It was late afternoon, the sky was clear and there was no Fall coming.
What was being set up was… well it couldn’t really be called a Gather, they didn’t have the resources for a gather. What it was though was gathering of people, a break from hard work for all of Euclid’s residents. There was fish, fruit, and bread to eat and beer to drink; all spread out on a long table for people to help themselves from.
What this gathering also was, was a sort of inauguration. Sort of. Natai was going to read the manifesto in public in any case, just to make sure everyone really did know where they stood.
Bereck perched on the edge of the makeshift dias where Natai was going to stand to make her speech, looking out over the expanse of cleared land. “A lot’s changed over the last turn,” he observed with a glance up to the gold rider. “Stating the patently obvious I know but…” Sometimes he’d wondered if they would ever get this far, he’d worried that it might fail and about what would happen to Natai and everyone who had committed to the early on move if it did. “It’s looking good,” he continued after a brief pause, “a long way to go yet but I can almost see where other craft buildings are going to go up, individual weyrs, crops in the fields….” The healer trailed off there and shrugged, looking up again with a small smile. “A lot better than a couple of tents, humm?”
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Bereck didn’t have too high to glance - Natai sat on the dias with her legs crossed as he looked back at her. The few inches she still had on the healer disappeared with the hunch of her shoulders and dip of her head as she studied the papers on her lap. Her bright orange skirt stretched and covered the entirety of her legs and made quite the nice resting area for rogue paperwork. A quill wavered in her grip, betraying her nerves despite Natais calm expression.
“I remember a single tent and a hole in the ground for storage.” Natai said with a faint smile. “You on the receiving end of my panicked letters and S’dekai the only cool head living here. Seeing as how he was half of the human population, well…” Her lips twitched into a smile that bordered on warm. “It’s a very good thing we have more people around. I’m quite fond of the barn. You still approve of the infirmary?”
And she no longer had the stomach clenching desire to get ill each time she thought of public speaking. Progress! Progress and a S’dekai she could still hide behind, a grouchy ageing Masterhealer, a large dragon that possesed enough enthusiasm to light up an entire Weyr. Natai glanced around and put the tip of her quill into a small bottle of ink near to her knee. “I hope no one minds the census taking.”
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“If they do mind they’re blithering idiots,” Bereck said with a dismissive ‘tch!’ and a wave of his hand. “It’s only sensible to know who we have here, officially. And the infirmary is good,” this was said with another small flash of a smile, “much better now it has my desk in it! Feels like home.” Work felt like home anyway and that was a start but he would be a lot happier when he and Alina had a place of their own again, communal living was not his favourite thing ever and that was a rather large understatement. Everyone was in the same boat on that however and there was nothing to be done about it so there was no point in complaining about it.
“It will be good,” he added, “you will be good. These people wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to hear what you have to say. Euclid’s come a long way from one tent and a hole in the ground and you have too.” By necessity he supposed, necessity being the mother of invention or in this case personal growth in the face of having to fly all around Pern being diplomatic to the Master Crafters, to Holders, and ordinary holdfolk too.
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It was amazing, how quickly Euclid had grown from an idea into an actual place.
He and Pioth had been busy; there had been a barn to raise (and he still slept in the hayloft of said barn, partly to deter livestock thieves and partly because he knew for a fact that the loft was warm and proof against the rain) and animals to acquire and tend, and Pioth had struck on the idea of making sand wallows for the dragons to sleep in, which had involved an awful lot of betweening back and forth between Euclid and a stretch of uninhabited beach, one tarpload of sand at a time. But it wasn’t as if they didn’t have time. With the usual rhythms of a Weyr (drills, Thread, drills again) not yet in place, S’dekai and Pioth had nothing to do except build Euclid into something like a home.
The bronzerider still hadn’t spoken to many of the new arrivals. He was… well, shy. Strange. Once upon a time he’d been the sort who would speak to every new face, seek them out, make them welcome. He still smiled when they passed, but… S’dekai was painfully aware that he was refugee from both Malvren and Trine. Both would consider him blood traitor, for different reasons, even if he’d never shed blood on behalf of either one. He belonged to Euclid now, and Euclid alone - nowhere else on Pern would take him and Pioth.
He finished looking over the table of food - not a Gather spread, but it might as well be one to the likes of these refugees - and headed back over to the dais where Natai and Bereck were gathered, leaning on it to catch his breath. “Anything else you lot need?” he called cheerily. “Otherwise I think we’re ready to go.”
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“My excitable and giggly public image has certainly changed.” Natai resisted snorting with a pleasant smile. “I’m not even fluttering around in ruffles. The world is absolutely shocked. But… the tent wasn’t so bad now that I’m not living in it.”
These days, she stayed in the barn if possible. … It wasn’t often possible but Natai didn’t often sleep. Moot point in the end. She sighed and put her chin on her palm, elbow on her knee, and fluttered the quill in her other hand. Her papers shifted when Natai glanced down at them, her leg bouncing a little.
“I’m glad you’re here now,” she said after a long moment. Natai looked up from her lap to the table of food and the oncoming S’dekai. She smiled at her friend and raised her hand to wave the quill at him in greeting. “With the food, the ridiculous paperwork - ah, I checked the seating and what we’ve built isn’t about to fall down around our head. The Weyrhold is prepared.” The quill bounced a little faster. “Are we? I would not hold it against you if you lied.”
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Bereck nodded acknowledgement to S’dekai and Natai. “I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
