Cleansing
Who: Ch'dais, Valandys
When: Evening, Day 15, Month 2, 1st Turn of the 7th Pass
What: Following the first Threadfall over High Reaches (that log can be found here), Valandys and Ch'dais retire to the dragon baths to recover from that experience, as well as another of a more personal nature.
Ch'dais(#217POXc)
Tall and robust, the young man seems well-suited to northern climes. He stands like a sea-swept promontory, hardened even as he is smoothed by the battering of wind and wave; his body is labor-firm, his arms sheathed in the corded curve of muscle. Harsh features make him look more rugged than handsome, from the awkward break of his nose to the pronounced hollow of his cheeks. Still in all, some thought lurks beneath the turbid waters of his grey-green eyes, and his hair is a wild profusion of auburn, falling about his shoulders where it isn't haphazardly braided in order to clear his vision. The same ruddy color descends in sideburns, gathers about his lips in a stubbled beard. The man moves easily, balanced regardless of his ground or seat.
His flying leathers may once have been black, but they've long since weathered to a spider's web of cracked charcoal. Wan grey surmounts the elbows and shoulders of the jacket, takes on a silver sheen in the animal fur sewn into the neck; the same hue shows in his pants at the knees and on the insides of his thighs. Heavy boots and a broad riding belt-- worn when needed, and as often draped absently over one shoulder-- complete the ensemble. The sole article of color is provided by his shoulder knot: one braided loop of vibrant blue and black, interwoven with a thin cord of bronze.
Arinth(#247OQaeps)
A veritable giant amongst dragons, this bronze seems at first glance to be as wide as he is tall. Were he as long as his size initially suggests he would outstrip most of his peers, but his tail and neck are shorter than the norm, the latter capped by a squared muzzle. That bluntness, and the thick cords of muscle layering his immense body, give him a blocky appearance. While he is something of a monster in form, the light and dark shimmer of his hide is infinitely more pleasing to the eye. His extremities are tipped with the moonlit ripple of pyrite, as if tail and talons and snout had been dipped in a pool of molten stone. It's a liquid shade, strongest at the edges, but also stippling along his flanks to create streaks of artifical shadow. These drifts of darkness give the illusion of texture to the tawny bronze that makes up the rest of him, a shade that is reminiscent of autumn sunlight fading on a valley bed of pine needles.
Arinth is 7 turns, 8 months old and 67 feet long. He is 33 feet tall at the shoulder and has a wingspan of 100 feet.
Valandys
Valandys' features are simply drawn with soft curves and a strong bone structure, her skin the color of sun-warmed copper. There is sharpness to be found only in the thin bridge of her nose, and her lightning-quick smiles. Set deeply enough to seem always in shadow, her eyes are black, but bright with intelligence and calm. She wears her equally dark hair parted in the center and drawn back to a thick bun secured with red and yellow enamelled pins.
Her healthy frame is draped in attire suitable for cold weather wear, provided she remains inside. A long-sleeved white blouse is tucked into the waistband of a black overskirt. The underskirts are less bland in shade; when she walks, flashes of red and yellow and orange can be seen, matching the gauzy scarves she has wrapped around her hips, her throat and her head. The scarves have fringe beaded with tiny bone beads, dyed in natural colors, and these beads match the clacking array of bracelets decorating her wrists.
The bright red and golden yellow knot at her shoulder declares her origin as Igen Hold. The crosspoint of the knot serves as a bed for the beaten-copper pin of the Caucus.
Tonight, High Reaches is a battle-scarred Weyr licking its wounds, and the baths have been much in demand. Dragons and riders have come to cleanse the stain of Threadfall, if not the memory; steam hangs heavy in the air from their efforts, lending the vast cavern an indistinct and otherworldly quality. At last, however, most of the pairs have limped home to their various weyrs, leaving only the fog behind as a phantom of their passing. It is into this haze that the massive, bronze Arinth now lumbers, his talons distinct to the human eye but his headknobs blurred high above. At his foreleg, two smaller figures pass: Ch'dais, the dragon's rider, and the copper-skinned Igenite Valandys, who leads him by the crook of his arm.
The dragon baths have earned their plural use due to the two pools they contain: the immense dragon pool, its far edge wreathed in steam and shadow, and the smaller rider-sized pool that rises to the right of the entrance. It's towards the latter that Valandys attempts to steer Ch'dais once Arinth has thudded past. She's grown quiet during the walk and appears solemn now, with a set jaw and eyes gone restless as if she were hunting for something to look at that would take her mind away from unpleasant thoughts. Nearing the smaller pool, she releases the bronzerider's arm in order to go to the cubby-holes carved out of the rock. They hold towels, robes, bags of 'sand... she gathers all of these and returns to lay them along the pool's side, all in silence.
