A/N: Hey look, I'm alive! College is eating my free time, and my muses keep abandoning me for other projects, but I'm trying to get back to Pern. And I finally have a draft done for the next chapter of In a Position to Persevere, so hopefully I'll have that ready to post sometime soon. In the meantime, have a small ficlet. This is for Contessa-Hime, who asked me for fluff with Lessa and little Felessan. I'm not sure how well I fulfilled the fluff part, but it certainly seems the my muses listen to her more than they listen to me. Many thanks to moviemom44 for betaing and for coming up with a title when I was absolutely stuck. Please review!
Disclaimer: Pern belongs to Anne McCaffrey. I am not Anne McCaffrey. Therefore... I think you can do the math.
Stolen Moment
A flash of motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see a small figure racing up the steps from the Weyr Bowl. She couldn't help but laugh as the child, upon reaching the weyr ledge where she stood, attached himself to her legs.
"Little scamp," Lessa muttered fondly, picking up her four-year-old son and resettling him on her hip. "I suppose you got away from Briseis again?"
Felessan nodded shamefacedly, although he didn't seem very repentant so much as guilty at being caught out.
"You know you're not supposed to do that. You'll make her worry," she chided, though she couldn't summon any real rancor. It was rare enough that she got to see this child who could never be truly hers.
Felessan buried his face in her shoulder. "Wan'ed t' see you," he mumbled timidly.
"I know," Lessa sighed. She genuinely loved her only child, and wished she had more time for him, but it was simply impossible. There was no way she could raise him, that was the way of the world (never mind the sneaking suspicion that she would do a terrible job of mothering anyway). And how she wished the boy was old enough to truly understand that, but for now all she could do was to reassure, "I'll come see you as much as I can, but I have things I need to do. Now, come on, I'll take you back to your foster mother. Promise me you'll be good for her?"
"Mmhm." Felessan nodded reluctantly, his dark curls – so like her own – bouncing with the movement.
"You appear to have developed a odd growth," an all-too-familiar voice commented dryly.
Lessa snorted. "Ah, yes, it's a most strange condition," she joked, provoking a giggle from the boy in her arms. She continued, "Someone gave his foster mother the slip again. I'd better go return him."
F'lar nodded, and paused to ruffle his son's hair and give his weyrmate a quick kiss before they left.
"I believe I have something of yours," she said casually, and the Lower Caverns woman looked up, startled.
"Oh!" Briseis gasped, then did a slight double-take and flushed as she identified the woman standing in front of her and the child in her arms. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Weyrwoman. It won't happen again."
Lessa snorted good-naturedly. "With this scamp? Somehow I doubt that."
Briseis laughed. "True. Still, I'm terribly sorry to inconvenience you," she apologized again.
Lessa waved it off. "Don't worry about it. I don't mind overmuch, honestly." She smiled sadly.
"I'll just take him off your hands, then," Briseis said, holding out her arms for her charge.
"Be good," Lessa admonished her son, then kissed the boy's forehead and handed him back to his foster mother, not without a slight pang of regret.
Felessan waved cheerfully at her as she turned to go, his spirits not a bit dampened.