A Harper Likes to End on a Positive Note

Writers: Bree, Rylie
Date Posted: 9th April 2006

Characters: Ny'n, Dyaera
Description: When Ny'n notices Dyaera recuperating on the beach, he does the unthinkable and stops to visit, and ends by offering a challenge.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 11, day 6 of Turn 3

Ny'n did not know what had drawn his attention to the young woman reclining on the beach, but her sad brown eyes troubled him and once seeing her, he had not been able to pass by. Such phenomenon was uncommon to him, and he felt awkward.

}:She is Tilarth's rider. She was badly scored. Talk to her.:{ Damarith encouraged gently.

The brownrider drew closer, trying to think of something to say.

Dyaera noticed him finally, tilting her head back and shading her eyes against the sun. "Hello."

"Ah, hi. Mind some company?" he asked rather unsure of himself.

She squinted up at him. "Ny'n, isn't it? I was in your wing for a few months..." She waved at the beach next to her. "Have a seat."

Seating himself in the sand, Ny'n answered, "Yes it's Ny'n and you are...Dyaera right? How is your recovery coming?"

Dyaera sighed, looking back out at the water. "Well, the threadscore is mostly healed... The healers think it's going to take a long time for the muscles to recover."

"That's rough. You must be sick of inactivity! I fell off a runner when I was a boy and was laid up for months. I hated watching my brothers horsing around when I couldn't join in."

Finally, someone _hadn't_ told her how much better things were now than they'd been when she'd first been injured. "I am _so_ sick of it. I can't even get outside unless someone wants to help me... if I tried to walk down here on my own, I wouldn't make it. And I can't get up on Tilarth yet."

"I would miss that the most," Ny'n confided quietly. "It's good that she's always with you," he said tapping his head, "But it's always hard for a dragonrider _not_ to ride. When this kept me out," he pointed off-handedly to his scar and partially missing ear, "I used to just curl up and sleep with Damarith almost every night just to be close to him."

"I started doing that," she admitted after a moment. "Once I could get out of bed on my own, that is. I couldn't move for a long time... Of course, I was taking so many different kinds of medicine from the healers that I don't remember most of it."

Ny'n nodded. "That time I was hurt as a boy, seemed like the shortest and the longest turn of my life. Shortest, because looking back so much was a haze. It was as if I woke up and was already a couple of months older. Longest because the hours of inactivity. So have you adopted any new hobbies to help with the boredom?"

She shrugged a little unenthusiastically. "I tried reading, but I never was too interested in it. I couldn't do much else until recently anyway, since I couldn't really move my right arm."

"That _would_ make it difficult. When I was a boy, I got so bored that I made a game of throwing small things at the window, to see how close I could get without hitting it. I broke the window of course. My mother was furious! That was when my father got serious about my instrument training."

Dyaera finally smiled. "So you're a harper then? Or do you just play an instrument?"

"Guilty," the brownrider returned her smile, "Of being a harper that is. My father was one, and I apprenticed here at the weyr once I was searched. How about you? Did you ever apprentice to a craft?" Ny'n knew nothing about the younger dragonrider's background, and figured if she had been weyrbred it was possible that she had once learned a craft.

But Dyaera shook her head. "I Impressed at my first Hatching... before that I was at a Hold. My father thought my temperament was a little more suited to the Weyr, so he sent me to live with my aunt."

"You were lucky, many holders would be loathe to give up a daughter to the weyr, despite her temperament. He must care very much for you."

Dyaera's smile grew a little. "Well, I was kind of trouble. I think he thought it would be easier for both of us if I was somewhere else. He hustled me off after I broke the neighbor boy's nose."

"Oh, ho!" Ny'n laughed. "No nifty marriage alliance to be arranged there. So what did the scoundrel do to deserve having his nose broken?"

"Told me I was so ugly that the only husband my father would be able to find me would be an ugly old man," she replied with a grin. She could grin about it now since it was never going to happen, but at the time it had been a real danger of happening within a few years, even if she _had_ been only twelve. "He was a brat. But then, so was I."

"Well, hopefully the lad learned a valuable lesson," Ny'n laughed. "And you ended up here and with Tilarth, so you bested him on more than one score."

"I suppose you're right," she replied, laughing too. "I think I've gotten a little better since then, though."

"That's good to know," Ny'n grinned.