Ch'dais wanders after the girl, offering no resistance despite the fact that his leathered, char-blackened frame looms over hers. He follows just as far as her urging suggests and then pauses there, casts an absent glance after the pyrite-dipped bronze as his bulk descends with a ripple into the warmth and steam of the larger pool. The man's lips start on an abortive phrase, and then his brow furrows as he retrieves what ought to be second knowledge. "He'll need to soak a while." A pause. "It's thicker than stone-dust, the char."
"You do as well. I can smell it on you." Straightening, Valandys turns to regard the man. Her hands clasp at her waist, her shoulders fall back and her mouth arranges itself in prim lines. A necessary expression, and posture, to allow her to meet his eyes as she continues, "The water is ready, Ch'dais. You should undress and begin soaking as well, if you hope to sleep soon." Her gaze skates away then, shy where her tone of voice was not. "I can scrub Arinth for you while you bathe, if he needs it. There are brushes."
Ch'dais shifts his regard to the maid who now stands ready to hand. Puzzlement skims the surface of those sea-green eyes, and for a moment he says nothing. It comes back to him then, the acrid tang of 'stone and burnt Thread; he's redolent with it, his beard and features smudged. And that sudden awareness makes his lips tug up in a crooked smile. "You forget about the smell." Deep-voiced, the phrase has a bemused air of discovery. "There's so much..." The bronzerider trails off then, shrugs one muscled shoulder out of his jacket. He drops it to the stone by the smaller pool's side, sending up a whisper of ash. "No, let him soak first. It won't scrub well until later."
She takes a step back, nearer the cubbies and further from the pool, while also turning to present him with the sight of her shoulder, a slice of profile. Valandys has bowed her head, her eyes remaining safely averted the moment he begins to move to disrobe. "It is the same with any smell. It disappears if you find yourself around it enough. It was that way in Igen's stables." She pauses, drawing a breath and releasing it slowly. "Even the terrible ones disappear. It's better that way..." Given the slow pace of her speech, it's not immediately apparant that the woman is rattling on, trying not to cover silence with sound. "I wish sounds were the same way."
By the time she's finished, Ch'dais has drawn his undyed tunic over his head, baring the ice-crag of his back: hard muscle beneath northern-pale skin, and by one shoulder a darker streak where some of the char's gotten in. Without thought or hesitation, he unfastens his riding belt and drops it in the growing pile, then starts just as absently on the front-lacing of his breeches. "You stayed with the healers throughout the Fall?" Sympathy wrinkles the corners of his eyes, but he doesn't look at her; sinews shift as his fingers work. Then, more faintly, "I've never heard anything like that before, either." And it won't be the last time.
The sound of cloth and leather hitting the ground cause Valandys to shift, at war with the impulse to go fetch the fallen items and the desire to keep from looking at him while he undresses. Her eyes cut towards him beneath lowered lashes, then as quickly turn away. "Yes." She moves her weight from one foot to the other, shifting again, and then finally gives in to the urge to help. Turning back towards him, she approaches to scoop the discarded clothing from the ground. Bundled into the crook of one arm, she extends the other to accept those breeches, once he's finished with them. This close, she chooses to keep her gaze focused on his face. "How many were lost?" she asks softly. "Other than the weyrleader?"
"I don't know." And it bothers Ch'dais that he doesn't. There's wire wound taut in the reply, an overtone to his more sonorous notes. The man bends at the waist, letting his leathers go slack about his thighs while he unfastens and removes his boots. "One at least in my wing, maybe two." Half-lost in the memory, he kicks his boots aside, shucks off the begrimed leather of his trousers. "The wingleader's bronze," he explains, with deceptive calm. "There was nothing left of his right wing but charred bones, like a wooden spar with the canvas off. He dropped like a stone..." Ch'dais' eyes go to hers, then, and recollecting himself, he settles the breeches in her smaller palm. "I'm sorry."
Valandys accepts them, hand sinking under their weight before she thinks to tense and lift them over the other arm. "No," she says, meeting his gaze without flinching, "Say it. Bring it out of your mind. The hearing is not so bad as the waiting was." Then she turns away to order his reeking clothing, moving to place them neatly beside the wall. The belt is coiled first, foundation for the breeches and shirt after they're shaken out then folded. "I thought it would be you. I thought... I was ready to see Arinth return, hurt as the others were. Ready to be told you wouldn't be back," she goes on as her hands work to tidy his things. They'll be jumbled when they're sent to be washed but she does it anyway, crouched down, back to the bronzerider. "I put 'sand by the pool, Ch'dais. And a towel."
Ch'dais looks on, lips pursed beneath the darkened stubble of his beard, while the dusky Igenite performs this ritual. One braid falls forward, brushes a smear across his cheek; with a broad hand he lifts it onto the back of his neck, tangled in among the others. "I told you I'd be fine, Valandys." And he summons a smile for her, but it's a ghost of a thing, there and gone. Then he's sinking into his own pool, laced in steam up to the ruddy curls on his chest. With a little more spirit, he puts in, "We had no idea. We'll be better next time." They'll have to be.
