Old and New

Writers: Eimi, Yvonne
Date Posted: 31st October 2006

Characters: Tsaera, Zebrekhan
Description: Tsaera and Zeb do a little reminiscing... and make a little history of their own
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 13, day 9 of Turn 3

"And nary a flamethrower in sight," Zeb grinned as he strode into the Weyrwoman's weyr, clutching a few bottles of brew. "I know you liked what I brought you last time I shared my ale with you, so I thought I'd bring a couple for you to try. This one is called a 'blonde ale' and has a bit of a sweet twist to it. This one is extremely dark with a heavy oat taste, and this one is a 'bitter ale'. Take your pick, which shall we open this time?"

Tsaera thought for a moment. "Either the blonde ale or the dark one.
Bitter doesn't sound overly appealing. How are you, Zeb?"

"Well as can be for an old man," the master crafter smiled as he looked at the lables of the blonde and dark ales, each in turn. "Lets start dark. If we feel the need to open a second we'll have something sweet to look forward to."

"I'll bow to your superior experience with alcoholic beverages, then." Tsaera smiled and stretched out her legs, lounging on her sofa while Zeb found them glasses and pried off the bottle's top. It had been a long day, and it was a relief to simply sit with the Master Miner for a while and not feel obligated to discuss the Weyr, her dragon's Clutch, Thread, or her Wing. Or U'das. She covered a yawn with the back of her hand. "So tell me what you've been up to, lately. Settling into Weyrlife well enough?"

"Oh, sure, settled just fine." He tipped the glasses as he poured ensuring that they each got just the right amount of head at the top. "This isn't my first time living at a Weyr after all. Makes things easier."

"Mmm. Very true." Tsaera smiled briefly, thinking of her grandson.
Felarin had been behaving a little... awkwardly around her after Tabanirth's flight, but he would get over it. "Weyr and Hold are very different, and moreso now that Thread's back in the sky."

"Oh? How so?" he asked as he slid onto the sofa next to her, glass in hand.

The Weyrwoman had to think a moment, trying to figure out how to put a feeling into words. "It has to do with death, I think. Dragonriders stare death down every time there's a Fall, but the flip side to that is that we tend to embrace life a little more... avidly than the averege Holder. Social conventions are bent or broken a little more easily, and everything is a little louder, a little more desperate.
And proud." She shook her head and wrapped her hands around the glass Zeb passed to her. "Before Thread, we were more of a Hold. We worked the land, Crafted, cared for our dragons, but we had no special purpose. And now we do."

"Yes, you do," Zeb nodded thoughtfully. "And do you embrace life more? You seem to spend an awful lot of your time working."

Tsaera smiled. "Someone has to make sure that things don't fall apart."

His white eyebrows raised slightly. "And who makes sure the Weyrwoman doesn't fall apart?"

"I'd say that she does quite well on her own, thank you," Tsaera replied tartly. This was getting tedious, and a little too close to home. "Oh, undoubtably," he said, raising a hand in a pacifying gesture. "I just have enjoyed the time you and I have spent outside your office. You seem much more relaxed and... natural. I think it must be good for you to be embracing life a bit."

She shook her head. This was getting ridiculous. "Whether you think I work too much or not is moot. I do what I need to do." He couldn't understand; a Master Crafter was his own master, for the most part, whereas a Weyrwoman had the fate of her Weyr in her hands. "And if you think I work too much, why do you keep turning my attention back to everything I abandoned so that I could spend an evening drinking your beer?"

Zeb snorted as he began peeling back the label on the bottle with his thumbnail. He was loosing his touch! "I guess because what I'm trying very badly to say, in my own twisted and incompetant way, is that these evenings we've spent talking have meant a lot to me, and I wouldn't mind distracting you from your work on a more regular basis.
I like you, Tsaera. I like you very much."

Tsaera smiled, even as she was taken by surprise. She had thought that Zeb had approached her out of friendship, and now suddenly was changing the way she looked at him. He was a friend, but did she want a distraction? Because Zeb would be a distraction. It had been a while since she'd taken a lover... "Really?"

"I don't want to rush you, Tsaera. After all, it has been a long time since we knew each other before, and we've both grown and changed since then. But I really would like to get to know you more, and I just can't do that if you're always being just the Weyrwoman." He turned to look at her with his most charming, rougish smile. And he was charming... almost too charming. If there hadn't been a certain number of bronzeriders in her life, she'd be taken in. As it was, she had the choice... to an extent. "I'm never just the Weyrwoman," she said, but Tsaera was never _not_ the Weyrwoman, either.

