A Different Kind of Understanding

Writers: Corrin, Duskdog
Date Posted: 12th November 2024
Series: From Hold to Weyr

Characters: L'kayric, Sybana
Description: Two very different candidates find unexpected understanding on the edge of a wild party.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 3, day 10 of Turn 12
Notes: Takes place midway through "Truth or Dare at the Starstones."

L'kayric

Sybana

Lakayric wasn’t against having fun. He enjoyed parties, just like anyone else, and he didn’t mind the prospect of spending some time with his fellow candidates, just unwinding, taking a nice break from the mounting pressure of the upcoming Hatching.

The more the alcohol flowed, though, the more uncomfortable he became. People got a little wilder, a little less inhibited, a little louder, stood a little too close. He liked being social, but he had to admit that things were getting a little overwhelming. And once Truth or Dare started, he knew it was probably a good time for him to get a little breath of fresh air.

He left the main throng, stepping out of the trees into the clearing between the forest and the Star Stones, and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, full of stars -- hard to believe that, only hours before, there had been Thread.

He wasn’t alone for long.

There was a burst of laughter from the trees behind him and moments later another candidate came hurrying out of the woods. A girl, around his age, finely dressed and flustered in the starlight.

Sybana fled the game, a storm of laughter ringing in her ears. How much was aimed at her, and how much at the boy she rejected? She didn’t know, it was all one and the same-- a blanket of derision. She was starting to regret the gamble that was her candidacy. Everything would be well and good if the baby gold actually chose her, but if it didn’t… The weyr was turning out to be wilder than she had ever imagined. She suspected if her brother had known the truth of things, he wouldn’t have sent her. What proper Holder would agree to marry her if they knew she’d spent time in such a place?

What a mess.

She pressed a hand to her face, finding the cool of it grounding after the heat of the moment, and sighed. Sybana was still trying to work out what to do when she realized she wasn’t alone. When she didn’t recognize Lakayric as one of the Truth or Dare players come to tease her, she ventured a weak smile, “Is it always like this?”

The noise, and the girl’s flustered state, painted enough of a picture for him that he could guess what she was referring to. “Unhinged? No, not always. Not even most of the time. But… probably more than it should be. When people here party, they party _hard_.” He paused. “Are you… okay? Nobody hurt you, did they?”

“No, no one hurt me. I’m just… overwhelmed, I suppose.” Sybana gave a soft, rueful laugh at her own weakness.

“When I decided to come to the weyr I thought I’d just have to watch out for flightlusted dragonmen, not… parties like this.” Her gaze drifted back to the forest where the game was still running and the glows illuminated the shadowy forms of their peers laughing and drinking and egging each other on. “They’re so carefree and bold-- I’m a little jealous, really. I’d like to have played along, but… I just can’t. I have a life to get back to if I don’t Impress, and that life doesn’t include… I just can’t.”

“You have responsibilities,” he guessed, feeling a sudden rush of sympathetic understanding. He had never considered himself hostile to holdbred folks, though he also wouldn’t claim that he always understood them, but _this_ was something that rang true for him. “And you can’t toss them aside as easily as they do. Yeah, I get it. I kind of want to have fun with them, too, but I just know they’re going to take it way too far and it won’t be fun anymore. It’s probably better that you got out of there when you did so that you didn’t do something you’d regret. That’s why I left. Sort of.” Lakayric smiled in a manner that he hoped was reassuring. “You haven’t been here long, huh?”

She returned his smile with a relieved one of her own, glad for his understanding. “Not long at all, this is my second full day here. And you’re exactly right. I have a responsibility to my family, to myself…” She stood taller as she spoke, her posture beyond reproach, even if her surroundings weren’t. “One of the girls, Zaphare, told me that no one here cares what you do, but I don’t mean to stay if I don’t Impress-- and outside the weyr, people do care. They care quite a lot.”

