====September 23rd, 2013
====Jedi
====After a long day of drills and sweeps…

Who Jedi
What After a long day of drills and sweeps…
When There is 1 turn 1 month and 27 days until the 12th pass.
Where Llioramasith's Weyr, Southern Weyr

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Llioramasith's Weyr
Although still not quite put together, this weyr actually has stuff in it. There is a big bed off near where Llioramasith's Couch is. There are signs of little children all over, but also signs of ADULT presence.


This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Feel the earth move and then
Hear my heart burst again

It's the end of a long day of drills and sweeps, and all I know is that I'm tired. Normally now would be the time I'd go to collect my children, to bring them home and tell them stories and how much they're loved. Even though they're little, it's so important to me that they know they're loved. Mom made sure I knew; I even knew Dad knew from time to time. I want them to have no doubt, should Thread come and I am unable to return to them one night.

K'ane will make sure they know he loves them, in his own way. If the unthinkable happens, he'll at least be able to tell them that yes, mama loved you, when they ask him.

If it happens to him instead, I'll be able to tell them the same. I can see it on his face when he's with them; I don't need to hear him use the words to know it.

For this is the end
I've drowned and dreamt this moment
So overdue I owe them
Swept away, I'm stolen

Sometimes I wish things were different. Maybe if I'd told him about them sooner — but no, that is a path of doubt I can't walk. Maybe things would be different between us if I had, and perhaps they wouldn't be. Either way, he's not the sort of man to settle down. Nor am I that sort of woman.

Although if anyone were to call me a whore, I would…well, it would depend on who it was. I would probably punch them.

Except Mom. Faranth, I can't believe she still intends to try and fly Thread with us. Is it horrible that a part of me wishes that something would happen that they couldn't? I know she flew it before, but the thought of them flying it now, so many years down the road…

Let the sky fall
When it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together

An equally traitorous part of me is glad she'll be there. Not because I hope something bad happens to her, but because I want her to see her baby girl can handle this. I know she knows that already, but…there's just something about a mother's approval. Perhaps it's because I was just such a mom's girl growing up. Her approval meant everything, and it still does.

But I still worry about her flying Thread. Sev and her are old…sometimes I watch her more than anyone else during drills. I don't want her to die because she's working too hard.

I would be a liar if I said I didn't understand why she is, though. I grew up on stories of Thread from those too hardened to care the tolls it wrought upon us anymore. And learned the meaning of grief from Mom, when she remembered someone Thread took too clearly.

Let the sky fall
When it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together
At skyfall
That skyfall

I'm not afraid about whether we'll die, Lli and I. I'm more concerned about the hole that we'll leave behind for others. Death…death is so quick compared to the rest of our lives. It's why living is so important. It's why I don't care if others consider me a whore or not. I'll bed who I damn well please, and cast aside those I find wanting.

Perhaps this too I learned from Mom, but I think it's one of the better things. Becoming too dependent on someone can be…bad. It can have bad consequences for those around you, as I learned when Shazi and Dad broke up. Now that was an awkward position..

Skyfall is where we start
A thousand miles and poles apart
Where worlds collide and days are dark
You may have my number, you can take my name
But you'll never have my heart

A mental nudge from Lli brings me back to the here and now, and I realize I've been standing at the inside of the weyr like a fool, just looking at it. It's so easy to become lost in thought these days. Sometimes I feel older than my years. Perhaps that's not so bad.

Instead of heading to my alcohol stash tonight, I decide to do something different. I head to one of my many unpacked boxes, and crack it open to examine the contents. Some of my music boxes. Looking at them, I am haunted briefly by the ghosts of my past, of the past now four-hundred turns in the past, and I shut it again.

I head to a different box, and open it up. Within are mementos from childhood, and I smile briefly at them. These hurt less to unpack, less than the music boxes. And so I take them out, one by one.

