never changing who i am (Lee, Rii, Chim)

[Zephyr]

ooc; sibling thread. for chim too if she finishes lanorun soon.

It was warm outside today. Perhaps, not hot enough to warrant not wearing a shirt, but it was warm enough, and Ranthian hated the feeling of a shirt on his body, especially when he was working. And working he was, shoveling out the stables. Unlike many of the other candidates, Ranthian valued hard work, and the boy often did the job of five candidates without a word of complaint. Whenever someone wanted to get out of their chores, they knew Ranthian was the guy to go to.

Maybe one day a dragon will see that.

Content to wait until that day came, he toiled the days away working on whatever the candidatemaster wanted him to do. He hadn’t spent too much time socializing, as his roommate was quiet and he hadn’t seen his siblings much at all. It made him sad, but there was not much he could do about it. Joshu, Nori and Lanorun had each other, even if he was often lost in the shuffle, he was fine with it. The kid was just happy his siblings were happy…that’s all that ever really mattered to him.

Patting the flank of the nearest runner, Ranthian finished up his chores in short order and leaned the shovel up against the wall of the stable. He was hot, even if it wasn’t exactly warm enough not to wear a shirt, he had been working hard enough that he was also sweaty. There was only one thing for it though, that he could think of.

Ranthian was going to go swimming.

Grabbing his shirt, he closed the distance from the stables to the river quickly enough. It was close enough to dinner that there wouldn’t be so many people around, and the sun was shining brightly enough that a dip in the lake sounded especially attractive. He probably wouldn’t spend too much time in the water, but he probably wouldn’t go to dinner either. He was in an especially pensive mood since one of the queens of the weyr had risen, and there would probably be a clutch on the sands soon.

Settling back on a rock, he peeled his boots off, rolled up his trouser legs up and started wading into the cool water.

[lee]

Joshu had a theory. He had several, actually, but this sevenday it was swaddling clothes. When Ranthian had been an infant, thrust pink and screaming into the wilderness with the rest of them, the sickly younger sibling had often been wrapped tight in swaddling clothes, to be kept quiet or more easily carried. He was quite certain Ranthian didn't remember, but Joshu did, and pondered that perhaps there was some lingering subconscious aversion to being wrapped tight in fabric that had led to Ranthian's general distaste for shirts. He was growing quite pleased with this theory the more he contemplated it, and it had slowly replaced the overly-sensitive-skin theory and the Ranthian-was-just-opposed-to-looking-presentable-theory.

Though if the opinions of some of the younger ladies he worked with in the kitchens were anything to go of off, Ranthian more than passed for presentable sans shirt. This revelation had been deeply unsettling to Joshu, who still distinctly remembered being puked on by the toddler version.

The older man shook his head with some amusement. There was no accounting for weyrfolk. Strange breed. Odd to think he was a part of them, though his place felt tenuous at best, and crowded in a way the outside world had never been. It was that sense of claustrophobia that had led him outside, his stride smooth and long as he sought the familiar. He was here because Ranthian and Norilana were here. Even if Lanorun had stubbornly stayed behind—and he hadn't, as Joshu knew he couldn't—he would have come for them. Unaware that Ranthian often felt overlooked, Joshu did care deeply for each of his siblings, it was just rather more easy to assume that Ranthian had things under control than their fiery, stubborn sister. He supposed, often enough, that the younger two didn't need him—had they not been Searched all by themselves? Made the decision to come to the Weyr without the elders' input?—and so he tried, more with Ranthian than with Nori where the protective instinct was just too strong, to be as unobtrusive in their lives as possible, and saw the distance he kept as a gift rather than a felt loss. But he missed them. Even all here, all together, it wasn't really the same, and the thought that a mindmate might take them further away still, have a bond closer than that of any kind of blood, was at times an ache worse than the phantom pain of his leg. But nevertheless, Faranth how he wanted it for them! What a pair they would make, astride dragons that towered over man and mountain, skimmed the skies and fought for Pern. And Lanorun, tough as a wher, would do well as a wherhandler. He felt filled to the brim with pride for all of them, and not an ounce of envy—Joshu had faced thread and had no care to do it again. His adventure quota, he rather figured, was quite filled for life with that one desperate dash away from the Leading Edge. No. Joshu wanted to stay in the kitchens, learn to bake—really bake!—nutty, filling breads and sweet cakes, flaky fish pastries and salty buns filled with cheese from fresh herdbeast milk. He had not thought further than that, because his life had not often involved looking farther into the future than preparation for the next winter.

