[Log] Mine and Yours
Who: Al'zay, N'kail
When: Winter, Turn 429
Where: Bowl, High Reaches Weyr
What: Nearly twenty turns ago, two very different boys impressed. A couple of days after the hatching, they deal with the aftermath.
It's early evening, and winter. The ground is frozen, there's snow piled everywhere, shoveled out by the larger dragon"s for the weyrlings. No one in their right mind should be out in this cold, but there's the large, gangly brown, busily digging in the snow, and his rider, arms wrapped around himself to keep warm. The boy - for boy he is, just as gangly and awkward as his dragon - says, "No, Yhanth. We have to sleep inside. He didn't mean - oh, shardit all." Jaw locks tight. "Stop diggin' will you?"
With only five weyrlings, it's easy to notice when someone's missing. Inside the barracks, four of the dragons are curled up warmly, only Skaindriyth awake, the sturdy bronze studying his older rider while N'kail scribbles a letter, scratching out numerous phrases and starting over and finally just wadding it up and throwing it away. He stands then, tells the dragon, "I'll be back, got to--I'll be back." And he heads out, and even just a few days old, Skaindriyth understands when he should stay. Out into the cold heads N'kail, walk rather aimless until he happens to see that one missing weyrling. After that, he turns toward the brownrider and stops a few feet away to ask, "Al'zay?"
Al'zay jumps and turns, startled, as Yhanth pauses in his digging. The little brown's hollowed out a fair sized cave in a drift. "N'kail? Uh, yeah. What is it." His tone is a trifle ungracious, and he swipes at his eyes, nose already gone red. From the cold, and that's the story he'll stick to.
N'kail isn't completely stupid, nor completely tactless, either. He studies Al'zay a couple of seconds, brows furrowing and a frown setting onto his lips. "Skaindriyth was asking about Yhanth," he finally offers in lame explanation. "Y'ought to come back in before you catch your death out here. Playtime or no." He eyes the brown a moment for that remark.
[DTU] To Skaindriyth, Yhanth's tone is a trifle indignant. << I'm not playing. I'm digging a weyr. >>
Al'zay echoes his brown all unknowning, "He's not playing. He's trying to dig a weyr. It's silly. We'll be fine, thanks." A faintly wan smile and he looks aside to Yhanth, "I've told him it won't work, but."
[DTU] To Yhanth, Skaindriyth replies dryly, << I'll hold out for my stone one, thanks. >>
"Y'know the snow's gonna melt, right? Few more months?" N'kail looks between Yhanth and Al'zay dubiously, brows still knitted. "Don't do you a lot of good, anyway, live in a weyr made of snow. It's still cold. Tell 'im--" a nod toward the brown "--who's boss already and come on inside before you freeze more, like I said." He's already turning, moving to start back toward the warmth of indoors, though at a slow pace as he expects Al'zay to come along.
Al'zay is unwilling to leave Yhanth. "He doesn't want to go in." A pause and he adds, "I don't want to either. We're not wanted in there." Jaw locks tight, and he looks back to Yhanth. "Look, you're not weyrbred. You don't unnerstand."
"Not really sure I want to," observes N'kail dubiously, pausing to turn back and look at Al'zay "if that means I got to live out in the snow. Don't know where you got that idea about not being wanted, but." A pause. "Try me, then."
Al'zay turns back to N'kail and lowers his voice. "He's brown. That's the problem. Not for me, but..." A jerk of his head towards the bowl where the weyrleader ledges are.
"Well, he's an idiot," says N'kail bluntly, not looking toward the ledges. He doesn't have to; he knows what's there without having to. "Parents--" He stops, hesitates. Continues: "They shouldn't just abandon their kids, whatever happens. Anybody who does--" he licks his lips a moment, frown deepening "--s'not worth their salt, that's all there is to it."
Al'zay sniffs. "He's not green. Or blue. I don't like /boys/." Hell, the poor kid's barely old enough to know what girls are. "Why can't he understand that Yhanth's perfect? It's not fair." He grimaces. "Said I should've done better than a holder boy." A quickly shot look at N'kail. "But Yhanth's mine. And Skain's yours." A ghost of a smile. "Al'zay and Skaindriyth doesn't sound right, anyway."
N'kail snorts. "Not sure 'Skaindriyth' sounds good with much of anything," he remarks idly. "Least I got a good name out of it." Then, seriously: "Look, kid. Don't ask me to understand why, I just know it's not right," he tells Al'zay with a shake of his head. "Only thing I've heard since I got here is dragon's choice and all that crap. And brown might not still be bronze, but it's still no reason to do like him. No real man's gonna do that, so don't let it get you down. You just... do what you can anyway."
Al'zay nods slowly. "It isn't right." A sad, long face. "Doesn't mean he won't do it anyway. C'mon, Yhanth. Let's go back inside, huh?" The gangly brown's already yawning, this time led in without any protest. As they're crossing the threshold Zaly says, "Thanks, N'kail."
"Well, not much you can do except try to make him see he's wrong," says N'kail, briefly grim before he turns to usher the younger weyrling inside. The thanks, he just shrugs off, with a tight smile. "Sure thing, kid."