Log: << Stay. >>
RL: April 8-9, 2008.
VR: Day 11, month 12, Turn 15, of the Interval. It is a winter late morning.
After a meeting of wingleaders, Leova is stayed. Teonath and Vrianth go flying, though not before Vrianth brings in a consultant (or voyeur). Satiet and Leova speak nearly 150 words in each other's vicinity. There are misinterpretations that for once might be for the best. Something happens.
Council Chamber, High Reaches Weyr (#770RIJs$)
This cavern, nearly as large as a dragon weyr, is filled with an oval table, surrounded by chairs, at which meetings are held. The chair at the far end of the table is somewhat larger than the rest, the embroidered seat cushion done a little fancier, but not too much so. In the center of the hardwood table the symbol of High Reaches Weyr has been inlaid in colored stones, gleaming in the light from the glowbaskets hung around the room.
A natural alcove is filled with shelves, all piled high with neatly ordered records of past turns. A short passage leads back to the Weyrleaders' ledge.
It's just before lunch that the wingleader's meeting concludes, and while F'der and B'ren linger about the entrance to chat, others seem to move on to the next item on their respective agendas: eating. In her usual lingering, Satiet reclines casually in her chair, half her attention on review her notes, crossing a few more t's all the more rigidly and darkening a few comma-heads here and there, while cursory glances pass around the room, pausing briefly at N'thei's departing figure, then traveling to the two wingleaders conversing before flickering to any other movement in her vicinity. Without, Teonath watches the departures, lazily-lidded eyes feigning absolute disinterest in the goings on; as long as they leave her ledge sometime soon.
Teonath's daughter shows rather more interest in the goings on, as well as no particular sign of impending departure: bright of eye, long of tail, she's settled with the adults and tracking them as they leave. Though the space on one side of her has opened up, to the other there's Kamornth. Near, but not too near. Not so close for Vrianth to be shadowed, when she can recline instead in the clear cold sun. Her rider, truly elevated to that position not even three sevendays ago, stalls in an unconscious mirror of Teonath's: staying within earshot of F'der and B'ren, listening to what the former archivist in particular has got to say while adding symbols in her own notes' margins. Many will be kept for the final copies. Some will be tossed away.
The senior queen's slender neck lolls a little in an unqueenly fashion, twisting as if to find the perfect position to nap, but with that hint of frustration - hindered in her desires by the constant traffic on her ledge. But the final of those restless turns brings Vrianth into her line of sight, on purpose?, the second set of lids that hinge lazily lifting in a more deliberate fashion to study the growing olivine green whose claimed a spot of adult ledge for her own. Mentally, physically, Teonath maintains her distance, but those slivered blue eyes watch, as interested in her daughter as Vrianth is of the goings on. From the oblivious pair of wingleaders, Leova's erstwhile review of her notes rivets Satiet's attention, much like Vrianth does Teonath, the weyrwoman's pale, ice blue eyes drawing outlines of the working weyrling in silence.
Leova adds one last strikethrough, again the symbol rather than crossing over the actual written-out words of this original of hers, then leans back against the edge of the table and sets notes and stylus atop it. Listening still, she's now rubbing the cramps from the base of her thumb, her chin dipped into her chest enough to expose the line of her neck. She could stand to cut her hair again, or better, get it cut. Outside, on that ledge, Vrianth's lifted her wings up and now stretches them right down to the wingtips, and with the movement the tightness to her rider's mouth eases. And Vrianth keeps looking out. Watching. Until, some moments later, she swings her head directly around to see the one who's watching her.
Teonath doesn't blink. She doesn't flinch, meeting Vrianth's watching with unwavering, surprisingly still blue eyes. But perhaps something is said, something unheard and unfelt in the changing air above the olivine dragon, for Literath's wings stir, and to Kamornth, so close by the weyrling green, the queen's restlessness transfers. Almost in unison, both riders slant a quick, apologetic glance towards the seated weyrwoman and begin to move towards their respective dragons, and in the resultant aloneness, Satiet continues to simply and openly study Leova.
Leova looks up. Not to Satiet, but to the wingleaders already in retreat. With the movement, her neck is no longer exposed, hidden behind the collar of the jacket she'd already donned and the short fringe of sun-rusted hair. Her Vrianth has risen to all four paws, releasing Teonath's gaze to look higher. To sniff. To decipher if she can the cause of the change that affects the others like winter in the mountains. Which brings her at last, as they depart, back to Teonath again. Leova's turned too. Her chin is down enough not to challenge, her eyes questioning: she can go, will go. Get out of the other woman's hair.
Back to Teonath, a Teonath who sits there placidly watching Vrianth as pleasant as the calm with which Satiet observes Leova. Dark lashes lifted over pale eyes rise just a sliver higher, widening the focus that's pinned onto the weyrling and slowly, with a subtle drop of her chin of allowance, the thin lips shape, lifting crooked to favor her left cheek. Where Leova might not challenge, she has no reason not to; not to make a game of it and while the rider doesn't speak, Teonath, changing air currents above Vrianth and all, stretches out with the gentlest touch - a delicate little breeze that tremors past the green's ears along with one, incredibly quiet thought that brokers on command if not for its gentleness: << Stay. >>
Zunaeth senses Vrianth's focus is very much elsewhere, a sense of cool late morning sun and even Kamornth and Literath moving to depart the great broad ledge. It's not so much an approach as a reaching back, a whisper. << She looks at them and they leave. Why? >> Teonath. Cool blue eyes that do not shift, do not swirl. And yet now it seems Vrianth herself is somehow invited, not ordered, to stay. Vrianth wonders very quietly at that too.
