Rama and Ters (originally 2001)
Rama
and Tersam
Rama on the left is a tough young woman. Far from a 'lady', she and her
brother Tersam are well known as troublemakers around Eden's Gate.
Tersam is quieter but no less daring when it comes to feats of stupidity
(especially when a girl is concerned!).
Rama is 16 turns old, her brother Tersam is 14. They are only two of six
children to Sein family parents (weaver) Askram and (beast-tender) Marmat.
Askram would love it if her children would only slow down and try harder
to become something tame. Marmat knows that this will never happen...
There is dragonrider blood in his side of the family, lots of it. The
Sein line has long been associated with danger, dragons and unrest.
Rama and her brother do not make exception to this rule!
"Why would you ever want
to be there?" Asked Rama, "I mean, it's a hideous place! It's all indoors
and underground and --" she shuddered for effect, "it's all just so ...
INSIDE!"
"But it's all got running water and heat, and your own weyr! Think of
it!" Tersam said. His face showed a dreamy-look, "I mean, your own place,
where noone else was allowed unless you wanted them there. Except your
dragon, right?"
"Dragons..." Rama whispered. "Don't need to be inside. I think we should
just do away with thread and be done with it. Why can't we do that, Tersam?"
She leaned on her elbows and put her fists under her chin. "Look at what
it did to me... I hate this..." It was true, her lovely skin had been
marred turns before when thread fell and she happened to be caught by
a stray wisp. The winds that day were dangerous, but the caverns they'd
explored the sevenday before were even more so. They'd collapsed around
the girl and she had never quite gotten over the claustrophobic press
of stones. Her scar was nothing, compared to that fear she had inside.
"Rama, you're still beautiful and you know it." Tersam said, serious.
Though he was younger, he was wise enough to know better than to tell
her something else. She was still pretty, prettier than most of the other
girls in the cothold. Of course, most of the other girls weren't brave
or brash like her either. "Besides, you can't just 'do away with thread!'
It's everywhere! When the Red Star is up there, it's always going to fall!"
She recited a short ballad about it, something the lone Harper of Eden's
Gate taught them. He would be proud of his efforts, had he heard her repeat
it back without error. Tersam nodded.
"But that's the point," Rama said. "Why does it have to be this way? We
know that the Ancients knew things that we can't do or understand any
more. Their machinery and their medicine... Why can't we find something
about it that way?"
"Your head is in the clouds, Rama..." Tersam said. "But I think your heart
is in the right place. You know there are search riders out soon."
"There are usually search riders out. D'you know from where?" She got
interested quickly. Anything to keep from going back to their chores in
the cothold.
"Katadon, it's building slowly. I hear they've got lots of
eggs, though."
"Where do you hear these things that I don't, Tersam?" Rama hissed with
a silly grin. "I mean, really?"
"The rider told me," he thumbed back over his shoulder. Rama's yellow
eyes widened, as she realized that the small courtyard that she'd been
studiously avoiding for the morning chores actually held a search dragon
in it! She must have arrived sometime while Rama had been wandering the
field!
"Why - didn't - you - tell - me!?" She said, gritted teeth.
"I was going to," Tersam said, getting up off his belly and dusting himself
off. The dragon picked her head up, an observant green. Her eyes seemed
to search across the cothold's land and spot the pair, sitting on their
duffs in the dusty fallow field. "But she told me to bring you by as a
surprise."
"She... she, the dragon she? She spoke to you?!"
"She did," Tersam said, helping his sister up. "And I think she wants
to speak to you too."
They bolted down to the courtyard, and the delicate dragoness stood. As
if she weren't big enough, when she stood, she also opened her beautiful
green wings. They almost spread over two of the small buildings nearby!
"Wow..." Rama said, jaw open and eyes misty.
You are also a good candidate.
You will stand on the sands. We have a gold clutch, you know. Perhaps
you will want to try cleaning yourself up first. The weyrwoman will want
to meet both of you soon.
Gasping, Rama nodded. "I... We'll... Be going with you? To where-was-it-Katadon?"
The dragon's eyes whirled a yellowy-green. "Wow..." Rama said again.
She then smacked Tersam on the back of the head. "You didn't have to let
me sit there in the dirt all morning! You could have told me to get the
chores done!"
Tersam only laughed.
***
"It's been something like
*forever*, Tersam," Rama moaned. "And the girls keep looking at me like
I'm a freak."
"They are not. Stop stomping on the mat. I'm not done yet." Tersam wove
a third strand of reed-fiber through his impromptu loom. His sister helped
him tighten it down and they had yet another quality home-made mat. To
join the eighteen some others they'd made while waiting. It took several
days to make each one, counting time spent to gather materials.
It was onto a pile of those mats that Rama snuggled down. "Well, I think
they should keep their eyes on their studies. Dragon patterns. Flight.
Feeding. It's all we do any more. I need to do it with a dragon watching
me, instead of all those girls."
Tersam shrugged. "Well, I think the eggs will hatch soon. They're really
hard, and their dam is getting all over-protective of them. That's a good
sign."
Rama held her head up, tilted a bit. "That is, too."
"What is?"
"The humming, numbhead." It was true, the dragons were humming and the
call went out this evening for the hatching! They all got down to the
sands and did not even have to wait. The first egg had already hatched
by the time Rama and her brother arrived.
It was a good thing they got there no later, for the next egg to hatch
was a lovely large bronze -- along side his beautiful tiny green sister.
The bronze strode right up to the boys and looked them over. The green
left his side when she decided the boys weren't her style.
The bronze came to Tersam, Tersam, you are mine!
You are an expert at handling that sister of yours, as I am an expert
at handling my sister. Call me Creth.
"Creth, is it? Well!" Tersam, now thinking of his name as Ter's, looked
around and found his sister whose eyes were bugged out of her head at
him. "Well!" He repeated.
The green found her lifemate, and then a white hatched out! She oddly
chose a male partner, and then a brown came from his shell. He studied
everyone remaining near him -- mostly the boys, and then went off to the
girls. Rama, I am Lakshmanath. I will never mind your scar
-- it shows as a sign of your bravery.
Rama led Lakshmanath off the sands close on the heels of her brother --
smiling like wild, both of them! They'd impressed! They surely would be
able to drive the red star away now!
<-Creth......
Lakshmanath ->
***
The pair didn't need to
worry about thread - because they didn't return to that world. When they
were given instructions on the locale of their new home, back at the Kshau
Isle, they hadn't realized that it was on Alskyr, a whole new planet.
"It's okay - most of the hatchlings from our clutch didn't seem to make
it," Rama said with a lot of sadness in her voice. "The weyr doesn't exist
any more."
They made their way around the Isle, and decided that even if it wasn't
their old home world, it would certainly do for their purposes! It would
allow them both to continue working on what their parents wanted them
to do: nice normal things like home making and transportation.
Ters was very pleased, because his bronze made such a great here-to-there
dragon. He loved having people on his back, and liked to carry things
in his strong arms as well. Rama's brown didn't sit well with that sort
of laziness - he liked to hunt! So they wound up being official hunters
for the newly hidden and very prosperous Eden's Gate Alskyr.
<-Lakshmanath
Creth v
