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~~~~G'non~~

Oh, so he feels like a father, does he? And he also apparently wants to foster his son right out from underneath him? Weyrleader or no, that would not fly in G'non's books. Hell, the bluerider had a kid older than him and the young weyrleader was wanting to lay claim to his kid when Ionan already had two parents that loved and cared for him. Yes, both of his kids born in Ista had been placed in the creche, but it was for reasons that did not include that he nor his weyrmate could be bothered with raising their kids. Good reasons. Reasons that both he and Io discussed at length and agreed upon. When it came to their kids, there was little that went on without a deal of thought and consideration. G'non caught N'rin's nod and responded with one of his own.

While R'yn's tone was cheery, G'non's expression was much less so. He blinked at the Weyrleader with his mouth set in a thin line. "I heard no such announcement." The bluerider said flatly. "And I didn't forbid him from attending to the gather. There are two small chores that he was going to help me with and then he'd be free to attend the gather and have a time of it. Instead, he ran off." The man paused with a soft sigh when the twenty turn old turned his attention back to Ionan. Watching his son head off to meet Ticene, he refocused on R'yn. "Kids having nightmares when scary things can and have happened isn't unusual, R'yn. He's scared and worried and the thing that he's afraid of, neither you nor I have any control over. We can't just look up at that red star and go 'You are forbidden from ever, ever unleashing thread upon Ista or the entirety of Pern again. I, We, command it!'. Regardless of whether my son or any of our children or any of our people are scared or even terrified of threadfall, we can only fight it when it falls and make sure that those were love and care for are protected and taken care of. Ionan doesn't understand that. He's too young. He just worries for his nearest and dearest. Ionan is aware that with thread, bad things can happen. I understand that you're concerned, but there is only so much coddling and placating and accomplish. When your kid comes around and gets to be around Ionan's age, are you going to tell them that nothing will happen when thread falls? Everything will be okay and you won't get hurt, because you're they're daddy and of course everything will be alright. Will you gloss over the worst of it? Keep saying you'll take care of everything while they hear and see their friends' family and friends may well have to deal with serious wounds and or even the loss of their loved ones? 'No, it'll be okay. This too shall pass.' Hm? Bad things can and do happen to good people and it is scary. They need to know it's okay to feel that way. Ionan knows that if he's scared, he can come to me. He's welcome in our weyr any time, day or night."

G'non combed his hand through his tousled hair with a soothing, deep breath. "Ionan will accompany me to finish the chores that he has. In all likelihood, we'll be done within half of a candlemark. Afterwards, he will be more than welcome to attend this gather. I doubt the ghosts will come quite so early. If he just gets these done, he won't have to worry about it and it'll be done and over. Shards, I'll even buy him a treat of his choice if he does so, but I have said that he needs to do those things and so he shall. I hope you aren't trying to instill that it's okay to skip an appointed task simply because there's fun to be had. Ionan can absolutely have his fun here, but after he does what he's been told to do. Is that clear, R'yn, or do I have to reiterate myself?"

Well now, there was a more then pleasant surprise, here he'd almost thought that the guy would run off the moment that the fight ended instead of actually agreeing to go out for a drink with him. Instead it seemed that, regardless if T'rel went or not, that the guy was willing to go out with him, "Well, even with the peacekeeping mission now over I am sure we can still enjoy ourselves." He said, all for a good drink with a friendly, handsome man after that run in with T'rel. It hadn't gone at all as he'd been hoping that it would, seemed that he had better avoid the prickly bronzerider for a bit, hope that he perked up, and instead concentrate upon his new friend.

When the man held a hand out to him, introducing himself as Zofer, he reached out to take it in his, giving it a shake, "It's very nice to meet you Zofer, I'm G'deon." He said, then seemed to think about it, "My poison, huh? I am all for something strong, it's a Gather after all and I mean to enjoy myself to the fullest. How about you?" He could always hope that the handsome Seacrafter was of the same mind as him, might mean he could get more friendly with the man later after they were deep in their cups. It was, if you asked G'deon, a rather good plan, one that he would have been all for inacting then and there... when something caught his attention, something that caused his heart to nearly stop dead in his chest, silvery threads falling from the sky down toward those milling about, none the wiser... a rather colorful string of curses of curses escaped from his lips as his thoughts started to race. Surely this couldn't be happening he thought, instantly taking a few steps forward, about to call out to Tzo, wanting to get to battle against this stuff before it destroyed too much though given how much of it was falling there was bound to be quite a mess...

