Disclaimer: We do not own The Dragonriders of Pern
A/N: the big problem here was which character we were going to use. We actually changed it a few times before we settled on Sh'toren.
Sh'toren growled under his breath as he struggled with the heavy leather they had been given to practice their harness stitches on before making their first set of harness. "Your stitches are crooked," R'kor announced, making him jump.
"I know," Sh'toren muttered, flicking a glance up at the grizzled, blond Weyrlingmaster.
R'kor stared at him a moment, looking like he'd just bitten something sour. "Pull them out, start again," R'kor told him and moved on.
Sh'toren watched him go through his bangs. R'kor drifted across the room to where the quartet everyone referred to as the Elite were working. Sh'toren couldn't help but stop sewing for a moment to stare, L'say had a strip of leather in his mouth like a gag. J'kai, at R'kor's look, said, "It keeps him silent, sir."
"Indeed," R'kor replied, then bent over Iona, "Your stitches are uneven, Iona. If you pick them out to here and start over you'll be fine."
Iona nodded and said something that Sh'toren couldn't quite hear as she pushed some of her black-brown hair out of her face.
Sh'toren couldn't help the slight curl of his lip and he began to rip out his stitches. Of course, Iona could keep some of her stitches. The golden sheen of her dragon gave her that freedom. "Don't," Z'rat murmured.
Sh'toren glanced at the older Weyrling, "What?" He whispered, trying not to blush at the calm gaze of the blue rider.
"Don't take them all out, back up and start over," Z'rat said with a conspiratorial grin, he flicked a glance at the Weyrlingmaster. "Just don't let R'kor catch you."
Sh'toren nodded his head slightly even as he tried to keep the feeling of bitterness from growing. Cyanth didn't deserve to have to deal with those emotions from him.
"You have all come to see just how difficult sewing leather can be," R'kor announced, catching their attention. "In time, you will all make your own harnesses, so you must learn to do it properly. Unless you feel strongly about it, these harnesses will be the only thing you are required to make and one day, your harness will save your life." He looked around the class, "It is almost time for dinner, continue working on your sewing until then. After dinner, I will not require you to continue, but you must all remember that if I don't approve your harness, you will not be flying when the time comes." He walked out the door, shutting it forcefully behind him. The Weyrlings looked at each other in surprised. It was certainly one of the first times that R'kor had left Iona, L'say and J'kai alone with the other Weyrlings. It was a joke that R'kor didn't want them to be 'contaminated' by the others.
L'say spat out the leather piece, "If anyone else were that arrogant." He began in a low growl. Sh'toren jumped slightly, amazed at the amount of anger in his voice.
"Which is impossible," R'nal said in a casually amused tone. The brown haired brown rider grinned at L'say's scowl, "nobody else is that arrogant."
"True," L'say said after a moment, relaxing. "I cannot wait until we graduate. Then we'll really be able to do something about it."
"What?" Iona asked.
"The prevailing attitude of superiority that affects the bronze and queen riders in High Reaches," L'say said. "Just because gold dragons are the only ones who can lay eggs and bronzes are necessary to having a queen doesn't mean that they have the right to treat everyone else like they're dirt."
"Fancy talk," Sh'toren said, "from a bronze rider."
L'say threw his head up, blue eyes narrowed, but J'kai spoke first, putting a hand on L'say's arm to slow him down. "We were holdless before we were Searched. Even when we were candidates, we weren't given special treatment. It wasn't until people saw that we Impressed bronze that they started falling all over us and it's only because of Genlith and Kentrith that they act like that. It's absolutely ridiculous."
"I was a kitchen worker," Iona asked, "I wasn't even properly Searched. They just grabbed me to make it look like they had enough female candidates. I didn't even want to Impress, I just wasn't given a chance to say no."
R'nal nodded, "I'm from a small and poor cothold in Bitra, with a large family. Best I ever could hope for was to marry someone who had no brothers."
"Glass apprentice," Z'rat offered.
"Farmer," Sh'toren said.
Others began to chime in with their pasts, none of them had stories like L'say and J'kai, but none of them was children of Lord Holders, or prosperous holds. Sh'toren frowned, "I thought the Riders only took certain folk."
"They do," Iona said, "or at least, the dragons do. I overheard once that the riders might encourage someone to leave if they didn't think them unsuitable, but if a dragon Searches them, then they're meant to come to the Weyr."
L'say snorted, "Some of them all but told J'kai and I that we'd never impress and we were better off just taking a job at a hold somewhere." He regarded the leather for a long moment. "Obviously we listened well."
Sh'toren regarded the bronze rider, with his charming grin, sandy brown hair and good looks, and thought that he might have been someone Sh'toren thought of as a friend, if he didn't ride a bronze. :Kentrith is very handsome,: Grevath observed, her tone sleepy and amused. :He is also strong and fast. I like him.:
Sh'toren started slightly, and then began to relax. "Your bronze," Iona said, "is going to be a green chaser, L'say."
Sh'toren flicked a glance up, surprised, he'd missed something. He tossed his head slightly to knock his brown hair out of his eyes. Then Iona's accusation and Grevath's words came together in his mind. "Oh ew, ew!" He yelped, jumping up.
"What?" Z'rat asked.
"Nothing," Sh'toren said, shaking his head, "just really bad thoughts." He sat back down and refrained from looking back up at L'say. "Really bad thoughts," he muttered.
Z'rat snorted, "I'll leave it be then."
Sh'toren glanced up at the older blue rider and widened his eyes slightly so that his blue eyes were more obvious, "But, Z'rat," He said, "maybe I want to think those thoughts," he dropped his voice slightly, "about you."
Z'rat raised his eyebrows and flicked his brown eyes over Sh'toren for a brief moment, "Ask me again at the end of the Turn. Maybe I could accommodate you then."
Sh'toren looked away, flushed. His eyes fell on J'kai, who was watching him. "Maybe," Sh'toren murmured. J'kai nudged L'say and held up two fingers. L'say looked across at them, and then turned back to say something else to Iona.