How Did It Go?
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Heather, Yvonne
Date Posted: 26th October 2015
Characters: Saidrene, Alina
Description: Saidrene and Alina have a night in.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 2, day 2 of Turn 8
Notes: Mentioned: D'hol, N'vanik, S'van, J'ackt
"I just can't believe D'hol hasn't yelled at me yet." Alina sipped her wine, enjoying the richness of it against her tongue. It was better wine than any other bottle she'd tried, but she suspected that had more to do with her lack of experience with the drink than anything else. "I mean, I'm trying... but I do mess up in drills. Thankfully nothing big, but if I mess up in drills it won't be long before I mess up in Thread either."
Saidrene grinned as she brought the glass of red wine to her lips, "Well, he does have a young, holdbred weyrmate. Maybe he has a soft spot for hold girls." The greenrider waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Alina.
"As if." Alina rolled her eyes. "From what I hear, he's got more of a thing for goldriders. It's probably more because he's occupied with other things. How's flying with Hurricane Wing? Besides distracting."
"Sweet Faranth, N'vanik is so distracting!" Saidrene groaned with a grin as she picked up the wine bottle and topped off her glass. "Wing meetings are agonizing, he's all stern and gorgeous the whole time."
Alina laughed. "I can imagine! I saw that Loseth chased Ashareth. Would it have been better or worse for your concentration if he'd won?"
"It would have been so nice if he won. I can just imagine waking up beside him..." She closed her eyes for a moment and then peeked one open at Alina with a devilish grin, "Not that J'ackt wasn't great, mind you, but a flight is the only way I'd get the Weyrleader in a bed."
"True." N'vanik did have a weyrmate, and it made Alina happy to hear that her friend wasn't scheming to break that up. You never knew with weyrfolk. "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you for next time."
Saidrene raised her glass in a mock toast to that. "What about you? How was your flight? That bluerider in your Wing, S'avn, won, right?"
Alina nodded slowly and stared down at her glass. "He was... nice." Whatever that meant.
The other girl's hazel eyes studied Alina for a second, "Nice, huh? Did he want, you know, _more_ when you two came around?" That was a common enough story of what happened in after flights, and something Saidrene had secretly worried about before her flight. Of course, more with J'ackt hadn't been uncalled for at all since they already had a history, but it would have been very different if he'd been someone else.
Alina shook her head. "Nothing like that. Everything was just... normal for him, something that happens every day." She shifted a uncomfortably where she sat. "You're from the Weyr, so it's like that for you, too. But for me it was..." She trailed off and shrugged, unsure how to say it so that Saidrene would understand, or even if she could.
"Horrible? Bad? Anti-climatic?" Saidrene tried to fill in where Alina trailed off.
"Just..." Alina paused. "You grew up with greenflights being a normal part of life. I never did. And yet within less than a Turn I've not only had to come to terms with it but I had to participate it one, and trust me-- it's not an easy thing to come to terms with. So I wake up next to this _stranger_ who has done... things, and it's... really awkward. I know what he expects, and I know what I'm supposed to be like, but I can't be like that. And I'm not talking about him 'wanting more', either."
Saidrene nodded slowly as she tried to understand where Alina was coming from, "You mean you couldn't just be casual afterwards as if it was no big deal?"
The other greenrider sighed, frustrated and unable to articulate the way she felt. She just didn't _fit_. And although she hadn't told Saidrene, it had been a pretty awful time all around. "He called me Holdbred. I am so _tired_ of that."
"As long as you act holdbred then people are going to say it, even if it's not fair." Saidrene poured a little more wine in Alina's glass. "Was he mean when he said it?"
Alina narrowed her eyes at Saidrene, stung. "It doesn't matter how he said it. It's _rude_."
"Well, you know us weyrfolk, we have no manners or proper etiquette anyhow." Saidrene teased with a wink before taking a swig straight from the bottle.
Rude was right. Alina looked away and took a more delicate sip from her glass and resolved to change the topic. There was no way she could think of to get Saidrene to see things from her point of view, and she didn't want to lose a friend trying. "How do you like flying in a fighting Wing, anyway? When you're not staring at N'vanik's assets."
Saidrene accepted the topic change with a little grin, **Oh, Alina.**
"I like the fighting Wing a lot better than Weyrlinghood. Ashareth prefers being a part of the fight rather than waiting on the ground to deliver firestone sacks. Is also nice not to be treated like Weyrlings anymore, don't you think?"
"I like having more free time. The Weyrling schedule is absolutely _awful_." Alina rolled her eyes. "But it is kind of weird to think that I will never have to peel tubers again. Or deal with anyone else's dirty laundry."
"Here, here!" Saidrene raised her glass, "To never peeling tubers or doing someone else's pit-stained laundry again!"
"And pit stains were the _best_ you could hope for." Alina clinked her glass against Saidrene's and made a face. "I might not have been born to be a dragonrider like you, but I sure as Shells wasn't born to be a drudge for the rest of my life!"
"I'll drink to that!" Saidrene laughed and then took a generous gulp from her glass of wine.
Last updated on the October 30th 2015