Diamonds and Rust

Writers: Iluva
Date Posted: 29th July 2026

Characters: V'maran, R'calbin
Description: V’maran has A Day
Location: Barrier Lake Weyr
Date: month 2, day 3 of Turn 13
Notes: TW for grief
Mentioned: Rasme, S’bellan, Q’vettan, F'lin, Imbeth, Eyla

V'maran

V'maran hadn't seen his retirement like this. Different Weyr. Wingleader position, of all things. Dealing with Rasme. Constant reminders of what he was not doing -- threadfighting -- pouring in on top of him. Feeling like he'd been born in the previous Pass some days.

That morning, the sun barely up, he woke to a semi-dark weyr and a thorn in his hip that had somehow wriggled itself deeper in the night rather than out, as sleep often did. No point in griping about it, though he did a little, silently, as he struggled to get both socks on and then his boots. The laces hung limply until he had klah made and had moved around a bit, blood flowing through muscles until they finally yielded. Usually it was the end of the day that was the hardest.

The klah was garbage anywhere else in the Weyr these days, so he drank as much as possible while he was in his weyr. Apparently, the kitchens had grown suspicious of the mug’s final destination. Apparently they weren’t taking their chances. Adding rum in the evenings certainly didn’t make the taste any worse, but since their campaign against the Weyrleader began, V’maran found his taste for klah other than what he made in a weyr on an indefinite hold.

Midway through his second cup, Kastegarth stirred with a low croon, pleased to find him here. V’maran went to him, easing against his neck and rubbing the underside of his jaw as the dawn crested the horizon in a wash of pale yellow.

He’d been away the past few nights. When he wasn't here or in his office, he was either in Q’vettan’s quarters or his office. The dining hall, briefly, though sometimes not. Pacing around his weyr that morning, V’maran took in his space anew. It was soothing in a way that ached. It still had S’bellan’s touch in almost every way -- in the way the glasses were arranged in the cupboards, in the many paintings Seb had done, sitting and facing the water, that hung just so on their walls, arranged in a way that ‘tells a story’, he’d said. Whatever that meant.

Sometimes it still felt like he was here. In the morning, when he woke with a low groan and thought he heard him sigh. In the feeling that rushed up in V’maran when he came in from the ledge, that he might kick back on the couch in the evening and still expect to hear the sunny humming to himself in the next room. He still tried to keep the weyr as S’bellan had, and if someone might accuse him of living in the past or making his grief harder to wade through even this many turns onward, well, there was no chance this side of the Rest Star they were even invited to his weyr in the first place and could therefore shut up, and so no one did.

His thoughts turned to Q’vettan as he dressed, thought of his voice, imagined the angle of him as he sat up and his hair hung loose and slightly tangled, the warmth he took with him as he rose. When in an especially poor or playful mood, sometimes he teased Q’vettan about having a particular type, but maybe he did, too. Confidence and charm, the exceptionality of such a sharp eye. S’bellan had always dressed well -- though in truth he could have made a paper bag look good -- and Q'vettan looked like a man born straight from a ballad with almost no effort. He was the Weyrleader the Printer Hall put on the cover of novels and the man who filled the pages. Unshaven, V’maran donned a worn, faded shirt beneath his jacket, Wingleader knots stark and bright against the overall grey of him. By the time he was walking through the corridors, the limp barely registered.

*

His office walls were barebones, the surfaces a little messy in places. Like him. He sat with the bones of his back pressed into the rigid support of the chair with the buzz of the electric lights over him. He rubbed his stubble, eyes cutting over words. The latest additions to the Wing from yesterdays’ threadfall-- three that had the hope of going back to their own. One that didn’t, wouldn't.

Threadfall was all anyone could talk about the day after. Some spoke about restdays and making plans to visit friends or family as the week went on, and flights and the gall their neighbour had to host a party so late. But if your body was broken and your mate was dead and you were overseeing the recovery of injured pairs, worried for them on a level you did not voice, then ‘Fall was all V’maran cared about until the next one. No, not all. Mostly.

In his office he could escape from the feeling of age and time. It still felt like a pale shadow to what happened above, as if that were one world and this another, separate, but in here, he could still help. In his office he could escape.

