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 Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:19 pm
The healer nodded and said "I will gather writing instruments and prepare a message then come back here to find out what you have decided with Veyes when he arrives." The man then got up from his chair and left L'thor to rest peacefully for a few hours time.
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Veyes held on tight for his life as they rose into the air; then suddenly the pressure was gone and they were truly flying, However, what he had forgotten completely was that he was soaking wet and the storm was still above them. He gritted his teeth and trembled from the wind whipping through his thin shirt and torn pants. These weren't leathers and boy he now realized why Riders wore them!
But he wouldn't complain even if he felt like a wet smear on the back of the great beast. No...that was something he would not do...if he ever wanted to be a rider someday, he wasn't going to whine about how his toes felt like they were freezing off.
So his teeth chattered just a hair as he listened to her in his head again. An odd sense of relief rushed up his spine when she told him the fate of his father. "So he's not going to be able to hurt us any more." he thought quietly inside his head. It didn't matter if the dragon heard that or not it was a feeling of finality that the pain and suffering would end.
"Thank you for telling me, Raith." He didn't know she had killed him but he probably would have been more grateful than anything. His father never gave him love so he never felt much love in return except that need you felt as a child to parent thinking there was nothing else that could help you make your path in life when you are very young.
As they landed, it took him some time to unlatch the straps from his sopping wet body because his fingers were numb without riding gloves to protect them from the cold. "That was...quite a ride...Raith." He slide down her arm and landed with a small stumbled. He looked like a drowned rat and felt like one too. As he walked forward, Hold women came over and pulled him inside fussing over him like some sort of injured lamb.
Eventually, Veyes was clean and dry having spent a couple hours with the healers and his mother. In the end, he was covered with salve and bandaged properly; finally able to peer into L'thor's room.
"Hi...umm...Raith and I made it ok. But I guess you already knew that. The healer said you wanted to see me?" Veyes said rather quietly unsure if the man was even really awake. He sat down in the chair that the healer sat and just watched L'thor for awhile. His eyes drifted along L'thor's frame guessing from where the bandages and the swellings were where his father had struck.
It was a sight he never wished on anyone else.
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Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:43 pm
L'thor groaned and prized his eyes open. Where? What? Oh. Shard it. Ow. Yes. He blinked a few times, blinked the eye that consented to open anyway, and peered up at Veyes. "Good morning. Or afternoon. Night. Evening. Whatever time it is." His mouth hurt. Everything did, but he hadn't noticed that his mouth did until he began to speak. Oh yes, he'd had lip lip split, and the inside of his mouth had been cut up by his teeth. At least he hadn't lost any. "Anyway. Yes. I need to ask you if you want me to send to Ista for another rider to collect you, or if you'd rather wait for me to take you. Might be a little while if you wait. I'll probably be stuck mostly in bed for a couple of sevendays, might be told to stay here longer still... You can change your mind about waiting... Well if you decide to wait that is if I..." What had he been saying? "If you get tired of... Well, of waiting."
Shards. He was making an utter fool of himself. Here he was, prone in bed, probably looking like death warmed up and hardly even able to string together a coherent sentence. Shards. He hurt. Perhaps later on the healer would come back and give him more fellis. He hoped so. Hated the stuff, how it dulled the mind, but his mind was pretty dull at the moment anyway and even if it wasn't he'd probably accept that as a side effect to get rid of the pain.
"So yes," L'thor went on doggedly, "you can go tomorrow, wait for me, or decide to wait for me and then decide to go with someone else if you get bored." He hated it when he wasn't eloquent. He hated it when he was weak and vulnerable too. He hated needing somebody to take care of him. Why had he gone and started a fight? Why did he always have to lose his temper with people stronger than himself, throw himself into things no matter what the odds? Sharding deadglow, that was what he was... But he was glad. Not very glad yet, hurt too much, but he would be. Havel was dead. Dealt with at last. No more trouble from that beast.
