No Right
Location: Beach and Weyrling Clearing
Time: Early Morning on Day 27, Month 11, Turn 2
Players: J'lor, D'rian and Taikath
Scene: J'lor calls D'rian on his behavior towards the greenriding weyrlings.
It is early morning and the beach is relatively quiet. Some weyrlings are bathing or feeding their dragons. Others are oiling them or working on their rabbit skin and their stitches. J'lor comes strolling along the sand, feet bare, hands in his pockets. He seems to be looking for something in particular, though just what remains unsaid.
Taikath is visible long before D'rian is. The oil slicked bronze is situated off to the side of the clearing on a stretch of ground that is free of any other living creature. The fast growing bronze lays flat on his stomach with his wings spread wide at his side. His head is canted at an angle, one paw bent the other tucked under his head. While it doesn't look terribly comfortable, the bronze is at rest so he must be. D'rian, on the other hand, is seated with his back to a log with a scrap of rabbit skin in hand and about a dozen lines of neat stitches laying side by side.
The bluerider's voice arrives before he does with a kindly, "Good morning, Taikath," and then, when the top of the young rider's stubbly head comes into view, "and you, D'rian. How are you both?" J'lor stops in front of Taikath, crouching down and offering his hand, palm up, for the hatchling's inspection.
Taikath lifts his head to give J'lor's hand a cautionary sniff. His half-lidded eyes open wider as the scent pulls at familiar strings and, with a soft grunt, the bronze rights himself to more properly study the bluerider. D'rian, on the other hand, doesn't look over his shoulder to offer a proper greeting. "We're fine. He's oiled and... was going to sleep," A dry note here, more wry then upset, "I'm working on the skin. You?"
"Checking in on weyrlings and disrupting the sleep patterns of baby dragons," is J'lor's bemused response. That hand moves to rub Taikath's muzzle, below and between the eyes in a light and repetitive caress. "Do you have a bit of time to speak with me, just now?"
Taikath's lids drop and he leans into the caress. It's not long before a soft hum starts, one that has D'rian checking over his shoulder and frowning at first the bronze, then J'lor. He does, at least, set aside his work before nodding and turning to stand. "I do." There's a quick pause and an anxious rub of one hand against the back of his neck, "Is something wrong?"
"No need to stand. I'll join you." J'lor's fingers massage the little dragon's well-oiled hide for another moment before shifting away and moving to stand near D'rian instead. "Whether something is wrong or not...well...I suppose I'd like to ask that question to you. I noticed, yesterday, you were less than pleased to be partnered with Lili or to be assisting K'tric."
"Nothing's wrong," D'rian says with a shake of his head and both arms crossing over his chest. He looks to Taikath, a move which helps ease the frown from his features. It remains so as he looks back to J'lor, "The girl annoys me and K'tric's... can't say I like him much."
"K'tric is..." oh, how to put this nicely, "unusual, I know. But what was it about Lili that had you so put out?" There is a brief pause before J'lor notes, gently, "I notice they are not the only greenriders that displease you. In fact, I would be hard pressed to find one that did not."
"They're greenriders." D'rian's admission is guilt free and blunt, with a look away from J'lor for what he knows will come. "Doesn't matter if I like 'em or not." Taikath, done with studying J'lor and lured by the growing heat, sinks back to his stomach and lays his head atop his forepaws. Within seconds, both eyes are lidded shut and he is once more sleeping.
"It matters," J'lor contradicts with that quiet way he has. "What makes a greenrider different than a bluerider or a bronzerider, D'rian? I don't see you shy away from weyrlings with lifemates of any other color."
D'rian is silent. There's a bit of jaw work in that silence before he explains himself. "Girls don't belong on dragons and I don't want anything to do with the guys who are on greens. Just as bad as girls, half of them." Dropping his arms to his side, D'rian continues looking anywhere but at J'lor, "I stay away from them, they stay away from me. It works good that way."
