The Frailties of Friendship

Writers: Avery, Heather
Date Posted: 14th June 2017

Characters: Kapera, Jeyme
Description: Kapera reveals a secret to Jeyme that breaks their friendship.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 12, day 16 of Turn 8

Kapera

Jeyme

"Hey you, long time no talk." Jeyme grinned as she caught Kapera out
near the feeding pens. Quinneth was happily darting along, startling
herdbeasts and sending them left and right before pouncing on the one
that caught her eye. "Been busy with important goldrider stuff?" The
greenrider stepped up onto the lowest rung of the feeding pen corral
and hooked her arms over the top rung to stand and watch her dragon.

Riyanth was savaging a wherry and seemed to be spending as much time
tearing it into chunks and spraying its blood everywhere as she was
eating the meat. Kapera wondered if it meant she was near rising, but
the hatching had only been a few months ago. Maybe Panitath or
Anaeryth was close to going up and she was feeling feral and
possessive. Ever since they'd lost their leadership authority she'd
always been very touchy when another gold got anywhere near proddy.

She started as the voice spoke up next to her. She hadn't noticed
anyone approaching, she'd been so concerned with watching Riyanth and
her internal debate.

"Jeyme, hi. How's Quinneth?" Kapera asked.

"She is well, because hungry. What about Riyanth? How is she adjusting
to Anaeryth being around?" Quinneth was never very cross except for
when it was time to rise.

"The fact she had eggs at the time she arrived helped because it meant
she wasn't a competitor for the bronzes. Now that her Hatching is
done, she's more snarly about it.Some golds just want to be the only
one," Kapera said. She understood why the gold would see others as
competitions, but she was happy to have two other goldriders at the
Weyr to rely on.

"I guess things might get even crazier around here if we take in
people from River Bluff." Ever since the tsunami there had been rumors
about what would become of their neighbors.

"We'll figure out space to put them all if we do have to take them,
but it may make things more crowded for a bit," Kapera said. "There
likely won't be any more golds coming in. Although if Lanniya hadn't
come here before the disaster, she might well have now."

"That's true. Maybe some more bronzeriders will come this way to
please all of the green dragons we have." Jeyme chuckled.

"Oh, Riyanth will love to have some new bronzes to toy with, and
Anaeryth might like to see some she knows. Do you think Quinneth would
be tempted by new males, or is she consistent in her choices?"

Jeyme grinned, rolling her eyes as she looked back out at her
lifemate, "Oh, I'm sure she'll be thrilled with some new bronzes in
the bunch. I don't think she's had the same mate yet when it comes to
flights. She enjoys whichever male catches her."

"Does she usually choose bronzes?" Kapera normally didn't follow green
dragon flights unless she needed to for some reason - after all, there
were so many rising so often! She did know that Kopth had never chose
Quinneth yet.

"Well, she's been flown by browns and blues, but also N'vanik's
Loseth. That's how I ended up not knowing whether Dheymin belongs to
D'hol or N'vanik." She gave a little shrug over that matter. Jeyme
tried to placate both bronzeriders with her son.

"How has that been?" Kapera asked.

"It's fine most days," as long as she walked a fine line and didn't
show too much attention to N'vanik. That would make D'hol pout. "You
know how bronzeriders are, you're around them often."

"They're jealous. So are gold riders. It must be a prerequisite of the
dragon," she joked.

}:I am not jealous,:{ Riyanth sent. Before her rider could articulate
exactly how much of that was a lie, the gold continued, }:I just know
what I am entitled to.:{

On that note, she left the carcass and leapt for another beast. The
gold took one down and hunched over it, snarling.

Kapera sighed. "Dramatic, like I said."

"Are they? I guess it's hard for me to imagine the goldriders here as
jealous. Cyradis always seem so sure of herself and we've had a couple
of awkward conversations, her and I, because of D'hol. She was
always... professional." Enough so that most of the time it didn't
feel uncomfortable being in a Wing together.

"She is pretty self-confident. I wish I was that assured," Kapera
said. She'd been so sure she knew everything and yet lacking true
self-confidence when she'd been a Weyrwoman, and while the time she
and Riyanth had been grounded had taught her some level of
self-sufficiency and self-security, she still found herself wishing
for more of it. And Cyradis just _exuded_ everything she envied.

