All references to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright © Anne McCaffrey 1967,2000, all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey, used here with permission. Use or reproduction without a license is strictly prohibited. For more information, visit the Worlds of Anne McCaffrey. Many thanks to Alec Johnson for his assistance with this information!

Of Walls and Breeches

Chailyn bumps into E'vrin at the lake shore at Telgar. Who has the higher walls about them? It's really difficult to tell.

Chailyn - Thursday, September 28, 2000, 6:19 PM
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Telgar Weyr Lake Shore
The vegetation thickens near the lake, becoming a meadow that runs along the edge of a narrow, sandy beach. The sands spill down into a crystal lake to the north, lapping against the crater walls to the north and east. A fence runs northwest-southeast, blocking off the lake from the feeding grounds. The grass has a clean green color and is tender with spring. The first water lilies on the pond are blooming in yellow and white, and pink, yellow, and white wildflowers scatter the field. The white climbs even into the trees, with blowing petals amid the new green leaves. The herb garden, still mostly cut back for the winter, is hemmed about with crocuses. The red shades of sunset cast the meadow into deep, but peaceful shadows.

You could probably catch a 'fish' or two if you tried.
Contents:
FL: (Bolt)
PLAYERS: Chailyn E'vrin
OTHER: Time-Weathered Boulder

E'vrin has claimed the boulder for his own in a hunch of torso over tented knees with his cloak swirled warmly around him, though the hood's back over his shoulders, revealing erect head and the drowsy lean of a fire-lizard against his neck.

Chailyn is wandering along, sans scarf for once, but with that ridiculous hat still pulled down over her ears. Hands are shoved in her jacket pockets as she meanders towards the lake. Her green and gold are apparently paying tag and streak out across the water's surface, the tiny Kauma flipping agily over Ifora's back and silently taunting the queen.

Wool drags scratchy sounds from the rock as E'vrin shifts and tucks a corner of cloak more firmly between his booted ankles. (Stay. Good cloak.) The move rustles his 'lizard into motion, too: gloom-drained brown wings stretch for the sky, wee eyes glisten faint blue, and he chirps, once and sharply interrogatory, towards the other companions out and about in the evening.

"Hush," E'vrin murmurs and rests his chin on his knees.

...Savor is shown images from both the green and gold, of crisp, clean sheets and linens, billowing on lines in the breeze. Of the pair of them playing hide and seek in baskets of clothes waiting to be washed. And finally, of the freedom and beauty of the night, obviously sharing in their human's good mood. Clearly, the trill was an invitation from the gold to join them.

Ifora gives a little trill, abruptly dropping and crowding Kauma for a moment. As she does, she gives an inviting trill back to the chirp. Chailyn hasn't seemed to notice, attention alternating out at the lizards playing over the water, and up at the stars.

...Only thin, fractured sensations, like reflections of a sheet of mica, glint back from brown to Ifora and Kauma: the sleepiness from a full day and a full belly, warring with the desire to swoop and dance with others of his kind, and the snug, close, redolent warmth of his owner's neck, wherein he fits so well, curve to curve. Play, youth's mind concludes, is not worth the effort of leaving that resting place.

"Well? Oh. All right, then. There's always tomorrow morning for playing with them, when we're away at drills, anyway." Savor squeaks agreeably, but E'vrin sighs and loops his arms around under his knees, hugging his thighs to his chest.

Ifora climbs higher up into the bowl, and after a moment, Kauma follows suit. Chailyn stoops by the water's edge to pick up a few stones, and then starts skipping them over the surface. Once, twice, three times the first one, and she grimaces. "Outta practice," is muttered, and she tries again. This time, the stone bounces five times before sinking, the wake of the passing flipping white against the dark night. She still doesn't seem quite aware of the shadow on the rock or the low pitched voice.

...Ifora climbs higher into the bowl, shooting straight up and reveling in her strength. She and Kauma both trickle amusement back to the youngster. A flash of an image, of a brown as round as a ball, flapping tiny wings and unable to get off the ground, comes from the gold. And then the pair are off again, quite able to enjoy their own company.

