You've Got Some Explaining To Do

Writers: Heather
Date Posted: 28th October 2020

Characters: Saidrene, K'yne
Description: K'yne wants to know why Saidrene has been keeping a secret from him...
Location: Barrier Lake Weyr
Date: month 3, day 10 of Turn 10
Notes: Mentioned: J'ackt, K'ran, Erivana, Saibra, Cyradis

Saidrene

K'yne

}:Arinoth is here,:{ Ashareth passed along to Saidrene, }:and his rider is coming to see you.:{

Saidrene's brow furrowed in surprise, wondering why the brownrider would be on his way to see her. She stepped out into the corridor in time to see the familiar silhouette of her uncle's figure as he strode toward her. Tall, square shoulders, head lifted with a touch of arrogance - a frame that her younger brother Kaibren was beginning to develop as well.

"Uncle K'yne? What are you doing here?" she asked, smiling a little, until the shadows faded and she saw the stern look in her favorite brownrider's blue eyes.

"Inside," he said in a clipped tone, ushering her back into her weyr, where he closed the door firmly behind them.

"What's going on? You're starting to freak me out," Saidrene said, wondering if something had happened to her mother or brother.

K'yne crossed his arms over his chest, looking much more like her father in that moment than she ever remembered in the past.

"You're pregnant and you didn't think to tell _me_?" he asked, dark blonde eyebrows arched.

Relief stole across Saidrene's features and she rolled her eyes a little as she crossed her arms over her chest to mirror him. "You're right. I'm sorry. Things have been a little... hectic."

Saidrene was the closest thing to a daughter that K'yne had, and he had always treated her as such since his brother's death. "It takes the blink of an eye to sprawl two words on a parchment and send it with a flit."

The greenrider laughed at the picture her uncle painted, writing the words "I'm pregnant" and sending that as the only part of the letter. "I hear you, I hear you. Come on, sit down at least, let me console you with some klah at least."

K'yne's stern features finally broke with the hint of a smile around his mouth as he took a seat. "That's better." He studied Saidrene as she moved, his eyes automatically going to the gentle swell that was easily seen on her slender frame.

"Don't feel left out, I haven't told very many people. At first I wasn't really sure what to do when I found out I was pregnant." Saidrene said as she brought a cup of klah over, with no sweetner, knowing her uncle's preference.

"What was there to think about?" he asked, taking a cautionary sip of the hot liquid.

"Well..." Saidrene trailed off, not wanting to incur her surrogate father's wrath. "First I had to figure out who the father was...."

K'yne was not judgemental about how many bed partners Saidrene might have, after all, he'd had quite a few, especially when he had been her age. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Saidrene said, toying with the hem of her sleeve. "J'ackt's Zith caught Ashareth and then, um, I was with K'ran a couple of days later."

As nonjudgemental as he was regarding how many bed partners Saidrene might have, the two names mentioned made him inhale his hot klah down the wrong pipe, which resulted in the Wingsecond spluttering and coughing as he choked over his klah.

Saidrene winced. "I guess I should have waited until you weren't taking a drink."

K'yne turned his watery eyes on Saidrene. "You think?" He was finally able to inhale a clear, full breath. "Faranth, Saidrene, J'ackt or K'ran?"

"What's wrong with K'ran?" she said, her dark eyebrows crashing down.

"How about his age? Isn't he like twenty Turns older than you?"

Saidrene rolled her eyes. "Eighteen, he's only thirty-eight."

"Only thirty-eight," he mimicked.

"Well what about you and Erivana? Aren't you like twenty-five Turns older than her?"

K'yne looked affronted. "Twenty-five?! How old do you think I am?"

"Forty-seven?"

"I am forty-four, thank you. So that makes me and Erivana only..." he did math on his fingers, "Twenty-two Turns apart."

"Ha!" Saidrene crowed in victory.

"Okay, but me and Erivana are different." K'yne reasoned.

"How?" she asked.

"She got pregnant as a result of our _flight_ not because I was purposefully sleeping with her." The brownrider pointed out.

Saidrene arched an eyebrow as she speared her uncle with a look. "Oh, so that's why you invited Erivana to live with you? Just because of a flight baby?"

K'yne flushed a little. "Well, no, but-"

"So you have feelings for Erivana?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"So it's completely plausible that someone my age can have serious feelings for someone like K'ran and he can have those same serious feelings for me?" Saidrene said, daring him to say otherwise.

"You're sassy like your mother," K'yne huffed, clearly acquiescing.

Saidrene smiled. "I would count myself extremely lucky to be the mother of K'ran's child."

K'yne rubbed his hand over his face, realizing that he had no room to argue on the topic. "What about J'ackt? Why didn't he take Zith out of Barrier Lake when Ashareth rose?" Bronze and brown riders, shards even gold riders, did that all the time to avoid mating flight fights between metallics.

She threw her hands up. "That's what I keep saying! J'ackt is making it out to be my fault, not aborting or going /between/ immediately after the flight."

"He did what now?" K'yne asked, as if he hadn't heard her right.

"When J'ackt found out he huffed up and pouted like a petulant child. Said it was all my fault, that I should have aborted the baby or gone /between/ immediately after the flight as a preventative." Her hazel eyes were glassy with unshed tears.

"You mean, he had the gall to say that to you... when he could have prevented the entire situation by taking Zith back to Dolphin Cove?" K'yne's voice was becoming more rigid.

Saidrene sighed a little. "J'ackt talks to me however he wants, with no regards for how I feel about anything. It's always been like that."

A tic had developed in K'yne's tightened jaw. "Fecking brat."

Saidrene's eyes jumped up to her uncle. She had never heard him talk like that before. "You're not going to... do anything reckless are you?"

"You mean like storm over to Dolphin Cove, berate him, or throttle him for talking to you like that? For placing all of his blame and negligence on you? I think you both were stupid, for continuing something that Cyradis told you to stop a long time ago." K'yne shook his head, looking away from Saidrene as he saw her shoulders droop a little. "But I'm not going to say anything to J'ackt, what's the point? He's reckless, arrogant, and has tunnel vision. He sees things from his own narrow point of view and nothing can ever dissuade him of it." It was clear to J'ackt that Jenasome had truly left his stamp on the boy because Ocktima had never been that way.

"Well, it's all done now. He won't ever speak to me again, and that's fine, I think it's really for the best. I'm done with him. I'm tired of taking the brunt of his mercurial mood swings. K'ran is the father of this baby, no matter what, and I am very happy about it." Saidrene said with a resolute nod of her head.

K'yne looked at her, seeing simultaneously the little girl that had once been his little shadow, following him everywhere, especially if it involved Arinoth, and seeing the grown woman that sat before him.

Standing, K'yne pulled Saidrene into a hug. "I am proud of you, Saidrene. You had to make hard decisions and you faced them."

Saidrene buried her face in her uncle's shirt, the way she had when she was little. She had been wrong when she told K'ran that Alina and J'ackt were her family, her family was right here in her arms.

Last updated on the November 11th 2020

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You've Got Some Explaining To Do