He found himself stumbling to a stop when the silvery things bounced off the surrounding people, stalls, and such, proving itself harmless, "What the...?" He muttered, squatting down he picked up a piece of the stuff, looking it over, and realized that it looked a bit like some sort of decoration. A streamer? A silver one... was this some sort of joke? If it was it was certainly in bad taste, enough so that the normally even tempered, friendly, flirty G'deon was looking around with a rather displeased look on his face. He wasn't sure who had done this but the moment he found that person he was going to kick them in the backside and put them in charge of the worst possible Weyr chores known to man or dragon he thought to himself, scanning the area for the source of the thread mimicking streamers.

With silver streamers flying around him, T'rel gave a quick glance about before grinning at Cesa. A chuckle escaped him. "We'd better leave," he muttered into her ear. "T'nus is going to think I did this if I--" he couldn't help it; he attempted to turn a hesitant laugh into a cough, and failed. "Cesa, we need to find whoever did this and congratulate them," he managed between snickers. Who was the brilliant mind behind this prank? Harmless enough with the streamers--but it had certainly invoked fear into those affected.

T'rel had lost loved ones to Thread, and did not take the idea of the Red Star's native parasite burrowing into the ground (or worse); but he did appreciate a joke. He grinned at G'deon, looking up only to find his blue firelizard landing on his head. "Were you in on it?" he asked, reaching up to stroke the firelizard's eyeridges. "You've still got streamers stuck to your claws, silly thing. You're going to make people think I was involved." He glanced in T'nus' direction before beaming at Lavi. "It's rather pretty," he commented cheerfully. "Isn't it?"