"You did tell me, and could have summoned up the opposite by speaking it aloud." She doesn't intend to scold him but her nerves been laid bare and frayed, making her outward calm a prickly thing. Valandys releases a slow breath to purge the last of that edge, shoulders rounded beneath the weight of a silent apology. "Next time." It's a bleak future that stretches out ahead, and she sighs as she's forced to stare into it. Standing, she turns again and drifts towards the pool. "Next time, and the next, and the time after that... more coming, with not a care for us below. What will you do, with the weyrleader as he is? I thought riders never survived the death of their dragons." The Igenite finds the way to her knees at the pool's edge, just behind and to his left, bending to wet her hand before reaching for the pouch of sand.
"Yes, but you stopped my lips." The smile Ch'dais offers is warmer, lingers upon his grimy features; it falters only when the girl kneels and puts out a hand for the 'sand pouch. "And I stopped yours." Troubled, this. "You don't have to..." He lifts a hand from the pool, dripping, to indicate her purposes. That impulse arrested by the maid's question, he finishes with a bemused, "Again, I don't know. He's been good to the Weyr, to the Caucus. He can't ride Fall." The phrases stand side by side, but the gulf of thought between them puts a note of hopelessness in the bronzerider's voice.
"Yes." What she's agreeing with, Valandys doesn't specify, but it's brought a smile to her tone if not her mouth. "Shh. Soak. Rest. This is what I want to do," she goes on to tell him while filling her hand with the gritty stuff in the pouch. Dividing the amount in half, she scrubs her palms together and then applies them to his near shoulder as they begin to form a lather. "We had tea, the day you kissed me. The weyrleader and I." What this has to do with the topic of his fall is also difficult to make out, but she carries on with this line of thought anyway while scrubbing the stains from his skin. "After my last class... he wanted to know how I was doing with my studies. He spoke of writing my mother, although I'm still not sure why." She pauses, hands still against his bicep. "He is a good man."
Ch'dais stiffens under her touch at first, his muscles gone taut, stretching his skin despite the man's weariness. He finds her in the corner of his eye, greyed with the swell of his thoughts, lips twisted with a moment's uncertainty before he turns his focus to the bronze now steeping in the larger pool. The girl's hands move, deftly, and by degrees the bronzerider is able to settle his shoulders. "I meant it when I said that I'm going to look out for you," he intones, earnest, a little anxious. "What I did, it doesn't change that." A breath lifts his chest, goes out in a soft sigh. "I don't think I've given him much of a chance. But if not him..." He shakes his head. "Then it's a brawl. And with Thread coming on."
Valandys' hands continue on, one slipping underneath his arm to lift it from the water while the other works the 'sand down over elbow and forearm and finally his fingers. She lets her own twine through his then, squeezing them together while trying to catch his eye. "I believed you then, and I believe you now. What you did does not change that. But I would not have you regret it either, Ch'dais. It was..." Slowly she extricates her fingers and lowers his arm towards the pool's surface, gaze falling with it. It was. And with that said, she shifts carefully into the other subject. "A brawl? The... oh. Who will lead? There is no time to wait for the weyrwoman's gold to rise, is there? What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to see if G'thon survives." Ch'dais meets the Igenite's glance, finds a brief and weary smile, then turns his attention to her dark hands on his arm, working with steam-kissed water and the cleansing abrasion of sweetsand. "He may not." That reality must be faced. "And then it'll be a brawl for sure. If he does..." The tall rider closes his eyes, slumps back against the girl's knees and deeper into the pool; his braids, the tangles of his auburn hair, float about him on the water's surface. "I'll talk to him. See what his intentions are for the Weyr. Whether he'll do right by them."
Valandys releases his arm to sink and rises on her knees, shifting over to sit on the other side of the man. The ritual is repeated, sweetsand to hand and hands to grimy shoulder. Foam wells up between her kneading fingers, tinged grey with the dust being scrubbed from his skin. "We never spoke of such things, in Igen. In the holds, I suppose. About a dragonman without his dragon... the possibility seemed less real even than Thread. Now, though..." Having worked her way to his forearm, the woman now pauses, soapy hand lifting to his temple. Several strands of water-darkened hair are teased back, swept behind his ear. "I never knew. Never understood what you and yours would be called to do. And now I'm here, and this is becoming home to me, and I could cry for all of you... how can you stand it? You said to sing and there are no -words-. How can you be so strong? All of you? The weyrfolk?"
Ch'dais exhales, and his breath stirs the mist on the heated pool into faery whorls before it dissipates. "What choice do we have?" he answers, a sleepy sort of sound; water ripples faintly but audibly as he shifts the weight of his frame, tips his head back towards her. Eyes still closed, the bronzerider essays a lopsided little smirk. "Do you know what Arinth said, when we started into the leading edge? 'It's very windy.'" Unaccountably, a silent chuckle stirs his shoulders beneath her touch. "Would you like a suggestion for your song?"
