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One minor note regarding the setting for this log:  This is set the morning after the Meteorite Threadfall.  In the aftermath of that deadly and shocking event, which can be found amongst the logs at http://www.y-ddraig.net/hrw/ , our normally cool and composed Wyn found herself in the arms of everyone's favourite boyband brownrider...  The next day, of course, saw her back in her right mind. And now, our tale:

Harper's Tale 2 - Saturday, August 10, 2002, 10:45 PM

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The Scene: Morning. The Location: Wyn's inner weyr. The Characters... Oh heck, let's just pose. Wyn is still drowsing, snuggled up in her duvet, one bare shoulder exposed to the air. Jack the feline has taken up her post on the foot of the bed, and is growling and purring to herself in her standard schizophrenic fashion. Ah, such an idyllic picture, isn't it?

And let's not forget N'sync. We certainly can't leave N'sync out of this idyllic picture. He's only got a corner of the covers draped over him as he sprawls on his stomach, one leg dangerously close to Wyn's. The brownrider looks smug and satisfied, even in his sleep.

No, we certainly can't. Wyn continues to doze, slowly drifting up through levels of consciousness. Sleepily, her toes twitch, prompting Jack to pat at them with one paw before losing interest, and marching over to investigate N'sync. Wyn achieves a level of waking high enough to realize that there's someone sharing her bed, hardly disturbing and even prompting her to shift a little closer in search of warmth. Then, of course, she opens one eye. N'sync. Ulp. A strangled "Oh good Faranth..." escapes from her, and she edges very carefully away again, hoping not to wake the brownrider while she hurriedly locates her redwort supply.

Too late. As soon as Wyn begins to shift, N'sync's instincts kick in, and his eyes flutter open as he inches toward the bluerider. Warmth isn't exactly what's on his mind, though. A well-muscled arm loops out, reaching for Wyn. "Morning, love," he purrs with a smile. C'mon. You know you want him.

"Call me 'love' again," intones Wyn, initial shock over and now firmly back to herself again. "And I will personally show you some very interesting uses for a scalpel." She skitters away to the other side of the large feather bed, hugging the duvet to her until she realizes that pulling it further might reveal N'sync Extremities that she'd rather not see again.

At least he's lying on his stomach? For the time being. N'sync lifts himself up on his elbows, puppy-dog eyes mooning toward Wyn. "You wouldn't want to do that, love, would you? C'mon, Wyn... babe... I need you. Your company. After that Fall..." Does he really think he can play this card twice?

"Dragon droppings." Replies Wyn, her tone bland and the grey of her eyes more steel than twilight as she continues to hug her duvet. Jack, who's actually rather fond of her mistress in her own insane way, growls threateningly at the brownrider. "You don't 'need' me personally at all. You 'needed' to get off. You got it, after taking advantage of someone in a frail emotional state. You would have been just as 'happy' with one of the kitchen drudges."

Anger actually slides across N'sync's face at that, and he shoves himself up to sit. At least he has the decorum to pull a corner of the duvet into his lap. "What the shards do you know about it?" he snaps in return. "Just because you're normally cold enough to freeze men a dragon's length away doesn't mean I was taking advantage of you the one time you drop that sharding shell." He stares at Wyn, gaze hard. "And if I'd wanted a kitchen drudge, I would have found one."

"I. Know. Plenty." replies Wyn, all cool and sharp diction, in full Ice Queen mode despite the fact that she's not exactly in the most dignified states of attire. "I know all about your sort, N'sync. Spin a pretty tale, pay a pretty compliment, hover around, learn their weak points. Then, when the time is right, you pounce. The next day, it's on to the next one. I'm not one of your weyrgirls, to please and deceive. Don't treat me like one." She adjusts the duvet around herself and pats her hair into order, lapsing into a frosty silence.

"You don't know anything!" If Wyn is putting the Ice Queen act into effect, N'sync's anger is fiery. "My sort? How would you feel if I told you I've seen your sort more than once? How's it work, again? Don't let anyone in, in case they might actually get beyond the glacier you hide behind?" Ok, so he's making it up. She won't let him in, so that must be the case. "I haven't treated you like one of my... weyrgirls. Not once!" His boyish charm is gone as he stares at Wyn. "You wanted last night as much as I did."

