Seeing Something In You (3/3)

Writers: Avery
Date Posted: 19th November 2017

Characters: Kapera, Riveenata
Description: Kapera encourages Riveenata
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 2, day 13 of Turn 9

Kapera

Kapera cleared her throat, and said,

"The reason I told you about what happened to me is because I wanted you
to know that I, too, have lost something that matters to me. When I was
sick, I was scared for my own health of course. I was most upset by
losing my status as Weyrwoman, though. I felt like I had failed as a
person and as a dragonrider, as though there was some flaw in me that
meant I wasn't capable of actually doing anything. I thought I was a
small, stupid child, like a young girl who plays dress-up in her Lady
mother's clothes and is really a fraud that anyone can see through."

"I didn't expect that I wound up missing Dragonsfall as a place, even
thought it was the reason I had lost my health and my position. I
considered it my home for a bit. I liked the people there and the
relationships I was forming. But also, I fell in love with its corridors
and ledges, the land around it. I still have complicated feelings about
going back there, and I don't know if I'd want to go spend a significant
amount of time there. But I still think about the place itself and miss it."

Riveenata quietly sat there, absorbed in the story that the goldrider
was laying out for her. She'd been intrigued at the beginning of the
conversation, but she was enthralled by Kapera's description of how
she'd felt afterwards.

"I had several conversations with my mindhealer about it. I said to him,
'if I blame it for why I lost everything, then why do I miss it?' And he
said to me that it was my home for a bit. That part of the reason I
missed it was that I was trying to build myself a life there, and that I
expected to live out the rest of my Turns there. Because once you make
Weyrwoman, that's usually the rest of your Turns, right? You get to the
top of the gold hierarchy and then the Weyr is yours and you are the
Weyr. Juniors and Seconds may transfer, but the top doesn't."

"And so I was falling in love with Dragonsfall and expecting that that
would be my future. And then I got sick and it wasn't. All those dreams
of building stability there and knowing it like the back of my hand?
Gone forever and never coming back. My mindhealer had to walk me through
becoming okay with that. Telling me it was all right to grieve for the
place as well as the status. For the dreams I'd had that had died there,
because a place can grow into a part of you, just like a person."

"And if I feel that way, and I only considered it as my home for around
a Turn and a half, then I can understand why you would miss River Bluff.
It was your home for Turns, and you thought it would be forever," the
goldrider said, bringing her lengthy explanation to the point.

She'd started staring into the distance at some point, remembering both
Dragonsfall and the hard conversations and introspection from Windswept
Islands, and so she'd half-forgotten her actual surroundings. When she
re-focused her gaze, she saw the greenrider was crying.

Kapera had hoped it would resonate with the greenrider in some way, and
the tears were proof it had. The goldrider got up from the chair,
resettled next to the younger woman, and began patting her back and
murmuring, "There there," in what she hoped was a soothing way.

"I'm sorry," Riveenata managed to sob out. Here Kapera was telling her a
painful story about her past, something she got the impression the
goldrider didn't talk a lot about. She should be making sympathetic
noises at the goldrider, or expressing how honored she was to be hearing
this.

But she'd been so affected by the story, finding commonality in the way
Kapera described missing a place that had become part of your life and
your dreams, and now she was just crying again in front of her
wingsecond and she was never getting back to flight.

"It's fine," Kapera said, leaving her hand resting on the greenrider's
back. "You clearly needed that."

The crying finally petered out and she wiped her face with a
handkerchief. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I didn't know that had
happened to you. It sounds like a lot."

"It was a lot to deal with. I'd been working on it for Turns," the
goldrider pointed out. "Did hearing it help?"

"It did. I understand now why..." Riveenata sniffed again. "But why did
you tell me?"

"Because I see something of myself in you," Kapera said gently. "Because
I think that once you get your head and your heart back in order, you're
going to be a great asset to the wing, and I want you to get there."

The greenrider was a little overwhelmed by that. "Thank you. I'm honored
by it."

"Talk to Olwinna about how you're feeling now at your next meeting, and
then we'll talk about bringing you back into the wing," the goldrider
said. She patted the greenrider one more time, then stood up to leave.

"You and Savith have a good watch."

"Thank you ma'am, we will," Riveenata said. She watched the goldrider
leave and kept drying her face.

She didn't quite know why Kapera thought she had potential or what
commonality the goldrider had seen between them that had inspired her to
be so honest, but she was honored by it. And now that she knew of
Kapera's past, her fall from grace and the way she'd clearly worked
through it to become a resilient person, she was feeling a little inspired.

}:You see, it is not all bad,:{ Savith said to her.

**No, I suppose it's not.**

Last updated on the December 10th 2017

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Seeing Something In You (3/3)