Something to Think About (2/2)

Writers: Avery
Date Posted: 14th December 2017

Characters: Jadirah, A'kades
Description: Jadirah checks on A'kades and winds up giving him a lot of advice.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 2, day 14 of Turn 9
Notes: Mentioned: Vatirel, K'reyel, Taren, R'enh
part 2 of 2

"I decided to come to Dragonsfall because we'd be overflying some of our
old territory from River Bluff, Holds I was familiar with and felt
obligation to. We flew a joint border with Dragonsfall and I knew some
of this land. And Opal Cove and the Tannercraft where I grew up. I've
spent all of my time on this side of Pern. So of course I wanted to come
here," the bronzerider said.

She knew all of that, but didn't point that out. Instead she said, "It
sounds like you're no longer sure that those were good reasons. What's
changed your mind?"

"I do think they were good reasons. I like stability, Jadirah, you know
that. I like having a place that I know like the back of my hand. A
place I've turned into home by spending Turns there. If I can't have
River Bluff, I want the next closest thing. And Dragonsfall oversees the
places I know, so that's why I wanted to come here."

"I told him all of that, and Vatirel challenged me that I cared more
about places than people. He said he had never asked me to move because
he knew I wouldn't leave River Bluff and its people for one person, even
my son. That he understood I was a man of duty and family, that I liked
my place. But that once that was gone and people had to move, he thought
that family would be more important than just a location."

"You have strong emotional ties to the location, though. Didn't he
understand that? Especially since he didn't want to move to River Bluff
when his mother left Rising Moons?" she asked. "That seems a little
hypocritical of him."

"I hadn't considered it," he said. "Though I can understand it from his
point of view - he wasn't raised with me, he was raised with his mother,
it made sense to cling to her rather than me if he had to choose. He
must have thought the loss of River Bluff would be a way to get us both
together without having to choose."

The Healer tapped a finger against her chin as she thought about it. "I
can see where he would think that. Everyone knows you're
family-oriented, and he's your family. He thought you'd move there, and
so he took you not doing that as a betrayal."

"That's what I think," A'kades agreed. "And now that I'm considering it,
I think he has a point. Yes, I have an emotional attachment to these
familiar places. I don't know anything about the Dolphin Cove territory,
I have no reason to consider that Weyr home. But setting aside
territory, there was nothing to make me consider Dragonsfall as home,
either. So I could have chosen there."

"Are you considering transferring?" she asked.

"I don't know yet. I've been thinking about it, but I have some
reservations. We refugees have only been here a few months and I don't
want to flake out on the Weyrleader. Especially when I was hoping to
impress him enough for a ranking position."

After a moment, he added, "Also, you and the kids are what remains of my
family now, outside of Vatirel, and I wouldn't want to make you move."

"_Make _ me move? Kad, it's like you don't even know me. I wouldn't move
just because you did. I have my own ambitions and thoughts and they
don't involve following after you like a wife," Jadirah said, snorting.

"But you came here," the bronzerider said in a puzzled tone.

"I had to go to a Weyr, or I couldn't keep my knots," she pointed out.
"I had a reason to choose Dragonsfall. Master Taren is the Weyrhealer,
and I knew him when I was an apprentice. I was excited to serve under
him. Honestly, it wasn't all about you, unlike all you bronzeriders seem
to think."

She was a little offended by his assumption that she'd gone to
Dragonsfall just because he did. She loved him as a friend and as the
father of her children, and she had wanted to know so it could inform
her decisions. She wasn't going to say she hadn't thought about the
children and where he would go at all, because she had. But the idea
that he thought what he did it had _made _ her decision put her back up.

"If I'd chosen to go to Dolphin Cove when we left River Bluff, would you
have still gone to Dragonsfall?" he asked.

"I would have, and the children could make up their own minds. And if
you choose to consider transferring to Dolphin Cove now, then they can
still make up their own minds," the Healer said.

