Who

Linny, G'tan, F'in

What

G'tan and F'in bring their findings from the cave to Linny.

When

It is night of the thirteenth day of the seventh month of the third turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Igen Weyr

OOC Date 11 Dec 2014 08:00

 

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Sands

The out-of-doors of Igen Weyr seems a blissful respite from the oppressive heat of this sandy colosseum. Heated from beneath by volcanic vents, the air above the hatching sands shimmers, lending a sort of unreal, dream-like quality to the area beyond even the magic that happens here at Impressions. Despite its blistering temperatures, the sands are incongruously soft, almost powdery, and flat save for the worn stone queen's bower that rises up to break the monotony and provide a place of respite for the doting mother-to-be.


Another hot day in Igen meant another boiling day on the Sands. Really, if Linny could be naked, she would be, but considering the verbal tongue-lashing she got from Sa’id about showing too much skin, she’s been (a little bit) better about just how revealing her dresses are. Pants are just not an option for Sands attire. Today’s hemline was better, longer, hanging down now as she has her legs tucked up underneath her as she sits at her makeshift desk, buried in hides, as per usual, despite the late hour. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Sofia is still missing, life goes on, and Holders don’t want to hear a weyrwoman crying about her daughter when they want to discuss tithes, and so, Linny’s had to put her big girl panties on and buck up. Thin straps and a slightly-lower-than-what’s-appropriate neckline ensure that she stays somewhat cool while sitting there all damn day long with her beloved Kaelidyth. Although, the fact that she’s drinking klah probably doesn’t help that ‘staying cool’ thing, but it does help with the ‘staying awake’ part.

With Vojeth and Sa’id not exactly predictable and reliable, Kaelidyth is also doing what is usual for her: watching over her fourteen (and that weird one, shh) eggs, but at least she’s looking somewhat calm and relaxed. If Vojeth was there, surely she would be sleeping, but as it is, she’s all curled up, dutifully watching over her latest clutch, all while keeping Linny company as she works late into the night.

As soon as Zinakoth and Rhakanth blink in from their sweep to the east, the older bronze is quick to send a polite announcement to Kaelidyth that his and Rhakanth’s are coming - polite, but energetic with anticipation, as the speed and warmth of mental desert winds would indicate. G’tan, sensing F’in’s eagerness (well, alright, it’s not so subdued as to be something sensed so much as blatantly observed), gestures for the younger rider to precede him onto the Sands, making sure to look up at the vigilant gold and giving a respectful inclination of his head as they make their way across to where Linny is.

Rhakanth’s fettle is less intent than his rider’s, the fathomless twists and turns of stony oblivion stretching to encompass all mysteries, should a Seeker wander long enough in search of wisdom. It is possible, if he knew how to look, that F’in could find the secret to Sofia’s whereabouts writ in the byzantine scrimshaw passages, the code of probability, possibility scribed in golden sandstone and tall, fragrant hawthorn hedges. Though the lure of the Labyrinth’s hidden secrets is powerful, F’in has learned that the wisdoms found there are seldom the one’s he’s sought and, in truth, he’d likely waste and die before he’d even traversed a quarter of the passages leading to the whereabouts of Linny’s baby, if such specific worldly information could even be divined.

Those ever-expanding corridors brush up against the borders of Kaelidyth’s garden, stone walls giving over into flowering hedges, thick with summer’s scent. F’in beams at the eggs, silent greetings for all of them and their protective mother, a quick dip of his head and a warm burst of thought for the broody gold before he’s pacing quickly to Linny. No running on the Sands!

He definitely doesn’t look like he’s bringing news of Sofia’s demise. But neither does he have the baby girl… so what’s up?

Instantly, Kaelidyth’s head snaps up upon hearing from Zinakoth, and despite that their arrival has been announced, the gold still stands and hovers over both her eggs and Linny, rumbling menacingly. It’s safe to say that both rider and dragon have both been set on edge with recent events, and until G’tan and F’in are in sight, Kaelidyth isn’t taking any chances with anything that is precious to her.

Their arrival means something, that much Linny knows. Surely, F’in and G’tan aren’t both deciding to visit her just for the hell of it. (And certainly not for any sort of bedroom fun with the three of them.) Hides are abandoned without a second thought as she stands, slipping her sandals back onto her feet as she starts wringing her hands out of nervous habit. What news will they be bringing her? It could go either way, and Linny’s not prepared for either one. Tears that have mixed emotions behind them are already in her eyes as she fixes them upon the entrance.

