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+---- Thread: [G] [C] 734.09.08 | The day is not seized [Solo] (/showthread.php?tid=2212)
734.09.08 | The day is not seized [Solo] - TariLPCs - 12.Jan.14
Diolon
The confrontation, when it happened, wasn’t pretty.
That’s not to say it was especially nasty, either, but to the wide-eyed boy perched tensely in a nearby chair, it was shocking enough. He’d never seen his mother and brother square off like this. They were both stubborn, Diolon knew, but usually Faredin’s stubborn backed J’di’s. This time, his dragon-mad older brother had come to the bluerider and stated, in that calm, immovable way of his, that he wouldn’t be Standing for the huge clutch on the sands, and their mother wasn’t happy.
“You’re a weyrbred boy, you’ll be old enough, and it’s a big clutch- they’ll need riders more than ever.”J’di (Jayedi? Diolon never knew what to call their mother. One was ‘right’ and one was ‘wrong’, but if the right one bothered her, was it in fact wrong?) rebutted reasonably, flinty gaze on her oldest son. “Why on Pern would you not?”
“Ma’am, I feel I am not adequately prepared to be a rider at this time.” Faredin sounded like he’d been practicing, which Diolon thought was a smart move. It’d never worked for him, but it usually did for Faredin. “With the recent Searching, I feel there are now enough candidates without one immature weyrbrat pushing his way in.” Points off, Diolon thought. Faredin had been born responsible- it was Diolon himself who was the immature one.
Hey, he owned his faults honestly. Proudly, even.
J’di didn’t look like she was buying it, either. Her eyes narrowed further on her son, as Caymath rumbled uneasily outside. “You’re weyrbred. Even being born down here, by virtue of that alone you are more qualified than ninety percent of those boys they’re bringing in, who will be lucky if they know which end of a dragon’s the front. You were chaffing at the bit to Stand before the landslide.”
She stood back to watch the boy, jaw firmly set and arms clasped behind his back, and made a disgusted sort of noise. “Is that it, boy? A bit of mud drops down and now you’re scared?” Diolon cringed on his brother’s behalf- cowardice was one of their mother’s unforgivable sins, right up there with crying in public or neglecting your dragon.
“No.” Faredin replied quietly, but he wouldn’t look at their mother and his voice trembled a bit. And if Diolon was picking up on that, you could bet J’di would.
“No.” The bluerider glared down at Faredin. “I will not have it. Others have been hurt worse, lost more, and they’re still going on. I will not have my son shirking his duty to the Weyr.” It was a simple statement of fact, a decree of how J’di expected the world to be. And a month ago, Faredin would have agreed.
Not so, today.
“Unfortunately, ma’am, it isn’t your decision.” Faredin answered lowly, and while Diolon gaped in astonishment after him, nodded curtly to their mother and left while the going was good. Diolon’s quick look at the bluerider’s tense frame and clenched fists had him edging for the door too. It wasn’t that he thought J’di would lay into him instead, but he had no idea what to do to make this better. Better to make himself scarce for a few days and hope it blew over.
Maybe Firah would be around to bug for another lesson…