The sun rose far to early the next day for N'kar's liking. He and Kayta had stayed up far too late the night before, talking and enjoying each other's company – among other things – long after the celebrations at the dining cavern had died down. He longed to roll over and curl against her once again, but there was work to do. Wings needed to be rearranged, drills needed to be run, holds and halls – such as they were – needed to be informed of the change in leadership. They would also need to start searching for candidates soon; the Weyr had only a handful of children in the lower caverns, and most were too young to stand.

He kissed Kayta on the forehead, and slid out of bed, grabbing his clothing off the floor as he stood. He would need to return to his own weyr to change since they reeked of wine and sweat, but they would do for now. He reached out to Elanth, If Kayta needs me, let her know I'm at our weyr changing.

The brown dragon grumbled his ascent sleepily as his rider pushed through the curtains separating the sleeping area from the dining area, startling a lower caverns woman in the process. She let out a sharp shriek, dropping the platter of breakfast she had been carrying in the process.

N'kar grimaced, so much for letting Kayta sleep in.

The woman quickly dropped to her knees and began picking up the discarded food. "I'm sorry, so sorry, Weyrleader."

He was bending over to help her when she spoke, and he froze at the sound of her voice. Though it had been over eight turns, and she was mumbling, the lilt in her voice was identical to…

"Llydwen."

The lower caverns woman tensed, tucking her head down to her chest so that it was impossible to see the features of her face behind the curtain of her hair. However, from the way she flinched at the sound of her name, and the hunch of her shoulders, it was clear that it was her.

"Llydwen, please look at me." He reached out to touch her shoulder but she jerked away from his touch.

"Leave me be!"

"I mean you no harm-"

"It doesn't matter what you mean, that's all dragonmen ever bring." She cut him off, her voice breaking as she sobbed. "Heartache and abuse, that's all your kind is ever good for."

N'kar rocked back on his heals at her verbal attack. "That's not-"

"Leave me be!" She shouted. She scrambled to her feet and ran from the room. "Just leave me be!"

He stood, intending to go after her, but a hand grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Let her go."

He turned to find Kayta behind him, dressed in nothing more than a shirt and her hair still messy from sleep. The sight might have been alluring, but he was too confused to fully appreciate it. Llydwen was alive. Llydwen was here. "I need to get Nelladwyn."

Kayta shook her head. "She doesn't want to see him."

His blood ran cold at her statement. "You knew."

The Weyrwoman paled at the fury in his voice. "I… Well… You see…" She stammered. "She was found in Z'char's weyr-"

So that had been the small form he had watched T'gellan carry out of that foul place. Who knew what treatment she had suffered under that man. He scrubbed his face with his hands trying to calm the anger boiling in his belly, but it refused to calm. "And you didn't tell me!"

"I had no idea who she was! Not until later!" Kayta backed up, trying to put space between them.

"Yet you still didn't tell me!" He advanced on her, cornering her against the bed they had been sharing only moments before. "She was my weyrmate!"

"Ex-weyrmate!"

"It doesn't matter! She was mine!"

Kayta's eyes flashed at that, and outside Lysith bugled, echoing her rider's fury. He refused to back down though – she had no right to be angry. She wasn't the one who had been betrayed. "She's not some lost possession for you to claim! She's a person who made her choice to leave!"

"You're saying that she deserved to be his plaything?"

"No! Never! No one deserves to be held against their will like that! I'm saying that whatever you had was in the past, and whatever claim you had is over. She didn't want you or Nelladwyn to know – she just wanted to go home to her husband."

"Then why is she still here?"

"I don't know. I'm just as shocked as you are to see her."

"Some husband he must be." He was aware that that was unfair of him to say, that all of his anger was unfair. But it was hard to just brush aside his anger. He had looked for Llydwen for so long, and to find her here of all places, and Kayta knew. "You promised me, no more lies."

"I know… but it wasn't my secret to tell."

"So be it then." He turned and stormed from the room.

Kayta did not follow.

"Wen came back?" Kayta asked upon finding Berjoui overseeing the sweaty chaos that was the Weyr kitchens. It was a statement more than a question, but, regardless of the intent, the new headwoman was not surprised to be confronted with it.

