Mama had too much of her burning drink again last night. Then this morning she woke up, growled at Seressa, took a slurp of what was left in the cup, rolled over and went back to sleep. The eight-year-old shrugged and padded off to the bathing pool for her morning bath. Because she was alone, instead of properly supervised by whichever drudge had been assigned babysitting duty that day, she spent longer in the pool and did a lot more splashing than she might have otherwise. Pretending she was a dragon diving into the lake outside the Weyr was so much fun! And there was no one around to see how undignified she was behaving, which made it even better.
Dignity was important for her because of whose daughter she was. Mama was Jora, who was Weyrwoman. The Weyrwoman, the only one on all of Pern, and the female leader of all the dragonriders. That was Important, with a capital "I," and it made Seressa important by association. Or at least it put her in the public eye, which as far as she could tell meant all the responsibilities of being important – like not cutting up and playing diving dragon in front of ordinary people – without any of the privileges. Never mind that Mama…
Seressa sighed and hauled herself out of the bathing pool. One edge of her towel was in a puddle of water she'd splashed onto the worn stone surface beside the pool, but the rest was dry enough to do its job. Not that she minded being wet. Not with as hot as it was now, during high summer. But tracking wet footprints all over Mama's rooms was another thing a proper Weyrwoman's daughter didn't do, and she really did try to be a proper Weyrwoman's daughter, even if she wasn't very good at it.
Then again, from what people said when they thought the girl wasn't listening, or wouldn't understand, Mama wasn't very good at being a proper Weyrwoman. She did too much drinking, and too much moping around, and not enough paying attention to the problems of the Weyr and the rest of Pern. Seressa was pretty sure Mama used to be better at doing her job, though the child had been kind of young to tell the difference for sure. The difference she could tell for sure was in how Mama used to act with her – happier, more loving, more there. That was when F'lon was still around. F'lon wasn't Seressa's father, but he was Mama's favorite guy. And then he was gone. Not just gone. Dead. Dead in an accident that nobody wanted to talk about in front of Seressa. The life went out of Mama, too, along with all her caring about anything, including Seressa. Now, on a good day, Mama bathed and dressed and acted like anything mattered. Good days came less and less often. Mostly she just drank her burning drink and slept. Sometimes she called out F'lon's name, like he was there in her dreams.
It did not take long for the girl to pull on clothes that more or less went together. They were hand-me-downs from her brother, but nobody seemed to care that they were boy's clothes. She grinned, and nodded with satisfaction. Long skirts were no good for adventuring, as she'd learned the last time she had to dress for a formal dinner. They never did get the wherry blood out of that skirt, and the thrashing she'd taken for exploring the offal pit in formalwear had hurt for a week. But they never found the interestingly knobby joint bone she'd cleaned up and polished with sand until it gleamed. It was still among her treasures, along with the shed claw-sheath from Mama's dragon, Nemorth. The claw-sheath was not unique, of course, but it was the first one she had found, which made it special. It was also strong and sharp enough to do some damage, which she was careful to avoid because that would get it taken away from her, for sure.
The tunnels and rooms that made up the Weyr had been carved out of the native stone of a mountain centuries before. As Seressa dashed along the halls on the way to the kitchen, she held her fingertips against the abrasive surface of the wall until they tingled. The few adults who were up and about threw her grins and an occasional wave. She pasted a smile on her face and kept running toward breakfast.
She was relieved to see that the kitchen staff this morning did not include Manora. Things between them were always awkward, maybe because F'lon had been Manora's favorite guy, too. She didn't crawl into herself to grieve the way Mama did, but there was no mistaking that she was in pain. Maybe seeing her favorite guy's other girlfriend's kid made it worse? It was a relationship that made the child's head hurt to think about, but she accepted that it might be a reason why staying out of Manora's sight would be better for everybody.
Breakfast was a slab of thickly-buttered bread and a big cup of juice. Seressa supplemented the basic fare with a chunk of cheese she snagged off a table filled with ingredients that would eventually become lunch. She ducked out of the kitchen before anyone had a chance to notice, and nibbled cheese as she wandered the halls, pondering what to do next. She was supposed to have lessons this morning, and would surely get punished for not showing up, but first they had to catch her. The corners of her mouth turned upward, and her feet turned almost of themselves toward the dragon caves. It would not be the first time she had skipped out of what she was supposed to be doing to pay a visit to Nemorth.
