Through My Fingers to the Deep

Writers: Heather
Date Posted: 26th April 2025

Characters: Rathandra, Evanram
Description: Rathandra and Evanram enjoy a meal in Dragonsfall's Dining Cavern as they decide what to do when the Holdless leave.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 5, day 7 of Turn 12

Rathandra

Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep â€" while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?"
- Poe (A Dream Within a Dream)

*******

The Dragonsfall Dining Cavern was unlike anything Rathandra had
imagined. She had always thought of stone as cold and drafty. Grey and
dreary. Yet, the inside of the Dining Cavern was warm from the many
fires that burned and the lights, glows, and candles cast varying
shades of warm yellows and golds around the room. The richly gleaming
wooden tables added speckles of warmth as well. There was a continuous
hum of conversation about the room that made it feel _cozy_.

Cozy was something that she hadn't felt in Turns. The caves where they
had lived for the last twelve months had been anything _but_ cozy.
Damp. Smelly. Stifling, sometimes. But the caves had kept them cool
during the heat of the summer and had sheltered them from wind and
rain... Well, until the end.

"A mark for your thoughts?" Evanram's voice broke her from her rumination.

"They're hardly worth an entire mark," she replied, giving her husband
the slightest quirk of her lips.

He arched an eyebrow. "This coming from the woman who has filled many
journals with her thoughts."

"Aye, many journals that are now a sodden mess at the bottom of the caves."

Evanram reached across the table, putting his hand over hers. "I'm
sorry that we couldn't save any of them. If there had been more time,
I -"

"I know," she turned her hand over and squeezed his. "I know you would
have gotten them out if you could. They're not important."

"That's not true."

Those journals had been the details of their married life. "Well,
they're gone, nonetheless." There was no use moaning about them.

Evanram's dark eyes studied her for a moment, his free hand pushing
around the food on his plate. "You've been quiet ever since the
meeting with the Weyrleaders," he said.

"They gave us a lot to think about."

"Does that mean you want to stay?" he asked.

There was a tentativeness to his question. As if he was afraid of her answer.

"I follow you, remember?" Rathandra knew her distance over the past
couple of days was worrying her husband, but ever since she'd shoved
that flag in the ground and called down the aid of the Weyr, she'd
felt.... detached. As if she were watching all of the events of the
past forty-eight hours happen to someone else.

"We're here for the next three months anyway," Evanram said, although
he was glad to hear Rathandra's renewal of their commitment. "But
after that, I think we should leave with the others. The Weyr has been
nice to take us in, nice to help us out but.... They still represent
everything I walked away from turns ago."

Rathandra knew he was about to recite the convictions she'd heard him
repeat countless times before.

"The Weyr is no different than the Hold. The Weyrleaders sit at the
top doling out whatever demands or initiatives they choose while the
people at the bottom do all of the grunt work."

She didn't know if she agreed with that assessment. She had seen the
Weyrleader and the Weyrwoman at the flooded caves, soaked from the
rain, helping in the efforts. But there was no need to argue with her
husband over the matter, not when they would be gone in three months
anyway.

"I guess I'd better enjoy these 'dragontails' while I can, then,"
Rathandra said, bringing a bit of levity to her husband's serious
declaration.

Evanram smiled, but inwardly, his wife's response bothered him. He
wanted her, _needed_ her to agree that living Holdless was the best
possible choice for them both. He needed to feel as though she had
chosen this life too, and that he wasn't holding her back, or dragging
her along in something she didn't want.

"I love you, Rathandra," he said.

"I love you too, Evanram," she replied.

Her words did little to assuage the panic he felt bubbling beneath the
surface. He felt like she was slipping through his fingers and no
matter how tightly he grasped, he couldn't hold on to her.

Last updated on the May 1st 2025

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Through My Fingers to the Deep