Maybe This Isn't A Good Idea PT 1

Writers: Chelle, Eimi
Date Posted: 26th September 2010

Characters: Ioven, Parale
Description: Parale and Ioven talk about Briata and the ceremony.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 10, day 20 of Turn 5
Notes: Mentioned: Briata, Ishek
Follows Not-So-Pleased to Meet you.
PT 1 of 2

Ioven had the girls and their luggage settled into the quarters assigned
to them during the duration of their time at the Weyr by the time Parale
had finished speaking with her friend. It had given him a long chance to
really think about this sudden bit of information that Parale had
apparently _purposefully_ chosen to keep hidden from him. He felt more
than a little deceived, and the thought that he had jumped into the
decision to propose to her a little too quickly crossed his mind more
than once.

She had said Briata was her cousin. Well, family could not be helped.
But she had not only deliberately concealed from him the fact that
her'friend' was one of the most infamous women in the South at present,
but also had _invited_ her to their wedding without even asking if it
was all right to invite scandal right into the middle of the lives of
him and his daughters. When he heard the sound of the door latch, he
handed the book off to his older daughter. "Would you finish it please,
Venrys? I need to discuss something really quickly with Parale."

With the girls distracted, he walked purposefully towards his intended.
"Would you speak with me outside a moment, please?" he asked softly,
though his eyes spoke the fact that it was not really a request loud and
clear.

"Aye.." she said, wondering what this was going to be about. Following
him, she tried to forget about the fact that she was hungry. "What is
it?"she asked curiously, hoping that nothing serious had gone wrong in
the short time they'd left the boat.

The fact that she seemed to be playing innocent only served to increase
his irritation. "I would like to know if you have any other secrets that
you have kept hidden from me, or was the fact that the former-Lady
Briata was your 'friend' the only one?"

She was quiet for a moment, trying her best to control her own ire at
his tone. "I haven't kept anything hidden from you. I apologize if I was
not aware that I am supposed to tell you the names of all of my
friends."

"Oh, you assumed I would be pleasantly surprised to find out that your
bosom friend is one of the most notorious women in the South?" he asked,
finding it hard to keep his voice down.

"That was not _her_ fault. The Lord Holder didn't complete
his..husbandly duties." Parale almost blushed for a moment, thinking of
Ishek in such a manner. "She is a good woman and I think that's what
matters."

"Marriages take work. As I understand it she didn't give him much
time to complete much of anything before she abandoned her
responsibilities to the Hold - and yes, she had responsibilities to
the_Hold_, Parale, as much as to her husband." That had been the most
shocking part. Who cared what happened in a Lord and Lady Holder's bed?
They had duties they were expected to perform in exchange for the
Holders' loyalty, support and obedience, and the Lady Holder had broken
faith with her people. And for what? Because her Lord couldn't perform
to her liking? It didn't make him feel any more sympathetic towards the
woman.

"She waited three months. If your marriage had not been consummated in
that time, would you think it allright?" she asked him with a tone of
curiosity, wondering if Ioven took his marital duties as serious as she
took hers.

"If you weren't ready I certainly would. I wouldn't take you by force.
Three months is hardly enough time to decide it's an impossible case."
And like the Lord Holder, he suspected, he was not marrying Parale so
she could warm his bed but to fill other needs in his and his daughter's
lives.

"She was ready, Faranth bless her. And he was philandering with some
greenrider instead." Her disgust was plain.

"A _male_ greenrider?" he asked, rather skeptically.

"No, a female. But still. You can't lie with your own young, BEAUTIFUL
wife and yet you can go off with some Weyrperson.. That's not right." Of
course deep down, Parale as a holder held enmity toward weyrfolk and
their way of life.

"And so she runs off to the Weyr herself?" That didn't really sound like
she was taking a stand on the moral high ground. "As I understand it,
the Lord Holder also was married before her, and his wife was killed
tragically."

"There was nowhere else for her to go. And if he had no intent to
consummate, he should have never married." Her lips pursed into a thin
line and she leaned against the wall. "Briata was young-she knew nothing
about men, only what they had trained her to know. If it had been an
older woman with some knowledge...boy I would have fixed him."

An eyebrow quirked slightly. "Why, because you think you understand a
man better? What exactly do you think you know?"

