All Lies and Jests (Zeppy)

[Cathaline]

It was unpleasant business, always, the question of weyrlings breaking rules that could put their dragonets in danger. Not truly surprising - everyone thought they knew best at that age and virtually none of them could even comprehend what a loss like this would mean for them and their future - but unpleasant nevertheless. Delilah took it all the more seriously because of what Sebolaren had gone through, and as soon as K'var told her about the discussion he'd had with K'ius and Al'dr, she let F'dren know what was going on and that she'd be handling it. She didn't know which of them K'ius would respond to more on a personal level, since neither had had much of a chance to build a relationship. But she did know which of them had more personal experience with this, and that would be her.

Darling,[/i] she said, when she knew chores were done for the day.

Shobhaith! My Delilah and I are going to come and visit and talk to your K'ius,[/i] the pink said, ever so sweetly. It was not really a request; they couldn't turn their Weyrlingmaster away, after all. But Delilah did wait for the response before she scrambled onto Agnith's back and took off for K'ius's weyr.

"Nice to see you," she said when she slid off the pink's back; Agnith immediately went to nose at Shobhaith, humming a little. "How are you feeling, K'ius?"

[Zephyr]

Shobhaith went rigid when he got Agnith’s summons. He glanced over. K’ius was laying out flat in bed, in that post chores stupor that he usually fell into each day. He probably wouldn’t move for the rest of the evening unless he got hungry or decided to visit Al’dr…and that wasn’t an option right now. He knew Kai wouldn’t like this, not one bit. But they couldn’t very well say no to a weyrlingmaster. Sho was afraid that Kai would just leave. So the purple threw caution to the wind and replied back to Agnith. Of course, dear Agnith. We’ll be waiting.

His words were without their usual flirtaciousness when he spoke to female dragons when he turned to Kai, eyeing the backside of his boy critically. Agnith and her’s are coming to see us. You might want to look presentable. Kai groaned unintelligablly, shifting. The fair of flits perched on his back stirred slightly, but Kai didn’t get up, so they just settled back down. Sho shuffled further into the room, sticking his tail out to whip it gently across the boy’s back, scattering firelizards and Jax alike. K’ius yowled like a disgruntled cat and sat stock straight up in bed, whirling to face the amused purple. “What’s your deal?” His response was very calm for how amused he was. I told you our weyrlingmasters were coming to see you. They will not find you still in bed.

“You’re not my mother.” The boy growled, and Sho could still see he was very upset about what happened with K’var and Al’dr. There was only so much apologizing he could do, and if he was still secretly very hurt about the whole thing, he was nothing if not good at pretending he wasn’t. And thank Faranth for that. Now get your lazy butt out of bed before I do it again. K’ius was grumbling up a storm, cursing Shobhaith under his breath…but at least he listened this time.

By the time Delilah arrived, K’ius was dressed and didn’t look like he’d just rolled out of bed, thanks to Sho. The purple was on the left side of his ledge, giving the pink enough room to land. He nuzzled her lightly when she came over, mindful of how very much larger than she he was. Kai, on the other hand, didn’t look as pleased with the pair’s visit. “Hi.” He said in a very soft voice when she greeted him. He glanced nervously to the dragons, but Sho was more interested in Agnith than he was his bonded. Kai glared slightly at the purple, before turning back to Delilah. “I’m fine.” Meaning he really wasn’t, but who actually wanted to know every little detail of his life. “You?” Turning the subject to her was a defense mechanism at it
s finest.

Maybe she’d forget why she came.

[Cathaline]

"I could be better," Delilah said with a light shrug. Becoming a weyrlingmaster again was not something she'd expected, and her life was complicated enough right now...but she'd agreed to it, and truth be told, she enjoyed the work. It wasn't a passion the way healing was, but she enjoyed working with weyrlings. Agnith enjoyed it more, and seeing her happy was worth every minute of effort she put into the job. Inclining her head to the table and chairs, she said, "Shall we sit?"

Once she'd taken her seat, she crossed her legs and studied the boy. Hard to tell just how deep his feelings ran, but she could well imagine it.

"I'm going to level with you," she said at last. "I was not the best weyrling in the world. I was just lucky enough to get away with it. When I look back on the things my friends and I got up to, the danger we put our dragons in, I'm rather appalled. But I was younger once, I was so certain Agnith could take it and that nothing bad could ever happen. Nothing did - nothing permanent, anyway. Not to me. Not to most of my friends. If we hadn't been part of such an enormous class, there's no way we could have run wild the way we did, going places we technically shouldn't have been with no supervision. So anything I say to you, understand, doesn't come from a place of superiority or self-righteousness - good Faranth, it couldn't possibly, I was probably even worse than you've been. I know what weyrlinghood is like. It's exhausting and demanding and in many ways punishing, and it seems to go on forever, and they treat you like a child right up until the second they pronounce you graduated."

