Never

Writers: Devin
Date Posted: 14th February 2011

Characters: Talryne, N'vanik
Description: N'vanik doesn't take things well, and Talryne is there to comfort him.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 13, day 7 of Turn 5
Notes: Follows "Changeover"

Mentions: Traelyn

Talryne

N'vanik

When N'vanik got to his weyr, Talryne was waiting. "What's wrong?" she
asked. "Loseth said Nyith is gone. The way he said it--"

"Trae cracked her shell." His voice had an edge and he felt anger
building inside him. "She tried to kill herself."

"What?" Talryne went pale.

N'vanik stalked across the weyr, needing to move. Needing to do
_something_. "She tried to take Nyith /between/, for good. The
mindhealers took her away to a Hall, and she's not coming back."

"But why? Why would she …" Talryne had considered suicide, but that
had been after she lost her dragon. She couldn't imagine why someone
who still had their dragon would do something like that. She squeezed
her hands together as the emptiness inside her tried to rise up.

"I don't know. I don't have a _sharding_ clue." He paced the open area
near the dining table. "How could I know? She never talks to me. She
could have _said_ something. I was right there. I was right. Sharding.
_There_!" He grabbed the closest object - a chair - and hurled it at
the wall. It made a huge crash and two of the legs snapped off. The
back cracked as it hit the floor.

Loseth bugled on the ledge, the sound of it echoing through the Weyr.
A ringing silence fell.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Maybe it was," N'vanik said quietly as he looked at the smashed
chair. "Maybe someone else would have tried harder. Maybe someone else
would have seen something was wrong and got help."

"N'vanik, don't. Don't you dare." She stood up. "You can't blame
yourself for this. Whatever went wrong with her, it's not your fault."
She went over and took his hand. Held it until he looked at her. "I
know what it's like to want to die. I decided not to. But if I really
wanted to kill myself, no one would have been able to stop me. And no
one could have talked me out of it, if I didn't want to listen."

He squeezed her hand. "Why did you change your mind? Why didn't you …
you know." He'd never asked, but he'd always been curious.

She swallowed, trying to fight back the emptiness and the memories of
how much those first few days had hurt. "I don't know. I wasn't
thinking very clearly after … afterwards. Maybe I was more afraid of
dying." She shrugged, although the casual gesture didn't at all match
the emotions flooding through her. "Maybe I was too stubborn to give
up. I remember telling the healers I wanted to try to live." Talryne
looked up at him, at the man who'd pulled her from the edge, the man
she'd built her life around and who had shown her that life was still
worth living. "I'm glad I did."

"Me too." He smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I
don't know what I'd do without you."

The words warmed her and chased back the emptiness. She kissed him.
"Well you won't find out, because I'm not leaving." She felt a little
flicker of fear, part of her still afraid that one day he'd get tired
of her.

Now it was his turn to swallow. "Say it again. Say you'll never leave
me." He felt weak for needing this, but with her it was okay to be
weak. To be vulnerable.

She cupped his face in her hands and stared into his troubled eyes. "I
will never leave you, N'vanik."

He pulled her into a deep kiss, the gratitude strong enough to make
him feel like crying. He ended the kiss with a hug, her warm body
pressed tight against his. "And I'll never leave you, Tal. Never."

Talryne and Loseth were the constants in his life, the two things he
could cling to when other things were falling apart. As long as they
were here he would never end up like Traelyn.

Never.

Last updated on the January 28th 2012

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