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 Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 1:45 pm
He'd seen it from a doorway he'd passed on the way to dinner. By now settled and used to the routine of life in the Weyr, there were still hundreds of rooms it seemed Laflan had not explored yet. This one, which was situated off a slightly less trafficked hall, seemed to be a storage room of some sort. Fashioned like so many others he'd stumbled across, it was nothing interesting...except the strange light he'd seen against one wall. Fear of being late and missing the better food choices he'd hurried on. Only when it was later, and the candidates had been turned loose for the evening before last chores had he returned.
The room had been some sort of...messenger area at one point, he'd determined, but been converted to storage sometime since. In the far wall, out of sight from the door, were several small holes, through which the light was coming. None were very large, and peeking up he could see an outcropping of the wall of the cliff protected them from wind and rain, and likely thread. He wondered if they'd been meant for firelizards, as they seemed the right size...
Of course his other observations paled when he realized that, miraculously, the holes offered a nearly perfect view of the weyrbowl, and with it, the hatching sands. He'd missed the touching by mere days, and so he hadn't been able to resist gawking with one eye pressed to the holes for several minutes. He could see the eggs...
He pulled away, and frowned. He probably should tell someone about having found this place...but then, the door had been opened. Surely he wasn't the first to find this convenient lookout point.
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:28 pm
Ennrik was a little embarrassed to realize that all his explorations of the Weyr had never brought him to this portion of the Weyr, despite the fact that the corridor bore evidence of having been recently used, though not heavily. And so, since he had some free time, he decided that it would be a good time to explore. He pushed the door open carefully, trying to avoid letting its hinges squeak. When he'd been here earlier in the day the door had been partly ajar, and he had left it that way, but now it wasn't. Fun. At least it wasn't locked. He didn't have Mal's gift for opening locked doors.
He slid the door open and saw a young man, perhaps a few years his junior, with his face plastered to the wall. That was unusual behavior. Unless there was something spectacular about the particles of stone which made the wall or the young man was playing a game of Hiders and Seekers and he was the Seeker. But then Ennrik would probably have heard soft counting as he opened the door, and he hadn't. It was always possible, of course, that this was one of the rare folk who was proficient enough with numbers that he didn't need to say them aloud, but Ennrik had met precious few of those. Educations varied greatly across Pern, he had learned over the span of his life. His own in his hold had been fairly deficient, and reading and figuring had been a struggle.
When the young man pulled back wearing a frown Ennrik was able to see the fascination in the wall: holes that could be peered through. He didn't know what the view might be, but spyholes were always interesting, even if someone else had found them first. Of course someone had found it first: the Weyr was centuries old, the likelihood of finding anywhere that no one's boot had trodden was practically nonexistent. He recognized the young man, he reminded himself: Laflan. He had arrived after the Touching.
"Bathers?" Ennrik asked, keeping his voice low and humor-filled as he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. The low tone was to avoid being overheard and discovered by others. He'd been informed which areas of the Weyr were off-limits early on, but he'd never been shown where they were, and so he was fairly confident he'd been in some of them as he explored. "Or eggs?"
Those were pretty much the two choices he could come up with. As he tested his mental map of the Weyr, he determined that it was probably eggs, but he could be mistaken. The labyrinthine corridors turned lots of people about, and Ennrik's sense of direction was not infallible.
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:23 pm
Laflan gave a start and whirled around, prepared to either feign innocence or explain himself..."Ah, Ennrik!" He relaxed a bit and slumped back against the wall, one hand on his chest. "You gave a fair start, coming in so quietly." His frown took a different note, as if partly amused, partly insulted that the senior boy would think he'd dare to peek on bathers. "Eggs," he confirmed, and pulled away, motioning with a hand for Enn to have a look.
"The door was open, and I wanted to see what'd been making the light. Seeing as I missed the touching, I'm glad I looked...It's the first I've seen them, you know." He'd taken another of the holes and glanced down. He could see the queen from here, and he pulled back after only a moment. Best not to get into trouble. "I think the holes were made for firelizards originally...I don't know what else could have fit in them."
Though his sensible side registered that if he and Ennrik had both found this room today it would stand to reason at least one or two others would have the same idea and shortly be upon them (and that would mean the best idea would be to get out of dodge now,) his curiosity was not so easily sated. He'd never seen dragons eggs before, and was reluctant to leave. The next time he came the door might be locked, and who knew, aside from the hatching, what his next chance would be...
"Have you been to many hatchings, Ennrik? I feel like getting here late has left me...unprepared. I don't want to make a fool of myself, at the very least." He'd considered going to the candidate master for help, but he'd seemed so busy every time he'd had the notion to...maybe the older man could help.