Delilah sighed, and toyed with a strand of blonde hair. "My weyrmate is dragonless," she said after a long moment. "Did you know that? I say is, even though he Impressed a wher some time ago, because though he may be a handler now, he is also dragonless and always will be. He decided to prioritise his Craft and his friends above his dragon. A runner was having a difficult birth, he was asked to attend, he did, though it was past curfew and he shouldn't have been there. His bored dragon, feeling neglected, wandered off and was murdered. We'll never know what by - probably a wild wher, might have been a large fish. He was a very small dragonet at the time. And he never got any older, and I've been in love with half a person ever since. It's better now, but it will never be the same as it was when we were kids, bright-eyed and idealistic and so sharding sure of ourselves. And that's why we have to be so careful, you see - to the point of suffocation. Most dragons will be fine, but you can never know which dragons won't be, and prioritising anything over a dragonet, whether it's friendship or romance or outside work or family, is devastating. So I suppose what I'm asking you, quite seriously, is this: do you want Al'dr as your friend or weyrmate or in-between as he is now, but in eighteen months...or would you rather have him now and risk ending up with an empty shell on your hands in that same time period, and knowing it's your fault, and living with the guilt and the burden for the rest of your life? Because that's the worst case scenario. It is not an idle threat, it is a scenario, and if you would risk that, if you're honestly willing to risk a dragon's life and a person's soul on this relationship, then you do not deserve him and you do not deserve to be called a wingrider. It's that simple and I say it from the depths of my heart."

[Zephyr]

The purple weyrling knew why Delilah was here, but he’d expected some more idle chat before she jumped right into her lecture. As soon as she started, Kai lowered his gaze, looking more at the table than he was her. He was like an unruly child who’d just been scolded. He did not like this. But he was silent, and he let her talk. K’ius could have an explosive temper, but right now he was just indignant. She was trying to relate to him, but he wasn’t sure if anyone could…least of all a weyrlingmaster. Still, he let her talk, glancing up when she mentioned Sebolaren.

He’d heard of the guy. Never actually met him though. Aaylii gave a squeak and settled on Kai’s left shoulder, curling her baby tail in around Kai’s neck and glaring woefully at Delilah as Kai studied the woman.

When she was done, he’d had his gaze lowered again. Eponine had settled on the table in front of him, and he was stroking her head. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking until he finally spoke, his voice deceptively low, the growl just barely perceptible. “You all act like it’s so sharding easy.” He swept Pony off the table. The cyan flit gave a squeak and betweened. Kai was left staring at the table again, curling his fists into balls that left his knuckles white. “You think it’s just hormones and teenage fancy talking. Like all I want is to sleep with him.”

He fell silent again, flexing his fists, still not looking at Delilah. “ I love him.” He’d heard people say that you don’t know love as a teenager…but the thought of being without him drove K’ius to distraction. “It’s not just lust or whatever you’re thinking. It’s love.” He finally looks at her, his gaze hard. “And it bothers me that you all seem to think that traumatizing Fortath would be so easy for me. I wouldn’t have sex with him. I’m able to be around him and not fall into bed with the guy.” He swallows hard, gaze flickering nervously around the room. The thought of something happening to Fortath, and what that would do to Sandr hurt his heart.

“Dragons change things.” He glanced over to Sho, who was chatting away with Agnith. “A lot can happen in eighteen months. He can…forget. Decide he doesn’t want me after all.” He takes a breath, turning back to Delilah. “I can’t just act like he doesn’t exist for eighteen months and pretend like I’ll be okay.” He’d had a hard enough time before, when he’d impressed Shobhaith. That was before he knew how he felt…how they both felt. The day before Fortath’s hatching was probably the hardest day of his life.

But it didn’t matter.

K’ius shut down, dropping his eyes again. “I could talk until my face was blue. You don’t understand and you don’t care. You’re going to tell me that I can’t see him again until graduation.” He was so sure this was the end. If after he graduated, Sandr didn’t want to see him, Kai wasn’t sure what he’d do. He couldn’t stay in Dalibor anymore. He wouldn’t want to be around him when he found other guys. “The dragons are more important than any of us…doesn’t matter if we’re happy, as long as the dragons are okay.” Even though the sharding dragons couldn’t exist without them. He’d stood, had let Sandr stand. He understood the risks, even if impressing hadn’t been his dream. Kai deserved this. “Whatever.”