"I know that I wouldn't have been afraid of him like she was. Here she's
thinking he could ruin her whole life. Oh I'd have made his a
living..well it wouldn't have been good." Parale realized what she was
saying and who she was saying it to and grinned. "Course, he thought of
her as expendable. I'd make myself invaluable."

"Tell me Ioven...if someone wanted to get rid of you and just avoided
you till you got sick of it, what would you do?" She came closer to him,
enjoying the conversation. Without thinking about it, she began to play
with the strings on his shirt.

He looked down at her fingers with a look of disgust. "I'd tell her she
knows even less about men than Lady Briata did." Ioven took a step back
and away from her flirtatious fingers. "I have a feeling Lord Ishek and
I have more in common than you ever realized. You think spreading your
legs will make yourself invaluable to me? Maybe you would be happier in
the Weyr, too. I hear they like that kind of 'invaluable'."

"Shells I didn't mean _that_!" She growled in frustration and turned
away from him as if she'd been burned. "For your information.. I might
be 33 turns old, but I've never lain with a man." Maybe it made her a
bit pitiful, but she didn't care. She had pride enough.

"If I had suspected otherwise I wouldn't have asked you to marry me. But
you don't really know what you're talking about." And this conversation
only reinforced just how naive Parale really was. "You think the Lord
Holder saw her as expendable. Well, I say he saw his own needs as
expendable. I say he married her because he had no choice. It was a Hold
without a Lady, and that was all that mattered. I think he loved his
wife, and she was taken from him too soon. And I think that lucky
bastard found comfort in that greenrider, and maybe just a little of
that feeling of what he had once. But he couldn't marry her. He couldn't
run away to the Weyr to be with her. He had responsibilities. He had to
do the right thing by the Hold and marry your friend. And yes, it wasn't
fair to your friend that he had that other woman in his life, and I
can't ever see myself doing that to you, but Faranth's name, I can
understand why he did. Do you have any idea what I would have given to
fall in love again? I lost my love once. I don't think I would have had
the strength to lose it a second time, either."

"All I ask is that you don't turn your nose at Briata. That's it. She
isn't perfect, but she has been kind to me. I'm not going to ask much."
She thought of all she had left and wondered if maybe she was doing a
bit of the same thing. **Ioven isn't Ishek and I am smarter than Briata.
He might not know it yet, but I am**

"And if on our wedding night I take you to bed with good intentions but
just can't do it? If I find it's just too painful and I can't push Narys
from my mind? How many months, Parale, before you give up on me?"

"As long as I don't catch you with some slattern, I'll wait. I've waited
33 turns, I suppose a little more won't kill me though I do want
babies." She raised a gimlet eye to him.

"As long as you live, the only woman I'll take to my bed is you. I
promise you that. But you're not making this commitment only to me.
You're making it to my girls, too. I want to _know_ that no matter what
happens between you and me, that you will not forget your duty to them."
They were, after all, the whole reason he was entering into this
arrangement.

"Once we're wed, it's no longer duty. They'd be mine." And she'd likely
fight him tooth and nail for what was best for them, if the present was
any indication.

"They'd be _ours_," he reminded her. "And I want it in the marriage
contract that should you or I for any reason decide to dissolve our
union, you give up all rights to them. Any children we have together, of
course, are a different story."

"Wait a moment..so you're saying that if you decide to leave me for
whatever reason, you get to take the girls?" She stepped back from him
again, not at all liking this turn of events. "So you allow me to fall
in love with your children, come halfway across the continent for them,
and then at your whim-you can take them away?"

"And what about _you_? I welcome you into my home, provide for you, and
if you decide I'm not doing it to your satisfaction you can just take my
girls and go back to Garnet Valley, or here to your friend in the Weyr
because suddenly they're _yours_? Those girls are my life." And seeing
how easily her friend had ignored her duty shook his faith in her down
to the core. The idea that he could lose his daughters to this woman had
not ever entered his mind until he heard her defend Briata so adamantly,
until he realized that perhaps she didn't hold marriage as sacred as he.

"If you're already thinking of our marriage failing before it has begun,
then maybe it doesn't matter." To think, she had been so stupid..to
follow him. "You doubted Ioven-not me." **But then he never really
wanted you anyway, just wanted a mother. There are so many women out
there that would do that** She wanted to walk away from the conversation
then, afraid of more damage being done.

Last updated on the October 1st 2010

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Maybe This Isn't A Good Idea PT 1