LOG: Why You Don't Like Me
Date: Late afternoon on Day 22, Month 2, Turn 18
Location: Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr
Synopsis: Kas and P'ax manage to talk without sniping. It doesn't last.
Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr
The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself.
A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs.
P'ax comes down the beach looking utterly confused, carting a fishing pole and a pickaxe. He's bundled up for the weather, and except for the swath of face above his scarf, he's unrecognizable. Yyth is off somewhere else, but his knot at least marks him as a weyrling. He approaches the frozen over lake and eyes it dubiously.
K'del, too, is without his lifemate, though he's less bundled than P'ax - too manly, perhaps, to need so many layers of clothes, though he still has a woolly hat on his head, and gloves on his hands. He's sitting on one of the big boulders, his feet set firmly on the ground despite the boulder's height, and his attention seems focused on nowhere in particular - the distance, somewhere. It's not, however, so focused that he doesn't note P'ax's approach, and, not paying too much attention to the other figure, comments in a friendly enough tone, "Not as frozen as it was, now. Few sevens, maybe, and it'll properly thaw."
P'ax tests the ice with one boot warily, his voice thoroughly muffled beneath his scarf. "I'm just hoping it doesn't thaw under me." Judging the ice firm enough, he shuffles out onto it, mincing to avoid skidding. "Who needs /fish/ at this time of year?"
K'del remains oblivious to the identity of his new companion, swinging his right leg up onto the rock his sits on, and resting his elbow atop it. "Shouldn't do, this time of day. Not warm enough, right?" His lips quirk, just slightly, as he adds, "Didn't know there were that many in there, anyway."
P'ax's shoulders heave with a sigh, "Shards I hope not. You'd have to fish me out..." He glances back at K'del, clearly positive the other weyrling won't do any such thing. "Well, so long as I catch one, that ought to satisfy the beast. She's got it in her head that she /has/ to have a fish."
The smile on K'del's face sort of droops, his brow furrowing as he, with this new piece of information, attempts to place the other young man. Even without the weyrling knot, this wouldn't be too hard; with it, it takes only a few moments, his shoulders stiffening visibly. "She's a lunatic," shrugs the young man, turning his attention away again.
P'ax casts his line out into the unfrozen center of the lake and turns back to look at K'del. "I... don't expect an answer. I don't know if I've ever given you a reason to be anything less than nasty to me, but... are you so unwilling to even try being friends? I guess I just don't understand why you don't like me. Is it because of Yyth?"
K'del's lips part, like he's about to let something loose, but he bites back that urge, instead fastening a long, resigned glance on the other weyrling. "When've you ever given me a reason to want to be your friend? Anyway," he adds, after a moment, frowning, "Why are you so keen on being my friend at all? It's creepy."
P'ax scratches at the back of his head just beneath his knitted cap. "Well, I'm trying to. If you'd just let me. I mean... I'm not good, with talking to people. And I guess I have to try, right, if I want to get out of this. Satiet kicked me out of weyrling classes. I was just trying to have a conversation and I guess she didn't like what I said." He pauses, letting out a bit more line. "I've never had a friend. I was always sorta too busy at the hall once I became an Apprentice and nobody liked me anyways. And my parents didn't like me playing with the other children before that. Sunniva was the closest I had to a friend, and she's gone now. And Yyth really likes Cadejoth so... we should be friends, because they're friends."
K'del's whole face gets caught up in his frown as he listens - actually listens, for once - to P'ax's argument. "I don't think much of being friends because of them," he says, honest, his words not intended to be spiteful. "And I have to tell you, you have to actually be nice to people, note just beat up on them or make fun of them, if you want them to like you, you know?"
P'ax sniffs, "I don't beat up on anyone," he says defensively, "and I only make fun of the people who deserve it." He folds his arms awkwardly with the fishing pole still in one hand. "Why not because of them? Don't you like him? You wanted to be a bronzerider so badly, why do you ignore him?"
"Everyone?" Kas' response is bland, though at least he's actively looking at P'ax as he talks, now. "Of course I like him. He's-- he's mine. And he's perfect. But you-- I can't spend all my life living in my head, just him and no one else. You've never wanted space from her? He's /always/ there, in my thoughts, showing me things. It's distracting."
P'ax shrugs, "Of course I want space from her sometimes but she doesn't understand that. It's hard sometimes, but I can't just ignore him." He lets out another heavy sigh. "I distract her though, you know? Find stuff she wants to do so she gives me a little time by myself."
