Being in a Weyr when Threadfall came was different from being in a hold, Reya quickly learned. Very different.

The air was still charged with tension and excitement, but there was so much less panic and fear than in Rivercrest. Dragons and riders rushed to assemble their gear, and everyone else either seemed to know more or less where they ought to be and what they should be doing, or at least how to keep out of the way, and went about their business like they had drilled for it. Thinking about it, Reya realized that they probably had.

Another thing she figured led to less panic in the Weyr than in the hold was that there were actually timetables which existed to help predict Threadfall. According to her brother, the timetables gave a rough indicator of when the Weyr could expect Thread, but Falls were always erratic now, so there were no guarantees of exact timing, nor of how long Fall would last. Reya found the idea of timetables for Threadfall incredible, and brilliant, and wished that she could get access to one, to try to work out how the drafters had determined as much as they had.

Unlike everyone else, Reya had no assigned place to be, nor tasks to perform as yet. She had meant to find the headwoman and ask about how her skills might be best applied in the Weyr, but she hadn’t had time. Mostly she’d spent her free time learning her way around Western Weyr and helping Eridan acclimate to his new home. He’d taken to it with astonishing rapidity, adoring the communal environment of the creche. Every day when she went to pick him up, Eri was bubbling over with stories about the new people he had met and the exciting things that had happened.

Reya wondered what they were doing in the creche during Threadfall. She was certain that they had an established procedure for keeping the children occupied and unafraid, despite the dangers posed by Thread. Many of them would be related to riders who would be risking their lives during Fall, and probably be worried for those relatives. Reya certainly was. Her brother was not someone she’d ever thought of as particularly responsible, and the idea of him fighting lethal Thread with Huarangith sent horrible spikes of fear through her stomach that actually made her sit down with her head between her knees as a wave of nervous nausea washed over her.

Logically, Reya knew that R’bin had been fighting Thread for as long as it had been falling, having Impressed Huarangith before Thread returned, but that had always been a distant worry for her in the past. It had certainly crossed her mind the first time Thread fell, but she’d had a toddler to worry about, since she was at work when the first deadly spore fell. The dangers her brother faced with his fire-breathing bondmate had paled in comparison to her more immediate concerns. Now, however, she was safe, her son was safe, and surrounded by dragonfolk it was impossible for her brother not to be foremost in her mind. She hoped he and Huarangith were all right.

As soon as she allowed the thought to form wholly and cross her mind, Reya was glad she had already moved into a position to stave off nausea, because another wave of it sent a cold sweat down her back and raised the hairs on her arms. She was not going to be sick, she swore to herself, no matter how worried she was. She hated to have things beyond her control, and every time Thread fell she hated that there was nothing she could do about it, but the feeling was amplified in the Weyr, where she doubted anyone else was curling up on a cot, sick with fear for the dragonriders.

“So…do something,” Reya hissed at herself.

She flung herself to her feet with unnecessary violence and brushed her hands together, signalling to herself that it was time to get to work. She’d performed the same gesture before starting her accounting each day, back in Rivercrest. The very action helped her to clear her head a little bit. The deep breath she followed it up with did even more. After another few breaths her hands no longer shook and her nausea passed. She was able to look around herself, observing her brother’s weyr.

R’bin’s weyr was a mess. It had not been particularly tidy when Reya and Eridan arrived, though it had been clear R’bin had attempted to neaten it prior to their arrival, and Eri’s presence had not done anything to make the space any less messy. In fact, the place looked infuriatingly like a small tornado had taken place within. The mess had been bothering Reya for the past sevenday, but she hadn’t quite felt comfortable enough to do anything about it, considering what she owed R’bin for removing her and Eri from their unsavory situation.

With one last deep breath, Reya set to work. She didn’t know whether she was allowed to fetch a bucket of water to actually scrub the place, and so she decided that she would set that particular chore aside for another day. That was fine. There was more than enough mess to be tidied to keep her busy for the hours Threadfall would take. R’bin would not be upset that she’d cleaned. He was almost never upset. He might even be pleasantly surprised by how the place looked. She chuckled as she thought that he still wouldn’t be sufficiently pleased by the change to keep it up without prodding.

“Well, maybe,” she grumbled. Certainly she had no intention of becoming R’bin’s live-in drudge. If he wanted his weyr to stay clean after she’d cleaned it up, he’d have to do his part. Alternatively, she’d have to find another place for her and Eri to live. She’d have to do that anyway - she knew she’d want her independence soon enough, and so would R’bin.

As she compiled yet another mental to-do list, Reya organized and straightened items, folding clothes and beating furs, and putting everything back in its place. At least, when she could discern what its place was. R’bin owned a number of things that she really hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with. She elected to leave these out for the time being, and worked around them. When he came back - when, not if - she’d ask about them. Probably he would be surprised to learn that he owned them at all. She’d always found that he tended to disregard possessions once he lost interest in them.

While she cleaned she also came across a small bundle of papers tied with a leather thong. They were letters, she guessed, and while she was curious about them, she refrained from snooping. Mostly likely they were letters she’d written him anyway. She didn’t imagine that he had a great many correspondents otherwise. Other dragonriders would just pop over for a visit with their teleporting dragons, and anyone else would quickly learn that R’bin was not a letter writer and give up after a few attempts.

Except, she realized suddenly, for Nessa. She was willing to bet that her older brother’s one-time lover would have been persistent. She remembered the older woman coming around the house after R’bin was Searched, wondering if she or their parents had heard anything from him. They’d always told her that they hadn’t, even if they had. It was clear to all of them, even Reya, that R’bin had moved on and that Nessa should do the same, but eventually it had fallen to Reya to convey that. Nessa, she recalled, had not taken her at her word, and had persisted in her pursuit for a while. When she’d finally given up, she’d come over with bitter words for R’bin’s family. Reya remembered that her parents had not been bothered by Nessa’s ire, but as a young girl Reya had been infuriated.

Time passed, though Reya had no way of telling how much, since R’bin didn’t bother with any sort of timekeeping device in his weyr. She suspected from the stiffness of her limbs that she’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor, reminiscing, for a decent amount of time. She was irritated at her idleness, but also relieved that she’d found something else to occupy her thoughts besides fear for her brother.

There were sounds coming from beyond the weyr. Voices and footsteps. Curiosity drove her to stick her head outside to investigate. In so doing, she observed that some of the footsteps belonged to men and women wearing the thick leathern garments of dragonriders. Some of their hides freshly scored, but none of the riders appeared injured, just tired. These, she gathered, would be white, green, and blueriders, who did not fly for entire Falls, she had learned. Fresh dragons would be going up in their place. R’bin, a brown rider, would have a longer time in the fray, increasing his chances of being hurt or killed.

The reminder set her hands to flexing nervously, seeking something more to do, but finding nothing. The weyr was about as organized as it was going to get, and sitting around wasn’t doing her any good. It was time to find some other people, she decided. And to definitely not go looking for Eri and see how he’s doing. She didn’t want to distress him if he wasn’t already upset, or make things worse if he was. The creche workers could handle it. She needed to find some grown-ups to talk to, and a way to be useful.

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