Big fish, little ocean
What: Aivey gives E'sere a pep talk and a task.
Who: E'sere, Aivey
Where: Their place/their beach
Restless nights are rare but not unheard of for E'sere, and while he's careful to let Aivey get what sleep she can, eventually, very early in the morning, he's sitting up, giving up on the pretense of resting in favor of rising and dressing, then loitering near the doorway watching the rain and killing time until drills in a good while.
Having always been a light sleeper, Aivey is awake by the time E'sere rises and dresses and is watched on up to the point where he lingers near the doorway. Drawing the blankets up around herself and cinching them at the makeshift neckline, she stands and crosses toward him. Surely he won't mind the ends of the blankets dragging across his nice, clean floor... "You're up early," is the initial greeting before she seeks a kiss and to briefly lean against his shoulder, "How long do you have?"
E'sere does eye the ends of his blanket, but at least the floor /is/ clean. That's probably the only reason he says nothing about it. "Longer than I'd like," is his admission, nose wrinkling. "A couple or three hours, I think. One of those nights," he offers in explanation of his early rising. "I'm sorry for waking you."
"You didn't wake me. I was up," A smile to suggest such and to dismiss his worry, "What about you? Why couldn't you sleep?" Aivey queries, looking up at him, "I didn't think you ever got bad dreams." She lingers for a moment longer then turns and moves back across the weyr to the bed where she exchanges the blanket and her night clothes for day wear, but makes a point of keeping her attention focused on the bronzerider.
"Not dreams," E'sere differs, shaking his head. He turns to watch as she dresses, leaning back against the stone wall and folding arms across his chest. "I mean, I think there might have been one, but I don't recall it being bad, and certainly not keeping me awake. I just... couldn't shut my mind down enough to really sleep well."
"What were you worried about?" Approaching him anew, Aivey works her hair into a quick braid, choosing to leave it unbound for the moment. Her arms slip back around him for all of a pause, then she's reaching for one of his hands to lead him out toward the ledge, "Tell me while we're on the way there?"
E'sere is apparently getting used to having Aivey parade him around by hand, because he doesn't object to her doing so now. "Not worried, either," he protests with a shake of his head as he follows her out on the ledge into the wet. "Just thinking. Imagining, really--what things are going to be like when we get back."
"What would you like them to be like?" Aivey asks, continuing this whole trend of walking and talking. By the course she's setting it's obvious she intends to take Morelenth along with them, or more correctly /use/ Morelenth to get them to where she wants them to go.
E'sere pauses speaking a moment, though he keeps walking, heading for Morelenth as Aivey does, and offering a hand up absently. "I don't know," he decides finally. "That's why I can spend all night thinking about it."
His absent-minded offer is taken, and once he's settled Aivey leans forward to put her chin on his shoulder, "The beach?" Askance for delivery there, one specific beach, "That's good, though. Makes all this easier."
Cutting his eyes backward, E'sere delays a question as Morelenth instead takes off, soaring upward and carrying them toward the requested beach. Within a short space, he's landing there, letting E'sere slide down and offer a hand up to Aivey while he settles down. "All this what?" E'sere finally asks.
Flying in the rain is surprisingly even less fun then flying without the rain. Though when they've landed, Aivey takes full advantage of Morelenth and stays close to the bronze in hopes of gaining some shelter from said rain. "All this...this. Figuring you out." She looks to him, then looks back to the coastline, "Figuring something out for you. What do you want?"
Morelenth is large enough that a couple of people can huddle in his lee, and with one wing extends a little, he increases the sheltered area for Aivey and E'sere. "Any particular reason we had to come out here in the rain at the crack of dawn to discuss something I thought we'd given up on?" he asks her without looking over.
"Change of location, change of mind," Aivey says, "When we go back, do you think things will stay the same?" Though the question could mean any number of things, Aivey most likely has one specific thing in mind. E'sere, however, is not given any hints on what that one thing is.
"When we go back," E'sere begins slowly, "everything will change." He looks back at her then, frowning. "I rather wish it wouldn't; I don't handle these sort of sweeping changes well. I'm only starting to adjust to things /now/."
