Learning Anew [Lymsleia]

Aparicus had been pleased that morning to find that her Witch-Hazel bush had several small shoots that spring on it.  After two seasons she had deemed the roots on the shoots well enough developed to transplant the growing plants.  Problem was that her little spice garden was flourishing and despite the fragrant winter flowers her witch-hazel bush developed, the only real use the plant had in the spice garden was for her own warming tea, a strong ally against the wet chill of winter here in the south.  Not enough of the Weyr’s population shared Apari’s appreciation for the tea, however, and she needed to find them a new home or plant them along the outskirts of the Weyr.

It had been a short discussion with one of the Healers that Aparicus delightedly found that her hazel bush was actually well used and appreciated in the Infirmary’s Herb Garden.  Apparently the plant’s leaves and flower-bearing twigs could be distilled to create a disinfecting liquid; great for cleaning the skin, sunburns (which Apari was prone to), bruises, rashes, swelling and could even reduce those little blue veins women often found developing on their legs after childbirthing.  Aparicus had been amazed and impressed by her Witch-Hazel bush after that and had offered the little shoots to the Healers who had gladly accepted them.

Now she carried a large basket with both arms as she walked carefully toward the Healer’s Hall, their garden located behind the large building was her goal, but she wanted to let a healer know what she was up to before letting herself in.  If people were like herself, they were protective of their garden and the last thing she wanted was to not be allowed inside at a later date.  The slight woman was barely able to balance her basket between her hip and the door frame as she opened up the Healer’s door to call inside without dumping the plants and their carefully wrapped roots all over the doorstep.

Thankfully a healer was just inside enjoying some drink in the main room there.  Aparicus recognized the dark skinned woman as a fellow Northerner.  Truth be told, Apari had once been intimidated by the woman when she first arrived.  Though Apari was taller than her by an inch or two, Lymsleia had both curves as well as haughty eyes in two different shades of blue.  Add that to the fact that a woman was a healer along with the skin color Aparicus had never seen in her little cothold and one could only imagine why Aparicus had been at first afraid to approach the woman.

Time at the Weyr, however, was teaching Aparicus that no two people were alike and that you really couldn’t judge a book by its cover.  Offering an apologetic smile through the door, Aparicus lifted her voice to carry across the room.  “Good Afternoon Healer Lymsleia.”  Aparicus said, politeness having been beaten into her at a young age, she made sure to use titles as often as she could without angering anyone. “I’ve brought the extra Witch-Hazel shoots from the kitchen’s spice garden and was hoping someone could open the gate to the healer’s garden so I could plant them.”

"Afternoon." Lymsleia's voice was bright and gentle, as she settled in behind the desk. a few  peices of paper were piled high, so high that the peitite woman was lost in a forst of paper work. The sound of the chair sliding backwards across the floor made a thunking sound. "One moment,Appy... Aparicus- I am sorry." she said quickly. Nick names seemed to fit some people, and like Rider's elided names Lymsleia found herself giving people nicknames to remeber them by.

  She stood up after hearing the request, "Not a problem, actually I'd love to see what the spice garden produced." She stepped from behind the desk, fetching a set of scissors . As the moved into the outside,  Lymsleia approached a shed near the garden gate. "This way." she motioned with her hand. " And please stop by any time." she held up the tags. "We identify if the gates been opened and anything taken or removed with these colored tags." she explained. "Red means somethings been take or removed, usually you put it on the  stake at the top of the plant, letting other's know you've trimmed something off it." She walked briskly.  Though after a moment she slowed as she  undid the gate latch. "I shouldn't be talking so much.... so how's work and life?" She swung the gate open wide, and a small stone laid path stretched before them.

The brightness was easy to hear in the dark colored woman as she slid out of her chair and stood up.  Aparicus’ eyes had held momentary confusion at the nickname ‘Appy’ before Lymsleia quickly corrected herself and apologized for it.  Realizing that ‘Appy’ was meant to be her and having never heard such a nickname, Aparicus couldn’t help but giggle at its silliness.  She’d have lifted a gnarled hand up to hide the giggle, but both were occupied by the basket. 

