Thanks for the comments! Firelizardkimi, I added that bit about Moreta riding Holth just for you :) And Mantlady, your HG/Pern encouragement might be a dangerous, dangerous thing ...
Title: Dolphineers
Author's notes: An AU version of the ending of Dolphins- the first thing I thought when I read Dolphins was "does Kami have a crush on Readis at the end?" Because that's the shipper in me.
Also, I'm not sure how much time passed in the book. It appears to be at least a season, though.
After the hurricane, every single person in Paradise worked a full, hard day twice over, Alemi included. So when he came across his weeping daughter pilfering coarse fishing thread into an already full storage net, he couldn't even begin to formulate a hypothesis.
Kami didn't say a word, but remained hunched on the ground as he silently inspected her burden. "Nets, combination knives, a first aid kit, shears, matches," he identified. "Blankets and sewing thread, rope, oilcloth, cooking pots and- is that Aunt Temma's jungle blade?"
"Yes," Kami said. "Her's was the best. But I've also stolen-" her voice cracked on the word. Kami had always been a good girl, and it hurt Alemi to see the shame in his daughter's eyes as she admitted her theft. She cleared her throat, raising her chin defiantly. "Stolen your metal spearheads and your axe. And more," she finished, lifting a fold of cloth to show him a neat bundle of line and bent wire.
Alemi crouched next to her, rocking back on his heels a bit in his exhaustion, and automatically added a couple of extra reels of line to the pile- one line was never enough, in his experience. Better to have a spare or two.
Her father's quiet, kind silence was broken by a whispered confession. "Readis is leaving the hold," Kami told her father. Despite her tears and lowered voice, her voice hit the air like controlled flicks of a steel blade. "He told me that Lady Aramina forbade him from seeing his dolphin friends again, and he rode out on Delky with only the clothes on his back."
Alemi reeled backward, landing on his rear. By rights, he ought to report this to his Holder, to go after the boy and haul him back. But Readis was like a son to him, and as the years passed, had become an intelligent comrade in informal dolphin studies. To separate Readis from the sea and dolphins was unimaginable ... and cruel. "Anything he needs," he ended up saying, "take it."
Kami launched herself toward him, and Alemi found himself wondering just when his little girl had grown up. "I know nothing about this," Alemi warned her. "Tomorrow, you must go to Jayge and tell him you saw Readis leave on his runnerbeast."
His daughter smiled sweetly, looking all of her tender eighteen years, and Alemi could almost forget the fierce, competent young woman who had packed the incredibly efficient survival gear. "Of course, father," she said, as the last of her weeping cleared from her face. "I think he went North, or West perhaps. Headed towards the sea, or the river?" she added vaguely, and ended with another innocent smile.
"Perfect," Alemi told her, laughing. After one last hug he stood up, stretching his weary body. There was still much left to do, and Readis was in good hands, whether he knew it or not. Which he didn't, Alemi rather thought, and smiled. Perhaps someday Readis would be his son after all.
The next morning, Alemi did not suspect anything until he found two safety vests missing. He tore into his hold and found his daughter's room empty, with a few items of clothes and shoes missing, and a hastily written note:
Dear Father,
You told me to take anything I needed for Readis.
I think he needs me.
I promise I'll come home. I love you and I'm sorry.
Kami
Alemi hid the note amid his personal papers, which Kitren never touched. When Kami did not emerge for the morning meal, Alemi let his wife gradually discover their daughter's absence, and wondered if he would ever have the courage to tell her what he had done.
Readis liked to think himself a modern man of Pern, and readily admitted that he would have been in dire trouble had it not been for Kami's strategically chosen supplies and marvelously bossy expertise.
Within a few days of finding the caves and tide pools, she had cleared an inner cave for Delky, fashioned a sturdy "door" of sorts to prevent the entry of predators, built a small oven from rocks and clay, and drawn up plans for a garden. Together, they gathered and crushed brightly colored round fruits, mixing the bitter rind with the sticky juice and pulp inside, and spread the resulting goo around the perimeter of the cave's multiple entrances. Hopefully the scent would deter felines, who according to Aivas abhor citrus, even if it did attract a vast number insects. Along with Readis's fish traps and carefully built enclosures for live fish storage, the cave had quickly been transformed into a rather comfortable- if plain and primitive- home.
Kami had only stitched one frond-filled mattress, and when he noticed this, Readis had offered to sleep on the beach for the first night. She had given him the oddest look, and it wasn't until she had taken off all her clothes and pushed him onto the blankets did Readis realize he not only had a hold of his own, but a wife as well.
Alemi sent his fire-lizard to Harper Hall, to seek the advice of the only person he knew to ask. To his surprise, within half an hour, Menolly wriggled down the side of a patient, hovering bronze dragon to land on the deck of his ship.
"Dear brother," she said, and held him as he cried. "When I ran away, I didn't promise to come back. She did, and she will."
Exactly half of the pod of dolphins wanted Readis to be their communal dolphineer, while the other half chose Kami. He suspected they had agreed to this ahead of time, using their private underwater dolphin language, so neither of the humans would feel hurt and unwanted.