Sybana sighed, looking out to the weyrbowl and beyond that, somewhere, her world. “Everyone’s been warning me that I risk attracting a green dragon by Standing. No one warned me I was risking my reputation.” She hadn’t meant to be quite so honest. Maybe it was that awful drink she had had earlier, or something about his smile that invited her to confide in him. She glanced at Lakayric cautiously to gauge his reaction. “You’re from here, aren’t you?” she guessed. “I’m sorry. I must sound very ungrateful.”

“Yes, I’m a Dragonsfall boy,” Lakayric replied, unaware that he was puffing his chest up, just slightly. “And no, you don’t. I’ll admit, I don’t really understand hold stuff… shells, I guess I probably don’t really know what’s true about it, now that I think about it -- just what I’ve heard -- but I mean… that doesn’t mean that it’s not real or doesn’t matter. I guess you’d know what people there would care about. If you’re going home after this, then yeah, that still matters. I’m sorry they’re acting that way. _They_ have responsibilities, too, and they’re throwing them out the window right now.”

He grimaced. “We’re going to fail our barracks inspection, watch.” After a moment, he blinked with sudden realization, and reddened. “I’m sorry, that’s probably pretty minor compared to whatever the holdfolk think about… um… your reputation. I just meant, I guess, they’re not representing the Weyr to you the way we ought to be represented. I wish you were seeing us at a better time!”

She blushed too, already regretting bringing up the matter of her reputation with a near-stranger, but he had been so kind and understanding and that was so very nice in this strange, strange time. Still, she was ready to change the subject. “And what should I be seeing? I’ve heard the gallant harper tales as much as the scandalous gossip. How much are those true?”

“Most of them!” Lakayric gushed. He couldn’t disguise his pride and enthusiasm for the subject. “Dragonriders are heroes. They work so hard. If you Impress, you’ll see -- weyrling training is work all day every day, and even after graduation, there’s always drills and, of course, Threadfall.” His face fell, just a bit. “They’re risking everything there. Not just their lives, but… their lifemate. Losing your dragon, becoming dragonless, it’s…” He swallowed. “But they keep doing it, risking it every time. And the rest of the Weyr supports them. Everything has to run efficiently so that we can keep fighting Thread for everybody’s sake. Even _us_, just candidates. We’re important, too. Not all of us will Impress, but some will, and we have to be ready in case it’s us. And in the meantime, we’re representing the Weyr. We should be able to show holders like you that we’re good and noble and working really hard. I know some of the stuff here is… weird… to you folks, but it’s not the stuff that really matters, you know?”

He ducked his head sheepishly. “Uh, sorry. I guess I really went off, huh? What hold are you from? What do you all do there?”

“Don’t apologize, it’s nice to hear there’s truth to those stories too,” Sybana said earnestly, and then it was her turn to puff up a bit. “I’m from Skyvale hold. We have the biggest firestone mines in all the south. My ancestors knew that Thread could come back one day and that the stone would be needed, so they kept the holding through the Turns, even when others called them fools.” It was a story she had been told many times growing up. “It’s not an easy or a safe thing, mining firestone, but it’s _important_ and my family -- my father is the current Holder -- makes sure it runs efficiently too. No one writes harper ballads about us, but we do our part to keep Thread out of the skies.”

Lakayric smiled again, recognizing the love and pride in her tone. Maybe holders weren’t so different, after all. “I’ve heard of Skyvale! I never really thought much about where firestone comes from, though. But we sure need it. Tons of it.” He regarded her curiously. “I wouldn’t have guessed you were from a mining hold. That sounds silly now that I’ve said it, because of course not every person who lives in a mining hold is a miner, and what did I think a miner was supposed to look like, anyway? Your father’s the holder -- that makes sense, you seem very… casually elegant. And well-spoken. Is Skyvale a very fancy hold?”

Sybana beamed, pleased that he’d heard of her hold, pleased to have surprised him. “Fancy…” She bit her lip thoughtfully, wrestling with how to word things between her pride and the truth. “It’s not yet as fancy as the likes of Emerald Falls, there wasn’t much to speak of in the Vale during the Interval, but the Pass has been kind to us in a way it hasn’t to other holdings. The demand for firestone has been enormous and my brothers work hard to put the marks we’ve earned back into the land and the people. Everything is growing rapidly. Every Turn there’s a dozen new improvements. Growing up, they always told me that Skyvale was part of something important, that _I_ was part of something important. I try to live up to that, I think we all do.”

