Precious Memories
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: Cymiri
Date Posted: 12th June 2014
Characters: Reeva
Description: Reeva walks down memory lane over some news.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 7, day 13 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: Eioval, Rispan [ONPC], Hispasian [ONPC], Reevan [ONPC]
Reeva was feeling melancholy.
Maybe not melancholy exactly, but certainly subdued. It was an unusual mood for the vivacious healer- but not as unusual as people were likely to presume. She was always private.
She stroked the letter in her lap softly, though she didn't pick it up again.
Dearest Rispan. So young and vivacious. It was hard to remember if she'd been the same at his age. More difficult still to imagine his father at it- though to be honest, one only had to look at the boy himself to see what Hispasian had been in his twenties. Whether the personalities were a match was a different question.
Not for the first time, she regretted that she'd never truly known her husband before the weight of chronic illness had subdued him-though she'd personally succeeded in dragging him back to something more like himself, she suspected there'd been a much more carefree man under it all long ago.
Of course, a carefree man would probably have made mistakes with his unusual apprentice, and then where would they all be? It had been decades now, but Reeva still avoided every attempt to query her teacher. It was probably needless- shards, the Weyrs would likely think it just marvellous- but Hispasian had spent his life working among holds and she would never see even the risk of him shamed. So she held her private silence and simply smiled when people asked.
She still thought it was stupid how seldom people guessed logically. The backstories people were willing to cook up for her were amusing at times.
She smiled softly now, but this was amusement of a different sort. At least Rispan didn't need to worry about any of that. He was suitably male enough for even the most traditional craft master to approve of. Why he delighted in sharing half the stories of his antics with his mother she'd pretend to be blissfully unaware of, though she was well aware deep down who he'd inherited that particular streak from.
She sighed softly, the amusement fading.
At least her precious boys were proud of their mother. And she had Eioval, when they both felt like it, so very different from the husband she still grieved for when the memories rose up just right. She wondered, sometime, if that was his allure.
She'd almost lost Rispan at the same time as his father, of course. Not to the quirk of fate that had later threatened Reevan, but to family who could not accept her decisions or her right to make them. That still hurt when she let it. More so in the face of Rispan's serious news.
So her brother would not even let her know their father was ailing, though apparently her son- the one of them he would accept, anyway- had earned the courtesy? A boy he'd not seen for a decade, who detested him on sight and who must have taken some tracking down?
The news had been meant to reach her, of course. Just to be sure she remembered how dead to them all she was.
She shrugged to herself. It was hardly a surprise. But it still hurt, deep inside. She would have liked a chance to say goodbye. But it was what it was. Her knots were still worth it, even with what they'd broken.
Her lips quirked slightly. She was glad she'd left him without a stich of clothing that morning. It hadn't been necessary- taking the runners [that had been hers to start with contrary to his grasping opinion, pompous prig] would have been more then enough to put the distance between them. The rest had been revenge.
There were queen dragons who'd pale in the face of what Reeva could summon if you threatened her boys. He'd had it coming. He'd looked at a mother grieving an adored husband and all that had mattered to him was convention and appearance, all he could find were threats against the only family she'd had left. He was lucky she hadn't gutted him. Hispasian had taught her some more practical skills too.
The slow tear that rolled down one cheek may have seemed to come from the news, and the deliberate spite, but it came from far more worthwhile memories of a far more worthwhile man.
She'd never swap what she had now, but it was hard not to miss what she'd once had, too.
The room was getting dark, but she had no intention to move, at least not for a while. Sometimes even a woman as energetic as she was needed the quiet. And the good memories.
Last updated on the June 15th 2014