"Yes. Be glad. It is good that he will not hurt his young ones anymore," Raith agreed. "I am quite comfortable now," she added, "they have found me a barn to weyr in while I am here... Tell me again that you will be well, Mine."
"I'll be fine, Raith my love," L'thor told her, unaware that he had murmured the assurance aloud as well. He hadn't meant for this to happen. He hated to worry her. It would be alright though, a few sevendays and he'd be back to normal more or less, perhaps still rather stiff, perhaps his ribs would still ache but essentially he would be utterly himself again. Didn't make the interim any less annoying.
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Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:11 pm
Veyes frowned a bit as L'thor groaned and understood completely how that pain felt. He placed a hand on the bed in his concern but didn't quite touch L'thor. "It's late afternoon almost evening. Soon they will be bringing you something to eat." He hesitated before speaking again listening carefully because L'thor's swollen face really didn't lend well to talking clearly.
"Oh...ah..well mmmm...I'll wait for you. Unless there is a reason I need to be at the Weyr sooner. Doesn't someone need to help oil your dragon while you're in bed? I mean...who's going to take care of her while your here??" He didn't really know the exact things dragons needed however, Raith didn't look like she was just going to take off and leave L'thor anytime soon. He frisked his fingers through his now loose wavy hair; "Umm.. I can help if you want me to."
Veyes was very eager to repay L'thor for all he had done. He had never expected any of this from their first meeting on the road. In fact, he never thought he would have even felt any stirring of friendship for the man but with everything that had happened he learned that L'thor's wasn't such a bad guy. Ok...maybe he was a bit bullheaded but they did start off on the wrong foot.
At those words of "love", Veyes glanced away feeling a little like an intruder in an intimate moment. He deeply wondered what the life of a Rider was really like beyond the flying. Was the connection between the dragon and the man that profound? He had only the smallest of taste from mind speech to flight but by the almost warming gazed in the man's eye there had to be so much more to it than anything he could have imagined. His dreams could never satisfy that burning curiosity and desire to experience what L'thor had with Raith.
Now, he had many more questions, if L'thor would answer...but for now they must wait. It would take awhile for L'thor to heal up from everything he had been through Veyes didn't feel so desperate to run off since Havel was gone and maybe things would change finally for the better. In the mean time, he would help his mother get the farm up to snuff because sooner or later, he'd have a new life at the Weyr...
In the end, he realized as he got up to let the man go to sleep that this dream wasn't served up on a silver platter at all but through many tears and hardships. He was just lucky enough to have stumbled across a man that gave him a chance towards fulfilling the dream. As he closed the door behind him, he promised himself that one day, to return that favor to another in need...if ever he became a Dragon Rider.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:44 am
He nodded vaguely. Yes. Raith would probably want a bath and some rough spots of skin oiled. She could survive just fine without either for a while, maybe long enough for him to recover, but if there was someone willing to help out there was no reason she should have to. In a couple of days he could give the boy instructions and... humm, would they have soapsand here? Well if not he was sure V'kian would bring some along. V'kain would probably be happy to show Veyes how to go about bathing a dragon too thinking about it... Oh dear. V'kain was going to be worried about him. Well, River would be taking that note soon, so his friend would at least know he wasn't about to expire.
This wasn't what he'd expected from the day, L'thor considered dreamily, half aware of Veyes quietly getting up and leaving. He'd just wanted to get away and forget about D'los. Well, that had certainly worked. Ha. Funny. Now he thought about it, exactly this time last turn he'd got into a fight he couldn't win and ended up in the healing wing of the Weyr. Had been a different reason of course, that deadglow T'lus and his 'only a green' speech, and he'd been saved by Dusk and River rather than Raith but... Well, it was still a strange kind of symmetry. He just hoped it didn't become a habit.
At least he and Veyes weren't at one another's throats anymore. He still thought the boy was a silly dreamer, but the thought came with a vague fondness now. Sometimes he supposed dreaming might be the only way to keep yourself from giving up hope. Giving a weary sigh, and extending vague feelings of affection to Raith and his flitts, L'thor drifted towards dreams of his own.
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