Leslie is very forward in her desire to be accepted as "one of the boys" with her brother being a little more meek than she among those same boys.
Lester is a quiet scheamer sort of boy, while Leslie is dramatic and tends to be loud and unrelenting. Both twins are literate to a fault. They enjoy quiet times with each other in a library setting, though they are both known to leave everything behind in their dust when a rider or search comes through the Hold.
Both parents are proud of their little brats, though they can spend precious little time with them. Perhaps, they hope, the twins will both Impress and soon learn to ride along side their parents!
Lester will shorten his name to L'es, and if she is ever given the option (as some few Protectorate females are) Leslie might shorten hers to S'lie. It has been joked around the Hold that between the two of them, they have one name anyway.
"What huhn?" She said, quietly.
"Nothing," Lester said. His sister narrowed her brown eyes at him, and kicked him again. The blonder of the strawberry-headed twins growled at his sister. "Stop it!"
"Both of you stop it," said the recordskeeper sharply. "There are some people trying to study."
"Yeah, Lessssssss-ter," Leslie sneered, hissing the achingly long version of his name. "SOME people are trying to study. So stop 'hunh-ing'."
Recordskeeper Sheltan glowered at the girl, but as usual she was oblivious to such things. She seemed to keep her mind on one thing at a time. Just a moment ago it had been studying with the rest of the apprentice starcrafters. Now, of course, it seemed that she was bent on annoying her poor brother.
"If you are finished," Sheltan said quietly beside Leslie's ear, "you may want to go back to your weyr. Since you're so much quicker at this than everyone else. All of the other apprentices need their time to study."
His words sunk in, and Leslie shut her wherhide journal and rolled the chart she'd been studying back into its hollow container. "I am sorry, sir." She kicked Lester again and he groaned, following her out into the halls of the Hold.
"You dimglow!" He said, "if you'd just listen to the silence long enough, you might learn something. Like how to shut your trap!"
Leslie growled at her brother like a tunnel snake. "Lester, you wherry, if you hadn't gone 'hunh' like that, I wouldn't have said anything."
"You could have gotten up and read over my shoulder, wherry-feast." Lester held up the scroll he'd taken from the reading hall and waved it under his sister's nose. "Because then you'd have seen the local news..."
"Give me that," she said, sharply snatching the wherhide from his hands. It was a hand-copied note. The date was today! It said in no uncertain terms that a Search rider from Wu Weyr would be coming to find candidates today!
Leslie stopped in her tracks, while her brother continued to stroll down to their weyr. She caught up with him, laughing frantically. "I wonder when they'll be here! I wonder if they're here now?"
"Well it says they're going to be in the courtyard. Have you heard drums?"
"... I think I did... less than a candlemark ago!"
The twins rushed down to see a blue dragon and his rider talking to one of the Lord Holders of Dawnlight. There were a couple people otherwise, but it seemed like the Holder was giving the rider some trouble.
They couldn't resist standing at one of the narrow windows for another candlemark watching. The blue dragon looked bored, but then every once in a while he'd raise his head and gaze around himself. When the Lord Holder's voice carried loudly enough into the air, the twins could hear an argument of 'not enough children to supply every weyr on Pern' but the response of the rider of this fine blue could never quite be heard.
Then the dragon looked up at the pair of twins, and his eyes seemed to bore right into them.
Leslie took in a gasping breath. "He's looking right at us," she whispered.
"He is." Lester agreed.
"Why?" his sister hissed back.
"Because he's a search dragon, Leslie," Lester said back. "I'm getting dizzy looking at his eyes."
Just then the dragon stood and ... walked directly to the teaching hall's sheer wall! He was a tall blue, but he still had to stand upon his hind legs and stretch his neck to reach his head up to where the twins stood.
His eye filled the slitted window.
Then, a deep rumbling sound came from his long throat.
Below, the rider gave off a laugh and loudly announced that his search was quite over!
"I wonder where we're going," Leslie said, holding her brother's hand tightly.
Wu Weyr, the dragon announced, and said no more.
They only HAD to wait so long. For out of the last three shells came a blue, a brown, and a beautiful Rainbow dragonet.
The blue and brown moved toward the twins, and both of them seemed to have the same thing on their minds: they knew who they wanted, and wouldn't take any less!
Well, L'es, now, was greeted by the brown, Lester, I am Xieth!
While Slie was accosted by the happy blue, Leslie, I am Xiuth!
The twins laughed to one another and then shouted their dragons names, they knew the harpers would have a hard time figuring them out from now on -- and they wanted it that way!