"Change how?" Aivey prompts, "Say right now you could pick it all. What you wanted, how you wanted it. Build it for me, E'sere. No strings attached. Just think and then say." She turns to rest against Morelenth's elbow so that she can face E'sere straight on.
"I can't decide," E'sere notes, looking away again and then propping up against Morelenth's damp hide himself. "Sometimes we exact our justice publically on them--Ganathon, S'lien, Mother--drag them in front of the entire Weyr like they did us, and humiliate and kill them there. Sometimes it's not public, and we give them back /every/ thing they've given us." A pause; he opens his mouth and shuts it again, as though rethinking. In the end, though, he says, "Sometimes I'm Weyrleader and sometimes I don't know what I am."
Aivey stays silent for a short while, though when she speaks it's not on what she was talking about before... and yet it is. "Back when I was young enough to care, my foster - the guy who raised me - he'd tell me this story. He said his dad told it to him, and that his dad told it to his dad... somewhere along the line there was a sailor in the family and I suppose they got the story there-" Preamble done, Aivey proceeds to tell the story, "There was this fish in the ocean. Great, big fish. He was big from the time he was little and he just kept getting bigger and bigger. Time came, he got too big for the ocean. Couldn't be a fish but he couldn't not be a fish. What's he do?"
E'sere looks around at Aivey like she's lost it. He blinks, knits his brows, and frowns at her, and doesn't answer the question at the end of her little story, only tilting his head curiously as he waits for her to explain.
"He couldn't stay in the ocean, E'sere, because one day he knew he'd outgrow it. But the ocean was all he ever knew. The other fish were all that he ever knew but there came a point when they realized he just wasn't meant for the ocean." Aivey shrugs before drawing a hand up to rub at the side of her jaw.
"So... you're calling me a fish," E'sere says slowly, "and saying I got too big for the ocean. A fish can't survive out of the water. Haven't you ever watched one flopping around on shore, choking to death, after you catch it?"
"The fish that still fits in the ocean does because they're still belong in the ocean." Aivey licks her lips and bites back a smile that's amused, "Do you know how the story ended?" Looking to him, Aivey says, "The big fish finally accepted the fact that no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted to be a fish, he wasn't. Wasn't anything wrong with him either, just that the ocean wasn't for him. Wasn't his. My favorite part was when he'd tell me what the fish did. Just one day he up and grew wings and flew away. A few years later, people started talking about this bird that was too big for the sky."
"And what did he decide to be then, Aivey?" E'sere wonders, looking bemused. He watches her a moment, shaking his head, and then asks another question. "So how does /this/ fish turn himself into a bird?"
"Don't know. He never got to finish telling me the story. But a while back I heard some folks say he was at the 'Reaches - for a while... then he outgrew that too." A hapless shrug from Aivey, "When he outgrew the ocean, E'sere, he had the right to grow wings... to find a new place to fit in. Wasn't the ocean, wasn't the sky... he'll find it and then it'll become his."
E'sere slides down Morelenth's side to the ground, settling on the sand with one arm loosely resting on top of his knees. He leans his head back against the dragon, too, so he can look up at Aivey. "Outgrew it, huh? And here I would have said the 'Reaches outgrew him," he notes, snorting. "If he /did/ outgrow it, though, then to go back again, he's going to have to make it fit him again, yes?"
"He could always change the ocean to suit him. If that's what he decides he wants," Aivey replies with a small nod, "But that doesn't mean it'll make him a fish." Aivey smiles again, this time more amused for E'sere's reply then she is from fondness for the story.
"How do you fix the ocean?" wonders E'sere, ruffling his hair. "It's an awful big thing, you know."
"No saying you have to fix /all/ of the ocean. Just the parts you want most. The parts that mean the most." Aivey replies, "Point is, E'sere," Aivey looks at him again, still amused, "You're in the sky right now. You can be anything you want. You just have to want it and when it's right, you'll know. But the ocean? It's not for you. Not right now."
