Two for Tea [Kestrel]

The very idea of thread made Viyeri profoundly uncomfortable. He supposed that must be true for everyone—it was hard to come up with something scarier than rain that could eat you. Especially since thread was so terrifyingly real. Its imminent return had been part of his motivation to get free of the raider pack and return to hold life—any hold would do—with all due haste. It had been bad enough living with the threat of doom hanging over his head from living with the worst sorts of thieves and criminals before the red star itself had started hanging over him too, ready to spill its death-spawn over him at a moment’s notice.

No, the only thing that helped Viyeri deal with the unwelcome presence of thread in his life was the knowledge that no matter how horrifying and evil it was, it could not get him as long as he stayed inside. And Viyeri liked being inside anyhow, oh yes he did. He had never considered himself very lucky (and as a Bitran, he would know) but this chore assignment was quite possibly the greatest gift Lady Luck had ever bestowed upon his undeserving person. Thread was falling, dragons were bleeding, death was all around, and here he was, in a weyr, the axis of all thread-related activity—and what was he doing?

Making tea, that’s what. This was sharding excellent. He tried not to look too pleased, though, as he headed down the corridors to the assigned room (where had they hidden it, anyway?) since people were probably dying and all that. But it was hard not to be at least a little happy, since his fate as someone who would not die today seemed to be sealed. He had yet to hear of anyone dying of anything tea-related, after all, and he didn’t intend to be the first.

He found the right room more by the smell than anything else, sniffing the air and following the scent (was that peppermint?) into a room nearby. He could see that whoever was to be working with him had obviously been there for long enough to get started already. “Hello.” He nodded toward the other man, removing the black coat he had been wearing and placing it on the peg next to what he presumed were the other man’s garments. If anyone else was coming, they hadn’t arrived yet. “Sorry if I’m late—they do know how to hide these rooms, don’t they? I’m Viyeri; it’s a pleasure to met you.”

Viyeri took a moment to glance around. The water seemed to be in ample supply, the fire was going, and the barrels of what he presumed were dried tea leaves were open and ready. “Have you done this before? I don’t think I’ve made tea. Though I’ve made klah, and I don’t imagine tea to be that much more difficult…”

Viyeri nodded, glad to hear that. He hated to be late—mostly because he hated so much when others were late, and wasted his time, and that was one thing he didn’t like to be hypocritical about. He smiled back at the blond young man, shaking his hand when it was offered. Lex? Didn’t sound like a rider, but Viyeri didn’t think he’d seen him around the candidate barracks either, and he looked just a little old for that, anyhow…and he smelled like dragonriders tended to. Maybe a dragonhealer? But why would a dragonhealer be making tea at a time like this? Oh. “Ah. You’re a weyrling, then? I imagine the name change would be strange to get used to.”

Viyeri squinted slightly at all the different materials and apparatuses as Lex—L’xon—pointed them out. He’d certainly had more complicated chores. “Seems simple enough,” he said, shrugging. “Is Halventh your dragon?” The answer to that, of course, seemed obvious, but he was asking more for conversation’s sake than seeking an answer. It seemed strange that a dragon would be put to work like a draybeast, as he hadn’t really expected dragons to be put to work outside of fighting thread. Not with the reverence everyone had for them. But at the same time, it didn’t make sense to let anyone be idle, not even a dragon, when thread was falling. Not in a weyr.

He took the bag of tea from L’xon when the weyrling finally managed to part with it, moving toward the peppermint leaves and beginning to stuff it. “Ten of these…” he mumbled to himself, thinking aloud. “Any particular amount of tea we’re supposed to use?” A flicker of a grin passed over his face, though there was little humor in it. “Yes, lucky me. I hear it should be an interesting one…” If by ‘interesting’ you meant ‘likely to have a high casualty rate’. He wasn’t going to bother trying to hide his apprehension.

“Funny how dragons just know, isn’t it? Your name, and just how they want it shortened. If you’re a boy, anyway. I don’t really understand why it doesn’t work the same for the girls, but I guess it’s just always been that way.” Viyeri shrugged. One would think that living in a weyr would make dragons seem more commonplace, and their abilities more expected and natural, but perhaps Viyeri hadn’t been there long enough yet. The more he learned about dragons, the more alien and perplexing they seemed to be. Not that that was bad, necessarily, but… “Mysteries of the universe, and all that.” Viyeri didn’t sound too happy about those ‘mysteries’, though—sometimes he just wished it didn’t all have to be so complicated. Though if it wasn’t, he might get bored.