"All right, then, just the _busy_ side of the Weyrwoman," he smiled. She did like to be technical. Very much the meticulous Master... in more than one occupation, it seemed. "But I think you know what I mean."

"I think I do." Tsaera studied Zeb's face for a moment, finding echos of the young man that she used to know. "You haven't changed much."

"Oh? I was hoping I had fewer pimples now," the miner chuckled.

"You never had pimples. _I_ had pimples." And Tsaera was thankful for every day that she rolled out of bed and wasn't faced with one of those hateful spots. Wrinkles were somehow _much_ easier to deal with!

"Yes, I suppose you did," he chuckled. "But you always had a great body. It more than made up for it."

Tsaera shot him a steely look. "Zebrekhan. I was built like a sharding brick - and I'm burlier than half my Wing. Save your complements for some bright-eyed young thing who'll believe them."

"But you were a sharding _hot_ brick," he chuckled. "I like bricks. I'm a geologist after all. And besides, there was a hole in the girls bathing room wall," Zeb said with a not-too-innocent smile before hiding it behind a drink from his glass.

Tsaera's eyes grew wide. "No - there wasn't, was there?!" Belated embarassment struggled to put a blush on her cheeks, but it was too long ago for her to be truly offended. And in actuality, she was vaguely pleased that he'd even remembered.

"It's been there almost as long as the Hall has been there. It might have been filled in from time to time, but in a Hall full of adolescent boys with access to boring equipment? You could bet it wasn't gone for long," he grinned, liking the fact that he could still make a woman of nearly seventy turns blush. But it was indeed long ago. They had all been much more innocent then... "It's a secret though. Still, I feel I can trust you to keep it, being a Weyrwoman and all."

"Let's just say that if that Craft Ban is lifted any time soon, I won't promise you anything," she said tartly. Really - a spy hole! At least that wouldn't be a problem at the Weyr, since bathing wasn't exactly a private activity.

"Well, I think it would be worth the cost in that case." Though the likelihood of that happening any time soon was next to none, they both knew. "But really. Weren't you at all curious about the boys when you were that age?"

She sipped at her beer. "Of course I was. But I was too well brought up to play peeping tom!"

"Did you have much chance?"

The Weyrwoman smiled slightly. "Let's just say that I was well aware of human anatomy before I walked the tables, shall we?"

Zeb threw his head back and laughed. The things he never knew about people... "Now that is a story I should like to hear one of these days."

"What, the story of how I lost my virginity? It's not _that_ funny."
Tsaera hid a smile behind her glass. "Besides, I have over sixty turns under my belt and _that's_ the story you want to hear? You should have Impressed a bronze, Zeb. You'd fit right in."

"Ah, but those early adventures are far more entertaining - back when you can mistake enthusiasm for skill. But, perhaps its different for women," he shrugged. "Still, it says a lot about a person."

Tsaera hesitated, then: "My room in the Journeymen's quarters, to Inil. Two days after I walked the tables."

"I should have known it was Inil," the miner chuckled, his face breaking into a pleased grin.

"Good looking boy. Man." The Weyrwoman smiled into her beer. "Treated me well. What about you? I seem to remember rumors about someone in the kitchens."

"Trust me, they were all rumors. I was a late bloomer. But when I bloomed, I came to full flower."

"Flower metaphores aren't particularly manly, Zeb."

"I'm sixty-seven turns old, Tsaera. I'm well passed the need to impress all the ladies with my manliness anymore." Although he didn't seem to have much trouble in that regard.

"Mmm. Well, you ought to."

"I could impress you with a demonstation of how prettily my flower blooms if you like," he retored with a suggestive wiggle of is eyebrows.

The Weyrwoman laughed in spite of herself. "I'm sixty six turns old, Zeb. I'm well past the need to be impressed with your manliness anymore."

"Indeed?" he asked incredulously.

A slightly sly expression crossed her face. "But that doesn't mean that I might not _want_ to be."

"Hmmm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Well, then, what should I do to impress you, Tsaera? Shall I carry heavy loads to prove my stregth? Climb a mountain to demonstrate my endurance? Challenge your riders to wrestling matches to prove I have a masculine over-inflated sense of self?" Zeb smiled and leaned a bit closer. "Or would you settle for me taking the initiative in kissing you, proving my man-sized ego in believing that the Weyrwoman just might want to kiss me back?"

Tsaera couldn't help herself - she laughed. "Honestly - shut up and do something already!" But she didn't wait for him; Tsaera leaned forward, snagged his collar, and pulled him in for a kiss.

Last updated on the November 1st 2006

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