Post by tovaana on Sept 6, 2018 23:50:13 GMT -5
Vavithan at 12 Turns as a fosterling
“You’re putting that in the wrong spot.” A voice came from behind him, quite certain and ornery. He paused putting the wood away and looked up the sign, of which had looked different than at home. At home he had only been taught what was necessary and so far it had been inadequate for what he needed to know as a fosterling in a bigger hold. He gulped and turned slowly to face what was probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
“Uh-erm…” He fumbled with the piece of wood, his hands becoming numb and without feeling as he felt heat rush to his cheeks. They fell at her feet and he hesitated to pick them up.
“Well, are you going to pick them up or not?” Vavithan looked down at his hands and bit his lips. He quickly bent down and clumsily gathered the extra pieces of wood that they had used in shipbuilding. “What’s wrong with you?” The voice of the girl scoffed quietly under her breath and he felt a short-lived breeze as she swept by in her skirts. He kept quiet, watching the blue from the corner of his eye disappear.
He looked up from his propped kneeling position and watched the girl nimbly climb the old weathered ladder that was missing multiple steps. His gaze averted when he realized that her underskirts would be revealed, but had glimpsed leather brown underneath. Curiously he glanced back where indeed, brown leathers disappeared under her skirts as she positioned herself in a nook. The building had originally had storage space above, and while it did look like there were old forgotten boxes full of knick-nacks, they had been as forgotten as the stairs.
Vavithan stood up with his eyes still pinned upward where the girl sat with an old scroll, reading it studiously. She must have finally realized that he hadn’t left yet, because he paused and peered over her book down at him. “Don’t tell anyone.” She practically growled, moving her book over her eyes that were shadowed in the corner. He wondered how she could see properly in the darkness. There was an esasperated sigh. “Will you stop staring.” She hadn’t even bothered to look up again, her eyes – they had been a striking green – hidden behind her scroll.
After the moment of shock and indignation from the way she was talking to him wore off, he brought himself to his full gangly tall stature. With his wits more about him and his young confidence returning he quickly strode over to the rickety ladder. “I’m surprised this held your weight.” He said, both firm hands gripping the wooden rails.
“…Excuse…me?” Her book lowered slowly, peeking down with a look like he had slapped her. He shook it a little, dust puffing from his firm grip.
“I could fix it for you.” He said with a smile.
“Did you just call me fat?”
“Wha-?” His slow young mind was reeling, wondering where she had gotten her accusation from his offer to fix the rail.
“You said you were surprised that the ladder held me.” Her book was in her lap now, her face on fire.
Vav’s eyes widened. “No, no, no! I mean, no. Just, it’s old – the ladder!” He stumbled with his words, his knuckles turning white as they clung to the splinter-ridden ladder. Girls were so- argh! Perhaps they weren’t the trouble after all. He pushed himself almost violently away from the ladder. “Nevermind.” He muttered turning away from the scene and bending to pick up the wood he had dropped. He went toward a different pile than he had initially placed the planks and was about to place them when the silence behind him broke again with the infuriating girl’s voice, as if she were better than he.
“Again, wrong pile.” There was an exasperated sigh and the sound of the girl putting her book down with a thud. He didn’t turn, but he had frozen, mostly in anger. The impudent girl sounded like she had practically dropped from her perch and walked over to a different spot where there weren’t any planks yet. “Here.” She pointed imperiously. “Can’t you read.” His face flushed at this, wordlessly dropping the planks in the empty spot. He wanted to get out of there was quickly as possible without getting mesmerized with her bright green eyes. “Well, shards you don’t know how to read.” Her hand went over her mouth, more because she had uttered ‘shards’ after been repeatedly scolded that it was uncomely for a lady to use such language.
“Wait!” There was silence and Vavithan stopped, but did not turn around. “Look at me.” He didn’t like how she demanded him so, but at the same time, there was a part of him that was glad that she told him to stay. Now he had to look at her, his face flushing with youthful embarrassment at looking at a girl so pretty. Her emerald green eyes held him the most fast, but her blonde hair and round face…rosy cheeks. He was glad he couldn’t see the way her hips curved as she popped her hip out with a fist on it. “You said you could fix my ladder.” She said it as if it were her ladder, which he knew it was not, could not be, but he didn’t care. “So? Can you?”
“Well, of course I can. I said it, didn’t I?” He retorted, finding the bit of man of him that she had left untarnished. He stood tall, his chin tilting up in defiance.
She blinked at him, as if considering something. “Do you think I’m pretty?” His face flushed darker red, muttering unrecognizable sounds under his breath. “Well, do you?” Her face was quite serious and he cleared his throat and swallowed.
“I…I think you’re prettier than the sunset, ma’am.” His eyes had to look down for a second, and he missed the small smile that pulled at her full lips. When he looked up she was staring at him as if she were taller than him, looking down on him.
“If you fix my ladder, I’ll teach you to read, even write! I am the best in my class. I’d make a rather fine reader and writer out of you yet.” Now she beamed at him, excitement at the challenge. “We’d have to do it when I’m not in classes and when you’re not working… and you couldn’t tell anyone of course.” He was shaking his head, agreeing that he would not tell a soul. “Alright, it’s a deal…what’s your name?”
“Vavithan.”
“Vavithan. I’m Pearl.”
And so Vavithan met his Pearl, his first love. She also was a fosterling and somewhat new to the area. Pearl was daughter of high ranking dragon riders and was being trained to be a gold dragon rider. “I will ride gold, Vavithan, nothing less.” She had told him.
They worked mostly by the glows at night. Often it was Pearl telling him how he was wrong and how he was to read and write. He let her talk all over him, and she let him kiss her on the cheek. “You can kiss me on the cheek, Vavithan.” She usually ended their lessons with this, and with a blush he would bend over and kiss her cheek that smelled like perfumes he had never imagined existed.
For a whole turn this went on until she told him rather matter of factly. “You can kiss me on the lips, Vavithan.” He had liked the way she had said his name, even if it sounded like she owned him. And for all the purposes of what the young man knew, she had. That kiss changed his life and he knew he was in love. But then after a half turn of deepening their relationship, she started to act more distant. Until one day she came to him.
“I’m off to be a gold rider Vavithan.”
“And you will be the best gold rider there ever was.”
She grinned at him. “I will. I will also miss you.”
“Will you write me?”
“I think I will be too busy to do that.” She said with a frown, reaching out to him as if to console him.
“Oh.”
“But thank you for my ladder.” She smiled, pulling him to her and going on her tippy-toes to reach his cheeks. He had to bend a little for her to reach him. He would have held her fast, but the kiss was short and she was gone with a sorry expression on her face. He was left looking at the finely polished ladder her had built for her.
For a whole turn he sent her letters, using the very skills she had taught him. However, while he did receive one or two letters doused in silky perfumes, he did not hear from her for the rest of his time as a fosterling. His heart had broken and he spent many nights in the same cove she had spent so much time reading. However, his naïve heart had supposed that she hadn’t had much of a choice in leaving, and had really been too busy with her new life as a gold candidate.