K'del pulls his cap off of his head, holding it in his hand as the wind ruffles his curls. "And she never doesn't want to be distracted? That's what Cadejoth does. He wants to do everything I do, and wants me to know everything he's doing. Sometimes, I think I'm going to go nuts if he won't just--" He breaks off, goes silent.
P'ax tugs his scarf down, tucking it under his chin and chewing his lower lip as he thinks. "Yeah, sometimes. She's more interested in me being there to take care of everything. But sometimes if I explain to her that what I have to do is really important and phrase is in a way that she'd approve of - using world domination works - and that'll get her to leave off awhile. But I think it's really important to master the whole... closing them off thing. And maybe when they're older they won't be so clingy."
Pause. "World domination?" K'del repeats, sounding a good bit horrified. "She's weird, I'm sorry, but she is." His silence, after this statement, only lasts a few moments, and when he breaks it off, it's to actually agree with his fellow weyrling. "I think so, too. I don't want him to be my entire life. I'm still /me/."
P'ax snorts, "She's damn bizarre, but don't tell her I said so. If she gets it in her head that she can lay eggs some day, it just wouldn't surprise me. She already thinks she's a fair match for Teonath." He shakes his head thoughtfully and then he chuckles. "Well, they're all a fair bit weird, don't you think?" He looks surprised when his line gets a tug and gives it a sharp jerk. "I think we're ourselves and sometimes we're them too. I don't think we'll ever be /just/ us. But if it's really so bad, maybe you could talk to one of the weyrlingmasters. I'm sure they'll help."
K'del's lips actually crack into a smile at that admission, but when he speaks, it's more seriously. "Yeah," he agrees. "I mean... Kelerith. Even Uanth, well, he's harmless, but it's kind of strange, anyway." His gaze follows towards that line, watching it. "It's not. That bad, I mean. Only sometimes."
P'ax shakes his head, "Uanth's the one who convinced Yyth she needed this fish. He's got her convinced she can eat souls or something crazy like that. Well, only under the full moons. I don't really know." He reels the fish in and eyes it. "Kinda puny but I guess it'll work. IT'll get better, you know. I haven't heard of any one going mad for being a dragonrider, so I guess you either get used to it or it gets better."
"Trust Uanth," says K'del, simply, his head shaking, though amusement shades into his features. "Mmm, so I figure. Maybe once we're not so... trapped. Like, not able to leave the weyr, not able to have a drink, sleep with someone. You know? I think that'll help. When they're older."
P'ax glances sidelong at K'del, "I've never been able to do any of that stuff anyways so I guess it doesn't matter too much to me." His cheeks pinken a little, "Have you ever? Slept with someone?"
"Re--" begins K'del, but he breaks off. "Oh. Apprentice. Right. You're missing out." He's not oblivious to that pink in the cheeks, but he doesn't comment on it, either - he's making /such/ an effort tonight. "Yeah, of course. Lots of times."
P'ax shrugs and grimaces, "Yeah, pretty much no fun. All work, no play, P'ax a dull boy, yadayada." He keeps the fish on the hook and carries the entire pole up the ice again, tossing it in the snow at the edge of the lake and lifting his eyebrows. "Really? But... /Who/? I mean...weyr girls? Cuz.. hold girls are kinda ..." he leaves the word dangling, but the implication is there: prudes.
"At least, once weyrlinghood is over, you'll be done with all of that forever," says K'del, still with a half friendly note to his voice. His response to the last question is a nod, just simply. "Few of them. Recently, weyr girls, sure, but some hold girls before that. They're not all like that. Some of 'em are--" he grins, looking well pleased in recollection, "Vixens."
P'ax shrugs, "I dunno if I ever... would. Maybe some drinking, and, you know, sure I'll leave the weyr. I dunno about girls." He grimaces. "Yeah, definitely no girls."
K'del, blandly, "Boys, then?"
P'ax shoots K'del an /almost/ nasty look before he takes a deep breath, "Maybe I just think girls are awful. Why do you think I like boys?" Not that it isn't the truth.
"Most people like someone," bites back K'del, his voice losing some of the niceness, though he shrugs, dropping down from his boulder to walk a short distance away. "And Yyth /is/ green. Later, P'ax."
P'ax glances after K'del and sighs, shoulders slumping. "Well... thanks for trying anyways," he calls after the other weyrling and glances down at the pole and the fish. "See ya, K'del."
K'del doesn't answer, though whether it's because he's annoyed at the suggestion, or perhaps just disgusted by the idea - impossible to know.
