Chapter 10
Larissa came over to the three girls. She was an attractive girl with thick, curly brown hair, hazel eyes and a startlingly perfect complexion of slightly peachy shade.
"I've been dying to ask questions, and I've been firmly curbing my Seabred manners" she said bluntly. "But as we're thrown together, I thought I'd take it as an omen to indulge my curiosity."
Jessenia laughed.
"What do you want to know? I thought most things about us already filtered through the weyr – from what I can see, Dragonmen gossip worse than Holderwomen."
Larissa gave a reluctant laugh.
"Well, I suppose I want to know what the truth is rather than what's said" she said. "If you're really cousins; why you want to be Green Riders, and so on."
"I guess the best thing to do is for Carya and me to give you a potted history of our family – if you'll do the same for us!" said Jessenia. "Leealla has a sad history and if she doesn't want to share it we'll defend her right to keep quiet, you know."
"I'll tell it" said Leealla. "I guess how she takes it will tell us a lot."
Larissa looked surprised, but nodded.
"I hope whatever else I am, it's not unkind" she said. "Though I can be a bitch if anyone goes out of their way to irritate me!"
Leealla told her story, and Larissa was shocked.
"Faranth's egg, I didn't know that people like that existed!" she said, her eyes full of tears. "They ought to be chained out in Fall!"
"The old woman was" said Leealla. "I don't know about the men who came . . . I don't really care, I'm free now, and Master Fordel has already helped my feet. People don't like cripples either."
"Huh, I know why THAT is!" declared Larissa. "It's fear. They're afraid because anyone might be born deformed, and some ignorant people think that if a pregnant woman sees a deformed person it might deform her child."
"That's stupid!" blurted out Jessenia.
"Ya think? And aren't most people?" said Larissa. "Your turn."
The cousins embarked on their family's tale, including Jessenia's regret that her Trader cousins were not what she had thought them.
"That's a nasty shock!" said Larissa. "I've a similar story in some ways. I'm kind of Ranking – cousin to the Holder in our Seahold – and he wanted to use me in a marriage alliance if you please! And he'd always been an indulgent type, I'd called him Uncle and all, then he presents this Runnerholder with bad skin and worse breath, at least 30 turns old. So I upped sticks for the Weyr as a candidate for their next Queen egg, because this was the best solution I could think of, even if I never Impressed. At least if a Dragonrider fancies you, they're better looking than a lot, especially whassisface. Can't even remember the fellow's name if I ever knew it. And I have Crysoreth!" her face suffused with joy.
"Well, Grandad may be head of the family, but I reckon my parents would have something to say if he made so infamous decision about MY future!" said Jessenia. "Reckon you're glad to have new family here?"
"Oh yes, I am!" said Larissa.
She seemed a forceful sort of girl, possibly inclined to be argumentative; but a Queenrider needed to be a strong woman, thought Jessenia. And Larissa seemed nice enough. And having a partisan supporter in the person of someone like a Queenrider would help Leealla too, for Larissa was closer in age to the girls than were the older weyrwomen, and therefore she was more likely to interact with any candidates who might be less pleasant characters!
"Are you looking forward to going Between, Larissa?" asked Jessenia.
"That's yes and no" admitted the young Queenrider. "Yes, I'm longing to but I'm scared stiff too! It's got to be perfect, the visualization, and I'm afraid of risking Crysoreth if I don't get it just right!"
"Is your visual memory good?" asked Carya.
"I think so, but I still worry" Larissa pulled a rueful face.
"Did – do Ranking girls learn to draw?" asked Leealla shyly.
"I had some instruction . . . I wasn't really good, though I wasn't as bad at that as I am at holding a tune for the Harpers" said Larissa.
"Even so, would it help to draw where you're expected to go? To put in as many details as you can, even if they're not very well executed, to jog your memory?" suggested the timid girl.
Larissa stared at her thoughtfully.
"You know, I guess it might" she said. "It surely can't hurt! We've all been taken on a visit to the Red Butte – it's pretty distinctive – and we've had to study that, and also the Weyr here. I'll put that idea to the boys, too, if you don't mind, Leealla."
Leealla flushed.
"Of course I don't mind! If it'll help, I- I'd be honoured to have it passed on" she said.
