It's Not About Love

Writers: AL, Devin
Date Posted: 25th August 2009

Characters: Cosani, Meledei
Description: Meledei offers to help Cosani with her inexperience problem.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 4, day 20 of Turn 5

Cosani

"I thought she'd be a lot bigger than Shalith now." Cosani watched the
two dragons as they played in the waves. If there was a size
difference between the large green and the tiny gold, it wasn't
obvious.

"Yeah, so did I." It was a point of concern for Meledei and she
wasn't sure what to do about it. There wasn't really anything she
_could_ do it about it, could she? The gold was just small. She was
healthy in every other respect, she met all the milestones she was
supposed to meet without any difficulty, even excelling. The only
place where she wasn't developing along the normal lines was her size.

"The blues are finally outgrowing Shalith. Some of them, anyway. I
kind of hoped she would stay bigger than them." For a little while,
she'd been as big as the bronzes.

"I don't care if Elleth is big, I just want her to be healthy."
Really, should she be all that concerned? In every other way, she was
healthy - so why did it bother Meledei so much?

"Well, she _is_ healthy. And every dragonhealer will come running if
she so much as stubs her toe to make sure she stays that way." Cosani
was jealous of the attention sometimes.

"Oh Faranth, I hope not. That would be rediculous." Meledei sighed.
She had to admit they both received a lot of attention because of the
colour of Elleth's hide. It was tiresome at times. "We do still have
a while before we graduated. Perhaps she'll go through a growth
spurt."

"Maybe," Cosani agreed, wiggling her toes in the sand.

"Hopefully." Meledei really ought not to worry so much, and she was
trying not to even if she was rather unsuccessful at it. "I wonder
how long it will be until she rises. Certainly not until some time
after graduation."

"Not as soon as Shalith." Worry settled in Cosani's stomach.

"What's wrong?" There was an undertone in Cosani's voice and if
Meledei hadn't known her as well as she did, the gold weyrling would
have missed it.

"We're supposed to be ready before they rise."

Meledei nodded. It was stressed that the weyrlings do so, mainly to
avoid discomfort and panicking in the middle of a flight. "Are you
concerned about that?"

"I don't know what to think about it," Cosani admitted.

"I'm guessing that means you're not really experienced."

She sighed. "No."

"Is there no one that catches your interest?" Cosani wasn't ugly and
while she could be tactless and direct, Meledei knew there was more to
her than that. "E'ron? Z'ku? Someone else?"

"It's not about that, so much. It's about the whole thing. Sex."
Meledei was the only person she was even a little willing to talk to
about this.

"What do you mean?" Meledei drew her legs to her and wrapped her arms
around them, bits of sand fell from her palms.

"My whole life -- before I came to the Weyr -- was really ... hard
because my Ma got pregnant outside of marriage. Sometimes I feel like
I want to have sex just to ... I don't know, reject holder morals."
The rebellious part of her liked that, to be everything her
grandfather told her not to be, what the holders said her mother was.

"Is that what you think sex _should_ be?" It sounded unhealthy to
Meledei, but she had a different view of sex than most of those in the
Weyr.

"I don't _know_ what sex should be. It's so different here. But I'm
worried that if I have sex with a man he'll -- he'll _own_ me somehow,
like husbands own their wives." That was what she'd seen at the hold.
There were some marriages that seemed happy, but the husband was
always the one in charge, and sex was only supposed to happen in a
marriage, when a man owned you.

"Oh Cosani, no one owns you except your dragon." It was sad that
Cosani had to be afraid of that. Meledei wished the girl had been
taken away from that situation before she had learned such a harsh and
incorrect lesson. "Ownership of someone isn't something that is
forced - not _true_ ownership."

"I don't want anyone to own me. And I don't want to _give_ them
anything." The way holders talked, women gave and men took.

"What do you think love is?" Poor Cosani. She had never really
loved, had she? Not until Impression. "Love is ownership, but it's
the kind of ownership that is mutual. You own one another but you do
so gladly. Each person sacrifices him or herself to make the other
happy. Is that not true for your Shalith? You want her to be happy,
she wants you to be happy?"

"Of course. But I'm not talking about love, Meledei. I'm talking about
_sex_, which is something we have to do before graduation." She picked
up a handful of sand and tossed it at nothing in particular.

"True but..." It was there that Meledei struggled. She was fortunate
to have found someone she cared about. "I always thought love should
come before sex. I know that doesn't help in our case."

"Love." Cosani snorted. "Love and sex have nothing to do with each
other. My parents didn't love each other."

"They _should_." That was part of the problem, so many people
separated them but Meledei always felt they should be a part of one
another. "Sex without love is meaningless and there's no point. I
think you should find someone you care about, like as a friend at the
very least."

"So I'm supposed to meet someone and fall in love by graduation, and
then everything will be fine?" This was a mistake. She never should
have said anything.

Meledei sighed. She loved Cosani, but the girl got riled up so easily
sometimes. "I'm sorry I'm not a guy. I'd be more than happy to help
you and out and love you enough as a friend for it to mean more than
simply a physical pleasure. But that's not exactly what I'm saying.
I'm saying is, instead of jumping into bed with someone, try to find
someone you at least like as a friend. It will make it easier. If
you can't then...well, find someone _nice_...someone who's going to
treat you right." She paused and then added, "I'd be willing to help
you find someone if you want."

"I don't want anybody to think they can follow me around afterward. I
don't want them to think it means anything. I just want it _over_
with." She feared a man being able to put a claim on her.

"No one is going to think they can follow you around." The pity that
Meledei felt intensified. "But I can help you with that too, someone
who will be gentle but isn't going to put more into than there is, if
that's what you want."

"That's what I want," she said quietly. "It's my duty, for Shalith.
Nothing more."

"Then I'll help you." Meledei hoped that some day some man would come
along and show her what it was supposed to be like. For the moment,
though, she was simply going to help her friend the best way she knew
how.

Last updated on the August 29th 2009

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It's Not About Love