Berjoui pulled her aside to a calmer and cooler spot in the kitchens. "She arrived the day of your flight. I'm sorry for not informing you sooner but you were kinda caught up with more important things."

"It's been several months, I thought she was perfectly happy back at her hold."

"So did I."

"So what happened?"

The other woman shrugged. "Her husband disappeared. Either he ran off, or he was done away with by Z'char."

"Is it possible that he was one of the ones that M'taren helped escape?"

Berjoui shrugged again. "Possibly. Either way, the hold wouldn't keep her if she wouldn't remarry, and she refused to remarry because… well… who could blame her after all that."

"So they've sent her back here, which is probably not helping whatever trauma Z'char put her through."

"Aye. I had planned to keep her here in the kitchens where it's safe, but Deranna got to her this morning before I could and sent her out to you. No doubt to stir things up."

"Well she succeeded." Kayta grumbled, recalling the argument that had ended only moments before.

"I guessed as much from how unhappy Lysith has been." Berjoui placed a hand on her friend's arm. "Are you okay?"

Now it was Kayta's turn to shrug. "I'm fine." She lied. "It's not like anyone was sharing my bed before and I survived just fine didn't I? I'll be fine again."

That earned her a look. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"The Weyr is doing well, that's all that matters." Another lie, but only a partial one this time. "Is N'kar's boy about? Nelladwyn is his name, I think."

Berjoui nodded. "Malena took him to gather berries or nuts or something."

Lysith was confused. You are more worried about the boy than the man?

The man can kick rocks for all I care. Kayta replied as she watched her friend return to work. The boy didn't ask for any of this. She stole a bubbly pie off a platter, and munched on it as she headed towards the edge of the weyr. She remembered all too well how it felt to be… well, she wouldn't say unwanted... she didn't doubt that either parent loved their child in their own way, but being a dragonrider took priority over all familial obligations. The weyr encouraged fostering as a result of that, and for most children it went well, but some were finer tuned. Even though they might understand the ways of the weyr, it probably still stung to find out that they were second place instead of number one.

Or maybe she was just projecting.

Her parents had sent her away before she was old enough to really remember them, and while life at Blue Vale had been better than being a drudge elsewhere, it had still stung to be tucked into a bunk bed surrounded by other kids instead of a proper family. To have some one who really cared about how well she learned her harper lessons or how fast she earned her Runner's belt. Would they, she wondered, be proud of her if they knew what she had become? Oh, sure Gineara and Malena had tried, when they were younger, but it wasn't quite the same thing.

Though, given how she had bungled those relationships up, perhaps it was best she didn't know who her parents were or where they might be.

To Kayta's surprise, Malena did not scowl nor make any sort of cutting remark when she finally found them. "He knows." She explained, nodding at the slim form picking through the brambles a short distance away. "He saw her running back from your weyr. And then she ran away from him."

"We can't judge her. Not after what she went through." It was strange to talk normally with the other Queenrider – they spent so much time yelling at each other that Kayta wasn't sure what to make of the sudden truce.

"True." Malena sighed. "I mean, who knows if she came here willingly to begin with?"

That was a possibility that Kayta hadn't considered. "Poor Wen."

"Poor Nelladwyn."

"I can hear you talking about me." Nelladwyn sniffled, wiping his nose with the hem of his sleeveless tunic. "It's his fault isn't it? It's always his fault."

"Who's fault?" Kayta asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"Him. N'kar. My father. He chased her away before, and now he'll chase her away again."

She shared a glance with Malena. "Well..." The other woman drawled out, clearly stalling for time as she struggled to come up with something to say. "Sometimes men and women may love each other but not be very good for each other..."

"Like you and R'nahl?"

Malena flushed at that, so Kayta took over. "I don't know if it's a good idea to speculate about what happened in the past, especially if it didn't involve us." The boy made a face at that, though she really couldn't fault him for it. "You'll have to ask them one day, when things are a bit calmer."

"He never talks to me."

"Well, as the Weyrwoman I could make him talk to you."

Malena rolled her eyes. "I thought this Weyr was trying to change it's ways."

"There's more than one way to reason with a man that doesn't involve my dragon forcing her will on his. I seem to recall hearing a story about how you threatened R'nahl's boots over a crawler."

"I see your point."

Turning back to Nelladwyn, Kayta asked. "Has it occurred to you that maybe your father might be hurting as much as you are?"

