Preparation (open/G'tet esp.)

[Invisible]

Ignoring the occasional look he received for heading to the lower caverns with this woman G’tet grinned when thanked. “Sure thing. Little mystery solved thanks to me.” He winked as he said it and this time ignored the ‘way to go look’ he got from another rider who was heading the opposite way. “Ah. Before I impressed it was Garatet. More of a mouthful although when in trouble I was Gar to my mother.” He leans his head to one side and then in a falsetto voice says, “Gat and Gen get in here. Did you burn my good comforter? Did you track mud all over my fresh washed floor? Did you eat the last of the cake I was saving for your father?”

Clearing his throat he laughed. “And, of course, the answer was always yes and she knew it. I never understood why parents asked such questions. Either the child is well-behaved enough to answer truthfully and so likely didn’t do it or they’re little troublemakers like we were and would lie with as innocent an expression as you could see.” When they reached the stores he gestured for her to go before him through the door. “Yea, it can be an adjustment at first. It was hard enough getting used to carrying on two conversations at the same time. Especially when you might have to explain why you just laughed to someone who would think you mad without the knot you wear for laughing at nothing.”

[Alsivor]

Keeping her shoulders back and chin up, Aleda only smiled or ignored where she felt it fit, the looks she and G'tet were getting. "Garatet. And Gar ... like the Hold." She dropped her own head, laughing helplessly at the impression of his mother. "Sounds as if your mother is quite the woman,' the sabedoria opined with little shift of still-amused eyes towards the rider. "My father is the sort to simply lose his temper and yell. No questions. You wait until he is done yelling then explain or defy. My mother is simply quiet. Like my mentor, the sabedoria who taught me. She can do more with one look and no words than all of my father's shouting and beating of chest."

Aleda smiled at him sweetly as he ceded passage to her courteously. "Yes. I am learning that sometimes though it may seem so, most riders are not mad." Then she swept on through into the Stores.

[Invisible]

“Like the hold. She always said we caused enough trouble for more than one hold,” G’tet said with a chuckle. His expression shifted for a moment away from cheer to something darker, but he shook it off with another laugh. “My father never yelled. He just beat.” There’s another pause followed by a wink. “Not that a beating solved things either.”

He waited until he could follow her inside and then looked about. “Well, what’s first on your list?” He waved away the person working who scowled at Aleda and then shifted the scowl to the greenrider giving away the Weyr’s stuff to one of those people. “As for madness,” he got in with a grin, “No, I think we’re all quite mad. It’s just few of us can be charming about it.”

Why are you mad? Did that woman say something wrong? You should leave her then. No, Kal. Not mad that way. You make no sense the green pointed out.

[Alsivor]

"Enough trouble for more than one hold." Aleda mused on this for a moment then went on. "I think I will take that as a recommendation of you," she noted with a little uptilt of her chin as they moved through the shelves. "There is that too. Beating. I have usually been clever enough to avoid that," the sabedoria murmured softly, moving towards the area she had visited before.

"All quite mad? I make a note of it and ... charming is always a plus. Definitely a plus." Her grin answered his, warm and bright and she kept on moving towards what she had seen before, the colorful jars and bottles. "First are some herbal preparations that I do not have in large enough quantity to be of use in the situation we are supposed to face." She lowered her voice and looked at him seriously now. "Also, cloth, for making plasters for the chest cough," she explained and showed him what she had written. The list was a mish mash of regular words and a few in Noestacan. These she skipped over calling them "Caminar remedies".

[Invisible]

“I suppose looking back with a few years experience I can say it’s likely my sister and I drove our parents a little crazy. I am not sure I would have handled it any better. Perhaps if I have a child of my own someday I’ll know. At least he or she won’t be raised in that hold. We were a bit too big for it I guess.” G’tet shrugged and acknowledged the similarities in parenting style with a laugh. “No matter who we are or where we’re from I guess kids troubling their parents is always the same. Hard to not grow up wanting more. I imagine even a Lord’s child would.”

When Aleda made vocal what she needed G’tet looked around to get his bearings. “Don’t come in here often, but I should be able to find it all. If there’s not everything here we can slip over to the infirmary. Sometimes they keep a few things separate.” He led her over first to where she might find the herbs she would need. “If you can’t reach something or make out the label let me know.” He stopped there and cleared his throat. “Just meaning some of them are likely faded since it seems people go on memory more than labels sometime. No offense or anything.” She had a list, but he had no way of knowing if she’d written it. What an awkward situation.

