What She Had To Do

Writers: Dana
Date Posted: 3rd February 2009

Characters: Nialyn
Description: Nialyn reflects on her situation at the Weyr, and comes to a difficult decision
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 1, day 4 of Turn 5

She just couldn't stand it anymore! Nialyn angrily slammed the door shut,
the harsh sound echoing throughout her weyr. Frustrated tears filled her
eyes, and since she was no longer in public, she let them fall in hot
trails down her cheeks. Sharding Birigundi! Every sharding sevenday he
found a new girl to flaunt under her nose. And it _was_ flaunting. He
could take those girls anywhere in the Weyr to do what he did with them in
the dining cavern, but he didn't. He deliberately took them to the place
she regularly worked at to make sure she saw him with them. He did it to
hurt her. All sharding month he'd done this, and sometimes he even had
_two_ girls rubbing themselves all over him. It sickened Nialyn. What
_was_ it about the male psyche? What made them think that girls would be
impressed by how many other girls they could get to hang all over them?
Well, she certainly wasn't impressed! It was disgusting and perverse.
But oh, his friends loved him for it. Those flaming coarse friends of his
who she met only once and knew she'd never want to see again. How they
had whistled and egged Birigundi on tonight, loudly goading him to make
out with the beautiful new girl who had just transferred in from a
different Weyr. Not that Birigundi had needed much goading. Nialyn could
still see how eagerly he had grasped at that girl's slender back, finding
the hem of her tunic and sliding his hands underneath it to touch her
tanned skin. Of course, he hadn't stopped there. He never did. As soon
as he got her on his lap, and as soon as she was settled there, caught
between his body and the edge of the table, he began sucking her sharding
face off. There was no romance in it, no gentleness, no tenderness. Only
lust.

Nialyn wiped the tears from her cheeks and stalked over to her sofa.
Grabbing her favorite blanket, she wrapped it around herself and plopped
down on the cushion, glaring down at the floor. No doubt he was _still_
necking with that girl, and would probably take her to his weyr soon. He
didn't have much self-control. After all, he only thought with one
portion of his anatomy and it wasn't his sharding brain. Yeah, he'd be
leaving soon, if he hadn't already. Luckily Nialyn had made her escape
from the dining cavern before him, so she hadn't had to purposefully look
the other way or busy herself with stacking dishes when he rose from his
circle of friends and gaggle of wagering onlookers to take his leave with
his new lay of the day. A couple of times over the sevendays she had
caught him glancing in her direction, almost as if he was challenging her
to acknowledge him so that she couldn't deny what he was doing, or what he
was about to do. But for the past month, Nialyn hadn't given him the
satisfaction of reacting in the way he wanted. Over the Turn she'd grown
into a thicker skin, so usually she would give him a blank stare whenever
their eyes met. And it wasn't often. Typically he ignored her.

But today... Shards, today their eyes had met briefly when he'd looked up
from kissing on that moaning girl's neck, and Nialyn had crumbled from the
inside out. After a whole month of being able to stand there, working,
keeping a somewhat stoic, blank expression on her face, she had to break
_today_. It wasn't fair! But it all had finally caught up to her--all of
her frustration and emotional pain and anger...she hadn't been able to
hold it back anymore. And it had been completely impossible to when their
eyes had met. But Faranth, she was furious with herself for letting him
see how hurt she was. Of course, his own expression had been conveniently
unreadable, so she couldn't tell what he'd been thinking in that split
second. But he'd gone right back to groping the girl on his lap, so he
obviously wasn't affected by her distress. And why should he be? Why did
she _still_ expect him to show that he had some kind of a conscience?
That he still cared? Shards, maybe it was because they had shared a
few...moments...last month--moments that had made each of them very aware
that there was still something there between them. And that had scared
Nialyn. Even though she had K'lar and things were going well between the
two of them, she still missed Birigundi. And every time she thought about
him, she mourned for what he could have been to her, for the chance that
they had lost. She'd known last month that if she let him in too close,
she would naturally want to try again with him because she missed him.
But she had also known then that he wouldn't change. She wasn't enough of
a woman for him, and she had sworn to herself that she would never be "the
other woman" ever again. So she had brushed off his careful advances--and
that effort to keep the hesitant peace had exploded in her face on her own
sharding birthday.

It was either all or nothing with Birigundi. He would either have her as
his lover again, or not at all. She had been willing to try to be more
friendly with him rather than just formally civil, but friendly wasn't
enough for him. And it never would be. His behavior this past month
proved that to her, over and over again. The message he was sending was
that since she didn't want to be in his life, then he didn't need her
either. Nialyn had come to realize this too over the sevendays. He had
his other women, and there was no doubt in her mind that he would be
perfectly content to live out his life here, flitting from one woman's bed
to the next. It was what he did best, so why wouldn't he be happy? But
she, on the other hand...

Lifting her eyes, Nialyn gazed numbly around the room. This weyr was
filled with bittersweet memories, good ones and bad ones, and they all
caused her pain. Night after night after night she had come home from her
shifts with Lyndi in her arms, feeling used, abused and miserable. Even
her good moments with K'lar couldn't wipe away her unhappiness. His
presence helped for a while, but it wasn't enough to make her forget and
start anew. She finally had to admit to herself that she had come to hate
the very sight of this place.

She had never really liked living at the Weyr, even from the very
beginning of her arrival here. Yes, it housed the dragonriders, the
saviors of Pern, but it was also a place of immorality. Most of the
people here believed in things that she did not, and she was too Holdbred
to adapt completely and fully embrace their ways of thinking. She had
stayed all these Turns because she had been too afraid to leave. First,
she'd been too afraid to live without her mother. But once she was old
enough to consider herself an adult, she'd been too afraid to leave
because the Weyr was the only place she really knew. Even now, even
though she had entertained the idea before of packing up and leaving with
Lyndi, she was still afraid of the unknown, but she was also sick to death
of living in a place that she hated. How could she ever find her own
contentment and happiness if she would always be unhappy deep down? That
was no way to live. And she knew she couldn't look to any man to make her
happy. She had made that mistake with Birigundi, and she was making it
again with K'lar. It wasn't fair of her to expect him to take her
unhappiness away, especially since she knew he never could. And it wasn't
fair to use him as a shield so she could hide away from it all either.
She cared for him--she wouldn't be in a relationship with him if she
didn't--but her feelings for him just weren't strong enough to make her
want to stay here.

Nialyn blinked, and fresh tears trailed down her cheeks. She knew what
she had to do. But by Faranth, it wouldn't be easy.

Last updated on the February 10th 2009

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What She Had To Do