Parenthood must have the same anxieties even if you are telepathically linked to something ten times your size!

1.5.196

H'ric paced up and down on the ledge of his weyr. Jiverny had gone into labour hours ago and still there was no signal that she had given birth. Galanath had taken up station at the Star Stones, and was crouched up there, a massive bronze statue. Haveneth was fussing in the Hatching Grounds although Panath's clutch would not be laid for at least two months.

"No news is good news, I suppose," B'rnel said, coming out onto the ledge with a mug of klah. "For pity's sake, you'll wear out your shoe leather!"

"I never felt like this before."

"Well, that's reasonable, you never had this anxiety before."

"Have you?"

B'rnel stared at him. "Have I what? Oh - waited for any child of mine to be born? H'ric, old pal, I don't know if I've any weyrbrats, and that's a fact. Mima thinks there might be three that might put a claim on me, but their mothers never did."

H'ric sipped at the klah, staring out over the Weyr. "It's stupid, because women birth children all the time."

"This is your child, and that is your Weyrwoman," B'rnel pointed out, topping up the klah, and not mentioning that Sharama had added a small dose of some decoction into it. "Come and sit down, stop pacing like this, everyone can see you, and get anxious because of it."

He led his friend and foster brother into the weyr and made him sit down on the upholstered chair Lord Arun had sent at midwinter as a gift.

H'ric rubbed his hand over the rich fabric and sighed and relaxed at little.

"Sorry! Yes, I suppose it makes it difficult that Jiverny's the Weyrwoman and if anything happened to her - but other gold riders have had children, surely?"

"Yes, of course they have. And M'dor will go through this when Alissia births their child, I expect. But I agree, it's a difficult time. Did you hear from Lord Cantin, by the way, about those outlaws?"

"What? Oh yes, he wrote just the other week. It's taken him three months, but he thinks he's cleared all of them out of his land, aided by the dragons, of course."

"And your friend Ranath?"

H'ric shrugged as he put his mug down.

"I've written to him a couple of times, and although he hasn't replied directly, Lord Cantin says he doesn't harbour any ill-feeling any more. I had him investigated, you know, and he was friends with my mother's family. My uncles told me that."

He fell silent again, brooding, staring into the depths of his empty mug.

"I don't think people realise, that a man who Impresses a dragon is a man apart. He gives up his family, and lives in the Weyr family."

"I'm sure that's right, although a lot of riders do visit their birth families now and again. But I suppose a rider doesn't need his birth family?"

H'ric did not look up.

"I'd have liked to take my child to show my parents."

B'rnel sighed. "That's a useless dream, old pal, and you know it. The Weyr will be all the family your child knows, but he or she will get no less love and respect because of it."

H'ric jumped to his feet and began to pace again, and as if it had been a signal, Jiverny began to cry out in earnest in her weyr, and both men waited uselessly for what seemed like hours, before there was a tense silence and then the wail of a newborn child. H'ric seemed frozen to the spot, and B'rnel hurried to the Weyrwoman's quarters, and came back with a huge smile.

"A boy! They all look tiny and crumpled, but he'll be fine - Mima knows these things."

"A boy?"

"A potential dragon rider! Maybe a bronze, eh? You'll be starting a new line of Weyrleaders."

"They don't go in families, do they?"

"I don't know! They might do, and this one might follow you one day."

Mima beckoned him into the weyr and H'ric followed her warily, seeing Jiverny on her bed, clasping a small bundle. She looked shockingly pale to his eyes, but she was smiling, a new kind of smile, as he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"Here he is. Jerenic. Your son."

"Our son," he corrected her, and stroked a finger in wonder over a tiny fist, over a delicate cheek. "I never had any brothers or sisters, there was only ever me for my parents to fuss over."

"Well, this one will be fussed over, I guarantee you that, lovey," Mima said briskly from behind him. "You can have five minutes, and then the Weyrwoman must rest a little more."

H'ric sat down and stroked Jiverny's hand, and she smiled at him.

"It's quite different from Impression," she said. "This is - different - this is our child - we hold him only for a little while until he becomes himself."

"Has Havenenth spoken to you?"

"She has now. She stayed silent during the birth, but I could sense her in my mind, of course. Galanath?"

"He's sitting up by the Star Stones, but he's - certain - he says - this is a bronze rider!"

Jiverny laughed. "So does Havenenth! I told her she could not be so certain, she wasn't a Searching blue, but she just said complacently she was better than any Searching blue!"

"I'm sure she is, and just as proud of you as I am."

He kissed her again, and left the weyr, coming back into his own where Mima was sitting with B'rnel.

"There won't be no others, Weyrleader," she said formally.

"I guessed so. You'll be able to advise her?"

"I will do at that. There's ways, and we'll make sure she stays safe for many a long year yet, at your side."

"I was always in such awe of her - so cool and remote - "

"That's because she's older than us," B'rnel said. "Ahead of us in the training, of course, and a queen rider when we were still only weyrbrats."

He left the weyr, and Mima looked at H'ric.

"He didn't see what you meant, lovey."

"I know. I always looked at her and saw the Weyrwoman, never Jiverny herself. It's just - R'tin had to die for me to find her true worth."

Mima heaved herself to her feet and gathered up the empty mugs.

"Never you fret over it, it's the way of the world, and not something we need question. You're the leaders of the Weyr now, and you're both of you good leaders. Just be sure that dragon of yours doesn't get too fat and lazy to perform his next mating flight!"

H'ric laughed out loud, and Mima patted his head.

"Yes, and he just said rude words about me I'm sure! You get some rest yourself, now, because it can be as frightening for a man as for the woman."

H'ric went out onto the ledge and Galanath had just landed and was making himself comfortable. He swung his great head, his eyes whirling blue and green with contentment, and H'ric went and embraced that great head, scratching his eye ridges and letting go of his tension and anxieties in the mind-embrace of his dragon.