Half-Past Three

Writers: AJ Kraier
Date Posted: 6th May 2007

Characters: D'val
Description: In the immediate wake of D'val's post-flight fight with F'naren, D'val finds a somewhat sympathetic shoulder to cry on in Jolestra.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 3, day 22 of Turn 4

D'val wasn't sure where we was headed when he left his weyr, his firelizard cradled in his arms. To get more wine was definitely one option he was weighing, though his lack of marks and the late hour left his choice of sources limited. Another option was a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, but at that hour of the night few of his friends would be sympathetic to someone who woke them from a sound sleep. All that is except for Jh'slaen, but that would probably come with an 'I told you so,' or some such thing and D'val wasn't in the mood for that. Truth be told, he wasn't in the mood for anything except to forget that whole night -- and especially that whole fight with F'naren -- ever happened.

As he wandered the too-brightly lit corridors, Wish nuzzled his little bronze muzzle against D'val's cheek in a vain attempt to comfort the greenrider -- for that matter, so had drinking the quarter-skin of wine.

He passed a nondescript and yet familiar door with a colicky sounding child behind it, and proceeded well down the corridor before his wine-fogged brain was able to identify the door. **Jolestra, and she must still be up.** He turned, backtracked to the door, and knocked.
Though he had knocked softly, the knock echoed loudly in his ears.

"Alright, alright... What in Great Faranth's name do you want at this hour?" Jolestra demanded, as she flung open the door, and D'val recoiled by a large step. There was spit-up on her yellow nightshirt, and locks of her long brown hair were either bowed out or pulled free of the ribbon that was tied around the rest of her hair, as if little fingers had been at it. Add a hunched back and a worty nose and she might have been something out of a Harper's Winter Tale.

"Well, what is...? D'val?" Jolestra blinked at him as she adjusted the weight of her infant son to her hip. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed to..." He shrugged. "To talk, I guess."

"Do you have any idea what time it is?"

He started to shake his head, but quickly stopped. "No, not exactly."

"Don't you have a timepiece?"

"Uh... not one me..." He contorted his face, as he belched up sour.

"I can see that -- D'val, have you been drinking?"

"No, not exactly."

"Not exactly?"

"Well... maybe -- but just a little of that stuff your friend brought to our Turnover party."

"You saved some of that sharding awful garbage?"

"Yeah. And despite what he said, I can tell you it does _not_ improve with age."

"Neither does he," she remarked, rolling her eyes. "Why would you drink that awful stuff anyway?"

He looked down at his feet and shrugged a shoulder. "I... I did something sort of stupid, Jolestra, and I _really_ want to forget it ever happened."

"What did you do?"

"It's... complicated. Can I come in?"

"Uh... Yes. Of course." Jolestra, took a step back and ushered D'val into her wildflower-scented quarters. "Complicated how?"

"I really don't want to think about it," he said, setting Wish down on a chair before flinging himself onto Jolestra's bed, "or talk about it, or---" He partially rose up to extract the baby's rattle from his backside. "This your?" he said, offering it to her.

"Sorry about that, but I wasn't expecting company in my bed at half-past three in the morning," Jolestra said, taking it from him.

"It's okay," he said, grabbing a pillow and clutching it to his chest.
"I wasn't expecting to be in your bed tonight either. The little guy keeping you wake all night again with the colic?"

She shook her head. "Not all night, and not colic this time. Jolyan has just been a bit cranky since the storm."

"That was quite a storm, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was." She seated herself in a rocking chair beside the bed, settled Jolyan into her lap, and then fixed her gaze on D'val. The greenrider shifted uneasily under it. "D'val, why are you here?"

"Well, you see, L'daven met Aleine, and one thing led to another, and... out I popped a full-term later, a happy and healthy... And that's not what you meant, is it?"

"No. It's late. I'm exhausted. If you were anyone else, I'd have kicked you out of here for that answer, but since it's you, and since you rarely bother me in the middle of night... Start talking."