Vrianth's head tilts, her eyes' color paled not by sunlight or fear but by a certain wonder. Her tail unloops, curls, an oddly gentle curve along the rock. Of course. She need only ask. And Leova is not caught, at least not once she looks away from the Weyrwoman's eyes, her gaze slipped down to the table again. She picks up the stylus, a little click. Reaches for her notes. Deliberate.
When Leova gaze slips away, when she moves, the Weyrwoman finds reason to speak. "You're Leova." The cool, aloof voice needs very little volume to echo in this chamber and though there's a little lilt at the end of it, as if it might be a question, it's more likely a statement; how could the weyrwoman not know the weyrlings? Weyrlings she's likely taught in the past months. Particularly those four, no, five. Her own name, "Satiet," so personably stated, is offered in what might be a laughable introduction on her part. Her slight frame leans forward, bent towards the table to lean idly against it's edge, her interlocked fingers and forearms disturbing the rest of her hides. The crookedly hooked smile deepens.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth, slow to answer, seems to be mulling not so much an answer, but how to put that answer into actual words. The image of Teonath is a tangled one for him, with more than a little sense of wistfulness--perhaps even pining--behind it, in the warm tones of his voice. << Because, >> he answers. << She's /her/. >>
She could nod. She could leave. Yet without even lunch as bait, Leova lets herself begin to catch on that hook. She holds her notes close, and once that's done, sweeps a slow glance up and over them. And she shows Satiet what might have become a smile if she didn't then speak. Very soft, very low, and just a little bit light. "What would you like?"
Zunaeth senses Vrianth accepts what he gives her without question, though not without a gentler sort of her usual examination. That wistfulness (or its cousin) is so unfamiliar to her, and yet she senses enough not to prod or poke at the very least. Just to listen, and to share from some earlier time a sense of vastness, wind and sand and distant affection that is not like Jaireth's desert wind. All that, become this day's light, fluttering, curious breeze. << Is she... like this, for you, Zunaeth? >>
The light, fluttering breeze renews to brush against the fringes of Vrianth's mind -- probing gently, seeking though not speaking, questing to discover the not so little green's thoughts and moreso, the opinions her rider might carry. She could ask. "Nothing. Everything. Anything." Humorously cryptic in her non-answer, Satiet's shoulder lifts in a nonchalant shrug, her body following that upward movement to sink back into her chair once more. A tempered alto poses two successive, slow-spoken inquiries: "How are you, Leova? How are you doing?"
On those questions, she may no longer leave, but she may answer them both in one. "Well enough." Not nothing, not everything, but something. It could be humor. It could be an evasion too, if it weren't for the slight upward touch that closes that smoky voice. Ask again, if you wish. Not that Leova doesn't then look down, but it's to roll up her scrolls. Tuck them into her jacket with the writing stick. And put her hands on the edge of Satiet's table to lean forward over it, to await.
Elsewhere, the breeze can find itself a sense of pleasure still with that slender sense of wonder, backlit by a flicker that might be fire even in this day that's nearing noon. And it can find itself, superimposed upon a sense of vastness, of the desert that Vrianth has never seen but has come to learn. Both. Together. How curious.
The secondhand sensations, the idea of Teonath that Vrianth passes along to him--these things Zunaeth takes in, fire licking over them without consuming. << Something like that, >> he agrees, but doesn't elaborate himself, though the thought of the gold still hovers around his mental presence. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
<< Mmm. >> Vrianth beckons him closer yet, if he will have it, that he might sense Teonath through her, if he wills it. Their queen: seeming so placid on that ledge now occupied by just the two, or three, of them. So huge to still-small Vrianth. Her neck is curved, just so, a sight to be seen in the sun. And she's so focused on her, on them, it seems.
And for that, Zunaeth will edge forward, his presence seeping into those cracks that let him have glimpses of Teonath: savoring what he can reach of her vicariously, through Vrianth. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
The backlit fire piques Teonath's attention in a different way, the deft probing ceasing as the aging queen stretches forth veils of loose desert garb, to wrap about it. Study it, fascinated. Perhaps blow on it to watch how it might flicker. 'Not good enough, that answer,' quirks Satiet's crooked smile to one side, lips pursed and brows lifting over narrowed eyes. But she doesn't ask again for a different response, her clear voice able to find other outlets, lighter subjects. "You trained runners once."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth shares without stinting, and it's only intangibly though inextricably flavored by the electric current of Vrianth herself: Teonath now approaching them, studying them, drawn by them. His fire within her. The queen's breeze lifts to touch them, see how they flicker. What are they to do, what would he do? To begin with, Vrianth touches back. Firelight with sparks that might be stars, leaping high enough to tell stories in.
Leova's head tilts at the reverse angle: could it have been the question? Far less clear than Satiet's, her voice hints at what's hidden. "Tended," she corrects, but gently, and now her voice breathes of what had been. "Runners bred for wagons rather than for riding. Training was something I had barely been allowed to hope for." When L'sen and Neiveth came. And then, "What had you hoped for?" With the answer she gives comes Vrianth's own reply, reaching back through the veils with youthful pleasure underlaid by a wistfulness that is not hers alone, the young green seeing what the firelight will illuminate when she leans that much nearer. The firelight that leaps, shot through with sparks that might be stars, high enough to tell stories in.