[Cathaline]

Delilah listened, and said quietly, "I know you're in love with him. Nobody acts the way you've been acting out of lust. But sex isn't the problem. The emotions are the problem. A dragonet can be confused and deeply hurt when their new bonded cares more for another human than for them. The deeper the feelings run, the more dangerous it is - which is not to say that it's acceptable to have sex without emotion either, but sex with emotion is the issue here. The way you would feel if Al'dr forgot about you or fell in love with someone else - that is exactly what you are asking Fortath and Shobhaith to experience. It's easier for Shobhaith because he's nearly an adult and your bond has had time to coalesce, but Fortath is just a child. Al'dr is his world. Even if Fortath doesn't between from this, their bond could be tainted or twisted forever in ways that will always hurt Al'dr, like a scar on his heart. You both deserve to be completely whole, for each other. Your dragons deserve to be completely whole, and as long as you maintain contact the way you have been, that cannot happen. Plain and simple."

But she snorted at his words, and shook her head. "I wouldn't tell you that. For starters, I'm not his weyrlingmaster, I'm yours - I only have any power over the situation until you graduate, K'ius. I don't think K'var would ask you to stay completely apart for the entire eighteen months, either. The first six months or so are the most vital to the bond, and after nine, when he moves into his own weyr, most of the emotional danger has passed for most dragons. There are some dragons who are never at risk and some who are at risk far longer; the reason the rules must remain in place throughout weyrlinghood is that it would be unfair and time-consuming to alter them based on individuals, even if it were possible to judge someone else's bond that way. I would like to ask you for six months of communication via letter and nothing else, for your own sake, for the sake of the relationship you deserve to have. After that I see little reason why you couldn't see each other in public as often as he has time for it, and as long as K'var doesn't notice any problems with Al'dr's training and his bond with Fortath."

After a moment, allowing this to sink in, she added quietly, "The thing you don't seem to grasp, which I am begging you to grasp, is that I care about the dragons because I care about you. As long as the dragons are okay, you will be happy. If the dragons weren't okay, it would not matter if Al'dr loved you. Nothing would matter anymore. You think you'll be miserable without him? Imagine how miserable you'd be without Shobhaith. Imagine how miserable he would be without Fortath. We make sacrifices for our dragons. They make sacrifices for us. That's what love is. Love is eighteen months of not even speaking to my weyrmate because I couldn't risk his wher. Love is eighteen months of sleeping with a dear friend when Agnith flew because I couldn't be with him like I wanted to be. Love is Agnith never getting to feel what it would be like if we truly shared partners, because I've always had a substitute and always will. Love is eighteen months, and I'm only asking you for six. So, K'ius, do you love him?"

[Zephyr]

Kai was quiet as Delilah spoke. It struck him as supremely unfair that a beast so adult like in its speech and mannerisms can conveniently be so childlike in its emotions. If a dragon loves and trusts their rider as much as they’re supposed to, why do they then not trust their riders when they tell them that they still love them. He had returned to not looking at her, that meant he was actually listening to her. “If it’s so harmful for a baby dragon to have their rider in love with another person…how can the weyrlings still impress to pilles and firelizards?” It was a question that was slightly veered from the topic, but something he’d wanted to know. “Firelizards, especially take up just as much time as a baby dragon when they’re newborns…albeit not nearly as long.” Kai had raised enough flits to know that. As if hearing him thinking about her, Titania landed on his head and hissed angrily at Aaylii, who screeched back and tightened her grip on Kai’s neck.

Her words hit him hard. Six months. It was nearly a lifetime for all the implications. Not being able to talk to his best friend…see him. Letters were stupid. Letters were impersonal and time consuming when he could spend his time angsting and brooding. Sandr could forget him in six months just as easily as he could in eighteen. He’d told him he wouldn’t forget him, wouldn’t let anything come between them, but Kai knew things like that were much easier said than done. “What if Fortath decides he doesn’t like me in six months? He’s already been weird around me…like he knew that I blamed him for this…a little, without thinking about it.” That night had been emotional for all of them. It was little wonder the newborn had picked up on them…even if Kai wasn’t his bonded. The words were almost an afterthought. If Fortath didn’t like K’ius, then Al’dr wouldn’t have a choice. “Even in six months…eighteen months. If Fortath doesn’t like me, Sandr won’t have any choice. The dragon comes first..” Kai had hoped to use the time to get to know the blue, show him he wasn’t so bad.