A mirrored sigh leans the dim fire-lizard shape back into E'vrin's, merging the silhouettes, and while Chailyn may not be aware of the others present, the rider is: slit-gleaming eyes -- his, not Savor's -- track her down the shore, skip away to follow the rocks, and return, thoughtful, to the skipper herself.

Chailyn prowls the shore another few moments, picking up more rocks and moving surely in the dark. She sends another skipping, four hops this time, the splashes audible even over the fuss Ifora is making. Evidently Kauma tagged her with her tail, and now the gold is looking to catch the older green. She looks up and calls quietly, "Behave you two! I swear, Ifora, sometimes I wish you wouldn't say a word, like Kauma." Her tone is goodnatured, and lovingly indulgent as she stops to watch the lizards for a few minutes. A pause and then, "Silly things. No one's here. Least of all him."

E'vrin hunkers more deeply into his cloaked warmth, but Savor wriggles his head under the obliging chin and peeks out curiously after the older fire-lizards' fun. Another, thinner squeak twists the brown's throat, and he flares his wings, tipping back and forth now, drawn against the soporific call of safety -- maybe, maybe to play...

Ifora careens into Kauma, clipping wingtips with the green. The one with greater mass wins, and the little green goes spiraling towards the lake, entering it with a splash! She surfaces a moment later, and tries to get herself into the air again, eyes wheeling in agitation. "Ifora! Behave yourself!" Then a laugh escapes. "Fine, just don't get me wet, Kauma." She stretches, and then skips another stone. This one bounces five times before sinking. Her expression, barely seen in the dark, is pensive, despite her obvious enjoyment in the evening walk.

"It's /cold/ in the lake, and you know it," runs E'vrin's low, stern warning to his brown. "It may look like fun, but--" Savor squeaks again, flaps again. "Oh, then go already, you spoiled nuisance," and that at least is loud enough, with waterside amplification, to carry his irritation and his identity around the area.

Chailyn looks up at that, perhaps only hearing the last couple of words, for her face flushes. "I didn't think anyone was here." Her tone is a trifle stiff. "I'll call them in and leave you in peace. Ifora! Kauma!" Though they may be troublemakers, the pair immediately dip and wheel, turning back towards the laundress.

E'vrin, the game up, stretches one leg and then the other before recoiling again into his warmth. "No," he says mellowly, "it's all right. I'm not bothered by them, only by this one attached to me at the neck, and he's calming. Can't keep his mind on any idea for more than two minutes. Let them play. And go ahead and keep skipping stones if you want--" very mellow now, nearing avuncular tolerance "--I don't mind."

Chailyn says pointedly, "I don't want to be a nuisance." Ifora hovers, while a very wet Kauma drapes herself, dripping and all, about Chailyn's shoulders. her rather straight and squared shoulders. The pose of relaxation seen before is now utterly missing.

"Well," E'vrin continues after a little moment that sees him stiffening somewhat, too. "Aren't you the tense one right now."

Chailyn's chin lifts slightly. "Not everyone likes being called a nuisance, bronzerider." Tense and formal too. My, this is a change.

E'vrin counters, "Savor didn't seem to mind. I /was/ talking to him, you know."

Chailyn blinks a moment, her expression faintly disbelieving before she says quietly, "No. I didn't." Ifora scolds E'vrin and Savor both impartially. She was having a perfectly nice evening of galavanting and they had to ruin it. *Males*.

E'vrin cannot but duck automatically at the scolding: he knows what /that/ means. Even with his grimace, though, he keeps his gaze heavy and pensive on the gold's mistress, and does not move from the high and stolid rock. "I haven't any reason to call you a nuisance." Pause. "Nor would I, to your face or not. I'm sorry that you misheard, misconstrued, whatever it was."

