Saibra's unconsciously as she recounted the next
part. "Then she told me that I had all of Pern handed to me on a
silver platter and I didn't deserve Ishath. Because she would have
thought it was a miracle for her and so because I don't want it, I'm
selfish and I don't deserve it."
Her breaths now were sobbing as she spoke. "I don't think I was wrong
in yelling at her. I know it was losing my temper. But how she could
tell me I don't deserve my dragon? I love him, but I was open to
Impress anything. I can't understand how it seemed like she _hated_
greens, and didn't realize maybe that's why green dragonets don't want
her, and instead claims it's just sexuality that matters."
Having recounted all of it now, she took deep breaths, shaking. She
managed to not cry this time as she spoke through the end. Barely. She
was trembling all over.
Saibra listened attentively, letting Kadira feel her emotions and
express what she needed to get off her chest. "I'm sure this same
conversation is being had at Dolphin Cove. Naradis can't understand
what you've been through since your Impression, and we have no idea
what was behind her motivations either. The best we can do now is to
move forward with more caution than before."
**Her motivations seemed to be expecting me to be full of pride at all
eyes on me,** she thought, grumbling to herself. But it felt dangerous
to say it more aloud than she had.
"And some of that caution is the mindhealer meeting?" she asked.
She was an apprentice Healer and she knew many people came in for
mindhealing after some kind of trauma - loss of a family member, a
disability, a severe injury, an addiction of some kind - and some
people came in because of the deep sadness that some fell victim to
that couldn't be explained by a situation. But she wasn't one of the
latter, and she hadn't gone through a trauma, so...why would Saibra
send her?
"You said earlier that you feel judged by everyone, and I imagine
walking around with that pressure must be weighty indeed. Naradis
won't be the first to question you and Ishath. She was out of line but
she probably won't be the last to try to force answers out of you or
question your worthiness. I need you to have better coping skills in
the future, especially while your dragon is young. I don't know that
our Weyrlingstaff is adequately equipped to help you with that, as
they've never had to consider what it might be like to be in your
position," Saibra said. "Also, you might not feel comfortable
disclosing private things to the very people who are going to train
and assess you. So yes, the mindhealer meetings are out of caution,
but they will also give you somewhere to say whatever things you
need."
Kadira listened to the Weyrwoman, and tried to count her breaths. She
said, "Yes, ma'am," in what she hoped was an agreeable tone, even
though she felt stung.
**Better coping skills?** She'd tried _so hard_ to keep her feelings
sheltered from Ishath and to de-escalate the situation! It wasn't her
fault she'd been pushed so unreasonably far! Saibra's argument about
telling private things to the Weyrlingstaff did make sense to her,
though. Of them, only bronzeriders would understand the eyes on them
because of hide color - suddenly a thought occurred.
"Weyrwoman, can I ask a question?"
“Sure,” Saibra said.
"Forgive me if it's impertinent to compare Ishath to Chioneth, but...
What was it like, to go through weyrlinghood as a goldrider? To be the
only one of your color in the clutch? To know that now everyone was
going to have their eyes on you and know your name?"
"There was... a lot of pressure. I wasn't exactly the Candidate most
people would have pegged for a gold dragon. I was wild as a weyrbrat
and into trouble often. I Impressed Chioneth at fifteen, so I was
immature and completely unready. You already have a leg up on me
there," Saibra admitted. "But I did have goldriders who had gone
before me to help me. I wish I could provide that for you. I'll try,
as best I can."
Kadira thought about the image of Saibra being a young wild child, and
said, "I can't imagine that. It does sound like being a goldrider is
so much pressure, and so is this, and... I think anything you can
think of to minimize being the standout would help," she said.
"I'll do everything in my power," Saibra promised. **Including a new
Weyrlingmaster.**
Last updated on the April 11th 2024
[Prev: Picking Up The Pieces] Series: The Disaster at Dragonsfall [Next: If My Armor Breaks, I'll Fuse It Back Together] PG-17