A Weyrwoman's Duty (Salina)

[Omnia Munda]

It was a crisp, cold dawn and the mist that hung in the air stung faces and chapped hides with microscopic pellets of ice. It cast a pale shroud over the Weyr, reaching up the slopes of the mountains that rose beyond the walls of the bowl.

J'fel hung an elbow over the fence and propped a boot up on a lower rail, bending his knee against the one in the middle. Like a proper cowboy, as if he were Keroon born and bred, he leaned there, staring out across the feeding pens. All he needed was a broad-brimmed hat to wear and a piece of hay to chew - and an absence of a sleek bronze dragon terrorizing the beasts within the pen - to complete the pastoral scene.

Winter was coming, and Jordeth could feel it in the chilly gasps of air that filled his wings as he swooped and rose and descended again, each time thrilling to the fear in the beasts below him. They galloped and reared, throwing muddy clods of snow and ice, and Jordeth let the most spirited of them live. He was winnowing out a weak creature, looking for one that wouldn't survive the winter anyway. Eating was only an excuse to be here, anyway.

It is a wonderful morning to dine, he informed Deoneth without preamble, his mind a serpent slithering silently through the tangled thoughts of weyrling dragons both wakeful and asleep. To the little queen alone he spoke; with her alone he shared the sensation of soft flesh giving way at last to his paws' grip, the hot pooling of blood around his talons as he dragged the beast to the ground. We would be honored if you would join us this morning. Jordeth paused, poised with paws spread over his thrashing prey, to tip his head for a view of his rider, a black silhouette against the gray morning, that he could share with the weyrling gold.

Then the bronze bent down and bit hard the neck of the herdbeast. He gave his head a shake and a wet crack's ugly echoes bounced off the walls of the bowl. The cow ceased her struggling and lay limp, blood spreading red across the snow.

[Xinnai]

Deoneth was on the edge between sleeping and waking when Jordeth spoke with her. Mind snapped into full consciousness as the gold pushed to her haunches, mind raptly absorbing the sensations that the bronze relayed to her.

It would be a pleasure to join you and Yours, the queen replied smoothly at once. She had not spoken at length with Jordeth and found it extremely impolite to reject such a cordial invitation.

Minutes later, gold and rider were exiting from the barracks. Salina still had the vestiges of sleep lingering about her eyes in the form of the tender shadows that lingered beneath them. Chin pulled down to her jacket and the thick scarf that blossomed from it.

The girl arrived along the pens within a few moments, hands pushed deep into pockets to avoid the chill. The season had turned chill, had turned cold. She could feel the ice that pricked at exposed skin, making breath come sharp.

What a way to wake up in the morning.

The weyrwoman slid alongside J'fel, silent and still beside him as her queen flapped awkwardly into the paddock, wings flapping to bring her golden body into flight. The sight still made Salina immensely proud. Deoneth had been experimenting as of late, attempting to fly as the others did. Still young, she was an adolescent gangly and unaccustomed to her size. But she would grow. She would learn.

Deoneth landed and looked over to the bronze who had called to her. The feelings that his images had stirred within her rose. She wanted to feed as he did. But...Would you show me? I have not, as yet, tried to hunt as you do.

A puff of breath stirred from Salina's lips, hanging like the mist that still swathed Telgar. Shoulders hunched, trying to gather more warmth within her petite frame. She looked so slim, so small, in the dawn.

"Good morning," she murmured. "It's nice to see you." Words that came up lame to the tumultuous thoughts that were stirring, but were enough for now.

[Omnia Munda]

By the time Salina and her young queen had emerged, Jordeth had used agile fangs and clever talons to separate from the body of the beast he'd slain a great rear haunch, heavy with meat. It lay a couple of feet from the main carcass, the space between a bloody trail melting into the clean white snow.

Eat first, the bronze suggested, his mind less slithery-serpent now, warmer and kinder. His eyes whirled brightly, too quickly, as he considered the gangly gold, and then he bent his head for a bite of steaming flesh from the cow's side. It will settle your belly, and warm you. Then we will hunt another one, together, while they talk.

And talk they would, evidently. "Good morning, my lovely," replied J'fel, not turning his head. But he knew she was there beside him; that much was clear in the crook of a smile that held tight in the corner of his mouth, and even more so in the deep, rich delight that infused his greeting. She might as well have woken up beside him, sleep in her eyes and hair bed-messy, to earn such a tone from the blue-eyed weyrleader. That, then, had not changed.

"I wish you were a weyrling in easier times," he said without further preamble, less smoky but no louder, voice still held in private pitch for her ears alone. At last he tilted his head the least bit, sneaking a sidelong look at the girl beside him, bundled up against the cold. J'fel smiled. "I've hardly done my duty by a new weyrwoman."

There was gentle irony in that, as if he might have said instead 'by a lover' or the like, but of course he did not.

[Xinnai]

Deoneth regarded the meaty haunch, eyes whirling a bit faster by now. It looked appealing, very appealing. Head cocked as she watched this new mentor. Head snaked out, following his example, fangs tearing into the meat and pulling at it, taking in one still-hot bite. A small grumble of appreciation stirred and the gold bent, taking another bite. This is good. Much better than the meat we had before. She was excited to hunt, doubly more so because it was Jordeth who would teach her.

Salina flicked a glance at J'fel, tongue pressing to her cheek as she leaned against the railing, watching Deoneth and Jordeth. The was at about half-growth now, and wasn't so much dwarfed by the bronze as she was out massed. Smile curled for a moment.