"They say that High Reaches Weyr has its own artist who can draw visualisation anywhere, any time of turn!" said Larissa. "I suppose you're not an artist yourself, Leealla?"
"I – well I used to draw a lot when – before mother died. It was something I could do sitting down and – and I felt a need to depict things. I've been too dull in my head, just surviving….." she shuddered.
All three of the other girls reached out to touch her hand.
"Then you must have drawing materials made available!" said Larissa. "I'll see to that – and Leealla, I know it's hard but it's your duty to draw any men you remember that came to hurt one of you girls; so we can have them punished!"
Leealla shuddered.
"Well at that maybe I can forget them once I've drawn them" she said. "Thank you, Queen Rider, you are very kind."
"Larissa. It's Larissa. We are all friends, aren't we?" asked the older girl. "I know you're all younger than me, but you love dragons as much as I do… it sets apart from lower cavern girls my age, and the next oldest weyrfolk girl likely to stand is Bretine."
"There'll be older girls when the clutch is laid" said Jessenia.
"And perhaps I'll find friends there too; but I'd like us to be friends first" said Larissa. "Especially clever Leealla, because you two have each other and she and I have nobody, really."
Leealla flushed.
"I – that would be an honour I'd never …" she lost herself in half a sentence.
"Nonsense!" said Larissa. "If you save my and Crysoreth's lives by your idea, the honour is on my side! I'll go and ask for drawing stuff NOW!" and she whirled away, her curls bobbing.
oOoOo
It must be confirmed that a large part of Larissa's offer of friendship to Leealla was out of compassion for the girl; Larissa had her faults, but mean-spiritedness was not one of them; and she was the first to recognize and admit to her stubborn streak and tendency to be opinionated! It had been these traits which led to her own weyrling accident, in ignoring instructions on how to shovel firestone, thinking she knew best. As she had NOT known best how to maintain a sustained effect, she ended up with a strained back. Being bed-bound for a few days and needing to be careful for a month gave her some insight as to what it was to be disabled; another reason for her compassion towards Leealla, than just her shock over what the girl had suffered!
Compassion turned quickly to admiration once Larissa had cadged paper from the weyrwoodcrafter and a graphite stick from the weyrsmithcrafter; for Leealla was a talented natural artist.
From her one view being flown in, she sketched the Weyr from above.
"It's only by memory from a short look – I could do better if I studied it more" she said.
"Shells! That's excellent!" gasped Larissa. "If I took you up on Crysoreth, could you do a more detailed one?"
"Oh yes!" said Leealla. "Would you really take me up?"
"It would be a pleasure" said Larissa. "Now you get those awful men out of your memory; and let them flow away as you do it."
"That's such a clever idea, Larissa" said Jessenia. "I hope it works."
It worked.
Leealla drew furiously, almost in a trance; then pushed stacks of sheets from her, the pencil dropping from suddenly trembling fingers; and she was sobbing in release.
Her other friends held her comfortingly until the storm of sobbing passed.
"I – I'd like to go and lie down" Leealla said.
The others escorted her; and in moments the girl lay in exhausted sleep.
The drawing had been a catharsis; and her sleep was deep and restful and untroubled by the nightmares she had previously suffered from.
oOoOo
The other three girls took Leealla's drawings with a slightly garbled explanation to the Weyrleader. He studied them, frowning in thought.
"I recognise a couple of these… Lord Laudey must see these pictures. Leealla drew them, you say? She's good. Not perhaps as good as the Weyrartist of High Reaches but certainly talented… perhaps their artist will give her some tips and pointers. Certainly these are recognisable portraits! Why has she not come to me herself? Has this upset her?" he asked sharply.
"She's sleeping, sir" Larissa spoke up for all of them.
"And deeper than she ever has yet" added Jessenia. "Thanks to Larissa for having the idea, she's been able to put all the bad memories behind her in drawing the men that feature in them. It was a brilliant idea, sir, do you think the other little girls might be encouraged to draw the bad men to get them out of their heads? It doesn't matter, I reckon, if they are no good at drawing, if they can at least release their fears!"
