Honor and Consequence (4)

Writers: AL, Heather
Date Posted: 12th June 2025
Series: Honor and Consequence

Characters: Ki'ben, Vadira
Description: Ki'ben goes to pick up Vadira and bring her to the Weyr, as ordered.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 3, day 13 of Turn 12

Ki'ben

Vadira had been on short jaunts before, but every time she rode
Setoth, felt the muscles roll beneath her legs and the powerful launch
into the air, it took her breath away. As they soared into the sky,
for a moment, she forgot about the betrayal of the man she loved,
pushed aside the societal homicide she faced and allowed the beauty of
the moment and view encompass her.

Alas, it only lasted for a little while. With hours stretching ahead
of them, her thoughts returned to the many facets of her future that
crumbled with the discovery of her pregnancy and the abandonment of
her beloved, and Vadira fell into a morose silence.

Their first stop for a leg stretch and bathroom break was by a wooded
stream. The chill in the air clung to the rocks, glistening with
moisture and glowing with the white light of the grey, overcast day.

“Do you want a fire to warm up a bit?” he asked, helping Vadira off
Setoth’s neckridge.

Shivering, Vadira accepted the assistance, but released his hand as
soon as she possibly could. Drawing her arms around her, the chill
didn’t come just from the air around them. “How long do you plan to
remain here?” She asked a little sullenly, trying to look somewhere,
anywhere, just not at home.

Ki’ben cocked an eyebrow, his short temper showing in the twitch of
his jaw. “I’m stopping for you, not me.”

“Then I won’t make you wait long,” Vadira murmured. Shivering,
though not from the air, she turned and started toward a line of trees
where the small clearing ended and the forest began. The man was
intent on starting a fight, and his response only made it abundantly
clear that he didn’t care for her. He never really had. Tears stung
her eyes, and she bowed her head as she continued on.

The young bronzerider huffed, causing a cloud of moisture to waft
through the frigid air. “Where are you going?”

The unwelcome and unkind tone only made her pick up her speed. She
wished someone else had come to take her to the Weyr. Anyone besides
him. “I have to relieve myself.” She thought about snapping back a
retort, but decided that would only make things worse, and she wanted
to speak to him as little as possible.

***

The rest of the trip was carried out in silence and Ki’ben was
_relieved_ when the familiar triple cliffs of Dragonsfall and its
roaring waterfall finally came into view. It had been the longest trip
of his short life.

Setoth, ever the conscientious transport, coasted in slowly to a
gentle landing in the weyrbowl.

“We’re here,” Ki’ben said, stating the obvious as he helped Vadira down.

The girl didn’t try to hide her own relief as the man assisted her.
She allowed him to touch her, just for that brief moment when she had
to move from dragon to ground, and bit her tongue to hold back a cry
as she tripped, requiring more assistance, and more touching, than she
wished. As soon as she straightened up, she pulled away, stepping to
the side to establish her own independence and turned her face away
from the man to peer around her.

And froze.

Although she had watched from the height of the dragon as he flew over
the Weyr, seeing it from the ground and in the stillness rather than
the movement a dragon afforded, she found her breath taken away. On
one side of her, the land curved into a crystalline blanket of white,
the winter snow covering the shallow valley, and turning it all into a
shallow frozen sea. On the other, heavy, grey cliffs tinged in ice
and snow stood solemn and stoic, a thousand eyes watching over all
those who came and went from the Weyr.

“Oh…” She breathed, a puff of steam furling from her lips, flushed a
deeper pink after the kiss of the frigid air. Her eyes grew wide, and
she turned, unable to take it in all at once, her gaze following the
line of the cliffs and the cavern mouths that must have been entrances
for dragons to enter their weyrs. “It’s beautiful.” She murmured,
forgetting, for a minute, who she was talking to.

Ki’ben glanced around Dragonsfall, trying to see it as Vadira was now,
or as he had when his family had first moved there. “Yes, it is,” he
said, watching her.

Last updated on the June 17th 2025

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Honor and Consequence (4)