stats :: candidate :: jr.weyrling :: sr.weyrling :: adult :: dark moon weyr

"Hey! Stoppit Ika!" Degra squealed as the green gently tickled her. She batted the green's muzzle away playfully. Ikaroth dodged the girl's hand and nudged at Degra's stomach again, who giggled.

Sirionne watched the two playing with a contented smile. She knew how wierd she must look, a child living with her even though she had Impressed. Most Candidates gave their children to foster parents, if they had any, when they Impressed. That was where Degra would have to end up soon. She couldn't take her along to weyrling lessons.

"You two settle down, we've got to get going early today," Sirionne announced. "We've got to take Degra to meet her foster-mother."

Ikaroth snorted. She doesn't need a foster-mother. She's got us to take care of her. She nuzzled Degra's cheek affectionately.

"I don wanna go to a foster mother neither!" Degra insisted. "I don want anyone else for my mother but you!"

You're not going to a foster-mother, Sirionne heard Ikaroth assure the girl.

You're not making this any easier, Sirionne chided. She can't stay with us, and you know that as well as I do.

She can too.

"You can still come and play with Ikaroth but you need someone to take care of you when I can't, which will be more and more often as Ikaroth gets older," Sirionne explained, hugging Degra to her. "Think of your foster-mother as a babe-sitter rather than a mother."

"You'll still be my mother?" Degra asked, gazing up hopefully at Sirionne.

"Of course. You'll just be staying somewhere else," Sirionne replied, willing it to be true. She knew how much time greenriding mothers had to spend with their children, and it certainly wasn't enough for them to be mothers in any other way than a technical sense.

"As long as you're still my mother," Degra replied in her firm, determined little voice.

The young woman who had agreed to be Degra's foster-mother was named Feinla. She was nice enough, definetly the motherly type. Ikaroth strutted up to Feinla and sat at her feet, gazing up critically at the woman.

She looks acceptable, Ikaroth declared after a few moments. Feinla had begun to fidget under the green's harsh gaze. Tell her that she'd better take good care of Degra and let her come see us every day.

Sirionne chuckled and relayed the message to Feinla who assured both Sirionne and Ikaroth that Degra would be well cared for and allowed to come see them as often as she liked.

"Well, I guess this is good-bye for now," Sirionne told Degra, giving her one last hug. "Be good to Feinla and come see us often."

Degra was obviously trying not to cry. "I will. And I'll see you everyday. I won miss a day. I promise."

Before Sirionne's emotions got the better of her, she said good-bye to Feinla and left for her weyrling lessons, a very subdued Ikaroth following behind her.