“Oh you don’t have to apologize, Healer Lymsleia.  I’ve just never heard that particular nickname before.” She replied with a smile as she moved from the doorway to let the Healer through.  Following the woman to the shed and gate, Aparicus listened carefully to the instructions about the tags, before finding a question of her own. “It may be another season before I’d suggest pruning the new Witch-Hazel, do you have a colored tag I can put on them to show that they should be left alone to grow until they are settled into their new beds?”

Seeing the gate and the stone path in the garden, Aparicus was instantly envious.  Her own tumbled-together stone fence was more of a hazard than a help in keeping out critters and children.  Ah, but she had already asked for some lumber for a proper fence.  Once it was available to her, she’d make something just as pretty as this for sure, even if it meant recruiting additional help beyond Greenrider A’liran.

Hearing the question about herself, Aparicus smiled as she took her time to admire the garden before searching for a good location for the new plants. “Oh it’s been very good actually.  The garden is flourishing and I’ve meet a new dragonrider who offered to help me put up a fence around it.  I’m quite looking forward to it, though the project may need to be put off till the spring if the winter rains start early.”  Aparicus had learned to love pointless chatter since coming to the Weyr.  Talk had always been hushed and closely watched at the cothold, to be able to speak openly and freely (to most) was a welcome relief she enjoyed.

Lymsleia smiled, when her appology was corrected. "Its fine. I just couldn't think of a way to shorten Aparicus other than 'Appy'. You may call me Lym, if you want." she stated. AS Aparicus asked about the colored tags for non-mature plant Lymsleia bobbed her head. "Yes, this bright green-yellow". she held up the tag and then held it out to Aparaicus. "We may want to affix it to the plant before put it in its new bed."

The garden path was little more than truely random stones thrown together in an sortment and jumble. Clearly the path was older than a year old it seemed that there were small stones added and shoved inbetween and betwixt larger rocks. Lymsleia picked up a handfull of assorted stone and egan laying them inbetween the gaps and spaces.

"A little work over a long time, Aparicus." she said motioning to the  pebbels she placed down, your garden will grow in time. And, who said they would help- I mean which rider?" she awas curious and slowed her walk to fall into step beside the Farmer craft girl. Lymsleia smiled, the young woman reminded her of a few girl's back home. Level-headed and intelligent, unlike the vapid stupid, girl's of much larger Holds.

"So where are you from? Originally? I mean.... I am sorry. I should have spoken like that. I don't want to bring that up.. but I was curious you reminded me of many Falen's Hold girls."

"Lym?"  Aparicus asked, testing the shorter name on her tongue.  Not only was it too... improper, it made her stomach turn in a way only her past habits beaten into her could do when she attempted to defy them.  "Oh heavens no.  I mean, if you don't mind, I think Healer Lymsleia is much prettier."  Not to mention more comfortable to the woman who had long since learned her place.

After asking Lymsleia to pick out five of the mentioned tags, Apari walked with her, aware of the proximity and silently stepping as far to the side as the path would allow out of sheer habit, and admired the path and plants.  It did not take the farmcrafter long to find the other plant of Witch Hazel along the gardens wall where it could grow tall without pushing out the other plants.  It had been well cared for, but Apari's trained eyes told her that the plant would welcome sharing the pruning with fresh plants to have a seasons break of it's own.

"We'll plant these along the wall near this one, but with room to grow.  I think when they are ready, this poor guy could use a break himself."  She said as she put down the basket and looked back up at the healer after her question about her home. 

"Is that where you are from?  Falen's Hold I mean.  Are their many with your skin color there?"  Realizing that may not have been an appropriate question her face colored a deep red as she quickly looked back at her plants.  "I come from a small, unnamed cothold.  North of Tillek but south of High Reaches along the coast.  It was very small and my uncle... he was the cotholder."

