"They can't do this to me!" Kestet raged in his mother's private quarters, his brown firelizard swooping dangerously about. His sisters Mistle, Minkest, Mest and youngest brother, Kesin all sat around their mother who sat impassively as her eldest hurdled insults and his three absent brothers, each of whom were being interviewed by the Conclave. Privately, Mistle thought the assembled Lord Holders could have been kinder when they told him that he was unfit to be Telgar's next Lord. But she certainly agreed with the decision not to make her heavy handed brother the next LordHolder.
Ketke was next in line, and while Mistle thought he'd be the best choice for Telgar, she knew of his fervent desire to follow in their sire's footsteps and become a wherhandler. At least if he was confirmed LordHolder she knew he wouldn't object to her going to Healer Hall - they had been each other's confidants growing up.
She ducked as the little brown careened too close, and Minket's bronze whistled warningly, his eyes whirling yellow, the first indication from Minket about her feelings on the matter. The brown squawked and vanished, presumably to continue his acrobatics outside.
"Mistle, go and oversee the making of a meal for us." Minket ordered with quiet dignity. Dressed in all 'widow whites', undyed woolens, she had all but secluded herself following her husband's burial, communicating solely through her children and the very rare letter. Mistle nodded, standing and walking unhurriedly out the door, ignoring Kestet's glaring. Once outside the door she she sighed and relaxed, walking cheerfully down to the kitchen. Chellam, long her father's right hand man, kept things running, not that there was as much to run in the winter as they would have been, say in the spring, nodded at her as she entered the kitchen. As she checked on the stews and breads and arranged trays to be brought up, a hand tapped her on the shoulder.
"I understand you need a ride to Fort...?" L'stur murmured softly, and she glanced about before answering. "Yes please."
"Can you be ready before these rolls are done?" He asked softly. "The weather is rapidly deteriorating."
"Yes." Fulsa had warned her at breakfast that she might have to leave quickly. Given that she had at the time still thought Kestet would be named Lord Holder, she had hurried to pack a bag, small enough to escape notice, but carrying what little she knew she would need as a healer apprentice.
"Meet me by the Great Doors." Mistle nodded, issued a few more directions, then slipped away to the Stores where her bag and fur cloak was carefully stowed on a high shelf. Thus attired she took the smaller back routes to the Main Entrance, greeting the former Weyrleader with a smile and a bob of her head.
"Greens. Your eggshells are all from green whers." Tegrram stated factually, putting a pair of calipers down. Harper Bukset blinked.
"All of them?"
"Unquestionably. Here, pass me that shell on the top shelf, to your left." Tegrram pointed to a section of shell that had been lacquered. "This is a shell belonging to a brown from a gold clutch. Notice anything different between the two eggs?"
Bukset took the shell and turned it over in his hands, studying it carefully, before pointing to the edge. "There's a difference in the thickness?" It was more of a guess than anything else.
"Good eye. Eggshells are almost twice as thick in eggs from a gold clutch." She nodded approvingly. "Now, I'll show you how to determine color."
She opened a shallow drawer and pulled out a sheet of heavy vellum with a series of curves the smallest colored green the largest red. Picking up the eggshell she turned it on the clean cut, running along the widest part of the shell, and set it down on the vellum. "To determine color, you need to make a cut along the equator of the eggshell, then move it along the chart until you find a crescent that the curve fits." She slid the shell along until it feel squarely within the brown crescent. "It's not a hundred percent accurate, but it'll give a little better than a 4 in 5 chance of telling the color of the wher you're up against."
"I notice there is only four crescents here. Can I presume gold wher eggs are like their dragon cousins?" Bukset queried.
"Yes. While not as automatically obvious as a dragon queen egg, it has a distinctive sheen to it." She turned and opened another drawer and retrieved a shell, also lacquered and held it up so it caught the light refracted from outside. The eggshell glittered wetly, a bronzish cast the other eggshells were bereft of.
"This was Vuthosk's eggshell. None of Tegrramsk were large enough to salvage for samples." She smiled wryly.
"What became of those shards?" Bukset asked curiously. Tegrram laughed. "Made them into jewelry. Smith Harral has a solution he uses to strengthen them, then set them in copper settings. It made for lovely gifts to give all my family at Turnover." She flashed the harper a smile. "Now, I'll show you how to cut the eggs so they don't break while you're sizing them."
Char trilled on her borrowed recorder and Vaeth trilled back, his baby voice mimicing the higher pitches of the fire lizards, much to the delight of Char's unintended audience.
What had started as an exercise in scales (to familiarize Char with the eight hole recorder) was first joined by a pair of green firelizards, who had chipped questioningly at her every time she missed a note. Then Vaeth got in on the action, resting his head in her lap, harmonizing with her when she attempted the first few measures of a Teaching song. Tress and several other women set up at the table next to her, a mountain of red roots in the center of the table needing cleaning.
