ANGSTANGSTANGSTANGST (Reky)

[Lesa]

He had done it. If it had been any other Candidate than Bambi, he probably couldn't have managed. But he had brought a second Candidate in today, to make up for "losing" his first. He'd gotten Bambi settled in well enough, and Chalchiuith had retreated to their weyr, lettting him get the comfort where he needed.

Because K'nan knew what he needed. What he needed couldn't be found in a bottle, or any of the women (and few men) willing to become his weyrmate, should he just ask. No. What he needed was Avine. What he needed was his big sister.

More specifically, he needed a hug from his big sister.

K'nan stood in front of Avine's weyr-door awkwardly. What if she wasn't in? What if she was too - but she said she would never be too - but what if she was this time? Too busy to see him? The blond felt Chalchiuith in his mind, ruthlessly tearing that thought to shreds and shoving it away, shoving him forward until his fist rested on the wood of the door, fisti hitting once. A knock.

No turning back now, he had knocked. So K'nan screwed up his courage (and held back his tears again), knocking for a second time. He called out, working to keep his throat open enough to speak, and clear enough so that no one passing would detect the tears trying to clog it, "Avine? It's K'nan... can I... do you..." he took a breath, barely, the exhale sounding strangled, "might I come in? I - I need to talk to you." That would have to do. He only hoped she was in her weyr, not elsewhere... otherwise he didn't know what he would do.[/size]

[Reky]

Sereldeth was sleeping. She was sleeping a lot lately, really, but that was good, considering how gravid the gold was getting. In her past clutchings, she'd never been this big this early on. Avine knew it meant a lot of eggs, which meant they needed a lot of candidates, which they didn't exactly have right now. Ideally, they'd have at least sixty of them. That was her dream. Faranth, if she had to, she'd drag people to the sands from the weyrhold while the hatching was going on. Anything to have all the dragonets Impress.

That was still a fair ways off, though.

For once, Avine was not busy. There weren't any hides strewn about her desk waiting to be read, there wasn't any charcoal being used to write. Instead, the usual mess was piled up in a neat stack, and her desk chair was tucked in and she was sitting on her bed. Just... just sitting. Her knees were hugged up to her chest, her hair was sticking up in weird places, her eyes were dark-ringed, and she was just sitting. Well, of course, as always, her mind was going on and on, making mental lists of things she needed to do later (some things being very much later, like appointing a weyrlingmaster or somehow getting together a graduation feast), but mostly, she was just sitting.

So, when the knock came, it immediately had her full attention. The shaky voice that followed was immediately recognized - she knew it was K'nan before he even said he was K'nan. He didn't even need to ask to come in. He was the one person who could waltz into her room without permission and not get swallowed by Sereldeth. Still, though, his manners were ignored in favor of focusing on the distress in his voice. Avine got up and opened the door right away.

"K'nan?" she said, looking him up and down. He looked terrible. "Shards, K'nan, what happened?" The 'big sister's worried' face was showing. "Come on, get in here." She moved away so he could enter, and watched him carefully. She always hated to see K'nan upset. She hated to see anyone upset, really, but it was worse when it was K'nan. She crawled back onto her bed and sat cross-legged, waiting for the poor greenrider to join her there.

"Are you alright? No, wait, that's a stupid question. You're not."

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[Lesa]

He tamped down on the instinctual whimper that rose in his throat at her voice. She was in! K’nan met her eyes only for a moment before tearing his away – he just wanted to sink into her dark eyes and sob his pain away. But he couldn’t. Not if he didn’t at least tell her why, first.
The one word he spoke hung in the air as she ushered him in and crawled back to her bed. It was a prayer, a promise, a hopeless longing that she help him, that she ease his pain as siblings only could.

“Vi,” it was a ragged sound, hoarse and horrible. He moved towards her bed and onto it, not with his normal looseboned grace, ready to help her with records or logistics or whatever she was working on. No, his movements now were the scrabbling, short, desperate movements of a herdbeast cornered by a dragon – the movements of someone trying to escape their fate, but knowing they cannot. He curled up on the end of the bed, near, but not too near, Avine. Instead of his languid feline movements and positioning, he was jerky and self-defensive: curling himself up like a trundlebug under attack, knees hugged to his chest, cheek resting on top to stare at Sereldeth.

