Morning...ish, after

Sidran had bid farewell to Ferrix - an excellent drinking partner - sometime around dawn. Whether she had slept afterward was anyone's guess, but at some point this morning she'd moved, bathed, and set up in a non-Weyrleader's-weyr.

Bloody sharded burrows. She sat on her bed, running a hand through her freshly dried hair, and considered what to do next - food? - when she heard a knock and voice she hadn't expected until sometime later that day.

So she folded her legs under her, put on her best neutral face, and called him in.

Bloody shells, but she looked good.

Even the day after a flight, even with the aftermath of Yllaveth's mating pleasure filling his head, Br'son couldn't deny his instantaneous response to the sight of his former Weyrleader. Even after everything, she raised his desire.

"Hey," he said quietly. Despite his attempt at neutrality, he heard echoes of the betrayal and abandonment he felt threading through the single word. Even as his eyes drank in the lines of her body, he felt the twisting of nerves in his stomach.

She heard the shadings in his voice, and she very nearly stood and crossed to him. But that didn't seem exactly right, either, so she leaned a little forward, tilted her head, and replied, "Hey." A breath, and she added, wry or rueful or mournful or some combination, "Congratulations." Yllaveth flew well, after all. And whatever else, she chose.

He couldn't help it. He crossed the room, sat beside her. Within touching distance, but worlds away.

"Thanks," he said softly. And then, even softer. "I wish I could say the same to you."

A look down at his hands, and then up to her (achingly, painfully) beautiful face.

"Why didn't you come?"

She put a hand down between them - invitation, but not imposition. For a moment - just a moment, so easy to miss - pain and a deep regret shot over her expression, but the internal conflict gave only the faintest hint in her voice.

"Five of the six queens left are of Gaveth's line. We are already all Olenath's. And we don't...my responsibility had to be beyond what I wanted, to look at what we need." She wanted him to understand, clearly, her eyes intent on his, but that struggle threaded through every part of her.

A brown had flown Yllaveth. Would there be queens from that line? Had she accomplished anything?

Gaveth, still a wall in the back of her head, had a very clear opinion of that.

He nodded. It made sense. Of course it made sense. But still...

"I understand that. But I thought... Crack it all, Sidran, I thought we were in this together! Don't you see? You're the only cobaltrider who had a hope of bringing us together. I don't... I'm not sure I can do this without you!"

His voice cracked on the last word, and Br'son dropped his gaze to the floor, lest she see the suspicious wetness that filmed his eyes.

"First," she said, frowning, "you're not without me. This has never been something Weyrleaders can do alone, though if anyone could I'd put my marks on Yllaveth and you." It was a bit of a bolster, to be sure, but also there was a reason she'd named Jah'vi to be her 'second. If Sh'lor chose to continue what she'd tried to start, he'd name a cobalt or scarlet rider to be his second. She hoped he had it in him.

"Second..." she didn't have a second. Rather, she did, and a third through tenth, likely, but the words escaped her at his display of emotion. She touched his knee briefly, so briefly, and said, "you're not alone in this."

His knee seemed to burn where she touched him. He wanted her to do it again. He wanted to stay far away forever.

"Maybe not," he said, bitterness dropping from his lips like stones into a pond. "I've got Sh'lor, and he's on board with trying to make things work. I've got Jah'vi to have my back, as always. I've got Casriel and her cohort of followers... But not you."

He shook his head before she could refute him and charged on.

"You had your reasons. They're even logical. But right now I don't care about that. I needed you, Sidran. And when I needed you, you weren't there."

Fair. Not fair. At this point, who cared? He glared at her with the full fury of a young man's broken heart.

She shouldn't have been hurt. She didn't let people curl all the way into her heart, not Sidran. She cared about them, of course, deeply in so many cases, but they didn't get to hurt her - no access.

Even Gaveth, who she loved without reservation, to a depthless, breathless degree she would never fully know, even he couldn't hurt her (wouldn't, but she couldn't parse that, nor had reason to).

This, though.

This.

She stood and stepped away from the bed, cool to her toes. "I should have talked to you before Yllaveth rose. I apologize for that. Had I know you would be a child, perhaps I would have chosen differently. I'll support you to the end, Weyrsenior," there was no rancor in her voice, it was far too calm for that. "All you've lost of me is my respect, which I imagine you'll hardly miss at all."

The frustration bound up between her and Gaveth had to go somewhere, and she was just sleep-deprived and surprised at being hurt enough for it to go right, exactly, here.

Br'son goggled at her. Undignified, perhaps, but her counterattack was so swift and so... unexpected. He figured she might get mad, but to call him a child?

Him? He hadn't been the one who ran away when the chips were down. And he was the child here?

Br'son blinked, then closed his mouth with a snap and stood abruptly.

"I see. Well, that's clear enough, I suppose," he said. "I didn't realize that by feeling something for you I was endangering any respect that you held for me. I'll go, then. Thank you for your continued support."

He swallowed hard, then turned and walked toward the entrance.

Call me back. Call me back! his mind begged her. But his mouth, his posture, his body language?

Didn't say a word.

"No," she said, but softer than she could have. Should have? The hurt was in that one word.

But then she added - not quite indifferent, not quite neutral, maybe touching on icy (who could know it was guarded? Not Sidran; not her style) - "It's not about your feelings. I have feelings, queenrider. But if you're going to cut out anyone who hurts your feelings, you won't like being Weyrsenior for long."

Where were the carefully balanced words? The attention to others' feelings? Knowing what to say, in gauging the conversation?

Gone, clearly, in the face of her own unwillingness to sacrifice for the greater good, and her ability to do it anyway being spurned by boyish ego.

It could be mentioned that Gaveth's seething frustration and sense of betrayal didn't help. The wall of him in her mind wasn't, exactly, a wall.

He froze. Turned.

"I never cut you out," he said. "You abandoned me. And when I tell you about it? You say you've lost respect for me. If that's the way it is, then then that's the way it is, Sidran. But don't you dare say that this was in any way my choice"

"You said you have Sh'lor. Jah'vi. Casriel. Not me." Each word, each name, bit. "I didn't abandon you. I left a flight for the benefit of dragonkind, Br'son. How will we survive if I'm selfish? If you're selfish...it's over for us. So that's on you, Weyrsenior." Her voice deepened, there. "And if that's who you are, well. I wish you joy of who you have, and may you always deserve them."

"I don't think I'm being selfish to want the best leader for my Weyr, Sidran. But if you think so, then maybe you're right and we're not suited. I guess... thank you for your continued support."

Br'son shrugged and turned back toward the entrance, his shoulders straight, though they longed to slump in misery. How? How had he managed to foul this up so comprehensively??

There were a handful of things she wanted to say (some were fairly low, w/r/t his blatant interest in Casriel; some were anger-based, along the lines of he could have still had her as a leader, if not (temporarily!) the leader; and some were just mean) - one of the less fair ones caught against her lips and she (if he'd been lookng) visibly stilled herself again.

"It wasn't meant to be permanent," she said, maybe too softly for him to hear. Resignation threaded through her tone; she'd always been one to redirect rather than give up, but this, maybe, was it.

Not for her ability to be Weyrleader again, but to have what she'd had with Br'son...that, perhaps, was irretrievable.

The words reached him. He faltered in his step, then squared his shoulders and walked on.

"Fair enough," he said as he walked out into the daylight.

And she let him go. The breach with Gaveth would heal, of course, and for the rest...

Well. Nothing worthwhile was ever easy.