Not Ready

Writers: Chelle, Miriah
Date Posted: 16th March 2014

Characters: Bahji, E'rae
Description: Bahji comes to tell E'rae about the pregnancy.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 6, day 5 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: Werenn, Santeni, K'lvin, Solieira, Riveenata

He had spoken to Santeni already. That hadn't gone well. She didn't
want to be uprooted. She didn't want to leave just because he was.
That meant he either had to take Werenn with him and have her raised
by someone who wasn't family for the rest of the time or leave her
behind. She would be old enough to Stand or become an apprentice
soon enough so it wouldn't be too much longer that she would need
looking after. Still after all that had happened, E'rae wanted her
close.

Frustrated and still thinking over his options, he had come into
his weyr and started to pack everything. Some things he would leave
behind for the Headwoman like the furniture and furs. His personal
things would go with him. Fortunately, the bluerider didn't have much.
When he was half done, he stopped to take a long drink from the waterskin
he had.

Burst appeared in the air inside the weyr with a familiar chirrup
of greeting. He settled onto E'rae's table and peered at him, blinking
slowly as he turned his head from side to side. Settling back on his haunches,
he turned his head towards the door and crooned. There was a pause and
then a soft knock.

Bahji stood outside the door, the trek up the stairs already had made
her anxiety worse. Despite her claims to Riveenata, she couldn't in good
conscience keep her news from either E'rae or K'lvin. It wasn't fair
to either of them. Swallowing roughly, she waited outside the door.
Burst had sent the image of E'rae, so she knew he was there, but whether or not
he would want to speak to her was another matter.

Hearing the noise, he looked up and was momentarily surprised. **Why
now?** He felt the anger but he channeled it instead into throwing things
into carisaks. Then he heard the knock. **What the shells am I supposed to
say? You can have your Wingleader and do whatever you want. Just leave me
alone. Come to rub my nose in it, have you? Maybe he can give you babies that
live.** He smirked for a moment before taking a deep breath. For one second,
he debated. **Why don't I do to her what she did to me? Shut the door in her
face.** So, he waited quite a long while before coming to the door. And then
he opened it but the look that he gave her was not a happy one. He also did
not invite her inside.

She had just been about to turn around and leave, the defeated set to
her shoulders already sinking into place, so when the door opened she
was startled. She gave a relieved gasp and turned to face the door again,
one hand on the wall and the other on her abdomen. Hearing nothing,
not a greeting, not a request for her to leave, she faltered. She swallowed
hard and her hand clenched against her stomach. "E'rae? I'm...I'm
sorry to bother you, but..." She licked her lips nervously. "I need
to talk to you. It's important. I know you probably don't want me here,
but..uh.." Her hand flattened on her stomach. "I can't not tell you."

"Tell me what? That you've decided to weyrmate with the new
Wingleader? Don't bother." It was a side of him she hadn't seen much
of. The truth was he was angrier than he'd ever been and hurt. Old
hurts mingled with new hurts. And now he had to leave his home because of
her. Because of her choice. She didn't deserve Hemarji. Maybe it was
better that he had died. "And if you remembered that you forgot something in
the weyr, give it a day and then you can get whatever you like."

"What?" Her jaw dropped open at the harsh words and tears immediately
sprung to her eyes. She couldn't see his face, but she could hear the
anger and hurt in his voice. She blinked the tears hurriedly away. She
hadn't exactly been discrete with K'lvin, but honestly didn't think
E'rae would really care! He never had claimed any deep feelings for
her at all. Hurt laced through her words. "I'm not weyrmating anyone."
Her lower lip trembled before she could bite it into stillness. "And
I didn't forget anything."

It was better to get this over with quickly. Her hand clenched at her
stomach as she wiped hurriedly at her eyes with her free hand. "I
just...I had to be honest and I know you probably don't want to know
but...I'm with child. Again." She wiped at her eyes. "I'm far enough
along that it was probably..." She took a deep breath. "..probably
the mating flight but the Healers aren't sure." The horrible mating
flight that had been such a bad mistake on her part. "I..I just thought
you should know." She bit her lip hard. "I'm sorry." She found the
wall with her hand and turned, stretching her foot carefully to search
for the step.

That made him pause. Something, though, something in him didn't want
to believe her. Not that, anything but that. "They're not sure? Or
you're not sure? Because you went to him. You went to him!" That was
enough. With everything, it was enough. And right then and there,
everything came out of him. He went through the weyr and started to
throw things. "I was there. I was there when you were a blind hold girl
that no one wanted. I was there to pick you up off the ground when you were
lying there bleeding and broken. I was there! Not him!" His eyes were dark
and his nostrils flared as he started to punch the cabinet. "That was my
child. I was there to tell him goodbye. Not you. You were somewhere with your
legs spread for some bronze hide. He may outrank me. He may fill your head
with all sorts of runner dung. But he wasn't there. He _NEVER_ saw the
tree!"

Walking away from her, he went to the ledge. He stopped at the edge,
but his toes were hanging off. His chest was heaving. "It wouldn't be
my baby because my baby would already be dead." Leith showed up just
then, all kinds of worried. The blue was becoming distraught and with
a berserk rider, it was no wonder. Wrapping his wings around E'rae, he
tried to calm him down. He didn't understand. There was too much to
sort through. It was too fast. The old E'rae-the hunter-knew what blood
smelled like. He knew what it was like to slice bone. The violence was coming
back and his hands remembered. He would never hurt her though he wanted to.
For once, he wanted to.