He couldn’t look at Avine. If he did now… he would never get the words out. Chalchiuith pushed a wave of calming affection to him and began her slow descent from their weyr: she would rest herself in one of the nearby weyrs, so as to be closer, but not so close as to potentially upset Sereldeth. K’nan forcefully pulled himself together, grinding the words out. “Weyrwoman, I am happy to announce that I found another Candidate today, male. His name is Mad – his name is Bambi,” a deep breath, a hitching sigh, “his name is Bambi.” His voice was toneless, the bare recitation of fact, except for that one stumble. Chalchiuith mentally nuzzled him, and the man lost it.

The sound that tore from his throat was muffled as he turned his head to bite down on his shoulder, the keen – an angry, sorrowing sound better expected out of Chalchiuith’s throat – rolling out, despite the layers of fabric and flesh. He released his shoulder and spoke again, still staring at Sereldeth. There was no bleeding, this time: he would, however, have quite a bruise. “Vi… I lost one. I lost a Candidate. Cha-Chal and I were flying on rescue and potential Search, ready to help as needed. Th-then Chal heard this – this voice. This – this boy’s voice, when we were over the green-line on Southern. Wanted to know who we were. S-Said his name was M-Maddox.” A wry tone entered his voice for a moment, “Cheeky; wanted to know what took us so long to find him!” Then the tone was gone, and he was back to his near-toneless recitation, “Chal hadn’t even been talking to him. She’d been talking to me, me, Vi! He could hear her anyway! He had been hearing all of us as we went on patrol.” Emotion built in his voice as he talked and his grip on his calves became tighter and tighter, short nails pressing deep.

“We tried to get to him as fast as we could – but his visualization wasn’t good, never been airborne before... Chal couldn’t pinpoint him. That – that was when his un-uncle attacked him! His uncle drowned him because the fool of a shaffing man thought Maddox had VT! He didn’t have VT, he was listening to us! To the other dragons, and then to us, to Chal as we worked our way to him. D’you know what he said to us?” The words were slurred with tears and hysteria, his drudge-accent coming back out as his emotions rose, taking away his normal more cultured words.

“He says, he says, ‘I’m sorreh.’ I’m sorreh! Nawt ‘halp me’, naw, nawt afta a bit. Jus’ ‘I’m sorreh.’ I’m sorreh I can’t save meself, I’m sorreh I’m not strong enuff, I’m sorreh I cain’t Impress. I’m sorreh!” The hysteria overrode everything for a moment as K’nan screamed the words, then began again, softer, cultured phrasing back.

“I – I tried to rescue breath him once we got there. Nothing. He had a pulse, but… nothing. No eyelid flicker, no change in breathing… nothing. Just his heart still beating. His uncle,” K’nan laughed, a hoarse bark that could barely be called a laugh, it was so full of self-loathing, “His uncle tried to kill me. Said I was infected now, and was going to kill the whole Weyr. Never been so glad to hit a man in my life. Only Chal kept me from killing him. M-Maddox wouldn’t have w-wanted that, she said.” His lips twisted as he turned his head towards Avine, still not looking at her, instead staring at the furs covering her bed. His left hand reached out to stroke the supple fur like he had stroked Maddox’s hair. Three bloody crescents were in the flesh of his right calf from those fingers he still had – he didn’t notice. Voice soft, he continued again.

“Chal and I – we took Maddox flying. He’d said he always wanted to fly. So we took him flying. We – we were just about over Southern Weyr when – when he stopped breathing. No pulse. Chal and I took him between – gave him a proper send-off.” K’nan finally looked at Avine, just before letting himself fall over and sob. Heart-rending, gasping-for-air sob.

”I killed him, Vi. We killed him, Chal and I – if we hadn’t talked to him, if we had just gotten to him, he wouldn’t have died. There – there would be another Candidate, and, and a dragonet wouldn’t between. I killed him… I’m so sorry, Vi, I’m so, so, sorry.”[/size]

[Reky]

She didn't know what to expect. It was hard, when someone was that upset, to take guesses at the underlying reason. Back when Ending Fall had happened, obviously it was easy to tell why anyone was freaking out, but that was a Turn behind them. Something like that couldn't have gotten K'nan so upset. It had to be something else. All she could do was wait, though, until the greenrider came out with it. When he did, all of her attention was on him. Her worried gaze, her attentive listening, her heart - all of it.

