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Stand By Your Woman


Date:  February 2(?), 1999
Place:  Lysseth and Kassima's Weyr
Game:  PernMUSH
Copyright Info:  The World of Pern is copyright(c) to Anne McCaffrey 
l967. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is a registered copyright.

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Kassi's Note:  It's been a bit since the incident between M'rgan and 
E'vrin; in the interval, Kena's had time to prod Mart into apologizing
to the other greenrider.  But this scene doesn't really end up being
about the apology--instead, it's a discussion about the Ev-Kassi
relationship.  Mart proves to, perhaps, be surprisingly insightful.
And he'll later prove to be a true friend by never saying 'I told you
so.' 

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The Log:

Ularrith backwings for a landing.

Atop sturdy Ularrith, M'rgan strokes the neck ridge in front of him in
thanks before beginning the long climb down. His brown lifemate seems less
interested in his rider's thank though and much more interested in that
luscious green creature known as Lysseth and he stretches his head out to
whuff a greeting to her.

M'rgan clambers down Ularrith's side to the ground, the dragon's sparkling
eyes watching closely.

Perched out on the ledge, Lysseth warbles an amiable sort of greeting of
her own to the visiting brown--with, perhaps, just the slightest coquettish
arch to her neck--a greeting which is echoed (sans coyness) by a call from
the weyr proper: "Heya, brownie! Come on in and pull up a box."

M'rgan makes the long march towards the inner weyr, his expression as close
to grim as it gets without a Threadfall happening. "When are you going to
get some furniture in here?"

Kassima snorts cheerfully from where she's perched in the room's one chair,
hands occupied by the glorious task of strap-mending while one foot
absently rocks Kris's cradle. "I have furniture! Bed, table, footstool,
chair, shelves, presses, wine cabinet, knife rack, rock--what more could I
ask for?" She's not totally dense, though; the glowlight is sufficient in
here to make out that grim expression, and her own sobers. "Something amiss?"

Ularrith lumbers a few steps closer to Lysseth. Though his tail and most of
his backside slithers along the ground, he does puff out his chest to
maintain his arrogant appearance.

Any sister green would be able to tell that Lysseth's considering whether
to act impressed or be openly amused. Fortunately, this isn't quite so
apparent to those who don't share the female mindset. Apparently in as good
a mood as her rider, she elects to play along, whuffing an appreciation of
the big, strong brown dragon's physique. In the weyr, Kassi doesn't even
bother to try and keep from rolling her eyes.

M'rgan contemplates his choice of seating arrangements as he stands before
Kassima. Box, footstool, rock or firelizard perch. Decisions. Decisions.
"Not really. Kena thought...I thought I needed to talk to you." He tilts
his head in the direction of the cradle and lowers his voice a touch.
"Asleep?"

Given that the fire-lizard perches are full of fire-lizards and bits of
strap-mending equipment are scattered on the footstool, box or rock would
probably be the ideal course. "Getting there," Kassima answers, leaning to
smile down at the drowsy baby. "Mum's been boring him with stories while
she worked. You need to talk to me?"

M'rgan finally comes to a decision, though naturally he grimaces at it, and
he selects the box, pulling it over so that it's in front of Kassima's
chair. He sits down very gingerly on it, perching as little of his rear on
the corner as possible, as if he expects it to collapse at any minute. "I
wanted to apologize to you."

Kassima watches the box a touch warily herself, something which isn't apt
to be reassuring. Come to think of it, these do look pretty much like the
same boxes she's had since she first got her weyr. That might explain the
warning creak they give now when sat upon. "Apologize?" the greenrider
repeats, even more surprised. "You? Brownie, I'm *shocked*. This is a
red-letter day. Nay, nay, I shouldn't jest--" A quick grin of apology, and
then more seriously, "Apologize for what?"

