The Dragonriders of PernŽ is a trademark, Registered U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, of Anne McCaffrey. This is a recorded session, generated by Harper's Tale MOO on Sunday, January 3rd, 1999, for the benefit of members unable to attend. Logged by Pyrene.
Breakfast with Lis
Liseria points to each item spread on the tables with an open hand. "Well, there's the tubers your brats wouldn't help peel, and there's some eggs and toasted bread." Yep, Lis' cut up the some more of those colored loaves for a nice, colorful breakfast. "Oh, and tunnelsnake strips cut real thin and fried up. Good stuff!"
Amalia arrives from deeper in the Weyr.
Pyrene chuckles wryly, "They didn't peel them after all? If so, then I'll have some with the tunnelsnake. And some eggs for the kids. Eat nicely now," she admonishes the children, before taking a seat at a safe distance. She nods a greeting to Amalia as the headwoman enters, "Morning!" Breakfast a la candidate.
Liseria flops herself down in a chair, getting a moment's rest to wave to Amalia before another weyrboy calls out an annoyingly nasal 'Lii-iiss!', waving his klah mug. "Aye, I hear ya!" Getting up again, she fills the mug with a snort of resentment.
Amalia smiles. "Good morning, Pyrene, Liseria!" she frowns at the weyrboy. "Let Liseria get some breakfast, all of you, stop calling out orders, you hear me?" she frowns at anyone who's trying to get Lis to fill klah mugs or anything. let the girl get some breakfast or something, sheesh
Liseria laughs, plunking the klahpot down hard enough to send a small shower of brown onto the boy's tunic. Oops! "Oh, it's alright. I've been up since before sunrise. Got to eat the stuff first, to taste it.
Pyrene watches the candidate with a vague sense of sympathy that eventually prompts her to comment, "If you lot aren't strong enough to pour your own klah, perhaps I can arrange for you to exercise your muscles hauling... things from here to there." She pours her own redfruit juice and winks at Liseria, "Nice tubers, it's all in the peeling I suppose?"
Amalia shakes her head. "No, it's not alright. They know they shouldn't do that around breakfast time, especially if I'm around." she grins slightly at Pyrene's comment.
Liseria nods, carefully slipping away from the boy before he can plan revenge. "Honestly, I don't mind indulging, but not so much." Eyes narrow at the boy busily cleaning off his shirt. Hearing Pyrene's comment, she nods with a smile. "Aye. And the frying. You have t'make sure they don't burn."
Pyrene nods absently, but being a huge fan of cooking herself. She can get by, but so much easier to hae somebody else do it. "Who's on laundry duty this sevenday," she wonders watching the boy scrub at his shirt, "Somebody you don't like?" She's eating with better manners than usual, and supervising the children more carefully too. Maybe she's taking pity on Liseria, and maybe it's just because the headwoman's here.
Amalia smiles slightly as things seem to be a little better, and gets herself some klah, and something to eat. definitely time for breakfast.
Liseria plunks herself in a seat, feet going right up on the next one. She's been on 'em all morning. "Oh, no one I /really/ don't like. I'll see to it -he-," she continues with a nod of her head towards the scrubbing one, "has to help the Candidates. Thiyo'll love an extra hand."
Pyrene buries her snicker in her redfruit juice, coming up for air with, "Y'know, Lis, you /could/ be a nanny. Just got to get a little less unruffled at the thought of kids tuber peeling. Most of the weyrbrats shouldn't go near a knife, right Amalia?" And it's not for fear they'll cut /them/selves.
Amalia nods. "Right, they shouldn't. I'd rather not see them do anything wrong with one..."
Liseria arches an eyebrow, the implications of those three she met with a knife just starting to sink in. "I see what y'mean. I know some /Candidates/ I wouldn't trust with a kinfe. Let alone the average weyrbrat." Of course, that's prob'ly why the said Candidates got midden duty.
Pyrene chuckles, "Well, that's why they're candidates. The weyr thinks, 'Hey, if we wouldn't trust them with knives, let's see what they can do with a twenty or more metre long source of fire.'" Which is a very deep and worrying insight into the weyr psyche.
Liseria stretches her arms over her head, watching the breakfast crowd pan out into only Pyrene's kidlet bunch. "But the dragons make the choice, right? They know what they're doing, one'd hope." That disturbing thought sends a little shiver down Lis' back.
Pyrene looks solemnly up from cracking Filla's egg for her. "Well, if you had just hatched, didn't know what the world was, didn't know what those white things were, didn't know what /you/ were, would you know who to choose?" She sighs mournfully, then resumes eating with all the apparent signs of good cheer.
Liseria blinks. Well, that sure put a damper on this whole Candidacy thing. "Oh." She's never thought of it -that- way before. But there's gotta be more to it than that, right? Trying to convince herself, she snags some tunnelsnake and eggs as a post-breakfast snack.
