Where Is That Girl?

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 21st March 2006

Characters: Kipli, Parna
Description: The drudge Nineba has been missing from the laundry for two sevendays without word, and her supervisor decides to track her down
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 10, day 8 of Turn 3

It had been a several sevendays since Nineba had shown up for work in the laundry, and Kipli, her supervisor, was worried. This was too long for her to be sick, or to have flitted off somewhere without leaving news, as some of the girls were wont to do. She glanced over at the place that Nineba usually occupied, scrubbing out stains, and then away again. The laundry was a brightly lit with glows and a candle to mark the time in the corner, but she swore that she could see shadows where the young woman used to sit. **Stop being silly, you old hag,** she told herself sternly. **You've seen seventy three turns, not twenty!** Kipli started stirring the vat of clothing before her again, beating her paddle against the side to make sure everything got clean. But when she glanced back to Nineba's spot, she shivered.

~*~

Her arthritus made it hard to knock, but Kipli was worried enough to do it anyway. She raised her hand to bang on Nineba's weyr door a second time and then settled down to wait. Nineba hadn't been in the Infirmary, nor had she transfered to the kitchens, where another 'lost' woman had turned up a few turns ago. In that case, it had been misfiled hidework that had been the culprit. Hopefully it was the same again. **But with Weyrwoman Jaela dead and that new woman in her place, who knows what sort of mess the Upper Caverns are in!** After a long moment, she frowned and tried the knob. Many Weyr residents didn't lock their doors, and it seemed that Nineba was no exception. "Hello? Nineba?" she called out. The weyr was dark and smelled musty from unturned bed sheets and being shut up for too long. Kipli wrinkled her nose and opened the door wide. Light from the hall spilled into Nineba's weyr and lightened the gloom enough for Kipli to pick out shapes: a dresser, a desk, a fireplace. A wardrobe in the corner, and tapestries on the walls. "Nineba?" Her voice was swallowed by the stillness of the room.

**This is wrong.** Women didn't disappear from Dragonsfall Weyr.
Maybe if she returned with a light... **Or maybe if I send some strapping young man with a light to look for me...** Kipli retreated and shut the door behind herself. Creeping around in dark places was a young person's job, and she'd learnt long ago that sometimes shadows weren't meant to be lit up.
**And maybe I'm wrong anyway. There's still one more stop to make.**
Kipli turned and began making her slow way down the hall. She might be old, but she wasn't senile. Nineba might have been a mousy young thing with her head in the clouds, mooning after some brownrider or other, but she didn't seem to have any enemies. **Didn't have many friends, either.** The thought made her smile. Some of the other laundry workers would take bets on how long it would be before Nineba started talking about her dragonman. Most people regarded her as amusingly eccentric, and the only person she spent much time with was Parna - which was who Kipli was going to see now. Parna lived not far from Nineba, in a spacious weyr at the end of a corridor with her husband, a cooper. Kipli had always liked Parna; she was a kind soul, with a sensible moral compass. She'd approved of her and Nineba's unlikely friendship since Parna seemed to be a steadying influence on the younger woman. Hopefully she'd be home -
Kipli didn't want to make the trip back to Parna's weyr again this evening if she didn't have to. Her hip ached already. **Nineba's going to owe me,** she thought darkly as she knocked on Parna's door.

Parna answered almost immediatly, and smiled when she saw who was standing there. "Kipli! This is a surprise. Please, will you come in and sit down? I have a few biscuits and a pot of klah on the fire, if you'd like."

"I'd be delighted. Thank you, Parna," Kipli said. She limped through the door and looked curiously around: she always liked to see other people's weyrs. Parna had three rooms to hers: a living room and two bedrooms. The main livingroom was hung with tapestries done in warm shades of taupe and soft blue, and the padded chairs by the fire had cushions embroidered with peonies. Several decorative vases stood along a sideboard and the table had a lace runner. It was definatly a woman's room. "I've been wandering all over this sharding Weyr and it'll be nice to rest my old bones for a bit."

"Please, sit!" Parna ushered Kipli into the most comfortable chair before turning to stir the klah on the fire. "Whatever brought you over to my weyr, anyway? You looked so stiff today."

"Nineba did, actually."

Parna's hand stilled. "Nineba? Have-have you seen her?" She straightened up and turned to look at her supervisor. Klah from the spoon she'd been stirring with dripped onto the stone floor, narrowly missing a rug. Kipli shook her head. "No. I was hoping that you knew where she was."

Parna sighed and replaced the spoon in the klah. She headed over to the sideboard to retreive a tray and the basket with the biscuits in it before replying. "I haven't seen her in... two sevendays. I kept thinking that she'd send word to me from wherever she was, but she never did."

"I'm a little worried," Kipli admitted. Parna finished arranging the biscuits on the tray and brought it over. The elderly laundress chose one off the side of the tray and nibbled at it's edge. "Thank you.
These are very good."

"My husband's cousin's wife is a Baker. She gave them to me." Parna shrugged, set down the tray, and sat across from Kipli. "You'd be surprised where you'll find family that'll look out for you."

Kipli's ears perked up. "Do you think that Nineba went home, maybe?
To Dolphin Cove Weyr? She never seemed as if she was adjusting to Dragonsfall terribly well." Maybe that was it - she'd just picked up and gone home. It had happened before...

But Parna didn't look convinced. "Maybe. But I doubt it. She and her husband weren't... well, she'd left him, and she didn't intend to go back. And I'm sure that she'd have told me if she had left Dragonsfall Weyr. It's more likely that she's shacked up with that dragonrider of her's."

"Do you know what his name is?" Kipli asked. "My memory isn't as good as it once was."

Parna nodded. "K'far. In Azure Wing. If anyone knows where Nineba is, it'll be him."

Last updated on the March 21st 2006

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Where Is That Girl?