"There's only one ocean," E'sere points out. "If you change part of it, all the rest will change, too." He's silent, thoughtful, for a moment. "So I'm in the sky. It's a nice sky, but I don't think I've finished growing my feathers yet, so I keep floundering around worse than a weyrling dragon. You know, I feel like you're some kind of... I don't know. All encouraging, you-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be. It's disconcerting," he notes finally, smiling crookedly.
"Grow them. Learn. Watch and don't be afraid to ask," Aivey says. To his last, there is a very dignified sounding, "Well when you get to be /my/ age, you have to be willing to help the ignorant," A half smile that looks half-bitten back surfaces, "So your task for today is to find at least one thing you don't think you can do. And do it. Obvious exceptions aside." Let's not go there!
"I'm a good ten turns older than you," E'sere retorts dryly, smirking. Her assigning a task to him brings a rather surprised and disbelieving look. "You're... giving me homework. When did you become a Caucus instructor?" he taunts.
"No, not homework. Day work. Work... a challenge, call it whatever you want so long as it gets done," Aivey says dismissively, "-if I had been your instructor, well, you'd know if you were a fish, a bird or whatever by now. Whoever taught you needs to be fired." Taunt deflected!
"Well, they will be, when I get back to that ocean," E'sere drawls, amused. "So I have to do something I don't think I can do. That's... Hmm. Difficult. I've tried most of the chores around here already, you know."
"Lucky them," Is Aivey's dry remark, followed with, "Then aim higher. Think about it for a bit. You have all day - if you're still stuck at lunch we'll talk about it then. Deal?"
E'sere studies Aivey a moment, then nods once. "Deal," he agrees.
"Done. Now may I suggest we get out of this rain before I catch my death?" Her. Not him. Clearly Aivey's priorities are straight, "Besides-" A more luxurious note here, with a feigned yawn, "I can still catch a few more hours sleep. You're due at drills."
"Yes, wouldn't want /that/," E'sere drawls again, pushing himself back up to his feet and offering her a hand as he looks back to Morelenth. "I hope you lie there and can't sleep, too," he adds.
"I knew you liked me," Aivey returns mock-sarcastic. The hand is accepted and pulled on as she rises to her feet and draws in for another kiss - can
"I knew you liked me," Aivey returns mock-sarcastic. The hand is accepted and pulled on as she rises to her feet and draws in for another kiss - can't go too long without those - "You /could/ stay in, though that wouldn't get you off on the right foot with your 'homework'."
"Or with J'lor," reminds E'sere, tugging Aivey upright and tilting his head enough to return her kiss. "The depths of my like knows no bounds," he retorts smugly.
"And to think, just last night, you were planning on booting me out." Aivey tsks lightly, then draws back to Morelenth and the shelter from all that damn rain.
"Well, I'm still planning on that," E'sere amends himself. "Just know, I still like you. Just can't have you around cramping my style." Smirk. He offers his hand back as Morelenth straightens again, stretching idly. "Ready?" E'sere asks.
"Plan all you want, for what good it does you," Aivey says with a consoling pat against his shoulder, "Ready. Been ready. I better get all the use out of that weyr of yours while I still can." Drawing her hand into his, Aivey waits for the eventual hand up before settling on Morelenth.
Helping Aivey up, E'sere smirks. "Oh, yes. Take advantage of it while you can," he encourages as he settles into place on Morelenth as well, then cues the bronze to take them home again.
The one good thing about riding shotgun, is that shotgun comes with a built in windshield. Namely, E'sere. And Aivey puts that to her full advantage for the flight home; keeping ducked close to his back, arms wrapped tightly around him and not relinquishing their hold until they're back where they belong. Like, maybe, the ground.
Morelenth stops just long enough for E'sere to twist around and seek another kiss and then let Aivey slide down. "You have got to work on your riding," he notes of her first, smirking. "I'll see you for lunch."
Aivey won't deny him either the kiss or the point. Though before she slides down, a sharp poke to his side prompts a reminder, "Don't forget...try something you don't think you can do." The slide down is expectedly sloppy, though Aivey at least has the presence of mind to make it look intentional. Turning and taking a few steps back she lifts a hand in a half wave, though doesn't leave the ledge until the bronze and rider are gone from sight.