"It won't work good when you're in the air together. It won't work good when you're expected to fly as a wing." J'lor cants his head to the side, peering over at D'rian. "Do you understand that those beliefs, that girls are less by virtue of being female, is part of what we all fought against on the mainland?"
"I didn't," D'rian says, but it's more plaintive then anything else. He kicks at the ground, silent for another span of seconds, "They just don't belong there, J'lor. Not in the air, not doing what /we're/ suppose to be doing. It's not their fault they can't do it, but when they try and pretend it just... sad."
The bluerider is silent for a while, head lifted to stare out at the ocean. Gently he begins, "I'm going to tell you something, D'rian, and I want you to listen closely. Then I want you to think on it, all right?"
"Alright." Grim, that agreement. D'rian follows it with the briefest of looks at the bluerider, then switches the focus of his attention to the sleeping bronze.
Perhaps it did not matter what D'rian response was, because J'lor's words come nearly on the heels of the boy's own. "A greenrider is going to save your life." One foot shifts to burrow into the sand. "They are the most agile and the most taken for granted flyers. They are disregarded, seen as inferior, looked down upon. And in return, they make sure that the blues and browns and bronzes do not get their fool heads taken off in 'fall. Have you ever seen Chiavelth cut a turn? She is poetry on wings. I promise you, D'rian, if you and Taikath survive to be my age, it will be because a greenrider charred thread that was meant for you or for him. Think on that, when next you speak with Lili."
D'rian is, by all outward appearances, already thinking on it. Enough so that when he replies to J'lor there's a small note of frustration in his voice. "It doesn't mean - it doesn't mean I have to like them. They're-" Dropping his arms to his side, D'rian looks to the bluerider, "It's part of the job and just another reason why they shouldn't be up there."
"It means, D'rian, that you have to respect them." J'lor shakes is head slowly. "I don't understand. Why shouldn't they be up there?"
"They don't belong up there. The girls don't belong up there. It's not their job, not what they're for. And the guys who are..." D'rian doesn't finish the statement, laying it aside for another answer. "He says it's the reason you lost, J'lor, because you trusted them and you let them fight for you. That if you'd have been a man you'd have done the right thing, not the fool thing."
"If we needed anything, it was more people. Not less," J'lor responds after a long moment of silence. "We lost because we didn't think it through. We lost because we thought we could terrorize people, and then expect them to care what we had to say or why. We lost," and J'lor's mouth twists upwards into something more like a grimace than a smile, "because of poor leadership."
"You lost because you trusted them." It's a weak statement, not made with much energy or attempt at convincing. D'rian is silent afterward, for a good half minute before he says, "You didn't need to do that, J'lor. You didn't have any right. He's my father." There's more of a defensive tone there then in all of D'rian's replies thus far, and its something he feels the need to enforce with a look at J'lor.
The bluerider's eyes drift from the sea over to the boy, willing to meet the slight accusation in D'rian's gaze. "And I'm the Weyrlingmaster. He was overstepping. He knew it."
"He wasn't." D'rian's defense is just that. Two words and an accusational stare that lingers, "You had no right." The turn of his shoulders to the weyrlingmaster is D'rian's dismissal of the man no matter that he doesn't go very far.
"D'rian," and there is a firmness to the boy's name. Something chastising. "Listen to me. -He- has no right. You are a weyrling. You are in training, and it is my job to train you." J'lor takes a few steps after, settling one hand on the bronzeling's shoulder. "You cannot take orders from both of us, in this. You cannot...-cannot-...when instructed in the wing to do something, pause to check with M'uri and make sure it's all right. Do you understand? I need you thinking without looking to him. He wasn't going to allow it. He overstepped."
D'rian's shoulders tighten when J'lor's hand lands upon them. The words the other man offers furthers the tightness until D'rian's head is bowed and his arms once more drawn tightly across his chest. "He's my father." It's another one of those statements he offers, believing it to have more weight then it truly does. "And now I don't know what to do." D'rian steps away from J'lor and keeps walking, quite likely heading into the shelter serving as the barracks.
