2024-07-03 - Emotionally Bowled Over

Kanyoth could sense, from his mother's antsy feelings, that Pertemarth was due to return. Huh. So that's how long a sevenday was. It had certainly been a while. Things had happened, things had changed in Pertemarth's absence. He could now communicate with the others in the clutch, and he knew his own name now. He wasn't sure how much Pertemarth would care about any of this, even if the blue could hear and understand him - and since Gwillanth couldn't understand him, he doubted Pertemarth could either. If any outside dragon could understand him, it should be The Mother who was there at the beginning and most of the time. But the point was that the blue would be coming for Gwillanth, not the clutch - Kanyoth was sure he cared about them to some extent because the clutch was something Gwillanth cared about a lot, but that wasn't the same thing as being The Mother. And perhaps not the same thing as being The Father either, although Pertemarth was here much more often than Yuakajth was. Yuakajth's thoughts were generally self-centered, and he seemed to care more about the fact that being The Father of this clutch was favorable to his reputation in the weyr, rather than actually caring about those in the clutch as individuals with rapidly developing minds and personalities as The Mother did.

These thoughts were interrupted by the blue's prompt announcement of his arrival back at the weyr. Gwillanth rapidly became more distant from the clutch as she waited for Pertemarth with eager anticipation. And as soon as the blue arrived, she pounced on him. Without protest from Pertemarth, but nonetheless.

Kanyoth had planned on offering some kind of greeting to Pertemarth once he returned - he supposed that had been his plan for the last sevenday - but the strength of emotion and connection resonating between Gwillanth and Pertemarth was overwhelming. It wasn't bad, it was just - he felt that he shouldn't really be here, that this was clearly a moment for the two of them alone. Normally his response to this sort of thing would be for Kanyoth to once again attempt to free himself from the egg so he could actually make space for Gwillanth to be alone, but he knew from experience that his attempts to do so would be viewed as an interruption, that Gwillanth would stop whatever she was doing and stop him from rolling, and it felt even ruder to interrupt this moment in that way than awkwardly stay here. So for the moment - a moment that turned into hours, and then turned into overnight - Kanyoth was mentally, and perhaps also physically, splayed out, just staring, frozen by the uncertain indecision of what to do with himself, until he fell asleep at some point during the night.