Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lerath’s roar when Sleeth had been caught by the bronze had cut through V’al’s clenching gut. In the sky, the cloud of trailing males suddenly broke, splintering, falling, spinning away with betrayed cries. Lerath came down quickly and landed hard somewhere. Blood was rushing through V’al’s head and he little sense of where his blue was, but he felt the jarring landing in his heels and palms. This was the third flight Lerath had tried for, and the third loss. He’d dealt with the bitter of sting before, alone, but he was tired of that struggle.

The scene on the ground was as grim, though less colorful. V’al, with many of the others, watched Akaya and S’kor drifting away with a turbulent gaze. Somehow he found himself turning and almost bumping into G’brel. He stared at her directly, brain hissing empty, and rather than mumbling an apology, his lips gave an offer. It was accepted in a dialogue that he wouldn’t remember later, and he pulled the slight young woman into the crook of his arm, and eyeing any of the young men that cast a look in their direction with a harsh glare, led the way to his weyr.

It was some time later before he stretched out in his bedfurs to sleep, and some time even longer before he awoke, arm draped over a smooth, warm hip. His room was well kept, clean without being stiffly precise, but lacked little personal flair, as if its owner took little interest in it. V’al normally found some comfort in having this simple, private sphere to himself, but not today. Now his tension was palpable as it had been earlier, when he’d held G’brel to him with a harsh need he’d been clumsy to articulate. He remembered being attentive, though not particularly skillful or delicate. Suddenly nervous, he shifted carefully against G’brel, making a bit of space between them and wondering is she were awake yet. And what would she think? Or say? He winced.

She moved against him, and V’al paused, concerned, but the look she turned to give him didn’t live up to his half-cringing expectations. In fact, she looked rather pleasing leaning in against him and smiling that way, and he felt a bit of warmth spreading through him and across his face. Blushing, at his age.

I thought you liked it. Lerath commented from his sunning ledge in the weyr. V’al caught the curious and slightly jealous note in his dragon’s tone.

I didn't say I didn't. And your time will come. Think about which greens ought to be rising next. He gave the distraction knowing it would keep Lerath preoccupied with judging the lushness of the greens from his rather acute memory, and would keep the ever curious blue from questioning him in detail just yet.

“Evening,” he corrected unthinkingly. “Are you, um…” Hurt? Dissatisfied? He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. “comfortable?” he finished lamely.

V’al nodded mutely, too caught up for a moment in the soft trailing of G’brel’s foot to gather a verbal response. He took a slow, deep breath while drawing his mind away from the memory of all the smooth skin of her form. Her thin frame wasn’t the sort to be remarked on by the older riders when they were joking with one another deep in their cups, but buxom women had never drawn his eye much anyway. Well, really not much drew his eye actually, not often.

You’re too wound up to notice much really, Mine.

V’al sent his dragon a displeased mental noise at the comment and laid a hand on G’brel’s arm to give a gentle parting squeeze. “I’m going to get dressed, alright?” It wasn’t much of a question, because he was already sitting up and turning away to find his cloth and pull them on. He wasn’t frantic or hurried in his search, but he preferred the ritual of talking in clothes.

V’al pulled his trousers up and glanced over G’brel while his hands mechanically worked at his belt. This was supposed to be the moment when he achieved manhood, but he hardly felt different. At least, that uncertain hesitance normally blamed on childhood foolishness was no more diminished. Maybe the only difference between boys and men was being able to lie about certainty. He should have lied now, put on some mask of smug confidence and said he’d come out pretty lucky this flight. He imagined saying it, leaning in to kiss her neck, maybe offering to take her to dinner some day, but didn’t care to muster the effort for that sort of play acting.

“Maybe. Lerath hasn’t had the best of luck,” he said with a slight, distant smile. He paused, then chuckled, turning away to pull on his shirt. “Lerath says he would do very well if those great bronze oafs didn’t fill up the sky with their rumps.”