He moved surprisingly quietly for a man with a leg chipped out of stone, and came upon his pensive brother's boots almost immediately, unaware until he spied them that he had, without thinking, been looking for them (or more accurately, their owner). Briefly, he considered snaking that leg out and tripping him, dunking the younger lad headfirst into the cool water, but since the lad's growth spurt, he suspected the fit young man could take him and decided that he would rather not take a forceful dip himself. So Joshu folded himself on the rock that Ranthian had occupied a moment ago, and slipped a smooth stone between his fingers, eyeing the quiet water shrewdly before letting it fly, skipping between Ranthian's legs and hopping across the water thrice more before sinking sullenly below the surface. Knowing full well Ranthian had probably put in more than one man's share of work but never one to miss an opportunity to needle a brother, Joshu smiled, small and crooked with quiet pride and pure mischief, and mused, "Welladay, slacker."

[/blockquote]

[Rii]

Nori had no theories. Nori was happy. Her chores were done, her lessons were learned, and that meant she had time for fun. It was glorious! And on a warm, sunny day, too. The young teen took off outside, running and jumping with the sheer exuberance that welled up inside of her. She was almost all the way across the bowl approaching the lake when she spied the pair of much-beloved faces. “Ranthian! Joshu!” she called out happily, running down to the water’s edge and glomping Joshu from behind. She’d happily glomp Ranthian too, but she’d have to take her footwear off first. Wet boots were no fun at all, and they took forever to dry. Accustomed to only having one pair, it was ingrained in her not to mess them up too badly.

She had no idea that Ranthian felt excluded even amongst his family. In her idealistic mind, she loved all of her brothers equally and assumed they did the same for each other and her. Yes, Joshu fussed over her as much or more than their mother ever did, but - as she considered with intermingled resignation and contentedness - she was the youngest and the unexpected surprise. If there had been another after her, it would have been them.

“Guess who I saw today at the candidate barracks? Matilda! Do you remember Matilda and Amontillado? From the Islands?” Okay, so not all of her brothers had been as social as she was. “They’re both here. Well, he’s A’til now, of viridian… viridian… oh, I forget. She went off to weavercrafthall for a while but she came here. I think she maybe wants a wher, but you should see how A’til responded to that!” She giggled. “And I saw some candidate sitting on top of the barracks roof when I crossed the bowl. There are some really odd people here. Nice, but odd.”

Nori plopped down next to Joshu, poking him. “You know that Ranthian always has everything done, Joshu. Someday he’ll ride a brown, or even an iron!” She beamed. Why not dream big for him? Her brothers were awesome. “Oh! I have a new joke. What do you call a fish with no eyes?” The girl wriggled for a moment. She was especially pleased with this one because it incorporated her growing skills with letters; she knew she’d heard it somewhere before and just hadn’t got it until these past couple seasons at Dalibor when she’d learned to read. “A fsh!”

[Chimera]

Lanorun and Norilana were different. They were the furthest apart in age of the siblings. He was a grumpy, tall wher Candidate, she was an optimistic, cheerful dragon Candidate.

But in addition to being stubborn, they shared something else in common - not having theories about Ranthian. To Lanorun, he didn't care why his brother hated shirts. It wasn't winter anymore, and the chores were labor-intensive. Nice of the Weyrs to use Candidates as free labor. "Nice", indeed.

He'd finished his chores a bit later than Ranthian and Nori - the strong young man was always assigned the tougher, more physical tasks around the Weyr. He strode, rather tired, to the lake.

"Well, the whole gang's here." He pulled off one boot, then the other, cupping some cold freshwater in his hands, washing his sweaty face with it. "'ow's yer day goin' so far?" Lanorun asked, tousling Nori's hair affectionately. The question was, of course, addressed to all of them. Lanorun didn't know of Ranthian's feelings inside - to him, they all cared equally for each other.

He listened with a cocked eyebrow and tilted head to Nori's barrage of chattery news of the day.

"Amon an' Matilda, huh. Remember somethin' of 'em...not really. Nope. What of 'em?"

"A viridian? Good for 'im." He muttered. "One a' the bigger dragons." That was something he'd learned from his Candidate lessons, though he was a wher candidate. It was still important to know the dragon colors - two of them had popped up as new wher colors a couple Turns back, after all.

"Nori, don't copy that Candidate, whatever y' do. Y'll fall. Surprised that one din't already." He sighed.

"Someday, someday." He was unsure of what a bond was like, if his siblings needed a bond, a bond deeper than family.

He did chuckle at his little sister's joke.

"Good one. Wouldn't a fish with no eyes be one of 'em underground-water-dwellin' types in real life, no?" Lanorun frowned in thought, before shrugging. "Yer learnin', though."

"Speaking 'bout other islanders here, I saw one o' them myself. That squeaky boy with blon' hair, Lirmox. Got a green wher, bitey thing, Ausk's spawn. Talked ta' him for a minute before she tried ta attack me." He sighed. "Barely handled his own wher. Spineless lad."