Pyrene doesn't appear overly fussed about shattering illusions of candidacy. "Of course, the odds are generally stacked in your favour, I suppose... I mean, there's forty-four eggs... and, er, how many candidates? You've got something like a fifty-fifty chance if not better, right? Just try to catch one's eye... without catching his claws of course." She merrily butters some bread as she speaks, eyes occasionally flicking to Liseria to watch the impact of her words.
Liseria puts a forkfull of eggs into her mouth, muching on them thoughtfully. "Aye," comes the mumbled reply, "that sounds like a good way t'go about it." She hasn't given much though to Impressing, or even Hatching Day. And the robe!, speaking of Hatching Day.
Pyrene shrugs. "Maybe... and then again maybe not. But really, don't worry about it. I'm sure it'll come before you have time to think, and it's not as if it's the sort of event that you can really /prepare/ for is it. Nobody ever knows what is going to happen... which is probably why so much of Pern comes to watch." She cheerfully eats some more tunnelsnake, washing it down with her juice.
Liseria brightens up, nodding as she adds with various fork-pointings. "Aye, I forgot about that. It'll be nice t'see the Starcraft bunch. I haven't been back to the hall in -ages-, not with the hatching day getting closer."
Pyrene nods idly, counting on her fingers, "Another month or so yet... they're still collecting bets on what day it'll be on. The starcrafters will be coming to cheer you on then? There's always plenty of supporters, not to mention those who just come to see who gets mauled." And she's not saying which category /she/ falls into.
Liseria wrinkles her nose at that last bit. "People come to watch people getting mauled?" Half-disgusted, half-fascinated, Lis munches on her eggs half-heartedly as she mulls this over. Weird thing to be attracted to, violence.
Pyrene grins, "Well, maybe not really to see people mauled... but they are just there for the fun of it--and some of them do seem to find it more interesting if there's bloodshed. Although, on the whole there isn't all that much. Funny thing, but people can be surprisingly quick on their feet when there's something with large claws and teeth dashing for somebody /behind/ them."
Liseria sticks her fork in her eggs, not really in the mood to eat too much more. Swirling them around on her plate, she nod at Pyrene. Still, it's disgusting to Lis to even get excited by blood, especially to a human. "Aye, I know I would be. Impression or no Impression, I'm not going to get half-killed even for a queen's sake."
Pyrene finishes off her juice and nods, "Besides the heat's bad enough on it's own. Just make sure that you don't pass out from heat or nerves or something. There's a couple that do that every hatching." About this, she /is/ gleeful. It's so much fun when the big hulking smith lad who was always making eyes at the girls faints dead away when the first egg cracks.
Liseria laughs, that image striking her as hilarious. Nothing like men fainting to bring tears to your eyes. "I won't. The pitiful excuse for a robe I've had dug out of storage is thinner than the tunic I used to wear at Ista in high summer! It's seen one too many hatchings, I think."
Mayir walks in from the Central Bowl.
Pyrene glances innocently at the girl, "Best not sweat too much either then. You know what happens to white when it gets wet. And be sure that it's in good repair... no holes in embarrassing places, that sort of thing." Mayir gets a nod, before she returns to the remains of her breakfast.
Amalia finishes up her breakfast, which she ate rather silently, as I'm sure you noticed, and looks up. seeing Mayir, she smiles and waves. "Hello."
Liseria arches a brow at Pyrene. "Funny you should mention that. I had to cut up my old tunic to fix the thing. Must've been a bronze that got to that robe. No green or gold'd cause that immodest a scratch. Even if they -were- just out of the shell." Mayir is spotted and tossed a finger-waggle.
Yawn. Rub at eyes. Such is what May does as he walks into the living caverns. A blink of sleep and he waves at Amalia. "Oh! Hiya!" Waking up to watch the sun rise with your love has it's downfalls. Like not sleeping as much.
Amalia grins slightly. "Get up a bit early, there, Mayir?" she asks, curiously. saw you around, and all that... she knows your name at least...
Pyrene snorts a giggle at Liseria's comment. "You've met bronzeriders then I take it," she asks, eyes twinkling then turning to look idly towards Mayir, "You're late for breakfast though," she notes. "Things'll be getting cold." But she can't leave until /all/ the kids have finished their eggs.
"I know. I know," May grumbles, as he takes a roll from the table and a glass of juice. A smile over to Amalia. "Yeah. Rade woke me up to cuddle with her. She has stuff early today, I guess."
Liseria blinks a few times before Pyrene's words sink in. "You mean they're /all/ like that?" Sure, Lis' met a few, but she didn't think they were all corrupt. Another secret revealed, and Lis is stunned quiet.
Amalia laughs softly. "Well, at least you're up, Mayir. How is everything?"
Mayir goes home.
