A Moment of Maturity

Writers: Nicole Bonvisuto
Date Posted: 28th August 2013

Characters: X'dris, Flita, Dayf, Larus, Vanis, Elina, Alena, Maja
Description: Xandris comforts Flita after a disaster and does a bit of soul searching
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 2, day 15 of Turn 7
Notes: Rated PG-17 for some light discussion of sex and human anatomy.
It's discreet, but consider yourself warned.

"Ya think they'll come all the way out here, still?" Larus asked. "I mean,
I heard the clutch was pretty small."

"They always do," Xandris said.

"That's if your folks even let ya out for the Search dragons to see you."
Dayf smirked and tossed a tuber into the bucket. He flexed one hand: dirty
and callused from a season of sorting the roots from the plants.

"I'm a turn older now. It'll make all the difference," Larus protested.

"If they pick any of us, and if the folks will let us leave," Xandris
reminded. He hated to be a kill-joy, but that was the cold, hard reality of
life on a farming cothold. The people here didn't just resent the
dragonriders for taking their children: they resented the loss of help in
such a small community.

"Way to ruin it, Xandris. Maybe next you can light the barn on fire:
brighten someone else's day," Dayf snapped.

"You'd go? If they Searched you?" Xandris asked him, separating another
tuber from its plant.

"Shards yes, I'd go. We don't all have our father's knots to ride on now do
we? We'd be here until we're old, grey, and married: picking tubers."
Dayf dangled a wilted plant back and forth like a limp rope.

"It's just… what you do." Xandris shrugged.

"You honestly mean that if they Searched you, you wouldn't leave?" Dayf
asked.

Xandris shrugged again. There was a part of him that imagined what it would
be like, to ride strapped onto a dragon with the wind in his face. But
then, he thought of the cothold and his father's bent figure and puffy,
cracking knuckles gripped onto the plow.

"I don't know."

"You'd be a deadglow if you didn't." Dayf shook his head.

"Don't worry about Dayf," Larus assured. "He's just certain he's supposed
to Impress a bronze."

"Psh. You just don't want anyone to know you're hoping for a green."

"I'm _not_ like that." Larus glared back at Dayf.

"That's not what Aidna said. I heard her dress came off right in front of
you, and you didn't even look. Had her singin' your praises for something
she don't know you didn't even want to see." Dayf taunted.

"It's not _right_. You don't just stare at a lady like that!"

"I would." Dayf shrugged, running a dirty hand through tar black hair.

"That's because you're-"

"You know bronzes catch greens too, Dayf," Xandris interrupted. "I guess
you'll be taking boys to bed yourself."

"Not mine! I'd be Weyrleader soon enough, and _none_ of my golds will lay
small clutches."

"That just means he won't have sex for turns, not that any girls are lined
up to touch him anyway," Larus quipped.

Dayf's mouth attempted to form words, but failed.

Xandris laughed and tossed his last plant aside triumphantly. The first one
done didn't have to clean the mess! He grabbed the first bushel of tubers.
"Don't worry, Dayf. Maybe those greens would be nice to ya."

--

He made it almost to the storehouse before his elbow locked. It did it from
time to time, where the joint seemed to stick in one position. Xandris
lowered the basket down to the ground and jerked his arm out abruptly so
that the joint popped. A hand slammed down on his shoulder and the boy
about jumped out of his skin. A deep voice behind him laughed.

"By Faranth, Vanis, you walk like the sharding wind!" He cursed.

"Ha!" Vanis laughed again. "I was just on my way to see your father. You go
easy on those joints, or you stand to be achin' like him, ya hear? How's he
doin' today? Hurting again?"

"Probably," Xandris shrugged. "I think he's in the cot with Ma last I knew."

"Well enough," Vanis patted him on the shoulder again. "Best get those
tubers to Maja over there. I hear she's bound to start cuttin' pieces off
of those twins if she doesn't put somethin' else to the knife soon enough."

Xandris smirked and lifted the basket. He couldn't say he was opposed to
the idea. He recognized the twin girls with their stark different of hair:
one red, one black. Their presence at the riverside had put no haste in his
steps to come closer.

"Oh, and if you see Flita, send her back home. It's not proper for her to
be out by herself, given the circumstances..."

He stared blankly at Vanis and nodded. What had he missed?

"Xandris," they greeted him in unison. He hated that: it always made the
hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Ladies," he hissed under his breath.

"How's your girlfriend?" Elina asked.

"Don't have one."

"You haven't seen Flita? Last time we saw her, she was still crying," Alena
reported smugly, glancing over her shoulder while she scrubbed a sheet on
the washing board.

Xandris stopped and looked at them. Just like that, he had taken the bait,
and both girls turned around. Their smiles were almost sinister.

"Oh, you didn't hear?" Elina asked, folding her hands in her wet lap. "She
won't be marryin' Dolan after all and there will be no Lady Flita. Such a
shame."

"They found out she'd been sleepin' around," Alena smiled and leaned
forward.

"With who?" Xandris asked, a million possibilities running through his
brain. "And how?"

"Well, you see, when two people love each other very mu-" Elina began in
her most sarcastic tone.

"I meant how did they know!" It was all Xandris could do to keep from
pouring the bucket of tubers over her head.

"We thought it was you," Alena admitted, flashing Elina a surprised frown
and raised eyebrows.

