His idea of exactly what a Starcrafter DID however, was a little different than the folks around him. He thought that they crafted the stars. Bemused, his mother, the headwoman of their minor Hold, told him to speak to his father about it. So he did. His father, sensing that the boy was quite earnest in his goals, contacted the Starcrafters personally.
Ixtapa is the oldest of his brothers, and had been expected to take some larger duty in the Hold when he was older. However, by the time he was twelve, his diligent research and ability to read thread charts foreward and back had caught the eye of more than just the master Starcrafter. It had caught the Blackstone's as well.
Blackstone Weyr sent an envoy of two blue dragons to the hold, and Searched out not only Ixtapa, but his next youngest brother Raphael. With the pair of them secured in either craft or weyr, their parents went back to their other children for the Hold's security.
So the pair of odd brothers began their work in a weyr. Ixtapa took his Journeyman's knots in Starcraft before he was eighteen turns, and had stood upon the Blackstone sands twice before deciding that he would seek dragon kind elsewhere. His brother remains at Blackstone, but who knows for how long?
Ixtapa knows that he is a handsome, somewhat exotic young man. Now 19 turns, with a bit of the world travel expected out of Journeymen of any kind, he has a new kind of charm to exude. Where ever Ixtapa goes, he expects attention. However, he has never gone all pouty or angry when he doesn't get it. He just looks somewhere else....
"Quite a bit, queenrider," Ixtapa answered, with a nervous grin. "What would you like to know?"
"Mostly," Uzume said, leaning her elbows onto her desk, "how the Starcraft managed to get you before we did at the Weyr." Her charming impish grin captivated Ixtapa. "But actually, I need to know if you can plot some charts before you go. Would that be too difficult on such short notice?"
Ixtapa grinned, "for anyone but me, weyrwoman."
"Ap!" She said, holding her finger in the air, "no longer! I am but a rider of an old, beat-up golden behemoth!"
Ixtapa's eyes grew wide, showing off their green iris which the clever boys of the blackbottom crowd managed to match on his hair last season. Why that blasted green hadn't yet come out of his hair after moons of washing stopped being distressing to Ixtapa when girls decided it was the greatest thing since sliced wherry. But his attention wasn't on his hair. It was on Uzume.
"Queen rider!" He exlaimed, and Uzume sat back into her seat, giggling something to her dragon. "I can have them to you by tomorrow. How long a projection do you need?"
"Only the next fortnight. And, if you could, the area here," she showed her favored area on a map which was pressed on the desk beneath a thick piece of glass. "I'm interested in leading a brief... expedition there, and I must be sure that Threadfall will not interfere."
Ixtapa caught the inflection in her voice, and narrowed his eyes in a sly grin. "Well, ex-weyrwoman, I certainly hope that my charts will prove you shall have a good time, then." He picked up the wherhide which she wanted it drawn on, rolled it expertly and tucked it into his belt. As he walked out of the office, Uzume caught the tail end of something her dragon was thinking, and burst out in a girlish titter.
***
"The thread will not reach there, Uzume," Ixtapa said, darkly, "but it will be falling. Perhaps you could delay your visit to the area. It would be dangerous to be out when Thread is falling at all, let alone 'nearby'. You know and I know that 'near' can change in minutes to 'on'."
Uzume looked genuinely disappointed. Ixtapa's notes matched those which her weyrmate P'at had aquired from another crafter. They always compared notes, it made their little party outings that much safer. And it made their partnership that much more interesting.
"Perhaps we must, then," she sighed.
Ixtapa watched the woman and turned his gaze back to the map next to his chart. "But if you were to go here," he said of a low glen some miles away from the one she had indicated, "the wind patterns there are rarely if ever condusive to Thread. The updraft carries it over the ridge and into the bay, most of the time."
"Most of the time isn't good enough," she sighed.
"This is to be a private party, then," Ixtapa hinted, a whisper. Uzume's brilliant eyes turned up to him, and to him she certainly did not look like her age... She must have been in her sixties, or later, but she had a charm and a girlish look upon her face, even when she was being a serious weyrwoman. Her dragon's last clutch on the sands at Blackstone ushered in a time in her life when she knew she would be able to go where she would, and see whom she would. She obviously intended to do just those things.
