Taking Time to Stop and Smell the Flowers

Writers: Devin, Shawna
Date Posted: 22nd May 2024

Characters: K'mai, Zariah
Description: Zariah decides flower picking is an important part of sweepriding
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 12, day 5 of Turn 11

K'mai

They were out on a sweepride today, and so far it had been uneventful.
Uneventful, and lovely, and eventually Zariah gestured and had Relsath
pass the message that she wanted to land for a moment over to Sebeth.

They landed in a field filled with wild flowers, and Zariah said
innocently, "I just wanted to stop and stretch my legs. Leg cramp, you
know." Which explained why she was walking away from her green, but
not why she was bending down and picking flowers and tucking them as
carefully as she could into a bag.

K'mai slid down for a stretch as well, so he didn't immediately notice
what she was doing. When he turned to say something to her, Zariah
wasn't where he expected. He looked over and spotted her picking a
flower. "Who are those for?"

"Who? For me, and the general beautification of the Weyr." Well, her
weyr. Which was part of the Weyr as a whole, so she thought that
counted. "This is my favorite perk of sweeps duty. Besides, it was
about time for a break."

"Now there's an idea. I could use some flowers too." He thought he had
a few vases tucked away in his weyr somewhere. "Hmm, but alas, I
didn't bring a bag. I could help you pick, though?"

"Sure! You can have some- they don't do that well in a bag, obviously,
but usually enough survive to brighten up my weyr." She bent to grab a
little clump of blue flowers, "I always carry a couple of bags for
anything interesting we find when we're out, you know?"

"Do you collect things other than flowers?" K'mai bent to pick a
bright yellow bloom.

"From sweeps? Not really. I mean, if I saw something else pretty, I
probably would, but mostly just flowers. I like books, but you don't
just find those in the wild. You?" She held the open bag for him to
put the flowers in.

K'mai gently placed the flowers inside. "Lovers? Does that count?"

Zariah laughed, "I don't think so. You can't really keep them all on a
shelf and show them off to guests. And while you can probably find
those on sweeps, the holders probably don't approve," she teased.

The bluerider chuckled. "Alright, I don't really collect them on
sweeps anyway. That's what Gathers are for." He winked.

"That's certainly not what I look for at them, but to each their own,"
Zariah inspected her collection, adding a couple more before she
seemed satisfied.

"What do you look for at Gathers?"

"Oh, food. Entertainment. I like seeing everyone's best clothes, too.
You know, the little things in life. Come on, there has to be
something you're interested in that involves keeping your clothes on,"
the greenrider teased.

K'mai smiled. "I love dancing and food and making new friends all over Pern."

"All also fun, although the holders dance a little strange- almost
formal," that was definitely her Weyrbred background talking. "But I
do love dancing."

"Holds are pretty stuffy, but they can still be fun." He didn't
understand how people could _live_ like that, but many of them were
nice enough.

"Oh sure, in small enough doses. I like visiting when I do messenger
or transport work, but I wouldn't want to stay there, you know?"

The bluerider nodded. "Too many rules and restrictions. Too much judgement."

"A lot of them, yeah. There's some holds I love to fly away from," she
admitted. "Alright, ready to head back to real work?"

"You were the one who made us stop," K'mai said with a teasing gleam
in his eyes.

"Fair enough," Zariah said with a grin, "Let's finish up and hopefully
there will be some flowers to split when we get back." She did take
care to strap the bag flat along the back of Relsath's straps.

Last updated on the May 24th 2024

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Taking Time to Stop and Smell the Flowers