Who: E'sere, Aivey
Where: Their place/their beach
Restless nights are rare but not unheard of for E'sere, and while he's careful to let Aivey get what sleep she can, eventually, very early in the morning, he's sitting up, giving up on the pretense of resting in favor of rising and dressing, then loitering near the doorway watching the rain and killing time until drills in a good while.
Having always been a light sleeper, Aivey is awake by the time E'sere rises and dresses and is watched on up to the point where he lingers near the doorway. Drawing the blankets up around herself and cinching them at the makeshift neckline, she stands and crosses toward him. Surely he won't mind the ends of the blankets dragging across his nice, clean floor... "You're up early," is the initial greeting before she seeks a kiss and to briefly lean against his shoulder, "How long do you have?"
E'sere does eye the ends of his blanket, but at least the floor /is/ clean. That's probably the only reason he says nothing about it. "Longer than I'd like," is his admission, nose wrinkling. "A couple or three hours, I think. One of those nights," he offers in explanation of his early rising. "I'm sorry for waking you."
"You didn't wake me. I was up," A smile to suggest such and to dismiss his worry, "What about you? Why couldn't you sleep?" Aivey queries, looking up at him, "I didn't think you ever got bad dreams." She lingers for a moment longer then turns and moves back across the weyr to the bed where she exchanges the blanket and her night clothes for day wear, but makes a point of keeping her attention focused on the bronzerider.
"Not dreams," E'sere differs, shaking his head. He turns to watch as she dresses, leaning back against the stone wall and folding arms across his chest. "I mean, I think there might have been one, but I don't recall it being bad, and certainly not keeping me awake. I just... couldn't shut my mind down enough to really sleep well."
"What were you worried about?" Approaching him anew, Aivey works her hair into a quick braid, choosing to leave it unbound for the moment. Her arms slip back around him for all of a pause, then she's reaching for one of his hands to lead him out toward the ledge, "Tell me while we're on the way there?"
E'sere is apparently getting used to having Aivey parade him around by hand, because he doesn't object to her doing so now. "Not worried, either," he protests with a shake of his head as he follows her out on the ledge into the wet. "Just thinking. Imagining, really--what things are going to be like when we get back."
"What would you like them to be like?" Aivey asks, continuing this whole trend of walking and talking. By the course she's setting it's obvious she intends to take Morelenth along with them, or more correctly /use/ Morelenth to get them to where she wants them to go.
E'sere pauses speaking a moment, though he keeps walking, heading for Morelenth as Aivey does, and offering a hand up absently. "I don't know," he decides finally. "That's why I can spend all night thinking about it."
His absent-minded offer is taken, and once he's settled Aivey leans forward to put her chin on his shoulder, "The beach?" Askance for delivery there, one specific beach, "That's good, though. Makes all this easier."
Cutting his eyes backward, E'sere delays a question as Morelenth instead takes off, soaring upward and carrying them toward the requested beach. Within a short space, he's landing there, letting E'sere slide down and offer a hand up to Aivey while he settles down. "All this what?" E'sere finally asks.
Flying in the rain is surprisingly even less fun then flying without the rain. Though when they've landed, Aivey takes full advantage of Morelenth and stays close to the bronze in hopes of gaining some shelter from said rain. "All this...this. Figuring you out." She looks to him, then looks back to the coastline, "Figuring something out for you. What do you want?"
Morelenth is large enough that a couple of people can huddle in his lee, and with one wing extends a little, he increases the sheltered area for Aivey and E'sere. "Any particular reason we had to come out here in the rain at the crack of dawn to discuss something I thought we'd given up on?" he asks her without looking over.
"Change of location, change of mind," Aivey says, "When we go back, do you think things will stay the same?" Though the question could mean any number of things, Aivey most likely has one specific thing in mind. E'sere, however, is not given any hints on what that one thing is.
"When we go back," E'sere begins slowly, "everything will change." He looks back at her then, frowning. "I rather wish it wouldn't; I don't handle these sort of sweeping changes well. I'm only starting to adjust to things /now/."