"Only until more more more," Cal insisted. "Then each have own dolphineer. Then no sharing!"
Again, Loki leaps, the rope snug between her teeth, and the clapper merrily slams against the side of the dolphin's bell.
Again, Delky's terrified scream echoes through the caves louder than the peal of the bell.
"Readis, for the love of little dragons, can't we put the bell outside the cave?"
To be fair, it was Readis's dream of founding a Dolphin's Hall. Kami, despite her ingrained love of the sea, enjoyed the dolphin's friendship but couldn't dedicate the same enthusiasm to the craft as her lover. With the agreement of her half of the pod, Kami resigned her formal partnership and instead turned her mind to, as she wryly called it, "running the Crafthall."
Landing School had provided an education too broad to hone any one specific craft; instead, the repertoire instilled discipline and quickness of mind. Both served Kami well as she secured the hold, drawing upon historic examples and executing her ideas by means of trial and error.
Among other minor achievements, Kami was especially proud of her fence, based off of Aivas's description of cavalry and defense tactics. Sturdy bambu poles spaced at intervals provided a low frame, while sharpened rods were dug into the earth at an angle. Homemade rope bound each individual piece together, until the whole was strong enough to hold significant weight. With a ditch directly in front of the fence, and nearby trees and branches cleared around the area, Kami felt her garden and Delky's haven was reasonably feline-safe.
Of course, finding a very dead, very impaled feline was an added reassurance. The spotted creature had tried to leap over the ditch and the fence. Once she figured out how to cure the hide, it would make a lovely addition to their home.
In the late afternoon, both Readis and Kami would swim with their friends, to bathe and relax and exchange stories. The formation of this pod, it seemed, had remarkable similarities to the formation of Paradise Hold. Cal was the leader, assigned to the area by the mysterious "Tillek," while Tursi and Loki were siblings who had been shifted to this pod when their mother's group had began to grow too large. Their younger sisters Tini, Josi, and Sandi had then followed, with older aunts Rena and Leta accompanying to aid Cal in training a relatively young pod. (No one could explain exactly how Delfi had chosen to join the group. Her relatives were mostly at Cove.)
"It's just like Temma and Nazer, and Swacky," Readis said sadly, referring to his aunt and uncle who had relocated to the Southern continent.
"And my father," Kami added, feeling the twin pangs of melancholy and grief.
The five sibling dolphins leaped and chattered in elaborate sympathy. "Can be lonely, without family," said Tini, who had never been without her sisters and brother.
But Delfi rolled around the two humans, before stopping to aim a bright round eye at both of the humans in turn. "Sometimes must make own family," she told them, wisely. "I know."
Kami wrapped a slippery arm around Readis's wet torso, leaning into him as they tread water. "We know, too," Readis replied.
Leta, the oldest dolphin in the pod and mother of six, circled around Kami several times before poking her nose into the flat, human belly. "Baby inside."
The next day, the pod and Readis went on a coastal expedition, which turned out to be a brazen lie on the dolphins' part. As a responsible pod leader, Cal instead swam Readis to a private cove to discipline the young dolphineer while the others waited a polite distance in the open ocean.
"Have not swam the Great Subsidence," she told him, smacking him with her tail as she churned the water around his moving arms. "Not supposed to mate until tested through the current."
Readis inched a little closer to shore. With his good leg, he could just touch the sandy bottom. "Humans don't do it that way, Cal," he said. "We prove it to each other, and then make a baby, and then we raise it and take care of it. That's all."
"Prove it?" Cal squeed, ominously. "How prove it?"
A teenaged boy's rough description of an espousal thus followed. The dolphins, excited beyond measure by this new game, rushed Readis home in record time. Loki rang the bell wildly until Kami approached the water, whereupon Tursi pulled her in by the hem of her skirt.
If Kami was initially confused as to why Tursi insisted on dragging her down a corridor of ecstatic dolphins to "give her away," she gasped with realization when Cal began a simple, heartfelt marriage ceremony.
"Now you kiss husband and wife," Cal demanded at the end, and they obliged, gladly.
While the concept of marriage between two individuals was new to the dolphins, Readis' description of the fostering system resonated very strongly within the pod. The child, gestating quietly in Kami's belly, was regularly referred to by the pod as "our baby."
The fever was catching. With permission from Cal, Josi took leave from the pod for four sevendays, in order to visit the Tillek and to take on the Great Subsidence. When she returned, two young males followed in her wake, competing for her affections. One slunk away- Readis never did learn his name. Jimi, sleek and triumphant, decided to remain with the pod for the time being, and quickly established rapport with the other expecting father of the pod.
"Swim with me, Readis," Theresa said, and Readis obeyed, pulled out of the tidal pool and into open ocean. To his surprise, Kami was already with the rest of the pod, her safety vest fastened over her best remaining cotton dress. They approached the tide with great speed until they caught sight of two large boats rising above the waves.
"Theresa, you're the Tillek?"
