Forgive Her

Writers: Bree, Dana
Date Posted: 7th November 2005

Characters: Ar'lis, U'val
Description: Ar'lis goes to U'val to talk about what happened during Lenala's flight
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 9, day 6 of Turn 3

"I guess you heard from Abrei that I'd be coming here?" Ar'lis asked, noticing that U'val didn't look too surprised to see the bronzerider at his door.

U'val nodded and pointed to his couch. "Pour yourself a glass of wine and have a seat, lad."

Like wine would help. Well...maybe it could. Hopefully it would loosen his tongue so it'd be easier to talk. Ar'lis sat down and reached for the flask and one of the glasses. The last thing he wanted to do right now was talk about the flight. The experience had jarred him, just like it had jarred Lenala. Oh Shards...Lenala... The bronzerider took a long swig to cover the slight tremor that ran through him at the rembrance of all those sharding wounds that his body had given her.

"Start wherever you think you can," U'val said quietly, his voice gentle and understanding. "I know the basics, but you're the only one who can tell me what happened."

They sat in silence for a while as Ar'lis sipped at his wine, wondering how he was supposed to sharding begin describing what had happened. "The flight..." he finally began slowly, "it went wrong." He shook his head.
"Flights aren't supposed to begin...and end...like this one did."

"Begin and end?" U'val repeated, finding the phrasing interesting. "What do you mean, Ar'lis? When is the first time you realized something wasn't right?"

"She could barely keep control of Vilarth down at the Feeding Grounds."
Ar'lis rubbed his brow. "She might've even gorged, U'val... I don't know. And the flight itself was so short..."

"And unpleasant," U'val said softly. No one had needed to tell him that part... one look at Ar'lis or Lenala said it well enough.

A brief silence fell before the bronzerider replied quietly, "Yes."
**Rape.** The word burned through his thoughts. **_Rape_.**

U'val nodded. "Have you talked to her about it?"

Another pause. Then he shook his head slowly. "No."

The bluerider sighed, leaning forward slightly in his chair. "I know this is hard, Ar'lis," he said in a quiet voice. "But you need to talk to me, lad. You need to get it out. It's the only way the wound will start to heal."

"We _raped_ each other, U'val!" Ar'lis snarled hoarsely, his eyes blazing as he stared straight ahead, his gaze seeing nothing. "How are we supposed to sharding _talk_ about _that_?"

Having never heard a flight described in those terms--at least, not by a bronzerider--it took U'val a few moments to gather his thoughts. "That's a harsh word," he said cautiously, his voice still quiet. "Flights have a habit of magnifying emotions, though... and it seems that may be what happened in this case."

"Oh, there was some magnification of emotions, U'val." Ar'lis closed his eyes, his hands clenching together. "But they were the _wrong_ emotions."

"Tell me," U'val urged softly, his shoulder's tensing at the pain in the younger man's face. "What sorts of emotions were first?"

"Lust." The word came out as a snarl. "And then resistance. Fear.
Desperation. Anger. More resistance." His quiet tone was as hard as his eyes. "She fought me, U'val. She _fought_ me. And we forced each other...before our dragons took us."

U'val exhaled and shook his head. "I wish there were words I could say to take the pain away, Ar'lis... but what happened hurt you both, and it can't be fixed with words. Not just mine."

The bronzerider shook his head. "She won't talk to me," he whispered.

"At all?" U'val asked gently. "Or just not about what happened?"

"She'll talk, but only if it's a reply to something I've said. And she won't talk to me about what happened. She just looks away..."

"She probably feels much the same way you do," U'val said after a moment of thought. "Lenala doesn't strike me as a particuarly... aggressive woman, Ar'lis. Abrei didn't say much about what happened, but I got the impression that Lenala wasn't the only one who came out of the flight with bumps and bruises."

Ar'lis stared down into his glass silently. **_Rape_.** "No...she wasn't."

U'val chose his words very carefully. "While I can't speak _for_ her, having not yet spoken _with_ her, I would wager that Lenala feels that she is the only one at fault. She lost control of the flight and then she lost control of herself. While you may not think the blame rests on her shoulders, I imagine she does. And she's not just carrying the weight of the hurt she did to the two of you--I'm sure she's thinking about the hurt that could have come to her dragon. That's a tangle of emotions I think it will take her a good while to unravel."

The bronzerider looked up at the bluerider as he spoke. Then he bowed his head. "You're right."

"And what about you?" U'val met Ar'lis' eyes, and there was understanding there, and compassion. "What are _you_ feeling?"

The bronzerider ran a hand through his hair, frowning, his eyes distant.
He was silent for a long moment as he struggled to find the words. "I don't... I don't know how to say it, U'val."

"Try," U'val urged. "The words don't have to be perfect. They just have to be honest."

Shards. How could he put his feelings into _sharding_ words? He rubbed his brow with a hand, feeling the now receeding marks that Lenala's nails had gouged in his face. His fingers trailed down them. Lenala... "I feel... Shards, U'val, I feel violated. Then I feel like _I'm_ the violator. Which I am." He stared at the light reflecting off the wineglass until it was all he saw. "I sensed her resistance, but I pushed her down and forced her anyway." His tone was hard now, bitter. Angry.

"And who is harder to forgive?" U'val asked quietly. "Lenala, or yourself?"

He closed his eyes. "Myself."

U'val reached out a hand and set it gently on the young man's knee. "The most important thing you can realize, Ar'lis, is that she is almost certainly thinking the exact same thing. She may need your forgiveness as much as you need hers. And maybe that's why she can't talk to you."

"Then what should I do?" he asked softly.

"Forgive her." U'val met Ar'lis' eyes and lifted one eyebrow. "Do you think you can start with that?"

The younger man nodded.

U'val smiled gently. "Forgiving yourself is harder. It's something you'll need to work on, Ar'lis... something you need to understand. Something that comes along with being a dragonrider is dealing with what happens when their emotions overpower ours. It's not your fault and you know that.
And Lenala knows it as well. I think once you get her talking, Ar'lis, you'll realize that."

Ar'lis hoped that he was right.

Last updated on the November 7th 2005

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Forgive Her