Pyrene blinks over at that: Rade? My, somebody must've been pruning the grapevine. She never hears anything anymore. Resolving to get new contacts, or at least get out more, she nods to Lis. "Oh, yes. Qualification for the job, you see," she blithely slanders.
Amalia goes home.
Liseria makes a small 'o' with her mouth, this news starting to fall into place. More and more descrptions of dragonriders and such. Thank the Egg she's met a few before everyone else has corrupted her ears. "Weyrlife sure is different."
Pyrene chuckles softly, drawing her legs up, "But interesting, no? And so nicely colour-coded too.... You can soon figure out who to avoid and who is reasonably sane just by looking at their knot." It's true, she swears!
Brisbe blinks in from ::between::!
Liseria grins, this new information put into a useful spot in her head. "Really? I've heard blue riders can be as bad as the bronze ones. Or is that a certain exception?" From what she's gathered of a certain bluerider, it may or may not be. After all, Lis doesn't have too many rider friends. Brisbe's entrace is notice by green, who gives a little warble.
Pyrene glances up at that. "Blueriders are worse than the bronzers," she states firmly. "Although usually in a different way... who've you met?" Kynance wakes up at the green's warble, trills sleepily back then realises that she was talking to a brown and subsides grumpily.
Liseria blinks for probably the fifth time today. Still more information about these mysterious riders. "Well, D'renn brought me up to 'Reaches..." But from what she's gathered about D'renn, he's in a class of his own. "And Thesy."
Brisbe chitters quietly back to the green's warble, realizing that the humancritters are talking, and it wouldn't be polite to disturb them. Especially when gossip might be overheard.
Pyrene nods. "Well, D'renn's generally harmless... sort of," she explains helpfully, "Thesy's sometimes a sweetie and sometimes odd... avoid her if she's in a temper. In general, it's probably safest just to avoid anybody with too much blue in their knot... and definitely don't go near their dragons." Pyrene again does her part to uphold prejudice.
Jaibyrd slips off of Lis' neck to flap languidly over to Brisbe, as if she were liquid green that floated. She reassures him with a twitter.
Liseria nods, not sure whether to listen to Pyrene too much. After all, it's only one person's opinion. Then again, the said person -does- live at 'Reaches.
Kynance warbles in idle bemusement from his mantle. And he's hungry. And nobody's paying attention to him. Life isn't fair.
Brisbe chirrups indignantly at the insult at the blue dragons. Why, blues are the best of all, whether they be dragon or firelizard, as any fool knows. He then notices Kynance, and chitters lightly over at him.
Pyrene leans back, offering Kynance a spare scrap of tunnelsnake meat, "Anything else you want to know?" While she's in such a helpful mood.
Liseria shakes her head quickly, hoping to stave off this gush of gossip before she learns too much. "Nope. That'll give me enough to keep me confused for sevendays to come." Wry grin is tossed to Pyrene as Tesser offers his fruity bugle-squeak from her shoulder.
Pyrene shudders as all the liazrds seem to be waking up. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, brown riders are completely safe," she assures the candidate. "Stand near Trebinth and Tiareth's side of the sands... I'm betting there's going to be some nice dragons hatching there." She moves across the room, gathering meat onto a plate, before sticking it on a nearby table for the lizards. "Now eat that, and hush!"
Brisbe chitters his thanks over to Pyrene, giving a half bow before swooping and starting in on the meat.
Liseria snorts just a little. Wouldn't do to offend Pyrene, even if she is telling too much about everything. "Isn't this Ysbryth's first clutch?" She know's it's not Tiareth's; the older queen looks almost in place on the sands.
Pyrene always tells too much. Even practically perfect in every way nannies have to have some failings... and Pyrene's nowhere near perfection. "Bryth's? Oh, yes it is." she confirms. "It's funny, I remember her hatching so well... a lot of my friends were standing, Areiah one of them. Actually, I bet her hatchlings are going to be downright gorgeous. Ysbryth was pretty even when she hatched, so was Cairhoth... who was of that hatching too if I remember correctly."
Liseria pushes the now freezing eggs around on her plate, full of questions this morning. "So it doesn't matter with dragons if they fly their clutchsisters?" That aspect of dragonkind fascinates Lis; humans don't, runners don't, and yet dragons can.
Pyrene giggles, "I have no idea--it might explain a few of the dragons here... but they don't exactly do much choosing anyway. Besides, there's so many in each dragon clutch, that it'd be impossible to figure out who's allowed to fly who. For that matter, I believe that Trebinth's of Tiareth's laying. So yeah, either we'll get a clutch of lovely dragons, or some really... interesting ones." She winks innocently at the lucky candidate who gets to stand for them.
Liseria hmms. Oh, yes, the clutches /are/ huge, especially during a Pass. It'd get hairy after the first two or three clutches. "Well, I suppose dragonkind's been doing it for Turns, with no ill affects. Must no be bad for 'em."