To the stars, Teonath's fluttering veils stretch, captivated by the firelight that sparks high, youth washing in a waterfall of sparkling gold sands, spilling over into Vrianth's thoughts, to touch that wistfulness not entirely hers alone. The queen's slender neck twists too, her massive body rippling with impending movement as her neck lifts to the winter's noon light and wings unfurl, basking in the combination of sun's warmth and winter's cold. Her, "To be someone," response comes after a thoughtful pause, where the narrowed lashes throw wider for what the weyrling shares and questions. "Do you ride then, once runner tender?"
Zunaeth senses Vrianth delights in the sight of her, the veils stretching and fluttering about their light, the waterfall that is not water at all but a fall of sparkling gold sand over them, even as Teonath's wings begin to open and her slender neck lifts to the light of noon. << She notices, >> Vrianth whispers to Zunaeth within her, sharing his wistfulness as she shares all else.
Vrianth watches, delighting, her own wings beginning to unfurl that much further as she shares in the sight of Teonath as much as the sun. Yet though she delights, though she doesn't deny the sandfall's touch, it's with growing care. Protective. Channeling it through the spaces that Vrianth allows. Her wings sweep back rather than open, now. And when her rider has taken in what Teonath's has said, she murmurs, "Someone." Looks at Satiet again, looks for the girl within her. "I ride Vrianth." Of course.
With wings unfurled, the brilliance of dew-scattered sails stretched to meet air and catching the winter sunlight, Teonath's back haunches stir and in a heartbeat, leaving a backdraft of her beating wings in her wake, the large queen rises into the air. << Follow? >> It's almost a please, and certainly a request. In the span of the wingbeats outside, no sign of the girl Satiet once was peeks from behind the cool, overly collected exterior that possesses her now. Voicing the given sentiment unspoken, "Of course," in the most silken of tones, the weyrwoman unbends her elbows, dropping her arms off the table, and making idle movements of tidying - perhaps to depart soon. But she stays her ground, remains seated in her seat, and once her stack of hides and notes are organized, drops her hands atop the high pile and favors Leova with a crafted, simple turn of her lips; a smile that also hints in the faintest glimmer of her bright gaze. And then hesitates. "... Is it very hard for you?"
Leova's, "Often," is as an immediate answer as Vrianth's: which is to say, there is first a heartbeat's pause. The weyrling dragon had retracted herself to some degree. Now after some internal checks she too takes flight, not bobbing directly behind Teonath the way she might after her Secath, but staying to the side and out of the queen's turbulent wake. It may be easy in their first wingbeats to gain on her, Vrianth's wings so much shorter than Teonath's though not proportionally so, the green's rangy build so like her sire's. Her wings unscarred. Perhaps more importantly, she has such energy. Determination. Joy at the invitation that joins the more primal joy of flight. Rampant curiosity, to see where and how her dam will take her. So those are the first wingbeats, but it remains to be seen how hard the senior queen will press. Leova asks into Satiet's smile, not just politely, "And you?" Could be, back then. Could be now.
Still, her fingers falling flat on the hides and her porcelain carved features frozen in thought, life returns in slow-motion changes that span long seconds: sharp cheeks seeming to soften for a memory, pale eyes flickering the wistful flashes, somehow younger, once shared between the two dragons, and a parting of her lips that means to speak, but as yet, can't find the words. Instead of responding, the blue eyes disappear behind a fan of lashes, following the upward path her dragon takes, the gold's own joy radiating on a wide band to encompass the air, herself, Vrianth, the Weyr. Past the rim of the bowl, higher over the Starstones, aiming, if she could, for Rukbat's shining light and willing, in the face of that impossibility, to dance and pay court at the sun's fringes. Her stilled fingers lift, a careless gesture to brush nonexistent hair out of her face or to mimic the air that rushes across her dragon's body, and rest against her cheek. Then, an unchecked response, "Always," precedes the opening of Satiet's eyes. "Perhaps you might -ride- with me sometime when the weather improves." A beat to see if the emphasis that sets apart the word is understood. "If Vrianth would indulge a Weyrwoman's whims."
Eyes at once darker and brighter notice the change, and wonder at all they can't read. The curve to Leova's mouth has gone so far as to soften. But she's still leaning forward. Still leaning in. Vrianth leans into the wind, as apt as her dam to broadcast her own exhilaration and made the stronger for sharing it. It's something of a workout, seeking to keep up and more, dancing an unnecessary loop about one Spindle before rising higher, higher. But Vrianth has always thrown herself into flight, and this is what she was made for. Nor is she simply a shadow, neither that nor straight flight being in her nature: sometimes she's behind and sometimes higher, sometimes teasing close to Teonath's wings and sometimes away, so often swerving just because she can. Once she gives voice, a bright trumpet that rings in the chill burning air. High noon. It's enough to make Leova breathless, and she's far less able than Satiet to hide it, even if that were her choice. Instead she lets it show. And when she's able to listen, when she's able to answer, she makes this too clear: "We would be delighted."
Having invited Vrianth, Teonath should be paying more mind the green; but in her rush into the sky, invitations and least of all daughters who accompany are momentarily forgotten. Forgotten until the smaller dragon teases by her wings, bringing her own brand of air currents with her. Forgotten until the bright trumpet channels the joy of flight vocally for all to hear. A taciturn dragon in most all ways, Teonath's own voice doesn't join that of her child's, but her flight becomes more mindful of the olive green, her pale, creamy gold weaving in a deferential dance that complements dusty Vrianth's impulses. And while Leova is rendered breathless, Satiet watches again, fascinated at the unmasked display of emotions. Then, Leova speaks and the barest twitch, uncertainty of whether there's complete understanding between the pair, tics beneath her eyes. The hand lifted before now completes its action, rising higher to rake thin fingers through her raven curls. She has to ascertain, a second part to that hesitation unvoiced before. "Are you happy, Leova?"
