Kill the Messenger (2/3)

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 3rd September 2025

Characters: Ketlyn, Trisalyn
Description: Ketlyn gets a reality check from her sister Tris.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 8, day 17 of Turn 12

**She doesn't mean it.** Ketlyn sat down with a thump and stared at the cothold door as Varinth picked herself up and paced to her rider's side. Her mother had a temper. She was fond of dramatics. She didn't really mean to banish her... did she?

}:Your home is with me,:{ Varinth said, nudging her rider with her nose. }:We belong to the Weyr.:{

Ketlyn managed a weak smile. **I know.** Even if it wasn't meant, the words still hurt. She wondered if she should continue to lurk beneath the tree and wait for an apology, or if she should go. The wind stirred the leaves into a soft sigh and shadows danced at her feet as she sat in her indecision.

The cothold door opened and Tris crossed the stone courtyard and bobbed her head in a respectful greeting to Varinth. She sat next to Ketlyn and folded her skirts neatly around her knees, looking every inch the young woman she was instead of the scrawny kid Ketlyn remembered her to be. "Hi."

"Hi." Ketlyn hesitated, then held her arms out for a hug. Her sister obliged without any hesitation and she felt some of the anxiety in her chest ease. "How mad is she?"

"Very. She told me not to come back either, but the moment that Aralyn starts crying again she'll claim she never told me I was banished," Tris said matter-of-factly. She smiled shyly at her sister as the wind played with the escaped curls that frizzed around her hair like a cumulus cloud. "How is Kemmin?"

Ketlyn sighed. "He's fine. He's settling in. Here," she said, pulling a second letter from her jacket and handing it to her sister. "I made Kemmin write a letter for all of you too."

Tris ran her fingers along the crisp edges of the paper as she nibbled her lip. "It doesn't seem right to read it without my brothers and sisters."

"You should wait 'till they come home," Ketlyn told her.

Tris nodded and tucked the letter into her apron. "So... how mad at Kemmin are _you_?"

That made the greenrider laugh. "Very. I wish he'd talked to me beforehand. I could have gotten into so much trouble for smuggling someone into the Weyr, and I still could. He just... refused to get back on Varinth when it was time to go. I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't budge. And then he made me come here to face Mother instead of coming himself."

"Probably wise," Tris said after a moment. "I think Mother would have sat on him or thrown him into the outhouse to make him stay. Too stinky for a dragon to carry!"

Varinth snorted in disgust, sending a puff of dust and dry grass across the cobbles and surprising a laugh out of both girls.

"It would have worked." Ketlyn would have _loved_ to see her mother throw her stupid brother down an excrement-filled hole. "But... how long do you think Mother will be mad at me?"

"Maybe don't come by for a sevenday or two, but she'll come around. We all know that Kemmin tricked you. He hid his plan from all of us, but when morning came and he wasn't home, I knew that he'd run away."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for the role I played," Ketlyn said softly.

Tris smiled. "I know, but what he did... Milyn still wants to go to the Weyr, or somewhere, and Kemmin running away will make it so much more difficult for Mother and Father to let him leave their sight at all. Father's been taking him and Kevan out to the fields and to help at the neighbours' so they can't hitch a ride with you. They're really angry and hurt that he left like that. Mother's been crying herself to sleep all sevenday. She thinks that he hates her."

Ketlyn had wondered if her eldest brothers were being kept from her when she hadn't seen them at the cothold. She looked down at her work-roughed hands and tried not to imagine lying in the dark and listening to her mother sob. "It's not really running away when he's old enough to be a man," she groused.

Tris wrinkled her nose at that. "Ew, Kemmin isn't a man! But losing him to the Weyr hurts the planting and harvesting work. Father's furious. He's embarrassed that he'll have to ask for help getting the crops in when he's been promising others help with theirs. Kemmin's really strong."

Ketlyn made a face. Losing an able-bodied person's worth of work hurt every cothold that the Searchriders came to. Her family had certainly felt the loss when she'd been Searched. "What about you? Do you want me to take you to the Weyr?"

"Skies above, no!" Tris said with a laugh. "I might see if I could foster at a Hold in a turn or two, but I'm not like you or Kemmin. I don't want to see Thread up close."

"Not everyone who comes to the Weyr Impresses a dragon," Ketlyn said. "And everyone has to work but it's not as hard as being here."

Tris' smile slipped a bit as she gazed up at Varinth, who curled into a sunny spot in the courtyard to wait. "I was so angry when you were Searched. I didn't realize how hard you worked to keep us clean and fed until I had to step into your shoes. I always thought Mother did more."

"I'm sorry," Ketlyn said, feeling awful all over again. Tris had been so little when she'd left.

Her sister shrugged. "It's fine. And I wouldn't mind a cothold of my own someday. Or even getting married and bringing a husband back here to help Father now that Kemmin is gone. I know that this land isn't as fancy as the Weyr, but I do love it all the same."

It seemed like such a small life to Ketlyn. The trees, the hills and green fields felt tiny next to the wide blue skies and limitlessness of /between/. She'd loved the blasting heat of the forge and glassworks before she'd Impressed, too. Even in quiet moments at the Weyr she could hear the constant hum of voices on the breeze. Here, there was just the gentle lowing of herdbeasts and hum of insects to disturb the sleepy air.

"Of course, I _would_ like to visit a Weyr someday," Tris said, breaking the silence. "Maybe for a Hatching Day Gather. And I'd love to go to a proper Gather at a Hold. I want to see all the people in their finery and eat so much cake that I burst!"

Ketlyn laughed, relieved that her sister had dreams after all. "I'd be happy to have you as my guest at the next Hatching if you think Mother will forgive me soon. Or maybe the one after... Varinth thinks the eggs on the Sands now are going to hatch in a matter of days."

"Pity," Tris said wistfully. "I'd love to see all the baby dragons. Tell me all about it again, won't you?"

Ketlyn launched into the story of her own Hatching Feast as Tris lay back in the grass beside her. The clouds sped overhead and the sky burned blue. The whispering tree and golden sunshine promised forgiveness. The longer she spoke the more she felt herself loosen, Tris' conviction that the cothold door would open to her again bolstering her own.

Last updated on the October 3rd 2025

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Kill the Messenger (2/3)