Alternate Lives (1/2)

Writers: Cali, Eimi
Date Posted: 5th December 2008

Characters: Karri, L'rew
Description: Karri tries again with L'rew and has surprising success.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 12, day 17 of Turn 4

"Hey," Karri said quietly as she came up behind L'rew and sat down next
to him on a bench. She looked out at the plateau lake and saw his brown
relaxing in the water not far away. They hadn't talked much since their
blowup during drill watching, only brief interchanges when necessary in
class, and now that she couldn't think of anyway to start off a
conversation she was regretting coming over in the first place.

He looked over his shoulder at her, a little surprised to hear a voice
that wasn't in his head, and a little wary once he saw who it was. Did
she come to tell him what a terrible person he was again? "Hello," he
mumbled, turning back towards the lake and hoping she'd just leave him
alone.

They sat in silence, neither one looking at the other, while the sun
lowered below the plateau edge. Finally giving up on the idea of
conjuring up small talk, Karri decided to get straight to the point. "I
guess I just wanted to apologize for my behavior the other day."

"It's ok," he shrugged, pretending that it had not mattered to him in
the slightest. Truth was it had hurt deeply. He had spent the next few
days wondering if people really did see him as being so terrible. Was
that why his father had never liked him? Was that why no one seemed to
invite him to things, or that no one seemed to even know he existed?
But he couldn't show that it had been on his mind. L'rew refused to be
terrible _and_ a weak little baby.

She turned towards him and placed her hand on his forearm. "It's not
okay. It was rude and unfair of me to get so upset."

L'rew jumped slightly at the touch. It had been a long time since
anyone had touched him voluntarily. For a moment he just looked down at
her hand, dumbfounded. "It's... It's ok," he finally murmured, not
knowing what else to say.

Karri gave a small smile then turned towards the water, removing her
hand and placing it in her lap. She watched Chairoth for a moment,
"He's getting big. You'll both be graduating to a wing soon."

"That's what they tell us," he agreed with a solemn nod as he took looked
at his brown creating waves as he turned himself around in the water.

"Do you think you're ready?" she asked, keeping her eyes on his dragon.
She was starting to relax a bit, but she knew that they could start
arguing again at the turn of a phrase. "I'd be happy to help with
anything you might not be completely comfortable with yet."

"I'm pretty sure we got it," he shrugged. It wasn't that hard, as long
as you studied the drills ahead of time.

Karri nodded, she wasn't surprised by his response, he never asked for
help from anyone. She hadn't forgotten what T'mahl had said to her
about L'rew, but she knew he wouldn't react well to her pushing him to
choose a girl. Either he'd find someone or he wouldn't, it'd be up to
him. "Just remember I'm here."

L'rew's shoulders stiffened slightly. "One minute you say I'm a
terrible person, and the next you say you want to be there for me?"
What was this, some sort of set up?

And here came the mood swing again... "I never said you were _terrible_
I told Elliath you were _horrible_ and you already said it was okay so
you can't take it back and be mad at me again."

"I'm not mad, but I certainly don't see why I should believe you
considering how quickly you seem to change from calling me horrible to
trying to be my best friend all of a sudden." L'rew never knew what to
expect from people at the Weyr. They seemed to only want to talk and be
around him when they wanted something from him. Karri hadn't seemed
that way before, but then again, he didn't know she secretly thought he
was horrible before either. He should have known. No one in this place
were exactly what they seemed, and no one knew where they stood with
anyone except their own dragon.

"I'm not trying to be your best friend." Karri replied, a bit of
annoyance tinging the line. "But I am trying to let you know that you
aren't alone. I don't know what it was like for you before you came to
the Weyr, but I came from a small hold where my parents all but shunned
me. When I came to the Weyr it was a big adjustment. I was alone and
scared, and I didn't know how to let people in. You'll be out into a
wing soon and we might not run into each other for months. I just want
you to know that if you need somebody, for anything; a drink, a favor, a
game of waterball-although I'm quite horrible so maybe I'm not the best
for that- that I'm here and I _want_ to be your friend. Even if I do on
occasion get cranky and think you're behaving horribly." She added
with a lazy smile. She'd given her pitch, but she bet he was too
stubborn to take it for the overture it was.

L'rew was silent a moment as he mulled over her offer in his mind. It
sounded genuine, and it sounded friendly. But it sounded too nice, too
perfect. If he accepted it straight out, that's when he would be
stabbed in the back _again_, and he had experienced too many
disappointments since coming to the Weyr. But Faranth knew he was
sharding lonely at the Weyr. "I didn't know you were from a Hold," he
muttered softly, neither accepting nor denying her offer.

Karri was thrown off by his reply. She'd been expecting some sort of
sarcastic remark. "Yeah, a mountain hold in the Western Range."

"I came from a mountain hold up there," he said as if it didn't really
matter, but honestly he was a little intrigued. "Did yours have ovine?"

"Really?" She sat back a little and looked him over as if for the first
time. "No, we had herdbeasts, but mostly did timber for the nearby
mines. You weren't a miner's son were you?"

"I wish," he snorted. "My family has been ovine herders since...
probably since the Ancients came."

Karri supposed it would have been too much of a coincidence if they'd
been neighbors, "Is that why you came to the Weyr? You didn't want to
be a herder?"

"Never wanted to be a herder, never wanted to spend my life in the back
of /between/, and I never ever wanted to turn into my father," he
replied with a scowl as he remembered the way his father had refused him
any future but the one he had laid out for him.

She smiled, "You were never _meant_ to be a herder. You were meant to
be here at the Weyr."

"I know! I begged my father to let me craft or _something_ but he
always said that if being a herder was good enough for him and good
enough for his father and his father's father it should be good enough
for me."

She briefly wondered if _all_ mountain holders were overbearing dimglows
that drove their children away. "So have you shown him how wrong he was?

"No," he said with a shake of his head. "He didn't bother coming to my
Hatching. Why should I bother with him? With _any_ of them?" L'rew had
thought that he wouldn't have wanted his parents there anyway, but the
truth was it hurt a little that they hadn't come. Deep down, he had
thought they would have. But he would never have admitted that he had
missed them being there.

"I guess you're right." Karri replied with a shrug. She hadn't really
brought her former life up with anyone, not in a long time anyways. It
hurt to remember the disappointment and rejection of her father. "I
haven't gone back to my hold either. I think about it sometimes,
shoving it in their face that I'm _something_ now. I think that my
oldest brother might be happy for me, but I'm sure my parents haven't
given me another thought. I was only ever a burden to them."

"I was never a burden to mine. They were a burden to me." He felt more
like a trapped servant the way his father was always ordering him
around, telling him what to do and how to do it, refusing to let him go
anywhere or see anything. And his mother always agreeing with his
father on _everything_. "Screw them all, eh?"

Karri chuckled as she looked out at Chairoth spraying water at a nearby
blue, "Yeah, screw 'em all."

Last updated on the December 13th 2008

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Alternate Lives (1/2)