M'rgan somehow manages to look even grimmer at the jest. Kena is going to
pay big-time for suggesting that he apologize. He gives Kassima a few thin
smiles as he shifts ever so slightly on his awkward perch, trying his best
to ignore the creaking. "For my behaviour with you and E'vrin. It's none of
my business what you both do."

Kassima does sober at this explanation, letting her hands and their work
drop into her lap. "Oh. That." A sigh. "Forgiven on my behalf, Mart--you
may have humiliated me totally, and tormented me worse than anyone's done
in Turns, but let's face it: I had it coming." No kidding. "You did rather
misjudge E'vrin, though."

"I don't think I did," M'rgan observes firmly as his eyes sweep around the
room. No sign of a male that he can see. "But I still shouldn't have stuck
my nose in. I didn't mean to embarass you, you know. I just..." The man
pauses to gather his thoughts and his expression makes it look like he has
something profoundly wise and personal to say. But those words don't come
as the box gives out an even sharper warning creak and he decides it's not
safe after all. As he slides onto the floor instead he says, "Anyway, I'm
sorry."

Kassima sighs again, this time pained. "Brownie, the only serious fault the
poor man has is bad taste. *He's* mentioned weyrmating a'fore. I dissuaded
him." No sign of a male? So what's Kris, chopped liver? "I know you didn't.
And on the level that wasn't embarrassed enough t'die on the spot, I
appreciated your concern, however misguided, for m'welfare. Just what?" She
favors the box in question with a warning look of her own. Maybe she thinks
she can cow even the inanimate.

As he looks up at Kassima, M'rgan spreads his hands to his sides in a
gesture as old as males. It's an unconscious habit he has that he does
every time he gets into a serious discussion. Like he was clearing the
space around him in preparation for a fight. "He was the one that was
manhandling you like you were a...a..." Various words come to mind but none
that won't result in his death so he abandons that particular course of
discussion. "What I mean to say was that he's not much of a gentleman and
nothing I saw from him or heard him say changes that for me. Just what what?"

"Lightskirt? Flirt-gill? Bronzerider groupie? Lower Caverns girl?" Kassi
helpfully supplies. It's all right for *her* to say it, after all. "Y'know,
I know this can be a hard concept to swallow coming from me, but mayhaps I
like being found attractive for once. A gentleman... well, you'd be
surprised." A grin quirks at her mouth. "Haven't you ever tried
purposefully unnerving someone as a counter-offensive tactic? You should.
Works like a charm. You said 'I just,' but the box interrupted; what were
you going t'say?"

"I certainly find Kena attractive and I can still act like a gentleman,"
M'rgan says in a statement that pretty much sums up his whole argument with
E'vrin. The bronzerider doesn't act like him and so the bronzerider is
wrong, wrong, wrong. He slaps the ground in front of him. "The least he can
do is act the same...Oh. I just...umm...I don't remember now."

Kassima remarks dryly, "Mart, if'n you and Kena have never kissed or
snuggled in public, I will eat a Record. Without ketchup." Mmmm, moldy dead
animal skins with ink dressing. She tints towards fuchsia as she further
retorts, "Besides, I don't see where asking someone whether someone else is
a good roll in the hay in public--or private!--is all that gentlemanly."

M'rgan waves his hands in the air, honestly shocked that Kassima would be
mad at him. Here he came to apologize and he was only telling the truth
about E'vrin after all. Women. Who can understand them? "That's how /he/
was acting. Like you were a roll in the hay and nothing more. And I don't
like it. He should treat you better than that. /I/ don't even treat you
that badly."

"Mart, that's pretty much how I encourage him t'think of me," Kassi points
out, droll as can be. "But for whatever reason, he doesn't; Faranth help
him. And he doesn't act like it, either, normally--but methinks 'twere
making him uneasy with your questions. How would you have felt if'n one of
Kena's old friends had given you the inquisition as t'your intentions,
a'fore 'twere weyrmated?"