"I'm surrounded by clever weyrwomen" said G'narish. "Larissa, I'm extremely pleased with you for so clever a thought, and for befriending that child as well. It's what they had in mind for Gold Riders to be able to do, take charge of a situation and come up with solutions with compassion and thought. And I think, Jessenia, that your idea has excellent merit too, and I shall see that the other girls get the chance to draw their fears out! Now I'm off to see Lord Laudey – and several other Lords Holder too – with these drawings!"
"Thank you Weyrleader" said Larissa; and the other two murmured their thanks too.
oOoOo
Two things were to arise from this occurrence; first was the arrest of several child spoilers by sundry Lords Holder: and secondly the visit to Igen Weyr by Weyrartist Geriana to help Leealla. Geriana had just been declared Master Artist by a conclave of artisits, and was, she said, so close to walking on air she could almost have come without the courtesy of a lift from a dragon! She brought plenty of drawing materials with her too, including coloured chalks and a recipe for varnish to fix them, and showed Leealla how to blow it in a light spray over a drawing to fix it using a bent metal tube perforated with a hole at the bend.
G'narish had explained Leealla's problems in broad, relieved that Geriana nodded understanding, able to fill in the gaps with her quick, logicator-trained wits and knowledge. Geriana realised that Leealla was just settling in at Igen, and to move her now would be unsettling in the extreme. Therefore she left her apprentices for a couple of sevendays to come to Leealla, leaving things in the competent hands of her Journeyman, C'linna, whose young dragonet was now past the stage of being as much hard work as hatchlings tended to be for the first month or two!
oOoOo
"You have many techniques to learn before I can give you release papers as a Journeymen" said Geriana after putting Lealla through a gruelling couple of days assessment "But your natural talent and hard work over the last couple of days is enough that I'll happily award you senior apprentice tassels. My boys and I will flit in from time to time; perhaps you'll come for an extended period to our atelier at High Reaches."
"I – I want to learn. They've been good to me here; if I can repay that by drawing visualisations I'd be overjoyed" said Lealla.
"You'll do" said Geriana approvingly
. Geriana felt that Lealla had a better chance at Impression than she had herself, however; the girl was talented and loved to draw; where as for Geriana, art was the central pivot of her life and it could not be denied. Such subtleties make the difference!
She enjoyed the two weeks.
"Practise every day" was Geriana's last advice. "Draw something, anything, daily. And if you can draw other candidates who Impress with their newly hatched friends you can make a load of marks selling the sketches to their fond parents, you know!"
Lealla was startled.
"I – I'm allowed to make marks from it?"
"Too right, kiddie! Nothing wrong with a bit of private enterprise – I make top mark on dragonpoker cards, I buy the blanks from the Weyrwoodcrafter and I print my own backs. That'll be beyond you for a while; but when you've the confidence I'll have a set of blanks on paper-board sent with printed backs; our Printcrafters turn them out and they're cheaper if less durable than wooden ones. It's fun having a new crafthall attached to us – I'm teaching them etching and things" she wanted to make it sound exciting, so Lealla would feel keener to come if she did NOT Impress! Though to Geriana it was no simulation; for she DID find it exciting.
Geriana had never Impressed, and the general consensus at High Reaches was that she was too talented to share with a dragon because she would be more likely to draw Thread than fight it – but she was a realist and knew that though her own disappointment had been assuaged by her craft and the love of her weyrmates, a girl who longed for the love of a partisan partner might need a bit of help coming to terms with not Impressing, should that eventuality come to pass. And Geriana was the first to ruefully agree that the patterns Thread made WERE horribly fascinating and DID make her think about designing patterns for fabrics! Her three weyrmates, Greenrider B'kas and the brothers S'net and S'negen – gladly took her anywhere she wanted to go at any time. T'bor was happy for them to do so, and Geriana did not feel the lack of a dragon in terms of being able to travel, and as all three dragons chatted to her freely, she was content with that state of affairs.
Leealla meanwhile had much to ponder on – it was all so wonderful!
Moreover, good food, kindness and friendship had quite transformed the skinny, vapidly pale looks of the poor little waif who had come at first to the Weyr; and Leealla was blossoming into a still pale but ethereally pretty girl, her violet blues eyes no longer seeming to fill her face, just big with wonder in her face framed by pale golden hair that now had a life and body to it!