A Big Freckly Family

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 19th January 2007

Characters: Arateyka, Teykara
Description: Arateyka is surprised by Teykara's comments.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 2, day 2 of Turn 4

"You got rid of him quickly."

"As any right-thinking woman would," Arateyka grumbled. "Dimglow."

Teykara agreed with her younger sister, as it happened, but she was in the same wing as the brownrider and knew his every failing.
"Good-looking, though."

"_He_ thinks he is. He _introduced_ himself to me."

The greenrider winced. The quickly dismissed brownrider was Arateyka's age and weyrbred so they had grown up together. "Dimglow," she agreed with a grin. "What did he want?"

"Sex."

Arateyka patted her sister on the back to help with the spluttering as the ale went down the wrong way.

"He _said_ that?"

"Well, no. You know how it goes. Introduces himself, flirts for a moment or two and expects to be in bed within a quarter candlemark. I don't know who that works on, but it doesn't work on me."

"Of course not." Teykara smiled at the thought. Arateyka, more than any of them, was cautious and prone to giving every decision more consideration than it warranted, but in this case the greenrider agreed with her sister. "Not on you."

Arateyka was fairly sure her sister was making fun of her. "Not all men behave like that."

"No, they don't."

"After all, you had to _chase_ R'harne for months …" For all her teasing her sister just laughed. It was true enough, anyway. The much older brownrider hadn't been at all keen to get involved with the young woman so many Turns his junior, more so because she was the daughter of one of his friends. Teykara had persevered, though, and managed to change his mind.

"He's so lazy that he figured out it was less effort to accept me than to keep fending me off," Teykara said with a chuckle. Not real laziness, more a tendency to be an observer (usually an amused observer)
rather than a participant.

"He's not lazy …" Arateyka protested. "He's easy-going."

Teykara took a sip of the cool ale and grinned at her sister. "Find your own man."

"Maybe I will," the journeywoman smith said, suspecting they were on the verge of poking out their tongues at each other like children.

"And have a big family of freckled babies."

It was Arateyka's turn to choke on her ale. "What?"

"Well, they're bound to be freckly," Teykara said in a far too reasonable tone, "since we all are."

"Not Ykana and Lhara." Arateyka coughed again and shifted in her chair to get more air in her lungs. "Why would you think I wanted to have a big family of any kind of babies?"

"Delhara did."

"Well, yes, but she had T'kanu. Why me, when you and R'harne …"

"Dragonrider. Threadfall. Wouldn't work these days. Before –" The greenrider shrugged. She and R'harne had been weyrmates before Thread fell but there had already been rumours. "Left it too late." She grinned at her sister. "But I have a sister who didn't Impress. She could have a big freckly family and I'd be a wonderful aunt."

"I don't know why you'd think you would be – you weren't that great as a sister." Arateyka couldn't help but grin at that complaint when her sister did. They were a close family and nobody but Ykana had ever felt like they didn't belong. "And I'm not having a family until I find the right father for them." She smirked across the table at her sister.
"Somebody like –"

"As I said – find your own man."

"I'll do that." She took a long, slow sip of ale and then added: "And you make your own freckly babies."

Last updated on the January 24th 2007

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A Big Freckly Family