Chapter 2
It was around this time that Geriana climbing to get a good position to watch the Greens' mating flight of her friends and to draw them got too interested in sketching and not sufficiently interested in her own security; and suffered a nasty fall.
There was nothing broken, but a very nasty gash in her left arm left her weyr-bound for a while until it should be healed.
Geriana took it philosophically enough; it could have been worse. And she had her boys to love her, and several sketches to work up into colour for the visualisation library that she could be getting on with; as well as adding to the training of both Carlinna and Sessel the youthful sea bred child who liked to paint the sea.
Being used to frequent flits Between, Geriana had never bothered much with contraceptive herbs; but she was no innocent, even if she did curse herself for an idiot when her monthly bleeding was late.
She assembled her boys.
"One of you's probably a father" she said bluntly. "Does it bother you?"
S'net and S'negen stared: then grinned.
"We act as one – does it bother you who it might be?" asked S'net.
"Not one whit" said Geriana. "B'kas, how are you about it?"
"Well I can't have their babies" said B'kas "but if you will, I'd love to be an extra mother to him or her."
"Whether you raise baby yourself or foster, we stand by you" said S'negen.
Geriana grinned.
She loved her boys so much!
"I thought we might call a boy Kassen" she said "for all of you; or a girl Gesenka for all of us."
"They sound really nice" said S'negen. "It's hard to fit part of you into a boy without sounding like he's Benden bred: and sweet of you to have all of us in his name." He gave her a fond look; it would be easy for B'kas to feel left out of this! But by putting his name into a potential baby, it drew him in too, and S'negen loved Geriana the more for her tender love for gentle B'kas!
oOoOo
Winter was setting in, in earnest, to the horror of Brown Rider K'shon, used to the warmth of Ista! He was only too happy to take a trip to Ista Island with H'llon when the Weyrwoodcrafter was busy trying to find out the identity of an amnesiac man. H'llon had been recruiting a Holdless woman, Petrilla, to help find those who wanted to be helped, either to maintain their Holdless yet non criminal status, or those who wished a way out of being Holdless. The logicators had been thinking mainly of children, born of those made Holdless; but they were prepared to be flexible!
K'shon came back complaining that the contrast made the cold seem colder; and wheedled M'ielle to consider joining him in his furs to warm him up.
M'ielle laughed.
"You're a bad man, K'shon, sure you are" she said in her lilting Ruathan brogue "Well by the time it's really cold, I'm thinking that Sophoreth will be big enough t'let me so she will."
"It gets colder?" he groaned "Pretty Weyrwoman, take pity – if it gets any colder, anything I possess for your entertainment will either have dropped off or retreated inside!"
"Fool" said M'ielle fondly "I'll knit it a scarf."
Which she proceeded to do in Ista orange; and K'shon roared with laughter and promised to wear it under his woollen underwear for the next Threadfall; but only if she'd join him in his weyr afterwards to check that he had done so.
K'shon won.
M'ielle was not unhappy to become his weyrmate; she was becoming more and more attached to the cheerful Istan!
oOoOo
M'ielle was not the only new Rider to be settling down.
L'beth bowed to the inevitable when she heard Tefanny referring to A'vis and G'let as 'my two new fathers'; and told them on returning from the Nabol Winter Gather where Tefanny had been boasting about her two fathers that they had better see about sorting out a triple weyr for living quarters.
It need not be near the ground; although Brith would be unable to carry passengers for a good while yet, both Bajith and Nembeth were quite obliging to both L'beth and Tefanny.
L'exa too asked J'red,
"You reckon Arth will manage a smallish Queen?"
J'red beamed all over his face, jerked her into his arms, and kissed her thoroughly by way of answer.
"So long as you think I can manage a tall and statuesque Queenrider" he said.
"Is – is that part of dragons and dragonlust?" L'exa was flustered "I – I feel so GOOD!"
J'red cupped her face.
"That's nothing to do with dragons, lovely L'exa. That's to do with being valued" he said seriously.
"I rather think I'd like you to value me some more" said L'exa, gravely.
J'red was happy to oblige!
oOoOo
H'llon and Voll were maintaining contact all the time with Petrilla, including providing her with a firelizard egg; and received word of others who needed their aid.
For a pair of fisherman brothers, the oldest of whom had been turned out of his hold after he broke his back, they roped in R'cal to help them aid the proud pair; who could help the weyr in return. It just had to be put in the right way. H'llon made a wheeled chair for Peder, the older, that could too be lashed into a boat and manoeuvred by rope and pulley to permit him to sail independently.
oOo
R'cal took Peder and Jen to the little island weyr and explained matters.
"We're thinking about setting up a Weyr here predominantly for ageing Riders who need warmer weather for aching bones; but you two seem sensible lads, so I'll go further for I don't think you're the types to panic."
"If we were, we'd not have survived" said Peder.
"Fair comment" nodded R'cal "We have several people who believe it is possible the Long Interval may be followed by a Long Pass; and knowing that such an event will leave many dragonriders exhausted and demoralised we thought a spare weyr that only had this island to cover for its local sphere of influence so that we could build a team of relief Riders who could take the duties from any weyr exhausted or with many injuries to give them time to recover."
"Grim; but your thinking makes sense" said Jen "If that's not an impertinence Blue Rider" he added hastily as Peder glared at him. He could not resist adding, "But how do we fit in?"
R'cal grinned boyishly.