"I would feel exactly what I feel right now." replies Wyn, coolly of course, doing an excellent job of giving the impression that she cares more about that bowl of fruit over there than for the brownrider in her bed. "Which is nothing. Nothing you can say will hurt me. Nothing you can say can get me to feel anything more for you than contempt for the personal morals you display. I respect your skills as one of my fellow dragonriders. That is all." Wyn, of course, had a rather bad experience with a N'sync-type at age 15. Wyn, however, is the only person in High Reaches that knows this.

N'sync sighs, breath leaving in an exasperated rush as he slumps backward, tugging his corner of the duvet with him. "I'm not trying to hurt you, Wyn," he notes quietly. "If I were, trust me, I would be attacking entirely different things." His gaze moves toward her, almost wary. "As for my personal morals.. I have never forced a single person to come home with me. It's always a two way choice, which is more than you can say even for flights."

Wyn's fingers clutch at the duvet, before she schools them sternly to relax. "I will grant you that." she offers at last, reluctantly. Note that she's still as far away from N'sync as possible, without falling off the bed. "But I find your morals to be distasteful. 'Never having forced a person' does not make you blameless. Manipulation and seduction are arts just as dark, if more subtle. You manipulated me last night. Do you expect me to feel something other than used, N'sync?" Her tone continues dead-level and cold, shields up and shell intact once again.

Aisling sweeps, swift as a dream, from the void of ::between::.

"I was in that Fall too, Wyn!" N'sync points out angrily. "It was just as sharding strange and scary for me! Shardit, Wyn! You needed to be with someone last night, and so did I! There is nothing wrong with that!" The brownrider's letting all his anger out as he speaks. "Asking you to come up wasn't manipulation. Shardit, if you want to play that game, what about the way you were looking? Standing there, trembling? Collapsing onto me the instant I appeared? How do I know that wasn't an act?"

"Oh don't delude yourself." snaps Wyn, something flashing in the depths of her eyes as she tires of the game, before suddenly switching moods to an academic sing-song, dangerously low. "Or, better yet, let's take this hypothesis and test it. I am such a skilled actor that I ought to be a Harper. Therefore, I oh-so-carefully arranged that Vorkoroth would land me directly in a position for you to pick me out from amongst hundreds of dragons and riders, all equally or more traumatized, many in much more need of 'comfort' than I. Never mind the fact that I gave up what little focus I had once I'd envisioned for home, I clearly had this 'act' all planned out in the copious amounts of time I had in between dodging bloody rocks falling out of the sky, and watching friends die around me."

"Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?" N'sync asks, his voice suddenly quiet as he stares at Wyn. "Sounds bloody impossible, doesn't it?"

Wyn runs down to a stop at N'sync's tone, her mouth hanging open slightly before she intelligently gets around to closing it. Very softly she speaks two words. "Point granted." Silence hangs, and Jack crawls onto her lap, purring pointedly, before she finds her voice again. "But. That didn't grant you the right to seduce me. I needed a friend last night, not a lover. Quite foolishly, I thought you'd understand the difference." Her tone has returned to cool once more.

"You needed a reminder that you were alive and whole last night," N'sync responds swiftly. "If you'd wanted a friend, you would have collapsed on a clutchmate or wingmate. No one forced you to invite me to your weyr." He pauses, as if actually considering his next words, before stating "And I certainly didn't force you to invite me into your bed." His gaze is cooler now, but still angry. "Lover and friend aren't mutually exclusive, you know."

"In my experience." replies Wyn, abandoning the duvet to shrug on a dressing gown and settle on one of her scatter cushions, pointedly away from the bed. "They are, and have been. And I couldn't turn to my wing or clutchmates for the simple reason that they had all already found someone to comfort and be comforted by."

"You ought to broaden your experience, then," N'sync states with a hard stare. He shifts, his gaze following her every movement. "And you might want to think about why you were the one left without a shoulder to cry on in that bowl." Ooooh. Harsh.