But he's not going there alone. J'lor is walking resolutely after him. "We all have fathers, D'rian. And fathers must know when to let their children grow up on their own. That is part of the task, just as much as rearing." His hands shove into his pockets. "Talk to me. What don't you know?"
"Anything. He... I knew what he wanted. Knew what to do and I did it and he's not here to tell me." D'rian comes as close to getting angry as he'll ever get, but in the end it's still frustration that ebbs through more then anything else. Inside that shelter, he turns to face J'lor, "It was better when he was there."
"No," comes again that calm and easy correction from J'lor. "It was easier when he was here. You know what he's told you. Listen to what I have to say and the others. It's time to form your own opinions, D'rian, and not hide behind his. You're a rider, now. I need you thinking."
D'rian's gaze drops and he shakes his head. More frustration, but it's not voiced this time. "I don't know - I'll try." Taikath, awake and alert at this point, moves in from behind J'lor and around his side. He ends up at D'rian's feet, his head tilted back and up to observe J'lor.
"All I ask it that you try, D'rian." J'lor tips his chin down to study the attentive bronze. "Ask him about greens," the bluerider suggests. "Ask him what differences he finds. And try," dark eyes lift to study D'rian, "when you interact with their riders to know that M'uri's ideas are just that. His ideas. As are mine. As are anybody else's. Separate them from yourself. View things objectively. Try," that word again, "to form conclusions from experience rather than from what you have been told."
D'rian looks at Taikath too, and midway through all of the blueriders words, he nods his head in agreement and acceptance. At the end he says, rather quietly, "I'll try." A look up from the back of the bronzes head, "Anything else, J'lor?"
A small quirk of the bluerider's lips. "Keep working on your stitches."
With a smile, D'rian nods and steps away from Taikath, not yet exiting the makeshift barracks but heading to do so. "That I can do." Stitches. Easy. Three steps toward the exit, D'rian pauses to say, "Thank you," And then he passes on through the exit, Taikath trailing - always trailing - in his wake.
Time: Early Morning on Day 27, Month 11, Turn 2
Players: J'lor, D'rian and Taikath
Scene: J'lor calls D'rian on his behavior towards the greenriding weyrlings.
It is early morning and the beach is relatively quiet. Some weyrlings are bathing or feeding their dragons. Others are oiling them or working on their rabbit skin and their stitches. J'lor comes strolling along the sand, feet bare, hands in his pockets. He seems to be looking for something in particular, though just what remains unsaid.
Taikath is visible long before D'rian is. The oil slicked bronze is situated off to the side of the clearing on a stretch of ground that is free of any other living creature. The fast growing bronze lays flat on his stomach with his wings spread wide at his side. His head is canted at an angle, one paw bent the other tucked under his head. While it doesn't look terribly comfortable, the bronze is at rest so he must be. D'rian, on the other hand, is seated with his back to a log with a scrap of rabbit skin in hand and about a dozen lines of neat stitches laying side by side.
The bluerider's voice arrives before he does with a kindly, "Good morning, Taikath," and then, when the top of the young rider's stubbly head comes into view, "and you, D'rian. How are you both?" J'lor stops in front of Taikath, crouching down and offering his hand, palm up, for the hatchling's inspection.
Taikath lifts his head to give J'lor's hand a cautionary sniff. His half-lidded eyes open wider as the scent pulls at familiar strings and, with a soft grunt, the bronze rights himself to more properly study the bluerider. D'rian, on the other hand, doesn't look over his shoulder to offer a proper greeting. "We're fine. He's oiled and... was going to sleep," A dry note here, more wry then upset, "I'm working on the skin. You?"
"Checking in on weyrlings and disrupting the sleep patterns of baby dragons," is J'lor's bemused response. That hand moves to rub Taikath's muzzle, below and between the eyes in a light and repetitive caress. "Do you have a bit of time to speak with me, just now?"