Lymsleia blinked surprisedly. "One for full titles and honors huh?" she asks when Aparicus spoke her title an name again. "No I understnd. Falen's Hold was like that to some degree. The aunts and uncles, and the elders all expected that. And I understand where your coming from." she stepped back along the path as she watched the farm crafter set to work.

She surveyed the plants and their beds, "You're actually right, we've been trying to keep the usuage of the plants down to..  a minimum. We've been wanting to give them a break, but my poor contraceptive plants have been in high demand." she added. She surveyed the garden takn it all in as she stood breathing the moistened air. Winter was coming. And even a Katilian winter could be deadly. Colds and flus and other ailments.

Lymsleia jerked at the question. "Umm, Yes, I was born and raised and Falen's Hold, and yes the skin color is.. predominant. I can only assume the holds founderes must have had a shared vision, or something. I hadn't ever seen a person who was as light as most are here till I went to Healer Hall. I mean, there was one girl who was so pale.. I thought she'd found some white paint or something.." she  tries to cover her laughter at the memory. "First instinct was to try and touch her and see if the pain was still--" she stopped. "Sorry I didn't mean to bore you, or ramble. Sometimes my mouth just gets away with me." And that, she thought, got her into trouble.

She was silent for a long moment and began to dig through er shoulder bag. Though it was distinctly different make of bag, fetched from the outdoor shed, though it was similar to the one that hung in the office. Lymsleia opened it and removed from it a set tools. "Here you go, we keep a few gardening tools, I hope thesee will be acceptable." she  moved a little closer to Aparicus.

"The cothold, you lived in must have been known for something,right?"

Listening to the healer admit that some of the plants might be currently over used, she followed the healers gaze at other plants in the garden.  It was true, some were beginning to look a little sparse of their leaves despite how early in the fall it was.  Fishing out a writing tool she kept in her pocket, she scrawled a few numbers on each tag before carefully tying them onto the plants as she listened to the healer.

“Once these are planted, show me the most important plants.  Maybe I can help get some fresh ones growing to ease the burden on the parent plants.”  She offered helpfully as she finished tying the tags while Lym spoke of other’s back home and her mistake with a woman at the Healer Hall.  The story had Apari smiling despite her own fear of being touched and when Lym stopped halfway through, she shook her head.

“That’s a terrible habit.”  She said before realizing she hadn’t exactly said what the habit was.  “You get into wonderful stories then stop yourself and apologize before anyone can properly enjoy them.  Why do you do that?  Doesn’t it ever fluster you to not finish a story?”  She asked smiling up at the darker skinned woman.

Finding the woman stepping closer with offered tools, however, Apari had jumped to her feet and skittered backwards to keep a comfortable distance between them.  Blushing slightly, she rubbed the back of her neck with a soft ‘heh’.  “Sorry, you can put them next to the basket.  I’ll get them from there…”  Now the timid woman made a point of looking anywhere but at the healer as she waited patiently for the woman to put the tools down and back up once more.

Hearing the last question, Apari shook her head as she glanced back to see if the tools were on the ground or still in Lym’s hands.  “No… Not really.  We were very small.  For several years the fields were failing and we hadn’t the money to repair the fishing boats.  We’d only two runners, but they were for the field plows.”  In fact, Apari couldn’t really remember selling much of anything from the hold, they were barely able to support themselves let alone have extras to sell to others.

Lymsleia made every effort to be as gentle as possible. She looked at Aparicus, and tried to smile."The problem is that I'll need to keep a small garden alone to keep the Weyr in good stead, though  I suppose I should be 'according to the rules' dosing out the opposites of these beauties." she gestured  to the contraceptive plants.

