0001-03-06 - Justifiable Homicide?

It's not long past the afternoon window when lunch is served, which also means it's maybe not as warm as the day's going to get, but the sun overhead is sure making the effort. There are still people out and about, of course, but maybe not quite as many as in the morning and evening. Sreyoth has needs, though, and Lanelle isn't generally the one making the young queen conform to her schedule so much as the other way around. Exhibit A: Sreyoth is not in the water, only near the water, enjoying the bright heat of the sun. And Lanelle, flush-faced, has a bucket and a stiff brush to make sure all that hide she's cursing about is sparkly clean. Clean, at least, under a fashionable layer of wet sand.

Nakaskioth and his clutchmates are nearing half a turn in age, now, just getting towards the time when they will hit the air. For now, it's still that ungainly weyrling waddle, most undignified, that carries that brown towards the lakeshore. Not that Nakaskioth is often anything but undignified, being possessed of zippy energy and enthusiasm enough to go with it. His rider is slower, weighted down with the usual washing paraphernalia and already looking hot and bothered.

She hesitates as she catches sight of that queen who is not one of the two more familiar adults at Igen, and not her weyrling clutchmate, either. But Nashi knows about Lanelle, and she straightens her shoulders to approach. "Welcome to Igen, Lanelle," is careful, measured, thoughtful.

Sreyoth rumbles what is presumably a warning as Nakaskioth waddles toward her general proximity, which seems to encompass a rather large section of the shore. She doesn't move, though, or even really look at the younger brown. Also Lanelle thumps her ineffectually with the brush in her hand, hissing something at her. The gold lapses into silence, tilting her head away so she can pretend to ignore the weyrlings and look over there while rearranging her wings like an unfairly admonished cat (who has wings).

"Hello," Lanelle offers back to Nashi, turning where she's currently standing on Sreyoth's forearm to smile ambiguously at the other young woman. "Thank you. I'm afraid I haven't learned all your names yet."

Something shifts in Nashi's expression, like a shadow passing over it: bad enough that of the two former healers, the other now rides a queen compared to her brown, but worse that she's seemingly not even recognised-slash-remembered. "Weyrwoman," she corrects herself, a little stiffly, apparently torn between correcting the error and maintaining her own anonymity.

"Nashi," is what she decides, going with the shortened version of the name she had, once upon a time, a different lifetime ago. "And he's Nakaski-- stop it, leave her alone-- Nakaskioth." The brown, though Sreyoth's rumble is certainly noted does not seem deterred, and half waddles-half-rolls himself towards the water line, likely far too close. The brown tips his head up (and up, and up). << You're bigger than Eoventh, >> he concludes, king of stating the obvious. << So am I. >> (This may not even be true.)

Lanelle seems immediately aware that she's done something unexpected, but whatever anxiety that much causes doesn't help her figure out what it was quite as quickly. "Nashi," she repeats, out loud but not to the weyrling, as though that's familiar but she's struggling to place it. She crouches to slide off of Sreyoth's forearm, and by the time her feet have touched the ground, she blurts out, "Nashana! You're here!" Look, they weren't exactly BFFs, but Lanelle is going to grasp at anything familiar, even if it took her a second to realize it was familiar, in her new home.

Sreyoth still doesn't look at the brown, but she's aware enough that she can't quite help turning her head back, just so, for just a moment. << Of course I'm bigger than Eoventh. I'm bigger than most everyone. >> She won't claim that she is bigger than everyone. Maybe there's still hope for her ego as she continues to mature.

Nashi can't help herself, in the end: diffidence is hard to maintain in the face of someone who actively seems to be pleased by your presence, even if it took them longer than hoped to place you. "Hi Lanelle," she says, not quite a repetition of her first attempt at greeting, but maybe a little less stiff. "I'm here. Apparently Weyrs in desperate need of warm bodies are exactly the right place for washed up apprentices to end up-- we've started a trend." 'Start' is probably a little of an exaggeration. "Of course, you've done a little bitter," she adds, with a gesturing nod towards Sreyoth.

<< Eoventh is going to be bigger than me too, >> allows Nakaskioth, though there's a muted imagining in his head, anyway: Nakaskioth the enormous, dwarfing the queens as he flies overhead, flaming every bit of thread in his path. << So they say. Is it fun, to be the biggest? I bet you make the best waves in the lake. >>

"Nashi," Lanelle says again, a little more firmly, because that's her name now, and she will definitely probably remember it. Her increasingly genuine smile might not be wholly appropriate for the relationship they had as apprentices, but she is pleased to see someone she sort of knows in Igen who she didn't recently arrive with. "I don't think they would have you on the sands if they didn't think you were a good choice." If it seems just a tiny bit defensive, it might be because the dragon Nashi gestures toward will, at some point, be why the Weyr requires more warm bodies to stand for her eggs.