"Oh, yes." It's not unconsidered, not stated unaware of what she had said before. It is so hard sometimes. And yet. Leova looks at Satiet, her expression so unguarded, her fingers spread across stone. "You feel them, don't you? And together, so much better. I don't see how you could hold your Teonath back." Three thoughts. Related, but not entirely, logic leapt between them like the arch between one wingbeat and the next. That last especially, part for here and now but something about the phrasing from elsewhere. "There are so many things I want to ask you." Perhaps that was one of them. Perhaps it's just that she still can't think straight with Vrianth the way she is, finally noticing that dance they have become and amplifying it. A turn. A twist. Not elegant but extravagant, heedless of energy spent. Teonath's turn now, if she wills it.
Wonderment, a thought voiced unchecked, "I hold her back?" And startled in that slip of her porcelain veneer, the clear, brilliant blue eyes lift, pinned to Leova at the odd turn. It's now Satiet who leans forward onto Leova's table, her dropped hands guarding, close to her chest. The phrasing, the emphasis, the way the weyrling states her first question in the now as well as in the before, the elsewhere, impact the weyrwoman belated moments afterwards, and where she could laugh cool and withdraw to her aloof pedestal, she's silent except to repeat her return without the lilting end: "I hold her back." But not right now, not as each of Vrianth's extravagant twists holds challenges for the bulkier dragon to correspond to, unable to streamline her body into such contortions. Instead, she favors the green's discarded elegance, tipping a wingspar down, as if reaching for the ground and banking in a slow, wide-angled death spiral that draw up beneath the weyrling green, that then leads back up to twist about the Spires' heights. And much like her dragon's outstreched wings, those guarded hands free to expose, palms up on the table: "What would you know?"
Leova's lids close. They open. She looks back. Slides her hands flat across the table, far enough forward that she can lean her elbows there now, the scrolls in her jacket creasing against the table's edge. "What I feel." Which may not be knowing at all, but there it is, with the dragons in their heads. This, when Leova should know as much as anyone how her dragon can affect what she feels, notices, remembers. But Vrianth also shows her what she otherwise never would have seen. Now it's high flight, the young green radiating such pleasure at Teonath's move as she tries it too, that slow spiral that works so much better for larger wings. Not the sort of move she was meant for, that. But she tries it all the same.
The question is unexpected and again, all Satiet is able to do is watch those lids close and then open to reveal the unadulterated bond between green and rider. Perhaps envy tints her eyes a shade of blue-green or it's a trick of the afternoon lighting, but the longer the greenrider is studied in silence, the more pieces of the goldrider's guard slip away, starting with those upturned palms and traveling to relax her slim shoulders, soften her features, close her own eyes. She answers, the cool alto more distant than before, tinged with layers of an exposed sadness. "What I feel..." What she feels? It's in the unspoken words, the intangible ties between dragon and rider, lacking the intensity of Vrianth and Leova's bond but no less blended together, the emotions that radiate unclouded from the soaring, freed Teonath to little Vrianth; a heady, liquor-fueled wave of muddled memories, blurred patterns of just how Satiet holds Teonath back and vice versa. Nothing to pick out except the rawness of what they feel.
Leova's brown face flushes with the sending they receive. Her head tips lower, but she's not looking at stone. "So... together." Or they could be. Her murmur is soft, its inherent smokiness making it close to a whisper. Vrianth isn't so quiet, momentarily overwhelmed by that wave that takes her up and tosses her into the wind. She draws on strength, her own, another's, and perhaps there is experience to go with it that guides in stabilizing her path. Around and around she circles now, higher and higher around some invisible core. She'll feel it later, her wings will be sore. But now, urging, << Show her. >> The soaring. And something needs to follow. Perhaps a plummet. Perhaps something else up Teonath's mental sleeve. Perhaps flying ever higher until the sun burns them down.
Sharing has never been Satiet's strong suit, and however unexplainable her bond with Teonath might be to Leova with Vrianth's constant presence, it leaves the slender woman looking worn and as fragile as her slight build might typically imply. If she were a typical woman. There will be no more showing, no more sharing, as the raven-haired woman gets to her feet, fingers unsteady as they draw up the hides, and just as easily as Vrianth, and Leova tacitly, was invited to stay, she's easily dismissed by the pale-faced goldrider who exits without a word. While in the sky, Teonath continues to exercise her wings, the flight carries a different ambience to it now; just flying, nothing more, and with one last, deft little caress for her child, the senior queen returns to that death spiral that winds its slow way back to her ledge.
The younger woman looks up mere moments before the other woman rises. Before she leaves. And then the table isn't anyone's, for all that Leova still leans upon it. Vrianth hasn't returned: she's still cooling down her muscles, flying in slower loops and coasting glides. Slower, but still flying. So Leova pushes herself back up and checks herself over: pat to head, pat to shoulders, pat to where her notes lie beneath her jacket. All in one piece, probably. Maybe not her writing stick. So she walks out to the ledge, finding Teonath landed while Vrianth is still a dim speck and a vibrant presence in the sky. She glances at the senior queen. Gives her a little shrug of her shoulders. And sits down nearby, there on the rock, and waits for her dragon to come back to her.