When Appy mentioned her 'terrible' habbit, Lymsleia perked up a little bit. "It is a, but then again Falen's Hold was never kind to me. Mother was a woman who's named was rarely spoken. So I learned that my talking was only tolerated so far." she explained.

"And it does fluster me, that I cannot- finish a story. Or a sentence. And even here its starting fluster me that this rider's assume that all of us... women will just laydown and roll over and produce children from them." She kicked at a pathway stone. At the the request for the tools to put int othe basket she oblidged.

Listening to Aparicus's tale she  frowned. "Falen's hold, my mother's... project.. it was outside the hold, Lively charming. I snuck away a few times. It was alive... and wild and beautiful. Mother was no willed flower- though she was gone...- the place she'd built Was alive and vibrant like the sun." she closed her eyes streteching her hands upwards to wards the sky. "Not that I was ever allowed inside. I do remember the scent of runners." She fingered her dark hair. She twisted it into a few braids.

"Appy, do you want children?" she asked. "Is it bad, that... aftera year I am actually starting to want to take apart what I've done for so many other women-- and actually take part in this stupid breeding-mare program?"

Aparicus found herself at odds with the conversation at hand as it turned to the topic of children – and Apari assumed – the Weyr’s current decree that women could not stand on the hatching sands before having a child for the Weyr.  Of course, Apari never had a problem with the rule when it was put into effect shortly after she’d arrived, if she couldn’t stand, she couldn’t impress to a dragon and be forced to experience the terrors that were involved with a mating flight.  Without a dragon she was safe to cower in her room when the queen’s rose to affect so many in the Weyr.

“But Healer Lymsleia… If the women do not bring the Weyr it’s children, we would have no young people.  Last I understood, men cannot have babies with other men.”  She said softly in quiet rebuttel to the woman’s discust for not wanting the women to have the babies.  Yes, Aparicus shook like a leaf when it came to the thought of a man touching her and giving her a baby… but she did understand how nature worked.  The women made the babies.  It didn’t matter if it was humans or dragons or little felines.  It’s just the way it worked. 

When asked if she’d like to have her own children, Apari paused in her work, starring at the freshly turned dirt for a few minutes before placing one of the plants inside and gently filling in the hole around it as she slowly shook her head.  “No, Ma’am.”  She said softly.  There were reasons Apari would never have a child – the foremost being her Phobia; her fear of human touch.  It was something she couldn’t control no matter how much she tried.  It was too deeply embedded in her nature, why even with gentle Lymsleia she’d jumped at the idea of taking the garden tools from her hand for fear their fingers might brush.

“I enjoy children from a distance, but I’m afraid I’d never make… Never make a good mother.”  She said as her thoughts wandered to the way children would cling and touch and hold the hand of their favorite adult guardian.  She was glad that so far she’d managed to avoid chores in the crèche…  Children didn’t know personal space…  and while Apari knew that the smallest wouldn’t necessarily mean to hurt her, she’d seen the older children bullying a time or two and knew that some were wicked indeed.  No… she kept her distance from children even if she understood that women were the only ones who could have the babies.

“I do not think, though, that wanting to have a child is such a terrible thing.  Isn’t it the way it is suppose to be?  Isn’t that why only women ride the Gold dragons?  Because it is only the gold dragons who can make the babies?  Maybe they need riders who can also have babies or they wouldn’t be able to.  After all, greens are women too, but I’ve never seen a green lay an egg.  Perhaps it’s because they are treated too much like the male dragons – with male riders and breathing fire like the male dragons.”

The words of the young woman were soft, were gentle, were painful. LYmsleia almsot wanted to cry. She envied the simplicity of the way  Aparicus's world view worked. "Lucky." she said softly.

Shards, it hurt to think about how easily she could tip, that delicate healer's apprentice's view. Training in biology, in the workings of body, in how children were made. It was almost ttorture now that she thougt o it. "The way some of these riders go at it, you'd think they were trying to repopulate with just themselves." She spoke the words with so mch acid , she surprised herself.