“Is that common? Hatchings not from queens?” He supposed Waroth wasn’t a queen, but he didn’t notice much since her eggs were due to hatch in one and the same event as Kalith’s. “A dragon’s a dragon, no matter who shelled it.” Candidates couldn’t afford to be choosy. Viyeri’s eyebrows rose a bit, and his mouth tweaked into a smile. “Just a weyrling? Well if you say so, Mr. Just-A-Future-Dragonrider.” He chuckled. Oh, lowly me. I just have a dragon, no big deal. “I think you’ve been in the weyr too long.” Or been impressed too long, anyway—how many candidates would give anything to be just-a-weyrling? Not Viyeri, of course, but still.

Viyeri nodded, stuffing the last bit of tea in his bag and tying it securely. “Oh, naturally. I don’t think the weyrfolk like their tea chunky, not even the injured ones.” He crossed the room to the caldron, slid his bag in the water, and returned mechanically to start his next one. “Smells nice already.” Much better than blood and ichor and numbweed, too. And if their work got them sweaty, Viyeri bet the peppermint smell would mask it. Funny how good of a mood this chore put him in.

“Oh yes, I meant no disrespect to Nimara or the Weyrwoman, or their dragons...you just never know what might happen at an event that can be so…chaotic, I suppose. They’ve certainly gone over hatching etiquette with us, but yes, it did include several…cautionary tales.” He shrugged, adding another filled bag to the pot and starting on another. “I just don’t quite fancy the idea of getting shredded out there, I suppose. Moving out of the way may work for some dragonets, but what if they really, really don’t like you? I can’t imagine we’ll be able to move too much out of the way, crowded in with all the other candidates, and with two clutchmothers on the sands as well. And what exactly is the logic behind those candidate’s robes? They don’t afford even the slightest protection if something should happen. It’s as though they don’t care if we get injured, just so far as their rampaging hatchlings aren’t harmed.”

Somewhere along the line, casual conversation had turned into venting and frustration, and Viyeri’s finger very nearly poked a hole through the bottom of his bag of tea during an all-too-violent moment of stuffing before he realized he’d probably gone too far. He looked over at L’xon, nervousness barely concealed. “I’m sorry. I suppose I don’t really mean that. I’m just a bit nervous, is all.”

“Cultural?” Viyeri’s fingers tapped the top of the tea barrel as he considered this, mostly for conversation’s sake, as it seemed an odd attribution to him. “Perhaps, though how dragons acquire culture straight out of the egg is another mystery altogether.” So many mysteries. Viyeri shrugged and went back to stuffing tea. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand dragons, not even if I impressed one.” His feelings on that were still conflicted—Viyeri liked figuring things out, and if he could not figure it out he was annoyed. But if he could make sense of everything it would just seem too easy, and then he would be bound to run out of puzzles, wouldn’t he?

He more or less fell quiet to listen as L’xon explained more about dragon speech and names, moving away only once to add another bag of tea to the pot. Eight, then. He was about to turn back to work, but paused, lingering by the cauldron for a moment and watching L’xon stir the tea. His lips twitched in a smile, amused by the obvious shifts in the other’s emotions. He just said everything that came to mind, didn’t he? How cute. Viyeri almost felt a little guilty for being inwardly patronizing toward someone who seemed so nice, but it was kind of refreshing to talk to someone so easy to read. Or who he thought was easy, anyway.

“It makes sense that it would be different, I suppose, if their speech really is linked to the mind and all that,” he said, turning back to the bags and stuffing the last ones needed to complete the pot. His offhand tone wasn’t so much that he didn’t believe in dragon’s telepathy, only that he lacked the capacity to truly relate to it. Strange, dragons didn’t seem to talk to him much. And he was such a good conversationalist.

“One egg? Can’t imagine the tension around those hatchings.” He had to smile at that—it seemed almost comical, all the candidates clustered around a single egg, all staring at it intently as if dragons chose their riders based on how long they could keep their eyes open without blinking. Maybe they did—how would Viyeri know? But he didn’t envy that hatchling, coming dazed into the world to find an absolute one-hundred percent of the weyr’s attention focused in solely on him. Or her.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m sure a blue could catch a gray. Or a white, if one ever flew.” He tied off one of the tea bags. “Blues must fly quite a bit, don’t they? Well, and all the male dragons, I suppose. What with the greens launching themselves off all the time.” Viyeri was glad his teasing about the bluerider’s modesty seemed to be taken well enough. He always found it harder to dislike people who didn’t mind a bit of joking. Though apparently joking did come second to work with this one, given the somewhat hurried way he started sampling the tea.

