You've Made Your Bed

Writers: Duskdog
Date Posted: 21st May 2024

Characters: Zaphare
Description: Zaphare is in trouble and needs a way out, quick.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 6, day 7 of Turn 11

Zaphare

Zaphare raised her head at last, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, the sour taste of vomit still lingering on her tongue. _Shard it._ No cycle for over two months, and three solid sevendays of _this_, nearly every day, usually in the morning but not always (and of course at the most inconvenient times possible whenever it decided to creep up on her), and she couldn’t really deny it anymore. Contrary to what _some_ around the Hold might say, she wasn’t stupid. Foolish, maybe, but not stupid. She was in trouble, and she wouldn’t be able to hide it for much longer.

It seemed there was always some disgusting taste in her mouth these days. The rules and expectations, so hard to swallow no matter how hard she tried. The retching. _Him_. Stupid fecking boy. Stupid fecking smirking face. Stupid fecking hands, all clumsy grabbing and pushing and pulling just because he could. The entire situation sat heavy on her tongue, too, like a pill she couldn’t quite get down, melting into bitter chalk that she somehow couldn’t spit out, either.

“You’ve made your bed, now lie in it,” her mother was fond of saying, and Zaphare had heard it so often when she’d been knee-deep in whatever punishment for some transgression or another that it made her want to spit every time she thought about it, too.

She didn’t think her mother expected to see her suffer that fate _literally_, but here she was: facing down the certainty of having to lie in the bed she’d made, because she’d already lain in another bed, so to speak.

In retrospect, maybe her mother _did_ expect something like this from her. Eventually. Inevitable? Maybe.

The stupidest part of all the stupid things was that she would have slept with Cabren willingly, gladly, if he’d just _asked_. He wasn’t bad-looking, and she wasn’t picky. She thought about the pleasure, and the thrill, of sharing her body nearly all the time these days, and her potential partners were limited, both because not everyone was willing to take the risk and because the population of their hold wasn’t exactly enormous. And who knows? If they’d come together in that way, maybe it would have been good. Maybe they’d have enjoyed the intoxicating excitement of exploration together. Maybe they’d have even hit it off enough to become _more_. (Maybe he’d have learned how to be _better_ at it, at least, shells.)

Instead, what they had was power and control on his part, and desperate necessity on hers. He’d caught her with another girl, and the only thing worse than being a slut was being a _deviant_ girl-loving slut, and he knew it. She paid for his silence with the only currency she had, the only one he would accept. She had more to give than Jilli did -- Jilli, who’d been a virgin, and who didn’t think she actually liked boys, anyway. _That_ was something the girl would have to unpack herself, but here in the meantime with Cabren, Zaphare could keep him busy as much as possible. Boys were stupid, so easily jerked around if you knew just how to touch, or even how to smile at them just-so. It wasn’t that she was in love with Jilli or anything -- they were friends, not even exceptionally good ones, indulging because Jilli had been tentative and curious, and Zaphare had been, quite frankly, _horny_. And again: not picky.

But it seemed to Zaphare that she probably deserved all this more than poor Jilli did, plus she wasn’t actually scared of the big idiot, so this was how it was.

Besides, she would figure _some_ way out of this. She always did. Most of the time she could find a way to climb out of the holes she dug for herself with just a little creativity and a _lot_ of lying. This might be the deepest hole so far, but that just meant she’d have to build a taller ladder. It would take time, but she would figure it out.

But now, with an unwanted passenger inside set to ruin everything, she no longer had time to spare. The candle was burning down rapidly, and once her mother realized that she was pregnant, there wouldn’t be any climbing out. They’d start shoveling the dirt back into her hole right on top of her, burying her there forever. Probably with Cabren -- and as much as she enjoyed the idea of _actually_ burying him in a deep dark hole somewhere, she did not want to be shackled to him for the rest of her life. She didn’t want to be shackled to _anyone_, for that matter, and she had hoped to avoid that fate for a few more turns, at least.

But here it was.

There was always a solution. Always. Even if it wasn’t readily apparent, it was there, and she just had to find it, just had to figure it out. If there was one thing she was good at, it was getting away with shite. (Well, she was good at two things, but the second thing was what had gotten her in trouble in the first place.)

If her palms were a little sweaty and her heart beating a little fast, it was probably just because she was about to be sick again. Not because panic was swimming around the edges of her brain, where it would stay, lighting anxious prickles on the back of her neck during the day and keeping her up at night until the situation had resolved itself one way or another.

Definitely not that.

She hauled herself to her feet, wiping her mouth again, standing still for one shaky moment in case the nausea returned with the movement. Her stomach certainly felt like _something_ -- empty but fluttery, like it _could_ get queasy at any moment just to complicate her day, but also might have mercy and cooperate. Either way, she had been out here way too long. Somebody would come by eventually, and it might even be someone who’s actively looking for her because her chores weren’t even started yet. She would just have to take her chances and tough it out. The repetitiveness of chores usually made her twitchy, but maybe something mindless was just what she needed to give herself time to think.

As she turned to head back to the Hold, though, movement overhead caught her attention. A blue dragon was spiraling down lazily to land at the Hold, presumably on some sort of boring business or, if they were really lucky and it was a particularly exciting day, on Search.

A thought occurred to her suddenly, and this time when her heart started racing, it wasn’t with looming anxiety, but tentative excitement.

…Could a dragonrider be _bought_?

Last updated on the May 24th 2024

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You've Made Your Bed