[Alsivor]

Following along where G'tet leads, Aleda started scanning the shelves even as they continued to speak. "A little too big for the hold ..." the sabedoria considered that for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Sometimes it seems this happens with the Caminar too. Some are too big for the caravan." A slight note of regret or sadness, hard to tell which snuck into her tone then vanished as swiftly on her next words. "Perhaps. Perhaps the Lord's child longs for less even. More freedom, less wealth. It all depends."

She took down two bottles of a viscous syrup and nodded. "Here, for the coughing and easing breath." Another little nod about the Infirmary and then she shot him an amused look. "None taken. Though yes, I can read, G'tet."

[Invisible]

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a Lord Holder’s child so couldn’t say,” G’tet said with a grin. “They get ferried about by the bigger, and thus more important, dragons.” He waited behind the Caminar woman while she found what she needed. Content in the background until he needed to lead her on again. When he was assured she could read the darkness didn’t quite hide the flush of red to his cheeks. “I meant no offense. I wasn’t sure. I could barely do so when I arrived here. Just enough to make out my name and a bit more.”

Shoulders shrugging he held out his hands to silently offer to carry whatever she might want to place there. Looking around and seeing no one in sight he lowered his voice and asked, “What do you think he meant? About risking being caught? About…about making sure?” Because G’tet had gotten some bad feelings and it wouldn’t hurt to seek reassurance from someone. Surely the Weyrleader had not been implying what G’tet thought.

[Alsivor]

"I have met some when we have traded at the larger holds," Aleda explained, "especially the younger ones. And sometimes there are holders desperate to try something other than what their healers recommend when a child is ill especially and they come to me and my sisters in healing. Those are always interesting meetings," the sabedoria said slowly. "Desperation over a dying child is never a pretty thing to witness." She turned to hand off the pair of bottles to him and noted his flush. "I am not offended, G'tet. I thought it best you should know. And I'd rather see you blushing for other reasons than a simple mistake." That last a little wicked as she reached up towards his cheek to give it a little pat.

The question shifted her expression back to serious. "I do not know, G'tet. I am very uneasy about how little J'fel has told us, but I cannot refuse to turn back plague if given the chance. I felt ... that there was something key I was missing in that meeting. As if some of what he was saying ought maybe to be understood by you, the riders, but if you do not understand than I am no more wiser than you." She took a breath, held it for a moment then continued, slowly, carefully. "I am also unsure about J'fel himself. At first I simply thought him a good-looking, charming young man trying to fill britches that were much too large for him. But --" she shifted her shoulders lightly. "There was something at the end, something about his face. I don't know."

[Invisible]

“My parents lost my oldest brother to sickness when he was a baby. It was turns before my sister and I were born. I wonder if they would have been desperate enough should your type have been near? They always seemed to stuffed and stiff.” G’tet gave it a moment’s thought and then let out a sigh. “Well, perhaps it was his death that did that? But I don’t know. Better, I think, to try everything you can to save a life. No matter the chance of success. Better to know in the end that you did all you could.”

He takes the bottles and tucks them close to his stomach before grinning at the touch of his cheek. “If I could just find me a woman like you I’d turn away from my wicked life of men,” he teases with a laugh. “Well, that’s not entirely true, but a woman like you to give me a kid someday perhaps. When I’m old.” He screws up his face and hunches his shoulders to try to look like an old man. “When my voice cracks and I am too old to chase young men.” His laughter is short-lived since the conversation did turn more serious.

“Nothing. Perhaps one of the other riders, but Kalpeth didn’t seem concerned. Not that, well, it’s hard to concern her, the beautiful creature that she is.” G’tet manages a grin for his green who dozes on her ledge. “We were weyrlings together, but I don’t remember much of him. He had a bronze and I my green so we didn’t socialize much together. More from my desire than his for he never turned me away when we met up. But I never knew him well. I wonder, people with that much charm does anyone ever really know them? How do you know when the charm is ended and the real man has begun? I am uneasy about this whole thing, but I know my duty. Besides, I get to ferry around one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. How can it go all wrong?”

[Alsivor]

"I'm terribly sorry for that loss," Aleda responded lightly, true sympathy in her eyes for G'tet's unknown-to-her parents. "It can never be easy to lose a child." His next remark brings out a laugh that is good-natured but the words that follow might be a little impertinent: "Are you so desperate to continue your line that you'd go against your nature? I did not know for sure if the rumors about men on green dragons were true."

She pauses at a shelf and hunkers down, draws down a jar. "For plasters ..." she murmurs under her breath and then straightens to add this to G'tet's armload. "The colors divide you so, do they?" For remarks on charm she has more laughter. "He tries too hard which takes away a little from the natural charm. But it does make him a little harder to read." Another shelf and there's folded cloths that she counts out, takes one stack, moves that which is behind forward to fill in. "Twenty of those, in case we should be asked."