He thanked the weyrling with a smile as he took the tea from him, and he raised his eyebrows a little in polite interest as he took a sip, listening. Oh, so L’xon could joke too! That was always a pleasant surprise. He was also more than a little relieved that what he said hadn’t been met with any sort of anger, and he wasn’t going to get marched into the candidate master’s office or anything like that. Viyeri was more than happy to show his appreciation on both counts with a laugh. He looked down at his own covered legs with a mock frown—they were rather thin, like the rest of him. “Oh dear, should I be doing more running? I hope not. I really hate running.”

He watched with a little more secret amusement as L’xon pushed all his hair back into place immediately after the headshake messed it up, though that didn’t stop him from listening, too. He chuckled, taking another sip of his tea. It wasn’t as much of a happy chuckle this time. “Trust me, if it were that easy to stop, I would. Worrying doesn’t do anyone all that much good.” At further mention of the hatchings, he just shrugged. “I suppose it’s just not something I can understand as a candidate.” That wasn’t so much how he really felt as that he just didn’t want to discuss it anymore. Candidate lives were still lives, as far as he could tell, and it didn’t seem right for dragonriders to value them so little that candidates couldn’t be given basic protection, regardless of whatever lofty otherworldly knowledge having a dragon had given them. But talking like that in a weyr, and to a dragonrider especially, even if he was just a young one, was pure foolishness. He would much rather keep the conversation pleasant—Viyeri was in a good mood today, and he wasn’t about to ruin it.

The weyrling’s responses seemed much more infrequent now, and Viyeri wondered if maybe he’d said the wrong thing. He probably had—but which thing was it? He could be pretty flippant with conversation if he wasn’t bothering to pay more attention to the stuff coming out of his mouth, and L’xon hadn’t seemed enough of a threat for him to keep his guard up. He did notice that the weyrling looked a little further away, though, and it occurred to Viyeri that he might be talking to his dragon. He wondered what they were talking about, if that was the case. But maybe not—maybe it was something he said. Oh well. He mentally shrugged it off and went back to work.

“Ah. Yes, that doesn’t seem like it would be very fun to deal with. Maybe for a tan or a yellow it wouldn’t be so bad, but the others…” Having to deal with the clutchmothers as a candidate was scary enough, and while he knew dragons wouldn’t hurt their own riders, he didn’t envy the level of vigilance Kalith and Waroth’s riders must have to keep up to ensure nothing went amiss with their dragons in their less-than-gracious moods.

And then L’xon was silent again, which was a little disappointing. He had enjoyed the brief moment of joking around, which L’xon no longer seemed to have much interest in, but that didn’t seem too surprising. He looked like the dedicated, serious type. That was the bluerider stereotype, too.

Viyeri ducked down when L’xon moved on to preparing the cauldron for the next phase of Operation: Peppermint Takeover, glad of the warning, as he didn’t particularly want a head injury. He was glad again that L’xon seemed to know what they were supposed to do, because Viyeri wasn’t entirely sure what the weyrling was examining. He watched L’xon watching the cauldron, staying nearby and ready should the weyrling have a use for him. But whatever they were doing, L’xon seemed to have it under control for the moment, so Viyeri picked a fleck of tea leaf from under his fingernail while L’xon started putting gloves on.

“Being smart is like worrying; it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” he said offhandedly, even though the comment didn’t really seem directed at him. Even though Viyeri relied upon his intelligence to stay alive for the most part, he did often feel like he would be better off without it. But smart or not, at the moment he was certainly not being very thoughtful or observant, since it was only once L’xon returned to the cauldron that he actually wondered why the weyrling had said that.

He just stood there, watching, but his expression changed from that of a casual observer to full on staring in disbelief as L’xon reached directly into the fire, grabbing the no-doubt scalding hot chains and tugging on them. His mouth opened for a moment, but he ran his tongue over his lower lip and then closed them again. Whatever insane thing L’xon was doing, it was probably better done without his interruption. Still, he was looking at L’xon with worry both for the weyrling’s hands and his sanity when L’xon actually said something to him, and it took him a second to be able to respond.

“Um…sure, I’ll get it…” He gave one last glance at the weyrling’s hand before quickly crossing to the room’s exit and grabbing the cart from outside, pulling it around and through the door until it fit into place. “Is your hand all right?” he couldn’t resist asking, once he’d returned, and his eyes kept drifting to the weyrling’s hands as if he expected them to now be covered in terrible burns. He walked over to join his tea-making partner, though, taking stock of all the parts of the apparatus. “All right. I guess we should get that started, then?”

