Accepting the Past

Writers: Bree, Dana
Date Posted: 14th January 2006

Characters: Tiya, Ar'lis
Description: Tiya confronts Ar'lis over his behavior, but ends up proving that she is the one with problems.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 9, day 17 of Turn 3

Tiya hadn't sought Ar'lis out, but when she came across him on the bluff moodily watching the water, she realized that it was far past time for her to say something to him. If he'd kept his brooding to himself, that would have been one thing... but Tiya still liked Gaiya, even if their friendship _had_ been strained since her return. And Ar'lis had made Gaiya upset.

She stopped a few paces away from him, peering up at him with a blank expression on her face. "You need to get over it already."

Realizing that the voice was talking to _him_, Ar'lis tore his eyes away from the waves to stare down at the girl. Tiya? "Pardon?"

Tiya met his eyes squarely. "You're hurting people's feelings. So you need to get over it."

He stared down into her large eyes, into a face that had seen far too many Turns. Not wanting to show how her words had struck him, Ar'lis assumed the mask of aloof indifference. He gave her a slight grin and folded his arms over his chest with casuality that he certainly didn't feel. "Believe me, Tiya, I'm working on it."

She continued to stare at him, her expression disturbingly blank. "You're acting worse than me. You should feel pretty stupid about that."

His eyes narrowed, both her expression and her words were starting to scrape at the edge of his building irritation. "_Worse_ than you?" Of course he knew about what had happened to her. But most people did. He'd been sensitive to that - and had treated her right when he'd sometimes happened upon her in Gaiya's company. And Gaiya had mentioned how Tiya was...different. But she didn't have to tell _him_ that. He could sense the nearly tangible strain between the girl and the woman, the two friends.

Tiya seemed oblivious to his mood. "You upset Gaiya."

Great. Who _else_ knew? "I know I did." His tone held a soft growl -
almost defensive, almost reluctant. "But I'm sure you've heard that things are...better between us?" And it was true. Ever since that night he'd spent in her arms, things _were_ better. They weren't quite the same as they'd been before Vilarth rose, but if anything, they were beginning to understand each other on a deeper level - and understanding that hadn't been there before.

Finally the younger girl looked away. "She doesn't really talk to me about it. But I didn't need her to _tell_ me you were hurting her. It was obvious."

He kept a tight leash on the snarl that was threatening to come through, but he couldn't quite stop himself from baring his teeth a bit at her remark.
"You don't need to remind me, Tiya. I _know_ what I did." His tone was clipped, tight.

His tone made her look up at him. "But that's the point, Ar'lis," she replied quietly. "You didn't do anything so terrible... but you want to think you did."

"Care to explain that to me, Tiya?"

"You act like you did some horrible thing and run around brooding..." Tiya suddenly looked angry. "Why do you think you have the _right_, Ar'lis? What happened to you that was so terrible that you can't just sharding _forget_
about it? Do you even know what something _really_ terrible is like? Stop being a big sharding baby."

His jaw tightened. "It's sharding not what happened to _me_, but what I did to _her_. If it's not so 'terrible', then why won't she talk to me? Why won't she sharding even look at me when we pass each other?" Realizing how that sounded, he clamped his teeth tight together for a moment, trying to regain that small bit of composure. Finally, he said in a quieter tone, "I know you suffered something horrible, Tiya. I know that. I know it hurt you. But what passed between Lenala and I, that hurt too. So _don't_ tell me I don't have a right to feel what I do."

It seemed so clear to her that she couldn't grasp why Ar'lis didn't understand. And she hated that he thought he had the right to mope around as if his life was so terrible when _she_ was the one who was really suffering!
"Fine. If you want to think your life is so hard, I'm not going to stop you.
But you don't _know_ what pain is." She turned on her heel, determined to make a dramatic exit to drive home just how right she was.

The bronzerider stared after her, not sure whether he should laugh bitterly, growl after her, or keep his silence. He chose the latter. Who was he to lecture the girl, after all? He only knew of one person who could and would lecture her, and that was Abrei. Abrei needed to know, just like he sharding needed to accept the past and move forward.

Last updated on the January 15th 2006

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Accepting the Past