What can she do but share his amusement? It's that or cry as she threatened. So Valandys lets a thin little laugh escape her, shaking her head as she bends to scoop water into both of her hands. "He is very strong. And I would very much like a suggestion," she says, the water shimmering in her hands tipped out to spill over his shoulders, his chest. A second handful is taken up then, and dribbled over the tangled nest of braided and unbraided hair. "This will never wet all of you... you should go under, Ch'dais. Just for a moment."
"Tell me... mm." The bronzerider's eyes flicker open for a moment, then close as he submerges in the heated water. There's a halo of dirty hair on the surface, filled when Ch'dais thrusts up once more, soaked and plastered with strands as he moves back to the Igenite's place. "Tell me that you'll be waiting for me when I get back." His smile returns but he covers it in the act of scrubbing at his beard with one palm. "And tell me that we can do this again. You have... able hands." A croon of agreement comes from the larger pool, a sound that seems to roll about knees and shoulders in its fullness.
Valandys has settled back on her heels in the meantime, wet hands laying limply curled in her lap. She's ignoring the large water stains that are spreading over her skirt, or maybe she's simply unaware of it. Her eyes, black but for the reflected points of amber light from the glows lighting the cavern, stare at the big man before she glances up, away, over to the bronze in his lonely pool. "I will never be that strong," she says, the thought given voice before she can help it. Then her gaze wanders back to Ch'dais, and by the time it arrives she's smiling. Her hand steals out to touch his shoulder, light and shy. "I will be wiating for you, when you get back. The next time, and the time after that. We can do this whenever you would like to."
Ch'dais doesn't stiffen this time. He doesn't pull away. Instead, the man slowly covers her hand with his own, presses her touch until she can feel the curl of muscle beneath his skin, the faint suggestion of bone. "Now tell me," he adds, voice pitched for amusement but too soft really to achieve it, "that you're not sorry I kissed you." This close, the subtle lift of the rider's chest stirs the water in tiny flutters about his frame. He watches those ripples as they fade over the glow-lit surface.
She hesitates to answer, something that might inspire concern were her silence a still and unmoving thing. But Valandys doesn't hold her answer back to avoid hurting his feelings. It comes from her own uncertainty, the obvious pull between wanting to say one thing and feeling bound to say another. These two urges tug her between them, translating into a subtle shifting of her weight- away from him, at first, as if she were going to pull back, then towards him and away again. Finally, carefully, she leans in once more. This time there's no retreat. Just her shadow falling over him, her breath held as she steadies herself with that hand on his shoulder and angles her head to touch her lips carefully to his.
Ch'dais has gone still in that long silence, his own breath trapped in his lungs. He doesn't release the girl's hand-- indeed, his fingers curl over hers as if he might bind her there, keep her from a meditated flight. The need of it, and the injustice, and the uncertainty when no reply comes, make the bronzerider turn his head back towards her; it's thus, surprised, that he meets her lips. And after surprise comes joy, the little joy of her soft and supple mouth on his, a world in that small moment. The man presses into her kiss, just moves to part the maid's lips with his before catching himself, ending that contact as gently as she's begun it. It's an effort for him, felt in that moment's force, but he smiles faintly up at her, and his smile is fond. Only now will he exhale, relieved.
"I will never be sorry for that. Or this." Valandys brings her free hand to his face, cradling his cheek in the cool, wet cup of her palm. This touch is easier now that the others have gone before it, and though she's still careful, still slow in speech and movement, there is no uncertainty in the smile that settles warm on her lips. "Just tell me it will be alright, Ch'dais. That we can be safe and happy, that we can keep the simple things close and everything else away." Her eyes, brighter than the dim light would seem to allow, close as she leans even closer and lets her forehead rest against his.
"It will be alright, Valandys." Ch'dais' hand leaves hers, travels to grasp her shoulder, dampening the pale cloth of her blouse. At this moment he means it with all of his heart, swears it in the rich, low tone of his voice. Later there will be time for stricken Weyrleaders, the silver menace of Thread, Igen Hold and its duties, the predations of the Blood. Here in water, here in mist, there is only the dark-haired girl and the warmth of her copper skin pressed to his. "I promise you." He breathes the words over her lips, seals them softly with a kiss.
Valandys cups his face with both of her hands now, fingers stroking the rough and the smooth of his skin as she dwells in that kiss. It lasts until she loses herself to it enough to forget the need for balance, wobbling dangerously on the pool's edge and requiring that she drop her hands to his chest, his shoulder, to brace herself. The sudden movement pulls more laughter from her, this richer and genuinely amused. "I can almost believe you, when you say these things. Here. You are not clean yet, Ch'dais, and you are wrinkling like dried fruit," she chides him with plain affection, shifting back away from the edge. "We must wash your hair, and see to Arinth, so you can sleep."