Once they enter, Kaelidyth relaxes visibly, her rumbling turning into something friendlier, especially for her ole pal F’in, before she returns to her previous positioning, leaving the riders to discuss whatever they came to with her beloved, though she remains a solid, present force for Linny to help her through what might come next. And Linny just stands there, frozen, worried yet hopeful eyes flickering between the pair of them, heart pounding within her chest, breathing shallow and quick, though her stomach plummets when she comes to realize that they don’t have Sofia with them. Bad news. It had to be bad news. And so, even as she stays right there in that spot, her hands go out towards F’in, eyes desperate, bracing herself for the news she has so feared hearing ever since Sofia’s kidnapping.

F’in catches Linny’s hands in his, squeezing hers firmly, “Linny,” his voice is tight, controlled, “We may have found something.” He fumbles at his pouch and brings out the glass container, “This may have come from some of the Swamp holds,” he tips it showing it to Linny. The container in and of itself isn’t much of a clue. F’in? Hmm? Oh. “Show her what we found it with!” He turns, still holding one of Linny’s hands, widening the space between he and the goldrider to include G’tan, “It’s clean and we think they might have… well, look! Is it… is it what we think it is?”

G’tan remains back a step and half or so as he observes F’in and Linny, curious at the familiarity but not one to pry. Well, not one to pry in such a moment, at least. This isn’t the time or place, nor really his business, and he’ll stick to that. He waits, nodding as F’in shares the speculation about the origin of the container and stepping forward when he’s finally invited in. The piece of baby clothing - onesie made of light green fabric, more apparent in this lighting - is held out for Linny, the bronzerider’s gaze both cautious and softened in concern. “It smells a bit like the salve in the container,” he notes. “Somethin’ I’m thinking is used for insect repellant, which is why we think it comes from the Swamps. Could be whoever’s responsible is from there, too.”

Linny’s mind races to keep pace with F’in and his words, but her heart pounding within her ears and racing adrenaline make it very hard for her to keep up with him. The jar is eyed, clueless as to how it could fit in with her missing daughter, and when F’in gestures towards him, dark eyes flicker over to G’tan. What he has gets a reaction. Her badly scarred left hand is removed from F’in’s grasp and brought up to cover her mouth, while her other hand tentatively reaches out to lightly brush fingertips over the fabric. Tears stream down her cheeks as she sobs silently, body shaking slightly as fingers wrap around the onesie, pulling it in towards her. Her left hand then drops to hold it gently, showing the sheer amount of tears falling. If they had any doubts about whether or not it belonged to Sofia, those doubts should be erased. Still, Linny looks as if she’s trying to calm herself, jaw clenching as she forces those tears to slow before saying in a tight, choked voice, “She was wearing this the morning she was taken.” Briefly, her eyes lift to dance between the two of them before they drops again to look at what she holds in her hands, thumbs rubbing the fabric lovingly.

F’in lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Let’s let the Weyrleader know.” He looks to Linny, “The guard have the rest of Sofia’s blanket, for their hounds. I think I’d like to take them to the caves. Can you arrange that?” Extra confirmation of the scent wouldn’t hurt. And maybe the dogs could pick up something more. Or give them a direction. Unlikely, if the kidnappers were days gone, but worth a try.

G’tan carefully closes half a step toward Linny as he watches her reaction to getting the onesie, a strange, remotely burning grip slowly tightening somewhere in the depths of his heart. As much as it might be better for his health, so to speak, to remain detached from situations like this and to focus on all things that simply make up his duty…that isn’t the sort of person he is. His younger self would have tried to do just that. The G’tan of the present - particularly after the past several months - can’t avoid caring. It’s as much a part of him as duty is. Maybe it is his duty. Whatever may be going on in his head and heart, he’ll at least do his best to let Linny know he is there for support - even if it’s silently, for the moment.

He brings his gaze up from the onesie in Linny’s hands to look at her face, seeming as though he’s about to ask a question…but then F’in puts one to her first, and G’tan waits. One thing at a time. It’ll be easier for now.