"It's a bit hush-hush and we haven't yet told F'lar" he sad "We want to see how self sufficient we could be if we were a weyr-hold type arrangement, closer than usual weyr and hold relationships. We need a thorough survey of the caves near the sea and soundings too of what looks to my untrained eye to be a natural harbour. We've seabred Riders; but we can't always spare them long enough to check things out properly. If you're willing to, we'd leave you, wood for boats and some others to help you to see how viable a seahold is here. You'd be fully provisioned and visited regularly. Would you be prepared to do that?"
"I'll say" said Peder quickly, enthusiasm writ large on his face.
"Well…" said Jen
"Will you spend some time with us in the Weyr looking at what notes we have so far and thinking about it?" asked R'cal "And our Healer will look at your back too, Peder I suspect it won't heal now for not being immobilised immediately, which at sea would be almost impossible: but we do have a lad – he's gone back to the Harper Hall to complete his training, but he's one of ours – who broke his back and it IS healing. He's got movement in his legs and he can crap to his own command."
"Fancy you dragonriders thinking of a thing like that!" said Jen "You don't think of weyrfolk crapping!"
Peder leaned over to poke his younger brother; but R'cal just laughed.
"We'd be pretty unwell if we didn't, lad! People are the same whatever job they do; we just do a more dangerous job than most – which is why we recruit a lot of seabred riders, because sailors know and understand danger as few landsmen can!"
"This chair is amazing" said Peder "Is it something dragonfolk use because you have a lot of injury?"
"It is now" said R'cal "It was devised for a fosterling of one of our Queenriders who was crippled by illness. Our Weyrwoodcrafter – who's as near to being my own fosterling as makes no odds, though he was effectively a man already when I took him under my wing – improved upon it. He's inventive is H'llon" said R'cal proudly.
"It's an excellent thing" said Peder "I feel so much more independent, I really think I can sail in most weather with this, with ropes and karabiners rigged for me."
"You take it careful" warned his brother "All right, Blue Rider; we'll visit the weyr with you and prepare to come back here. What do we earn if we carve out a Hold here for you?"
"The right to Hold it, obviously!" said R'cal.
"Aren't you going to offer that to more experienced men?" asked Peder.
"Lad, I'd rather see a brave, adaptable man Holding who's not constrained by preconceived ideas; and frankly, who dares should be the winner" said R'cal.
"Aren't there going to be problems Holding somewhere on Southern?" asked Jen shrewdly.
R'cal laughed.
"The beauty of this is that it isn't on Southern! You can see the Southern continent on a clear day, but this isn't part of it. Actually technically, this is part of the Eastern Isles, which has its own irony; though those who are exiled are dropped off far, far to the North of here. This hasn't been claimed by anyone but High Reaches Weyr. And that's the way we mean to keep it – us, and people who aren't stuffy old fools! And you never heard that opinion from me either" he added hastily.
Peder grinned.
"No, Blue Rider" he said.
oOoOo
Petrilla also sent a couple of children to the Childhold at the Weyr, Varney aged seven; and three-turn-old Risa his sister. As the Childhold was not really fully operational as yet, and as Varney showed no fear of dragons at all, indeed the reverse, they were fostered in a regular fashion with Assela, who cared for M'kel's children and also saw to most of the physical needs of Amira, M'rian's small daughter. They were all around the same sort of age, so it worked out nicely. Varney soon made friends with Abreall, Siriwenne and Tefanny!
oOoOo
Meanwhile the Weyr had heard of two happy events; Elissa, now Journeyman Woodcrafter, had married Masterturner Gerney; and Lady Rillys of Rivenhill Hold gave birth to a second daughter, Corrys, the child of her new husband, the dragonless man Corbin.
Back in the Weyr, Y'lara produced a son for M'kel who came bawling into the world to the accompaniment of some of Y'lara's choicer seabred oaths. Y'lara named him Miklar and declared that he was as awkward as his father, arriving several hours predawn as M'kel was getting ready to leave for Threadfall.
"Just like a man" opined Y'lara.
M'kel decided not to comment; from what he had seen of her labour he preferred to fight Thread whatever the hour of day or night than to go through the business of birthing. He was GLAD to be a man!
oOoOo
Elissa had also sent a candidate for the next clutch, a girl called Ishelle, whose main motive was avoiding marriage; and as Daenilth rose the day after Miklar was born, she would not have TOO long to wait. T'arla used it as an excuse to collect her young cousin Meeri from an abusive father on the pretext of Search, and really to train the girl in music. There was a vacancy, after all, in the Harperweyr, for Horgey had gone to the Harper Hall to confirm as Journeyman!
oOoOo
From the point of view of the Weyr, the next most exciting thing was T'lana's birthing; since the number of babies and the gender thereof were a matter of speculation for those dragonmen – which was most of them – who were inclined to bet on almost anything.
K'len – predictably – had a book on how many babies she was carrying and what sex they were; he declared that at least it was one thing D're could not see through the shells!
D're, laughing, put marks on there being three babies or more and at least one of each.
He was the most astonished person in the weyr to be the biggest winner.
T'lana produced two daughters and a son with a minimum of fuss late in the afternoon two weeks before they were due.
Calla pronounced the babies as fit and healthy as many a single baby, albeit rather on the compact size; and also declared that T'lana was known for her compact but healthy babies.
R'gar and T'lana announced that the babies were to be named Garlan, Talarra and Sarelana. Sarelana was named after T'lana's foster father ; and when he was told, he sent message about how touched he was!
It was a sevenday for babies.
Alessa's daughter by T'rin arrived just five day later. They called her Tylessa and both parents were delighted!