When: Evening, Day 15, Month 2, 1st Turn of the 7th Pass
What: Following the first Threadfall over High Reaches (that log can be found here), Valandys and Ch'dais retire to the dragon baths to recover from that experience, as well as another of a more personal nature.
Ch'dais(#217POXc)
Tall and robust, the young man seems well-suited to northern climes. He stands like a sea-swept promontory, hardened even as he is smoothed by the battering of wind and wave; his body is labor-firm, his arms sheathed in the corded curve of muscle. Harsh features make him look more rugged than handsome, from the awkward break of his nose to the pronounced hollow of his cheeks. Still in all, some thought lurks beneath the turbid waters of his grey-green eyes, and his hair is a wild profusion of auburn, falling about his shoulders where it isn't haphazardly braided in order to clear his vision. The same ruddy color descends in sideburns, gathers about his lips in a stubbled beard. The man moves easily, balanced regardless of his ground or seat.
His flying leathers may once have been black, but they've long since weathered to a spider's web of cracked charcoal. Wan grey surmounts the elbows and shoulders of the jacket, takes on a silver sheen in the animal fur sewn into the neck; the same hue shows in his pants at the knees and on the insides of his thighs. Heavy boots and a broad riding belt-- worn when needed, and as often draped absently over one shoulder-- complete the ensemble. The sole article of color is provided by his shoulder knot: one braided loop of vibrant blue and black, interwoven with a thin cord of bronze.
Arinth(#247OQaeps)
A veritable giant amongst dragons, this bronze seems at first glance to be as wide as he is tall. Were he as long as his size initially suggests he would outstrip most of his peers, but his tail and neck are shorter than the norm, the latter capped by a squared muzzle. That bluntness, and the thick cords of muscle layering his immense body, give him a blocky appearance. While he is something of a monster in form, the light and dark shimmer of his hide is infinitely more pleasing to the eye. His extremities are tipped with the moonlit ripple of pyrite, as if tail and talons and snout had been dipped in a pool of molten stone. It's a liquid shade, strongest at the edges, but also stippling along his flanks to create streaks of artifical shadow. These drifts of darkness give the illusion of texture to the tawny bronze that makes up the rest of him, a shade that is reminiscent of autumn sunlight fading on a valley bed of pine needles.
Arinth is 7 turns, 8 months old and 67 feet long. He is 33 feet tall at the shoulder and has a wingspan of 100 feet.
Valandys
Valandys' features are simply drawn with soft curves and a strong bone structure, her skin the color of sun-warmed copper. There is sharpness to be found only in the thin bridge of her nose, and her lightning-quick smiles. Set deeply enough to seem always in shadow, her eyes are black, but bright with intelligence and calm. She wears her equally dark hair parted in the center and drawn back to a thick bun secured with red and yellow enamelled pins.
Her healthy frame is draped in attire suitable for cold weather wear, provided she remains inside. A long-sleeved white blouse is tucked into the waistband of a black overskirt. The underskirts are less bland in shade; when she walks, flashes of red and yellow and orange can be seen, matching the gauzy scarves she has wrapped around her hips, her throat and her head. The scarves have fringe beaded with tiny bone beads, dyed in natural colors, and these beads match the clacking array of bracelets decorating her wrists.
The bright red and golden yellow knot at her shoulder declares her origin as Igen Hold. The crosspoint of the knot serves as a bed for the beaten-copper pin of the Caucus.
Tonight, High Reaches is a battle-scarred Weyr licking its wounds, and the baths have been much in demand. Dragons and riders have come to cleanse the stain of Threadfall, if not the memory; steam hangs heavy in the air from their efforts, lending the vast cavern an indistinct and otherworldly quality. At last, however, most of the pairs have limped home to their various weyrs, leaving only the fog behind as a phantom of their passing. It is into this haze that the massive, bronze Arinth now lumbers, his talons distinct to the human eye but his headknobs blurred high above. At his foreleg, two smaller figures pass: Ch'dais, the dragon's rider, and the copper-skinned Igenite Valandys, who leads him by the crook of his arm.
The dragon baths have earned their plural use due to the two pools they contain: the immense dragon pool, its far edge wreathed in steam and shadow, and the smaller rider-sized pool that rises to the right of the entrance. It's towards the latter that Valandys attempts to steer Ch'dais once Arinth has thudded past. She's grown quiet during the walk and appears solemn now, with a set jaw and eyes gone restless as if she were hunting for something to look at that would take her mind away from unpleasant thoughts. Nearing the smaller pool, she releases the bronzerider's arm in order to go to the cubby-holes carved out of the rock. They hold towels, robes, bags of 'sand... she gathers all of these and returns to lay them along the pool's side, all in silence.