It tore at her. It really did. The story was heart-wrenching on its own, but it was more K'nan's voice that shook her up. It was pitiful. This was really killing him. It was so obvious, and it was hurting her, too. She could barely stand it, but she let him go on. Sereldeth stirred, woken not only by the noise but mostly by the feeling welling up within her rider. A single eye opened a slim crack. She was silent as always, though, simply acknowledging K'nan's presence and letting it pass over. She didn't mind. Hers liked K'nan. K'nan liked Hers. She couldn't say the same about his green, but he was alright. She was far too tired to do anything about it anyways. She shifted a little and went back to sleep.

Then, K'nan was done, apologizing like crazy while Avine simply looked upon him softly in sympathy. She chewed at her lip.

"Stop apologizing," she said firmly. "You don't need to apologize for anything. You didn't kill anyone, K'nan. It's not your fault..." Gently, she leaned down over him, stroking his hair, wanting nothing more than to gather him up in her arms and wave her magic big-sister wand and make everything all better - except she couldn't. She couldn't do anything but tell him it was alright. She wasn't a necromancer - she couldn't raise this boy from the dead. No one could. It was done now. It was over with. That was that, and she couldn't stand it.

"C'mere, look at me," she said quietly. "You didn't do anything wrong. You did what you could, alright? You did your best." Then, she got her arms around him and pulled him up from where he was laying, hugging him like she meant it. Which she did.

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[Lesa]

K'nan gave one last hitching, whimpering cry and then quieted. Yes, his frame was racked by shudders and tremors still, but it was noiseless. Gray eyes looked into dark pleading. Pleading for understanding, pleading for help, pleading for her to take away the pain. She had already started, reminding him of what Chal had already said: it was not their faults. They had done, he had done, everything that could be done.

Still, it hurt. It hurt worse than a lot of things, the beatings at the hands of his fellow drudges when young had hurt physically, as had Threadscores as he got older, even the emotional scarring of his mother hurt little compared to this: this hurt his very soul. He knew, intellectually, that there wasn't anything to be done. Didn't make it any better. Didn't make it hurt less.

He fell into her hug, clinging to his "sister" like a lifeline. She was his lifeline - the one woman he would give his life for (as he couldn't say that about Chal, for she was his everything, and to give his life for her would cause her to die as well). Blond hair mixed with brunette as his head burrowed into the curve of her neck. He was still shaking and shuddering, but near all cried out, except for the sparse tears that fell onto her neck, making his eyes burn.

K'nan pressed a chaste, thankful kiss on the skin next to her right collarbone. He still couldn't speak. That touch would have to do, as would his arms wrapped around her, legs entangled in her own. It was such an lover's pose - but there was nothing lover-like about it. Love, yes; that of siblings.[/size]

[Reky]

All she could do was hold him. She wanted, so much, to be able to do more, but there wasn't more to do. She hoped that what she felt - intense sympathy and love - was radiating from her in a way that he'd be able to feel. It would be hard for him to get over. She knew that. She'd always be there to help, though, when the sad memory resurfaced, which it undoubtedly would. She'd do everything she could, even if it wasn't much.

As she held her 'brother,' her mind started to wander. First, to all the duties she had to take care of in the future. A letter should be arriving by firelizard any day now, from one of the newer refugee holds that she hoped would agree to tithe to the Weyr. She had also sent an inquiry to a few other holds on the subject of herdbeasts, seeing as the Weyr would need a large herd to sustain all of Sereldeth's future offspring. She started to feel bad, though, thinking about work at a time like this. It felt disrespectful to K'nan. It was always where her head was, though, and that was what was constantly stressing her. She sighed and pushed it off.

If anyone were to walk in on them, they'd probably assume the wrong things about their relationship. Avine was oddly aware of how entwined she and K'nan were. While she loved him, she felt nothing romantic for him. This was normal and fine for them. A brief, flickering thought did have her feeling a sense of longing, though. Maybe life would be easier if she had someone to entwine with like this in a romantic way. Someone to cuddle and kiss and feel for. She didn't have anyone like that. She never had. She'd failed to click with any of the riders of the bronzes that caught Sereldeth before. Maybe she was too picky?

Oh well. It wasn't important. She still had a person to confide in and love. That person was shaken and in her arms right now. The gentle kiss of gratitude brought her back to the real world, and she gently ruffled his blonde hair.

"You gonna survive?" she asked, a touch of a laugh to her voice. She smiled sadly at him, hoping to grow some good spirits within him.

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