VR: Day 11, month 12, Turn 15, of the Interval. It is a winter late morning.
After a meeting of wingleaders, Leova is stayed. Teonath and Vrianth go flying, though not before Vrianth brings in a consultant (or voyeur). Satiet and Leova speak nearly 150 words in each other's vicinity. There are misinterpretations that for once might be for the best. Something happens.
Council Chamber, High Reaches Weyr (#770RIJs$)
This cavern, nearly as large as a dragon weyr, is filled with an oval table, surrounded by chairs, at which meetings are held. The chair at the far end of the table is somewhat larger than the rest, the embroidered seat cushion done a little fancier, but not too much so. In the center of the hardwood table the symbol of High Reaches Weyr has been inlaid in colored stones, gleaming in the light from the glowbaskets hung around the room.
A natural alcove is filled with shelves, all piled high with neatly ordered records of past turns. A short passage leads back to the Weyrleaders' ledge.
It's just before lunch that the wingleader's meeting concludes, and while F'der and B'ren linger about the entrance to chat, others seem to move on to the next item on their respective agendas: eating. In her usual lingering, Satiet reclines casually in her chair, half her attention on review her notes, crossing a few more t's all the more rigidly and darkening a few comma-heads here and there, while cursory glances pass around the room, pausing briefly at N'thei's departing figure, then traveling to the two wingleaders conversing before flickering to any other movement in her vicinity. Without, Teonath watches the departures, lazily-lidded eyes feigning absolute disinterest in the goings on; as long as they leave her ledge sometime soon.
Teonath's daughter shows rather more interest in the goings on, as well as no particular sign of impending departure: bright of eye, long of tail, she's settled with the adults and tracking them as they leave. Though the space on one side of her has opened up, to the other there's Kamornth. Near, but not too near. Not so close for Vrianth to be shadowed, when she can recline instead in the clear cold sun. Her rider, truly elevated to that position not even three sevendays ago, stalls in an unconscious mirror of Teonath's: staying within earshot of F'der and B'ren, listening to what the former archivist in particular has got to say while adding symbols in her own notes' margins. Many will be kept for the final copies. Some will be tossed away.
The senior queen's slender neck lolls a little in an unqueenly fashion, twisting as if to find the perfect position to nap, but with that hint of frustration - hindered in her desires by the constant traffic on her ledge. But the final of those restless turns brings Vrianth into her line of sight, on purpose?, the second set of lids that hinge lazily lifting in a more deliberate fashion to study the growing olivine green whose claimed a spot of adult ledge for her own. Mentally, physically, Teonath maintains her distance, but those slivered blue eyes watch, as interested in her daughter as Vrianth is of the goings on. From the oblivious pair of wingleaders, Leova's erstwhile review of her notes rivets Satiet's attention, much like Vrianth does Teonath, the weyrwoman's pale, ice blue eyes drawing outlines of the working weyrling in silence.
Leova adds one last strikethrough, again the symbol rather than crossing over the actual written-out words of this original of hers, then leans back against the edge of the table and sets notes and stylus atop it. Listening still, she's now rubbing the cramps from the base of her thumb, her chin dipped into her chest enough to expose the line of her neck. She could stand to cut her hair again, or better, get it cut. Outside, on that ledge, Vrianth's lifted her wings up and now stretches them right down to the wingtips, and with the movement the tightness to her rider's mouth eases. And Vrianth keeps looking out. Watching. Until, some moments later, she swings her head directly around to see the one who's watching her.
Teonath doesn't blink. She doesn't flinch, meeting Vrianth's watching with unwavering, surprisingly still blue eyes. But perhaps something is said, something unheard and unfelt in the changing air above the olivine dragon, for Literath's wings stir, and to Kamornth, so close by the weyrling green, the queen's restlessness transfers. Almost in unison, both riders slant a quick, apologetic glance towards the seated weyrwoman and begin to move towards their respective dragons, and in the resultant aloneness, Satiet continues to simply and openly study Leova.
Leova looks up. Not to Satiet, but to the wingleaders already in retreat. With the movement, her neck is no longer exposed, hidden behind the collar of the jacket she'd already donned and the short fringe of sun-rusted hair. Her Vrianth has risen to all four paws, releasing Teonath's gaze to look higher. To sniff. To decipher if she can the cause of the change that affects the others like winter in the mountains. Which brings her at last, as they depart, back to Teonath again. Leova's turned too. Her chin is down enough not to challenge, her eyes questioning: she can go, will go. Get out of the other woman's hair.
Back to Teonath, a Teonath who sits there placidly watching Vrianth as pleasant as the calm with which Satiet observes Leova. Dark lashes lifted over pale eyes rise just a sliver higher, widening the focus that's pinned onto the weyrling and slowly, with a subtle drop of her chin of allowance, the thin lips shape, lifting crooked to favor her left cheek. Where Leova might not challenge, she has no reason not to; not to make a game of it and while the rider doesn't speak, Teonath, changing air currents above Vrianth and all, stretches out with the gentlest touch - a delicate little breeze that tremors past the green's ears along with one, incredibly quiet thought that brokers on command if not for its gentleness: << Stay. >>
Zunaeth senses Vrianth's focus is very much elsewhere, a sense of cool late morning sun and even Kamornth and Literath moving to depart the great broad ledge. It's not so much an approach as a reaching back, a whisper. << She looks at them and they leave. Why? >> Teonath. Cool blue eyes that do not shift, do not swirl. And yet now it seems Vrianth herself is somehow invited, not ordered, to stay. Vrianth wonders very quietly at that too.