The second part of Jeyme's statement caught her attention. "Did she
make you feel bad at all? About you and D'hol?"

Jeyme shook her head, "Never. She usually just offers advice."

"That's nice of her. She wasn't so approving to me," Kapera said.

The greenrider turned her eyes onto Kapera, "Oh?"

"Given their past history and all, I thought she'd have a problem with
seeing us together. I thought she was going to be furious after the
flight," she remembered.

But no, she'd handled the flight calmly enough. It was outside of the
flight that got her into trouble. Maybe the reason Cyradis was getting
cooler was because it was goldrider-and-bronzerider, not anyone with
D'hol. But Cyradis was with K'deren now so why be upset at what and
who D'hol did?

"Why should she get mad over a flight? It's not like we can control
them." Cyradis had never seemed like that, but maybe things went on
between goldriders that no one else knew about.

"That's what was odd, she wasn't mad about the flight, but she did get
mad later."

Kapera only realized she'd said too much a few seconds too late.

"What do you mean 'later'? What happened?" Jeyme's insides felt frozen
as she waited for Kapera to deny her suspicions.

**Shells!** the goldrider thought. She'd really put her foot into the
dragon dung this time. She could lie about it and say nothing happened
- but Cyradis knew, and for all she knew the other goldrider had told
Jeyme already out of some need to be completely honest or to make
everyone even tangentially involved in this as miserable as possible.

"Cyradis walked in on D'hol and I," she said flatly.

Jeyme was quiet for a long moment, her face turning away from Kapera
and back out to Quinneth. There was a slight tick in the greenrider's
jaw as she worked through her feelings. And shards, were there
feelings. There was rage, hurt, jealous, disbelief, all of them in a
confusing swirl, enough so that Quinneth stopped in her feeding to
turn and look at her rider.

"Kapera I'm not sure who I'm most hurt by, you or D'hol. You knew,"
she looked at Kapera now, "you knew how I felt about him, you were my
friend." She could feel her emotions raging to the surface, though she
fought to keep a reign on them. She'd gone through too many etiquette
classes as a Lady-in-Waiting to let it all falter now. "Your own
bronzerider isn't enough? You have to sleep with mine?"

She continued on before the other woman could speak, "I'm sure for you
it meant nothing, maybe so for him too, but for me, you cost me my
family."

"D'hol kissed me first and started it," Kapera said, echoing the same
defense she'd been using since it happened. She hadn't been aiming to
steal D'hol away. She didn't know why the greenrider was phrasing it
like that, either. It was a single incident, why would it affect
Jeyme's family?

"I have arrangements that let me do what I want, I thought perhaps
D'hol had come to a similar one with you. I'm not trying to steal him
away from you," the goldrider said.

"I never said you were, but you clearly only care about one person,
and that's yourself. Whatever strikes your fancy you do it, without
thought of how it could effect someone else." Jeyme pushed away from
the fence. "I use to think it was a shame that you and J'nus weren't
weyrmated, but I think I'm beginning to see that it's best for him if
he doesn't." Quinneth flew over to land near the two women, her eyes
whirling in concern, their color having faded from blue to orange.

"Good day, Wingsecond." Jeyme turned to her dragon. She needed some
space to think, to make decisions and to cry. It was a moment that she
had slowly been realizing would one day come, but now that it was
here....

}:Yumath's rider upsets you? I will snatch his head from his
shoulders! I will talk to Yumath right now and get him to send his
rider-:{ the tip of Quinneth's tail was twitching with agitation over
her rider's emotions.

**No.** Jeyme interrupted. **I do not want you to talk to Yumath. Tell
him nothing. D'hol has his secrets, and I have mine.**

"D'hol didn't say anything to me - " Kapera started to say. But Jeyme
had turned away to her green, and clearly wasn't going to listen. So
instead she watched Jeyme leave and fumed inside.

If D'hol had said something to her about Jeyme, she would have at
least stopped to think. It took two people to fall into bed. She was
unweyrmated, and she had assumed D'hol knew what was in his own
relationship. If he didn't mention a concern to her, how was that
_her_ fault and not his? Why were Jeyme and Cyradis being so sharding
unreasonable about this?

Riyanth continued to tear at her food, uncaring about either her
rider's agitation or Quinneth's abrupt departure.

Last updated on the July 6th 2017

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The Frailties of Friendship