Any Life You Want

Writers: Ames, Devin
Date Posted: 17th September 2013

Characters: K'mai, Faldrimme
Description: K'mai meets Faldrimme and sees how she's settling in.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 2, day 10 of Turn 7

K'mai

Faldrimme

K'mai spotted an unfamiliar and very lovely face. He changed course
and set his tray down across from her. "Hello there."

Faldrimme looked up. Planar, her chaperone, had left for the time
being to use the Necessary.

"Hello," she greeted the man who was clearly a rider. She noted he'd
placed his tray down. She smiled. The people here were very friendly.
She liked that about them.

"I'm K'mai, of blue Sebeth. You must be new." He gave her his best
friendly smile.

"I am. Faldrimme," she introduced herself. "I'm here to learn what it
takes to be a beastcrafter."

"Ah, a crafter. I have a lot of respect for them. I don't have the
patience for it myself." Sebeth had spared him from having to choose a
craft.

"I'm not sure yet that I do either," she replied a bit ruefully. "It's
harder than I expected. I know what the end product is, but _getting_
there is going to be the hard part.

"So crafting drew you here, not the dragons?" He sipped at a spoonful
of herdbeast stew.

"Yes," she replied with a faint smile. "I've always dreamed of being a
beastcrafter, but back at the Hold, well, that's not allowed. I wanted
to see if I was actually cut out for all this."

K'mai nodded. "And what do you think of the Weyr so far?"

"It's...interesting," she replied. "I mean, having come from a Hold,
things are very different here. There are things I like and things I
don't really understand as well."

"Oh? What don't you understand?" The corner of his mouth turned up. He
had an idea of what it might be.

She paused a moment as she thought, "Well, the biggest is that in the
Hold people marry and more or less stay with one person, but here I've
been told _no one_ ever marries. I don't think I understand the
reasons for that."

"Mostly because of the dragons. Due to flights, we can't promise
fidelity." Although he didn't understand why anyone would anyway. "And
we can't promise to love and cherish a person above all others because
_no one_ can ever be more important than our dragon. But we have
weyrmating, which is like marriage."

Faldrimme appreciated his explanation. It was better than she'd gotten
from some of the others she'd spoken to. "I think I understand things
a bit better. Thank you for explaining it to me. It's still hard for
me, having been raised all my life to expect marriage and to make a
good wife for some man, lead his hold or home, have his children." She
shrugged. "You know, all of those things."

"Here you can have whatever life you want." K'mai couldn't imagine
living a stuffy, hidebound, holder's life. "You're already trying out
crafting. You can try out the other things the Weyr has to offer." And
shards would he like to show her a few things.

She gave him another puzzled look, "What do you mean?" She didn't mean
to be so dense, but then, "Oh, you mean _that_?" She actually blushed
a bit as she realized what he must have been talking about.

He chuckled. "Yes. I'm happy to offer my services anytime you'd like
to try it out."

She blushed even more at his suggestion. "Um, um, well, thank you,"
she hoped it was a compliment that he was interested, "but I have to
be careful until I decide exactly _where_ I'm going to stay. I, um,
can't go back to the Hold if, I," she blushed all the way down to the
roots of her hair. Faldrimme had to duck her head a bit.

"You also can't go back to the Hold if you want to craft," he pointed
out. Oh, that blush was delightful.

She sighed, "I know. That's the hard part. I was raised to _expect_
marriage and to run a small Hold. It's hard to justify my dreams and
wants with all the training that is so ingrained inside me." She
looked at him, her cheeks still blushing a bit.

"It's time to get rid of all those expectations and find out what you
_want_." It wasn't just flirting. He liked to see holdbred women find
their own path.

She gave him a slight smile, "_That's_ also part of the problem. I'm
not entirely sure _what_ I want. I wanted to craft. I came here. I
like it, but I miss the life of the Holds. There is comfort in that
life for me. So I still don't know what path I will choose for
myself." She fiddled with the food on her plate.

"It's normal to be homesick." He'd heard Candidates talk about it.
"Give it time. The Weyr will start to seem like home."

"I hope so. Right now it definitely doesn't really feel that way,"
Faldrimmme replied.

He didn't want her to be gloomy. "What's your favorite thing about the
Weyr so far?"

She mulled that over for a moment, "The people. I've met so many
interesting people since I've been here. People are friendly, for the
most part and _very_ accepting."

"That's good to hear. I hope that will help convince you to stay." And
he could work on convincing her of other things.

She smiled at him. "We shall see, I guess."

Last updated on the October 5th 2013

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Any Life You Want