Head pillowed on her arms along the top railing, Salina turned to look at J'fel, one brow arched questioningly. Nothing had changed much among their relationship then. Except that he did choose to say weyrwoman rather than lover. For now, she'd let that question settle.

"You've done well enough," was her rejoinder, words slightly soothing. "As for the hard times...Others have faced harder and still done superbly. I have done well enough with pressing circumstances." A slight shrug. She wasn't going to say she was some sort of hero; she wasn't. Just a weyrwoman who had a deal with politics much earlier than the norm.

[Omnia Munda]

"Correct," replied J'fel, in a tone warm enough to make up for the word's efficient brevity. He turned his head at last to face her, and in so doing revealed the full depth of his expression. There was heat in his gaze, to be sure, and he did nothing to restrain from a quick downward look that took in Salina's shape, bundled against the cold. But there was something weary and worn there, too, perhaps in the curve of his smile or in premature lines hinted at in his brow.

That brow now furrowed. "I hope I have done well enough to have your support, Salina. I need it. I have a task for you, but it will be difficult to ask you to do it well without your belief in its necessity."

This said, J'fel turned again to watch the dragons, putting his chin down on the arm he had draped on the top rail of the fence. On the other side, Jordeth gloried slowly in mouthfuls of wet, body-warm herdbeast, the occasional and rare rumble testaments to his satisfaction. They're nervous, just now, he informed the young gold, watching her sidelong as she ate. A gesture of his mind indicated herdbeasts, the creatures whose breath steamed and hooves stamped against the chill farther down the field. It will make them dangerous, somewhat, when we approach again. Better done on the wing.

It was the beginning of a plan of attack, and an invitation for Deoneth to contribute ideas.

[Xinnai]

Face-to-face, the junior weyrwoman was sure that that aspect of their relationship had not changed in their numerous sevendays apart. Other parts had. He needed her now, needed her belief, when before he had just needed the physical aspect of her. Other things had changed as well. The boy weyrleader looked older now, older than he had from their moonlit walk from six months ago. J'fel was reflecting the strain from his role now. Salina had changed as well, in less apparent ways that still managed to scream of their importance. She was older, she had matured in noticeable, if subtle ways. And he needed her?

Brows rose in slender questioning to that once more, as she reached out, tracing those slight wrinkles that indented his brow, attempting to smooth them away into oblivion. They didn't belong there, not on such a youthful and charming face.

"I trust you," she murmured simply, breath exposed as white puffs of air in the dawn chill, blowing about her skin and stinging at it with their added moisture. "What do you want me to do, exactly?"

He turned then and she let her fingers drop, burrowing them into the warmth of her pockets, turning also to look at their dragons, gathered side by side over the separated carcass of Jordeth's kill.

Deoneth took another mouthful and another, feeling the meat quench a stomach that had begun to feel the ache of hunger from her last feed. The gold received the image Jordeth sent her, relishing in the thought of taking down one of those beasts still alive. On wing, she voiced in assent. What would we do then? Separate and cull out one? She had no idea what she was doing, but she had vague ideas of what to do.

Salina sighed in pleasure at watching, absorbing the simple moment. It was comprised of just a man and a woman, and two dragons, alone all together in the morning, before all of life stirred within Telgar. "They look good together," she commented lowly.

[Omnia Munda]

"I think we might see if they work well together, too," said the weyrleader, not without a smile. It was a gentle aside, spoken in a different tone than what came after.

"Prove yourself a leader among your classmates." It was J'fel's reply to Salina's simple question, but his mouth wrapped around the words with knowing, wry twists, and his brows twitched wildly with a skittish amusement. It was a rhetorical response, provided for ironic effect, not instruction. The weyrleader drew a breath, a slow one, inflating his lungs with ice-crystal-laden air.

Refreshed, he shifted his arms, hanging an elbow up on the fence rail and turning again directly toward the young weyrwoman. "Which you already do," he assured her. "That you, at least, feel great respect for Weyr and riders is obvious, and I thank you for that. It makes my position with Aderes easier."

J'fel's gaze rested upon Salina a silent moment. He would let her think of that what she would.

Ideally, yes, replied his more taciturn dragon, savoring another thick chunk of meat, indifferent to bits of bone: he was more than capable of digesting what he could swallow. But the kill he'd made was growing thin, and he stretched to his feet, knees unbending and tail lashing a slow pendulum's tick.

Only when desperate or blooding is it worthwhile to risk alighting inside the strength of their numbers. They are small, and here the bronze tipped his head to let one whirling eye focus sidelong on the beasts milling near the edge of the herd. A drifting thought conveyed a dream of sharp hooves and bared teeth beneath flaring nostrils and panicked eyes flying like spikes from a stampede of dusty snow. But not harmless.

[Xinnai]

Shoulders hunched against the cold as the girl futilely tried to warm her ears, watching the two dragons within the pen with marginal curiosity. The bulk of it was stretched toward the man beside her, wondering what on all of Pern he would ask of her.

A nod was her reply before Salina turned toward J'fel, eyebrows raised once more in question. Lips twisted to one side. "Thank you for your confidence in me." Smile spread, her body pivoting to face him again. She wanted to ask after the senior weyrwoman, instead holding her tongue. "Is there anything else you needed?" Voice was soft and muted, but there was an unbidden warmth to it, the kind that turned every word into a caress. Unintentionally, of course.

Deoneth's long neck stretched out to take another bite, watching the great bronze who was her companion this morning. When he stood, she followed suite, feeling pleasantly fed. The gold listened with rapt attention, a low sound of agreement issuing from her chest. That makes sense... She felt a mental wince from the image that was transferred to her. What would you have us do then?