Chailyn nods, relaxing only marginally before saying quietly, "I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions." A pause and she offers, "How're you and Savor this evening?" Ifora finishes off the harangue with a particularly raucous squawk, and then circles over the lake, flipping her tail at E'vrin and Savor. "Ifora..." the little gold's name is almost moaned in embarassment.

"Cheeky thing, isn't she?" E'vrin falls back on the usual detached amusement; Savor hides his head under a wing and trembles. "We're fine, thank you for asking. You and yours?"

... Ifora's ire is due more to the fact that her human companion was upset than actual discontent over the presences of the little brown or his human. In fact, she radiates the tiniest bit of pleasure at seeing Chailyn actually realize that the bronzerider is there.

Chailyn nods. "Well, thank you." Kauma just watches the brown and his human, the tiny green's expression rather solumn. Chailyn doesn't ask anything further, but instead lets the skipping stones she holds fall to the ground.

E'vrin picks up a cue and runs with it: "Pretty nice technique with the stones. Maybe a little more flick to the wrist, and you've got it, hmm?"

Chailyn's jaw tightens. Apparently the bronzer can't say anything nice tonight. Or so she clearly feels. "I suppose." The words are polite, but nothing more.

...Savor's shallow sendings fracture and bristle with simple fear: the hierarchical subservience due a queen. Who's also loud. And annoying /his/ owner (loud-loud-loud-for-no-cause-loud!), and any slip of pleasure crossing fire-lizard minds about the humans is lost in the buffet.

E'vrin says "Just an idea. Encouragement." He skins a thin smile from his sobriety, then lets the expression fall through. "Never mind. Forgive my presumption, please."

...Kauma's more gentle calming tendancies reach out to both brown and gold. Apparently, no harm was done, even if Chailyn is still bristling. A quick, comical image of Chailyn, sprouting needlethorns is flashed, along with E'vrin getting pricked.

Chailyn asks, a trifle suspiciously, "How long have you been there?"

E'vrin says "I don't know -- an hour? I'm not doing anything, promise."

Chailyn's chin lifts slightly. "You..." Then she just stops and frowns. "You should have made your presence known." Nevermind that she likely looke two or three times nearly right at the bronzer, not seeing him in the dark.

E'vrin sounds subdued now. "I know. I'm sorry about that, but you didn't seem to be doing anything private -- oh, but there's the idea, isn't there, that I was watching you without your knowledge? How voyeuristic of me."

Chailyn sighs faintly, shoulders drooping slightly. "I can understand if you just didn't want to talk to me." Kauma shifts position as those shoulder droop, still solumnly watching the bronzerider and brown.

Snug against E'vrin's neck, Savor peeks out at Kauma, but dasn't look at Ifora, no-no-no. The man cuts him a contemptuous glance, then answers Chailyn evenly. "Because of the other night, I suppose."

Chailyn shrugs slightly, jarring Kauma, though the little green gives no complaint. Wings half spread to balance herself, and she watches Savor quietly. "I told you, I won't pry into your secrets, E'vrin."

"And friendship?" E'vrin challenges.

Chailyn's chin lifts again. "Your definition of that is different to mine. I imagine we're friends. I'll leave you alone and not ask about anything other than Sharath, Savor and the weather." Her tone twists on this last and she looks out to trace Ifora's circles over the lake.

E'vrin goes mellow again, deceptively so: murky waters run deep here, and that has Savor cowering again, with eyes yellowed-bright. "Well, we're different people. Of course we have different definitions -- of a lot of things, I imagine." He clicks tongue to front teeth a couple times. "I could ask you how you define friendship, and you could ask me how I define it, and maybe we could start over that way."

Chailyn is quiet a moment and then says quietly, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable." That is at least gently spoken, and she darts a look back at the dragonrider. Savor's yellow eyes are noticed and she says softly, "But looks like I already have."

"I'm easily discomfited on private matters," is E'vrin's grave reply, made to the susurrant tune of Savor's restless wing-rustles. "Don't worry about it; you get used to it."

