Setting Up a Playdate

Writers: Halyonix, Sia
Date Posted: 2nd August 2024

Characters: E'kavas, Vaile
Description: E'kavas and Vaile have a chance meeting through their children
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 11, day 18 of Turn 11

E'kavas

Miravaile was making a _friend_.

Friends were important, her mother said. Friends made you happy. Friends help you through hard times. But Mira didn't know what a hard time was yet. But her mom said to make friends and friends she was making!

Until those friends had to go somewhere else.

"Is that your dad?" Miravaile asked Ellenico as an adult approached.

Ellenico perked up as he turned, grinned widely as he excitedly waved E'kavas over. "This is Mira!" He announced. "We've been playing hop-it." He gestured at the haphazardly etched design on the ground.

"Oh. Well, it's nice to meet you, Mira." E'kavas said. He squinted a little as he tried to match the girl to a parent. She looked just familiar enough. "Is your adult a dragonrider too?"

"She is!" Mira replied brightly and proudly. "Her dragon is Liranthhhh." The final phonetic was stressed because Miravaile was trying to consciously correct herself. She wanted to say the words right! "Are you a dra-gon-rider?" Again, carefully enunciated because she was practicing just like her mom had told her to do!

E'kavas paused as Roquath helpfully supplied the name. Vaile, of course.

"Yes!" Ellenico answered for him. "Roquath is a brown dragon. He's really big, you can't miss him." Except, of course, when he's up in the heights along with the regular dragons.

Mira concentrated hard on the name. "Ro-quath," she said. And said it again, faster. more familiar. By the time she said a third time, loudly and triumphantly, that's when someone else could be seen approaching. "Mom!" Mira squealed. She ran to greet her mother, throwing her arms around Vaile's legs. "I made friends! Come meet them!" She tugged her mother forward eagerly.

"Friends?" Vaile echoed. She looked ahead to where Miravaile was taking her. She had heard her daughter say a dragon's name so she quickly realized that it was E'kavas that Mira was talking about. "Hello," she greeted demurely as Mira tugged her close enough.

"Hey, Vaile. I take this one is yours?" E'kavas said lightly. "They had a nice game of hopscotch going before we crashed the party."

"Oh, that's good that they were playing," Vaile said with obvious happy relief. She was so worried that M'vel's death had caused damage to Miravaile as well but her daughter seemed to be adjusting to it just fine. "I guess I never asked you if you had children," the greenrider admitted. E'kavas was her Wingsecond, she saw him at practice and followed him in Threadfall. Yet, she hadn't taken the time to get to know her Wingmates over the last few Turns, especially the ones that had transferred in.

}: You were involved in your healing, :{ Liranth pointed out, }: You cannot be all things at once. Here is the opportunity to remedy not knowing Roquath's rider. :{

"I haven't exactly been all that available after 'drills." E'kavas admitted. He knew he should change that, but he often didn't know what to do with himself if it didn't involve work. "I have two more. 'Nico here is my youngest. They all transferred with me after River Bluff closed."

Vaile's expression closed off a bit sorrowfully. "What a tragedy, what happened there," she remarked softly. "Thank Faranth you escaped. I know...I know many didn't." River Bluff was a scar on many a dragonrider at Dragonsfall. Most of the Cobalt Wing was made up of the survivors, all valiantly bearing their emotional scars as they continued to fight Thread.

Suddenly, it seemed to Vaile that she was doing nothing but focusing on sorrows, especially those that were beyond her control, and she felt tired of being so mired down. Was life always going to be like this?

Liranth's love pressed against her mind, even as Miravaile tugged at her hand. "Moommm, can I go play with Nico more please? Do we have to go yet?" she begged sweetly. It all gave Vaile that push to stay in the present, to get a chance to be somewhere besides the past.

She smiled and said, "Of course," and watched the two children resume their game of hopscotch while their adults hovered nearby to talk.

"So, three children?" she asked of E'kavas.

The brownrider nodded along at the well-meaning sympathy. He'd asked for Dragonsfall to get away from the guilt of River Bluff, to the point that he opted not to transfer to Barrier Lake when it finally opened.

"You can see where all my spare time went." E'kavas said with a chuckle. "It was easier when I could tuck one under an arm. Do you have any others?"

"One other," she answered. Her expression went reserved. "He...his father, M'vel, died before he was born." Having been a bronzerider, enough people would have known M'vel but perhaps not that he had children. "He's still little enough for me to tuck under an arm, as you said." Though not for much longer at the rate Moraile was growing.

"You aren't truly outnumbered until then." E'kavas said. He didn't think he knew M'vel. He might have still been at River Bluff when that happened. "I'm sorry for your loss. My weyrmates passed in the River Bluff earthquake. 'Nico was four."

"Does he...remember?" Vaile asked, wondering how much her own daughter recalled of her late father.

E'kavas looked at her thoughtfully, unsure how much it would help or hinder. "It's hard to say. He understands it much better now, at least. The make-believe games were a bit dark, for a while. He got it in his head that people "start over" when they die. I see how he got there, but shells."

Vaile was quiet for a long moment, her arms crossed in a way that looked almost like she was trying to hug herself but hiding it. After that stretch of silence, she said quietly, remorsefully, "If only they did start over."

}: Vaile, :{ Liranth said softly but with love.

Vaile closed her eyes. Closed her heart off to the pain again. When she opened her eyes again, there was resigned steel reflected there. "Sorry," she apologized. "It's been two Turns and it still hurts."

"Grief is funny, isn't it?" E'kavas said quietly. "I'm fine, until I'm not. I'm not thinking about it, until I suddenly can't think about anything else. Things are more or less okay, until they're useless and screamingly unimportant in the face of what I've lost. I miss them, and I don't think I'll ever stop missing them, but most days are better than the ones that aren't."

"I wonder if it'll always be like that," Vaile remarked. "Fine until we aren't. Does it ever really heal?" As a dragonhealer, Vaile knew the answer to that. Injuries would scar over, maybe fade to near completion over time, but there was always some indication that something traumatic had happened. Not all scars were visible.

"I didn't always have more better days than bad ones." E'kavas said. "So it gets better. But I don't think it really heals." He shrugged, looking chagrined. "I'm sorry to bum out the conversation like that. I'd say we should do this again sometime, but, uh. Not quite like this."

The corner of Vaile's mouth quirked in a wry smile. "A playdate?" she suggested.

"Seeing as the kids get along so well." E'kavas agreed. "I'm pretty good at hop-it, believe it or not." That made her chuckle. Which made some of the stress held within her body fade.

"In two days maybe?" she asked.

E'kavas had to think about it for a second, then nodded. "Let's do it. I have a free block in the afternoon. 'Nico, buddy, it's time to head home!"

Nico reluctantly hopped off the grid. "I gotta go." He told Miravaile. "It was nice meeting you though, Mira."

"BYYYYYYEEEEE!" Mira sang brightly. She finished her hopping and then ran over to her mother. "Mooooom, I can play with Nico again soon?"

Vaile nodded as she pat Miravaile's hair. She looked over at E'kavas with a small smile. "See you in a few days then."

Last updated on the August 29th 2024

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Setting Up a Playdate