"Turns, passes, intervals--long and short," agrees Pyrene, "And fire lizards even longer, if the stories are true. But I'm looking forward to this hatching though, hope it all goes well for 'em."
Liseria nods, simply thinking about the hatching giving her little quiver of excitement. -She- was chosen! But before she goes off her rocker with arrogance, she takes a deep breath to calm down. "Aye, I hope so as well. If they're as fun to watch as I've heard, being the watched can only be better!"
Pyrene regards Liseria quizzically, "You're not nervous about that? A lot of people are..." It's usually good teasing fodder.
Liseria lets a laugh pop out of her mouth before she can stop it. "Of course I am! I'm nervous as anything, but I'm also happy as anything! Even if I don't Impress this time around, I'll have the experience of having done it. And -that's- what's important to remember." Her face falls a little as she thinks about those who've seen the non-Impressed. Not a pretty sight, some of 'em.
Brisbe finishes his share of food, then quickly flies back to his original perch.
Pyrene studies her empty plate. "That's true, you've been /Searched/. You've been thought special enough for /that/." She toys with some crumbs before abruptly straightening and going to refill the jug of redfruit juice. "WAnt anything?"
Liseria puts her hand to her chin as she thinks. "Well, maybe some redfruit juice." A glance is sent out the bowl, as if she could see the sun's angle. 'Bout midmorning, she'd guess. "It's been a nice morning, hasn't it? Other than serving and cooking breakfast, I've not too much in the way chores. Until dinner, that is." Which, of course, means Return of the Tubers!
Pyrene brings the full jug back to the table and pours a couple of glasses. "There," she says, nudging one towards Liseria, "It's been OK... kids have been quiet." Said kids are by now playing shamelessly with their food, but they /are/ quiet. "I drew the long straw this sevenday, somebody else got the troublemakers."
Liseria sips at her glass, downing nearly half of it in the first gulp. What a morning! "You lump all the troublemakers together then?" she asks, looking over at the kids and then Pyrene. Lis isn't sure if that's a good or bad idea.
Pyrene grins and shakes her head. "Not exactly, but there's always one bad group. One of these days, I'm just going to give a Searchrider a list and a bribe. Even a few months break would be wonderful..."
Liseria takes another sip of her juice, flashing Pyrene a puzzled glance. "A bribe? And a list? What for?" Something to do with kids, she knows that. But the ulterior motives of Pyrene are going wa-a-ay over Lis' head.
Pyrene laughs and clarifies, "A list of troublemakers and a bribe for the Searchrider to Search 'em. You know, get them out of the nurseries for a bit. They never do Search the most exhausting ones." She sighs at the fact that even the weyr's insanity has it limits.
Liseria oohs. And here Lis thought Pyrene meant for the Searchrider to drop 'em off at some unsuspecting hold. "Oh!" she replies, feeling sort of sheepish. Apparently even dragons have their limits as well.
Pyrene would actually prefer that option and has been active in promoting fostering outside the weyr. For some reason however, some of the riders actually /like/ their kids. So they stay here. "I talked to S'phen about it actually, but he said that even if he was the weyrleader, he couldn't just stick whoever he wanted on the sands."
Liseria drains the last of her juice from the glass. Aww. Empty vessle is plunked down with a hollow ring onto the nearby table. "Too bad for you then. Maybe the troublemakers'll grow into holders or some such, the knack they have for getting other to do their bidding 'n all."
Pyrene smirks, "Or maybe we can make 'em into nannies..." Somebody did once say that the brattiest brats grow up into nannies.
Liseria blinks, brows raising at that. Wonder where -that- suggestion came from. "Maybe. They'd know all the tricks, wouldn't they?" Of course, whether they'd want to be a nanny is also very important; Lis knows she doesn't!
Pyrene nods to Lis, chuckling evilly, "It does help to know the tricks, yes... and people's weak spots. And believe me, not wanting to be a nanny doesn't matter. There are some very... persuasive people out there." She grimaces and looks over the kids. Four turns ago, her life had /not/ been heading down this path.
Liseria curls herself up, propping her chin up on her legs. "'S'at so? I'd best watch out for 'em then," she replies with a quirky little grin. One'f 'em must've been the healer, for all that she got Lis to do.
Pyrene nods. "If they offer you your own room, check on the size of it first," she advises. "Always good to check things out carefully, whatever the situation.
Liseria titls her head to the side by simply swivling her chin between her knees. "Did you get stuck with a hole in the wall, eh?" This girl's very nosy, it'd seem, unless you got to know Lis better.
Pyrene nods, "Something like that." Standing she stretches, and gestures at the kids, who drag themselves from their places and back out with relative obedience. "I should get going... enjoy your day!" she waves in parting.