Vrianth's head tilts, her eyes' color paled not by sunlight or fear but by a certain wonder. Her tail unloops, curls, an oddly gentle curve along the rock. Of course. She need only ask. And Leova is not caught, at least not once she looks away from the Weyrwoman's eyes, her gaze slipped down to the table again. She picks up the stylus, a little click. Reaches for her notes. Deliberate.
When Leova gaze slips away, when she moves, the Weyrwoman finds reason to speak. "You're Leova." The cool, aloof voice needs very little volume to echo in this chamber and though there's a little lilt at the end of it, as if it might be a question, it's more likely a statement; how could the weyrwoman not know the weyrlings? Weyrlings she's likely taught in the past months. Particularly those four, no, five. Her own name, "Satiet," so personably stated, is offered in what might be a laughable introduction on her part. Her slight frame leans forward, bent towards the table to lean idly against it's edge, her interlocked fingers and forearms disturbing the rest of her hides. The crookedly hooked smile deepens.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth, slow to answer, seems to be mulling not so much an answer, but how to put that answer into actual words. The image of Teonath is a tangled one for him, with more than a little sense of wistfulness--perhaps even pining--behind it, in the warm tones of his voice. << Because, >> he answers. << She's /her/. >>
She could nod. She could leave. Yet without even lunch as bait, Leova lets herself begin to catch on that hook. She holds her notes close, and once that's done, sweeps a slow glance up and over them. And she shows Satiet what might have become a smile if she didn't then speak. Very soft, very low, and just a little bit light. "What would you like?"
Zunaeth senses Vrianth accepts what he gives her without question, though not without a gentler sort of her usual examination. That wistfulness (or its cousin) is so unfamiliar to her, and yet she senses enough not to prod or poke at the very least. Just to listen, and to share from some earlier time a sense of vastness, wind and sand and distant affection that is not like Jaireth's desert wind. All that, become this day's light, fluttering, curious breeze. << Is she... like this, for you, Zunaeth? >>
The light, fluttering breeze renews to brush against the fringes of Vrianth's mind -- probing gently, seeking though not speaking, questing to discover the not so little green's thoughts and moreso, the opinions her rider might carry. She could ask. "Nothing. Everything. Anything." Humorously cryptic in her non-answer, Satiet's shoulder lifts in a nonchalant shrug, her body following that upward movement to sink back into her chair once more. A tempered alto poses two successive, slow-spoken inquiries: "How are you, Leova? How are you doing?"
On those questions, she may no longer leave, but she may answer them both in one. "Well enough." Not nothing, not everything, but something. It could be humor. It could be an evasion too, if it weren't for the slight upward touch that closes that smoky voice. Ask again, if you wish. Not that Leova doesn't then look down, but it's to roll up her scrolls. Tuck them into her jacket with the writing stick. And put her hands on the edge of Satiet's table to lean forward over it, to await.
Elsewhere, the breeze can find itself a sense of pleasure still with that slender sense of wonder, backlit by a flicker that might be fire even in this day that's nearing noon. And it can find itself, superimposed upon a sense of vastness, of the desert that Vrianth has never seen but has come to learn. Both. Together. How curious.
The secondhand sensations, the idea of Teonath that Vrianth passes along to him--these things Zunaeth takes in, fire licking over them without consuming. << Something like that, >> he agrees, but doesn't elaborate himself, though the thought of the gold still hovers around his mental presence. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
<< Mmm. >> Vrianth beckons him closer yet, if he will have it, that he might sense Teonath through her, if he wills it. Their queen: seeming so placid on that ledge now occupied by just the two, or three, of them. So huge to still-small Vrianth. Her neck is curved, just so, a sight to be seen in the sun. And she's so focused on her, on them, it seems.
And for that, Zunaeth will edge forward, his presence seeping into those cracks that let him have glimpses of Teonath: savoring what he can reach of her vicariously, through Vrianth. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
The backlit fire piques Teonath's attention in a different way, the deft probing ceasing as the aging queen stretches forth veils of loose desert garb, to wrap about it. Study it, fascinated. Perhaps blow on it to watch how it might flicker. 'Not good enough, that answer,' quirks Satiet's crooked smile to one side, lips pursed and brows lifting over narrowed eyes. But she doesn't ask again for a different response, her clear voice able to find other outlets, lighter subjects. "You trained runners once."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth shares without stinting, and it's only intangibly though inextricably flavored by the electric current of Vrianth herself: Teonath now approaching them, studying them, drawn by them. His fire within her. The queen's breeze lifts to touch them, see how they flicker. What are they to do, what would he do? To begin with, Vrianth touches back. Firelight with sparks that might be stars, leaping high enough to tell stories in.
Leova's head tilts at the reverse angle: could it have been the question? Far less clear than Satiet's, her voice hints at what's hidden. "Tended," she corrects, but gently, and now her voice breathes of what had been. "Runners bred for wagons rather than for riding. Training was something I had barely been allowed to hope for." When L'sen and Neiveth came. And then, "What had you hoped for?" With the answer she gives comes Vrianth's own reply, reaching back through the veils with youthful pleasure underlaid by a wistfulness that is not hers alone, the young green seeing what the firelight will illuminate when she leans that much nearer. The firelight that leaps, shot through with sparks that might be stars, high enough to tell stories in.