A'kades raked his hand through the close-cropped curls on top
of his head. "They've grown up used to having us both in one place,
though, and leaving would change that," he said softly.

"Children grow up and move out to live their own lives. You were posted
on a Journeyman's contract, leaving your parents behind," Jadirah
pointed out. "Kadera's 16 Turns. If we were crafter and wife in the
holds, she'd be marriage eligible by now. Or if she was a boy, she might be
off at the Halls learning something. Jadirel's a little younger, but my
point still stands."

"If I leave to go be with Vatirel, won't it hurt them? That I chose him
instead of them?" he asked.

"And you _had _ those Turns with them, around all of the time. They were
lucky to get that time and build a relationship with you. Not everyone
gets to have that relationship with a dragonrider parent," she reminded
him. They both knew all of the risks.

"And if you leave, you'll still love them and see them. The children
will understand that, if not immediately, then in time. They're
weyrbrats. They know you don't have to be there all the time, that your
duties or your heart can take you elsewhere and you'll still love them.
I wager Vatirel knows that, as well. It's probably why he's never
complained before. He's just disappointed now because he saw a chance
for it to change and it didn't."

"So what do you think I should do?" he asked her.

"I think Dolphin Cove is something that would be good for you for other
reasons."

"What are those?"

"You said yourself earlier that you're a man of stability and
familiarity. I think the fact that Dragonsfall overflies such familiar
land for you may not actually be good for you. You've been able to fall
back into patterns you know and find comfort in familiar places."

"That's bad?" the bronzerider asked.

"For many people, that would be a good thing, having a touchstone. But
for you..." She sighed and shook her head.

"You tend to stay in one path until it becomes a rut and you calcify.
You have certain patterns of thoughts and ways of behaving attached to
those places you know and lived. Continuing to be around them now could
just be transplanting those patterns over."

"What should I be doing instead, in your opinion? And is this as a
Healer or as a friend?" he asked, somewhat suspicious.

"It's as a friend, but inspired by training, and don't distract me," she
said. "What we went through at River Bluff was a devastating experience,
a trauma. How many of those old familiar places you say are comforting
remind you of Lenala? And then hurt you when you think of them?"

He flinched backwards like she'd slapped him at the reminder. She didn't
enjoy hurting him, but she was trying to make a point.

"Several," he finally said, grudgingly. "But not all. Opal Cove reminds
me of growing up, of my family. But even some of that is bittersweet."

"We went over the fact earlier that this is the first time you've let
your walls down and let yourself grieve, and deal with what you've
lost," Jadirah said, bouncing her leg as she spoke. "What are your
ambitions? Are you content to be wingrider forever, waiting to be
noticed for more, or are you going to go out there and fight for that
recognition? Because you haven't done any of that since you arrived
here, and that isn't like you. Did the loss of Lenala and River Bluff
break you that much?"

"Jadirah -" the bronzerider began, but she was on a roll now and didn't
stop talking.

"Maybe what you need is to go to Dolphin Cove, where you don't know the
territory, and you can start all over in somewhere without any baggage
being brought up by places. You would know a few people as touchstones,
but mostly, it would be new ground to rediscover yourself," she challenged.

"You and Vatirel still built a relationship, despite being in
different places. Maybe it's time for you to see the kind of family you
could build with him, if you were there at the same Weyr. Leave behind
your attachments, and your grief, and build something new to marvel in.
Not just regret all you've lost," the Healer continued.

"Besides, now that R'enh has transferred here, isn't there a Weyrsecond
spot available there? Maybe you could bid for that," she pointed out.

"I knew I wanted your opinion on what I was thinking, but I didn't know
you'd give me even more to think about," he confessed.

"It's what I'm here for," she said cheerfully. "Now, I can leave you
alone to chew on it, or I can distract you."

"I think I need to be alone to think about it," he said.

"Then I'll leave. No matter what you decide, though, I will support you.
Always," the Healer said, before kissing him and then leaving his weyr.

~*~

Last updated on the December 21st 2017

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Something to Think About (2/2)