Something Sharding Special (2/2)

Writers: Eimi
Date Posted: 27th March 2009

Characters: U'kaiah
Description: U'kaiah willing assumes the role of bronzerider trophy
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 2, day 6 of Turn 5
Notes: Mentions: Traelyn

As U'kaiah leaned back into the pillows, a fragrance that was both
familiar and yet out of place wafted up to his nostrils. It was that of
the young woman who had just made her exit from his weyr, returning to
her husband and a life that did not belong in this place. He wondered
if her husband
would smell him on her skin, if he would smell of another woman
tonight, if he would even notice. U'kaiah had given her a gift - an
amazing story to tell, or secret to keep, that would last a life time.
In return, she had left him only her smell, and a feeling of sweet
exhaustion that would be gone by morning.

He felt no guilt in bedding a married woman. In his mind, she was as
free to choose him as he had been to choose her. It was not guilt he
was feeling, but the encounter had left him thinking reflectively, which
kept him from the sleep his body craved. More than a turn ago,
Trae had gently chided him many a time on allowing himself to be a
trophy bronzerider. She had scolded him, reminding him that he was much
more than just some prize for a bored woman looking to bed a bronzerider
just because they could. Her words had struck a chord with him, perhaps
because deep down he had wanted to be something more to a very special
goldrider. A weyrwoman of incredible strength and dignity, and hidden
passion, that he had ached to prove himself to.

"Jaela..." He whispered the name into the dark, conjuring images of a
deceptively diminutive woman with a heart as big as her gold. If only
he could reach it. And he had chipped away at it stone from stone until
finally she allowed him in. And just as soon as he was beginning to
really carve a place in that guarded, golden heart, she was gone. He
couldn't remember her smell now, but he remember so much more. Her love
of bubblies. The way she felt when he lifted her into his arms and she
wrapped her legs around him. The way she fit against him. The way her
lips tasted of sea salt that day they kissed on the beach. The way she
would murmur his name. The sight of her looking up at him with that
vulnerable look in her eye. Jaela, _vulnerable_. How many men could
claim to have seen that side of her? And just as he was beginning to
discover it, she was taken away. And his heart broke.

He had found comfort in the arms of Talryne and Abrei, but the moments
they shared were just to pass away the time while they waiting for true
healing to come. And his had been found in the platonic arms of a woman
he had loved from their earliest moments of meeting. Trae, who had
dared him to be more than just a bronzerider. And by the way she came
to him to curl up in his arms just to sleep, just to be close to him,
just to share a gentle affection and connection so deep it was as if he
had found a missing part of himself; she had healed him. She had
bandaged his broken heart and nursed it back to beating. And then, one
night, she kissed him. It was like finally coming home. Everything
suddenly seemed right. Trae, who had
told him he was so sharding special...

But not special enough.

And now here he was, playing the role of bronze trophy for yet another
woman. Life, it seemed, had come full circle. What would Trae say to
that, he wondered. Would she scorn him? Chide him? Would she try to
tell him he was supposed to be special? Well, he was something special.
He
was something special to that woman. He would forever be a memory that
would only grow and become more precious over time. Perhaps he was only
a trophy, but one that would never tarnish. So what if he was just a
prize? Weren't prizes to be treasured?

That woman even now was probably playing over those few moments they
shared in her mind. In the turns to come they would only grow.
Someday, when she was old and grey and needed to recapture the glorious
moments of her younger days, she would confide in a grandchild or a
daughter
the moments she shared with a Wingleader of Dragonsfall in her wild and
recluse youth. The story would grow in her mind over the turns to
something barely recognizable as truth to any who had been there. But
who would there be to call her a liar when she told them how she had
noticed a perfect,
handsome bronzerider staring at her from across the room, unable to take
his eyes from her, and when she left he pursued her, seduced her,
telling her that they only had one night to be together and if he did
not make love to her right then and there, he would regret it for the
rest of his short, heroic life. And she would tell them how she ran her
fingers over his Threadscored body, how he reached for her again and
again and again and again until they both collapsed from exhaustion.
When the moment when she had to leave came, she would remember, and
perhaps even believe, that as she left he told her that he would never
forget her as long as he lived, just as she would never forget him...

How could Trae say that such a brief encounter, that would last that
girl
a lifetime, wasn't something special?

So what if she had left him with only that scent that would fade as
quickly as her memory would from his mind? At least she had left him
with no memories that could hurt. Could Syntara say the same? Could
Jaela?
Could Trae? Even now, with his nostrils filled with the scent of
another, he could remember the way Trae smelled, the way she tasted, the
way she moaned his name, the way her fingers curled into his hair and
the way her body fit against him as he made love to her. He could
remember as she hovered above him the way her hair cascaded around them
like a golden tent shielding them from the outside world. And yet all
those moments where tarnished by the memory of how it all ended,
ripping at his heart once more.

She had challenged him to be something special, but what use was it to
look for something so flaming special when all it
gets you is a broken heart?

Last updated on the March 29th 2009

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Something Sharding Special (2/2)