"Change how?" Aivey prompts, "Say right now you could pick it all. What you wanted, how you wanted it. Build it for me, E'sere. No strings attached. Just think and then say." She turns to rest against Morelenth's elbow so that she can face E'sere straight on.
"I can't decide," E'sere notes, looking away again and then propping up against Morelenth's damp hide himself. "Sometimes we exact our justice publically on them--Ganathon, S'lien, Mother--drag them in front of the entire Weyr like they did us, and humiliate and kill them there. Sometimes it's not public, and we give them back /every/ thing they've given us." A pause; he opens his mouth and shuts it again, as though rethinking. In the end, though, he says, "Sometimes I'm Weyrleader and sometimes I don't know what I am."
Aivey stays silent for a short while, though when she speaks it's not on what she was talking about before... and yet it is. "Back when I was young enough to care, my foster - the guy who raised me - he'd tell me this story. He said his dad told it to him, and that his dad told it to his dad... somewhere along the line there was a sailor in the family and I suppose they got the story there-" Preamble done, Aivey proceeds to tell the story, "There was this fish in the ocean. Great, big fish. He was big from the time he was little and he just kept getting bigger and bigger. Time came, he got too big for the ocean. Couldn't be a fish but he couldn't not be a fish. What's he do?"
E'sere looks around at Aivey like she's lost it. He blinks, knits his brows, and frowns at her, and doesn't answer the question at the end of her little story, only tilting his head curiously as he waits for her to explain.
"He couldn't stay in the ocean, E'sere, because one day he knew he'd outgrow it. But the ocean was all he ever knew. The other fish were all that he ever knew but there came a point when they realized he just wasn't meant for the ocean." Aivey shrugs before drawing a hand up to rub at the side of her jaw.
"So... you're calling me a fish," E'sere says slowly, "and saying I got too big for the ocean. A fish can't survive out of the water. Haven't you ever watched one flopping around on shore, choking to death, after you catch it?"
"The fish that still fits in the ocean does because they're still belong in the ocean." Aivey licks her lips and bites back a smile that's amused, "Do you know how the story ended?" Looking to him, Aivey says, "The big fish finally accepted the fact that no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted to be a fish, he wasn't. Wasn't anything wrong with him either, just that the ocean wasn't for him. Wasn't his. My favorite part was when he'd tell me what the fish did. Just one day he up and grew wings and flew away. A few years later, people started talking about this bird that was too big for the sky."
"And what did he decide to be then, Aivey?" E'sere wonders, looking bemused. He watches her a moment, shaking his head, and then asks another question. "So how does /this/ fish turn himself into a bird?"
"Don't know. He never got to finish telling me the story. But a while back I heard some folks say he was at the 'Reaches - for a while... then he outgrew that too." A hapless shrug from Aivey, "When he outgrew the ocean, E'sere, he had the right to grow wings... to find a new place to fit in. Wasn't the ocean, wasn't the sky... he'll find it and then it'll become his."
E'sere slides down Morelenth's side to the ground, settling on the sand with one arm loosely resting on top of his knees. He leans his head back against the dragon, too, so he can look up at Aivey. "Outgrew it, huh? And here I would have said the 'Reaches outgrew him," he notes, snorting. "If he /did/ outgrow it, though, then to go back again, he's going to have to make it fit him again, yes?"
"He could always change the ocean to suit him. If that's what he decides he wants," Aivey replies with a small nod, "But that doesn't mean it'll make him a fish." Aivey smiles again, this time more amused for E'sere's reply then she is from fondness for the story.
"How do you fix the ocean?" wonders E'sere, ruffling his hair. "It's an awful big thing, you know."
"No saying you have to fix /all/ of the ocean. Just the parts you want most. The parts that mean the most." Aivey replies, "Point is, E'sere," Aivey looks at him again, still amused, "You're in the sky right now. You can be anything you want. You just have to want it and when it's right, you'll know. But the ocean? It's not for you. Not right now."
