Standing Stones

It is perhaps a pity that the Standing Stones lie in quiet isolation, half-forgotten in the Weyr's easternmost corner. Or perhaps it is inevitable: the grandiose beauty of these red rocks is ill-suited to Igen's coarse grit, and maybe only their loneliness allows them to survive unmarred. Whatever the reason, it cannot be denied that the Standing Stones, a lonely jumble of ancient boulders, have a glory about them. The tumbled field of pillars and arches has been shaped by eons of wind and water into strange shapes, twisted and rutted. The going is treacherous: only the Weyr's half-feral herd of caprines navigates the terrain with any ease. To the northwest, the lakeshore glimmers; to the east, rough-carved steps lead towards another ancient pile of rocks - though the Star Stones are less haphazardly placed than their Standing cousins.

Ever since Candidacy, the Standing Stones have been a place of escape for Kevashi - a sweet memory, and a quiet place to be introspective, without much chance of being interrupted by random encounters. Perched atop one of the taller rocks, the boy absently scritches the head of a half-grown caprine, fingers digging into the coarse fur between his budding horns. Dark eyes stare thoughtfully in the direction of the Weyr - not broodingly, not quite, but with a thoughtfulness at odds with his scant turns. An open messenger's scrollcase lays tucked against his hip, a roll of parchment peeking out of the top.

Rhovvth falls from above and lands with enough force to rattle the small rocks lingering around the standing stone upon which Kevashi perches. K'vre disembarks and sends the redwinged brown back to the air with a slap of hand against hide. He picks his way down from the heights where Rhovvth hit the ground, moving at an idle pace toward where the kid's perched. The buffet of wind from dragonwings wraps around him, but the rider doesn't stumble - though he picks a place to pause at the height of Rhovvth's launch back into the skies. (Don't worry, he'll get there. He's just old.)

The jolt shocks Vash out of his reverie and sends the caprine bounding off the rock, bleating in terror at the dragon's arrival. Twisting lithely, the boy turns to stare at the brown - almost close enough to touch, not that he'd dare - his gaze following the dragon before he has to thrust his arm in front of his eyes, shielding them from the backlash of wind and sand at the beast's departure. Once Rhovvoth is no longer there to gawk at, the runner transfers his attention to the Weyrleader picking his way towards his rock, slowly dropping his arm across his lap as he scoots closer to the edge of the rock, head canted to one side curiously. "G'day, sir."

"Kevashi," K'vre replies, pausing at the base of the rock to slant his attention upward. He shades his vision with a hand — it's bright! "Sorry for chasing your companion away," the man says, glancing to the side to attempt to track where that fuzzy creature ran off toward on fleet cloven hooves.

"No big," Vash replies, casting his gaze to follow K'vre's after the little beast, soon lost among the standing rocks. "Plenty more caprines in the hills." He offers a lopsided smile at that feeble - and faintly inappropriate - joke, before dropping down to his stomach, resting his chin on his crossed arms and peering down at the man below. "I'm not in your way here, am I?" He has no idea what kind of duties the Weyrleader has. For all he knows, he's about to be intruding on some secret society of brownriders aiming to take over the Weyrs. Or maybe an orgy. Same difference, probably.

Let it be known that K'vre was also raised in Keroon and he gets that joke — mostly because there's a faint pained expression that crosses his face directly thereafter the boy says it, but he recovers with a level of aplomb. "No, you're not in my way at all." He straightens even from his typical correct posture, loosely folding his hands behind him; his face is still upturned to look up at the runner on the rock. "Cremla told me I hadn't seen enough sunlight today," he says by-way of explanation; "And then Diem chased me out of my office with a cactus." He laughs, a chuff of a word. "Rhovvth's been watching you, apparently. I suppose when I'm working on hides I'm not quite entertaining enough for him." Unfamiliar laugh lines crinkle at the corners of his eyes for a change - giving his worrywort frown lines a break.