He stammered at that. "N-n-nno."

"I thought so. Look, I don't know if N'kar loved your mother, or what the story was between them. Like I said earlier, I'm not going to speculate… but I'm sure you've heard all sorts of variations over the years." She took a deep breath. "Whatever happened, it hurt him because he hasn't taken another weyrmate since."

"Until you."

"That's not really any of your business, but, no, we're not." She ignored the sharp look that Malena gave her and plunged on. "He's probably spent all this time feeling abandoned too - just like you."

He crossed his arms over his chest, the very picture of a stubborn adolescent. Kayta could see traces of his father in him at that moment, in the shape of his brown and his chin. She could see traces of Llydwen too – the clear eyes and pert nose had to be hers. His hair had a little of both of them. "You don't know him."

"I know he never gave up looking for her."

"How?"

"Because he never gave up on me either. And I'm probably twice the thorn in his side that she was."

Malena snorted. "Twice the pain in a few asses too."

"Oh shut up." Something like a smile crossed the other queenrider's lips, and Kayta gave her a quick grin back. "I think your mother is also probably going through a lot right now. We don't know when she arrived here or who brought her, but we know the previous Weyrleader wasn't too kind to her." There, that was safe enough for a child to understand, wasn't it?

"The Weyrwoman is right." Malena chimed in. "I'm sure once she's had a chance to recover from her shock, she probably will want to see you."

Now that was probably taking it a little too far, but Kayta forced herself to nod in agreement anyways. Who knew if Wen would want to see anyone, once she felt better, if she ever felt better, but she hoped that for the boy's sake that she did.

"Is that how it was for you?" Malena asked after they had returned both Nelladwyn and the berries to the kitchen.

"What?"

"When you were taken. Did they force you to..." She trailed off, unable to give voice to the horrors that Wen might have experienced.

"No." To stop the inevitable 'how come?' she continued. "I was in bad shape – my leg was broken. And N'bel made it clear to everyone that I was off limits."

"I'm just surprised you didn't try to escape or send Dolp."

"Broken leg." Kayta repeated again as they made their way towards the records room. "And the old Queen commanded Dolp not to leave."

"You could have sent him once she passed."

"She passed a month before Lysith flew."

"And you didn't come yourself?"

"I had been gone for over a turn by that point. And N'bel had filled my head with stories about what would happen if we were ever found out."

"And you believed him?"

Kayta shook her head. "You saw how well things went when I came back. Do you think it would have gone any better if I had done that sooner?"

Malena stopped, flinging her arms out in exasperation. "It stings that you trusted him more than you trusted our friendship."

"I thought you were dead too!" She was growing tired of shouting, and was especially tired of all the attention it drew, but, shards and shells, how did that point always seem to escape everyone? "N'bel told me he never saw you. He barely found me! So for turns and turns I assumed that you died in that field that day. That I was alone except for Dolp – because Faranth knows no one in Blue Vale really cared about me unless their messages were late."

"That's not true!"

"Tell me, did Deln shed a tear when he learned that I was gone?" Her flush told Kayta all she needed to know. "He did his duty by me as a fosterling, but he didn't care for me."

"Ginaera's mother was sad."

"Only because she wanted me to marry Ginaera's brother."

"He was horrible." She conceded.

"They all were… except for maybe that one cousin of yours."

"Be glad you didn't end up with him, his wife spends more time pregnant than not."

"And probably not because he cannot keep his hands off of her."

"No – he's learned that if she's suffering from morning sickness then she can't talk."

Kayta grimaced. "That hold is awful. No wonder so many women go after dragonmen instead. Though they're really not much better sometimes."

"Some are." The Weyrwoman scoffed at that and started walking once more, but Malena grabbed her hand and stopped her. "As much as I plague him, N'kar is a good man."

She snorted at that, remembering his fury. Though, as she had told Nelladwyn, he was probably reacting more out of shock and pain than anything else. That still didn't excuse his behavior, but still. "Should I have told him?"

"I don't know." Malena linked her arm with Kayta's, surprising her. "I wish things were different. I wish you had been found with us that day, and had stood on the sands with us, and had impressed with us. That we could have done things together as we always did."

"Me too." Kayta whispered, even though she knew it was a foolish dream. "Me too."