Fretting and Fussing

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 6th January 2007

Characters: Arateyka
Description: Arateyka checks on her father after Threadfall.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 1, day 17 of Turn 4

"Everybody well?"

Delhara looked up as her daughter paused beside her where she sat at one of the tables in the dining cavern. "Yes, everybody's fine." They were little phrases with a wealth of meaning behind them. "But sit down for a moment." She pulled out the chair next to her own and patted the shaped wooden seat.

The journeywoman smith placed her empty plate and glass on the table and then perched on the chair. "What's wrong?" It went without saying.
There wasn't much time at the noon meal and if Delhara wanted her to stop and talk then there had to be something amiss somewhere. Not the worst news, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have said everybody was fine. Arateyka was reassured that at least her father, sister, and sister's weyrmate had survived the Threadfall the Weyr had just fought.

"It's Ailinth. A small scoring. _Very_ slight. One of the wingriders mentioned it to Teykara."

"And I suppose you want me to check?" At her mother's slow nod Arateyka smiled. "What do you think I know about Threadscore?"

"You know about your father. Just make sure he's all right."

"Why me?" T'kanu was known for his determination to keep his life as a rider apart from his family and all of his children had grown up being perfectly well aware of that. "Teykara would be better. Fellow dragonrider and all."

"You were always his favourite and Teykara's busy with her own dragon and with that weyrmate of hers."

"He's fine?"

"You girls," Delhara grumbled, thinking it ridiculous that all of her daughters fancied their eldest sister's weyrmate far more than they ought to. "Of course he's fine. Now go and check on your father.
Leave those –" she said when Arateyka went to pick up her plate and glass. "I'll sort them out. He's at the lake, still. You go and see him and make sure he's not _fretting_."

<> On her way between the dining cavern and smithy Arateyka passed the lake. This afternoon it was busy with riders scrubbing dragons, something she wouldn't usually intrude upon. In general riders seemed to stick with other riders after they came back from fighting Thread.
During that cooling down period when dragons were treated and the Weyr's performance discussed, when meals were eaten and jokes told, when dragons were washed and gear stowed, riders had always appeared to Arateyka in her Candidate days to prefer the company of their own kind, even the point of snubbing non-rider family.

Which didn't make her any keener to wander through the dragons and riders scattered over the Weyrbowl area and on the lake edge to find her father and Ailinth. She had promised, though – or as good as by not refusing outright. With a sigh she set her sights on the first large lump of brown hide she could see and walked with apparent aimlessness in that direction.

At least, she thought with an inward smile, T'kanu didn't ride green, which would have made it impossible to find him among the crowd as well as making the large family he had fathered unlikely.

After a while she started to find people she knew better – wingriders from her father's wing - and then finally she found Ailinth, his wing extended and her father standing in front of it with a pot of numbweed in his hand.

"Need a hand painting him with that stuff?" she asked lightly.

T'kanu glanced down at his daughter. Arateyka, far from the smithy and with no reason to be offering to help him with his dragon. "No. He's covered now. Ash burn, mostly." He pushed the paddle back into the pot and fastened the lid. "Your mother sent you, didn't she?"

"I have to cross the Weyrbowl to get back to the smithy," she countered but shrugged at his frown and added: "She's worried."

"She's fussing."

"And she thinks you'll be fretting about this. Are you?"

"Not so much now the numbweed's on and he's not in pain. I feel like a dimglow, that's what, for letting it happen. Fretting, indeed.
Fretting is for women and children. Like fussing."

"Right," Arateyka nodded as if committing that to memory. "Fretting and fussing - women and children only. Dragonriders – what do they do?"

"Regret and re-live."

She could believe it. Even a small burn and score like Ailinth was sporting must make a rider go over and over what he might have done differently. "How about 'Recall and resolve'?"

"To do things differently? Yes, that's there too. How does your mother expect you to report back to her if I am 'fretting'. You're off to the smithy, aren't you?"

"I wasn't going to. I figured you would catch up with her before I could tell her anything." Unless Ailinth's injury had been bad enough that her father wouldn't leave his lifemate, and then Arateyka would have made the effort to let her mother know. "I'm glad he's all right.
Mostly all right." Ailinth had been as much a constant part of her life as her father himself.

"So am I. I'll tell Delhara you did as you were told."

The journeywoman nodded. "I'm not afraid of her, you know," she informed her father with a seriousness neither of them believed and lifted a hand in farewell as she walked around the extended wing and lightly touched the wingtip in a corresponding farewell to the dragon.

"Neither am I," T'kanu said under his breath and watched as Ailinth slowly retracted his wing. The injury was slight and on the toughest part of the wing – the leading edge. It would be healed within a sevenday and Delhara could stop fussing … until next time.

Last updated on the January 9th 2007

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Fretting and Fussing