Eyes glittering with amusement at the brief flash across the brownrider's face, Kevashi cradles his cheek against his forearms, curls falling across his forehead. "Can't imagine sun's too hard to find here," he replies dryly, eyes flickering upwards briefly towards the clear blue sky. "Although I guess being stuck in the depths of the Weyr might make it a bit hard t' get a good dose of it. Should give up the big knot and be a runner, like me. Plenty of time out of doors." Seems a fair trade, right? A brief flash of shock flickers in the boy's chocolate gaze, his head jerking up as he stares at K'vre. "Watching me? What for? What'd I do?" Ah, the battle cry of teenagers every where.

K'vre laughs, a soft, short thing. "I will be happy to press this into the hands of the man who follows after me," he says, unclasping his hands to reach cross-body to flick at the cording along his shoulder. "Until Zsaviranth is done with us, it is my duty and Rhovvth's to… do what the weyr needs done." A smile, but it's less than the one before, touched again with the world-worn nature that seems to follow this man around like a second skin. His amusement deepens in subtler ways when the lad signals alarm. "Curiosity, I reckon. He's not had much to entertain him other than firestone worry and watching all the wings drill… outside of our own fighting and drilling." And that's a different entertainment entirely, so it sounds.

Kevashi shakes his head, shaggy mane of curls slapping his cheeks. "I don't get it. Maybe that's why none of 'em wanted me," he replies frankly. "Don't get how two dragons… doin' that… makes you the big man o' the Weyr. Guess it isn't much worse than being born to it, though." A sentiment that would probably get him beaten at any Hold - hopefully the boy's aware of that. At the mention of a dragon's curiosity, the boy stares. "Dragons get curious? I mean, about reg'lar people, like me?" Discounting, of course, the way the boy has so recently rocked his sire's world, yes? "Huh. Well, I haven't done anything worth writing home about." He winces, ever so slightly, and twists to make sure that scroll case is still tucked against his side. "As I've been so recently reminded."

K'vre shrugs his shoulders fluidly. "If Lady Tillek would ever get married, it'd be about the same. Whoever sleeps with her gains the hold, if only as Holder-consort, eh?" Isana is famously widowed and famously strong-willed, and not even High Reaches' conservative natures can make the willful woman do something she doesn't wish to do. Honestly they probably have no clue what to do with her and they've had at least a decade to acclimate, if not more. He also signals off Kevashi's earlier statement belatedly, with a long-fingered hand. "If I'd stood for any clutch before Rhovvth's I wouldn't have walked away with a dragon. If you've got the spark, you've likely got a lifemate waiting for you, somewhere, somewhen. It's just your goal to be there when they hatch, aye?" A hint of broad Keroonese enters his voice, normally clipped away. And then: "Of course. Rhovvth drives me crazy wanting to know more about you every time I remind him you exist."

There's an attempt to seem nonchalant, although Kevashi clearly yearns - just a little bit - for the man's words to be true. "Yeah, well, we'll see," he replies, shrugging thin shoulders as his chin returns to rest against his crossed forearms. "I mean, I might be around next time there's a clutch. Depends on if mom has her way." Thus far, it seems, her attempts to drag him back to Keroon have been in vain. The remark about draconic memory earns a confused look, thin brows drawing together as the boy stares puzzledly at K'vre. "I mean, not much to know, really. Can't blame him for forgetting 'bout me," he adds, with a self-depreciating laugh that's only half-forced.

Oh, right. The words K'vre's subconscious was trying to really shove away into a corner. "Ah," he says, almost apologetic, "And… how is she? Your mom, I mean," in case there ever was any real question of who he meant. His gaze lands solidly upon Kevashi. "She wants you to… go home?" he ventures, shifting to fold his arms across his chest. It gives his pensive frown a different cast from a physical perspective. For Rhovvth, he gestures with a hand but doesn't move his arms; "He forgets everything. He'd forget his own name if it wasn't so atrociously obnoxious."

"She's fine. She's out somewhere in the sticks right now - I guess one of the runnerholds out there has something sweeping through and she's been treating it." For Kevashi, there's only a mixture of exasperation and affection when discussing his mother; he's a bit clueless as to K'vre's own feelings about the woman who bore his child. "She's always had plans for me, and mine haven't always, uh… been the same. I think it's less she wants me to come home and more she wants me to give up running messages and be a healer." He wrinkles his nose. "I'm used to it. I… didn't tell her." Chocolate eyes are evasive as he meets the brownrider's gaze, then allows his own to slide away. "That I told you."