Taikath's lids drop and he leans into the caress. It's not long before a soft hum starts, one that has D'rian checking over his shoulder and frowning at first the bronze, then J'lor. He does, at least, set aside his work before nodding and turning to stand. "I do." There's a quick pause and an anxious rub of one hand against the back of his neck, "Is something wrong?"
"No need to stand. I'll join you." J'lor's fingers massage the little dragon's well-oiled hide for another moment before shifting away and moving to stand near D'rian instead. "Whether something is wrong or not...well...I suppose I'd like to ask that question to you. I noticed, yesterday, you were less than pleased to be partnered with Lili or to be assisting K'tric."
"Nothing's wrong," D'rian says with a shake of his head and both arms crossing over his chest. He looks to Taikath, a move which helps ease the frown from his features. It remains so as he looks back to J'lor, "The girl annoys me and K'tric's... can't say I like him much."
"K'tric is..." oh, how to put this nicely, "unusual, I know. But what was it about Lili that had you so put out?" There is a brief pause before J'lor notes, gently, "I notice they are not the only greenriders that displease you. In fact, I would be hard pressed to find one that did not."
"They're greenriders." D'rian's admission is guilt free and blunt, with a look away from J'lor for what he knows will come. "Doesn't matter if I like 'em or not." Taikath, done with studying J'lor and lured by the growing heat, sinks back to his stomach and lays his head atop his forepaws. Within seconds, both eyes are lidded shut and he is once more sleeping.
"It matters," J'lor contradicts with that quiet way he has. "What makes a greenrider different than a bluerider or a bronzerider, D'rian? I don't see you shy away from weyrlings with lifemates of any other color."
D'rian is silent. There's a bit of jaw work in that silence before he explains himself. "Girls don't belong on dragons and I don't want anything to do with the guys who are on greens. Just as bad as girls, half of them." Dropping his arms to his side, D'rian continues looking anywhere but at J'lor, "I stay away from them, they stay away from me. It works good that way."
"It won't work good when you're in the air together. It won't work good when you're expected to fly as a wing." J'lor cants his head to the side, peering over at D'rian. "Do you understand that those beliefs, that girls are less by virtue of being female, is part of what we all fought against on the mainland?"
"I didn't," D'rian says, but it's more plaintive then anything else. He kicks at the ground, silent for another span of seconds, "They just don't belong there, J'lor. Not in the air, not doing what /we're/ suppose to be doing. It's not their fault they can't do it, but when they try and pretend it just... sad."
The bluerider is silent for a while, head lifted to stare out at the ocean. Gently he begins, "I'm going to tell you something, D'rian, and I want you to listen closely. Then I want you to think on it, all right?"
"Alright." Grim, that agreement. D'rian follows it with the briefest of looks at the bluerider, then switches the focus of his attention to the sleeping bronze.
Perhaps it did not matter what D'rian response was, because J'lor's words come nearly on the heels of the boy's own. "A greenrider is going to save your life." One foot shifts to burrow into the sand. "They are the most agile and the most taken for granted flyers. They are disregarded, seen as inferior, looked down upon. And in return, they make sure that the blues and browns and bronzes do not get their fool heads taken off in 'fall. Have you ever seen Chiavelth cut a turn? She is poetry on wings. I promise you, D'rian, if you and Taikath survive to be my age, it will be because a greenrider charred thread that was meant for you or for him. Think on that, when next you speak with Lili."
D'rian is, by all outward appearances, already thinking on it. Enough so that when he replies to J'lor there's a small note of frustration in his voice. "It doesn't mean - it doesn't mean I have to like them. They're-" Dropping his arms to his side, D'rian looks to the bluerider, "It's part of the job and just another reason why they shouldn't be up there."
"It means, D'rian, that you have to respect them." J'lor shakes is head slowly. "I don't understand. Why shouldn't they be up there?"
"They don't belong up there. The girls don't belong up there. It's not their job, not what they're for. And the guys who are..." D'rian doesn't finish the statement, laying it aside for another answer. "He says it's the reason you lost, J'lor, because you trusted them and you let them fight for you. That if you'd have been a man you'd have done the right thing, not the fool thing."