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:44 pm
Ennrik made a politely dismissive gesture at Laflan's invitation for him to look at the eggs. He had seen them, and though he had opted not to peek at them before the Touching, he felt he had seen them enough. Besides, he'd felt nothing when he attended the Touching, and from what he'd heard from most of the Candidates, there had been something to be felt. He just wasn't empathic enough to form a connection with the unborn dragons. The fact that he knew himself to have other skills kept this from bothering him unduly.
"All right. Eggs it is," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'll also leave the viewing of the precious things to you."
He leaned against the wall beside the door to continue the conversation. This place was very nice in that it afforded privacy and a view of the Hatching Sands, but it was sadly lacking in places to sit, and after a day's hard work, Ennrik was particularly uninterested in supporting even his relatively minimal weight. So he let the stone wall do some of the work.
"Firelizards are a possibility. But I'd bet my marks on some very determined Candidates and several sleepless nights, myself. The lure of dragon eggs is very strong." It really was. Even though he oscillated between surety that he would Impress and equal surety that he wouldn't, the thought that he might was a powerful thing. Even being able to say he'd been Searched was something noteworthy. It meant that blue Dimeth had found something in him that made an impression, even if it didn't lead to Impression.
"I've never been to a Hatching before, Laflan, but I don't think you could do anything to make a fool of yourself at a Hatching. At least, I don't think you could do anything original to make a fool of yourself." He had similar concerns, actually, and this was what he tended to tell himself. Though his fears were more that he would faint under the pressure of stage-fright and be trampled by a dragonet intent on getting to its bond.
"Dragons have been Impressing on humans for so long, I'm pretty certain every embarrassing thing there is to do has been done, and I don't think it's ever affected anyone's chances of Impressing. That lies with the dragons, who apparently don't care if you forget to bow to a queen or if you have your robe on backward, or any of the other things you might worry about."
He rolled his neck to work out some kinks. "Which of the eggs do you like the best, from what you can see?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 4:38 pm
"You think?" Laflan felt at the holes a moment. "They must have worked at the ma while, they don't feel like they've been chipped at. And if they were, those were some lucky candidates. There's an overhang just above these holes, for keeping rain and thread out, I'd suspect." Still not sated, he turned back to the eggs, peering out at them.
"I suppose that's true," He called back over one shoulder. "Still, that doesn't mean I'll be any less embarrassed if I wear my robe backwards. You're right though. I don't think something like that would deter a dragonet."
He paused to look a bit longer, and thrilled when the queen started to turn her eggs, revealing them each in turn, almost as if she'd heard the question and wanted to show her brood off. Silence took him as he watched...which called out to him? Did any? He'd heard some of the boys speak of feeling something when they touched the right one (how they knew it was the right one was beyond him)...would it work with just looking?
At first none seemed particularly interesting...sure, they were gorgeous eggs, each of them, and the colors on some were amazing. The one was almost exactly the colors of his home hold: yellow and orange, but it seemed no more 'right' than any other one...A shift of sand caught his eye as a smallish egg, but surely not the smallest. It was nondescript, a plain brown and unremarkable from this distance.
"That one, maybe," He mumbled half to himself. "The all brown one. And you?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 5:11 pm
Ennrik shrugged, even though Laflan couldn't see him. To clarify, he added, "It's a possibility. Curious people will go to a great deal of effort to satisfy their curiosity. And depending on how old the holes are, they could have been worn smooth by lots of hands or tools. Or acid." There were endless possibilities. "Or I could be totally wrong. It could be firelizards, like you supposed."
Ennrik rested the back of his head against the wall behind him. There had been similar places in Harper Hall, too. Places where a person could spy on others. He and his mates had thought themselves very clever for discovering them, and been utterly surprised when they were caught by Masters and Journeymen, who had been inclined to similar exploratory excursions in their youth. He recalled one memorable instance where he had actually found a Master utilizing one of the spyholes to listen in on another's rehearsals. But that was almost understandable: the Masterharper had posed a competition for whose work would be performed at a gala hosted at Fort Hold. The spying had done him no good. His piece had come in third.
It was entirely possible that Laflan would spend his entire evening here, staring at the eggs. At least until the sun set and it grew too dark to see them. He might stare at the brooding queens into the night, but there wouldn't be much point in that. At any rate, Ennrik had no plans to hang around here that long, but he didn't mind making conversation with Laflan. The young man was congenial and interesting to Ennrik because he came from a fishing hold, which was completely different from anything Ennrik had experienced in his life. They'd had a discussion about boats during one lunchtime, if he recalled correctly.