To the stars, Teonath's fluttering veils stretch, captivated by the firelight that sparks high, youth washing in a waterfall of sparkling gold sands, spilling over into Vrianth's thoughts, to touch that wistfulness not entirely hers alone. The queen's slender neck twists too, her massive body rippling with impending movement as her neck lifts to the winter's noon light and wings unfurl, basking in the combination of sun's warmth and winter's cold. Her, "To be someone," response comes after a thoughtful pause, where the narrowed lashes throw wider for what the weyrling shares and questions. "Do you ride then, once runner tender?"
Zunaeth senses Vrianth delights in the sight of her, the veils stretching and fluttering about their light, the waterfall that is not water at all but a fall of sparkling gold sand over them, even as Teonath's wings begin to open and her slender neck lifts to the light of noon. << She notices, >> Vrianth whispers to Zunaeth within her, sharing his wistfulness as she shares all else.
Vrianth watches, delighting, her own wings beginning to unfurl that much further as she shares in the sight of Teonath as much as the sun. Yet though she delights, though she doesn't deny the sandfall's touch, it's with growing care. Protective. Channeling it through the spaces that Vrianth allows. Her wings sweep back rather than open, now. And when her rider has taken in what Teonath's has said, she murmurs, "Someone." Looks at Satiet again, looks for the girl within her. "I ride Vrianth." Of course.
With wings unfurled, the brilliance of dew-scattered sails stretched to meet air and catching the winter sunlight, Teonath's back haunches stir and in a heartbeat, leaving a backdraft of her beating wings in her wake, the large queen rises into the air. << Follow? >> It's almost a please, and certainly a request. In the span of the wingbeats outside, no sign of the girl Satiet once was peeks from behind the cool, overly collected exterior that possesses her now. Voicing the given sentiment unspoken, "Of course," in the most silken of tones, the weyrwoman unbends her elbows, dropping her arms off the table, and making idle movements of tidying - perhaps to depart soon. But she stays her ground, remains seated in her seat, and once her stack of hides and notes are organized, drops her hands atop the high pile and favors Leova with a crafted, simple turn of her lips; a smile that also hints in the faintest glimmer of her bright gaze. And then hesitates. "... Is it very hard for you?"
Leova's, "Often," is as an immediate answer as Vrianth's: which is to say, there is first a heartbeat's pause. The weyrling dragon had retracted herself to some degree. Now after some internal checks she too takes flight, not bobbing directly behind Teonath the way she might after her Secath, but staying to the side and out of the queen's turbulent wake. It may be easy in their first wingbeats to gain on her, Vrianth's wings so much shorter than Teonath's though not proportionally so, the green's rangy build so like her sire's. Her wings unscarred. Perhaps more importantly, she has such energy. Determination. Joy at the invitation that joins the more primal joy of flight. Rampant curiosity, to see where and how her dam will take her. So those are the first wingbeats, but it remains to be seen how hard the senior queen will press. Leova asks into Satiet's smile, not just politely, "And you?" Could be, back then. Could be now.
Still, her fingers falling flat on the hides and her porcelain carved features frozen in thought, life returns in slow-motion changes that span long seconds: sharp cheeks seeming to soften for a memory, pale eyes flickering the wistful flashes, somehow younger, once shared between the two dragons, and a parting of her lips that means to speak, but as yet, can't find the words. Instead of responding, the blue eyes disappear behind a fan of lashes, following the upward path her dragon takes, the gold's own joy radiating on a wide band to encompass the air, herself, Vrianth, the Weyr. Past the rim of the bowl, higher over the Starstones, aiming, if she could, for Rukbat's shining light and willing, in the face of that impossibility, to dance and pay court at the sun's fringes. Her stilled fingers lift, a careless gesture to brush nonexistent hair out of her face or to mimic the air that rushes across her dragon's body, and rest against her cheek. Then, an unchecked response, "Always," precedes the opening of Satiet's eyes. "Perhaps you might -ride- with me sometime when the weather improves." A beat to see if the emphasis that sets apart the word is understood. "If Vrianth would indulge a Weyrwoman's whims."
Eyes at once darker and brighter notice the change, and wonder at all they can't read. The curve to Leova's mouth has gone so far as to soften. But she's still leaning forward. Still leaning in. Vrianth leans into the wind, as apt as her dam to broadcast her own exhilaration and made the stronger for sharing it. It's something of a workout, seeking to keep up and more, dancing an unnecessary loop about one Spindle before rising higher, higher. But Vrianth has always thrown herself into flight, and this is what she was made for. Nor is she simply a shadow, neither that nor straight flight being in her nature: sometimes she's behind and sometimes higher, sometimes teasing close to Teonath's wings and sometimes away, so often swerving just because she can. Once she gives voice, a bright trumpet that rings in the chill burning air. High noon. It's enough to make Leova breathless, and she's far less able than Satiet to hide it, even if that were her choice. Instead she lets it show. And when she's able to listen, when she's able to answer, she makes this too clear: "We would be delighted."
Having invited Vrianth, Teonath should be paying more mind the green; but in her rush into the sky, invitations and least of all daughters who accompany are momentarily forgotten. Forgotten until the smaller dragon teases by her wings, bringing her own brand of air currents with her. Forgotten until the bright trumpet channels the joy of flight vocally for all to hear. A taciturn dragon in most all ways, Teonath's own voice doesn't join that of her child's, but her flight becomes more mindful of the olive green, her pale, creamy gold weaving in a deferential dance that complements dusty Vrianth's impulses. And while Leova is rendered breathless, Satiet watches again, fascinated at the unmasked display of emotions. Then, Leova speaks and the barest twitch, uncertainty of whether there's complete understanding between the pair, tics beneath her eyes. The hand lifted before now completes its action, rising higher to rake thin fingers through her raven curls. She has to ascertain, a second part to that hesitation unvoiced before. "Are you happy, Leova?"