"If we needed anything, it was more people. Not less," J'lor responds after a long moment of silence. "We lost because we didn't think it through. We lost because we thought we could terrorize people, and then expect them to care what we had to say or why. We lost," and J'lor's mouth twists upwards into something more like a grimace than a smile, "because of poor leadership."
"You lost because you trusted them." It's a weak statement, not made with much energy or attempt at convincing. D'rian is silent afterward, for a good half minute before he says, "You didn't need to do that, J'lor. You didn't have any right. He's my father." There's more of a defensive tone there then in all of D'rian's replies thus far, and its something he feels the need to enforce with a look at J'lor.
The bluerider's eyes drift from the sea over to the boy, willing to meet the slight accusation in D'rian's gaze. "And I'm the Weyrlingmaster. He was overstepping. He knew it."
"He wasn't." D'rian's defense is just that. Two words and an accusational stare that lingers, "You had no right." The turn of his shoulders to the weyrlingmaster is D'rian's dismissal of the man no matter that he doesn't go very far.
"D'rian," and there is a firmness to the boy's name. Something chastising. "Listen to me. -He- has no right. You are a weyrling. You are in training, and it is my job to train you." J'lor takes a few steps after, settling one hand on the bronzeling's shoulder. "You cannot take orders from both of us, in this. You cannot...-cannot-...when instructed in the wing to do something, pause to check with M'uri and make sure it's all right. Do you understand? I need you thinking without looking to him. He wasn't going to allow it. He overstepped."
D'rian's shoulders tighten when J'lor's hand lands upon them. The words the other man offers furthers the tightness until D'rian's head is bowed and his arms once more drawn tightly across his chest. "He's my father." It's another one of those statements he offers, believing it to have more weight then it truly does. "And now I don't know what to do." D'rian steps away from J'lor and keeps walking, quite likely heading into the shelter serving as the barracks.
But he's not going there alone. J'lor is walking resolutely after him. "We all have fathers, D'rian. And fathers must know when to let their children grow up on their own. That is part of the task, just as much as rearing." His hands shove into his pockets. "Talk to me. What don't you know?"
"Anything. He... I knew what he wanted. Knew what to do and I did it and he's not here to tell me." D'rian comes as close to getting angry as he'll ever get, but in the end it's still frustration that ebbs through more then anything else. Inside that shelter, he turns to face J'lor, "It was better when he was there."
"No," comes again that calm and easy correction from J'lor. "It was easier when he was here. You know what he's told you. Listen to what I have to say and the others. It's time to form your own opinions, D'rian, and not hide behind his. You're a rider, now. I need you thinking."
D'rian's gaze drops and he shakes his head. More frustration, but it's not voiced this time. "I don't know - I'll try." Taikath, awake and alert at this point, moves in from behind J'lor and around his side. He ends up at D'rian's feet, his head tilted back and up to observe J'lor.
"All I ask it that you try, D'rian." J'lor tips his chin down to study the attentive bronze. "Ask him about greens," the bluerider suggests. "Ask him what differences he finds. And try," dark eyes lift to study D'rian, "when you interact with their riders to know that M'uri's ideas are just that. His ideas. As are mine. As are anybody else's. Separate them from yourself. View things objectively. Try," that word again, "to form conclusions from experience rather than from what you have been told."
D'rian looks at Taikath too, and midway through all of the blueriders words, he nods his head in agreement and acceptance. At the end he says, rather quietly, "I'll try." A look up from the back of the bronzes head, "Anything else, J'lor?"
A small quirk of the bluerider's lips. "Keep working on your stitches."
With a smile, D'rian nods and steps away from Taikath, not yet exiting the makeshift barracks but heading to do so. "That I can do." Stitches. Easy. Three steps toward the exit, D'rian pauses to say, "Thank you," And then he passes on through the exit, Taikath trailing - always trailing - in his wake.