My Own Business

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 1st October 2007

Characters: Tey, Arateyka
Description: Tey asked Arateyka about L'car.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 6, day 2 of Turn 4

"Saw you talking to L'car this morning."

"And?" Arateyka prompted, eyeing her sister and trying to predict what Tey's point was likely to be.

"Wondered how he is. He's been hard to find ... For ages," Tey finished weakly, not being sure exactly how long it had been.

"Since First Fall," Arateyka agreed. "For obvious reasons. He lost his brother and was injured himself."

"We lost Ykana a few 'Falls later."

Despite the fact that Arateyka had used the same argument on the bluerider she shook her head. "It's not the same, is it? Being injured that badly must make everything look worse. We've been lucky – with T'kanu and Teykara and R'harne."

"We have." Tey sighed and settled down in the chair beside Arateyka's desk, absently flicking through the plans and texts, wondering why her sister needed to have all her smith stuff in her room. Wasn't it enough that she worked all day in the smithy without studying at night? Tey had thought once Arateyka's apprenticeship was over that all that would have stopped. "But is he all right now?"

"I don't know," the journeywoman smith admitted. "I hope so. Scarred."
As so many were these days. "His eye's always going to have problems."

"You always liked him," Tey observed.

It was true, she had. "He was a good friend."

"I was talking to Tamaca the other day."

"Were you?" Arateyka tried to recall what L'car's sister was doing these days. "She's about your age, isn't she? And Standing?" Every female of Impressionable age was Standing this time around, with a gold egg on the Sands.

"Uh-huh. She's working as a scribe." Tey thought it well to hurry on before her nosy sister asked where they had been talking and she had to confess her lack of handwriting skills. Worse yet, admit that she was too embarrassed to let a nine-Turn-old boy see her handwriting or spelling. "But she used to be a harper, didn't she?"

"Yes. I think so." Arateyka frowned, trying to remember what had happened to the other woman's apprenticeship. "I'm not sure –"

"You could ask L'car next time you talk to him," Tey suggested, not supposing for a moment that she was impressing her sister with her subtlety.

"Mmm."

"Well," the younger woman prompted. "When are you going to see him again?"

"_See_ him?" The smith journeywoman turned around to frown at her sister's tone. "I'll see him because he's my friend and he hasn't been around for a while. All right? Nothing more. Not _seeing_. Nothing like that. Don't you go saying one single word to Delhara about L'car."

"What kind of sister do you think I am?"

"The kind that tattled to our mother about me not having a dress.
Remember that?"

"Months ago," Tey said waving a dismissive hand at her sister's words.
"And you really needed at least _one_ dress." Tey herself liked her dresses; the pretty colours, the variety of fabrics, the swish of them around her legs when she walked.

"You know Delhara doesn't do just what's required. She _always_ does more than anybody would want her to. _Three_ dresses. _Three_! So don't you so much as breathe a word to her about L'car."

"Not a word," Tey promised with a solemn expression that did not engender trust in her older sister's heart. "But when are you seeing him again? Because you _are_, aren't you?"

"My own business, Tey," Arateyka said, snatching a rolled drawing from her sister's hands and placing it out of reach. "Completely and utterly my own business."

Last updated on the October 3rd 2007

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My Own Business