Stories (part 1)

Writers: Eimi, Yvonne
Date Posted: 24th May 2006

Characters: Firsa, K'far
Description: Firsa gets some bad news from the Beastcraft Hall, and searches out some distraction
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 11, day 25 of Turn 3

Dear Firsa, I know I haven't written for months, and I'm sorry we've fallen so far out of touch. Being back at the Beastcrafter's Hall is... its like coming home. Sometimes I forget all about living at the Weyr! I wish you could come too, but you know what they're like about women.
Idiots. My Mastery is progressing nicely, and my Masters say that it'll only be another turn or two before I earn my knots. Ha! I always used to think that you'd get yours before me. I'm also getting married. I've mentioned her before - Jyoti. She's everything I ever wanted - sweet, kind, gentle and beautiful. She's one of the Masters' daughters. You'd like her. We're getting married in the middle of next month and I'd really like it if you came, for old times sake. We used to be such good friends. All my best, Daremek.

~*~

Firsa balled up the letter and threw it into the corner. She was shaking and she couldn't stop it, nor could she unknot the muscles in her back or the tightness in her chest.

_Married_. She curled up on her bed and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, remembering all the times that Daremek had curled up beside her and they'd picked out constellations in the bumps in the plaster.
In her old rooms... she'd chosen to move on, and obviously Daremek had as well.

**'Sometimes I forget all about living at the Weyr'...** She turned the words he'd written over and over in her mind. She heard his voice, could smell him on her skin. **'She's all I ever wanted.' 'She's sweet, kind, gentle... beautiful. She's all I ever wanted.**
Firsa knew she was none of those things. Too tall, too angular, too angry, too cold. She could taste his kisses, and bile rose in her throat. She balled her fists and drove her fingernails into her palms.

Daremek was _gone_. He'd left her, two turns ago, and there was no going back. She'd stopped thinking of him, stopped missing him, stopped loving him... and she knew she'd never loved him to begin with. **'Good friends,'** she thought bitterly, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and getting to her feet. **We weren't good friends. We were lovers, and it's over. I was lonely, he was there.
That's all there was.**

But it wasn't. Daremek had made her laugh, brought her fistfuls of spring flowers, surprised her in the bath. He'd wrapped her in blankets when she was sick and stroked her hair while she fell asleep. He'd cheered her on when she was studying and stayed up late beside her when the foals came. He held her when they were stillborn, or defective, and didn't mock her if she cried. **But I never loved him.** Not until he'd left, and his absence made her feel more alone than ever. She didn't love him. She loved his memory.
**This is ridiculous.** The Stablemaster glared at the paper balled up in the corner; she could _feel_ it from across the room. Daremek had forgotten about her and she would forget him right back. She turned toward the door but the sight of a leather bound journal on a bookshelf gave her pause. Nineba's diary.

It was like a cold splash in the face. Obsession, love, rejection.
She shivered and found herself picking up the book without remembering crossing the room. She flipped half ways through the book, further than she'd dared look before, and began to read.

~*~

DATE:

I met a brownrider on the beach today. I'd skipped work.. I know I shouldn't but I couldn't simply sit there anymore while those women talked and gossiped and were so sharding _happy_! I haven't told them yet, or Maparlin. He's even written to his relatives at the other Weyrs about our good news. I can't bear to tell him the truth, but I feel it eating me from the inside out, and leaving black spaces behind that nothing can fill. He was playing with his dragon and I could feel their love for each other and it makes me sick with envy.
I made up an excuse to go and talk with him and he was so nice, and he didn't look at me like a vessel, but like a woman. He made me laugh, and for a while, I was happy again.

I think I'll try to find him tomorrow. Or maybe the next day, so I don't seem so forward. His name's K'far, and he made me feel like me again.

~*~

Firsa slammed the book shut and shoved it roughly onto the shelf, knocking over the leather mask she'd made turns ago. Memories.
Ghosts. Daremek. K'far. Did it matter? The entry was an echo of what was in her head. She turned and stormed out the door, taking the stairs two at a time that led to the dining cavern. Sometimes there was a thing as too much solitude, and she longed for the aimless wash of conversation against her skin and inside her head, something to drive away the whispers of the past. Her's, Nineba's. Did it matter?

It didn't take long to secure a pair of wineskins; Firsa rarely drank, and she lied to the bored drudge and said she was having a party to get that much. She turned back toward her rooms but a familiar profile caught her eye. Daremek. No- K'far. Did it matter?
They were similar enough to be cousins, if not brothers. Firsa bit her lip and, hating herself for it, strode across the room and sat down across the table from him, putting the wineskins between them.
"Pour me a glass, K'far, and tell me a story. I need a little distraction."

The brownrider swallowed his surprise as he reached for a wineskin. "What kind of a story do you want to hear, Firsa?"

"A good one. One with a happy ending."

