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 Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:54 pm
"So naturally I told him that I wanted nothing of the sort," C'sar continued, pausing for a moment to bring his cup of tea up to his lips to savor. There was a certain air about the weyrling that suggested a venue quite different from the one that they currently occupied. "Illidianth had his own take on the matter." The man was being desperate... and he is far beneath you.
But of course, my dear. "So... how are things with you-know-who?" Even in private, even when it was just him and Shahera, C'sar hesitated to speak that name. It was not that he held D'mar in contempt, nor felt any sense of rancor toward his fellow weyrling. Rather, he was making an attempt to be sensitive to the young woman's feelings. D'mar had been her close friend until she'd chosen not to die for his brother.
Rather unfair, but so utterly predictable that anyone might have seen it coming. In the end, choosing one's own life was almost always the right choice. Everyone knew how things stood between the twins, though, and it was a sacrifice she'd made fully aware of the consequences. He would have chosen Shahera above ... well, there was no sense in dwelling on such matters. Someone had chosen her above him, too.
Only a fool would choose anyone over you. You, my darling, are overly fond.
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:29 pm
“Illidianth has his own take on every matter.” It was rare that Shahera got to enjoy tea. Klah was common…tea was a treat, so when C’sar offered she wouldn’t have said no even if she didn’t enjoy the man’s company. They had been talking for a while so it wasn’t a surprise that the topic finally came around to D’mar. Though Shahera was amused at how so many of her fellow weyrlings seemed hesitant to mention him around her. Taking a slow delicate sip, she considered making C’sar work for the information. After all ‘you-know-who’ could always be misinterpreted. You know you want to tell him. Why don’t you just say it? It will be good for you. Just say it. She gently set her cup on the saucer. Between Thereinth’s influence and her own decision to be less closed off and less standoffish, Shahera was getting better at letting go of the knee jerk reactions. “To put is simply, they aren’t.” There was no remorse in that statement, only simple fact. She had been watching him since the Feast and was realizing that D’mar was not really the sort of person she wanted to associate with anymore. She had been fooling herself in many ways it seemed. Which likely had not been good for her other friendships. “I made my choice and he made his. Life moves on.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:19 pm
"That he does." Sipping his tea, C'sar contemplated Shahera's words. On the one hand, he could see how moving on from her friendship with D'mar might do the rider good. On the other... "You'll be working closely together. At least from that perspective it makes sense to maintain some sort of..." C'sar waved his hand, searching for a nebulous tie that he could not define in words, at least not at first. "... Connection?" That would have to do.
He sipped his tea a moment longer, and then carefully set the cup down on the saucer. "On the other hand, if a relationship does not serve you, sever it." For only a working relationship, viable on both sides, was worth the effort to maintain. My dearest C'sar, you know very well that even if you did not serve another you would keep them for your own uses. ... He needed to get better at hiding the faint, amused smirk that such remarks brought.
That may well be so, but that doesn't make it good advice for a friend. If friends indeed they were.
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 9:28 pm
Shahera had picked her tea cup up again while C’sar was talking and as she took a sip her eyes crinkled in amusement over the rim. She had seen that smirk and knew that it was probably Illidianth being cutting. There was no hope of C’sar sharing if he didn’t want to and she didn’t try to convince him to either. She may go for the long odds and the tough sells, but hopeless cases were not her preference. Right now, her relationship with D’mar was just that in her eyes. “If the relationship doesn’t have the potential to serve you, you sever it.” She told C’sar and shrugged lightly. “The trust has been broken both ways. Only a fool would not see that it would take something momentous to rebuild it. And you are no fool.” Shaking her head she reached for the pot and paused with her hand just above the handle. “I won’t say it can’t happen. I am just not going to seek it out right now either.” She picked up the pot and gestured to C’sar’s cup asking if he wanted more. What was it you said? Don’t seal shut a jar you might want to open again. Only close it.
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Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2018 9:38 am
Turning Shahera's words over in his mind, C'sar set his cup before the rider in answer. "I'm not fool enough to think it would be easy. However... consider it." He and Shahera were cut of a similar cloth, at the end of the day. Something for him to ponder. Every person had a use. Still, there was more to life than using people, even if his dragon did not entirely agree on that subject.
Why should I agree? I can see little use in most of your compatriots. However... you are entitled to your opinion, however mistaken it might be, my dear. The Bronze weyrling stirred from his place to regard his rider, eyes whirling with red and green, a strange combination.
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Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 9:16 pm
Shahera used the act of refilling their tea cups as a way to gain time to think without appearing to be stalling. She was more curious on why C’sar was suggesting repairing the relationship than what doing so would accomplish. “Why, C’sar,” she drawled, “it is almost like you care about him.” A teasing smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Still, he had a point. Everyone had uses and everyone could be useful. It was just a matter of how you looked at it and if it was worth your time. Was D’mar worth her time to repair the relationship? It had been ages getting him to trust her in the first place…But she also knew he would never make the effort. She would think on it as suggested but didn’t really think her answer would change.
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Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2018 12:24 pm
Crossing his arms over his chest, C'sar eyed Shahera. "And why shouldn't I care about D'mar? He is a fellow weyrling. And, if you may recall, I fell down on his side when the cards were all on the table. Do you want to know why? He was a man who thought he was dying. He asked the one person he thought he could trust to care for the only living member of his family, his twin brother. And what did you do? Shahera, you stood there and watched as Marinel was mauled. He could have died. You had a choice. You could have said something, done something. No one was asking you to die. He asked you to look out for Mari... and you didn't."
And, in point of fact, C'sar was pretty sure that she had also been motivated by a dislike of Marinel. Shells, C'sar wasn't overly fond of him himself, not that he disliked him, but the Candidate was D'mar's brother. There was no denying that whatever anyone else thought of him, D'mar would have done anything to keep him safe. And that was where Shahera had differed. She had done not one thing to keep him safe.
My love, are you so sore over this D'mar? Illiandinth asked his rider, his smooth, oily voice suffusing C'sar's every pore. And what has he done for you? You are an outcast, my C'sar. Will you allow that to be done to you? You could only be mine.
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Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2018 12:58 pm
Shahera wasn’t entirely surprised by C’sar going down the path of conversation that he was. Frankly, she was surprised that he hadn’t sooner as she was aware of some of C’sar’s feelings on the matter. But it still caught her a little off guard. While a little while ago she would have argued her ‘side,’ she was tired of the whole guilt she was carrying and she missed the b*****d. That was hard to admit, even now. “Yes, I didn’t do anything. I know that. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” Her voice was militant even as she admitted it. She sighed, put her tea cup down, and started gesturing which was a clear sign that things were bothering her. “Shells, I was ready to go to war with Illiandinth there over D’mar, for all the good that would have done, and relied on all my restraint to not. I didn’t want to risk sending the baby between. There wasn’t really time to think after that. It was all instinct and training from then on and I made some bad choices in the process. Still, the man wants nothing to do with me and I don’t blame him. I am not about to force myself on him.” She didn’t know how to fix things and wasn’t even sure it was possible. Therianth rested her head on Shahera's leg, sending encouragement. The dragon knew how much this had been weighing on her rider and felt it was good that she finally was talking about it. “If we are going to talk about problems…you have your own problem too.” Migel’s treatment of C’sar bothered Shahera and C’sar both deserved better and the chance to find someone who worked with him.
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