Readis was hauled aboard, dripping, followed by Kami, who was immediately swept up into a hug by her father. The sea water plastered her dress to her increasing waist, which did not go unnoticed by anyone on board- but especially Alemi.
"I don't know whether to hug you or kill you," he told Readis, only half joking, before thumping the younger man on the back.
Readis tried to grin, but only succeeded in looking queasy. "We did get married," he said hastily, and his pod noisily affirmed this from the water.
"Married?" his mother cried, aghast. "When did this happen?"
The two delinquent dolphineers exchanged a loaded glance, and Kami's hand crept unconsciously to her belly. "Well," Readis hedged, "soon enough. Cal, our pod's leader, did the ceremony."
"And it was lovely," Kami added.
"Married by shipfish," Aramina muttered, to Readis's dismay. "Does it even count, legally?"
Perhaps Aramina hadn't meant for herself to be heard, but the Tillek nonetheless surged higher in the waves and held herself aloft near the ship's railing. "As I understand it," the Tillek said, words clipped, "the criteria should be fulfilled. Cal's rank is equivalent to that of your holders, and her function also encompasses a journeyman harper's duties within a hold. She also reported the marriage through dolphinsong, which was passed along through the pods until it reached me at my residence."
"Which is more than each hold is required to do," Menolly added, seeing Aramina's mouth begin to open in protest. "Harpers usually do send their records to Harper Hall, but in remote holdings or holds that have no resident harper, marriages are considered valid even when documented only in hold records. Holds are, after all, autonomous."
"Like pods," the Tillek added, serenely, though Readis imagined he saw a wicked twinkle in her eyes.
His father gave a barking laugh. "You're just mad," Jayge said, with the reckless bravado of a much younger man, "that you didn't get to see it!"
Aramina huffed and huffed, sputtering incoherent replies, before breaking into tears and clutching her son to her. "I didn't get to see it!" she suddenly sobbed, and began to laugh as well.
After a brief pause, in which every other person on the boat (harpers, holders, craftmasters, and especially dolphineers) exchanged a loaded, relieved look, the whole deck burst out in celebration.
"Aramina, mother of Readis."
The woman named walked slowly to the railing of the ship. "Yes?" she answered, warily. The others were taking refreshment on the other end of the deck, while Kami was having a brief prenatal checkup below deck with Master Oldive.
The Tillek, floated idly in the water, inspecting Aramina first with one eye and then the other. "I do not know what to think of you."
Aramina opened her mouth, thought about what she should say, and closed it again. "I don't know what to think of you, either," she admitted.
"Thank you for your honesty," the Tillek replied, cordially, before something in her expression shifted. Aramina hadn't thought dolphin faces could ever look anything less than friendly. "That is, after all, the only thing we can hope from you."
"What do you mean?"
Other silvery shapes joined the large dolphin, looking up at her. "You were afraid, so you hated us," the Tillek said, plainly. "You could hear us, but you decided not to listen. Our children were dying, and you would have let them die. You would keep Readis miserable on land so that you wouldn't have to confront your own fears. You embody the ignorance and prejudice Readis will need to work against, in order to forge the acceptance and recognition of his Dolphin Crafthall."
Aramina wanted to back away, return to the safety of the human crowd on the other end of the boat, but her clenched hands were fixed to the railing. She felt held in place by the calm, all-too-aware, eye of the inexorable Tillek. She wondered what a meeting between Lessa and the Tillek would be like, and who would emerge dominant in a battle of wills, and decided she would rather be anywhere else on Pern instead.
"You are Mother-of-Readis, and that is all you are to us," the Tillek continued. "We will treat you with respect, according to tradition and duty. All dolphins will ensure your safety and well-being in the ocean." Despite her words, no guarantee had ever seemed less reassuring.
"Thank you," Aramina managed to say, and after the dolphins had swum away to the prow of the ship, she leaned over the railing and vomited.
The Dolphin Crafthall, for the time being, would be working very closely with the Harper Hall and Fishcraft Hall. Quarters were being built to house a number of rotating apprentices and journeymen, each of whom would be spending six weeks with Kami and Delfi, the official dolphin representative. Kami had designed a crash-course in Dolphin Studies, including a brief history, basic anatomy and first aid, and communications segment; she hoped one day that each boat would have a dolphin-certified communicator on board.
T'lion and Gadareth, when not fighting Thread, spent much of their free time shuttling visitors to and from the Dolphinhall. T'lion accepted that, for the time being, full time dolphineer training must not take preference over his traditional dragonrider duties. Instead, Gadarath claimed a cliff cave as his weyr, and the two spent their evenings in the sea, awaiting the end of the Pass.
With the birth of James, named after the famous settler Jim Tillek, T'lion found that he was asked to transport Aramina more and more often to the hall. Readis found her to be a very doting grandmother to little James, which helped Kami free up time to essentially design Pern's future attitude toward dolphins.
When he told her how glad he was that she was comfortable with dragons again, Aramina merely smiled, looked toward the sea, and agreed with him.