Familial News

Writers: Avery, Heather
Date Posted: 16th December 2017

Characters: A'vel, R'nar
Description: A'vel tells R'nar about his discovery about his family.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 2, day 19 of Turn 9

Tsogath had asked Iorath if his rider would meet her rider at dusk
down at the beach. A'vel hadn't had a chance to just catch up with
R'nar in awhile and he really wanted to talk to his friend now,
especially with his recent news. So he headed down a bit early and
began building a small pile out of driftwood while he waited.

R'nar had on a pair of shorts and a shirt only halfway buttoned as he
walked down the beach to meet A'vel. Iorath flew overhead and darted
down into the water like an arrow. The bronze surfaced with a great
lift of his wings, sending water spraying outward and creating
rainbows in the droplets that showered down.

"And that's why I walked. Otherwise I would be a half drowned wherry
out there on his back." R'nar grinned, one eye closed against the
brilliant orange of the setting sun.

"I know I wouldn't have wanted Tsogath to dunk me. Is he chasing fish
or something?" A'vel asked.

"No, sometimes I think he is a fish. He loves the water and swimming,
especially if he gets to dive in like that." Iorath rolled over onto
his back out in the water with just his snout, great belly and tail
peeking out of the water. "He loves doing that when greens are around,
and even once when Riyanth was out here."

R'nar sat down beside of the pile of driftwood that A'vel had started.

"I'm unsurprised he showed off for a gold. I'm sure he'll try to catch
her when she rises next, right?" A'vel knew bronzes couldn't resist
golds - and he also remembered R'nar's gossip about himself and the
Weyrwoman's Second.

"Oh I am sure he will try, not that he has a chance of winning against
any of the bronzes here, he hasn't even caught a green yet." Iorath
was never deterred and always enthusiastic when a female was rising.

"Well, good luck to him. I promise I'll get you a lovely gift the
first time Iorath catches a gold and sires a clutch, may it be soon,"
A'vel said cheerfully.

"Have you slept with her again? A couple of my wingmates have been
discussing who will fly her the next time she rises, since Kapera
keeps being seen with all sorts of different people," A'vel mentioned.
"Apparently N'tain flew with her at Dragonsfall and said she was quite
the man-eater and doesn't think she's changed much."

"No, I haven't. I'm not going to pursue her actively, she has plenty
of other suitors for that, but I wouldn't say no if the opportunity
presented itself again." R'nar was very practical when it came to
women. "What about you? How was your date with T'kala?"

"It was a good show," A'vel allowed. "I forgot how much I missed Hall
music. I wish they'd never moved back to Emerald Falls Hold, honestly.
I didn't see my father at all."

"That's dodging the question," R'nar raised a finger. He knew his
friend better than that. "How was it with T'kala?" he stressed the
bluerider's name.

"You got me," the greenrider admitted. He should have known R'nar
would see right through his attempt.

"It was nice. He was nice to go with. I liked it. I would go with him
again to another show.

"That's good," R'nar had thought the bluerider's interest in A'vel
rather obvious when T'kala had sat down with them at lunch. It would
be good for A'vel to have some experiences with riders that weren't
bronze in mating flights, R'nar thought, but didn't have the guts to
say out loud. They were friends, but that might be too personal. "So,
you avoided your father at the Hall. Was that a relief or a
disappointment?"

"It was a relief. I'm not ready to talk to him yet. I'm going to
_have_ to go talk to him, but I want that to be something I initiate
on my own terms, I don't want to be surprised by running into him when
I was having a nice night out, you know?" A'vel said.

"Yeah, I understand, I wouldn't want to be out on a date and run into
my father either." He knew that N'lon would only make things awkward.
"I thought you were pretty set on not speaking with your father, well,
at least until he came around a bit. Has something changed?"

"You know V'con? Bluerider, in my wing?" A'vel said.

R'nar looked up for a second as he thought through names and faces,
"Oh yeah, makes clothes right?"

"Yeah. I was going to commission a nice tunic from him. And then we
got to talking about family and being riders like us, and well... It
turns out our fathers had the same name. I thought it was a
coincidence, but he had a sketch of his father that his mother had
kept and he looked the same. So we think we're half-siblings, and now
I want to go talk to my father about it."

The bronzerider's eyebrows raised in surprise, "That's some big news.
How do you feel about possibly having a half-brother?"

"I always wanted a sibling, so that sounds exciting. I don't know how
to be a brother to somebody. But if it's true it means I have family
who will talk to me, and that's a good thing," he said.

"I just didn't know I'd have kin at a Weyr. My father always seemed
warm with my mother, and when the Hall was here, he always warned her
and me against the corruption of weyr life and ways. So what would it
say if he slept with a greenrider and left her pregnant?"

"How far about are you and V'con in age, though?" R'nar asked
curiously, "Maybe it happened before your father met your mother."
"A few Turns, so it could have been," the greenrider said. "But for
someone who said he didn't like how loose weyr folk were, if he had a
relationship with one of them, isn't that a bit hypocritical?"

"Certainly sounds like it, but I guess you won't know for sure the
details until you ask him. Although, with a strained relationship
already, that is kind of a tough topic to broach, isn't it?" R'nar
could see A'vel's predicament.

"He hasn't answered a single letter since I Impressed. So if I show up
with a bluerider and say, "here's your second son", when he rejected
me for green..."

R'nar considered what the outcome of such an action could be. "I guess
it depends on what you're wanting. Either you want to try and repair
things with your father, or you want to rub his nose in a possible
mistake."

"Bringing home anyone I was dating would rub his nose in my shameful
existence," A'vel muttered.

He took a breath and thought about what he wanted before answering
R'nar in a better way. "Ideally, I'd like to repair our relationship.
Maybe I can't do that if I come home with V'con and say, "look at your
other son". But I think he ought to know he has more children, and
that we're both healthy and successful."

"If that's the case, you should probably go alone first to tell him
about V'con. That way it's not a blindside." R'nar lifted his shoulders,
"I don't know, I'm certainly not the best example of a healthy
father-son relationship. If you think your dad won't see V'con after you
tell him, maybe the both of you _should_ just show up at the Hall."

"I'm afraid he won't agree to see him and say I'm lying," A'vel said. "I
think either way if I tell him he might overreact."

"Yeah, it's a tough situation. Well, if you need a drink afterwards,
just let me know." R'nar didn't envy the greenrider's situation. It was
one of the reasons he'd moved away from his father.

"Yeah, I will. Thanks for letting me talk through it," the greenrider said.

"Any time," R'nar said, eyebrows furrowing as Iorath flipped back over
in the water and sank up to his eyeballs, this time blowing bubbles in
the water from his nostrils.

Last updated on the December 23rd 2017

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