I'll Always Be Waiting

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 31st July 2014

Characters: R'haran
Description: R'haran dreams about his former weyrmate, T'nau
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 8, day 6 of Turn 7
Notes: Notes: For Miriah's 'dreams & nightmares' writing challenge. Mentor approved.

Graduation from weyrlinghood and acceptance into the fighting wings was such a
significant event to a young rider that R'haran hadn't wanted to intrude.

Hadn't intruded, in fact. He had stayed firmly in the background and let T'nau
celebrate with his new wingmates. But then the group had broken up. The older
riders had slapped the young bluerider on the back and growled a few words in
his direction before heading off for bed. The younger ones had staged a
ridiculously over-acted raid on a nearby table to steal the wine which had been
left behind. And then T'nau had caught sight of him, sitting with a group of
harpers, playing tunes mostly for their own amusement.

R'haran's heart had thumped uncomfortably as the young bluerider had walked
across the cavern toward the harpers - toward _him_ - and he had completely
missed the chord change, receiving surprised glances from the other harpers. He
set the gitar aside and got up from his chair.

"Ahh. I see," one of his companions muttered in an undertone that wasn't meant
to go unheard. "Young lust."

"Want something to dance to?" another harper called, leading the change into a
well-known slow dance tune that had suitably romantic lyrics.

Behind him the voices of the handful of harpers rose to sing of love at first
sight on a warm Gather's evening.

R'haran could hear the amusement in their singing voices.

"Am I embarrassing you? Should I -"

R'haran caught the young man's hand and shook his head. "I'm blushing like a
fifteen Turn old because I'm _not_ fifteen." T'nau slipped into his arms as if
they were made for each other, a sentiment R'haran would have rolled his eyes at
even four months ago. "I'm nearly sixty. Too old to fall in love like this."

He felt T'nau relax at his words and they danced together, the only ones on the
space in front of the harpers platform that served as a dance floor.

"They don't understand."

R'haran thought most of them did but recognised the urge to think themselves
misunderstood since that made their love different ... special. It was a young
persons' attitude and he didn't think he could entirely enter into it. Too
mature. Too many Turns of counselling young and old about their relationships.
But T'nau _was_ young, and he was entitled to be young and in love.

That most of the time R'haran was barely aware of the great age gap between them
didn't undermine T'nau's right to _be_ a young man just twenty Turns old.

"Hey - T'nau! Come back and party!"

Moments after the call across the dining cavern a hand on T'nau's shoulder
pulled them apart, then the hand dropped as the young brownrider caught sight of
who his newest wingmate was dancing with.

"Sir." Not entirely focused eyes glanced between the two of them, and then the
other young man backed away. "Sorry for interrupting."

There it was. That strange respect given to him for his place in the Weyrhold
long before it became a Weyr, when the return of Thread was just one theory of
many for the increased breeding rate of the dragons.

Given to him also for the madness of realising a way to prove their suspicions
one way or another - and then going ahead and doing it. For being the first
rider in nearly twelve-hundred Turns to fly into a clump of Thread and discover
first-hand what it did to man and dragon.

"You should probably go with them. Your wingmates." Evie might one day fly
again, after a fashion, but they would never join the fighting wings and face
Thread which didn't mean R'haran couldn't understand the importance of bonding
among the men and women of a wing.

"I'd rather be with you."

R'haran smiled, touching the younger man's face in a brief caress. "Play the
game, T'nau. Be part of the wing. I'll always be waiting."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

With a nod T'nau left him alone on the dance floor and headed back to his peers
and R'haran stood there, watching him, with tears in his eyes -

~

Wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

R'haran forced his eyes open in the unrelieved darkness of his weyr. The
memories the dream had brought back to him were very close and he reminded
himself firmly that there had been no premonition when T'nau had left him that
evening. There had been laughter and teasing at the wing table when T'nau
rejoined them, and behind R'haran the harpers had broken into a rude little
ditty about an old man falling in love with a girl young enough to be his
granddaughter. He had gone back and sung along with them, laughing and enjoying
their teasing secure in the knowledge that sometime during the night T'nau would
turn up in the weyr they now shared.

They hadn't had long together, he and T'nau, but that evening hadn't had any
sadness or grief in it. It was one of those special memories and he treasured
each time his mind brought it back to him as a dream.

He _had_ always been waiting but one day T'nau and Keihanath hadn't come back.

That they had loved and lived together was probably more precious for being such
a fleeting thing and when R'haran turned over and settled himself back to sleep
he did so with a smile on his lips.
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Last updated on the August 1st 2014

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I'll Always Be Waiting