"I suppose it wasn't one of your candidates?" he asked hopefully. He was loath to punish the weyrling he suspected had come up with this plan, especially when he thought it through. It hadn't hurt anyone. It'd been amusing, certainly--maybe it'd frightened people, briefly, but it hadn't caused any damage. "I'll have the weyrlings clean up this mess in the morning," he added, as an afterthought. "No harm done."

~~~~~~G'non~~

Yeah, so the forty-two turn old rider was partially inwardly griping about the state of young people these days and partially mentally readying himself for further headbutting. At least he had been until that screeching permeated through the air over the gather. R'yn immediately fell from his mind. G'non's attention went skyward, his muscles tensing in a sudden rush of adrenaline. Silver falling from the sky? Ionan needed to get under cover! With several long strides, straight up leaving the Weyrleader standing the, the bluerider scooped up his six turn old son, holding him close with a hand over his head. Shards and shells, of all the times for...On high alert and already on edge, G'non looked around, seeing the streaming strands of 'thread' falling and landing on people without the slightest hint of injury. What...What was going on here?! With the arm that wasn't supporting Ionan's weight, he picked a silvery streamer off of the back of his own shoulder. He promptly felt himself bristle. Paper! What sort of sick joke was this? Did someone think this was funny?!

Aelyn had been in the process of telling the brown rider that Z’ke and herself were off to get something of substance preferably with meat in it. Pale brown eyes went wide however and the brunette found herself struck mute, they had no time to react to the thread fall and there had been no warning, Moharth and herself weren’t ready to fight yet! Reeling backwards the thinly built green-rider dropped to the ground in a rather well-executed maneuver to avoid the quickly descending glittery strands, beside her the sound of the tussled blue-rider shrieking made her heart leap into her throat and summoned a wave of lightheadedness to claim her senses.

‘ Mine. . . it is alright, take a deep breath and look around you. There is no danger. Calm yourself.’ Moharth crooned in a gentle voice, opening her maw the dark-green nibbled with the tip of her snout at her beloved’s neck, lowering her head against her rider’s shoulder Moharth pressed firmly at the joint rubbing her delicate eye-ridges as consolingly as she could manage. Throwing a frantic glance around the brunette with exotic shades of red and purple lidding her eyes found life being breathed back into her constricted chest, the thread, the dangerous scourge that threatened the world was nothing more than streamers. Beautifully colored streamers that still managed to rouse the utmost amount of fear from everyone nearby.

“I have complete, irrefutable deniability! “ Aelyn announced loudly while holding her hands up in a sign of innocence. Yes she was a bit of a troublemaker but thread was never a laughing matter, a prank of this magnitude albeit within her capabilities was something that she would never fathom preforming. Never.

"Already started my friend!" Zofer replied in reference to his previous glass of wine. "I'm sure they have something stronger than wine around here though. I've seen the tithes brought over from the Hold." He'd been the one to bring some of those over by way of his small schooner.

Something was falling... something that tickled a vague locked away memory in the back of the seacrafter's mind... "Shards and Shells!" Exclaimed Zofer as he made to duck away from a clump of silver ribbons. His moment of adrenaline fueled fear was over quickly as a ribbon draped itself gracefully across his face and slithered harmlessly to the ground.

"Heh!" He gave a relieved laugh as his heart thudded in his chest. He hadn't seen first hand carnage six turns ago through sheer luck. At about 13 turns he'd been at home with his parents, his mother's ship in dock after returning from ferrying holder's to the Hatching celebrations at the Weyr. Safe in their stone Hold they'd had damages but no actual deaths. Even the majority of Captain Rezza's crew survived though her ship was severely damaged.

"A prank. I can't tell if it's a good one or a bad one! Either way, it's enough to earn a lashing on my ship." Still coming down from the adrenaline Zofer found it easier to make light of the situation.

"Well now I definitely could go for something strong!"

..........................................................

Jasiline had been dancing, listening to the music, and just overall enjoying herself. With eyes closed she hadn't even noticed the commotion until the Harpers instruments ground to an earsplitting halt. Olive eyes shot open and a blood curdling shriek issued from her mouth as she saw silver all around her.

Jasiline bolted. It may not have been the most brilliant of moves as she tripped over another person and did a spectacular nose dive into the packed earth beneath her.

~Rella~

It was still early enough in the afternoon for the weyrbrats to be in attendance, and many of them were. One such weyrbrat, a little four-turn old with a mop of dark curls on her head and big brown eyes, was particularly focused on the music that was being played. Her name was Rella, and this was the very first gather that she could remember going to. She didn't really understand or care for most of the hubbub that was going on in the square - instead, she was focused on musicand stories, and humming along with what tunes she could.

At least... that was what she was doing until the silver things fell. Having not expected anything to fall from the sky, Rella shrieked at the top of her lungs as she was covered in the silver stuff. What was going on? What was happening? This wasn't her music, this was bright and fluttery and scary! She wanted her mum! She wanted her as much now as she did when she woke from a nightmare in the creche, only now she could actually go look for her!

Jumping to her feet, the little tot took off across the gather at a dead run, a screeching wail of "Muuuummyyyy!" escaping her throat at an almost painfully high pitch. This place was so big her mother must be here! She would make the scary stuff go away!


~Iliyana~

Iliyana had no idea where to search for the perpetrator, no matter how much she wanted to look and to tell him (it had to be him, no girl would be this dimglowed!) just how cruel and awful he had been. The fire lizard on her shoulder seemed to want her to calm down, though, judging by the way she had just pressed her snout to her face. Grumbling under her breath, Iliyana stopped her determined march to rub at the bridge of her nose.

"I'm sorry, Little Wing. I know that no-one was hurt, so it's... probably okay, but that was a horribly mean-spirited thing to do," she said, frowning. "But - but I did promise you meat rolls, didn't I? I suppose I can get some of those for you before I start searching again."

She didn't want to upset the little creature, after all!

~Rella~

At first, Rella was so startled by the lady who had just approached her that she simply stared blankly at her. Her calm voice and smile, though, helped calm her down a little from her panicked state. Shoving a thumb in her mouth to suck on as an attempt to reassure herself, Rella blinked her dark brown eyes and scrunched her nose. A few hiccuping sobs escaped her, but they were fast on the way to dying out - and now that they were, she popped her thumb out of her mouth and pointed to herself with it.

"I'm Rella," she said,then wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve. "You're Lute - like th' instr'menn." Tilting her head, she rocked back and forth on her heels as another sniffle escaped her. "You know where my mummy is? We c'n find mummy?"

~Iliyana~

Laughing a little with the delight of getting to converse with such a sweet, talkative creature as Little Wing, Iliyana smiled at her and looked about for the nearest place she could obtain some meat rolls. "Well then! Some meat rolls for the little queen, coming right up!" She could take care of this flit with no trouble - and who knew, maybe she could find the troublemaker on the way.