Ch'dais wanders after the girl, offering no resistance despite the fact that his leathered, char-blackened frame looms over hers. He follows just as far as her urging suggests and then pauses there, casts an absent glance after the pyrite-dipped bronze as his bulk descends with a ripple into the warmth and steam of the larger pool. The man's lips start on an abortive phrase, and then his brow furrows as he retrieves what ought to be second knowledge. "He'll need to soak a while." A pause. "It's thicker than stone-dust, the char."
"You do as well. I can smell it on you." Straightening, Valandys turns to regard the man. Her hands clasp at her waist, her shoulders fall back and her mouth arranges itself in prim lines. A necessary expression, and posture, to allow her to meet his eyes as she continues, "The water is ready, Ch'dais. You should undress and begin soaking as well, if you hope to sleep soon." Her gaze skates away then, shy where her tone of voice was not. "I can scrub Arinth for you while you bathe, if he needs it. There are brushes."
Ch'dais shifts his regard to the maid who now stands ready to hand. Puzzlement skims the surface of those sea-green eyes, and for a moment he says nothing. It comes back to him then, the acrid tang of 'stone and burnt Thread; he's redolent with it, his beard and features smudged. And that sudden awareness makes his lips tug up in a crooked smile. "You forget about the smell." Deep-voiced, the phrase has a bemused air of discovery. "There's so much..." The bronzerider trails off then, shrugs one muscled shoulder out of his jacket. He drops it to the stone by the smaller pool's side, sending up a whisper of ash. "No, let him soak first. It won't scrub well until later."
She takes a step back, nearer the cubbies and further from the pool, while also turning to present him with the sight of her shoulder, a slice of profile. Valandys has bowed her head, her eyes remaining safely averted the moment he begins to move to disrobe. "It is the same with any smell. It disappears if you find yourself around it enough. It was that way in Igen's stables." She pauses, drawing a breath and releasing it slowly. "Even the terrible ones disappear. It's better that way..." Given the slow pace of her speech, it's not immediately apparant that the woman is rattling on, trying not to cover silence with sound. "I wish sounds were the same way."
By the time she's finished, Ch'dais has drawn his undyed tunic over his head, baring the ice-crag of his back: hard muscle beneath northern-pale skin, and by one shoulder a darker streak where some of the char's gotten in. Without thought or hesitation, he unfastens his riding belt and drops it in the growing pile, then starts just as absently on the front-lacing of his breeches. "You stayed with the healers throughout the Fall?" Sympathy wrinkles the corners of his eyes, but he doesn't look at her; sinews shift as his fingers work. Then, more faintly, "I've never heard anything like that before, either." And it won't be the last time.
The sound of cloth and leather hitting the ground cause Valandys to shift, at war with the impulse to go fetch the fallen items and the desire to keep from looking at him while he undresses. Her eyes cut towards him beneath lowered lashes, then as quickly turn away. "Yes." She moves her weight from one foot to the other, shifting again, and then finally gives in to the urge to help. Turning back towards him, she approaches to scoop the discarded clothing from the ground. Bundled into the crook of one arm, she extends the other to accept those breeches, once he's finished with them. This close, she chooses to keep her gaze focused on his face. "How many were lost?" she asks softly. "Other than the weyrleader?"
"I don't know." And it bothers Ch'dais that he doesn't. There's wire wound taut in the reply, an overtone to his more sonorous notes. The man bends at the waist, letting his leathers go slack about his thighs while he unfastens and removes his boots. "One at least in my wing, maybe two." Half-lost in the memory, he kicks his boots aside, shucks off the begrimed leather of his trousers. "The wingleader's bronze," he explains, with deceptive calm. "There was nothing left of his right wing but charred bones, like a wooden spar with the canvas off. He dropped like a stone..." Ch'dais' eyes go to hers, then, and recollecting himself, he settles the breeches in her smaller palm. "I'm sorry."
Valandys accepts them, hand sinking under their weight before she thinks to tense and lift them over the other arm. "No," she says, meeting his gaze without flinching, "Say it. Bring it out of your mind. The hearing is not so bad as the waiting was." Then she turns away to order his reeking clothing, moving to place them neatly beside the wall. The belt is coiled first, foundation for the breeches and shirt after they're shaken out then folded. "I thought it would be you. I thought... I was ready to see Arinth return, hurt as the others were. Ready to be told you wouldn't be back," she goes on as her hands work to tidy his things. They'll be jumbled when they're sent to be washed but she does it anyway, crouched down, back to the bronzerider. "I put 'sand by the pool, Ch'dais. And a towel."
Ch'dais looks on, lips pursed beneath the darkened stubble of his beard, while the dusky Igenite performs this ritual. One braid falls forward, brushes a smear across his cheek; with a broad hand he lifts it onto the back of his neck, tangled in among the others. "I told you I'd be fine, Valandys." And he summons a smile for her, but it's a ghost of a thing, there and gone. Then he's sinking into his own pool, laced in steam up to the ruddy curls on his chest. With a little more spirit, he puts in, "We had no idea. We'll be better next time." They'll have to be.
