Who

Rielle, Obhaeroth

What

Rielle attempts to figure out how to salvage a suddenly shaky friendship.

When

It is evening of the 10th day of the 3rd month of the 9th Turn of the 12th Pass.

Where

The Tether (Obhaeroth's Ledge), Southern Weyr

OOC Date 18 Oct 2016 06:00

 

Rielle23.jpg

Why should it shatter over this?



The Tether

Dark grey, talon-scarred stone soon gives way to smooth and level preceding a shallow granite overhang. Verdant vine-tendrils of myriad shades of green and brown cling to the walls that flank it, reaching down and in toward the outcrop-sheltered portal of Rielle's weyr, pointing the way to the obscured threshold of a hidden world. Beneath the overhang, a stone shelf protrudes, holding sealed earthen pots of oil and numbweed above a natural basin that collects - and gradually drains - rainwater filtered through the mottled stone.


The note is simple, innocuous, and to the point.

Myziri’s handwriting.

They’d discussed perhaps sending Zariel to her family’s cothold until the firehead threat has passed. The note lets her know that it’s arranged, if she wants to do it. While Rielle still thinks it’s a good idea…she’s simply not sure where she stands with the greenrider. What will she say, if she decides to go?

“Hello, I’m Rielle, and your sister is my friend but I think she might hate me at the moment. Would you mind looking out for my daughter for a spell?”

She says it aloud and scoffs at the sound of it, pacing the length of her ledge along Obhaeroth’s stretched-out frame.

The brown rumbles, eye slitting open to fix upon her with luminous amber regard reflecting his rider’s state. « I think you’re making things harder than they need to be. Just go talk to her! »

» She doesn’t want to talk. « Rielle brandishes the note irritably. » If she did, she’d come tell me about this herself, excited-like and eager. « Somehow, being able to say that - because she knows Myziri well enough to do so - just increases the brownrider’s frown, and she slaps the note back into its previously folded condition, jamming it into her pouch.

« Well…can you just stop thinking about it so much? Your head is full of it. » Obhaeroth rolls over and hooks his paw around Rielle, pinning her between it and his nose firmly enough to make her grunt and whuffling against her stomach. She laughs thickly, swallowing a frustrated lump in her throat and spreading her arms over his snout, shutting her eyes. « Think about Hrykeluth’s more. Or Zariel. That makes you happy. »

Rielle sits down in her lifemate’s hold and sighs, her breath hitching on the inhale. It’s not that she isn’t thinking about Zariel and R’ik at all; they’re always in her thoughts. But trying to figure out what’s going on with Myziri has been a bit of a constant the last few days.

It’s easy to do what Obhaeroth suggests, though.

Memory of hauling logs with Ulrik at the Ice Hold during Candidacy.

”Don’t…tell.”

”I won’t, but we need to get you out of here.”

How long ago it seems that the foundation of trust had been set with him. Back when they all wore white knots - Rielle, Myziri, Keelie, Ulrik, Sammael, and all the rest. So much push and pull, ebb and flow as they’d all figured each other out, formed their friendships and tensions.

She’d kept his secret and does to this day, along with others that run much deeper

Memory of her background freely shared for once in a budding friendship.

”…If someone were giving you grief over it, I’d punch ‘em for you.”

It was the first time Rielle had heard something like that from another woman on her behalf. From Myziri. She and Keelie were the first actual friends she’d allowed herself. The first she’d trusted enough to let near.

It wasn’t the first time Myziri would say similar things, either.

You are a good friend."

Five words cemented much. She’d even gone beyond that into saying she thought of Rielle like a sister…just making the aunt-like bond to Zariel all the more poignant.

Friends, sisters - both can fight and still be what they are, but…this feels different.

She’d known Myziri’s attraction to R’ik back when they were Candidates, but figured it would die away at some point. It was rather plain that he wasn’t available - to Rielle, at least. She’d thought it had gone away, all things considered. And she’d kept her own flickers of notice well tucked away, knowing full well the bronzerider was off limits. Life moved on.

Then Zariel had come along. Her unexpected daughter has brought out so much of the unexpected in Rielle herself. It shouldn’t have been surprising when Zariel pulled an unexpected protector into her orbit. What was surprising was the merging of Rielle’s path with R’ik’s, the shifting dynamic of their relationship…until, most unexpected of all, they became them.

All the while, she’d never thought it would even be an issue where Myziri was concerned.

Apparently…it is.

So now what?

How could she have known Myziri’s feelings? Would she have changed her tack if she had known?

She frowns swiftly, shaking her head. R’ik had never shown interest in turn, and Myziri hadn’t been showing signs of still bearing her own. Therefore, Rielle had no reason to deny her own feelings…and wouldn’t have even acted on them had R’ik not approached her, uncertain as she was.

Now, for life simply taking an unpredictable turn…one of her best friends is angry with her. Avoiding her.

Rielle is used to the sight and sound of colleagues turning away. This is much heavier than that.

It hurts.

She doesn’t know what’s going to happen, or if she should seek Myziri out. She wants to sort things out…but doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t have to apologize for her feelings any more than Myziri does. But if the greenrider’s run deeper than Rielle had ever known…might three Turns of friendship soon find itself shattered?

Why should it shatter over this?

Adrift in a completely unfamiliar situation, Rielle tries to reason through it and can’t. The only thing she knows for sure is that she hasn’t done anything wrong…and that she wants things with one of the women she’s trusted most to be made right again.

She’s just not going to compromise her newfound bond with R’ik in order to do so.

”This what we got here… It’s good."

Perhaps there simply can’t be a painless solution, no matter what comes.

It’s that realization that finally tugs the tears of frustration free to be absorbed in the warm brown hide that serves as her anchor through every storm she faces, no matter the size or nature. In Obhaeroth, she always finds the reassurance that all will eventually work out as it should.

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