"Giving advice now, N'sync?" replies Wyn, snugging tight the belt of the oatmeal-coloured dressing gown and picking up a hairbrush. "I beg that you deliver it where it is more wanted. I know perfectly well why I was alone. Don't think I didn't choose it that way." Alone is safe.

"You didn't want it that way last night!" N'sync points out, still sitting in the middle of her bed, completely naked except for his corner of the duvet. This is one rider not ashamed of his body. "You wanted someone to be there for you. You needed someone, no matter how much you want to pretend you didn't. If you choose to be alone, you're more sharding stupid than I'd thought."

"Did I? If you had elected that we play dragon poker instead, would I have seduced you? There are many kinds of physical comfort. The vast majority do not involve sex." Wyn replies, tugging the brush through her hair. "In my opinion, 'being there' for someone means more than simply taking a roll in the sack."

"All right, maybe not," N'sync admits, though his voice is still tight with anger. "Maybe we would have just play card games into the wee hours." His gaze flashes as he shifts closer to her. "But you keep accusing me of seducing you, as if you weren't even here! Shardit, Wyn, you ought to know that no one is likely to force you to do something you didn't want to! Did I want to take you to bed last night? Shards right, I did! But I wouldn't have if you'd said no, even once! I didn't see you suggesting dragon poker! This is not something you get to pin on me so you can retreat back into that sharding little safe shell of yours, pristine and ice cold."

"And do you know why no one is likely to force me into anything?" inquires Wyn, still tugging at her hairbrush and occasionally petting Jack, who's gone and resumed her place on her lap, and the serious business of shedding ginger-copper hair on everything. "Because of my 'sharding shell'. You know nothing about me, N'sync. Why this sudden concern for why and how I am what I am?"

"Who said it was sudden?" N'sync's words are muttered under his breath, not really intended for Wyn's ears, though his voice rises a few decibels for his next words. "Not letting anyone know anything about you isn't something to be proud of, Wyn. You're going to end up old and lonely, if you stick to that."

Wyn blinks, and quite simply stares at N'sync for a second or two, before deciding that she misheard and returning to the battlefield. She crosses her legs, folds her hands neatly on her knees and snorts softly. "I will grow old regardless. As for lonely, I have friends, family, and above all, Vorkoroth. You flatter yourself if you think that I don't let anyone see who I am, simply because I do not care to share my personal life and history with a man whom, outside of Fall, I chiefly see parked in the Living Caverns, doing his best to attract herds of weyrgirls, or busy bragging about conquests with S'tuff."

N'sync actually winces, though the expression is quickly smoothed away behind the boyish mask he's so good at presenting. "Fine, then," he snaps, abandoning the duvet to stand. Close your eyes if you don't want to see. He snatches at his trousers, shoving first one leg into them, then the other. "I find it interesting that you can sit there and make judgments about someone you'll never even deign to talk to. You see exactly what you want to when you look at me." He pauses, eyes searching for the shirt that was tossed somewhere last night. "And I don't brag." Much.

Wyn won't give the satisfaction of flinching at the sight. Finished with brushing her hair, she simply sits, returned to the serene once more. "I see your actions. I judge you accordingly. If you want me to change my mind, then I urge you to give me some reason to." she decrees, with the air of a final verdict. "Oh, and by the way, your trousers are on backwards."

"You see what you want to see," N'sync repeats, scooping his shirt up from a corner and slinging it over his shoulder. He's evidently ignoring her words about his trousers - and you've got to give him credit for resisting the 'if you wanted to see me naked again, you only had to ask' line. He pauses just in front of the weyr door, his gaze remarkably sad as he watches Wyn, shirtless, with backwards trousers. "And for the record... I looked for you last night. Not the first girl I could get my arms around." And then he turns, moving to go.

Wyn sighs, and waves him off, suddenly looking incredibly tired as she cuddles an appreciative Jack, who only gnaws on her hand slightly this time. "N'sync... please... just go." the bluerider manages at last, likely as close to a concession that the brownrider scored home on a few points as Wyn is ever likely to get.

He's already gone, loping toward Backstreeth with amazing speed.