It was after lunch when a knock got his attention. R’calbin, poking his head around the door first. Since temporarily joining the Wing, he’d been stopping by almost daily, sometimes twice. He’d just missed the most recent ‘fall. It would probably be the last one he’d have to sit out. V’maran didn’t look up at the knock, already knowing who it was.

“Am I… bothering you?”

V’maran grunted, but no, he wasn’t.

“Just thought I’d check in and give you a copy of this.”

V’maran gestured vaguely to a chair. “Klah? I can order some.”

“No, thank you, sir,” R’calbin said, dropping into a seat.

“Good call. It's shit this time of day.” V’maran usually made it himself here, too; the kitchens had gotten wise to him ordering even just one mug now, and there was no point. But he didn’t want this kid seeing him struggle or possibly _drop_ something trying to make it, and he wouldn’t have him offer some sort of assistance to him. No sharding way.

The young man chuckled, looking rueful. “Luctioth says I ‘get testy’ when I have more than a cup.”

He scanned the precisely scrawled copy of Luctioth’s chart -- Eyla’s notes, nothing extraneous. “He's healed well.” He said approvingly. “I’ll pass along word to Q’vettan once you’re officially discharged tomorrow, but in the meantime make sure he’s ready for the next ‘Fall. Don’t wait until a day or two before.” He shifted a little and subtly stretched his leg, that near-constant reminder of why he wouldn't be getting anywhere but back on his dragon, if he was lucky. “F’lin will set you up once you’re back.”

“Yeah, Eyla gave me the same instructions this morning,” R’calbin said, more than ready to be back in the place he loved. “I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“Good,” V’maran groused. “Because you’ve been a thorn in my side these last two sevendays. You're here any longer, and the next thing you'll be trying to steal my job.”

R’calbin just grinned, unbothered. Handsome kid. Bright blue eyes, a shock of black hair. Fought Thread like a wild feline. V'maran hoped not to see him back in Cherry Wing.

*

Later, he desperately needed to stretch and made his way outside -- without the cane. It was difficult, but he managed with most of his dignity intact.

The Weyrlings in the ‘bowl were marching in soft arrowheads of threes and nines. The slow meander of ships around the docks where the tithe was unloaded seemed exceptionally slow that day. The water was calm, though some part of it whirled. He frowned. When he looked again and felt across their link, he realized it was Kastegarth bobbing in the water by the docks, snuffling curiously at the onlookers. **What the Egg are you--**

The blue looked over like a young child who knew they’d been caught. }:They like me!:{ he insisted, as if that served as both explanation and excuse.

**You’re supposed to be having a bath, not harassing the sharding ships.** The anger might have also been because _he_ couldn’t quite manage to do any of that himself. The swimming or giving his dragon a bath -- not that day, and not as often as he’d like. That he had been forced to rely on some candidates. He couldn’t make it down there fast enough to do much of anything to deter him. Their link inflamed with his concentrated displeasure. **You dolt, you’ll break the bloody boards.**

Kastegarth snorted, his tone now defensive and painfully self-righteous. }: They’re _done_ unloading. I wouldn’t just interrupt them while they’re doing their work. Besides, all the kids went away.:{

**The Red Star you wouldn’t.**

The blue surged up, and his big head suddenly loomed over the edge of the dock again, crooning to the men, who half laughed, half gasped in surprise. He got more attention when he went right up to where the boats normally were and he wasn’t content with just the fleeting admiration of the candidates. A long wing dipped into the lake's face and lifted a brilliant spray over the workers. }:It’s not like you’re going to come down and swim with me.:{

No, he was not. That hurt in yet another way. **Stop making a mess. Get out of there.**

Kastegarth took his time answering him. }:I will.:{ Maybe. He was considering it.

V’maran could only bristle. Like so many things, it was futile. He was lucky he even made it back to his desk, his temples and his leg pulsing in time together. If he had a good leg, he’d go down and jump on his dragon's back and haul him out of there before he had a chance to protest. But he didn’t have a good leg, and Q’vettan couldn’t come and fish him out at this hour. **Bastard.** He thought darkly to his dragon, though without any real bite, especially not when Kastegarth’s love came roaring back at him like a bright, obnoxious waterfall. Fine. He was the dockworkers' problem now. Worst case, Imbeth could yell at him, and he’d high-tail it out of there like something ancient far below had awoken and was trying to eat his tail.