"The all brown one," Ennrik repeated, reviewing the eggs he'd seen at the Touching. He had a quick mind and an eye for details, but his real skill for recall lay with aural things. He was more likely to be able to identify a barely-familiar dragon by its trill than by looking at it. And since that's how he was with all the dragons at the Weyr, he tended to think of them in those terms: Basso-Bugler, Shrill-Laugher, and the like.
"I'm afraid none of the eggs sang a song to match my soul. There's one out there that's got a bit of red on its underside? I nearly fell on my face right next to it. Couldn't tell you if the tingling in my hands was from falling on the sand or brushing the egg on the way down. I'd be inclined to say it's the former, rather than the latter reason, though."
He related the story of his fall in a self-deprecating tone and with a rueful smile. To him it was already amusing: one more tale of stage-fright that could have gone much worse. Looked at from the proper point of view, it was no tragedy, at any rate. Ennrik was experienced at looking at these things from the proper point of view.
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 7:52 pm
"True, true. I suppose you're right, of course. Regardless, it works fine now." He finally managed to tear himself away from the peep holes and turned, leaning against the wall much like Ennrik was, with his back to the holes. He sighed, feeling tired for some reason...Had he really been so excited just at seeing the eggs? Yes, yes he had...
He and Ennrik weren't the best of friends, Laflan reflected, but they got on well enough. It was hard for a boy of his history to understand how one could have given their whole lives to music and singing, but then he'd heard plenty of folk talking about it over meals. He supposed it was much like how, had he not dared the path of candidacy, he would have gladly spent his life at sea and on boats. A passion was a passion, right?
He nodded. "Aye, the brown one. Bit small, but well enough looking. It was beside one of the bigger ones. Oh, I saw that one." Oh, Ennrik had fallen? Well...at least now if Laf fell at the hatching he'd have someone to laugh over it with later. "Ah, either or. Probably the first, but we can pretend and say the latter.
A sudden image came to Laf's mind, an approaching bit of bad weather, and the feeling of wanting to be inside very much...That was all the warning he had before a squawking and twittering firelizard joined them in the darkness. It fluttered about a moment before settling...on Ennrik.
"...Nogard. I'm over here."
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:57 pm
Ennrik nodded in response to Laflan's assessment of the peephole. Now that Laflan was no longer looking through it, he was safe to communicate nonverbally. Which was just as well. Sometimes he just felt too tired to form coherent sentences. He wasn't quite to that point, but he was to the point where it required some thought to make sure he was saying what he wanted others to hear, rather than just talking. Ordinarily his mind made the transfer between thought and speech easily, but not always. His words and his wits. What a Harper lives on, as he'd been told so frequently. He believed it with all his heart. But words and wits weren't going to Impress a dragonet.
"In the future, when I'm describing the Touching to my grandchildren, I'm sure it will bear no resemblence to either explanation, and I was shoved aside by someone bigger who didn't deserve a dragon, and didn't get one, but in the meantime denied me my chance at Impression. Just to add a bit of excitement. Besides, it would hardly do for them to find out that their spry and spritely grandsire ever had a moment of clumsiness." He chuckled. He wasn't planning on having any children any time soon, and he didn't know what kind of a father or grandsire he would make, but it was something easy to joke about.
"I saw the egg you mean," he said. "I bet there's a great future in store for whichever Candidate it Impresses upon. There were a few others who took an interest in that one..."
Whatever he had been about to say completely left his mind when a firelizard burst into confined space, flying madly around for a bit before landing on him. It seemed to be the sevenday for firelizards, apparently. Gamoira's Fang had perched on him for a bit a few days ago, more interested in his music than him. He really would like to own a firelizard someday. He liked the responsive little creatures.
"Hey-o, Nogard," he greeted the firelizard, trying to sound less startled than he felt. "You've landed on the wrong one of us, I'm afraid. I'm the musical one who admires you, he's the pleasant one who feeds you." He shrugged his shoulder carefully to dislodge the blue and send him on his way toward his owner.
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Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:04 pm
"Oh, I'm sure. Fish stories get better with each telling, so I can only imagine years from now how grand this all will be." He gestured at the room. "Probably laden with traps to spring and there'll be a wingleader prowling outside...Though I suppose if I don't fly my own children's children would rather hear about shipfish." He had considered for a time trying to spend more time with those strange sea creatures, but they'd never seemed too intent on him.
He'd smiled when Nogard burst in and lit onto Ennrik. "I think that's on purpose, actually. He's not used to sharing me, and he's a bit jealous lately I think. He nearly swooped at the poor candidate master just this past sevenday...I had to promise him a whole fish later to stop him." And in the end the Master had spotted him being distracted and given him extra chores too. It'd been a trouble...