"Appy," she said turning towwards the slightly older woman. "You'd be a perfect mother, you are gentle, and soft, and.." she considered what little she knew of the farmer. "You.. feel.. right for it. Hell I am the odd one out. though I must admit, it seems like most riders are ready to chase each other than to chase us." she added.

"Shards and shells, I've been here to long an that silly rule is actually making want to go have at least one kid, but unlike my mother I will not abandom them to go live with some rider.." she almost kicked a plant, the sound of the leaves swishing beneath her boot, made her reign in her anger. Do not destroy her lively-hood, she told herself.

She tried to suppress the anger, but all the child-talk had left her a bit shaken, and upset, conjuring the memories she'd thought best left buried deep deep in a dark whole. "I don't think they need riders who can reproduce as they do. I think its... a.. preference." she said softly. "Someone once told me, women have preferences, men have.... what was it now?" she struggled to remember. The dark haired woman's black hair shook slowly, the braids swinging back and forth. "Either way, I think the gold ,re strongly biased towards choosing /female/ riders. Like the greens for some reason are strongly biased towards males." she commented. "Though they're both females, they're tilted in different directions. I don't think a male would do well on a dragon whose entire purpose is to produce children. His mind could not.. understand the flight in the way I am sure a woman does."

She smiled at the thought. The though of a man dealing with the flight, the knowledge of his dragon growing egg-heavy and finally relieving her body of the heavy burden of the eggs. "It's an alien concept for a male to carry life inside him.. It's simply not done. But for a woman it is.. nature." she said softly.  "Green's don't lay eggs becausse.. they're fighters. They are not males.. they are females.. but their purpose is to fly, to fight... to ... be something else."

  She made a fist, and then slowly rleased it. "I think this place has made us all sick in the head. Somehow. Or perhaps its just  Pern itself. The weyr is no better than the Holds or Halls, now." she breathed. "Those stories about Women of the weyrs having such freedom, seem to be lies." She started to walk back towards the Healer's hall. "Sorry."

Apari had winced as Lym told her that she’d make a perfect mother because she was gentle and soft.  It was not that Apari could not stand the thought of a child… it was that she feared the touch it would involve.  What’s more, is that with all of the pain she herself associated with touch, would her own touch hurt the child?  Aparicus was as afraid to touch other people for the fear of causing herself pain as much as to cause them pain and make them angry with her.  Touch and pain… Her broken mind couldn’t separate the two anymore.  She’d once been able to as a child… but now?  They were one and the same from too many years of abuse.

Even so, she listened quietly as she worked to the dark skinned woman speak of dragons and riders; men and women.  Apari felt she had the right of it, thinking along the right lines that it was women who were needed by the gold dragons for understanding.  But the anger in the woman’s voice unsettled the farmcrafter and she couldn’t help but feel the woman was still angry despite finally understanding that the rule for children was not much a rule as it was necessity since the men couldn’t carry the children themselves.  And that confused Apari.

When Lym started talking about how the holds and halls were similar to the Weyr, Apari’s back stiffened and dhe turned to find that the healer had begun to walk back toward the Healer’s Hall.  Setting down the small shovel in her hand, Aparicus wrapped her arms around her and looked around the Herb Garden as the Healer walked out of sight and the farmcrafter let her go. 

Katila?  No better than the holds and halls?  Surely… Surely anywhere was better than where Aparicus had come from, wasn’t it?  Aparicus was Happy at Katila.  She’d gone two and a half full turns without a hand print to leave welts on her skin.  Two and a half full turns without the pain of another person taking her unwillingly.  The Healer spoke with venom when she spoke of the Weyr when all Aparicus felt was love and thankfulness.

No.  Katila was better.  Katila was safer.  Katila was kinder.  Picking back up the small shovel, she went back to work on putting the last little plant in its home.  The Healer would see, surely.  Just a little more time… just a little more time.


{{Thread Closed.}}