The last brings her eyes up to him and her smile, warm and genuine lights up her face. "Don't ever knock your own charm, G'tet. It's simpler and more sincere and more attractive than the Weyrleader's for it." Then the smile fades and she shakes her head. "All the beauty in the world can't stave off death."

[Invisible]

“To be honest I barely knew my older siblings that lived. Genet and I were sort of a force of our own. They say that’s typical with twins, but I never knew others to know for sure.” G’tet, for all his words, still nodded and offered a thankful smile for the sympathy. His smile shifted to something more pleasant at her other words and he even laughed quietly. “Oh, I admit it was something of a shock to find a green standing in front of me. To be honest it was not something I’d considered. I was only sixteen when I impressed and had just started to notice girls seriously. But men, well, I find I do prefer their company if given a choice, but a man’d have to be close to dead to deny a pretty woman. Rumors usually have some spark of truth and there’s plenty of greenriders who’d shudder at the thought of being with a woman. Me? If it happens it happens. But it’s not…It’s not my family I want to continue so much as it’s myself. I want a child someday for me, not for any heritage I have.”

He shook off that future child with another laugh. “But that’s for another time. I see no reason to rush responsibilities when I’ve enough right now.” Her question of colors had him shrugging and appearing thoughtful before he answered. “Well, they do and they don’t. There’s plenty that consider us greenriders the lowest of the low, but they can think that if they want. It doesn’t bother me. It just means they don’t see me coming.” He winked at the Caminar good naturedly. “I like my lot. I’ve no desire to lead a wing or have lives depending on me.” His words trailed off and he let out a little sigh followed by a rueful grin. “And yet here I am.”

[Alsivor]

"A force to be reckoned with no less," Aleda teased a little while she sorted through another stack of supplies and pulled out sachets of dried herbs. She snuck an amused look up at him, at close to dead and tucked the little cloth packets between his shirt and the faces of the jars and bottles. "I'll take it then, that you still have a pulse," she added with a bright chuckle, then tilted her head, curious about this distinction. "For you? So you wish the experience of raising a child? Or you just want to have someone like you, of your blood in your life?"

Aleda nodded at word of responsibilities. "Right now, very heavy responsibilities," she murmured with a little wrinkle of her nose. "Heavier even than leading I think, this little mission. " Her lips pursed faintly and then she lent him her attention for his views on the colors. "The lowest of the low. Hmm. No you do not strike me that way. Not low at all." His wink made her smile again and as they neared the end of the aisle she held up a finger. "One more thing I am looking for here and I think we are set for the storage rooms. And G'tet ... if the opinion of a Caminar is worth anything at all, I am glad that you are here."

[Invisible]

One hand lifts to lay fingers against the side of his neck. “Still feel a pulse here, yep,” G’tet teased with a laugh. Asked about his hypothetical future child he pursed his lips for a moment. “It’s not just my blood. I have my sister, you see? It’s…enough for family. Only it’s not the same thing. You’re right I think. It’s having my own child. Watching him or her grow up and learn to walk and how to talk. Someone to teach things to. Who’ll look up to me. You know, at least until he or she learns to rebel against parents.”

“I had considered saying no,” G’tet admits with a shake of his head. “Guess I had duty drummed into me too well growing up.” He pauses to consider and then adds with a laugh. “Besides, who could pass up the chance to be a hero? Let’s fetch that last thing then. It will be the first of my heroic deeds in this endeavor.”

[Tabula Rasa]

It was nothing especially fancy or complicated that had Th'ane heading down to the stores. Only the need for a pot of oil of Sideraveth and perhaps a pinch of something mild an herbal to scent it with. He was expecting empty rows of shelves or, perhaps, this or that drudge gathering supplies for their work.

He pace slowed as the bronzerider walked past a long row that held not only various and useful items, but a greenrider and a sabedoria as well. And that was quite a collection of this and that they'd gathered. Brows drawn down in mild confusion, Th'ane took a few steps closer. "Greenrider," he greeted politely enough. There was a second nod, but no sort of title offered to the Caminar woman. "A bit close to the hatching to be planning a trip, isn't it?"

[Alsivor]

Chuckling, Aleda's head ducked briefly. "Good. A man without a pulse wouldn't be much fun," she answers the first with a wink. "Those sound like good reasons to have a child," she said more neutrally, turned to amble on down the shelves. "I am unsure about the need for heroics, this is something that must be done."

She was bending again to examine a label, opening a jar to sniff the contents when Th'ane drew up and Aleda's dark gaze tipped up at him, a spark of amusement in her eyes. "Good day, bronzerider," she greeted him simply and straightened, capping the jar and adding it to G'tet's armload. "Is the hatching to be so soon, then?"