"Sounds about right," K'vre murmurs, more to himself than the lad. His voice is a strange twist of minor nostalgia and admiration, buried under the dust of so many years distance. He looks off for a moment, his expression pensive, absorbing what Kevashi has to say. "If you want to be a healer, you'll be a healer. But I think she'd know as well as anyone that it's either in your blood, or it isn't." K'vre knows all about called vocations — he's never strayed far from the guard, given his time in Parhelion, and his stance now to protect all that may shelter beneath the canopy of Igen's dragonwings. That end point returns an inarticulate noise, and after a thoughtful moment: "That's up to you. This meeting never happened unless you want it to have." Again a hint of that humor, despite himself — maybe there IS something to the thought that dad jokes are inevitable.

For Anashi, healing is as much a part of her life as breathing. For Kevashi, he has a knack, but not a calling; or, if he does, it's been buried beneath that inevitable rebellion that any child feels when faced with a parent's expectations. "I'm fine being a runner," he mutters, eyeing K'vre warily as if expecting the brownrider to comment on the unsuitability of the position as a long-term commitment. "I like healing, but…" he trails off, groping futilely for the words to explain how he feels about following in his mother's footsteps, then he finally just shrugs. "But. I'll tell her, eventually. She probably already knows - she's like that." She's a Mom, after all. "It's not like she ever seemed upset over you or anything."

"If it's what you want to do." K'vre's ulterior motives are obvious, of course; being a runner keeps the boy at the weyr, and his true vocation is obviously destined to be a dragonrider, so that makes it quite handy, doesn't it? (sorry anashi healing < dragonriding every day of the week) "If you do decide to… have a go at healing, you can always go apprentice somewhere else." It won't break your mother's heart at all, Kevashi! Don't listen to your father, he's a fucking idiot. "Probably," is what he agrees easily enough with, when presented with the concept that the woman already knows. "Something about all the things you didn't talk about," with his arms uncrossing now to better gesture, and then groom fingertips along his jaw contemplatively.

Blandly, "Healers talk." And it's probably not much of a secret within the Weyr any more, given how the gossip flies on dragonwings, so what the riders know, the crafters aren't likely far behind in learning. Kevashi has obviously run afoul of that ever-present grapevine, when bored crafters with little more to do than talk out of turn send their tongues awagging over every little thing. "And given what she hasn't talked about of late in her letters," he rolls his hip slightly to nudge the case resting against it, "I've no doubt she's waitin' for me to 'fess up about spilling the beans." Chocolate eyes peer thoughtfully at K'vre, knees bending as he kicks his feet idly above his back. "Thought about maybe volunteering as an infirmary assistant," he finally grunts. "Wonder if maybe that'll keep her off my back for a while."

"Mmmm." K'vre's abrupt and sudden smile at the words infirmary assistant is — out of place, and doubtlessly about something completely different than the conversation at hand, but. He's a strange duck. Kevashi will learn, if he hasn't already. "If you need a good word," he starts, and then he stops, shaking his head. "Which you don't. If you want to do it, then do it. I'm sure they would be happy to have the extra set of hands." He carefully allows the subject of Vash's mother to fade — at least in his responses.

Silence sits and grows, Kevashi at a loss for words - unable, perhaps, to parse this stranger to whom he is so inexorably tied. Still, for the boy at least, it is not an uncomfortable silence - simply a thoughtful one. Then again, he's never been the kind to fill the air with empty words. Still, he finally stirs, shoving himself up to his knees amd dusting at the front of his shirt with a wrinkled nose. "I might look into it. Not as much call for running in the Weyr as in the Hold," he admits, "and I don't like being bored. Just… not ready to go back, y'know?" Again, those dark eyes arrow in on the Weyrleader's face - clearly, he has reasons, and they probably include K'vre.