Shards, did he even _know_ one of those? "All right," he said as he poured wine into her glass. "There once was a scrawny little boy who, like all the other boys in the Weyr, spent his days dreaming of dragons. He never dreamed of being Weyrleader, or of the glory days of long ago. He just dreamed of having one creature in this world who would love him, who would stay with him. See, his parents left him in the Weyr's care when he was very young. "His mother worked in the Lower Caverns, flittering from man to man, never settling on any one in particular. I think perhaps she just always wanted someone to love her, so when she became pregnant, she thought finally she would have a child who would worship and adore her, and maybe then she could find the love she sought. But she didn't realize that the love of a mother must be above all unselfish, and she soon grew tired of spending her energy on the little boy she bore. Eventually she left him in the care of a foster mother and moved on, still searching for that one person to love her the way she wanted.

"The boy's father was a brownrider, who I think wanted to love his son, but just didn't know how. The little boy could see there was something in his father's eyes every time he looked at his dragon that just wasn't there whenever he looked at the boy. He just...
didn't know _how_ to be a father, I suppose. Soon after his second child was born, he transferred to another Weyr. "So the boy was left with his little sister to be raised by the Weyr.
I cannot say his childhood was unhappy in any way. But he never forgot that look in his father's eyes when he looked at that big brown dragon, and deep down inside he wanted that too. He wanted to be chosen by a dragon. Shards, he had never been _chosen_ by anyone in his life. So as soon as he was old enough to stand he did. And failed. Again and again. For two turns he stood, watching as hatchling after hatchling passed him by. They just didn't want him. But he _knew_ someday, there would be one that did. "Then one day when he was fifteen, he stood on the sands, and the most beautiful brown hatchling you have ever seen came tottering towards him. Torth wanted _him_, and no other candidate would do. Finally that scrawny youth understood that look in his father's eyes.
And there is no happy ending to this story because... well because it never ends. Other people come and go, but that love story will go on until the day I die. That's the happiest ending I could ever hope for."

Firsa was quiet for a moment, then downed the wine in her glass and reached for the wineskin herself. A happy ending, maybe, for K'far.
But it made her feel lonely, and alone. "I'm glad for you."

"And you?" he asked gently as he watch her pour more wine into her glass. "Do you have a story to tell?"

"Not one worth telling." She shook her head. "Not one with a happy ending."

"Well, which is the one that ends in a wineskin, then?" he asked pointing to the one in her hand.

"One that I regret starting in the first place." She recapped the wineskin and wrapped her hands around her full glass. "I thought I asked you to be distracting."

K'far looked down at his hands a moment, wishing he knew just how stiff his competition was for her attention. Finally he shrugged. "Ok, so a few turns back there was this holder girl, Eilia, who came down to Dolphin Cove from Topaz Sea Hold. And shards, but she was a striking woman. Strong minded, intelligent, opinionated - certainly not the typical holder girl. And I thought I had found a way to impress her when I heard she had a love of riding runners on the beach. So planned this whole romantic picnic idea. The only problem was, I had never ridden a runner in my life. But I thought, shards, what could be so hard? I could fly a dragon high in the sky without a trouble, how could riding a beast so low to the ground be so hard."

Firsa's lips twitched into an involuntary smile. "My guess is you learnt differently?"

Then brownrider nodded, a rather embarrassed grin on his face. "So she asked me in the stables if I could ride, and I said it was no problem. After all, I didn't see how it _could_ be a problem. Until I tried to get onto the sharding runner. I tried putting my foot in the stirrup to step up, but of course, it kept _moving_ on me. I tried one foot, then the other, I'd get my foot in it, just about to jump up when the runner would shift, making me hop right along beside it. It just would not stay _still_ for me. Shards I had never been so embarrassed. Finally one of the apprentices come over to give me a leg up. But shards, I should have learned right there that I was not going to be impressing _anyone_ with my riding skills."

"Is that why she's not around anymore?"

"Well, no," he chuckled. "I think I have a _few_ other charms to offer a lady than my riding skills. Thank Faranth for that. But no, she's not around because... well, she was nice and we had a few laughs but in the end we both agreed it just wasn't going to be anything more than a good time."

The Journeywoman was quiet for a moment. "Do you miss her?"

"I barely knew her," K'far admitted. He barely knew a lot of women...

Firsa picked up her glass again. "Lucky for you."

"I suppose." He reached for another glass. "Mind if I have some?" he asked with a nod towards the wineskin between them.

"'Course not." She pushed the wineskin toward him and swallowed her wine. A glass and a half already, and she with an empty stomach. Her head was beginning to spin. "Maybe you can keep me from drinking it all and therefore not being able to get out of bed tomorrow morning."

"Well, I am certainly willing to help out any way I can," he smiled as he filled his glass.

Firsa gave him a discrete look over the top of her glass. 'Help' came in many ways. She smiled at him. "Keep talking."

Last updated on the May 24th 2006

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Stories (part 1)