Circles the Mind Takes

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 18th July 2013

Characters: Harki
Description: Harki wakes up too early and thinks uncomfortable thoughts
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 1, day 27 of Turn 7

Harki opened her eyes to the dark. The bed felt strange; she rolled
over and reached for B'lac but found the furs cold, the bed empty.
**Dragonsfall,** she remembered. **I'm home.**

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling until dim shapes
began to resolve themselves from the dark. The natural roughness of
the stone coming through the pale of the plaster became the head of a
wherry, a heel of bread, the tracks left by tunnelsnakes in the sand.
It was well before dawn but the candle burning time in the corner cast
enough light into the room to see by.

And shards and shells, she missed B'lac. Drawing the furs up to her
chin she took a deep breath, then another, and told herself that
missing him was stupid. That he was a wherry's ass and not worth the
dragon he sat on. He'd been horrible to her, and like some stupid
canine she'd stayed around, begging for attention. **Stupid.** She
rolled over and closed her eyes, trying to will herself back to sleep
around the lump in her throat.

After a while she peeked at the candle and found it had only burnt
down by a quarter mark. She hissed an oath, threw off her furs, and
felt her way across her new weyr to her wardrobe. The cool air felt
good against her skin but she pulled a rough cotton robe on anyway,
cinching it around her waist as she wondered what to do. Sleep was
impossible. Nobody else was awake. Her only book was packed, and she
wasn't in the mood for it anyway-- a collection of erotic stories in
smeared type printed on paper thinner than a vtol's wings. B'lac
taunted her when she hadn't read anything, and when she'd bought the
book he'd called her stupid, a stupid, tasteless slut. She'd read it
aloud just to piss him off. And also because she'd liked it.

A bath, then. She turned and reached for the door handle but her hand
met empty air. She frowned, disoriented, before remembering that this
wasn't her old weyr. She was a level up and on the other side of the
cliff, in a weyr almost twice as big as the one she'd lived in since
Impressing. That was a perk. She slammed her toes against the foot of
the bed as felt her way across the unfamiliar space to the door. A
bath was obviously too dangerous a proposition so she fell back into
bed and wrapped herself in her foul mood. The new weyr, her stubbed
toe, the boredom and wakefulness before dawn-- it was all B'lac's
fault.

Shells, she couldn't even move Weyrs without him being a jerk to her.
It wasn't _fair_. Angrily she rubbed incipient tears from her eyes.
**You're better than this. You're better than _him_.** But it was one
thing to say it, and another to feel it. B'lac was... B'lac. Arrogant.
Cruel. Funny. Sly. Devious and mean, and surprisingly kind when he
felt the urge to be. They'd been awful to each other, but she'd also
never felt as alive in her life. They'd fought nasty, made up dirty,
and then did it again. He filled her thoughts and she hated him.
Except she didn't. It was confusing. Harki rolled out of bed again and
felt her way across the weyr to the door that led to Cerillith's
ledge, craving someone else's touch. The morning air was crisp around
her ankles as she crept outside to join her dragon. Cerillith's sides
rose and fell gently as she slept; she didn't wake as Harki curled
into the warm space between her foreleg and the curve of her neck.

At least there was Cerillith. Harki buried her face into soft
dragonhide. The threatened tears dried themselves in the cool air, and
Harki felt the knots between her shoulderblades start to unwind. And
Dragonsfall Weyr looming around her, solid and dark and riddled with
holes as familiar as the back of her hand. Home.

No matter what, she was home.

Last updated on the July 19th 2013

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Circles the Mind Takes