"I don't want to talk about it. I want to forget it, not talk about it," he said, and then quickly held up a hand to forestall her response. "Ayleth had her flight yesterday. A brownrider friend of mine -- F'naren -- won the flight, and afterwards I did... I *said*
some really stupid things that I wish I hadn't. He stormed out and left me to wallow in the dark, and now I wish I was drunk enough to forget it all."

"Considering what you drank, I'm surprised you aren't."

"It was only a quarter of a skin, and I think it was the one we watered down because it was too sharp to drink otherwise."

"Oh... So, what exactly did you say to make him storm out on you?"

"I'm not exactly sure. It's all kind of a blur," he said, tightening his embrace on the pillow. "It started with me remarking about his decision to spend the night, and him saying that it was only because it would be bad manners to run screaming from the room after flight sex."

Jolestra started to giggle, but hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand when D'val threw her a hurt look. "Sorry, it sounded funny to---"

"It was funny to him to, and I guess that's what started it all."

She cleared her throat, and said, "Go on. I promise not to laugh again."

"I doubt that. It's funny to everyone -- everyone except me. I told him that, and how I hate feeling like some piece of meat to be flown and forgotten by whatever rider's dragon flies Ayleth. To be told it meant nothing to them, that it was just dragon lust and that they were only along for the ride. And F'naren just... just... laughed it off."

"D'val, what did you expect? Friend or no, he was there because of the flight. That in and of itself makes for an awkward situation, especially among friends who aren't bedmates otherwise, and especially when the other guy isn't a bluerider. I won't say that it's not possible for a brown or bronze -rider to have feelings for another man
-- human desire is far too complex to neatly group by dragon color --
but it's also not likely that flight sex is going to lead to romantic confessions in the flight room."

"Why does everybody think that that is what I am after? It's not! All I want, all I'm asking for is a little respect. You don't want to be there? Fine. I'm not your sexual preference? Fine. I can understand that. I can accept that -- I was raised in a Weyr for crying out loud, so I know how these things work. Stay or go, do as you please, but at least respect me. Acknowledge that I am a living, breathing person, with feelings and emotions, and not just some warm piece of meat -- a necessary designed for the relief of your sexual functions as opposed to one for you bladder and bowels. Is that too much to ask for?"

"For some men... yes. For most men, probably." She shook her head sadly. "But no, it's not too much to ask for. Just don't expect to get it in a flight room."

"Why not? Are male greenriders so worthless, as flesh and blood persons, to a Weyr that it doesn't matter to anyone else -- and the males' riders especially -- how we feel, or are made to feel by them?

"As a healer, my greatest aspiration could have been to rise to the rank of MasterHealer of Pern. As a greenrider, I'll never be Weyrleader or a Wingleader. All I seem to be able to aspire to is to become something other than a piece of meat in the flight room. How wonderful a life is that?"

He rolled over into a fetal position, and buried his face in the pillow, the tears streaming down his face in a torrent. Wish hopped from the back of the rocking chair to the head of the bed, and tried to push his way into D'val's arms, but the greenrider shooed him away toward the foot of the bed.

Jolestra rose from the chair, set Jolyan into his crib, dimmed the room lights, and curled up behind D'val on the bed.

"Hush, sweety, hush," she whispered, stroking his hair. "It's not as bad as it might seem right now."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it isn't. You know, you've just described the life many women on Pern have had to live. Denied the crafts, forced into unions with men they cannot stomach, coerced into doing things that they find repugnant or that needlessly risk their lives, popping out baby after baby until they can't anymore, or until they die -- whichever comes first. Yes, life sucks, but only some of the time. Focus on the good things in life, and let the bad ones roll over you like just so much rain."

"Rain kills, or haven't you heard?"

"Hush now. Go to sleep, and we'll talk more in the morning. You'll feel better then, D'v... Dorval," she said, calling him by his birth name.

Last updated on the May 6th 2007

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Half-Past Three