0001-03-05 - Brothers

They were luxuriating on their ledge -- theirs! -- Djarith sunning in an ink-dark pool, V'riad actually letting himself relax against him; Tooth Crag, all the way across Fort's grand Bowl, was merely scenery instead of an urgent destination. No Thread was falling in the region, not anywhere. They got J'rias instead.

Zhareth doesn’t have the daintiness of a green; when he alights, it’s with a buffeting downstroke of his wide wings, first, to break the speed of his descent. It sends a gust of wind over the ledge, perhaps a little too chilly still for this early spring day. That’s all the warning there is, and then J’rias is there, unbuckling and hitting the ledge feet first. “Hey, little brother.”

The younger, so much younger bronze unlids his eyes at the approach... but that wind, that chill wind that has him rustling his wings against it, he sends the shiver right back on the mental plane. Cold. Right down to the bones. V'riad, sitting up, hugging himself -- doubly cold, now -- glowers. "Hey." Too quickly, "What do you want?"

J’rias shrugs his shoulders — a shiver, perhaps — and goes right ahead and unbuttons the top snap of his flight jacket. Pop. “Can’t just swing by to check in?” He grins, quick and easy, to go with the banter in his tone. It fades as he turns to look out across the Bowl at the imposing landmark, Tooth Crag, bright with the sun. “Nice view you got.”

V'riad snickers, rolls his eyes even, but those eyes are bright on his brother: attentive. Djarith watches him. "Yeah. I like it," only the man's timbre says we. He adds, tongue strictly in cheek, "Better than yours." J'rias', all fancy with a wingleader's accoutrements.

J’rias smirks a little in response, letting V’riad see it. “It’s a good one.” Zhareth yawns, big and wide. He’s not watching any of them, curling his head around to look across the Bowl instead. Like rider, like dragon. “Not for much longer, though. Hate to break it to you.” With that, he’s no longer smiling, tone strictly neutral. “The wing’s being transferred.” The man still doesn’t look round.

Boots grate against stone, and so do claws, but V'riad is the only one who stands; "Wait, what?" Even as he crosses to his brother, his fingertips trail against Djarith, echo of how they wouldn't, couldn't be separated not that long ago. "Jer. What's going on, what happened? What about -- " all J'rias' plans.

“The wing’s being transferred,” J’rias just repeats. Now he looks over to the young bronze rider, studying his expression, his reaction. “To Igen. Along with the gold from your clutch. Good for the bloodlines, you know.” He smiles again, but it’s a thin thing, humorless. “Weyrleader’s decision. His negotiations, at the end of the day.” A shrug. “You got thrown in the deal. Igen’s getting the better end of the stick, if you ask me.” But no one did. “You can try to go take it up with him, if you want to stay.”

Disbelief, disappointment, worry chase their way across V'riad's expressive face and pool in his dark eyes, twitch in his fingers rubbing together, now, that instant before he joins his brother. "I'll miss you -- " and then there's that different sort of shock and he gulps hard. He glances back to Djarith, to their weyr, then down -- yet somehow up -- to his brother. "I want to ride with you," he says, urgently.

This time the smile is real, and J’rias softens somehow, though the tension he carried wasn’t particularly visible until that moment of relaxation. “I want you to ride with me too. I was planning to tap you for my wing. Just not like this.” He reaches out to clasp V’riad’s upper arm with a small squeeze. “It will be an opportunity.” The stress is there for his own sake, too. “We just don’t know what they are yet. We’ll make them.”

V'riad sets his hand over his brother's, pressing hard, just before he half-turns away with an audible exhale. He's nodding. "Right. We will." J'rias has that way about him, that way of making things happen. It's how he got this far. It didn't just happen. Somehow, either V'riad's moved or Djarith has but he's backed into his bronze. "Who else is going? Did you have... any choice at all?"

J'rias' arms settles over his chest, and he stands there a moment longer, looking out across the bowl that will no longer be his. "Not my choice to make. I have some say over who I can tap -- I argued that that's still my right. Jeveth's rider, from your clutch." He turns back, coming to lean against his own bronze opposite his younger brother. "There's some time still. To say goodbyes." The remark isn't devoid of sympathy.

"So not Shari," V'riad says slowly, his lips pulled away from his teeth. He looks back up, at J'rias, but his gaze glances off. He swallows. "Maybe she can -- or there's always betweening, of course -- I'll talk to her." He nods. His hands twist, lodging in his belt, hanging on hard. "It doesn't have to change anything."

"There's always betweening," J'rias repeats, as if in agreement. There's a knowing look in his eye, though. There's distance, and then there's the distance that isn't related to space. "I haven't told Keriah yet. That's my next stop."

"I can go with you," V'riad says; he can do something. "Ma, she won't be thrilled." Djarith's rumble is distant thunder, hardly perceptible from outside; his rider can't laugh, quite, but says quickly, "I mean, go there too."

In the end he'll be surprised, they all will, when she wishes them well; when she encourages them to get out of here.