The words he was saying were like vicious slaps. She started to tell
him how far along they thought she was, that it was most likely his
child, but was interrupted by the sound of things crashing. Crying out
in fright and not able to see his outburst, she only knew that things
were breaking, he was yelling and accusing her, and saying things that
she had no idea what they meant! What tree? Him? Her child was a him?
She crumpled to the ground, leaning on to the wall, she pushed herself
back and away from the weyrdoor with a strangled sob. She didn't
understand! What had she done wrong? This baby wasn't dead! It wasn't
going to die!

Burst, feeling the frantic fright from his pet leapt towards her with
startled cries and landed on her lap, wings spread as he cried out his
own distress. Bahji clung to the little bronze with frantic hands.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Just stop! Please! You're scaring me, E'rae!"

He was also scaring his dragon. Leith bugled his distress to try and
get E'rae to listen. The problem was, the bluerider was almost beyond
the point just then. Leith was the only thing keeping him from jumping
off that ledge. "You're sorry? You're sorry now?" He found himself
laughing for a moment. It wasn't gentle laughter, though. No it was
the sign of something gone wrong. "You shut the door in my face. You
wanted other men. You wanted other men to be a woman of the Weyr. You
were so worried about that-you didn't even care for our dead son. You
are so selfish, Bahji. You wanted to have sex when you wanted to. I
just wanted to wait to make sure you were okay. That bronzerider came
to you after talking to me. He knew exactly what he was doing and you
let him. Because all you cared about was your pleasure." Leith
relented and let his rider out, though he was fearful that if he let
him get too far, he might do something bad. Trailing close behind, he
followed with whirling yellow eyes.

E'rae turned and walked toward her and then stopped. "You turned
from me quicker than a candlemark. I guess I should have known. My
baby didn't matter. You needed a better baby-a better rider-a better
dragon. You always wanted better, didn't you?" He was screaming again
and his gestures were rather wild. And then his tone changed. It was
clear he was remembering something. "I'll never be good enough." Now
it was his turn. He was broken and bleeding from where he had punched
the wood. **If it was mine, she would have betweened it already.**

Something clicked in Bahji, a hidden switch that she hadn't even
realized was there, the moment E'rae accused her of not caring for
their child. Her fright transformed into a maternal rage and she rose,
hanging on to the wall. If she could have seen him well enough to
approach him, she may well have lunged at him; as it was, her fingers
dug into the rock wall behind her. "Don't you ever say that I didn't
want or love that child! I wanted that baby! More than you did,
especially at the beginning!" Her hands scrabbled along the wall,
finding a lose stone and gripped it before pulling it out and throwing
it at him in a fury that would later shock her at the remembrance of
it. "I wanted our baby! I wanted it! It nearly killed me to lose our
child! It tore my heart out!" She reached blindly for another stone,
desperate in her anger. "I wanted you to be there to tell me it was
okay! That we could have another!"

Tears leaked down her cheeks, angry and full of reinforced grief. "I
didn't care about your dragon or what color he was, you idiot! I can't
even see him!? I cared about you! You never thought I was good enough!
That I was a weak blind girl! I wanted you to love me!" She gave an
angry sob, her hands found a stone and she flung it. "It wasn't about
sex! I can't see your face, all I can do is feel and smell and hear! I
wanted to reconnect with you!" Her lips trembled. "You didn't want me!
And now you're rejecting a child that's probably yours, but I'm
selfish?" Tears poured down her face. "Fine." She spun on her heels
and holding on to the wall, she stumbled down the stairs.

"If it wasn't about sex, then why the shells did you have it with
someone else? If it was about love, then why did you go to him? He
doesn't love you. I might have, you know, if you hadn't done that." Or
maybe he already had. If he didn't, he never would have let it bother
him so much. He was trying his best to calm down but he was all over
the place. Despite what he really wanted-for his mind it was too soon.
He couldn't accept it yet, that it was a real child, that it might
really be his child. He was still grieving for the other one. "I did
want you. I just didn't want you in a SHARDING FLIGHT COT! I never
said I didn't want you. I wanted you to be okay before anything
happened. And I needed to be okay. Because it could have meant another
baby. And I needed to be ready for that." Obviously, he wasn't. Not
yet. He wasn't right and he knew it. It was hard to admit that and
he didn't know what to do to fix it. Where he came from, men didn't
cry. Where he came from, men didn't see mindhealers. They dealt with
their problems and moved on. He wasn't doing a good job of it, though,
this time. And she had left him alone.

She kept her back to him, shoulders hunched as though expecting a
blow. She had never complained when he went to someone else and she
knew he had. He was a rider. He liked men. She had accepted it.
Choking back her sobs, she took another step down the stairs. The
words he had flung at her were vicious stabs; that he thought of
her like that..that she would be so cold and so heartless. That he
believed she hadn't loved the unborn child that they had lost. Her
free hand clenched over her abdomen; she would not lose this one. She
didn't care what anyone said. He didn't want it; he wasn't ready. But
she wanted it, now more than ever.

She scrubbed at her face and lifted her chin, tears still flowing, but
a measure of stubborn pride made her straighten her back. "I'm not
like what you think." She didn't look at him. "And I'm having this
baby. And it will be loved, no matter who the father is and no matter
if the father isn't ready for it. I may not be ready either, but by
Faranth, I'll get ready." She sniffed her tears away and walked down
the steps, refusing to turn back.

Last updated on the March 21st 2014

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