"Don't stop, Char, you're doing great." Nene told her with a smile, peeling the vegetable in one long continuous strip.
"I don't mind helping." Char offered, quite prepared to join them if asked. She grew weary of not being able to do what everyone else was.
"Music would be the best help," Tress said with a kind smile. The bluerider's fervent desire to be useful had not gone unremarked upon by the women of the Lower Caverns. It had been Tress who had suggested to Valtree that Char become familiar with all the woodwinds, to keep her occupied.
"Do you think you could play the Hatching Suite?" Desnie suggested. While lyrically difficult, what with it's tongue twisting lyrics, the melody itself was actually fairly simple, with it's slow building crescendos. Cheerfully the women provided the words as Char pipped, and the fire lizards and Vaeth trilled in harmories octaves above the melody of the song. Nene sang a delightful tenor, singing the queen dragon's part, while Tress and Desnie sang the soprano part of the candidates, Lybae and Layna rounding out the alto part of the hatchlings.
Two new voices joined the last chorus, L'stur's fine baritone and Mistle's sweet alto.
"That was wonderful, are you practicing for a Turnover performance?" Mistle asked, shaking snow out of her loosely bound hair.
"No, no, Char here was just providing us a rhythm to chop to." Tress said with a welcoming smile as L'stur made a line for the klah warming on a fire pit shelf.
"Is it snowing out?" Char asked, as Mistle took a seat at the table, and, unbidden, picked up a paring knife.
"Blizzard's blowing in from the south. We got out of the Hold just in time." L'stur explained, as he poured two mugs and offered the first to Mistle, who graciously accepted it.
"Is blizzard flying dangerous, if you're just going to go between?" Char asked as the bronzerider selected a seat for himself.
"It can be." He replied, pulling his chair over to her. "Flying in a windstorm is always tricky for your dragon, because wind gusts don't behave like regular airstreams. "
"Airstreams?" Char had heard the term bandied about sometimes by the older riders, but hadn't the opportunity to get clarification of the term.
"Airstreams are like the currents in a wide river. At different levels they flow at different rates, but they generally stay at their different altitudes. In a windstorm the airstreams get all mixed up. Add to that snow, which the dragons can't see through, the way they can fog, and you're left in a very precarious position. Not only can't you see where you're going, you can't tell how far you've gone or how badly off course you might be." He explained as Char and Vaeth listened carefully.
Why can't I see through snow? Is it not very cold water? Vaeth surprised L'stur by broadcasting his question.
"It is, it's very cold water, so cold that it hampers your heat vision. In a bit, you should walk outside and see how far up you can see, compared to a regular day."
Oh. I shall do that then. The little blue glanced at Char, then turned and trotted out of the room.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to chase him off." L'stur said with a chagrined look. Char smiled and shook her head.
"You didn't. Reema wants me an' Vaeth to practice distant viewing more anyways. She says it's good practice." Char explained. "I have another question, though, iffin' you don't mind none."
"Flame away." L'stur sipped his klah. Beside them Tress had invited Mistle to dinner and the women traded gossip about the latest goings on, and Kestet's surprising defrocking by Conclave.
"Um... I know we're not flying yet, let alone betweening, but, when Weyrleader C'seld was here last, he went between from the ground." L'stur's smile grew strained, then vanished entirely into a quizzical expression. That's was one detail he had not known about the Benden Weyrleader's unwelcome visit.
"Ah. Well, it is possible for a dragon to go between from a stationary position." He agreed. "But it tends to be frowned upon in all but the most dire of circumstances, because you're never sure what you might accidentally take with you."
"I... don't understand."
L'stur reached over and grabbed a handful of redroot peels, and spread them along the edge of the table. "Nene, may I borrow Glest?" The woman nodded, sending the green firelizard winging over to them.
Would you explain to Glest that I need her to land atop these peels and then go between from her seated position on my command? He asked of his bronze.
She understands. Joith informed him.
L'stur pointed to the seated green.
"Dragons, just like firelizards can go between from anywhere. If you please, Glest." The green nodded, and vanished, taking a number of peels with her.
"Oh!" Char gasped, then looked about when the green reappeared, minus the peels. "Where- where did the peels go?"
"Lost between, I'm afraid. You see why going between from the ground can be dangerous?"
Char nodded, blanching.
"That said, should you ever find yourself in a situation where you are flying blind, you are to immediately fix the Weyr in your mind and go there. Here is safety, no matter what. Think you'll remember that?" It was a lesson that would get drilled into her head in the Turns to come, but it never hurt to start early.
Char nodded, then giggled.
"Vaeth says he can't see past the midlevel weyrs." She explained.
Lingual notes: 'Flame away' -the Pernese equivalent of 'go ahead'
Note: Story update schedule is listed in the story description.
Would anyone be interested in a story about wherhunters?
As always, please alert me to any misspellings or grammatical errors.