"You did tell me, and could have summoned up the opposite by speaking it aloud." She doesn't intend to scold him but her nerves been laid bare and frayed, making her outward calm a prickly thing. Valandys releases a slow breath to purge the last of that edge, shoulders rounded beneath the weight of a silent apology. "Next time." It's a bleak future that stretches out ahead, and she sighs as she's forced to stare into it. Standing, she turns again and drifts towards the pool. "Next time, and the next, and the time after that... more coming, with not a care for us below. What will you do, with the weyrleader as he is? I thought riders never survived the death of their dragons." The Igenite finds the way to her knees at the pool's edge, just behind and to his left, bending to wet her hand before reaching for the pouch of sand.
"Yes, but you stopped my lips." The smile Ch'dais offers is warmer, lingers upon his grimy features; it falters only when the girl kneels and puts out a hand for the 'sand pouch. "And I stopped yours." Troubled, this. "You don't have to..." He lifts a hand from the pool, dripping, to indicate her purposes. That impulse arrested by the maid's question, he finishes with a bemused, "Again, I don't know. He's been good to the Weyr, to the Caucus. He can't ride Fall." The phrases stand side by side, but the gulf of thought between them puts a note of hopelessness in the bronzerider's voice.
"Yes." What she's agreeing with, Valandys doesn't specify, but it's brought a smile to her tone if not her mouth. "Shh. Soak. Rest. This is what I want to do," she goes on to tell him while filling her hand with the gritty stuff in the pouch. Dividing the amount in half, she scrubs her palms together and then applies them to his near shoulder as they begin to form a lather. "We had tea, the day you kissed me. The weyrleader and I." What this has to do with the topic of his fall is also difficult to make out, but she carries on with this line of thought anyway while scrubbing the stains from his skin. "After my last class... he wanted to know how I was doing with my studies. He spoke of writing my mother, although I'm still not sure why." She pauses, hands still against his bicep. "He is a good man."
Ch'dais stiffens under her touch at first, his muscles gone taut, stretching his skin despite the man's weariness. He finds her in the corner of his eye, greyed with the swell of his thoughts, lips twisted with a moment's uncertainty before he turns his focus to the bronze now steeping in the larger pool. The girl's hands move, deftly, and by degrees the bronzerider is able to settle his shoulders. "I meant it when I said that I'm going to look out for you," he intones, earnest, a little anxious. "What I did, it doesn't change that." A breath lifts his chest, goes out in a soft sigh. "I don't think I've given him much of a chance. But if not him..." He shakes his head. "Then it's a brawl. And with Thread coming on."
Valandys' hands continue on, one slipping underneath his arm to lift it from the water while the other works the 'sand down over elbow and forearm and finally his fingers. She lets her own twine through his then, squeezing them together while trying to catch his eye. "I believed you then, and I believe you now. What you did does not change that. But I would not have you regret it either, Ch'dais. It was..." Slowly she extricates her fingers and lowers his arm towards the pool's surface, gaze falling with it. It was. And with that said, she shifts carefully into the other subject. "A brawl? The... oh. Who will lead? There is no time to wait for the weyrwoman's gold to rise, is there? What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to see if G'thon survives." Ch'dais meets the Igenite's glance, finds a brief and weary smile, then turns his attention to her dark hands on his arm, working with steam-kissed water and the cleansing abrasion of sweetsand. "He may not." That reality must be faced. "And then it'll be a brawl for sure. If he does..." The tall rider closes his eyes, slumps back against the girl's knees and deeper into the pool; his braids, the tangles of his auburn hair, float about him on the water's surface. "I'll talk to him. See what his intentions are for the Weyr. Whether he'll do right by them."
Valandys releases his arm to sink and rises on her knees, shifting over to sit on the other side of the man. The ritual is repeated, sweetsand to hand and hands to grimy shoulder. Foam wells up between her kneading fingers, tinged grey with the dust being scrubbed from his skin. "We never spoke of such things, in Igen. In the holds, I suppose. About a dragonman without his dragon... the possibility seemed less real even than Thread. Now, though..." Having worked her way to his forearm, the woman now pauses, soapy hand lifting to his temple. Several strands of water-darkened hair are teased back, swept behind his ear. "I never knew. Never understood what you and yours would be called to do. And now I'm here, and this is becoming home to me, and I could cry for all of you... how can you stand it? You said to sing and there are no -words-. How can you be so strong? All of you? The weyrfolk?"
Ch'dais exhales, and his breath stirs the mist on the heated pool into faery whorls before it dissipates. "What choice do we have?" he answers, a sleepy sort of sound; water ripples faintly but audibly as he shifts the weight of his frame, tips his head back towards her. Eyes still closed, the bronzerider essays a lopsided little smirk. "Do you know what Arinth said, when we started into the leading edge? 'It's very windy.'" Unaccountably, a silent chuckle stirs his shoulders beneath her touch. "Would you like a suggestion for your song?"
