Disclaimer: Anne McCaffrey (and Todd) own DRoP NOT ME.
A/N: It's here, it's here! People keep asking, so I am now proud to present THE CHAPTER FIC that I (GoH) said would be written. A warning here, it might take time for us to get chapters out. I like an average of once a week but with two of us writing it may take a little longer.
J'kai leaned casually against the wall of the Bowl, head tilted back to look at the stars. Every so often, his eyes flickered over the weyrs that lined the far wall. Finally, he nodded slightly and straightened up slowly, lowering his head as if he'd had enough stargazing for one night. He tucked his hands in his jacket pockets and strolled along the wall to the entrance to the Weyrlings' quarters. He walked along the tunnel to the first branching and swung right. L'say was waiting for him midway down the corridor, "Well?" L'say whispered, glancing behind him cautiously.
"Syneth's up there," J'kai said, "and Wintreth and both of them are sleeping."
"Excellent," L'say said with one of his charming grins and pushed open the door he was standing next to, slinging a bag over his shoulder as he walked in.
J'kai followed, blinking as L'say opened a glow basket revealing the larger of the two classrooms. From the bag came four sanders and the brothers set to work on the back table. As J'kai moved the sandpaper covered blocks in a circular motion, he let his mind drift away. As always, Genlith was the first one to come to mind. The young bronze was six months old and growing well, already you could tell that he was going to be a big bronze. He was already making attempts at flying, and if he wasn't as graceful as the blues and greens, then he was proving himself a power house in the air.
"What are you two doing?"
J'kai jumped; one of the sanding blocks fell from his hand as he looked at the door. Glow light glinted off the darker brown hair of another Weyrling and J'kai relaxed slightly. "R'nal," L'say said, "don't sneak up on people."
"What are you doing?" R'nal said as he came further into the room.
"Sanding these tables, it's a disgrace that they've been neglected like this," L'say replied calmly, running his hand through his blond hair.
"Why?" R'nal said, crossing his arms.
"Because I can't stand to see work left undone like this," L'say said airily waving his hand to indicate the tables, "it's just like an itch that I can't scratch, only worse."
J'kai looked up at his brother, but L'say was sanding as he talked, so J'kai opted to say nothing. As long as R'nal wasn't going to go running to R'kor, they should be in the clear. He knelt, picked up his dropped sanding block and began to sand one of the legs. "J'kai," R'nal said as if J'kai's movements had reminded the dark eyed man that he was there, "why are you going along with this? I thought you were the sensible one."
J'kai looked over the table at the brown rider, put down a block, and pushed some of his brown hair from his eyes, "What R'kor is permitting to happen is reprehensible," he said quietly. "I'm no revolutionary like my brother, to charge thread with a bucket of water. I prefer to conduct a silent struggle. This is actually my idea. No one takes care of blue and green riders, or browns to an extent, but we can." J'kai stood up, not that he was taller than R'nal, but sometimes just standing made people actually listen and think to what you said, "Look, R'nal, you can't honestly be ok with the way you're treated."
"I'm a brown rider," R'nal began.
"R'nal," L'say said, again waving his arms, "just because this is the way that brown riders have always been treated doesn't mean its right. Note, I didn't say fair even if it isn't, but it's not right. The key is that change has to begin somewhere, with someone. It's not always natural, sometimes it has to be forced but the more people we have pushing a change the greater the change is actually going to be."
"Say I believe you," R'nal said, uncrossing his arms, "what can I do?"
L'say chucked one of his sanding blocks at R'nal, who caught it, "Well, you could start on that corner there and work your way across the front."
R'nal turned the block over in his hand, and then walked into the classroom, "I can do that," he said and set to work.
J'kai shook his head slightly, reached into his brother's bag to pull out a screw driver, and knelt to fix the table's wobbly leg. One he thought.