"They had her examined," Elina explained. "Nadol wanted to be sure she
hadn't been dabbling with the boys before they made wedding arrangements,
so he had the healer-"

"You girls!" Maja's shrill voice boomed from behind them. They all jumped.
"If any of that air comin' out of your mouths was worth three whiffs of a
wherry's ass, those clothes'd be dry by now! Stop gabbing and get
scrubbing!"

"You!" she pointed at Xandris. "Bring those into the store room."

Xandris nodded and followed her without response. He hadn't expected Maja
to sneak up on them. But then, no one expected Maja. She was a tiny stick
of a woman with a voice like a rutting dragon that put the fear of death
into grown men. Three gossiping teenagers stood no chance.

"Don't you listen to those girls," Maja told him as they bounced down the
steps. Xandris tilted the basket back to keep the tubers secure.

"Did that really happen?" He finally asked when they reached the bottom.

"Yes."

"How...how can they tell?"

Maja's face was stern when she whipped around, and there was a silent
conversation between them. He knew she wanted to know why he would ask, but
there must have been a look of concern on his face, because she offered him
an answer. Xandris _was_ concerned… and hurt… and confused.

"Don' tell your Ma I told you this, it might not be a decent thing to
educate young men on, but you'll well need to know soon enough. When a girl
is… un-touched, there's a layer of skin over her… Well, do you understand?"

Xandris paused a moment, then nodded. He was pretty sure his face looked
disgusted. Sex was suddenly the most unappealing thing in the world.

Maja must have seen it, because her lips trembled as though she stifled a
laugh.

"When a girl lays with a man, that skin gets broken," Maja told him.
"That's why ya keep your fingers to yourself!"

Xandris wanted to wear gloves for the rest of his life.

"But, I don't think that Flita did anything, though. She's always been a
good girl. A good, honest girl, and there are other ways that can get
broken, without any men being involved. What Nadol and his shardpiece of a
son did to that girl was awful. He just found that Ula, and her snotty
family, who thinks they're of higher blood than poor Flita and needed a way
to dissolve their betrothal. Good riddance, I'd say, if it hadn't hurt the
poor girl so and ruined her reputation." Maja shook her head.

"Anyway, bring those tubers here."

He was slow to walk to her, trying to process. They worked together,
placing the tubers onto the sheets of linen within drawers to dry their
skins for storage. A weight hung in the air between them, and Xandris' mind
raced through a thousand different scenarios and as many different
emotions. Would Flita really do that with anyone? And not tell him?
Finally, Maja broke the silence.

"Do you know where she is?"

"I think I might," Xandris admitted after a moment.

"Go get her, then," Maja told him. "I'll chop up the rest of these for
dinner."

--

She was where he thought she'd be. A curtain of low tree branches hid their
rock from plain sight. Flita was curled up on top of it, hugging her knees
to her chin. She peered up at him when she heard the branches rustle.
Rukbat was fading beyond the horizon, but he could still see that both her
eyes and face were bright red.

For a long moment, he stared at her and she looked at him. Behind her, the
river burbled along the bank.

"Are you mad at me?" She asked, her tiny voice cracking.

"No." He lied. Was it true? He couldn't ask.

"I didn't. I swear I didn't," she cried, almost as though she had heard
him. "I- I just want to run away."

Flita sobbed uncontrollably and Xandris sat down beside her, putting one
arm around her. She rested her head against his shoulder. He could feel the
tears soaking through his tunic and let out a long breath.

Xandris stroked her blonde hair, silky against his fingers. He thought of
how inappropriate this would be, unsupervised, given any other situation.
But here, what did they have to lose?

"My life is over," she moaned. "I'll be lucky if anyone will take me. I'll
probably spend the rest of my days as a drudge."

He looked at her, truly taking in her grief, and felt ashamed of the anger
he'd felt in the silence between stacking tubers. He'd been furious that
his childhood friend would do such a thing, with anyone besides him if she
wouldn't wait until marriage. But for Flita, this accusation, it was
_everything_. Gone.

"I'm sorry." She apologized.

"I'm not upset," he told her, honestly this time. "I'm sorry this happened."

Flita choked again, and wiped tears away from her raw face.

"You know, the Searchdragons will be coming in a few days. I'm sure of it.
Maybe we can all go to the Weyr. Maybe we can just… start over."

It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it as the words left his lips, and
the look on her face erased any doubts.

"Yes, that's the only place for me now, isn't it? I can't marry, so I might
as well die in Threadfall." She snapped, suddenly angry. Her blue eyes
twinkled with something more violent than tears. "Just leave me alone,
Xandris! Go!"

He slid off the rock and retreated to the edge of the clearing like a
kicked canine. Xandris swept the tree branches back and sighed, creeping
back into civilization.

"I'll wait for you," he called back. "Just out here. It's not proper for a
lady to walk herself home at night."

Beyond the branches, he could hear her weeping again, more forced and
desperate this time, as though there were no grief left to give.

He sighed and looked up at the stars, counting the constellations. The
Farmer and the Herdbeast glistened in the east. The man gripping the star
plow stood straighter than his father, and he imagined himself holding
those handles, except with those same swollen, aching fingers. Xandris
flexed his hands. The Dawn Sisters were faintly visible low on the horizon
as sunset faded away. He could only see two of them, as though one had
already been swallowed by the night. Returning his attention to the grass,
even the stars had lost their luster. Everything about the only home he had
ever known seemed…somehow broken and wrong. He flexed his hands again,
imagining his father's, and looked up at the sky.

Perhaps the dawn would bring dragons, and a fresh new start. Faranth knew,
they all needed one.

Last updated on the September 13th 2013

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A Moment of Maturity