Love somebody who don't love you (Khiara)

[Dhanya]

Spring 82nd.
Status: closed to Khiara.


The galling part was that she'd wanted something to come of it. She couldn't blame the man for keeping his options open, it's what she would have done. Pygmy usually had a few casual suitors around the place. No, she couldn't blame him for that.

She could hate him though, or at least try to. She wanted to hate him, in fact. She just couldn't seem to push her heart so far. The attachment she had so carefully avoided was entrenched now. She couldn't hate him though she wanted to, so she settled for hating herself.

A meeting with the goal of marriage, Pygmy knew what those were. Not the sort of thing you were involved in unless you had some status and Pygmy did not. There was no one who could broker such a meeting for her. From what she'd heard, the girl was beautiful and the more she checked around the more she came to see that there might have been something there, maybe. No one wanted to say for sure. Either they didn't know or they could tell Pygmy was upset. She had hidden it at first but now that she was walking to Khiara's, she let the mask slip.

It was just two days since he'd taken her to the reception. She'd thought it meant something. Hadn't he been able to tell how enamoured she was? She would have sung the moon from the sky to make him smile.

Yet, he was off with someone else. Someone he could have a future with. She'd known that Kelvics didn't marry, from what she could see. She just hadn't realised she might want the option, want someone enough to consider such a result at some time in the future.

She felt as low as she had ever felt. Like a worm or muddy doll, a girl fallen from a cliff down to the gully below. She felt so very disposable, ready to curl in on herself, snail-like.

Khiara was not home when she arrived, so she let herself inside and sat down by the fire, laying down so she was on her side. She raised a hand to her face, ready to block out the world and cried until her throat was sore.

[Khiara]

There was a peace about the coral as Khiara petted the large white stallion, her friend that had taken her so far and shared her grief with her those years ago. She spoke softly in the rich lyrical language of her people as she pressed her cheek against his and stroked his strong neck. Vsenri's ears flicked as he listened to her, content to lean against the girl as much as she leaned against him. It was a shared contact, comfort for comfort. Even though he could not speak, the frostmarch still hurt too. He'd grieved for Eliac, his original owner, almost as much as Khiara. No one knew what thoughts ran though a horses mind, but the vantha felt that Vsenri still thought of the boy as much as she did.

Lifting her head, she kissed the stallions white muzzle, before slapping his flank gently and watching him walk back into the small scattering of horses behind him. At least he wasn't alone.

Making her way back to her pavilion, the vantha lost herself in thought. Over the reception, over her travel and over Vanator. It was becoming harder to stay, harder to keep her distance from the golden skinned drykas she had found herself head over heels for. Of course, she had made herself a promise the night before, in the warm glow of his pavilion. A lingering kiss for a future not possible to exist. But Goddess, she thought of that moment over and over, replaying it differently. It was a confusing and painful feeling, one that she wished she could vanish in an instant. How much she wished though, it still lingered. And it probably always would.

Entering her tent, thoughts a million miles away, she didn't notice the kelvic at first. It was the sound that got her, and with a start she looked up. Seeing the small form laying by the fire, her hand on her face, the first thing Khiara felt was guilt. She knew! Pygmy knew about the kiss and it had broken her heart and she was here to tell Khiara to leave and never return and....Goddess she hated herself.

"Pygmy, oh Mi..." Moving quickly, she knelt beside the kelvic and put a hand on her head, leaning over as she stroked her brown hair. What could she say..what could she do. Swallowing, she spoke softly, words she didn't really want to say. Part of her hoped it was something else...something completely else.

"What happened?"

[Dhanya]

Pygmy did not move off the floor, though her sobs did gain a harsher quality. She was cried out but the presence of comfort seemed to give her a second wind of sorts. Her throat was tender and she could almost feel something tearing.

She placed her hand over Khiara's, not wanting the touch to leave her yet. Pygmy felt she needed it. She knew she shouldn't have wanted so much but the seeds had been sewn. She wondered if she shouldn't have been proud for holding it off as long as she had. She could have kept moving, she could have jumped his bones in the first week. That at least would have placed him in the same mental framework as her past lovers. She had cared about them, she just hadn't wanted forever and neither had they. She'd kept herself from considering why that might be, it was less painful that way. Pygmy could take the good and not worry about the bad, when she considered her relationships that way.