Chailyn takes a step or two towards the rock. "Why do I make you uncomfortable?"

Resting his chin again on his knees, E'vrin answers, "People I don't know edging around what I consider my private space ... that makes me uncomfortable. I'm a private person. Obviously." Self-deprecating humor paints that adverb a glossy black in his even, trained tone. "So, don't take it personally, please."

Chailyn shakes her head. "Well, then you won't get to know me, will you."

E'vrin says "Don't know. Do you want me to?"

Chailyn shakes her head. "It's not a question of what I want. Do *you* want to? Shardit, E'vrin, stop /deferring/ to me all the time. Your feelings matter!" This last is said with a bit of heat.

E'vrin only mellows further. "Matter to whom? To you? But why would they?"

Chailyn opens her mouth, and then shuts it abruptly. A long pause and then, "nevermind. Forget I said anything. We'll just talk about the weather and other inconsequential things."

That removed mirth tickles dryly at E'vrin's tone. "And she chastises me for retreating into /my/ shell. Haven't you an answer for me, Chailyn? Is this where I let /you/ withdraw from the figurative sparring ground?"

Chailyn scowls faintly. "Why should I volunteer anything when you're obviously not going to either. It goes both way with friends, E'vrin. You want to know, but you don't want to let anyone know you. that's not fair." Her tone is quiet but firm.

E'vrin wonders, "Have I failed to answer many questions of yours? All right. All right. I'll answer anything you want, right now, right here: sky's the limit. Is /that/ fair?"

Chailyn blinks, startled. She is surprised enough to take another step forward towards the rocks. "Ah... all right." She pauses a moment, and then says quietly, "What are you so afraid of happening if you let someone get to know the real you? Why do you hide like you do?" Her tone is quiet, hesitant. She clearly doesn't expect an answer, despite the promise.

"That's two questions," E'vrin accuses her with a kind of morbid hilarity: touching it on the quick, now, is she? He leans forward and grins.

Chailyn says quietly, "I'll answer two if you will." Her chin comes up just slightly. The bronzerider isn't the only one that can challenge.

E'vrin stretches his neck long, pulling soft pops from his spine, and relaxes again with Savor resting his own neck across his owner's nape -- calmed, finally, into dozing, that one. "Fair," the man says. "Let's see. What am I afraid of happening if I let someone get to know the real me? Well, the obvious, of course: that the someone won't like me then because I'm not an especially /wonderful/ person, though I know rationally that I'm no worse than most others. Boringly normal, that's me, and ... and I suppose--" here, his light, faintly mocking voice slides into honest rue made slippery from experience's long-drawn blood "--that I'd want people to think that the real me, whatever that is, /is/ more interesting, more vivid and special, than how I appear on the outside, but I know it's not, and that disappointment in myself keeps me withdrawn. Does that suffice?"

Chailyn nods quietly, her expression now as solumn as the little green's on her shoulder. "See? It was really the same question, wasn't it."

E'vrin makes a dismissing noise. "One answer for two questions that you posed: I'm being economical, that's all."

Chailyn nods again. She makes no comment on the revelation, instead bracing herself slightly. "Your turn then. You've two questions."

E'vrin, impish, says, "I could ask only one, and you could give me two answers if you'd prefer that arrangement."

Chailyn smiles, a quick flash of her usual good humor. "No. I agreed two questions."

"As you like." E'vrin hugs his legs again and makes a long and dour face at her, suitable for this ad hoc inquisition. "Why do you want to be my friend? --And don't give me some pat, pretty answer because I've heard all those before and I tire of them. Give me truth, as I gave you, even if it makes you bleed."

Chailyn takes a deep breath and says, "I don't... know exactly. I don't have a lot of good friends. Aquaintances, yes. Real friends that I can talk to? Not really. I'd count maybe two of them. I'd like to get to know you. And to maybe trust you." She pauses and then says, "And to get you to trust me, I guess." She stops then, flushing, "And to convince you that you *are* interesting - I wouldn't be putting myself through this embarassment if you weren't, now would I?"

