Going Home 3/3

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 11th March 2025

Characters: Ketlyn, Kemmin, Ketarmain, Nevalyn, Verraki, Vekal, Minteran, Kevan, Trisalyn, Milyn, Aralyn
Description: Ketlyn goes home to introduce her family to Varinth.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 4, day 14 of Turn 12
Notes: Timeliners, I swear I'll never have this many NPCs in a family again...

The fire in the fireplace burned down and the youngest siblings started yawning. First Aralyn, then Verraki and Vekal. Her mother stood and brushed the wrinkles from her skirts and made a shooing motion at the youngest, telling Tris to take them to bed.

"I should go," Ketlyn reluctantly said, and was met with a chorus of protests that made her feel so loved, she wanted to cry.

"You can't go now, we barely got to see you!" Milyn whined.

Verraki's lower lip quivered. "Don't take Varinth away!"

"Now children," her father said, "it's time for Ketlyn to go. We had a short day in the fields because of her and the littles can barely keep their eyes open. Besides, she'll be back next restday."

Ketlyn tried not to feel ambushed. "Ah-- maybe?"

The others started begging and the cothold was filled with a chorus of, "say yes!" "pleeeeaaaase!" and "come back!" Tris was even manipulative enough to say, "I love you!" over and over again, which Verraki picked up on. She finally put her hands up in defeat. "All right! I will come back the next restday. But I can't come _every_ rest day!"

"Why not? We are your family," Nevalyn replied.

Ketlyn sighed. There was no arguing with her mother. "I'll be back next restday, all right?"

"Good," her father said. "Now, come give me and your mother a hug and say your goodbyes."

Dutifully Ketlyn did as she was told, and spent a little extra time hugging each of her siblings in turn. Even the baby, Aralyn, tolerated being held and didn't start crying all over again. Once that was done Kemmin and Milyn offered to walk her to Varinth, and her father had to intervene because everyone else offered to walk her as well.

Finally the door closed behind them. Ketlyn took a deep breath of the air, enjoying the way the day's heat lingered. They were in Dolphin Cove's territory, and it was so much hotter than Barrier Lake.

"Tell me more about the Weyr!" Milyn asked excitedly. "I've been telling the brothers at West Cothold everything you write to us." West Cothold was how they referred to their nearest neighbours.

"What do you want to know?" Ketlyn asked.

Milyn sighed. "Everything."

"Do people really walk around naked?" Kemmin asked.

Ketlyn snorted a laugh. Varinth stirred in the dark ahead of them with a dry rustle of wings. "I saw more naked people when I was a Candidate at Dolphin Cove Weyr than I do now at Barrier Lake. Mostly they're naked at the beach or in the bathing pools. It's like when we go swimming in the creek."

"That's so weird," Milyn muttered. "I can't wait to go."

Ketlyn cast a nervous glance over her shoulder but the cothold door remained closed. The cothold was only three rooms: a bedroom for her parents, a smaller bedroom that she and Tris used to share with the littlest kids, and the main room. Kemmin and Milyn had started sleeping in the hayloft in the barn when they were old enough. "Has Father said anything?"

"He's agreed to let me and Milyn come visit, but only on different days," Kemmin said with a sigh. "He knows that if we all go, we won't come back."

"Like any of us want to live way out here when we could live at the Weyr," Milyn muttered. "I am so happy you finally Impressed."

They reached the spot where Varinth lay beneath a giant tree and Ketlyn showed them how to put on riding straps. They laughed and fumbled in the dark as Varinth sat as patiently as she could, until she decided to trip Milyn with a flick of her tail and send him laughing into the dust. Afterward Ketlyn sat on Varinth's foreleg while her brothers sat on the ground beside her. "How is everyone, really?"

Kemmin sighed. "Good. I mean, as good as we can be. Mother and Father are the same as always. It's been hard on Tris since you left. She won't say anything but she's... its hard on her."

Ketlyn hung her head in shame. "I know. But I couldn't stay..."

"Do you think if we went to the Weyr, they'd let me apprentice at something?" Milyn asked.

"Probably. What do you want to do?" Ketlyn asked.

Milyn sighed. "I don't know. Anything but farming!"

