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Zhask was an unusual wher in more than one way. She was not only one of the most docile whers that Zhac had ever met, but she was also one of the clingiest. A normal hold watch wher was often chained and saw their handler a few times a day. Zhask was pickier. Zhac had raised her with a firm and patient hand, but it hadn’t taken long for that ‘queen mentality’ to kick in. She’d started by attempting to groom him, then later trying to corral him away from humans she didn’t care for. It became clear within a few weeks that the adolescent wher was mothering him.

It had taken a few turns to tone down Zhask’s possessive habits, but she still refused to be separated from him for long. Even leaving the girl for so much as a candlemark plunged her into a foul mood. So when the gold wandered to the door and looked back at him, rumbling, Zhac knew what she wanted.

He looked up from his desk and a thin stack of reports to her, and her blue eyes whirled quickly in response. She gave a whistle, the same one he used to call her to his side. Amused (and privately sick of work), he rose and pulled back the skin covering the door. The wher gave a hiss of delight and stepped into the dim corridor. After a few steps she stopped, looked back, and repeated the whistle – loudly. Chuckling, Zhac fell in step behind her.

A few minutes later, they came outside a familiar room. “Lukah?” he called, unsure his friend was there.

Zhask, less polite, gave a summoning whistle in a demanding key and started to shove her head in the door.

“No!” The word fell sharply, and Zhask stopped her forward push with only her head inside, but she didn’t retreat. Zhac laid a hand just in front of the wing joint of her shoulder. He couldn’t have shoved or pulled her away from the door by any physical means, but he expected the touch – a way to give emphasis to the mental command that accompanied the verbal one. Still, she didn’t move.

She too busy evaluating the surly bronze in the room to accept commands though. She glanced at Lukah, and gave him a brief warble since he’d had the decency to greet her, but her eyes watched her male brethren with an uncomfortable mix of hues that showed her own shifting reaction to the bronze’s disrespectfulness. At last, after some deliberation, she gave him a clipped warble of welcome.

“She won’t move,” Zhac said from outside. His voice, as always, came with a reserved veneer, but the irritation under it was clear. He’d trained her better than this. “How’s your bronze?”

“Fat headed… Bluffing.” The last word was said with a little more caution, as if he weren’t quite sure he believed her.

Zhask watched the bronze steadily, but once he’d settled – submitted – her eyes whirled out their ember hues and glistened a tentative shade of pasty green. As if just becoming aware of Zhac’s protests after several seconds of eyeing, she rather suddenly gave a gabby, fluting whistling to the pair in the room and threw her head back, all but snatching the skin out of the doorway off with her head knobs in haste to comply with the old order.

Zhac, his expression disapproving, moved the now-obedient wher out of the way with a soft push at the shoulder. She gave several more unintelligible noises by way of excuse before lifting her nose indignantly and looking aimlessly off down the hall. Her wings, however, continued to rustle in some agitation.

At least there was room for Lukah to come out now. Zhac wasn’t too much in favor for coming in anymore. “Sorry. She’s got that thing about bronzes. She thinks they’re her personal pets. I’ll stop her down the hall next time.”

Zhac let off giving his wher a chastising look as Lukask approached. “Yeah.” He held still and met the bronze with as positive a succession or humming croons as he could manage through the remnants of his annoyance. He did well enough, even while wincing his way through the hair inspection. By the time Lukask was done with him he seemed a little amused by the processes, and smoothed out his hair with faint grin. "At least he doesn't confuse interrogating with nipping so much anymore."

Zhask had cocked her head to keep an eye on the bronze while he ruffled her handler. When he finished she warbled plaintively for attention.

She could have mauled him, but now that he was acquiescing to her, Zhask only warbled at him in an entreating tone and gave him a quick, affectionate nosing.

Zhac eyed her, thinking it was the most pathetic flirting he’d seen out of her in some time, and shrugged. “Alright. Just been keeping my nose in my work while this mess about the plants and AVIAS has been blowing over.” He’d had the opportunity to go to Mavlren, but had refused, pleading Zhask as an excuse. She wasn’t the sort for going Between, and while she could have lived without him for a day or so, he hadn’t much wanted to deal with her ire on returning for some political nonsense. He’d sent his vote on the matter and left it to that.

Zhac paused, thinking, but he figured Lukah would want to know if he didn’t already. “I’ve heard we may already be in trouble. I heard someone say they’d talked to one of the harpers, and that Red Star shifting around. Might be a little early for it to matter, but he said the harper sounded ‘worried.’”

Zhac shrugged. As far as he was concerned, the rumor about the Red Star, if it proved true, only proved that AVAIS couldn’t be blamed for it. At least, it surely seemed too early for there to be such an effect yet. He followed Lukah’s gaze to the whers and smiled a little at Zhask who was humming cheery affection at the bronze’s subservience.

For a moment, Zhac’s eyes lit up with an old fire, and old rebellious stubbornness that had been mostly left to his boyhood years. The glean dimmed out though, and he sighed.

“Almost. I wouldn’t risk her or not have her though. I’m sure they’ll find some use for them anyway.”

“You and your harper’s tongue,” he answered, half amused. “You’re right though. Even if thread doesn’t drop I hope everyone gets stirred up about it so there’s less strain between the weyrs. I swear this stuff about atypicals and so on didn’t seem to matter so much out in the mines and holds.”