The cane had to come out for the remainder of the day. It knocked smartly against the chair as he sat back down. It got left, briefly, for another Wingleader’s office to consult, and then he used it to get up to his filing cabinet half a dozen times, moving more easily about the room. But then, like some unknown threshold had been met, his leg refused him each time after that, and he stayed sitting, reading, frustrated.

V’maran exhaled wearily.

The passage of time was not his friend. The days of feeling invulnerable even when he lay in the infirmary, broken or badly scored, had set.

But when he tried to move too fast, like the parts of him that still wanted to, he was hit with a pain sharp enough to temporarily steal sight. He was back to feeling useless all over again while his leg screamed. Only he heard it, and it was a single, if boundless, blessing. He didn’t want anyone to look at him. He sure as Faranth didn’t want anyone’s pity. He just sucked his breath in until it died, and the pain ebbed as slowly as rainwater sitting on soil that has absorbed as much as it can and must wait for it to take any more.

*

It was close to the evening meal when V’maran reached for his mug of dirt-klah. Horrible as the kitchens’ brew was, it was still better than drinking the fellis straight -- but it seemed to jump away from him, knocking it over the edge of his desk with its contents spilling out in a pool of mud. He couldn’t pick it up. Couldn’t reach. Couldn’t. He swore loudly, and Kastegarth’s bubbling concern had his eyes shutting tight.

The job was fine. Honestly, better than fine. He’d settled into it with the same defiant smirk he would have had at twenty-five for being the first blue Wingleader, a fragile sense of purpose blooming in around the rage of being unable and alone and the needling knowledge that he had just been making things harder for everyone in the Queens’ Wing.

It wasn't _fighting_, but he was still helping the Weyr, and -- as hard as that was to contend with, as enraging as it all was -- in whatever capacity he was still able. It was what he could do _now_. But some days he missed days gone by more than he knew the words for it.

S’bellan. There he was again. He came to him beneath his lids, in the ruby darkness between him and the lights. S’bellan didn’t want to die. They had known the end lay in some near future. It had been getting worse, a steady decline, like a slow storm of confusion taking over him. In their last few weeks together, which V’maran hadn’t known were their last, hadn’t wanted to see, S'bellan kept forgetting where he was. Over and over, like learning a new word, only that word was nothingness. Then he started to forget V'maran. Little by little, who he was, who he had always been, was leaving. The choice he’d made to end his suffering _between_ was a mercy. Trying to make the last part of a bad disease a little less bad. S’bellan didn’t want to do what he did -- V'maran knew that, even in the heaviest grips of his grief. When he died, Seb had been settling for an end he could still choose, because the alternative of dementia was so much worse.

It didn’t feel so long ago that S’bellan was still here, not when they’d had thirty turns that stretched back longer than Barrier Lake’s inception, almost out of time for some living today. V’maran didn’t feel the hole in his chest left by Seb’s absence, not its exact shape, when he was busy. Q’vettan had been right to push him towards Cherry Wing. He was useful, and above all else it was on his terms.

He knew he would’ve been forced into some form of retirement regardless, likely under worse conditions than the arthritis and slow-fading mobility that plagued him now, and he wouldn’t have liked that any better (as no form of retirement would ever really be acceptable).

And yet even with the knots, the office, and coordinating with the many other riders around him into something useful, the unexpected warmth of connection between him and Q'vettan, the way he felt with him, thought of him, wanted to be near him in a way he knew was right, even with all the _good_, V’maran still didn’t _want_ to be retired. Not without S’bellan. The way it was supposed to be, but wasn’t.

It was no small thing to be where he was, alive while so many in River Bluff were not, breathing when others had already breathed their last. He was grateful in ways he didn’t know how to express.

And, although he knew all of that as he leaned forward, somehow managing to knock the sharding mug back his way with his cane, he did not want to be on the ground.

Last updated on the September 2nd 2026

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Diamonds and Rust