[PRP] So Close (Niobet/V'riel)

[Samuel Carlin]

Though there were still riders enough to fly sweeps and all, there was no question that High Reaches had been rocked by a bad Fall. Niobet couldn't even remember stories of dragons dropping fom the skies in the numbers she had seen since, perhaps, First Fall. Maybe not even then.

She'd been thinking things over since, and more, waffling back and forth about ask a question of the leadership here that was bound to lift eyebrows and maybe twist some shorts uncomfortably. The question was whether the potention storm that came from asking was worth it in the end. She was neither healer-trained nor a dragonhealer, not any more than any rider was. Would she be overstepping? Did she care?

It had been some time since a thought had kept her from sleeping. She'd left her Weyr and wandered down to the living cavern for a late night cup of wine that she hoped would, at least, slow the spinning wheels in her mind. She'd claimed a seat at a table that would let her put her back against a wall, but hadn't dared to put her feet on the bench for fear of being chased off.

Legs stretched out beneath, she didn't een glnce up at who might be passing by. Footfalls were enough to spur her into asking, "Do you think it's really possible to wear out a mind by thinking too much?"

demon_pachabel

Late night deep thoughts with Niobet?

 

[demon_pachabel]

Raizunth was dead asleep on his ledge, but V'riel? He was wide awake in bed - which wasn't unusual. Sleep didn't come easily to V'riel on days where he and his dragon hadn't worked themselves to the bones and while drills and training and keeping up to snuff was always something...nothing was like Threadfall itself for bodying the man into slumber.

So it wasn't unusual for him to head out for a nightcap, the coming and going of the rider barely any disturbance to those who had weyrs near his anymore. He'd been in it for long enough that his neighbors were mostly familiar - the changes were usually heavy when they came, and he didn't like to think about it. The occasional co-wanderer in the night was never a surprise, though such exchanges were usually just tired nods in passing.

Niobet was a far more awake sort than he was used to seeing this late. "If it was possible, I'd say we'd have some sorts who were already out of one," he answered warmly, "you can definitely think yourself into a fever if you do it too much, though."

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

The question had honestly been more musing aloud. If she'd gotten a grunt back or an only partially intelligible answer, she wouldn't have been surprised. Not at this hour. No, a truly clear answer was unexpected and she looked up from her cup, surprised.

Then she shook her head at herself and her own reaction. "Sorry," she offered. "I don't think I was expecting an answer. Maybe that proves you're right." She lifted her cup like a toast to him. "Nicely done."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

V'riel laughed at the apology, lifting an imaginary cup of his own - given he hadn't actually gotten one yet, but still wanted to return the toasting gesture before he did. "Unexpected answers have a charm to them, though. Have a way of breaking up an endless downward thought spiral," he replied.

Then, he finally retrieved an actual cup of klah with which he again presented the return toast gesture.

"So," V'riel paused to take a small drink from the cup, "what are you doing up this late wearing your mind into the ground? A particular thought got the reigns?"

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

Well, if they were going to have a conversation...

Rather than return the toast again and begin a never-ending pattern of raised cups, she put a foot against the bench opposite her and nudged it out. Shoved, really, given the effort that went into moving the thing, but was anyone really judging? She hoped not. It was a gesture of invitation. An unspoken "have a seat".

"I was thinking," she confessed, "about that ugly Fall and what, if anything, we could have done differently. " She tapped a finger against her right temple. "The sense-making part of me remembers the wind and fading light and insists that if we were poorly trained, even fewer of us would have come back unscarred." Or worse. "And the woman who watched too many dragons drop out of the sky insists that there had to have been something we missed."

She exhaled a laugh and took a long sip from her own cup, then looked up at him again. " And around and around we go."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

V'riel took up the seat, understanding the gesture clear as day. He listened as Niobet aired her thoughts, idly sipping from his mug but watching her with enough focus to balance 'creepy, tired staring' and 'I am very interested' on the neatest of lines. Once she seemed to be finished with the thought, he set the mug down and steeped his fingers.

"It didn't feel like an ugly Fall to me," he confessed. "It felt normal and like what we prepared for," but V'riel had been soaked and saturated in pride for High Reaches. "If it is any comfort to the woman who watched too many dragons drop out of the sky - they are dragons who didn't instead jump Between with no hope of rescue, aid, or love to be had ever again," and perhaps that meant that rather than more injuries they had seen less deaths.