Linny's eyes stay focused downward on Sofia's little onesie until she realizes F'in is all business and G'tan is silent, and so she sucks in a large breath and stands up straight, chin in the air. "Yes, I can do that," she replies in a quieter tone, though her face remains wet with unwiped tears, the very tip of her nose rosey, eyes red from crying. Her voice and the brave air around her not at all matching what's on her face, pain and heartache clearly shown in the depths of her eyes. "Are you going to need this?" Linny asks of F'in, holding out the onesie for him to take. "Either for F'dan or the guards." Though the guards would likely have more use for the pajamas than the Weyrleader. Eyes shift over to G'tan, "Or would you rather if I spoke to F'dan about this?"

F’in looks from the Weyrwoman to the Whirlwind rider and back, light colored eyes noting the man’s concern and Linny’s disarray. He lifts a hand to brush Linny’s cheek with knuckles, “Maybe there are sunrises you can rush, eh?” Not really. You can’t rush a sunrise. But hope for a brighter day makes the waiting more tolerable. “Yeah,” he holds out a hand for the garment, “We’ll make sure the guards get this.” Or F’dan. “Hold to hope, Linny.” He looks to G’tan belatedly, “Uh, or,” eyes drop to the floor and lift back, “What do you think?”

Hope. Sometimes it seems a rarity at Igen, which makes it all the more valuable when reasons for it rear up. G’tan is someone who is always on the lookout for it and doesn’t hesitate to point it out when possible, and this is one of those times. Therefore, he ends up nodding again at F’in’s words, adding, “Now we’ve got somethin’, it’s definitely reason to hope. Might learn more from these two things than you think.”

At F’in’s prompting, the thoughts that have been forming and setting themselves in line since they returned finally find voice. “If you talk to F’dan, Linny, we can keep on workin’ in the meantime. Take advantage of the momentum. Sendin’ that to the guards’ll help, but I’m thinkin’ they’ll grumble a bit. Just a feelin’. But we’re not due for Thread for a bit, so I’m willin’ to look into stuff between my duties. I’m wonderin’ if you have a roster of all the workers in the creche since a few month before Sofia was taken. Nannies and assistants, who hired ‘em, where they’re from. Should be clear pretty quickly who’s missing now that way.” Then he makes a bit of a face. “Unless whoever it was just managed to sneak in and out. But I’m hopin’ those in charge weren’t that careless.”

When F'in takes something he said to her in the very beginning of their relationship and twists it for this situation, it only deepens and intensifies the pain she's already feeling, but instead of saying anything, Linny simply gives him a tight nod of her head. It's easy to have hope when it's not your child out there with Faranth only knows who. Maybe alive, maybe dead, maybe sick. Hope is a distant memory for Linny at this point. Every day Sofia is missing, it cements more and more inside her that she will never see her beautiful daughter again. Numb, eyes look to G'tan as he speaks, getting a few more bobs of her head. "I'll go talk to him." The Weyrleader keeps late hours like she does, so she's likely to still catch him awake to inform him of this development. As for the rest of it, "I don't have a list, but I can get one." Projects such as that keep Linny sane at this point, along with her weyrwomanly duties. Staying busy keeps her mind off of other things, except at night. Night was always the worst time. The loneliest. Which is why she stays up working until passing out from sheer exhaustion, if she sleeps at all. Dark eyes flick between the two bronzeriders once more. "Anything else you need from me?"

F’in blinks at G’tan’s suggestion, chin dipping in disbelief, “No one’s done that?” Surely the guards had done that. Surely? He nods at G’tan’s mention of the lapse in Falls for a precious several days in a row.

Hope.

Hope is not easy. Hope is the hardest thing because it makes you endure the hardships. Look at horror head-on and stand in its face. Hope makes you vulnerable. To pain. To fear. It is not an easy thing that F’in suggests and he knows it. But pain and fear are better than living death. Though… there’s no way she’s truly given up hope. No mother could, really. The thread buried deep under exhaustion, loneliness and worry. Having hope doesn’t mean that she can’t feel bleak.

“Grumble?” F’in’s brow furrows, “Why would they do that? I’ll talk to Terrian.” Terrian won’t grumble. “I’ll take this right over. Is Sa’id due in…” F’in looks around the cavern, “Tonight?”

Somone may have done something similar already, though a second pair of eyes and ears (and an extra brain) never hurts. Something like that being overlooked under such tense circumstances would be unheard of, either. And while the guard might have done so…having a bronzerider look as well might add an extra air of urgency to the entire process as well.

F’in’s question earns a nod from G’tan. “There’s not that many of ‘em, and they’ve got their hands full dealin’ with all the shardin’ chaos in the Bazaar. Or keepin’ the chaos just simmering beneath the surface without exploding. They’ve gotta be feelin’ the pressure from the blight, too. Fine line to walk, having ‘em on top of all the important stuff and not stretching ‘em too thin.” Though if F’in knows a guard who won’t grumble, fantastic.