Perhaps he gets it from his father. Because K'vre abides within that silence with the same kind of thoughtfulness - and with the same kind of comfort within it. "Well, I'd like it if you stayed," K'vre says, and with all his thoughtfulness he's thoughtless about how those words could actually be of impact, but no worries - since he's artless, he carries on. "And if there's anything I can do… I doubt I'll have as my clout again in my life as I have now, someone should reap the benefits of it." Might as well be this wayward son he's seemingly collected, aye? "If you'd like a change of pace, I'm sure you could find space in the dragonhealer's enclave. I'yn and N'kn can always use more help there." Added benefit: DRAGONS.

"Wait - dragon… healer?" Suddenly, a whole new world has opened before Kevashi - it's clear in the way his eyes round, jaw dropping slightly. "You mean, that's a thing?" He's lived in a Weyr for a turn - surely this should not be a surprise? "I mean, for regular people. Not just..," and he gestures to K'vre, "dragonriders." Who are, of course, not at all regular. Sitting back on his heels, he plants his palms on his thighs and stares piercingly at his father for a long moment, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "That would be…" So many bests, so many worlds. And something he couldn't do anywhere but at the Weyr. "D'you mean it? You'd speak for me?" The smile starts slow, small, shy, then blossoms to a full, wide-mouthed grin, teeth and all.

"Well, you can't get past what amounts to apprenticeship without a dragon," K'vre concedes, "But dragonhealers are very much a thing. If you see a very tall man with a glass of booze in his hand, it's probably I'dre. Don't ask him any questions, he's virtually worthless." LOVE YOU I'DRE-KINS~~~ "You want Erarei. Or… not Erarei, she's mine now." Casually claiming people out-of-context in strange conversations; a thousand points for Kev! "Casla, perhaps," he says, revising. "Or Doji. She's tough." Which is a point to her favor, quite obviously. He laughs again - so many laughs, so little time! K'vre's turning into a softy! - and nods, once. "Of course I would. Will."

One name in five isn't bad. "I remember Casla," Vash muses. "I didn't know she's a dragonhealer." Long, lean fingers tap lightly against the curves of his knees as he regards the Weyrleader, then nods once, decisively. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, sir," the boy replies, his light tenor all kinds of formal-like - and frankly adorable with it, "I would appreciate it if you'd speak for me. If they have room for an apprentice. And who knows. You said it - I was already Searched once. It could happen again." Mayhap. After all, it's in the blood, as it were. Either way, the boy's face is alight with possibilities - healing dragons, even his mother can't possibly complain about that!

"She's training to be one," K'vre remarks of the junior goldrider. When the boy goes formal, so does the sire; K'vre straightens his shoulders and once more arranges his arms behind him. "Very well. I will inform the dragonhealer's enclave of your interest. I suspect it will not be very long before you hear back from them." His blue eyes twinkle, but he inclines his chin to his chest, once, very regal despite himself. It's because he's shaved recently. That's gotta be it. "Unfortunately Rhovvth tells me I'm needed again. Unless you have anything else?" he questions, lifting his 'brows as he angles that expression upward.

"No, I think I've plenty to chew on," Vash replies, his smile going lopsided. "Thank you," he says, in a rush. "For offering, and - and for coming out here." He gestures around to the rocks, then shrugs those thin shoulders. "I mean, to see me. It's nice." Awkward, he tries to smile again - this time lopsided in the opposite direction, and gives a breathless laugh. "Give my best to Rhovvth, please. I'll… be back up soon." He wants to digest exactly what just happened.

For that, K'vre salutes his son - crisply, the militant gesture executed as cleanly as when he was a guard under Keroon's aegis. Then, with another nod, K'vre turns back toward where he's come from initially and paces away. Rhovvth is already descending, his crimson wings flared wide. Kev pauses, though, a good length away, and glances back once: "Maybe dinner, sometime soon?" he calls, lifting an arm in a final farewell before the thunder of Rhovvth's landing takes away all potential sound. Then he's mounting, and the two are off with yet another buffet of wind to mark their passing. They leave behind only rocks displaced - and thoughts to chew over.

So many thoughts. So much chewing. Vash slowly sinks onto the rock once more, rolling over on his back to stare into the spring sky, thinking hard.