So Many Questions

Writers: Eimi, Paula
Date Posted: 24th September 2009

Characters: Corowal, Erassa, Aishara
Description: Aishara brings Corowal and Erassa to Dolphin Cove to collect B'lion's things.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 5, day 10 of Turn 5

Aishara

Auymith backwinded to land on the weyrbowl. With two passangers, she made sure to make it as smooth as possible. Aishara congratulated that she had prepared her with the passangers straps when she left for the Emeralds Falls Hold. Corowal had enjoyed the flight to the Weyr. Especially when he could wrap his arms around Erassa with a good excuse.

It had been a long time since she had ridden on a dragon. When she had ridden behind B'lion, her arms wrapped around him, it had been a thrilling experience, one she had thought she could never tire of. But now she was filled with a feeling of dread as she unfastened the straps and stared up at the stone walls. She had thought she would never come back to this place. It held only painful memories, ones she had tried hard to leave behind. **What am I doing here again?**

"I'll take you to the Headwoman," Aishara said.

Erassa slipped off the green's back, a little surprised when she hit the ground so quickly. B'lion's brown was so much bigger. **Was...** she reminded herself. Even as she acknowledged the fact to herself that they were gone, her eyes still automatically lifted to his favorite sunning spot, expecting to see him there. But there was a blue in his place. An unexpected wave of sadness caused a painful lump in her throat that she tried to swallow as she made a point to smooth down her skirt. "I know the way," she said, her voice tight but strong as she took purposeful strides towards the Weyr's cavernous entrance.

~ ~ ~

She just looked at the key in her hand, feeling the weight of it. They had never locked the door when they were weyrmated. Erassa knew some took the precaution, but they were young and trusting. Besides, everything that they had considered to be of any real value was intangible then. As long as they had each other, they had everything. It had been enough once. They grew up fast.

Corowal watched her silentely, he didn't want to intrude to her private grief, not until she asked him to. Sometimes silent support was the best you could offer. His own thoughts kept returning to his first wife's death and how he had dealt with it.

With a deep breath she turned the key in the lock and let the door swing open. Erassa wasn't sure what she was expecting to see as she stood in the doorway looking into the room. Maybe she had thought it would look exactly the same as she had left it - filled with warm glow-light, cluttered with dishes that needed to be taken down to the kitchen, fresh laundry needing to be put away, a bassinet for the baby, a large sofa with the pillows she had embroidered herself, a table with three matching chairs and one that didn't seem to quite belong... But instead it was just dark. Like a cave. Like /between/. "Shards, it's so quiet."

"And empty, guess they already removed the furniture," Corowal agreed, peeking in over her shoulder.

"Seems so," she said quietly. Not liking the way their voices echoed across the stone. She flipped on the glow, a piece of her hoping that it would look different in the light. That it would look lived in. But it was just cold stone walls with piles of personal effects shoved against them, as if they had been in the way of them reclaiming their own. "Like wherries picking at the bones," she spat bitterly. "He was one of them, for Faranth's sake! Have they no respect for their dead? How could they just discard him like that?"

"I don't think it's that. It's not disrespect. They have just seen so much death that they have had to build walls around their hearts to be able to keep going. They had had to be learn to be practical about it," Corowal found himself defending the weyrfolk. He had been weyrs often enough and been in too many groundcrews to do otherwise. He picked up some small item and turned it in his hands. "You, of all people, should know how different lives they live compared to us. Or is that why you left? Too hard just sit and wait if he comes back from Fall alive?"

"No," she said, shaking her head emphatically. "It was never that." Though it had been hard, the candlemarks seemed to pass quickly. Everyone was busy during Threadfall in the Weyr. "No, it wasn't waiting to see if he would come back from a Fall I couldn't handle." Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered sitting and waiting for a much different reason. "It was waiting to see whose bed he had tripped into that I couldn't stand."

"Ouh," Corowal said. No wonder she had taken his advances so badly.

"He said it was just the way here. I told him it hurt me when he left me alone. When he chose another woman over me. He said the fault was with me, not him. That I should just open my mind to their ways. He said if I loved him, I wouldn't try to change him. I told him that if he loved me, he wouldn't hurt me." Erassa knelt down next to a pile of books and hides, picking one up and running her finger over the spine. These were not his. They had been hers. B'lion had hating reading. Why had he kept them? Had he been too lazy to do anything with them? Had he hoped she would come back to reclaim them one day? If had hoped that, he had never made a move, not a single attempt and trying to find her. "It only got worse after I became pregnant."

"We men are such selfish bastards," Corowal said. At least he had kept Ofelia blissfully ignorant and so far he had been loyal to Felyna.

She closed her eyes, her jaw clenched. Why did he have to be a bastard even now? "Don't mock me. I had a reasonable grievance."

"Hey, that was self-mockery, in case you didn't notice. Perhaps I should leave you alone, I'm not helping. I can go to see the Weyrleader or something," Corowal lifted his hand in defensive gesture.

"No, please!" She felt a surprising feeling of panic at the thought of being left alone in this cold, silent weyr. No matter what his intentions had been, no matter how odious he could be, she just needed _someone_ there! "I'm sorry. It's just... I never thought I'd be back here. I never thought..." Tears filled her eyes as she just couldn't find the words to finish that thought. There were so many thoughts running through her head. Memories. Regrets. Words she had wanted to say to him, but now never could. She had always thought one day... "I never thought... he'd not be here..."

"Hush, it's all right", Corowal said and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "I'm here so you can lash out to me if it makes you feel better."

"I just want to get this over with," she whispered, fighting down a sob. Why? Why did she feel so sharding alone? _She_ had left B'lion. She had dealt with this. She never regretted her decision to take her son away from this place, and away from him. Why now was she feeling so abandoned by him?

Corowal murmured soothing words that meant nothing. "You did love him," he said after a while. It was a matter-of-factly observation.

She nodded, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "I would never have left my family in shame for less."

"Things we do for love..." Corowal said and shook his head ruefully.

"And all for nothing." How stupid she had been. _Stupid_! A love sick fool who thought that their love justified all the hurt she had caused her family, that wherever he was would be home.

"Don't say that. Love is never nothing. Do you call your son nothing?" Corowal said surprisingly sharply and forced her to meet his eyes.

"I will never regret my son," Erassa replied quickly, a little shocked that he would even suggest such a thing. "But I regret that I didn't choose a better man to be his father. I should have chosen a man who would be there for him, who would have loved him as much as I do. And now, he has no father at all. I call _that_ nothing. He has nothing now."

"He has you and his fosterfamily. Do you think I would cast away my daughter's milk brother?" Corowal pointed out. "Lot's of lads grow up without father. Dragonrider's aren't only ones with dangerous jobs."

Erassa leaned into his embrace as she looked around the room that she once had considered a home. They had started with so much promise. What went wrong? Had she pushed him away some how? Had he never had honorable intentions towards her? He had said he loved her, that he wanted to be with her always. But if that was so, why was she not enough for him? Why did he just let her go? So many questions, and now she could never ask him. Before she could stop it, another sob escaped her. "I just want to know _why_."

"Unfortunately, there are questions that have no answers," Corowal replied.

Erassa just felt drained. She wanted this whole thing to be over so she could go back to her rooms, grab her son and hold him in her arms. "Let's just do this and get out of here."

"Aye," Corowal agreed.

Last updated on the September 24th 2009

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