"Does Verraki still want to be an Animal Smith?" Ketlyn asked, thinking of the letter they'd sent to her ages ago about her baby sister, who wasn't the baby anymore.

It was Kemmin's turn to laugh. "She still does, but I think after today she'll want to be a Dragon Smith. I can already tell that she's going to drive Tris and Mother crazy talking about Varinth."

Varinth made a pleased rumble.

There was a small silence. "Does... does Varinth understand what we're saying?" Kemmin asked.

"She does. All the dragons do." Ketlyn leaned back against Varinth's chest, enjoying the feel of her dragon breathing. "They're smart and silly and beautiful... it's amazing to see a sky full of them. I really like flying with the other weyrlings."

"You'll be a real dragonrider soon, right?" Kemmin asked. "Fighting Thread?"

Ketlyn was silent for a long moment. Her nightmares hadn't stopped and she was dreading the Blooding. After that she would be assigned to a fighting wing, but she didn't want to worry her family. "They train us really well. And with any luck when the time comes I'll be assigned to one of the lower Wings."

"If I were a dragonrider, I'd want to be in the Weyrleader's Wing," Milyn said, clearly imagining riding a fighting dragon through wind and fire and rain.

"You're too young to fly in any Wing, let alone the Weyrleader's Wing," Ketlyn said. "And I thought you wanted to apprentice?"

"Only if I can't have a dragon."

**What do you think, Varinth? Would my brothers be suitable for a dragon?** Ketlyn asked.

There was a long pause as Varinth considered them. Finally, }:I don't know.:{

It only confirmed what Ketlyn suspected: that Varinth wasn't a Search dragon, and that if she wanted to get her family to the Weyr with Search tokens she'd have to lie. It was probably for the best. Thread terrified her already, and the thought of her family in the sky beside her as silver, ash and death fell around them made her want to scream. "What about you, Kemmin?"

"What about me?"

The depth of his voice still surprised her. "Will you try to apprentice if you come to the Weyr?"

"You mean _when_ I come to the Weyr? Of course I will, if I'm not too old." He sighed. "I just... this cothold is such a trap, you know? Father needs us in the fields. I don't think he can afford to pay workers and he's already arguing with the East Cothold now that their son came back from fostering at Emerald Falls Hold."

"Avorn came back?" Ketlyn was surprised. Avorn was nearly ten turns older than she was, and he'd gone to live with an aunt and uncle when she was only eleven turns old. She'd had the first glimmerings of a crush on the older boy.

"He's found a wife. She's really nice. And pregnant." Kemmin sounded a little wistful. "He says he wanted his children to grow up like he did."

"I'd rather have grown up at Emerald Falls," Milyn muttered. "I hate being in the middle of nowhere."

"I guess you never proposed to Carillyn in the next valley over," Ketlyn said, thinking of Kemmin's musings in a letter from months ago. He'd mentioned it once and never again.

"Did I say that? I must have been really desperate when I wrote it." Kemmin sighed. "Have you figured out how to get us to the Weyr for good yet?"

"I-- I'm working on it. I just need to convince the Headwoman. I think." Ketlyn was glad that the dark hid her guilty expression. She'd been so busy with her weyrling classes and apprentice classes that she hadn't done much more than wonder how transfers worked, let alone set one up. She'd been so busy focusing on herself that she'd neglected them. "I'm sorry."

"Next rest day I'm coming back with you though, got it?" Kemmin said. "Me first, then Milyn."

"Why do you get to go first?" Milyn whined.

"Because I'm bigger than you," Kemmin shot back. "You promise, Ketlyn?"

"I promise," she said quickly.

"Good. Because if I have to stay here any longer I think I"m going to go crazy." Her brother smiled, his teeth a white slash in the night. "Tell me a story to keep me going while I rot here waiting for you. Have you seen Thread yet? What's that like?"

"Not yet, but we do aerial drills with ropes," Ketlyn started telling them about her classes but she was distracted. She had been neglecting her promises to her family, and now she needed to figure out how to make their dreams come true. She sat in the dark with her brothers for another candlemark before her father came out of the cothold to chase her away, and as she went /between/ she was surprised at how sad she felt to leave them-- and how relieved she was to go.

Last updated on the March 26th 2025

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Going Home 3/3