He moved to the chain where L’xon was, ready to start pulling, but his attention was diverted back to L’xon when he returned to their previous topic of conversation. Ah, so apparently Viyeri had said something wrong. He blinked, gathering his words for a second. “Oh, I don’t have anything against dragonriders. This would be a funny place for me to be if I did,” he said, a smile tweaking his lips. But he then returned to a more serious expression. “I’m sorry if I’ve said something wrong. I don’t always think things through before I open my mouth, I’m afraid. I always seem to be over-thinking or under-thinking.” The half-smile was back, but it was an apologetic one. He did brighten a little at L’xon’s offer, though—he must not have done too badly if the weyrling still wanted him to meet his dragon. Even in a weyr, meeting a dragon still seemed like a great honor. “I’d like that. I’m sure he’s magnificent.” He grinned. “Though I’m not sure about liking me. Most people don’t seem to.” He was mostly joking, now.

Viyeri just blinked at the red bands that had already formed on the weyrling’s fingers, looking slightly less worried only because he was now too busy looking sort of baffled. Protective glove or not, the heat had obviously been enough to leave a mark, and Viyeri never had understood how some people could so readily forgo pain and sacrifice their own flesh—even something like this that, granted, didn’t look too serious—for the sake of their work. Not that Viyeri had never had to make sacrifices, but they were not physical, and even then he only stood them because the alternative was so much worse. Not something that seemed so trivial as tea being late.

“Right…” he said, clearly still perturbed, but he wasn’t going to push it. Up to L’xon what he wanted to do with his fingers. “Yeah, let’s do that.” Once the barrel started filling, his eyes flicked over to the weyrling, but L’xon didn’t seem to have anything for him to do. Viyeri could live with that. He watched the tea flow down the slide like their own private little waterfall, if waterfalls could be hot enough to burn the skin. Somehow that didn’t sound very peaceful.

Oh, excellent, more conversation. “Really? That must be good to know.” If Viyeri was a dragon rider, he’d like to have the best leather for his flightsuit too. Though in his case, it probably wouldn’t make much difference. Char seemed almost a trifling concern when you were doing mid-air gather dances with a substance that could devour you in seconds. “Now if they just made flightsuits that could block thread, then we’d be talking,” he said, a half-grin on his face.

Viyeri let out a little sigh of relief, matched with a smile, to show just how very glad he was that it was all a misunderstanding and L’xon was not upset. “Oh good. Well, maybe with you over-thinking and me under-thinking we’ll balance out.” Sounded more like a recipe for more misunderstandings, but things said in jest didn’t have to make sense. Making sense was not very high on Viyeri’s list of priorities anyhow. Viyeri was aware of L’xon watching him while they pulled and adjusted the various chains to keep the tea pouring and the barrels filling, but the weyrling didn’t say anything, so he supposed if he was doing it wrong he at least wasn’t messing it up too badly.

He did catch L’xon’s mumbled response to his joking, and decided to milk it even if L’xon hadn’t said much. The tea waterfall was getting boring. “Isn’t it?” he said, eyes widening a bit as he looked over at the weyrling as if in earnest. Clearly feigned earnestness, actually. He went on with his lament. “Personally, I really can’t imagine why. I’d want to be my friend, you know, if there were two of me. Probably. Though I suppose if I did run into myself in the dining hall someday, friendship might not be the first thing I worried about.” Apparently today was ‘say everything that came to mind and see how L’xon reacted’ day.

If L’xon didn’t like some part of their duties, after what Viyeri had seen so far, Viyeri almost dreaded to know what it was. And it could have been worse—they might have had to stomp out the fire with their own feet, or something—but still, Viyeri had to frown as he sized up the laden cart and tried to think what it would be like to pull it. “Oh dear. I can see why you don’t like this part.” Still, he nodded at the suggestion, moving to the front of the cart and keeping an eye out for obstructions as L’xon started to pull the cart. “It’s a good thing I’m 1/8 draybeast. Father’s side, you know.”

Viyeri’s own cart-pulling, when it came time for that, was what truly made that joke funny, because it was quite evident that strength had never been Viyeri’s best attribute. He came from a family of tunnelsnakes much more than he came from one of runners or herdbeasts. Still, he did what was required of him, and tried to do it in decent enough time that he wasn’t lagging too far behind where he should have been. Even pulling at his best, though, he clearly wasn’t doing as well as L’xon had, and seemed quite miserable doing it, though he didn’t comment on it. Best just to get this embarrassment over with.