The great gold dragon was curled up, human-torso-size head resting on the tail that curled most of the way around her body. Her two sets of eyelids rose in pairs, and she whuffed what Seressa interpreted as a greeting. "Hi, Nemorth! How're you doing? Have you eaten yet?" She hoped that the answer to the last question, if she got anything that could be interpreted as an answer, would be yes. As much as she loved dragons in general and Mama's in particular, watching them catch and eat the live herdbeasts that made up the bulk of their diet always made her queasy.
The dragon whuffed again, and pointed her muzzle toward a small pool of blood on the cave floor between her and the opening that led to the outside. Then she lowered her head in front of the girl and tilted it appealing.
Seressa giggled. "Itchy, huh?" She reached out and scratched Nemorth's eyeridges, happy to be rewarded with the color change and rolling of the huge eyes that indicated pleasure. "Mama needs to get down here and spend more time with you. It's not fair, leaving you all by yourself so much." Not for the first time, she wished that she could have the kind of mental communication her mother had with the great beast. Nemorth was pretty good at getting a point across when she needed to, but communicating that way was harder and vaguer than the girl would have wished. "Wanna go down for a swim?"
In response the dragon head perked up, and Nemorth hauled herself toward the exit opening. Once she was clear to fly, she paused, extending a foreleg toward her human companion.
"Yes! Oh, yes!" Seressa bounced in place briefly before climbing the leg and straddling the huge back. She got a firm grip on the bony ridge behind the great head and called, "I'm read – y!" The phrase was not yet completely out of her mouth before Nemorth launched herself into the air. The girl whooped, ignoring the breakfast that rose in her stomach as the dragon dived toward the lake. This was freedom! Nothing else in the world was quite like flight. How Mama could give it up for any reason, even the loss of her favorite guy, was beyond her understanding. Maybe it was a grownup thing. If so, she'd stay a kid for as long as she could.
The water of the lake was approaching fast. Seressa took a deep breath just in time. She almost lost it again when the realization of how much trouble she was going to be in struck her. Skipping lessons and getting her clothes all wet? Shells and shards, she'd be grounded for weeks! Literally and figuratively.
Too bad. This was worth it, and then some. Clearly Nemorth had not forgotten how much her tiny playmate enjoyed being picked up and flipped into the water. She used her muzzle to do the job, over and over until Seressa's arms and legs were too tired to hold her above the surface between flips. "You ready for some sunbathing?" she suggested. Most of the dragons were out flying patrol, and they would have the shore almost to themselves.
Moments later the pair were settled on a dry piece of ground. Seressa leaned against Nemorth and closed her eyes. Almost like a real dragonrider, she thought with a contented sigh. At a sound from above, she opened her eyes and looked for the cause. A pair of dragons, one green and one brown, were playing. The green shrieked a challenge to the brown, and they both flew away and disappeared in the distance.
"I wish girls were allowed to Impress greens," she mused, tilting her head back until it rested against Nemorth's side. "I don't see why not. They're girls, too." Then she glanced hastily around, confirming that no one had heard the unorthodox idea. For as long as there had been dragons, or at least as long as anybody remembered, the only ones women were allowed to Impress – to form the unique dragon/rider bond – were the golden queens. And Nemorth had not laid a queen egg in, well, ever.
Seressa sat up straight, and turned to face the huge draconic head. "Um, Nemorth? We need… We really need for you to lay a queen egg next time." Which, by the reckoning of everybody she'd heard gossiping about it, should be soon. "Otherwise, if something happens to Mama – "which was a lot more likely than something happening to Nemorth – "we'll be in deep trouble." The bond between dragon and rider ran so deep that no dragon had ever survived the death of its rider by more than seconds, and Mama… She wasn't doing well. Even her child had to admit to herself that the adult might do something horrible to herself while in deep depression or drunken stupor. Or she might just stop waking up from her drinking. If the Weyrwoman died before a new queen was laid, that would almost certainly mean the end of dragonkind as they knew it.
But such thoughts were too dark for such a wonderful day. It was only a matter of time before someone saw Seressa and rousted her back inside for lessons. Until then she would enjoy this golden moment. She might never have a dragon of her own, but this much companionship was hers, and no one could take it away from her.