"There's only one ocean," E'sere points out. "If you change part of it, all the rest will change, too." He's silent, thoughtful, for a moment. "So I'm in the sky. It's a nice sky, but I don't think I've finished growing my feathers yet, so I keep floundering around worse than a weyrling dragon. You know, I feel like you're some kind of... I don't know. All encouraging, you-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be. It's disconcerting," he notes finally, smiling crookedly.
"Grow them. Learn. Watch and don't be afraid to ask," Aivey says. To his last, there is a very dignified sounding, "Well when you get to be /my/ age, you have to be willing to help the ignorant," A half smile that looks half-bitten back surfaces, "So your task for today is to find at least one thing you don't think you can do. And do it. Obvious exceptions aside." Let's not go there!
"I'm a good ten turns older than you," E'sere retorts dryly, smirking. Her assigning a task to him brings a rather surprised and disbelieving look. "You're... giving me homework. When did you become a Caucus instructor?" he taunts.
"No, not homework. Day work. Work... a challenge, call it whatever you want so long as it gets done," Aivey says dismissively, "-if I had been your instructor, well, you'd know if you were a fish, a bird or whatever by now. Whoever taught you needs to be fired." Taunt deflected!
"Well, they will be, when I get back to that ocean," E'sere drawls, amused. "So I have to do something I don't think I can do. That's... Hmm. Difficult. I've tried most of the chores around here already, you know."
"Lucky them," Is Aivey's dry remark, followed with, "Then aim higher. Think about it for a bit. You have all day - if you're still stuck at lunch we'll talk about it then. Deal?"
E'sere studies Aivey a moment, then nods once. "Deal," he agrees.
"Done. Now may I suggest we get out of this rain before I catch my death?" Her. Not him. Clearly Aivey's priorities are straight, "Besides-" A more luxurious note here, with a feigned yawn, "I can still catch a few more hours sleep. You're due at drills."
"Yes, wouldn't want /that/," E'sere drawls again, pushing himself back up to his feet and offering her a hand as he looks back to Morelenth. "I hope you lie there and can't sleep, too," he adds.
"I knew you liked me," Aivey returns mock-sarcastic. The hand is accepted and pulled on as she rises to her feet and draws in for another kiss - can
"I knew you liked me," Aivey returns mock-sarcastic. The hand is accepted and pulled on as she rises to her feet and draws in for another kiss - can't go too long without those - "You /could/ stay in, though that wouldn't get you off on the right foot with your 'homework'."
"Or with J'lor," reminds E'sere, tugging Aivey upright and tilting his head enough to return her kiss. "The depths of my like knows no bounds," he retorts smugly.
"And to think, just last night, you were planning on booting me out." Aivey tsks lightly, then draws back to Morelenth and the shelter from all that damn rain.
"Well, I'm still planning on that," E'sere amends himself. "Just know, I still like you. Just can't have you around cramping my style." Smirk. He offers his hand back as Morelenth straightens again, stretching idly. "Ready?" E'sere asks.
"Plan all you want, for what good it does you," Aivey says with a consoling pat against his shoulder, "Ready. Been ready. I better get all the use out of that weyr of yours while I still can." Drawing her hand into his, Aivey waits for the eventual hand up before settling on Morelenth.
Helping Aivey up, E'sere smirks. "Oh, yes. Take advantage of it while you can," he encourages as he settles into place on Morelenth as well, then cues the bronze to take them home again.
The one good thing about riding shotgun, is that shotgun comes with a built in windshield. Namely, E'sere. And Aivey puts that to her full advantage for the flight home; keeping ducked close to his back, arms wrapped tightly around him and not relinquishing their hold until they're back where they belong. Like, maybe, the ground.
Morelenth stops just long enough for E'sere to twist around and seek another kiss and then let Aivey slide down. "You have got to work on your riding," he notes of her first, smirking. "I'll see you for lunch."
Aivey won't deny him either the kiss or the point. Though before she slides down, a sharp poke to his side prompts a reminder, "Don't forget...try something you don't think you can do." The slide down is expectedly sloppy, though Aivey at least has the presence of mind to make it look intentional. Turning and taking a few steps back she lifts a hand in a half wave, though doesn't leave the ledge until the bronze and rider are gone from sight.