Ixtapa was dying for an invite. He'd heard things, whispers. The woman commanded such great respect around the Weyr that they were often ONLY whispers, but sometimes, she herself joked about it all. Her business in the weyr was over: now was her time to play as she'd never done as a youth upon a golden queen.
"Would you like to choose a time and place then, young Starcrafter?" Uzume asked, purring it out like a knowing feline. Could she read his mind?
Probably not, it was probably the other things about him that she read like a book. He straightened, looked about, and then huddled close to her across the table. "I would love to, Uzume of golden Kagamith. If only I would be allowed to be there when you arrive..."
***
Their presence in the glen was not really noticed by the fair of wild flitters which dove into the small pond, nor by any of the surrounding grazing beasts. The dragons which bore the small party to their destination had other things on their minds, like a larger lake to bathe and play in. They'd already fed, and showed no interest in chasing any of the herdbeasts anyway.
So it was that on a fine summer afternoon, free of Threadfall, the ex-weyrwoman, the ex-weyrleader, Ixtapa and half a dozen other carefully chosen folk came to be lounging about in very nearly nothing but their bare skins near the pond. Waterfights, skinny dipping and some less mentionable activities crowded into their afternoon, but there was time to just lay and watch the skies, which was Ixtapa's favorite activity.
It was being rapidly replaced by watching the elegant elder woman prancing about with her long trail of white hair, with her extremely silly but remarkably pleasant weyrmate a close second. But as usual, Ixtapa's eyes turned up.
Where they fell upon another dragon, in flight. How odd! They had not asked for anyone to attend, this late in their afternoon. When the shadow of the dragon crossed the pond and the glen was bathed in darkness briefly, the handful of mostly naked people darted behind things and hurriedly put something on to cover themselves.
Uzume and P'at were notably excepting themselves from that. As if they had anything to hide?
Ixtapa took their cue. He was wearing but a small swimming brief, and pleased that he looked just fine that way, stood and greeted the blue rider who dropped off her dragon.
The woman looked half-shocked to see so many people wandering around scurring, but it was obviously her dragon who thought it even funnier.
"Oh, stop it, you big silly!" Uzume scolded the dragon, who had apparently met the woman before. "Nora! Get this beast out of our SUN!"
Ixtapa laughed, and Nora bowed to the ex-weyrwoman and her mate before turning to the green-haired young man. "I would do that, but I have something I need to retrieve here first, goldrider."
Uzume stepped up to her, standing barely to Nora's chin. "He's playing in our party right now, search rider." She warned. Her mocking tone was obviously taken less than seriously.
Searchrider?
"He is the one Mitanth wants for the clutch. I'm sorry, Uzume, but you know the rules. You have to give him up."
"I've got mine already," she poked P'at in the ribs, and Ixtapa looked at Nora carefully.
"You are a searchrider from ... where?"
"Talor Cliff," she announced. Mitanth grumbled and she introduced him too. "This pest is Mitanth. He told me that you were a spark among the flames."
"Does that make you flaming, S'xon?" someone yelled, and the tall darkskinned man bolted across the grass to prove he wasn't.
Ixtapa smiled weakly. "So, should I gather my things?"
Nora's eyes dropped briefly, returned to see Ixtapa's tremendous blush as he realized that what he'd said might be misinterpreted in this context. He licked his lips and tried to recover -- after all, he'd been able to blend in with the weyrleaders and influential folk for the whole afternoon. He could hardly believe himself blushing at a silly comment like that!
"I think so," Nora finally said. "It'll get you away from these wild women and wanton riders."
"You know what they say about weyr life," Ixtapa said, looking over his shoulder at Uzume, "it's always like this..."
Nora gave a blurted out, "yeah I wish!" before helping Ixtapa gather up his clothing and bid the others farewell. They went back to his weyr briefly, and then flew off to the waiting sands at Talor Cliff.