He finally looked at her, when she finished up. “So you’re saying, if Shobhaith is happy, it doesn’t matter if I’m feeling hurt or heartbroken at Sandr’s absence…I’ll feel happy whether I want to or not?” That might not be such a bad thought for some people, but Kai was someone who didn’t want to feel happy when he was anything but. He didn’t want to pretend at happiness to make people feel better. Even if he was grumpy and unapproachable, at least he wouldn’t be lying.

But she was right, as loathe as K’ius was to admit that. He glanced at Shobhaith again; couldn’t imagine being without him. As pissed as he was at the purple for spilling his guts to K’var…as much as he snapped at the dragon anymore and ignored him and yelled…he loved him. He kind of felt like that love was forced upon him, but he chose not to think about that; chose instead to think that he was a better person for that love. “I do. More than I thought possible.”

Six months. Faranth, it would hurt so badly. He wouldn’t be fit to be in anyone’s company, would be a nightmare in lessons and drills and anyplace else he’d be forced into the company of other humans. Shobhaith would be annoyed with him and insufferable…but he’d have to do it, there was no other choice. He wouldn’t do that to Al’dr…couldn’t do that to him.

But…six months also coincided with Shobhaith reaching sexual maturity…he would be chasing, and if Sandr wasn’t an option. He had to sort this out, even if this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about with anyone. “I don’t…” He was holdbred. They took sex a little more seriously than the weyrbred people did. “Is there a way I can keep Sho from chasing. Or at least lock myself up when he does chase?” The purple liked females…a lot. It would be difficult to downright impossible to keep him from chasing every rising females. He definitely wasn’t looking at the pinkrider now, and his face was a curious shade of crimson. “I’ve never…done that before, and I don't want my first time to be with someone I don't like.” It may not have been a big deal to Delilah, who had someone to sleep with while Sebolaren was a wherling, but K’ius had no one. No one he trusted, no one he wanted to be with besides Sandr.

And that wasn’t an option.

[Cathaline]

"The answer is that they shouldn't," Delilah said wryly. "Having pets isn't a good thing for a candidate or a weyrling, but those bonds are harder to shake once made. People have been known to Impress accidentally to flits and especially to pillies when they just happen to be present at a hatching, so we don't ban it. But loving them is different from the depths of emotion one can feel for another person - I have a flit, so believe me, I know as well as you do what that bond is like."

Poor kid. Delilah did feel for him, very much so, and she hoped he understood that - that she'd gotten through to him at least enough for him to realise that she was legitimately trying to salvage his relationship, here. "He might be less weird about it later on - it might have been a symptom of the very problem we're trying to nip in the bud. Or he might not like you. Which is not a death knell. People don't agree with their dragons about everything. Yes, it would be tough to be with someone whose dragon wasn't a fan, but far from impossible. Far from unheard of. And he might warm up to you yet."

Shaking her head, Delilah said, "No, you wouldn't necessarily be happy just because your dragon is. Any pinkrider can tell you that. But it will buoy you up and help you get through the hard times, if he's happy. Especially when the hard times have a definite end. You'll be happier doing the right thing because you won't have to suffer the consequences if the worst should happen."

At least she seemed to be getting through to him, and she leaned across the table and offered him her hand. It was a big deal to her; she was Holdbred too. "We'll go through this when I give you the flightsex lesson," she said, "but dragons don't rise or chase if it would traumatise their riders. They can't; it's not physically or emotionally possible. If he knows how badly it would hurt you, he won't chase. If he did, you, as the rider of the male, do have the option of fighting it. I haven't experienced that myself, but I've heard it's...extremely painful and unpleasant. But possible. Riders of female dragons have it tougher - we can almost never fight it because it always ends in, er, victory for us."

She cleared her throat and added, "There's also another option. You can find someone you trust - someone you really trust, someone who would not be participating in the flight themselves - and find, um, fulfillment with them without intercourse. I've done that for a friend who didn't have anyone before. It's better than riding it out alone. Awkward, but it works. I'm Holdbred; I didn't exactly like the idea of giving myself over to lust that way. I still don't, honestly, so trust me, I understand what you're going through. He probably won't chase until you're ready; if he does, it means he knows you'll be okay, that you've made arrangements of some kind. If you need help, I'm around, okay? If he rises and you're scared, have him give Agnith a call and I'll come make sure you don't do anything you would regret later. If he chases Agnith - " So awkward - "then try Mith. Valha's been good to me. She doesn't like men, so there's no risk there." Delilah gave the boy a small smile. "Don't worry too much about it, okay? Flightsex is normal, which is the way it should be - but you'll find there are far more of us who share your sentiments than you thought. You're not alone in wanting to wait. It can be done, it has been done, and you'll be fine. He loves you, and he won't let you get hurt."