Location: Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr
Synopsis: Kas and P'ax manage to talk without sniping. It doesn't last.
Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr
The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself.
A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs.
P'ax comes down the beach looking utterly confused, carting a fishing pole and a pickaxe. He's bundled up for the weather, and except for the swath of face above his scarf, he's unrecognizable. Yyth is off somewhere else, but his knot at least marks him as a weyrling. He approaches the frozen over lake and eyes it dubiously.
K'del, too, is without his lifemate, though he's less bundled than P'ax - too manly, perhaps, to need so many layers of clothes, though he still has a woolly hat on his head, and gloves on his hands. He's sitting on one of the big boulders, his feet set firmly on the ground despite the boulder's height, and his attention seems focused on nowhere in particular - the distance, somewhere. It's not, however, so focused that he doesn't note P'ax's approach, and, not paying too much attention to the other figure, comments in a friendly enough tone, "Not as frozen as it was, now. Few sevens, maybe, and it'll properly thaw."
P'ax tests the ice with one boot warily, his voice thoroughly muffled beneath his scarf. "I'm just hoping it doesn't thaw under me." Judging the ice firm enough, he shuffles out onto it, mincing to avoid skidding. "Who needs /fish/ at this time of year?"
K'del remains oblivious to the identity of his new companion, swinging his right leg up onto the rock his sits on, and resting his elbow atop it. "Shouldn't do, this time of day. Not warm enough, right?" His lips quirk, just slightly, as he adds, "Didn't know there were that many in there, anyway."
P'ax's shoulders heave with a sigh, "Shards I hope not. You'd have to fish me out..." He glances back at K'del, clearly positive the other weyrling won't do any such thing. "Well, so long as I catch one, that ought to satisfy the beast. She's got it in her head that she /has/ to have a fish."
The smile on K'del's face sort of droops, his brow furrowing as he, with this new piece of information, attempts to place the other young man. Even without the weyrling knot, this wouldn't be too hard; with it, it takes only a few moments, his shoulders stiffening visibly. "She's a lunatic," shrugs the young man, turning his attention away again.
P'ax casts his line out into the unfrozen center of the lake and turns back to look at K'del. "I... don't expect an answer. I don't know if I've ever given you a reason to be anything less than nasty to me, but... are you so unwilling to even try being friends? I guess I just don't understand why you don't like me. Is it because of Yyth?"
K'del's lips part, like he's about to let something loose, but he bites back that urge, instead fastening a long, resigned glance on the other weyrling. "When've you ever given me a reason to want to be your friend? Anyway," he adds, after a moment, frowning, "Why are you so keen on being my friend at all? It's creepy."
P'ax scratches at the back of his head just beneath his knitted cap. "Well, I'm trying to. If you'd just let me. I mean... I'm not good, with talking to people. And I guess I have to try, right, if I want to get out of this. Satiet kicked me out of weyrling classes. I was just trying to have a conversation and I guess she didn't like what I said." He pauses, letting out a bit more line. "I've never had a friend. I was always sorta too busy at the hall once I became an Apprentice and nobody liked me anyways. And my parents didn't like me playing with the other children before that. Sunniva was the closest I had to a friend, and she's gone now. And Yyth really likes Cadejoth so... we should be friends, because they're friends."
K'del's whole face gets caught up in his frown as he listens - actually listens, for once - to P'ax's argument. "I don't think much of being friends because of them," he says, honest, his words not intended to be spiteful. "And I have to tell you, you have to actually be nice to people, note just beat up on them or make fun of them, if you want them to like you, you know?"
P'ax sniffs, "I don't beat up on anyone," he says defensively, "and I only make fun of the people who deserve it." He folds his arms awkwardly with the fishing pole still in one hand. "Why not because of them? Don't you like him? You wanted to be a bronzerider so badly, why do you ignore him?"
"Everyone?" Kas' response is bland, though at least he's actively looking at P'ax as he talks, now. "Of course I like him. He's-- he's mine. And he's perfect. But you-- I can't spend all my life living in my head, just him and no one else. You've never wanted space from her? He's /always/ there, in my thoughts, showing me things. It's distracting."
P'ax shrugs, "Of course I want space from her sometimes but she doesn't understand that. It's hard sometimes, but I can't just ignore him." He lets out another heavy sigh. "I distract her though, you know? Find stuff she wants to do so she gives me a little time by myself."