M'rgan smiles in satisfaction and with confidence as the question is asked
of him and he visibly relaxes. "I would've felt fine. I had no worries with
that. I always intended to do right by Kena. Because /I/ am a gentleman."
His grin grows even broader, approaching his lifemate's arrogance. "And if
E'vrin had been a gentleman he wouldn't have been bothered either."

Kassima gives the brownrider a rather dubious look at this claim to
gentlemandom. "Now that's news," she mutters to herself. "All right, all
right. You intended t'weyrmate Kena. But let's play pretend for a moment.
What if'n Kena hadn't intended t'be weyrmating *you*, even if'n you thought
that's what you wanted?"

"Then I'd be keeping my hands off of her," M'rgan states quite seriously
and without a hint of a joke. "You don't get the milk unless you're willing
to buy the bovine."

"So you'd condemn her to a life of being alone?" Kassi asks quietly, also
serious. "Without even so much as a lover, ever? Rather cruel of you, Mart."

"If she didn't want to weyrmate with me then it means she doesn't want me,"
M'rgan replies back. His normally crisp blue eyes take on a more watery
appearance as he recalls a time when she didn't want him. "And that means
that I should keep my hands off of her. I know the lovers Kena's had. They
didn't do anything but hurt her. A man stands by a woman." Mart's
philosophy of life. How simple and quaint.

Kassima's jaw clenches, frustration roiling in green eyes gone even darker
than their normal shadowed emerald. "'Tis nay always that bloody *simple*,
Mart. Look--if'n you're going t'blame either E'vrin or me for nay treating
the other right, you're focused on the wrong one. I should've left him
alone--he deserved that, the first queen knows!--but I didn't, and the
fault is *mine*, nay his." Spreading her hands in what she knows is an
ultimately futile plea, she says, "Nay everyone can aspire t'what you and
Kena have, Mart."

But what he has is perfect so everyone should want what he's got. Or at
least that's what M'rgan thinks. And everyone knows he's not the smartest
person on Pern. Kena could probably testify to that. "Why not? What's so
wrong with being weyrmated, Kassima?"

Kassima does not, amazingly enough, reply with a witticism; instead, she
frowns, and broods a moment. "Depends," she finally answers, "on the person
and the circumstance. People from other Weyrs can't truly weyrmate anyway,
so the question is moot."

"It only takes a dragon a few seconds to take you from one place to
another," M'rgan observes in what might be the first truly wise comment
he's made in this entire conversation. As some of the bluster is out of him
now he's got a few unoccupied braincells who decide to notice that his rear
has gone numb from his awkward sitting position. He shifts a little. "And
it's not like weyrmating is a marriage."

"But you don't live in the same place," Kassima argues. "If'n one could
efficiently live and work at different Weyrs, I'd be at Benden right now.
That's what weyrmating's all about, isn't it? Wouldn't work, even if'n
'twould consider it."

M'rgan grimaces slightly as his rear starts to wake up and the pins and
needles start. He pulls his leg closer to his body, wrapping his arms
around his knee. "You're giving me reasons why it won't work. Maybe you
should think about reasons why it would."

"Brownie, we could argue about this until the sun comes up. Nay reason for
it could balance out the reasons why 'twill nay seek t'bind him." Kassima
picks absently at a loose thread on her straps, frowning at the hapless
tangle of leather. "Just why are you so obsessed with me getting weyrmated,
anyway? You do know that if'n I did, I'd still be on m'castration crusade
and all."

"Why do you think you'd be binding him?" M'rgan asks as he shakes his head
ever so slightly in frustration. Frustration that Kassima can't see the way
things are supposed to be and what's best for her. "Because I don't want
you to get hurt. Because you're worth more than you're getting."

"Because," Kassima replies, quite matter-of-fact, serious, and without the
slightest trace of bitterness, "he deserves better than me. He is a
sharding fine man, and someday, he's going t'wake up and smell the klah and
wonder, 'What in Faranth's name was I *thinking*?' Then he'll go out and
find a true love and they'll be happy. I *want* him t'be happy, Mart.
A'fore him, I had naught. Nada. Zero. He's given me a break from that,
however temporary, and 'twill always bless him for it."