What can she do but share his amusement? It's that or cry as she threatened. So Valandys lets a thin little laugh escape her, shaking her head as she bends to scoop water into both of her hands. "He is very strong. And I would very much like a suggestion," she says, the water shimmering in her hands tipped out to spill over his shoulders, his chest. A second handful is taken up then, and dribbled over the tangled nest of braided and unbraided hair. "This will never wet all of you... you should go under, Ch'dais. Just for a moment."
"Tell me... mm." The bronzerider's eyes flicker open for a moment, then close as he submerges in the heated water. There's a halo of dirty hair on the surface, filled when Ch'dais thrusts up once more, soaked and plastered with strands as he moves back to the Igenite's place. "Tell me that you'll be waiting for me when I get back." His smile returns but he covers it in the act of scrubbing at his beard with one palm. "And tell me that we can do this again. You have... able hands." A croon of agreement comes from the larger pool, a sound that seems to roll about knees and shoulders in its fullness.
Valandys has settled back on her heels in the meantime, wet hands laying limply curled in her lap. She's ignoring the large water stains that are spreading over her skirt, or maybe she's simply unaware of it. Her eyes, black but for the reflected points of amber light from the glows lighting the cavern, stare at the big man before she glances up, away, over to the bronze in his lonely pool. "I will never be that strong," she says, the thought given voice before she can help it. Then her gaze wanders back to Ch'dais, and by the time it arrives she's smiling. Her hand steals out to touch his shoulder, light and shy. "I will be wiating for you, when you get back. The next time, and the time after that. We can do this whenever you would like to."
Ch'dais doesn't stiffen this time. He doesn't pull away. Instead, the man slowly covers her hand with his own, presses her touch until she can feel the curl of muscle beneath his skin, the faint suggestion of bone. "Now tell me," he adds, voice pitched for amusement but too soft really to achieve it, "that you're not sorry I kissed you." This close, the subtle lift of the rider's chest stirs the water in tiny flutters about his frame. He watches those ripples as they fade over the glow-lit surface.
She hesitates to answer, something that might inspire concern were her silence a still and unmoving thing. But Valandys doesn't hold her answer back to avoid hurting his feelings. It comes from her own uncertainty, the obvious pull between wanting to say one thing and feeling bound to say another. These two urges tug her between them, translating into a subtle shifting of her weight- away from him, at first, as if she were going to pull back, then towards him and away again. Finally, carefully, she leans in once more. This time there's no retreat. Just her shadow falling over him, her breath held as she steadies herself with that hand on his shoulder and angles her head to touch her lips carefully to his.
Ch'dais has gone still in that long silence, his own breath trapped in his lungs. He doesn't release the girl's hand-- indeed, his fingers curl over hers as if he might bind her there, keep her from a meditated flight. The need of it, and the injustice, and the uncertainty when no reply comes, make the bronzerider turn his head back towards her; it's thus, surprised, that he meets her lips. And after surprise comes joy, the little joy of her soft and supple mouth on his, a world in that small moment. The man presses into her kiss, just moves to part the maid's lips with his before catching himself, ending that contact as gently as she's begun it. It's an effort for him, felt in that moment's force, but he smiles faintly up at her, and his smile is fond. Only now will he exhale, relieved.
"I will never be sorry for that. Or this." Valandys brings her free hand to his face, cradling his cheek in the cool, wet cup of her palm. This touch is easier now that the others have gone before it, and though she's still careful, still slow in speech and movement, there is no uncertainty in the smile that settles warm on her lips. "Just tell me it will be alright, Ch'dais. That we can be safe and happy, that we can keep the simple things close and everything else away." Her eyes, brighter than the dim light would seem to allow, close as she leans even closer and lets her forehead rest against his.
"It will be alright, Valandys." Ch'dais' hand leaves hers, travels to grasp her shoulder, dampening the pale cloth of her blouse. At this moment he means it with all of his heart, swears it in the rich, low tone of his voice. Later there will be time for stricken Weyrleaders, the silver menace of Thread, Igen Hold and its duties, the predations of the Blood. Here in water, here in mist, there is only the dark-haired girl and the warmth of her copper skin pressed to his. "I promise you." He breathes the words over her lips, seals them softly with a kiss.
Valandys cups his face with both of her hands now, fingers stroking the rough and the smooth of his skin as she dwells in that kiss. It lasts until she loses herself to it enough to forget the need for balance, wobbling dangerously on the pool's edge and requiring that she drop her hands to his chest, his shoulder, to brace herself. The sudden movement pulls more laughter from her, this richer and genuinely amused. "I can almost believe you, when you say these things. Here. You are not clean yet, Ch'dais, and you are wrinkling like dried fruit," she chides him with plain affection, shifting back away from the edge. "We must wash your hair, and see to Arinth, so you can sleep."