K'del pulls his cap off of his head, holding it in his hand as the wind ruffles his curls. "And she never doesn't want to be distracted? That's what Cadejoth does. He wants to do everything I do, and wants me to know everything he's doing. Sometimes, I think I'm going to go nuts if he won't just--" He breaks off, goes silent.
P'ax tugs his scarf down, tucking it under his chin and chewing his lower lip as he thinks. "Yeah, sometimes. She's more interested in me being there to take care of everything. But sometimes if I explain to her that what I have to do is really important and phrase is in a way that she'd approve of - using world domination works - and that'll get her to leave off awhile. But I think it's really important to master the whole... closing them off thing. And maybe when they're older they won't be so clingy."
Pause. "World domination?" K'del repeats, sounding a good bit horrified. "She's weird, I'm sorry, but she is." His silence, after this statement, only lasts a few moments, and when he breaks it off, it's to actually agree with his fellow weyrling. "I think so, too. I don't want him to be my entire life. I'm still /me/."
P'ax snorts, "She's damn bizarre, but don't tell her I said so. If she gets it in her head that she can lay eggs some day, it just wouldn't surprise me. She already thinks she's a fair match for Teonath." He shakes his head thoughtfully and then he chuckles. "Well, they're all a fair bit weird, don't you think?" He looks surprised when his line gets a tug and gives it a sharp jerk. "I think we're ourselves and sometimes we're them too. I don't think we'll ever be /just/ us. But if it's really so bad, maybe you could talk to one of the weyrlingmasters. I'm sure they'll help."
K'del's lips actually crack into a smile at that admission, but when he speaks, it's more seriously. "Yeah," he agrees. "I mean... Kelerith. Even Uanth, well, he's harmless, but it's kind of strange, anyway." His gaze follows towards that line, watching it. "It's not. That bad, I mean. Only sometimes."
P'ax shakes his head, "Uanth's the one who convinced Yyth she needed this fish. He's got her convinced she can eat souls or something crazy like that. Well, only under the full moons. I don't really know." He reels the fish in and eyes it. "Kinda puny but I guess it'll work. IT'll get better, you know. I haven't heard of any one going mad for being a dragonrider, so I guess you either get used to it or it gets better."
"Trust Uanth," says K'del, simply, his head shaking, though amusement shades into his features. "Mmm, so I figure. Maybe once we're not so... trapped. Like, not able to leave the weyr, not able to have a drink, sleep with someone. You know? I think that'll help. When they're older."
P'ax glances sidelong at K'del, "I've never been able to do any of that stuff anyways so I guess it doesn't matter too much to me." His cheeks pinken a little, "Have you ever? Slept with someone?"
"Re--" begins K'del, but he breaks off. "Oh. Apprentice. Right. You're missing out." He's not oblivious to that pink in the cheeks, but he doesn't comment on it, either - he's making /such/ an effort tonight. "Yeah, of course. Lots of times."
P'ax shrugs and grimaces, "Yeah, pretty much no fun. All work, no play, P'ax a dull boy, yadayada." He keeps the fish on the hook and carries the entire pole up the ice again, tossing it in the snow at the edge of the lake and lifting his eyebrows. "Really? But... /Who/? I mean...weyr girls? Cuz.. hold girls are kinda ..." he leaves the word dangling, but the implication is there: prudes.
"At least, once weyrlinghood is over, you'll be done with all of that forever," says K'del, still with a half friendly note to his voice. His response to the last question is a nod, just simply. "Few of them. Recently, weyr girls, sure, but some hold girls before that. They're not all like that. Some of 'em are--" he grins, looking well pleased in recollection, "Vixens."
P'ax shrugs, "I dunno if I ever... would. Maybe some drinking, and, you know, sure I'll leave the weyr. I dunno about girls." He grimaces. "Yeah, definitely no girls."
K'del, blandly, "Boys, then?"
P'ax shoots K'del an /almost/ nasty look before he takes a deep breath, "Maybe I just think girls are awful. Why do you think I like boys?" Not that it isn't the truth.
"Most people like someone," bites back K'del, his voice losing some of the niceness, though he shrugs, dropping down from his boulder to walk a short distance away. "And Yyth /is/ green. Later, P'ax."
P'ax glances after K'del and sighs, shoulders slumping. "Well... thanks for trying anyways," he calls after the other weyrling and glances down at the pole and the fish. "See ya, K'del."
K'del doesn't answer, though whether it's because he's annoyed at the suggestion, or perhaps just disgusted by the idea - impossible to know.