M'rgan slaps his hand against his forehead and leaves it there for several
seconds as he shakes his head, his frustration growing. He doesn't speak.
He just stares at Kassima and shakes his head and gives her an 'are you
crazy?' sort of look.

Kassima lifts an eyebrow, returning Mart's look with a sardonic one of her
own. It's fairly clear that she thinks he's the crazy one in this room.

M'rgan sucks in a breath as it becomes apparent even to him that they've
reached an impasse. "Kassi, I'm sorry you feel that way. You're wrong, of
course. Very wrong. But I get the feeling that nothing I say is going to
change that."

Kassima shakes her head, mildly, perhaps ruefully amused and nothing more.
"Of all m'friends, it may be you know me best--but I still know me better'n
you know me." Or so she thinks. "'Twill be all right, Mart. Did I complain
so very much while 'twas still alone that I made people think 'twas
unhappy? I shouldn't have, i'truth, because 'twasn't. So don't fret
yourself about *me*! Faranth, man--worry about other things. Like your
Wing. Your children. Something."

With a heavy sigh that is nearly a groan, M'rgan manages to rise to his
feet. His stance is awkward as his back is still stiff. "The wing's fine.
The children are fine. Kena's fine. So I guess I'll worry about you. But I
didn't come here to make things worse so I'll shut up. For now."

Kassima assures the brownrider, "You didn't. And *I'm* fine too, so check
me off on your worry checklist and move to the next item down. And if'n
you're truly at ease with Skyfire now, mayhaps 'twill have t'have some sort
of competition sometime soon, just so that my Wing can beat the pants off
of your Wing."

M'rgan's eyes have a look of determination about them so it's unlikely
he'll be checking Kassima off of his worry list. "I don't know that I'm at
ease with the wing but it's not the wing that's the problem. Sure. And it's
Skyfire that'll be beating the pants off of Thunderbolt. Not that we want
to see you all without your pants."

"My Wing has better legs than your Wing," Kassi automatically retorts, by
sheer reflex. "Thunderbolt's been the best Wing of any Weyr since F'hlan
began it, and 'tisn't a tradition I intend t'let slide."

"We'll have to see about that, won't we," M'rgan says with a wink. "As for
the legs, I've only received compliments on mine. But I should probably be
getting back to the family before the Kena starts tossing the children off
of the ledge."

Kassima merely sniffs, not doubting her Wingmates for a second. "Oh, you'll
see, all right. Believe you me--I've been blessed with a lot of sharding
fine riders, and I'd like t'see you disagree with *that* one. But aye, by
all means, save the Weyr from learning whether MartSpawn would bounce.
You'll give m'regards t'Kena and the younglings?"

"Of course," M'rgan replies as he gives Kassima a slight bow. He's going to
end up sharing every word of this conversation with Kena. "But before I go
I'd like to apologize again for my behaviour that day. I'm sorry."

Kassima bows in return, not even attempting a curtsey. "Forgiven, Mart.
Just don't think too badly of E'vrin. One thing we have in common,
apparently, is that we can't resist the urge t'be teasing you."

"I can't make any promises," M'rgan says as he steps back and start to turn
to go out to where Ularrith is. The brownrider tends to display a stubborn
streak at the worst times. "Have a good evening, Kassi."

Kassima snorts after the brownrider, settling back down in her chair to
resume work on her straps. "Likewise, O ye with a head nigh as hard as a
dragon's."

Ularrith reluctantly tears his attention away from Lysseth as his rider
approaches. "Yes, lump, we have to go," M'rgan says as he scrambles up the
dragon's straps. "You can visit with her tomorrow."

M'rgan clambers up onto Ularrith's back, the dragon's sparkling eyes
watching closely.

Ularrith spreads his wings and leaps from Lysseth's ledge.