"Oh, yes." It's not unconsidered, not stated unaware of what she had said before. It is so hard sometimes. And yet. Leova looks at Satiet, her expression so unguarded, her fingers spread across stone. "You feel them, don't you? And together, so much better. I don't see how you could hold your Teonath back." Three thoughts. Related, but not entirely, logic leapt between them like the arch between one wingbeat and the next. That last especially, part for here and now but something about the phrasing from elsewhere. "There are so many things I want to ask you." Perhaps that was one of them. Perhaps it's just that she still can't think straight with Vrianth the way she is, finally noticing that dance they have become and amplifying it. A turn. A twist. Not elegant but extravagant, heedless of energy spent. Teonath's turn now, if she wills it.
Wonderment, a thought voiced unchecked, "I hold her back?" And startled in that slip of her porcelain veneer, the clear, brilliant blue eyes lift, pinned to Leova at the odd turn. It's now Satiet who leans forward onto Leova's table, her dropped hands guarding, close to her chest. The phrasing, the emphasis, the way the weyrling states her first question in the now as well as in the before, the elsewhere, impact the weyrwoman belated moments afterwards, and where she could laugh cool and withdraw to her aloof pedestal, she's silent except to repeat her return without the lilting end: "I hold her back." But not right now, not as each of Vrianth's extravagant twists holds challenges for the bulkier dragon to correspond to, unable to streamline her body into such contortions. Instead, she favors the green's discarded elegance, tipping a wingspar down, as if reaching for the ground and banking in a slow, wide-angled death spiral that draw up beneath the weyrling green, that then leads back up to twist about the Spires' heights. And much like her dragon's outstreched wings, those guarded hands free to expose, palms up on the table: "What would you know?"
Leova's lids close. They open. She looks back. Slides her hands flat across the table, far enough forward that she can lean her elbows there now, the scrolls in her jacket creasing against the table's edge. "What I feel." Which may not be knowing at all, but there it is, with the dragons in their heads. This, when Leova should know as much as anyone how her dragon can affect what she feels, notices, remembers. But Vrianth also shows her what she otherwise never would have seen. Now it's high flight, the young green radiating such pleasure at Teonath's move as she tries it too, that slow spiral that works so much better for larger wings. Not the sort of move she was meant for, that. But she tries it all the same.
The question is unexpected and again, all Satiet is able to do is watch those lids close and then open to reveal the unadulterated bond between green and rider. Perhaps envy tints her eyes a shade of blue-green or it's a trick of the afternoon lighting, but the longer the greenrider is studied in silence, the more pieces of the goldrider's guard slip away, starting with those upturned palms and traveling to relax her slim shoulders, soften her features, close her own eyes. She answers, the cool alto more distant than before, tinged with layers of an exposed sadness. "What I feel..." What she feels? It's in the unspoken words, the intangible ties between dragon and rider, lacking the intensity of Vrianth and Leova's bond but no less blended together, the emotions that radiate unclouded from the soaring, freed Teonath to little Vrianth; a heady, liquor-fueled wave of muddled memories, blurred patterns of just how Satiet holds Teonath back and vice versa. Nothing to pick out except the rawness of what they feel.
Leova's brown face flushes with the sending they receive. Her head tips lower, but she's not looking at stone. "So... together." Or they could be. Her murmur is soft, its inherent smokiness making it close to a whisper. Vrianth isn't so quiet, momentarily overwhelmed by that wave that takes her up and tosses her into the wind. She draws on strength, her own, another's, and perhaps there is experience to go with it that guides in stabilizing her path. Around and around she circles now, higher and higher around some invisible core. She'll feel it later, her wings will be sore. But now, urging, << Show her. >> The soaring. And something needs to follow. Perhaps a plummet. Perhaps something else up Teonath's mental sleeve. Perhaps flying ever higher until the sun burns them down.
Sharing has never been Satiet's strong suit, and however unexplainable her bond with Teonath might be to Leova with Vrianth's constant presence, it leaves the slender woman looking worn and as fragile as her slight build might typically imply. If she were a typical woman. There will be no more showing, no more sharing, as the raven-haired woman gets to her feet, fingers unsteady as they draw up the hides, and just as easily as Vrianth, and Leova tacitly, was invited to stay, she's easily dismissed by the pale-faced goldrider who exits without a word. While in the sky, Teonath continues to exercise her wings, the flight carries a different ambience to it now; just flying, nothing more, and with one last, deft little caress for her child, the senior queen returns to that death spiral that winds its slow way back to her ledge.
The younger woman looks up mere moments before the other woman rises. Before she leaves. And then the table isn't anyone's, for all that Leova still leans upon it. Vrianth hasn't returned: she's still cooling down her muscles, flying in slower loops and coasting glides. Slower, but still flying. So Leova pushes herself back up and checks herself over: pat to head, pat to shoulders, pat to where her notes lie beneath her jacket. All in one piece, probably. Maybe not her writing stick. So she walks out to the ledge, finding Teonath landed while Vrianth is still a dim speck and a vibrant presence in the sky. She glances at the senior queen. Gives her a little shrug of her shoulders. And sits down nearby, there on the rock, and waits for her dragon to come back to her.