"He's getting married." She choked. "I wish I was dead."

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she was doomed to need another more than they could ever need her. It wasn't fair that she had been made to live for the desires of someone else, no matter what she wanted for herself. She hadn't wanted to settle down before meeting Vanator, she had wanted to travel and get some fame. She had wanted other people to adore her, to balance that scale that was weighed against her favour.

Her nature had won out. All the plans in the world were laid low by her desire to please and be pleasing. It was pathetic, to her sight. She could only fight so hard before it became too much.

"Why doesn't he love me?" She sobbed, though the answers weren't so hard to see, it wasn't as if he owed her love.

[Khiara]

There was a huge silence as Khiara processed Pygmy's words, unable to speak. Tears stung her eyes suddenly, and she simply stared at the form on the ground. Finally, she found her voice, unable to keep the despair out of it.

"What, married?" Her heartbeat filled her ears with a loud roar. All this time, she'd held back for Pygmy - because she cared about Pygmy. Yet, there he had been, with a relationship anyway. A wife in the making. Why had he kissed her...why?! Looking down at Pygmy as she questioned her, Khiara felt a welling of anger in her stomach. How dare he! How dare he do that to her, and to Pygmy! Goddess, he had to know how much the kelvic cared for him. Why hadn't he told her sooner, why hadn't he discouraged her.

Pursing her lips, the vantha stroked the kelvics hair, crooning a soft hum.

"How did you find out?" She asked softly, unsure what to say. Why didn't he love Pygmy, indeed? It was his choice, his heart....but why didn't he tell her.

[Dhanya]

"From everybody!" Pygmy whined, turning her head further into the crook of Khiara's arm.

It was the first time that Khiara had ever heard her sound so young. She had been immature before, constantly but even her lack of care had seemed purposeful. Pygmy had never let Khiara hear her sound lost. It was almost startling.

"Everybody knew and she's from a good family and she's beautiful and she's human... And I didn't know she existed." Pygmy was ashamed. "I thought that... I know it..."

Her words lost their coherency, degenerating into a trail of sentence fragments, none of which she could end. There was something she didn't feel comfortable saying, so much so that she had lost her voice. Something in her had led her to believe something that wasn't true.

"I thought it was different, with him. We were together for a season, I've never been with someone for a season before." She knew she had bonded to him, something she had never experienced before and did not know how to recognise. "I know that you can be with someone without it being forever but I really thought that this time it was..."

She knew about Drykas and their marriages and their lives but she did not know a damn about being a part of that. He hadn't told her there had been someone else.

"I'm so stupid." She said, full of youth and angst and not knowing what to do about either.

[Khiara]

Khiara listened to the kelvic as she poured her heart out, patting the brown of her hair softly and nodding even if the young woman couldn't see it. There was a sense of despair in Pygmy's words that echoed every sentiment the vantha felt. Indeed, she had thought this time it was something else too. She'd held back though, for the kelvic. Not for some other woman.

"You are not stupid Pygmy." She said firmly, lifting the kelvic's head so she could meet her curious goat-eyes. The gold in her own eyes was segregated by bands of violet as she spoke.

"He didn't just fool you, he fooled me too. I thought he cared about you. I told-I believed he was going to stay, to look after you...when I was gone. He convinced me to stay, saying we all should go to Riverfall - when I said I was leaving. I.." Sighing, she shook her head.

"I trusted him too." A sudden swell of grief and anger caught the vantha by surprise, and she let go of Pygmy to pound the ground with one fist, swearing in sharp fluid vani.

"That petching son-of-a-sealion! Why would he do this to you?!" Khiara said angrily, debating with herself whether she wanted to dash from the tent and go confront the drykas mongrel now or whether she just wanted to pack Pygmy up and run away again. Most of her knew she couldn't leave yet, not until she had told him just what she thought of him.

"Forget him Pygmy. Forget the petching rotten dog! We will pack up and leave for Riverfall together - after I get a chance to let the Dire Polar Bears of Morwen loose on him."

