Leen
The Trader
Leen felt the shaking of the wagon when they stopped in front of the
town entrance. It was too hot for her here in the Southern Continent,
yet her parents had wanted her to join the two other men in the wagon,
namely Dan and Gido, because they already had lots of experience with
trading. She herself was 19, making her the youngest solotrader in the
caravan. Their were others that were younger then her, but those were
travelling with their parents. She was alone in the unbearable hot
weather of Southern when she could have travelled the Northern Continent with her brother
Raemon. She knew her parents didn't like her
being so close to Jhona, one of the fiery sons of the caravan leader who
had made it known he liked her. Normally her parents would have loved
her to marry a trader, but they didn't like him because he was 35 and
had already had 2 wives and 6 children. They just didn't understand she
was what he needed.
If it wasn't for the heat, she probably would have enjoyed the
caravan. She especially liked the evenings, when there were games and
storytelling. She waved herself fresh air with some big leaves and got
out to find water. She looked up and saw Dan managing the span. No need
for her to start helping, he did better on his own. She looked around to
find Gido and saw him racing down towards them with Drinda hovering all
around him. That was another interesting treat: there were firelizards
in Southern! In fact, she realised, it wasn't all that bad. She promised
herself that she would try and be more optimistic for the remainder of
the trip. She waved back at Gido when he came in and pointed to the
bassin of water. He never seemed to have any trouble with the heat...His
skin was very dark, almost black and he had short dark hair, he was 25
and had been trading solo from 16 when he had lost both his parents in a
fire, he still lived on the Northern Continent at that time where he had
met her parents. Her skin was white and her hair was deep red, making
her the ideal subject for sunburn. Luckely Dan remembered some tricks
from when he had gotten here. He was big and blond, his skin was tanned
now, but once it had been whiter than hers, or so he said, because Leen
couldn't imagine anyone having a whiter skin then hers.
As usual they had to wait for Gido to stable his precious runner. He
cared a great deal about the animal and would never leave her unattended, maybe that was why she never got into trouble
too, you could
leave her on a big plain without a fence and she would still be there
the next day. The third time Dan yelled, Gido answered a little while
later he came out and they could leave for town. They were off to see
the harper. A young man as it turned out with a wife and kids that was
very friendly. They sold him the wood he had ordered and got some advice
about selling the other goods.
The next day, the left early in the morning. Leen had never been to a
Weyr before, well, she had seen them, but never from the inside. It was
still foggy when they arrived and shrouds of mist blurred the peaks of
the volcano, it looked peaceful and asleep. Once inside that image
changed completely. There were a lot of people running around, doing
things that seemed totally without purpose to Leen. Gido, swift as
always grabbed the nearest person by the arm and asked for the headwoman. The man pointed to a woman in bright green waving a wooden
spoon. She seemed to be annoyed about something. Leen quickly followed
the 2 men, she didn't want to miss a single word.
"Good day headwoman. We are traders and Garin, the harper thought you
could use some of our goods."
The headwoman stopped and looked puzzled for a while, before her face
cleared up and she said:
"Ah yes! We can use some new goods. I will come to you later."
She ran off and left them standing. Gido and Dan tried to get answers
from the busy weyrfolk and got some...it seemed three queens had
clutches and they needed a lot of space cleared out for the candidates
and searchriders had to fly out to find them.
"No wonder they are busy" Dan said
"yeah, the headwoman promised she would be back, so we'll just have
to wait" Gido replied.
They were still waiting when a big blue dragon looked their way and
made a strange sound. It cam running right toward them! Leen hastily
tried to avoid it, by stepping back, only to bump into Gido who held her
when she was about to fall. The dragon stopped and looked intensly at
them. The world seemed to stand still at that moment, nobody moved,
nobody made a sound. That wasn't true of course, on a basic level she
knew people were talking. Dan said something. She heard the reply of
Gido and shuddered when the intention of the blue became clear to her.
"Wants who? Why?" Gido stumbled.
A man dressed in full riding gear answered:
"You! Ansith wants you 2 to stand for impression."