E'vrin pounces immediately to spend his second question in profligate curiosity: "Why do you care if I'm convinced I'm interesting? Shards, not a reformer, I hope. I have no desire to be reformed to someone else's design for me--"

Chailyn flushes. "Because you have a terrible self image and I don't think you're like that at all. But I can't /tell/, because you won't let me in to see. I don't expect you to trust me immediately. But the walls you have up keep anyone from ever finding out who you are. And you from trusting them and they from trusting you. And frankly, I think the person hiding in there is worth knowing better." Her tone turns a trifle angry, "I don't have a 'design' on you - or want to make you into what *I* think you might be. I just want to know who you are is all. If you're *happy* staying like this, and keeping people shut out, then fine. Are you happy." This last comes out as a demand, the 'rules' of this little game thrown out in her fiery words.

E'vrin says "Yes."

E'vrin says "I'm happy."

Chailyn says softly, "And would you say that just to keep from answering more uncomfortable questions? I think you might."

E'vrin sighs. "And you can doubt my motivations all night if you like. It won't get you anywhere, and it'll just annoy me."

E'vrin says "I /am/ happy, Chailyn, for all that you don't see me skipping and singing around the bowl every morning. Take that as truth."

Chailyn shrugs slightly. "Fine. I'll bid you a good night then." Spots of color appear on her cheeks and she turns away.

E'vrin is quiet. "Why are you leaving?"

Chailyn's tone is tight. "I've embarassed myself enough for one evening, don't you think?" She doesn't turn back. "You're happy with the walls around you. Far be it from me to try to climb over them when I'm not wanted to."

After a moment: muffled laughter. It stirs Savor briefly. Then E'vrin lifts his head from his knees, those happy baffles of his worn amusement, and says, not without gaiety and not without fondness, "You're as prickly as I am, Chailyn, and I want to hear you deny that if you can."

Chailyn turns back, not denying the barb, "At least I don't shut *everyone* out. And stop *laughing* at me." Hands clench at her sides. "I may not be the smartest person in the world, but it isn't nice to laugh at people."

"I'm laughing at /us,/ you ninny," E'vrin gasps on his next breath. "Can two prickly people be friends? Oh, but maybe you don't know Kassima. Who's also prickly. But she and I have been friends for Turns, so there you go."

Chailyn starts off offended. "You're impossible. Irascable, secretive and infuriating." As the bronzer continues to giggle, she admits slowly, "Though... I like to see you laugh."

E'vrin frees an arm from the cloaked embrace to throw a dramatic finger-point at her. "She lightens up! I have seen it with my own eyes! --Blast it to shards, Chailyn," he goes on more prosaically, "you /have/ to laugh at it. We're just not communicating, which outrages and infuriates you and makes me get even loftier than usual in my detachment. It's a bloody silly mess. Our paths cross too often to let us ignore it, so what do you want to do about it?"

Chailyn counters, "What do *you* want to do about it?"

E'vrin complains, "Why does it always come back to me? You're the aggressor here; /you/ decide."

Chailyn shakes her head. "You let people decide too much around you. And you're the one with the walls," nevermind any she may have herself. "If you want to make the effort, make it. You already know I'd like to. But I'm not going to keep beating my fists and shouting 'open up'." Her chin lifts determinedly. "I'd rather die out in Fall than take shelter where I'm not wanted."

"Still rather astonished that you care," says E'vrin mildly, "but all right, if you're going to be insistent like this. I'd think that you could find any number of shelters around here, though: a lot of people know you, and you know a lot of people, even if only as acquaintances. You can always deepen /them/ into friendships, too, eh?"

Chailyn shakes her head. "I'm not that free with myself." Her tone is a trifle prim. "I never have been. I know people, yes. And I try to get along with everybody. It's the neighborly thing to do. And being mad at everyone just makes a person miserable all the time."