<< I wouldn't have it any other way. >> Sreyoth and Nakaskioth might have different ideas about what's fun, but that's not a conversation she's willing to start with the younger brown. << I make waves wherever I go. >> At least she's a little self aware? Maybe she shouldn't sound so pleased with herself.

Nashi has doubts. Probably not specifically about Lanelle, but certainly about this whole method of choosing dragonriders. It shows in the arch of her eyebrows, and then the shrug of her shoulders: sure. Okay. "Maybe," she agrees. "I mean-- I'm here, aren't I? And so are you. And suddenly the Hall wants to remind me of all the secrets I promised to keep, as if I'm suddenly a threat to them, or maybe an opportunity."

That sounds bitter.

<< Waves, >> says Nakaskioth, happily. It's hard to tell if he is simply a very simple-minded brown, or if this is still youthful enthusiasm. << Will you show me? How big your waves get? >>

"Do you think we're a threat to them? An opportunity?" Lanelle dusts sand off of her legs as she considers her own questions. "If I were them. Any of them. Hold. Hall." And she was. "If I were them, I'd be afraid of letting us search their people." The blonde was never known for having Opinions on anything like this. It's likely that Sreyoth is rubbing off on her.

<< In time. >> For now, the sandy queen is content to stay right where she is, allowing the brown to imagine just how amazing her waves must be. << I would rather see your waves, Nakaskioth. >> Sreyoth even turns her head to focus lazily whirling eyes on him.

Nashi's frown deepens as Lanelle uses that 'us' to describe us-the-Weyr, as if perhaps, all these months after Impression, she's still not used to seeing it in that way. "Why?" she wonders, dropping her bucket full of supplies and tucking her hands into the pockets of her canvas trousers. "Why afraid, specifically?"

Nakaskioth does not particularly need a second invitation. He likely would not have needed a first, except that he's still not quite able to multi-task. He all-but-throws himself at the lake, aiming to make an almighty splash but, realistically, not managing much more than a wave. This would be easier if he could fly, naturally. << See? Did you see? >>

Lanelle hesitates when Nashi isn't immediately on board. "Oh. Well. I just mean that if you're raised to think one way about people, and then you become those people, you might end up resenting the people who raised you to resent who you've become." Yes, Lan, that probably clears everything up.

Sreyoth does watch, and it's fortunate that dragons have little capacity for facial expressions because hers might look bored. Still, she sounds pleasant enough when she says, << Nicely done. >> Considering his limitations.

It takes Nashi a moment, maybe two, to work that statement through. "Oh," she says then. "Oh, I see. We were raised to think one thing of the Weyr, and now we're dragonriders, so we're of the Weyr, and that means we have to think differently. And especially," she casts a wary glance up at the sky, "now that the Pass is here and everyone suddenly remembers why we need dragonriders in the first place. Is that what you meant?" She looks back at the other girl, her brow furrowed in thought. "I didn't think any of this through when I accepted Search," is a quieter admission.

Nakaskioth is pleased by this, and will probably spend the rest of the afternoon regaling his clutchmates about the impressiveness of his ventures, and how much Sreyoth appreciated them. << I thought so too. I'm very good at this. >>

"More or less," Lanelle says, with the allowance, "I don't think we have to think differently, I suppose, but I find it difficult to believe that someone wouldn't. Given enough time." Of course, she has no strong roots in her life before Sreyoth, so that's easy for her to say. "Have you never thought about just letting thread take those who don't support us?" It's a second before she realizes that's probably not a good look, especially since she ultimately doesn't know Nashi that well, and she's quick to add, "Not that I would."

<< Very good, indeed. >> Never let it be said that Sreyoth isn't generous with her praise.

Nashi's gaze tracks towards her brown, giving him a look that could never be described as affectionate as such, but certainly holds a certain level of familiarity and... well, something. Clearly, she's not indifferent to the brown. She's still looking at him when Lanelle asks that question, and that is when her attention shoots back, all wide eyes and surprise. And maybe something else, too, something less quantifiable. "What, like... Keroon, and the others? Give them a taste for what it can actually do?" Whether Lanelle would or would not do this doesn't seem to faze her as such.

"Something like that." Plausible deniability? "It would give them first hand experience with the risks we take, anyway." Lanelle says 'we' as though she's flying on the front line with the fighting wings. You know, like Nashi is more likely to be doing one day.

Behind her, Sreyoth is growing restless, shifting her weight and turning those whirling eyes on Lanelle and Nakaskioth's weyrling. The junior turns her head to put the gold in her peripheral vision for a moment, then offers Nashi a tight smile. "I should finish with her. But we should catch up more some time soon!" Hopefully with less homicidal undertones. "He's very handsome, by the way," she adds, off hand, with a glance toward the brown. "Sreyoth thinks so, too." Does she really?

"They probably need a good scare," agrees Nashi. "I-- oh, sure. I should get him scrubbed, too. Thanks!"

The thanks ring slightly untrue, Nashi's diffidence audible. But that's a problem for another day, another time, possibly another person.