Dyaera traced idle patterns in the sand as her laughter faded, finally giving Ny'n a shy smile. "Thanks for talking to me. I've... I've been pretty lonely lately."

"Well, you're kinda fun to talk to and as for being lonely," Ny'n looked off into the water before them, "Something like this does isolate you," he paused before adding in a lighter note, "But at least you have ugly brownriders dropping by to commiserate."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dyaera replied, making a face at him. "I haven't seen an ugly brownrider yet today."

"I didn't know that your accident had affected your eyesight," he joked. Ny'n was not in the least sensitive about his scar or slightly misshapen look, but did honestly believe it detracted from his appearance.

Instead of smiling at his joke, though, a faint look of pain crossed her face. If he thought a few scars made someone ugly, she was surprised he could stand to look at her. She covered the sudden hurt with a fake smile. "No, I suppose I'm lucky in that, at least."

Though, it was brief, Ny'n caught it and he knew that he had said something to upset the greenrider. Shards and shells! He was no good at talking to women. He thought to excuse himself politely, but then remembered the sad look on Dyaera's face before he had approached. For awhile she had seemed somewhat cheered.

Well, it might make things worse, but for once he was going to try to fix things instead of running away, "I said something to upset you. I'm sorry. I don't know what it was, but I saw it on your face. Please, Dyaera, I can be a real dimglow at times, don't let anything I've said upset you. Ask most greenriders who I've spent any time with and they will tell you that I'm an insensitive dolt. I don't mean to be, but..." Ny'n faltered, not quite sure how to explain that he just didn't get women. "I guess I just am."

Dyaera's smile wobbled a little. "It's not your fault. You were just being honest... I mean, I need to accept the fact that I--I look different now." She swore her lower lip had given a betraying tremble, so she dug her teeth into it and concentrated everything on _not_ crying.

Shards! Had he _said_ anything about scars! "Hey," Ny'n said gently, touching her hand ever so softly, "I was talking about _me_ and I was ugly to start with. You on the other hand," he continued, "Were not and are not."

"But you're not ugly without your scars," Dyaera protested, oblivious to the rather backhanded nature of her compliment. "And now I'm never going to have a chance to grow into being pretty. So either we're both ugly or neither of us is."

It occurred to the brownrider that this is why he had avoided women for so many turns. Ny'n gave an inward sigh, "Well, then I suppose you've convinced me. Neither of us is ugly," he said definitively his eyes alight with suppressed humor. He gave her a moment before continuing more seriously, "Dyaera, my scars have never really bothered me. I suppose that is why I joke about them so flippantly. Something I ought not to do."

The look she gave him was uncomprehending. "They don't _bother_ you?" she repeated, as if she couldn't imagine that being the truth.

The brownrider shrugged, "They really don't. They are just part of who I am, and for the most part, barring a few things, I'm okay with who I am." Well perhaps more than a few things, but he hardly had to go into all that.

"Oh." After spending a few moments pondering that, Dyaera gave him a tiny smile. "Well, I'm sixteen. I don't think I'm supposed to be that smart yet."

Ny'n chuckled, "Oh, I don't know, you seem plenty smart to me! In fact, you are so smart I am quite certain that you can come up with a few things to keep you from getting quite so bored while you recuperate," he added an idea coming to him.

Whenever B'ram said that, it meant sex. She hadn't gotten the impression from Ny'n that he was trying to flirt, so she wasn't completely sure what he meant. "Like what?"

"That is what I want you to figure out. You need to start getting back into weyr life. I want you to think about what you are good at, think about your strengths, think about the smallest little interest that you might ever have had. I'm going to check in with you tomorrow and you are going to tell me all the things that you have ever been or are good at or interested in. Doesn't matter if it was before or after your injuries."

Ny'n felt rather odd doing this, he had only just met Dyaera but from the moment he had seen her he'd felt inexplicitly drawn to the greenrider. He really wanted to help her. His healer uncle had given Ny'n a similar assignment when he had been injured as a child so the brownrider thought it was worth a try.

She frowned thoughtfully, her teeth digging into her lower lip. "All right," she said finally, nodding at him. "I can do that, I guess."

"Very good. I will see you tomorrow, greenrider," he said with a wink.

Last updated on the April 12th 2006

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

A Harper Likes to End on a Positive Note