E'vrin asks, "Then why would you be free with me? You work more closely with so many people -- so many ways to fire up a friendship, and easier ways than cornering a recalcitrant rider -- but you can't be free with them?"

E'vrin says "Oh, I suppose the question-and-answer phase of this conversation is already over."

Chailyn flushes faintly. "We're both from Igen." A trifle lame, but at least it's an excuse. Maybe it'll do for now.

"Yes, we are," E'vrin allows in all his perched magnanimity, "and I suppose there are other desert folk in the lower caverns, too. Give me a better reason."

Chailyn opens her mouth, then shuts in. She fumes for a few moments in silence and then says, "Because I want to. And because nothing worth having is every easy."

Now ... now E'vrin is positively /arch./ "Do you want to have me, then?"

Chailyn clearly misses any double entendre in the suggestion. She nods. "Having your friendship isn't going to be easy at all. Having mine in return won't be either. Which is why I said that you have to make the effort. I've already said I want to."

E'vrin says "That sounds like a challenge."

Chailyn shrugs slightly. "See it however you want."

"I said 'sounds' -- oh, I won't get pedantic on you. Night's getting old enough as it is." And E'vrin yawns. Sits up, has to resettle an irritated brown fire-lizard, and stretches his feet for the ground. "Fine. We could try again, next time we meet and the setting's conducive. See how a bit of friend-making goes."

Chailyn nods cautiously. "All right." A pause and she says quietly, "I'll try if you will."

E'vrin says helpfully, "I'm squirming at that. Don't know if you can see it in the dark."

Chailyn asks, a trifle curiously, "Why?"

E'vrin says "It's pressing me into a corner." He pauses. "/Again./ You do like doing that, don't you? No, that was a joke, before you return to being prickly. Seriously, I don't like being pressed that way: decide, don't decide; commit, don't commit. I've been gliding through life for nearly a Turn now, and I've preferred that. But now I smell change, and change not of my making, and it troubles me. Frightens me."

Chailyn says softly, "I don't want to frighten you, E'vrin. Honest I don't. I just..." She sighs, trailing off. She is silent a moment and then says resolutely, "If you really don't want to try, then don't. I'll get over it." A ghost of a smile can be seen in the dark. "It's be your loss anyway." Her tone comes through a trifle hollow on this last, as though she were forcing herself to believe that.

E'vrin scolds her as he slides down to his feet, "Don't be so black-and-white about it. It's almost melodramatic: I'll choose and it'll be wonderful, or I won't and it'll be my loss. Come, life isn't like that. It rolls on no matter what we do, choosing or not, and it doesn't care."

Chailyn asks curiously, "Do you do anything all the way?"

"Not if I can help it." E'vrin folds his arms under his cloak and smiles. "Too dangerous. Why?"

Chailyn shrugs slightly. "We're very different. I don't like doing anything halfway."

E'vrin's smile doesn't waver. "I'll remember that. I told you we were different, though the prickliness ... well, that may be different, too, between us. I'll have to think about it. For now, I need to go to bed. Thank you for the conversation."

Chailyn nods quietly, "You've given me a lot to think about. Sleep well, E'vrin." She smiles then, the first genuine smile since the talk started. "Wish Sharath sweet dreams for me?"

E'vrin looks with automatic instinct up and away towards their ledge; when his attention returns to the laundress, it's whetted by surprise. "Why? Are you wanting to make friends with my dragon, too?"

Chailyn sniffs. "/He's/ far easier to talk to."

"My own dragon," E'vrin mutters. "--There, I woke him up and told him."

E'vrin says "Satisfied?"

Chailyn sniffs again. "He's politer too." Then she smiles a bit. "We'll see. Sleep well, E'vrin?"

E'vrin inclines a half-bow, which Savor dislikes enough to grizzle in his throat about. "--Hush. Thank you, Chailyn, I will. You, too, and I'll see you tomorrow."