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

As she listened to V'riel's point of view, her expression cleared, a little. Some of the weight from her own thoughts eased away. Chasing the same ideas around in her own head really wasn't going to help anyone, she knew. She knew that, logically, but since when did logic matter when sleep wouldn't come?

"It is a comfort," she admitted. "And very true and worth a deep breath or a dozen. You're right. Burns and bones can still heal. Sense-making," she repeated with a nod. "Who couldn't use more help with that? Thank you."

She sipped, then folded her arms on the edge of the table and settled into a comfortable lean. . "So what is it that's got you up and about?"

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Sometimes the mind seizes a thought and needs to have it taken away like a canine with a stick they want you to throw but won't give you," V'riel mused before taking another drink from his klah.

He answered Niobet's question by holding up the cup in his hand. "Giving up on sleep, to an extent," he admitted. "No particular thought or worry, just that my mind hasn't hit that wall yet and didn't feel like staring at the ceiling anymore."

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

"I think that means you're calling me stubborn," she said mildly. Not a hint of real accusation in the words at all. "I might call it determined to find an answer or dedicated to discovering a solution, but." Her shoulders lifted slightly despite her lean. "Stubborn works just as well."

"Ah, yes," she agreed when he explained why he was awake. "The time-honored tradition of finding patterns in the stone ceiling of your weyr. Have you ever considered actually painting something up there? Or tacking a tapesty to it somehow. Better than counting rock freckles, I think."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Hardly. I'd compare it to having the same chord of music stuck in your head on repeat," V'riel made a face at this. While gathers and celebrations weren't entirely uncommon, they were spaced enough that not having the next note to hand off could keep some tune one had danced to trapped there for some time.

Or maybe it was just him.

"I doubt I could see either in the dark - I imagine that is why counting the cracks doesn't much work," it was a fun suggestion never the less. Just not a practical one on a few fronts. "If Raizunth wasn't sleeping I'd have dared a small trip out somewhere a little warmer to see if it would help."

Maybe another fur on the bed would have helped too. Hmmm.

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

"Oh no," Niobet answered, making a similar sort of face. "I can't stand when that happens. It's usually more than a chord with me, but yes. Over and over and over, the same bit until I wish I had a way to just pull the sound out of my head. You're right. That's exactly it," She paused, sipped, then asked, "How do you get the music unstuck?"

"Ah," she said then, nodding again. "You have a point." Or more than one, honestly. "I keep a glow basket tucked off to one side of the Weyr, so there's always a little light. Enough to see the cracks by, at least." If she was really unable to sleep and desperate enough to bore herself back to it. "Warm," she echoed, pulled back out of her thoughts. "I am a fan of warm. Where would you go?"

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Another long sip, V'riel shrugged. "Suffer until something new takes it's place," he confessed. Usually a hard day of work would do the trick, and there was a lot of work to be done at any Weyr. But it was always nice to know he wasn't the only one who had that problem.

"Not sure. Ista. Maybe Igen." Both were familiar enough as places he jumped to when it was too cold in High Reaches to properly wash a dragon Raizunth's size. The food was also a nice change from their usual fare. "There were some nice camping places out that way before Thread."

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

Niobet had lifted her mug in salute already tonight, and yet she did it again, saying, "To suffering the whims of an idle mind, then. May neither of us have to do it often." Had she just toasted them into overtaxed schedules? Only time would tell.

"Ohhh, Ista." Those words were spoken as a wish, for sure. "A sevenday on an Istan beach sounds perfect. I'd settle for three. Even two," she amended. I don't think they know how lucky they are to live where they do. I bet they take it for granted. What do we do today, friends? A few chores and then stroll on the beach with no hint of snow? How boring." She smiled into her mug before she drank again.

"I'm not complaining, though," she said when she'd swallowed with a quick glance skyward as though she wasn't quite speaking to V'riel for a moment,. "We're better off here and we're not going anywhere." Refocusing on him, she lowered her voice, and asked, "Did that sound like a complaint?"

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Once again, V'riel lifted his own in answer to Niobet's toast. "Hear, hear!"

"I'd not say no to having a proper beach here in High Reaches, outside of the," he gestured with the mug in the general direction of 'outside', "cold not making it any better to have one than we are without one." Who had heard of a snowy beach? "I do envy it when we are creeping into the heart of winter. Even if we have the luxury of making such visits to warmer places, rather than bathing a dragon Aedeth or Raizunth's size in our Weyrlake."

Just the thought left him feeling a chill.

"Hardly. I am a High Reaches man through and through and even I can appreciate the thought of a warm beach when what we have is snow."

Samuel Carlin