"You can talk to Zadreim, too. He…" But how to describe to these two men the twisted, complicated goings-on between the guard and the goldrider that sometimes even she doesn't understand. Linny opts to go the safe route instead, "He'll help." Which he will. Sofia had made quite the impression on him, and having a daughter himself, the situation hits close to home.

For F'in, all Linny has is a one-shouldered shrug and a frown. "Probably not, but Kaelidyth will understand that I have to go and talk to F'dan." Her lifemate has been a solid and grounding rock for the woman through all of this, and the gold isn't about to go back on that support with her eggs now on the Sands.

Eyes glance back and forth again before, "If that's all you need from me, I should go and talk to F'dan now." Hands reach up to scrub at her face, ensuring no remaining tears and trying to get some color back into her skin, to make herself look better than how she feels. It's a battle she's badly losing.

The young bronzerider is unaccustomed and, frankly, rather offput by the status that circumstance has brought him. A man or woman was a man or woman. Or so he liked to believe. Standing, well-fed inasmuch as anyone is, discussing how to align the Weyr’s forces to find one baby. It would boggle him, were he to think much on it.

“I’ve got hidework myself, Khamsin’s last AAR.” His brow furrows, “My last AAR with Khamsin,” he corrects, with a tight smile at G’tan, “Mind if I bring it down here later? Quiet up on my ledge.” F’in’s never been one to mind solitude. Or quiet. He looks down at the little garment in his hands, “I’ll get this over to Terrian,” a look to Linny, “Or Zadreim.” He looks to Linny, the ranking person here, expectant. Weyrling training overriding his normal demeanor in strange moments.

G’tan gives a nod to Linny, then glances over at F’in and returns that tight smile with a small one of his own. “Mind if I tag along when you go?” he asks the younger man. “About time I met some of the guard face to face myself.” Stepping back slightly, he looks to Linny again. “We’ll leave you to it, Linny. Just holler if you need us.” Which would really more entail Kaelidyth hollering at Zinakoth or Rhakanth, of course, but. Details. Blue eyes flick between the goldrider and his newest wingmate as he turns his stance, preparing to escape the heat of the Sands as soon as they’re given leave.

Linny may be the ranking one between the three of them, but as someone who has never given two shits about what her rank means, it leaves her as something simpler and much more humble. Not a weyrwoman, not a goldrider, not even just a rider. She's simply a mother desperately looking for her daughter. A mother who is left alone to face this tragedy without someone by her side to consistently support her. Other than Kaelidyth, of course. (But as someone living in her head, does she really count?)

"Yeah, that's fine. I'll have Kaelidyth let Rhakanth know when I'm back. Shouldn't be too long." Although F'dan likes to be kept abreast (haha) of the hunt for Sofia, he obviously doesn't have the emotional response Linny does, and therefore, it's just her reporting the findings to him and nothing more.

With her thoughts already elsewhere, perhaps giving Kadanth the heads-up that she will soon be dropping in, both F'in and G'tan get an absent-minded nod from her before she's heading off of the Sands. It's a relief and comforting to know that, at least for a little bit, they will be behind her to watch over her as she heads towards F'dan's weyr, silently supporting her in a way, before they all go their separate directions. Linny needs as many people in her corner as she can get right now, if only to help her feel not so utterly abandoned.

F’in watches Linny go a stitch of worry knitting his brow and then holds the onesie up, “All right, let’s see if we can find some non-grumbly guards.” Stretched thin or not. F’in turns to trot towards the dragons, falling in with G’tan when the man is alongside, “Terrian traveled with my caravan for a while and he works with canines.” At least, one canine in particular. “Hopefully he can make something of this.” He looks off at the direction Linny’d disappeared and his oft smiling face is solemn, “I can’t even imagine.” He can’t. He didn’t have any children of his own, but it’s not hard to extrapolate. And then multiply. He gives himself a shake and turns attention back to G’tan.

“Me either,” G’tan murmurs, looking after Linny as well and then lengthening his stride to carry them out of the sweltering cavern just a little more quickly. “We’ll do our best. So this Terrian’s a good one, aye?” Thus does the older bronzer leave the younger to educate him a bit, more than willing to put in some more work on the matter before the day is through. The more hands on deck, the better.

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