[Dhanya]

While warmed by Khiara's anger for how she had been treated, Pygmy found she could not yet match it. She felt hollow now, empty after all her crying. She knew she would have to act upon it but she didn't have the energy for it.

She also knew there would be no way for her to go to Riverfall, not when Van would be going there as well.

"I can't go to Riverfall." Pygmy said quietly, hoping that Khiara wouldn't be upset.

She needed her acceptance now, it was the only thing keeping her from despair. It softened the blow of rejection.

"Not now... I want to go somewhere new. If I left, would you meet me? In two seasons? I want to see the desert before I go North again. I don't think it's where you want to go."

Pygmy loved Khiara dearly but she felt that she needed to travel again, to soo what she could now that she was walking the world again.

"I love you so much, Khiara. I need to do this, would you find me again?" Her words were plaintive and her wording telling. She needed Khiara but she also needed to go and see and there was no way Khiara would be able to survive the desert with Vsenri.

[Khiara]

Khiara visibly paled as the kelvic spoke of her plans. A frown deepened on her already concerned features and a small word escaped her lips.

"Desert?" It was almost a squeak. Pygmy was right, of course. Khiara and Vsenri wouldn't just be uncomfortable in the desert - it would quite honestly kill them. Even with the distance the woman and the horse had come, and the adjustment in weather they had made - the dry sun baked desert was just too much. Of course, Khiara had expected Pygmy to just continue on with her...not realising that of course, the kelvic would have plans too. Vanator had initiated the idea of Riverfall - she should have known Pygmy would not come. Still, Khiara wanted to see the city on the cliff. There was no more southern travel for her.

Staring at the fire for a moment, the vantha finally looked back at Pygmy with a firm nod.

"Two seasons, I promise to come and find you. But, where will I look for you?" Her tone held firm promise. She cared for the kelvic deeply, and she would miss her greatly when she travelled on. The woman felt like the more she tried to hold on to things, the more they slipped away. First Eliac, then Vanator, now Pygmy....Goddess give me strength, she thought.

[Dhanya]

Pygmy smiled, though it was a nervous, tremulous thing. She was relieved that she had both freedom and a promise to hold to. Khiara was about the only thing holding her frayed threads of Kelvic self together. It wasn't something she yet knew how to make peace with, though she was learning minute by minute. She was beginning to realise just the sort of responsibility she would need to take to ensure her own survival, let alone happiness. She had been foolish before.

"The Sea, by Riverfall, surely he'll be gone by then. I want to see that place. I've heard it's hell for Kelvics." She tried to sound flippant and almost succeeded.

Her lower lip trembled and she raised her hand to it. Even making plans to leave was difficult.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I fucked it all up. I shouldn't have slept with him after so long, if I'd gotten it over with at the start I wouldn't have cared as much. I didn't even want anybody else. It's never like that for me..." She was now rambling again. "I just saw people I liked or found somebody decent if I needed a place to stay, it's not important, it's not like you're engaged to the, guy."

Yes, she had a name for her feelings and wished more than ever that she had paid closer attention to her mother's discussions about their race. Pygmy had taken the gist and not the nuance.

"I can't think of anybody else." She said, eyes almost glazed and staring at the floor.

[Khiara]

Khiara listened to Pygmy talk, nodding and keeping her face steady. Slept with him? Pygmy slept with him? The vantha hadn't even realised it. A sudden blush of shame came to her features. Had she been so lowly that the drykas couldn't even...violently she pushed the thought away, unwilling to accept that hurt just yet.

As the kelvic continued to talk, Khiara couldn't help but sympathise. Vanator was in her thoughts, constantly. Hurt, confusion, guilt, passion, hate...they all consumed her mind. On one hand, she still held the flame Eliac had lit and it tore her up inside trying to deal with letting go. On the other, Vanator had shown her how to wake up again, and she loved him for it. And then Pygmy, she was more important than girlish desires. And then of course, he was getting married.

Shaking her head, the vantha sighed.

"I know what your feeling Pygmy, I've been there. Deeper and more painful than you can know. But, I think what your doing is right. I got away - and its..its helped. I think some time to yourself. To think, will help."