Betrayed Loyalty

Writers: Eimi
Date Posted: 8th August 2010

Characters: U'kaiah
Description: The Cyan Wingleader suffers a crises of faith
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 10, day 4 of Turn 5
Notes: Follows "The Dragons Know Best"
Mentions: Traelyn, G'nir

His breath was still coming in heaving gasps as he rolled off the girl.
The bronzerider's pants were still shoved down around his knees as he
tried to slow the beating of his heart, slowly feeling himself come back
to normal. Even so, he could catch the iron taste on his tongue. He
licked his lips, feeling the warm, sticky wetness of blood but he
couldn't tell if it was from his nose or his lip. Wiping the back of
his hand across them both gently, he wiped the worst of it away, but he
could feel more oozing out.

Turning his head slightly, he looked over at the young woman in the bed
beside him. She lay on her back, eyes closed but brow furrowed as arms
were tightly crossed over her chest. U'kaiah knew the his injuries were
from her, and could remember the way she had tried to use her hands to
protect herself by pushing at his face and chest. She hadn't been
ready, but he hadn't cared. His anger and frustration had mixed
dangerously with the dragonlust left in his after the lost Flight, and
she had not been prepared for the intensity of his need. Her fighting
him had only fanned the flames. U'kaiah had wanted to hurt her.

Now that he was spent, remorse came quickly. She hadn't deserved that -
the innocent bystander who received the full brunt of his rage. Digging
the heels of his palms into his sockets until little sparks of light
flashed before his eyes, he groaned, but whether it was from shame,
regret, or the lingering frustration, he was not sure. Probably all
three. All he could mutter was a very lame, "I'm so sorry."

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he pulled up his pants as he
got to his feet, glancing over his shoulder at the woman. She hadn't
moved, though her breathing had slowed a little. He muttered the same
apology again before slipping out the bedroom door and finding his way,
still a bit dazed, to the corridor.

There he stopped the first person to walk by. "Go to the infirmary.
Find a healer. Let them know there is a woman in there who could use
some attention. Tell them..." Shards, what could he tell them to
explain what had just done. "Tell them to send a woman."

U'kaiah had been raised in the Weyr, so even though he had not visited
that part of the weyr in quite some time, it was easy enough for him to
find the door that lead outside. With relief he felt the blast of cold
air. He tried to breathe deeply through his nose, but one nostril was
clotted with blood, which only reminded him of the scene he had just
left.

Stumbling further out onto deserted plains beneath the cliffside, he
didn't care that he had no jacket to protect him from the cold. He
couldn't feel it. He was numb.

**It wasn't T'mahl.** He knew that much.

}:It was Nirreth's,:{ his bronze supplied softly.

"G'nir," U'kaiah sneered, his swollen lip curling with contempt.

That man hadn't been back more than four months and he was already
Weyrleader? That snobbish, insolent, wherry ass who had been all but
kicked out of his last Weyr had beat them all. Between that thought and
the taste of blood in his mouth, U'kaiah could feel his body heave as he
fought to keep the contents of his stomach down.

G'nir, _Weyrleader_, over him? How could it be? How was it possible?

The sick feeling turned into a hard knot of anger once again as he
turned his eyes to the stone cliffs of the Weyr. He could see hundreds
of jeweled eyes glowing as the dragons looked out from their ledges.
They had chosen G'nir over T'mahl, over D'wrayt, over _him_.

An intense feeling of betrayal followed as tears of utter frustration
filled his eyes. "You chose _him_ over _me_?"

His knees gave out from under him as he sank to the ground, covering his
head with his arms. **They chose him over me...**

How could they do that? After all he had given up for them. He could
have been Weyrleader now instead of N'vanik. Traelyn could have been
_his_ Weyrwoman - would_ have been his Weyrman - but he had foregone the
chance out of loyalty to his home. He had lost not only the
opportunity, but his best friend and lover. And for what? Why did he
not take the chance? Why did he chase her into another man's arms?

He had done it for them. For those hundreds of jeweled eyes that looked
down mockingly at him now. He had done it all for them, and they chose
G'nir.

Rocking back on his knees his raised his hands helplessly to the skies
above him as he looked at the stone cliff, dotted with bronze, brown,
blue and green. "What more do you want from me?" he cried to the mute
onlookers that surrounded him. "I have given up everything for you! I
have lead you in fair weather and foul, I have bled for you, I have
almost died for you many a time! I gave up my once chance to be with
the woman I loved for you! I have given you everything! And you chose
_him_?!"

He sucked the air in through clenched teeth as his eyes slowly took in
the whole of the cliff side, looking at each pair of faceted eyes. From
the time he was a child he had heard the phrase repeated over and over -
'The dragons know best'. He had believed it all his life and had held
it as a sacred truth. Leaders were chosen, not by the Gold who flew,
but by the collective wisdom of the dragons as a whole, those whose
minds had merged with humans and could read into the depths of their
soul. He had accepted it as an undeniable truth that their knowledge of
humans was so acute that they could look into men's hearts, and from
among them all, they could chose the one, the only one, that was worthy
to be their leader. U'kaiah had based his life on that fact.

"Just what do you know?" he growled, feeling like his eyes had finally
be opened to the lie he had bought into. "You're a bunch of dumb
animals that can't hold a single thought in your head for more than a
few moments!" And perhaps that realization was the ultimate betrayal -
that the teaching ballads he had sung, the words he had spoken, the
'truth' he had blindly accepted was nothing more than just mindless
superstition. "You don't know best. You know nothing. You know
_nothing_!!"

He had put his faith in that lie and had ended up losing the most
important relationship of his life. Covering his face with his hands
once more, the fight drained out of him as a face drifted before his
minds eye. A pair of sparkling grey eyes looking deeply into his as her
cascading white-blonde hair fell protectively around them both, her lips
parted as she smiled down at him. "Faranth, Trae, what have I done?"

U'kaiah could be there now if he hadn't felt that naive sense of loyalty
to those stone walls, to those riders, to those dragons who 'knew what
was best'. But the loyalty was all one sided. They had chosen G'nir.
And now U'kaiah would have to face him, submit to him, follow him.

"You can all go /between/ for all I care. I don't believe in you any
more." Stumbling defiantly to his feet, he spread his arms wide and
screamed so that his voice echoed and reverberated off the cold stone
walls, "Do you hear me, dragons? I don't believe in you anymore!!"

Last updated on the August 13th 2010

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Betrayed Loyalty