“Being part of something important!” he agreed excitedly, before catching himself, and clearing his throat. “Sorry. That’s just… how I feel about the Weyr, and I don’t think I’m good at conveying it. It’s _important_ to always be doing your best when you’re part of something like that, and I get frustrated when people don’t seem to _get_ that. I’m not uptight, even if they say so, I promise.” He laughed at himself softly. “Imagine, though, if you Impress. It would be fitting in a way, wouldn’t it? I’ll bet your family would be so proud…”

“I think you _are_ good at conveying it,” Sybana said sincerely. “To be honest… You’re the first person here who’s made me believe that harper tales more, not less. The way you spoke about the weyr… You’re going to be a wonderful rider one day.” She punctuated that thought with a brilliant smile.

“And maybe I’ll be one too,” she continued, though she sounded a bit less certain now. “My family _would_ be proud-- if it’s a gold.”

He had never lacked confidence in his ability to be a good rider, should a dragon choose him, but it felt undeniably good to hear someone else say it so sincerely. “Thank you,” he said, then hesitated, uncertain if he should continue. “Would they… not be proud if your dragon’s _not_ gold?” he ventured. “Greens are special, too…”

The way he spoke about the weyr was so loving and proud that Sybana almost felt bad, but the truth was the truth. “I think… we’d be disappointed. It’s complicated. All my family are… have you ever seen a timepiece? Mastercrafters make them to mark the time, they’re neater than candles. Anyway. It all works because there’s wheels inside -- they’re called gears -- and the big gears turn the little gears and they all work together to mark time. My family are all big gears.

“My father and brothers, they aren’t just part of the hold, they _are_ the hold. I know-- I know it sounds prideful, but if I’m part of something I want to be at the very heart of it, like they are. If I’m to dedicate the rest of my life to some place or people, I want to have the power to really make a difference.” She looked at him beseechingly, imploring him to understand. She had never been so frank about this to anyone.

Lakayric nodded slowly. “No, I think I understand. I’m… hoping for a bronze, or maybe a brown, myself, and I guess the reasons are sort of the same? There’s prestige, but… I want to be able to make a difference, too. But I try not to think about that too hard, or say it out loud when anybody asks, because it feels like it would be disrespectful to my future dragon if it’s blue or green. And I know that’s silly, because it’s not like my dragon will ever know how I felt before -- at least, I hope it won’t, because when I Impress I know I’ll love them so much that it won’t matter anymore, right? -- but it makes me feel guilty, all the same. Instead I try to think about all the times that me and a green or blue would make a difference without ever knowing it -- you know, flaming Thread at the last second when it would have hit and maybe killed someone else, if we hadn’t been in that spot at that time. But I know it’s not the same kind of difference.” He cocked his head. “For what it’s worth, I think wanting to make a difference is a good reason to want a gold. And I don’t think every girl here has good reasons, so I’m glad you’re here.”

“Thank you, I think that's the nicest thing someone's said to me since I arrived.” He _did_ understand, and more than that, he approved! Sybana was smiling again and it lit up her whole face. “And maybe I'm wrong on this, I don't know dragons like you do, but I think you _should_ think about what you want, and think about it hard! That way the dragons will know who you are and what you stand for. I imagine that's how your bronze will know to find you.”

“Maybe!” Lakayric smiled. “My grandpa is a bluerider, so I know there’s no shame in it, but still… I would be a good wingleader someday, I just know it!” Maybe it sounded arrogant, but he believed it was true. He hadn’t worked so hard and followed the rules all his life for no reason. He had something big to contribute, he _knew_ it.

After a moment, he regarded her again thoughtfully. “You know… I never actually asked your name. I’m Lakayric.”

“Sybana.” She stepped closer, joining him in the pool of light that spilled from the trees, gilding the velvet of her gown and casting a golden haze over them both. “I’m so glad we met.”

Last updated on the November 18th 2024

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A Different Kind of Understanding