The cold air outside was actually sort of welcome, with how unpleasantly hot and sweaty Viyeri felt after the combined efforts of the tea room and the cart to ruin his hygiene, and he was glad of the bit of a rest he got as they waited for Halventh. Peering in the direction L’xon’s eyes were trained in, he could just make out the bit of blue that might have been the dragon. Viyeri looked back to L’xon, though, when the weyrling started giving him advice, and smiled. “Oh yes, I’ve seen a few of them moving around like that. I wouldn’t dream of mentioning it—and in return I hope dragons don’t make fun of me for being a terrible flyer. I’m really very clumsy in the air—it just sort of looks like I’m falling, you know.”

As far as dragons went, Halventh actually seemed fairly graceful, though keeping L’xon’s advice in mind, Viyeri shifted his attention to the young blue’s size and delicate facial features. He really was a lovely shade of blue—well, two shades, really—but both of them combined to make him a very beautiful dragon. Despite his age, his carriage suggested something almost regal. But apparently looking regal didn’t mean he couldn’t have a cute reunion with his dear rider. Viyeri managed to keep his ‘aww’s internal, just standing at ease and watching the two. That sort of thing was what actually made him wish he had one of those walking tickets into threadfall, now and then. They really looked like two halves of a whole, a complete unit.

He really wasn’t sure what to do when Halventh turned his attention on him, other than to stand there and not do anything too sudden. Viyeri dipped his head and the tops of his shoulders forward in a partial bow, smiling when the dragon’s breath ruffled through his hair. “Well, aren’t you a handsome fellow,” he said to the dragon, before looking up past him to where his rider was working with the straps. It was always strange trying to figure out who to address when meeting a dragon—Viyeri hated people talking about him like he wasn’t there, so he didn’t like to do that to the dragon, but other dragons didn’t appreciate people saying things to them, so there didn’t seem to be any clear cut way to go about it. “You’re lucky to have him, though I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.” He switched back to addressing Halventh. “I’m Viyeri, and it truly is a pleasure to meet you. It’s not often I get to meet dragons. Don’t worry, though, I don’t expect a handshake.” Or a response. But hadn’t Viyeri proven well enough already that he didn’t mind talking mostly to himself?

Viyeri sighed at L’xon’s comment about lacking brutishness, as if that really was quite the tragedy. Which it actually wasn’t—Viyeri was sort of vain, actually, and was happy with his appearance even if he wasn’t the burliest of specimens. It did make pulling carts more difficult, though. “I suppose that’s true, isn’t it? I’ve been told I don’t strike the most imposing of figures.”

Viyeri just stood there, a small, polite smile fixed on his face as the young blue dragon examined him. Blues had a pretty good reputation for their temperament, as did dragons as a whole with the exceptions of reds and coppers and the like, so he wasn’t too worried about having Halventh snuffling around in his face. It was actually sort of flattering, even in a weyr, to have a dragon paying attention to you at all. He didn’t really expect Halventh to pay attention to him at all, or to really respond to the latest flippant thing coming out of Viyeri’s mouth, so it was sort of surprising when he did seem to be looking down at Viyeri’s hands.

Though not quite as suprising as what he did after that. Viyeri just sort of watched, perplexed, as Halventh raised his forepaw and put one digit against Viyeri’s chest. He wondered if maybe this was some sort of attempt at improvised hand-shaking when he was promptly shoved back a step, which he certainly made no attempt to fight, just shuffling back a bit as he was pushed.

He blinked, frowning slightly as he tried to formulate a proper response to that. There was certainly no page for it in Viyeri’s extensive behavior manual. “I think…” he said slowly, starting to smile as he looked past Halventh to where L’xon was probably still getting the harness situated or something. “You may just have been wrong about him liking me.” He turned back to Halventh. “But that’s quite all right! Lots of people don’t like me, so you can be sure you’re with very good company.”

He stepped out of the way when L’xon was finished getting the cart and harness situated, and watched Halventh head out across the bowl. Viyeri saw the dragon appear from between, and he took a step back, shrinking subconsciously further back into the warmth of the tunnel. Even without the mental bond L’xon shared with the blue, he could tell that Halventh seemed upset by the injured dragon’s appearance, though at least he made it to the infirmary and back without issue.

He nodded, glad to have something to do this time rather than just talk to the somewhat unresponsive Halventh—well, actually Halventh had been pretty responsive in his own way, compared to the few other dragons Viyeri had interacted with, but still. He moved to Halventh’s side, working at undoing the leather straps. He frowned when Halventh made that noise again, finding that something about it tugged at his empathy strings. Without really thinking about it, he gave the blue’s side a reassuring rub for a moment before moving to loosen another strap. “Well, I certainly can’t blame him. Must be terribly confusing, having your head networked in to everyone else’s. I don’t think I’d like that too much.”