Adding to his sentiments, the blue managed to hang on through Enn's shrug before twittering and nuzzling at his face...lavishing love on the Harper while looking, pointedly, at his real owner. 'See what you're missing?' He seemed to say.
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Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:46 pm
Ennrik nodded. "I do believe Mal and I came to the conclusion that all stories are improved by the addition of shipfish."
He knew precious little about shipfish, except that people could apparently communicate with them. Or so said some. Others said it was a load of bunk perpetuated by those who refused to believe that they had reaped all they could from the findings at Landing. Ennrik preferred to think that shipfish were just fish, being loyal to dragons first and foremost, and therefore unwilling to allow another species to share the distinction of being able to communicate with humans. It was sheer stubbornness on his part, since he knew nothing about the matter.
He was more familiar with revenge. He hadn't realized that firelizards were capable of dealing with concepts so complex, but he supposed it was a fairly instinctive thing, really. Even if a person didn't know all the reasons behind their desire for revenge, the desire was natural. Hurt someone who was hurting you so they wouldn't hurt you worse. It kind of made sense. What amazed him, he supposed, was that another creature was capable of turning it into an emotional game. That was a habit he'd thought was limited to human beings. Maybe it was something firelizards picked up from their empathic connection to humans?
"It's a good thing you convinced him otherwise," Ennrik said, rubbing cautiously at the ridges over Nogard's eyes. "The Candidatemaster seems like she'd be a very bad enemy to make. Or to have your firelizard make for you."
He turned his head carefully to examine Nogard. "I find it hard to believe, though, that you're capable of eating a whole fish on your own. You'd gorge yourself too fat to fly."
Unusual though he found the idea of a firelizard trying to make someone jealous, Ennrik wasn't above showing just as much adoring attention to the blue as the firelizard showed him, though he took care not to exceed whatever boundaries Nogard may have in place regarding humans who weren't Laflan. It wasn't every day that he got the opportunity to handle firelizards, even at Ista Weyr, and he didn't want to pass it up. Even if it was playing right into Nogard's claws. Besides, Laflan didn't seem particularly jealous.
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Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:10 pm
Laflan laughed aloud, remembering the night in the barracks that discussion had gone down. "Mal always did seem interested in shipfish. Maybe if he's left standing he'll work with them. Given they'll have him, of course." Laf, being from a seahold, had seen the fish before. They rarely came in close, but he was more inclined to think highly of them, rumors of them saving fellow sailors perpetuating the myths.
"Of course. Nogard is a stubborn fellow, but he's starting to learn. I think pa's a bit amazed, his recent letter he even mentioned the bugger." A miracle in and of itself, his father had never taken to how manner-less the blue was.
Nogard, for his part, simply burbled at Ennrik. He surely had eaten a whole fish, and Laflan had 'left' him to walk his way back to their room. Of course the candidate had only walked a few paces ahead of the blue the whole way, but it had taught the fellow a thing or two about gorging with any luck.
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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:52 am
"Well, Mal's interested in anything that makes a good story. Dramatic rescues are always good for stories," Ennrik said, grinning.
Mal was one of his oldest friends, if not his oldest, but he didn't feel much guilt talking about him when he wasn't around. It wasn't as though he was saying anything that wasn't already common knowledge. Besides, he'd defend Mal staunchly if it came to it, which he doubted it would. Not with Laflan. The young man was much too amiable to get into that sort of thing, from what Ennrik had observed. It was likely that he might be more argumentative at home, and that he, like so many others, was on his best behavior at the Weyr - as if that'd have any influence on the dragons' choice - but Ennrik got a strong feeling that Laflan was just naturally agreeable.
Ennrik divided his attention between Laflan and Nogard. He had learned that firelizards don't tend to communicate in words, and therefore he didn't try to make words out of Nogard's resonse to him, but just to get the gist of what the firelizard wanted him to understand. He wasn't highly empathic, which he often thought would hurt his chances on the Sands, but something about the tones the firelizard chose to communicate with him gave him the impression that he was confirming Laflan's claim that he'd eaten the entire fish. There was something else that Ennrik couldn't get. He shrugged mentally and wrote it off to the fact that Nogard wasn't his firelizard.
"That sounds like some sort of victory," Ennrik remarked on the phenomenon of Laflan's father's reference to Nogard.
"And I think his stubbornness is part of what makes him such a charmer." He spoke directly to Nogard again and said, "I don't recommend becoming more stubborn though. There are limits to how charming stubbornness can be."
"What sort of things have you been trying to get him to learn?" he asked, directing himself to Laflan again.
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