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"Ah, yeah, well. It's a popular word where I've come, is all," Okassis chuckled. "Hegemony is like... dominance. Overwhelming dominance. Dragons being everywhere, in everything... that's hegemony. Not just the dragons even, though," his voice strained while he worked through a difficult cut, then relaxed again. "I mean to say, dragonriders. You ever wonder what sets them apart? Why the Holds look to them without thought or doubt?"

His voice was getting intense now, and he lay his knife down a moment, resting an elbow on the slick counter and gesturing with his free hand. "Is it wise for them all to be so submissive? Let's say something happens, something we couldn't understand. Every dragon goes between, never comes back. What happens to everyone else? Would that be the end?"

"Yeah." Okassis nodded heavily, his eyes going down to his hands. "Couple folks I've talked to got some real odd ideas, like the dragons bring the Thread, or the Thread birthed the dragons. But because everyone's so scared, they look to the dragonriders for everything - and because they depend on the Weyrs, it means they they don't have the feet to walk on their own," he exhaled, " and they can't stand with what they don't have. That's hegemony, what it does - it kills everything beneath it, like weeds choking a bush so that there's nothing that grows beyond the weeds."

It was probably a dangerous way for a Candidate to be talking about dragonriders, but for Okassis, it was reality. He'd been outside of Holds enough to know the sort of people that could grow away from them; he'd heard all the propaganda protesting the Weyr's dominance, and every now and again, he'd see a person that lived in their own ignorance and that unwilling word, Weyrslave, would come to mind. But dragonriders were more than what he saw, and he knew it - some intangible truth, waiting between his fingers to be held. And, looking to Tiaet, he had to wonder; was she closer to it than him? Did she know some piece he didn't?

"Of course," Okassis concluded casually, "that's just what some folk say...."

"That's sure as shells," Okassis agreed. "Once there's been a break, the system will fracture. In some ways, maybe it would be good; people in the Holds will have to wake up to their own waste. But I don't believe that Thread is gone, and that's the terror that hold everything together." Seeing Tiaet working so vigorously, Okassis turned back to his butchery as well, but continued speaking between noisy slams of the blade. "It may not be in our lifetimes, but it will come. And when that day arrives, the Holds either have to be able to fend for themselves, or they'll need the dragonriders, and Candidates - folk like you and me. And maybe if we're lucky, the dragonriders'll get a chance to prepare the Holds to fight for themselves one day. Once they've done that, though- then the revolt will happen, guaranteed."

He wiped at some sweat on his brow, repositioned his meat, and began hacking anew.

"How would you do that, though?" Okassis pointed out. He was the confrontational sort, with opinions on everything under the stars; a discussion like this was breakfast, lunch and dinner for him, and he seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly with it. "The dragons don't mate like runnerbeasts or herdbeasts. Only the strongest will breed; and the strongest are always the bigger ones, the Bronzes that can out-Bronze the rest. To try and control that is to... well, it's trying to tame a dragon. They're not livestock, you know - they have their own wills, and not even weak ones. I've always thought that it's kind of laughable that people think the riders are the masters of their dragons, personally."

"You kidding me?" Okassis laughed, either not picking up on the girl's aggravation or not taking it seriously. "If I thought all that tripe was the only future, I'd be a dimglow to be here, wouldn't I? We're all here for a reason, and I've got a feeling it's something more than continuing a fatalistic course. Don't you feel it?" he glanced up briefly, smiling, searching for response. "There's a fix. I don't know what it is yet, but it's something that we, Candidates, dragonriders, everyone, are going to find. Sure as there'll be Threadfall again, Tiaet, mark my words."

To that, Okassis had to laugh. "Well, busy ain't dead, is it?" he quipped brightly, grinning down at his handiwork before going after the hunk of meat with renewed vigor. If there was one thing Okassis was used to, it was hard work, monotonous work; the more that the Weyr had of it for him, the more at home he'd be!

"I'm surprised, though," he said aloud. "You'd think the Weyr would have more use for someone with a nose for smith crafting than cutting up meat."

"Ah, now that I can bite into," Okassis answered with a nod. "'Bout as hot here as anywhere else I've been, and that's no small sampling. I feel a mite sorry for some of the Candidates coming here from Holds way up north - never seen a sweatier bunch in my life!" He himself wasn't incredibly bothered by the heat - of course, he hadn't had to suffer under it for long yet, so that might change.

The hunk of meat he'd been hacking at was nearly chopped to its bits now; resting his knife a moment, he examined Tiaet more closely. He couldn't say he didn't like what he saw in her; strong and hard-working, grounded, and certainly friendly enough to be putting up with his chatter for so long. "So you've gotta be what, seventeen Turns, eighteen?" he asked. "How long've you been at the Weyr, anyway? Seems like there oughta be a dragon just pining for a strong gal like you."