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Candidate at Tiamat Weyr
Lela finally wanted to put a stop to it. But instead, she wound up getting another bad slap on her cheek -- the same one assaulted on the Gather day -- and decided to just lump it and shovel.
Fortunately, her experience with firestone was enough that she didn't put the wrong size in any given sack. She just did so with more force than some of the other weyrbrats and junior weyrlings could handle.
"Hold that bag higher!" Lela snapped at one of the weyrlings, "I can't put the stone in your pants, now can I?"
She nearly did just that. Three bags later, and one more snippy comment between, the Threadfall was more than half over, and the firestone crew was mostly dismissed. Mostly.
The weyrling master pulled Lela aside.
"Lela," he said, his tone already a warning.
"Sir, I am sorry." She said, but her eyes said differently.
"You're a good strong worker, and you know your drills. Why can't you get along like you used to?"
"It isn't me, sir... You know that. Everyone knows that." She spat.
Lela looked at the weyrling master harshly. Her pale white-tan eyes narrowed in anger for the first time at someone of authority. She wasn't a weyrling, and she told him so loudly. "You can't tell me what to do, 'sir', I'm not in your classes and I'm not on a dragon!"
"YET!" Yelled the weyrling master. "You need to remember that any of my weyrlings ARE depending on you, and you can't go around changing your mood to suit --"
"Why are you yelling at me like this? SHE is the one who hit ME!" She indicated the slap mark on her face, which while it was hard to see because of the tone of her skin, was still very apparent in this light. It stung, still, and it throbbed with Lela's face squinching up in tears. "Lessa is always complaining about how I'm overshadowing her, how I'm always 'getting' things -- but I WORK for them! You know I do! How DARE you say I change my moods -- you don't KNOW moods until you've had to live with HER!"
Lela burst into tears, but stood her ground in front of the weyrling master. Defiantly, she stood straighter, and forced back her sobs until she was silent again. She wasn't a weyrling, true, but she certainly looked like one.
Especially to the rider watching this transpire. She rested her shoulder against the stone wall, holding her riding helmet in one hand and putting the other on her badge. Her green dragon snuffled beyond, and Gerina nodded to her.
"I can see that," she said. Both Lela and the weyrling master turned at her voice. Neither expected there to be anyone still on the ledges, since Threadfall was over and the dragons were being washed and injuries tended to. But this wasn't a local dragon, either. Both Blackstone natives noticed that right off. The green was different, and new to Lela's eyes.
"Who are you, coming in here unannounced?" Asked the weyrling master, holding up a warning hand to Lela that he was hardly finished with her.
"Search rider Gerina on green Nyhiemoth, from Tiamat weyr." She indicated herself with a bow. "I apologize for my entrance, the watch dragon was a bit busy getting the wings back in. I came right as Fall was ending."
Nodding, the weyrling master looked between Lela and Gerina. He turned to the search rider, and his eyebrow went up. Gerina nodded once.
The weyrling master turned back to Lela, and in a gravely voice said, "well, you might be right about your sister. But if you're half the girl you seem to be, you might prove her right too."
That said, he left the ledge to check up on his senior weyrling riders.
Lela looked over the green rider, with her leathers fresh and clean -- so unlike all the other riders just in from Fall. They were covered with ash, and if Lela hadn't been on firestone duty already, she'd have been helping wash down the dragons. That would have been her first choice of activities, but as always, duty was chosen for her, and she never complained about it.
The women eyed each other, until the green rider unfocused her eyes and spoke again to her dragon behind her.
"Yes, of course. You're right." She said, and then looked more in focus at the dark skinned young woman before her. "What is your name?" She asked.
"Lela, daughter of Green rider Leilan, granddaughter of Gold rider Lanali." She said proudly.
"And sister of some poor-spirited girl, it looks like," Gerina said, holding her hand up to Lela's cheek. She nodded toward her dragon. "Nyhiemoth says that you are excellent rider material, and with what you just said, I think she's right. Would you like to stand at a new weyr's sands?"
It wasn't a matter of liking to, Lela realized. She'd been Searched... and that meant that she WOULD be standing! She nodded, numbed.
"I would," she said at last. "I would. I want the chance to prove that I can earn my way through a weyr. I would LOVE to ride like you do. Like mother and grandmother. This Weyr has been our home for... several generations. Would I be allowed to come back?"
"Of course you would, once your training is done. Blackstone seems to be a good place to find excellent candidates," Gerina commented. "Now, let's get you cleaned up. You can show me around the Weyr, right?"
Lela nodded, finally begining to smile again. What a day it had been, and what a day it would be soon, at Tiamat weyr, when she stood upon the sands!
