Impressed at Andromeda Weyr
She was sent to Mama Tani's with the erroneous thought that Raanatani might shape her into a Holder Lady. Rather, when she arrived to the Fosterling cothold Raanatani immediately sensed in her the musical urge and allowed her to look over the harpers gear from her older son's rooms. Chelsea picked up the gitar, and has never put it down.
Though she has not gotten her confirming letters, Chelsea holds what equates to a Journeywoman status in her chosen instrument, and can prove her worth at any time. She sings and plays beautifully, though with a kind of caustic grace to her songs. She sings of repression, of inequality, and of need for change.
Chelsea has made her own gitar to her own desires, and it suits her fine. She picks up skills like others pick flowers. Woodworking here, a little metal working there, hunting and mapmaking as well. Raanatani is proud of this daughter not of her own blood, as she is of most of her children.
Physically, Chelsea is a small, lithe girl. She is 17 turns old now, and stands 5'4, weighing only about 100 lbs. She is very slinky, acrobatic, and can seem to squeeze into spaces that others cannot. Her skin is fair to light, creamy in color and very soft, her hair is a tatter toss of light brown which always dangles over her huge very green eyes. She always has a smirk on her face, always looks like she knows your secrets and might just be ready to tell her own.
Emotionally, Chelsea is strong but sensitive to certain things. She does feel that she is pretty, but she is rarely complimented on her looks. She never hesitates to tell someone how she feels about them, and that has sometimes driven them away rather than made them closer. She does have her eye out on a certain other harper, a drummer named Chester, who she met at a gather not long ago. Even if she impresses, she knows that they will be together in some form.
Chelsea was Searched not long ago at that same gather, and has had some time to think about where she wants to take her skills. Her only real goal is to find the perfect tune, to play the perfect song. But she has never settled on who the audience is, nor if her tune will be grand or sorrowful, her song touching or revolutionary.
She would rather ride a green than anything else, knowing that if she, not that she WOULD, but IF, were to go missing with a green she would hardly be missed among riders... So many greens, so much ground to cover around the world, searching for songs!
"You should learn to look past people's ... deformities, Chelsea," said Tani. Chelsea rolled her eyes.
"No, this wasn't like his was all that ugly. I mean, hairy, yes... but not ugly so much as just... Totally unapealing. And besides, when Chester comes back from the Harper Hall, we'll probably... well, you know, we'll probably start a family."
"But you've been searched, Chelsea," Mama Tani reminded her. "Will he be willing and able to follow you to the weyr?"
Chelsea looked up from her sanding, and smiled broadly. "Because he loves me, he said so."
She finished her sanding and then held the wood up. It was a pale, yellow-colored wood, and Chelsea insisted that she would not varnish it because of the sheer beauty of it. If she could locate a clear perfect coating, perhaps. But this... This would make the most beautiful looking mandolin -- hopefully, the most beautiful sounding as well!
She placed it with the other two pieces, and swept off her dust-covered clothing.
"Do you think that Andromeda has room for two harpers, mama Tani?" Chelsea asked, and Tani laughed.
"A Weyr always has room for another harper, sweet. And when do you leave for the weyr, any way?"
"In two sevendays. It's just long enough for me to start gluing and pressing the woods," she waved her hand at the work room, as they left it, "but I will have to take it with me. It can't just sit. The clutch is due to hatch in about two months, so I know there will be time."
Tani brushed off some stray wood shavings from Chelsea's wild hair, and hugged her shoulders close. "You will be. I will make sure of it."
They went back to the cothold proper and were pleased to discover that the place hadn't burned down -- not for lack of trying. One of the younger fosterlings had discovered the wonders of the fire place... and tried duplicating it in his shared room!
***
Chelsea packed carefully. Chester looked at her with a bit of envy, but with a little more pride. His Journeyman knot was placed prominantly on his shoulder, and his drum was slung at his side. He'd just finished playing something more like music to the younger fosterlings, while Chelsea strummed her gitar.
The mandolin on the other hand... Chelsea looked at it, and her eyes melted. It needed a case, or something. It couldn't go between, not yet! It would freeze the wood and glue and become brittle... Something that Chelsea adamantly swore would not happen to any instrument of HERS!
"What if I take it along with me, with the runner caravan?" Chester suggested.
"You just want to walk because you're afraid of heights," Chelsea giggled.
"I'm not... Just those dragons go so hard into the wind. I don't think my fragile consititution could take it."
Chelsea laughed, and they agreed: by caravan the instrument would go. It didn't need to be tended for a while anyway. In that time, Chester promised, he could get a case made for it too.
Finally, the dragon from Andromeda Weyr arrived to pick up the small woman and her large packs. Once settled... Chelsea bid a teary eyed farewell to Tani and the other fosterlings she'd come to adore, and an even more fierce hug for her lover Chester.
"I will see you there. Don't Impress until I get there!" Chester warned. His pale eyes glimmered, and he watched (yes, with a little fear of the dragons) as Chelsea his love and his life went out over the ocean and between to the Weyr.
***
"A drummer you say?" Asked the weyrwoman. "Well, yes, we could always use a drummer. But you're not a Harper, are you dear?"
"Well, not ... formally, no. I'm good, though. Mama Tani said I was good enough to prove my worth without walking the tables."
The girl played humble before the weyrwoman. She recognized the strong traits necessary to run a weyr, immediately. She never became meek exactly, but she never was found to be excessively nasty in the weyrwoman's presence either. Once she got a look at the precious eggs on the sands... That was all she needed to do to go from an over-eager gitarist, to a hopeful Candidate.
Perhaps because he did! "The eggs are hatching," he said, and sure enough, one of the temporary inhabitants had come along to help tend the candidates and the onlookers down to the sands.
A short wait later, the eggs were already busy twirling and bumping, the first of the hatching came out. A brown, who impressed quickly. Then, a blue and a green came out. Followed by, amazingly, a bronze! No one expected a bronze from this clutch, but there he was!
Chelsea made a thought to put that down into a ballad.
Then a most beautiful rainbow-white colored dragonet emerged from the smallest of the eggs, not entirely unexpected from this female. At last, though, three last eggs hatched and a brown, green and blue came out. The brown impressed, then the blue. Then finally, while Chelsea and the other girls stood worried on the sands, the green came to sniff at them.
The other girls stood with their eyes almost in tears. But Chelsea felt something beyond fear, beyond sadness. It was... Hunger. As the large green looked back to her mother, Chelsea kind of snapped.
"Look Eenraith, do you want to eat or not? You'll starve if you don't hurry up and decide!" The dragonet hugged her tail around Chelsea's leg and crooned a bit.
It is you! I knew I would find you sooner or later...
Because now it isn't fresh. I need to get my own meat and ... oooh, look at that brown!
"You stop that!" Chelsea hissed, looking over her shoulder and seeing Chester's form a ways down the incline to the wherry pens. "I'm not going to have you chased after by all sorts of males, I've got mine!"
But I do not! Besides... It is not like I am going to lay any eggs. *the dragon made a noise in her mind, much like "pfshah!"* and I wish to have that male! I am jealous of you and yours!
"You are so not jealous," Chelsea muttered, "But I swear if I find a bunch of hot-blooded men at my door..."
Chester's warm embrace reminded Chelsea that she had a wing to greet, but she guessed... That could happen after Eenraith had her little fling with her favored brown...