Let the sky fall (let the sky fall)
When it crumbles (when it crumbles)
We will stand tall (we will stand tall)
Face it all together

My behavior has attracted my lifemate's attention, but I'm not in the mood to answer whys from him right now. I've realized something in the wake of all my reminiscence, and it's left me on a warpath against these boxes.

Another box falls prey to me after the last, and I smile upon seeing Jinx's first doll. I'd forgotten I'd packed it, and had thought it lost. She likely doesn't remember it, but it'll be nice to see her smile when she sees it. At the worst, it's a new-old gift.

My children are part of what keeps me going, and living here in this feral jungle, where felines are so much more common.. It's made me realize something, especially over the last couple sevendays. High Reaches may have been where I was born; it may have even been where Llioramasith found me. But it is Southern that has claimed me. The thought of living anywhere else now is nearly impossible.

Th'seus, and my Lynx wingmates…all of them are irreplaceable. Flying together as a team, it's one of the best things in life to me. It makes me happy. That I'm Wingsecond is a point that matters just a little. It's the teamwork that I love, the trust we're building together. It makes me feel like it's all worth it, that no matter what we'll be able to keep going. We have each other to rely on, after all.

Let the sky fall (let the sky fall)
When it crumbles (when it crumbles)
We will stand tall (we will stand tall)
Face it all together
At skyfall

That's not to say there haven't been issues, and I'm forced to think over some of them when the next box falls prey to my hands. It's a box full of things from my Smithcraft days. We needed to work together then, too, but it was different. You didn't need to trust one another quite so much as you do as a dragonrider. It's a whole different sort of trust.

"Is it wrong that I like it?" I ask.

« No. »

Where you go I go
What you see I see
I know I'd never be me
Without the security
Of your loving arms
Keeping me from harm
Put your hand in my hand
And we'll stand

I smile at his answer. My ever faithful companion, I know that I would be half a person without Lli, and I stop working on the boxes to go to his side, caressing an eyeridge lovingly. He loves it when I do that, although he'd never actually admit that.

"We'll be ready." I say, thinking again about the menace that looms ever-closer.

« We already are. » He replies firmly, convinced of this, of the rightness of us being here to fight Thread in this time. « It will burn as we pass, and it will be glorious. »

I laugh, and sit by his side. "I think you've been talking to Dhioth too much." I tease. It's nice to know that they do talk, however, even if it is just to check on or give reports on the twins.

Let the sky fall (let the sky fall)
When it crumbles (when it crumbles)
We will stand tall (we will stand tall)
Face it all together

Jeriko and Jinx. I wonder about how they'll fare in this new time, about whether or not they'll hate me for bringing them to it. But I saw firsthand the devastation of just a part of the Comet. Whether it was right for them or not…I felt it was right. This time needed us more.

I just hope they'll be able to see it that way when they've grown. If they Impress…well perhaps if they Impress they'll curse me for it.

Let the sky fall (let the sky fall)
When it crumbles (when it crumbles)
We will stand tall (we will stand tall)
Face it all together
At skyfall

« We must be up in the morning. » Llioramasith reminds me after I've sat beside him for a while, watching the stars with idle abandon. « We must ride sweeps, and drills. »

I sigh at the reminder. "I know, but you can't blame me for wanting to linger." For wanting to make this moment last.

The warmth I feel from his mind is enough of an answer, and I smile. "Not tonight." Walking the place in his mind for us is a constant lure, but tonight it would be a mistake. Because he's right: there are drills in the morning, and wing details to work out with Th'seus about varying things.

For a moment, I regret that I'll be going to bed alone tonight. Perhaps V'dean… But no. That's a can of worms better left as a one-night-stand, surely.

I've long since stripped, and decide that it's not even worth the effort to bother re-dressing for bed. I set out clothes for the morrow, and put my boots, helmet, and riding leathers out as well.

Bed is a siren call, after all, and one that even I am hard pressed to resist, when it all comes down to it. Perhaps tomorrow night I'll have the energy to retrieve the twins. One night of staying with the nannies isn't going to hurt.

Let the sky fall
We will stand tall
At skyfall
Oh

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