~***~
Hatching
The day of the Hatching was a hot day. It was good those Impression
gowns were simple sleeveless white tunics. Two of the clutches would
hacth today. Being a trader she had calculated her chances of
impressing, there were21 candidates and 16 eggs, wich meant 5 would
remain dragonless, but they wouls stand for the third clutch. She
decided her chances were ok enough and entered the sands.
The eggs on both sides of her rocked and made crackling noises. Suddenly
eggs started to hatch on both sides: a blue, 2 reds, a green, a blue
that went to Gido, he would be so happy. She looked to the clutches
again and wondered wich egg might contain the dragon for her, she liked
this one egg far in the back of Green Tikiriath's clutch, it was kinda
like a hunch, but not quite. She wasn't sure she got the vibes right
though. When that egg broke, it was the 11th, she was almost convinced
she was being foolish and the little green dragonet, screaming for
attention, wasn't to be hers. But then she felt the green's reassuring
answer in her mind:
"Off course we are meant for eachother!"
"Jybarith!" Leen exclaimed, giving sound to her disbelief and joy in
one single word.
Green
Jybarith
~***~
Leen saw Switamth swoop
down just in time to avoid the brown. There must be something really
wrong if the dragon wasn't warned by his instincts when reentering from
between. She had learned a lot from Jybarith. She had calmed down. They
were on a field trip that day, all the weyrings old enough to fly were
there, led by 2 older dragonriders, they had come to learn some survival
tricks, making fire, wich plants were good, what they did and stuff like
that. Most of it Leen already knew from her days as a trader. To her
astonishment the dragon landed and bugled in distress. There was
something really wrong here. She asked Jybarith if she knew what was
happening, but apparently every weyrling was asking questions so the
brown couldn't answer. The oldest dragonrider, M'lengo, yelled for
silence while his dragon, a bronze, gave the weyrlings the order to
quiet down. The silence that followed was an eary one. M'lengo talked to
his dragon and the bronze talked to the brown.
When the conversation was over M'lengo ordered everyone back to the weyr
and to inform the weyrleaders a healer would be needed.
Leen noticed Gido wasn't coming with them, he probably would be helping.
He had a nawk of being in the right place at the right time. She didn't
know how he did it. Instinct maybe, he had led a trader's
caravan for 3 years, so he must know some things about timing. That made
her think. No-one would miss her in this commotion. She ordered Jybarith
to fly between to 10 minutes earlier to the weyr ridges. Not many would
see her coming, none would stop her. That way she would reach Gido's
weyr in time to get in, settle herself in it and get to know everything
first hand. They were friends, he wouldn't refuse telling her the story.
As she had expected, 7 minutes later a bugle of alarm sounded through
the weyr, at that time she had just snuck in Gido's quarters. another 15
minutes later he was back.
"So, what happened? Tell me all about it!" She said.
He was awfully dirty and looked tired, but when he saw her, he
straightened up and looked her straight in the eyes. How strange, he
could let her know he was tired, she wouldn't be offended by it. Maybe
he was still a bit shy around females, he had had that in the caravan
aswell. She remembered she had never seen him taking a woman with him in
his tent. Maybe he was gay? No, couldn't be, Dan would have told her
then, they talked quite a lot at that time, including with wich guys she
needed to be carefull and wich ones were of no thread.
"Switamth says he likes your company."
Jybarith said in her head. "He likes you
a lot, I like Switamth too."
"I think I would have noticed it when he was in love with me,
Jybarith!" But then she thought, she had been too busy thinking
about Raemon.
"Switamth says they talk about you and
me a lot, more then about the other greens."
At that moment she thought she might aswell could take a risk. She had
to admit Raemon didn't appear in her head anymore, Gido, however
appeared more often. She couldn't deny he had something about him that
was highly interesting. She stopped thinking and kissed him. At first
his eyes were wide open in surprise, but then he closed them, enjoying
the kiss.
~***~
When Jybarith was ready to rise, they decided on a closed flight. She would fly at Lantessama. Only once would she clutch, afterwards she would chew firestone. Only Switamth would enter the flight, while Leen and Gido would be in their weyr (they had asked for ajacant weyrs and had broken down a passageway between the two.
~***~
Gido impressed at
Ryslen Weyr.
She is Weyrmated to Gido.