Who

Tahi

What

Tahi's thoughts of identity aren't really any clearer than they were ten turns ago.

Messy in-hospital writing, just poking disjointedly around a character's head.

When

Around Tahi's turnday; end of month 6, beginning of month 7, twelfth turn of the 12th Pass

Where

Igen Coverage Area

OOC Date 22 Nov 2017 05:00

 

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Thirty-two, but barely; there is a life out there that Tahira might have had, but Tahi has never reached. There's a life that Tahi still wants, but she can't put her fingertip on. She reaches for it but she just can't get it.

Thirty-two, and she still lives with her brother. Her work life is still her art in a way: her wing lets her do what she's good at, lets her sketch and draw to find things and Fight Crime — also something Golgrainth loves — when she isn't Fighting Thread, but.

Her work life is her life, and her art is her life, but her life isn't exactly her own. Nearly ten turns and Tahi's life is her dragon's.

« You love me, » Golgrainth always insists, « you love me and so it's okay that you do what matters to me. »

I do what matters to you, but do I do what matters to me?

« It's about the same thing, isn't it? »

Sometimes. Sometimes, and Tahi knows that also, sometimes, it isn't. But she also knows that Golgrainth wants her to have as much of what she always wanted as she can get her paws on. Golgrainth knows Tahi wants a family,a nd so Golgrainth rises and angles to be caught by those who can give it to her. Golgrainth rises when Tahi is fertile. But it never takes; if she could have gotten pregnant, she never lets it happen.

That isn't how she wants a family.

A baby born of a dragon's lust is not a family.

« It could be. »

It's not.

She might be a dragonrider, and she might have spent most of the last ten turns having trouble remembering how to be anything but, only being the Holder girl she once was in private moments and with old friends … and being a sister to N'zi and to Diya, helping with their lives and being proud of their triumphs and keeping N'zi's weyr a little bit less of a disaster … but she doesn't want that kind of family. Not a Weyr kind of family where no one lives together and babies are born because of dragons.

Tahi always wanted love, even though she never knew how to find it. She wanted romance-novel love, even if it wasn't the sort that was going around the lower caverns right about then (even if she had read now-visiting Rhiscorath's current favorite); she wanted Harper story love, and if she didn't have that, she at least wanted a traditional family.

She would have been happy with an arranged marriage.

With a husband who was loyal to her, even if he didn't really love her as deeply as all that.

With children and with the family hold in her name, or her husband's; but now the family hold would be none of theirs, all three with dragons. It went to some cousin. And it wasn't that Tahi wasn't happy; she was, she was happy being Golgrainth's, and being Parhelion. It's just that a lot of the time she didn't know who she was.

For a little while, there, she had. Becoming Parhelion's artist, instead of just a rider in Hogback, instead of just a rider in Arroyo; that had been something. That was the only something, for so long; using her talents as well as Golgrainth's, and using them in a way her dragon enjoyed as much as she did. And for a little while there had also been love.

On and off, with someone who wasn't childhood crush Jeroun, but it was because of him. She fell in with one of Kurkar's guards; she thought they were close. She thought they were a them, a functional unit, and maybe it wasn't a Harper story and it certainly wasn't going to end in marriage, but he made her feel like she mattered —

— until one day shortly after thirty-one, and she found out that she didn't matter quite enough.

Or rather, she mattered as much as he was capable of letting her matter. It turned out he wanted her because she was a dragonrider; because she had a green dragon, and that meant that he could have whoever he wanted on the side, because she had people on the side.

Not that she wanted to.

« He doesn't deserve you anyway, » Golgrainth rallies, when Tahi remembers. When Tahi lets herself remember, or lets Golgrainth remember. « He doesn't deserve US. He can't use me like that to hurt you. It's good he's gone. You'll find someone better, or I will. »

You'll find someone better for you, or for me?

« Maybe I'll find someone better whose rider is better for you. »

Tahi can't help but find that funny. Golgrainth's never even been caught by the same dragon twice; not in nine turns of rising two to four times a turn. She's not steady or predictable in her flights, she's not steady or predictable in her choices. It's something Tahi is long used to.

She doesn't have romantic love, or the family she always thought she'd have. She doesn't have the family she dreams of. But she does have the love that matters most, and she does have the life she belongs in.

Maybe that's all she's ever going to be: a Parhelion wingrider, Golgrainth's.

Maybe that's all she needs to be.

Maybe it's enough.

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