Stitching Bonds

Writers: Duskdog, Heather
Date Posted: 16th March 2024

Characters: J'kellar
Description: J'kellar, H'yllin, and E'yrien work on riding straps and get to know each other around some good-natured ribbing.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 11, day 25 of Turn 10

H'yllin's thumb poked out from between his lips as his brow furrowed
in concentration. Sweat beaded. Eyes squinted. The needle held between
his fingers-too-large-for-their-own-good wobbled uncertainly as he
tried to thread the material through the tiny eye. As the thread
missed, _again_, H'yllin sighed loudly, took the leather straps
between his large hands, and acted as if he was strangling them.

"Who do they think I am? A _seamstress_? How am I supposed to do this?
Do you see these hands," he held up his large paws. "These are the
hands of a smith. I can't do this," he grumped to J'kellar.

J'kellar, too, was having trouble threading his needle, and he could
feel himself getting frustrated. Of the many tasks he'd handled back
on the farm, mending and sewing had not been one of them.

He broke his concentration long enough to glance at H'yllin. "My hands
aren't as big as yours, and even _I'm_ having trouble with this
wherryshite. It's not like it's a dress, though -- tanners are _men_,
and some of them have to have big sausage hands, too. There must be a
trick to it or something that they're not telling us...?"

H'yllin peered around J'kellar at E'yrien, whose nimble fingers were
having zero difficulty threading the needle, and who in fact, was
nearly halfway done with the initial stitching.

"Hey, E'yrien, where did you learn to do that?" H'yllin demanded.

"Some of us learned _real_ skills growing up," E'yrien said with
clenched teeth, since he was holding his spare needle between his teeth.
like... _pay_ someone to mend your straps after graduation. This is
tedious. Or maybe a barter system."

"Okay, H'yllin, I'll sew up a sparkly thong bathing suit for you
to wear when you're bathing Luvirath in exchange for helping you with
your riding straps." E'yrien said, eyes glinting.

The green Weyrling cocked his head to the side, eyebrow raised. "How
is that an exchange? It sounds like you're doing all the work."

"Oh, trust me, seeing you in a thong would be well worth the laugh!"

H'yllin held up the leather straps in his lap. "Don't think I won't
snap you with one of these."

"You wish," the blue Weyrling sassed in return.

J'kellar snorted softly, trying to concentrate on sewing his straps as
they'd been shown, but only succeeding with half of his attention. He
didn't really need the image of H'yllin in a tiny bathing suit in his
brain when he was trying to work. (Besides, he thought he could pull
the look off better, himself.) "Oh, flirt, flirt, flirt. You're
supposed to be making the riding straps for your dragons, guys, not
for each other."

All three heads swiveled in J'kellar's direction as there was a
moment's pause before they began slapping knees and laughing.

"J'kellaaarrrr," H'yllin crowed with tears of laughter in his eyes.

"Serves you right, H'yllin," E'yrien said matter-of-factly as he
finished his straps completely and held them up like a trophy. "Done."

H'yllin, who hadn't correctly stitched the first stitch, groaned and
resumed trying to thread his needle.

"Give me that, you oaf," E'yrien scolded, snatching the needle and
thread from H'yllin's large hands. Threading the needle in one easy
movement, he handed it back to the green Weyrling. "Now, go on, I'll
watch you on your first few stitches to make sure you aren't ruining
them too badly."

"Either of you have any family visiting on this next Restday?" H'yllin
asked conversationally.

J'kellar, making reasonable -- if slow -- progress on his own straps,
scowled. "Pfft. No. Rokolth already gives me enough crap to shovel. I
don't need any more showing up." He felt the blue stir lightly in his
sleep in the back of his mind, and took a deep breath through his
nose, trying to will the anger away before it woke his dragon.
Besides, he couldn't give _them_ the pleasure of dictating his
feelings from afar. "How about you? Is your whole family Smithcraft or
what? I know E'yrien's ma, at least, is here."

"My Da's a smith at Amber Hills," H'yllin said, holding his straps
impossibly close to his eyes as he carefully went about his stitches.

"You think the proximity to your eyes is going to make your stitches
better?" E'yrien asked.

"Shut it, seamstress," H'yllin grumbled, although his lips twitched
with suppressed laughter. "My Ma works in the kitchens there," he
continued. "I've got a bunch of sisters and brothers... a _bunch_. My
parents have had no trouble trying to repopulate after the Plague."

He didn't sound upset or hesitant about his family to J'kellar's ears,
at least. He wasn't typically one to tiptoe around topics just for the
sake of someone else's feelings, but H'yllin had been nothing but a
good guy to him so far -- even if he _did_ like J'fer in a skirt.
"They weren't mad or anything?" he asked, since the other weyrling
didn't seem bothered. "About Luvirath being green, I mean?"

"Oh, no, they weren't," H'yllin said, his brows furrowed in
concentration. "My uncle sort of broke the ice on that front for me.
You see my Da's brother is a greenrider here. Now, from what I
understand, when _he_ Impressed some twenty Turns ago, it really threw
the family for a loop. He was disowned and the whole lot," the green
Weyrling waved his hand as if to encompass all of the nasty things
that come along with being shunned by your family. "But see, my Da and
uncle are barely a Turn apart in age, always grew up close. So when Da
got married and started his family and my uncle was out of
Weyrlinghood, he began visiting us."

E'yrien's lips were pursed. "I've seen his uncle, he has a much better
taste in fashion." He looked H'yllin up and down.

H'yllin chuckled under his breath, not breaking eye contact with his
stitching. "I'm going to dump itching powders in your drawers while
you sleep, E'yrien." He glanced up at J'kellar. "So anyway, my
immediate family is happy for me... My grandparents on the other
hand..." He shrugged.

"Never got over it, even for your uncle, huh?" J'kellar guessed
sympathetically. "Well, at least you've got your parents, and all your
brothers and sisters. Maybe one of them will even get Searched someday
and Impress, too." He stabbed his needle through the leather as if it
had personally offended him. "Your uncle must be a pretty forgiving
guy to let your family back into his life after they rejected him like
that. They should feel _lucky_ that he was willing to let it go! I
don't think _I'm_ that nice."

"Well, my Da didn't have much of a choice. He was living at home when
Q'llian Impressed, but they made things right as soon as he was able.
It's good for me that Q'llian still wanted a relationship with us,
otherwise things might not have been so easy on me impressing
Luvirath." There was a noticeable tone of affection in his voice for
his dragonet.

J'kellar might have been a little jealous of H'yllin's supportive
family, and having an uncle here to guide him maybe, too, but it was
hard to be annoyed with someone who was clearly having those
_feelings_ for his dragonet -- feelings that J'kellar himself
recognized and couldn't help but feel, too, at the thought of his
dragon.

"She's a pretty green," he said. "I'll be honest, I never thought
about greens much before coming here, but... they're carrying the
whole fighting force on their backs, huh?"

He still wouldn't have wanted one for himself. Having a girl in his
brain just sounded weird and icky. But... he had to admit they
deserved more recognition than they got, at least.

"Absolutely," H'yllin agreed. "They're the most in number, they make
up the bulk of the Wings, and since golds only rise once a Turn, they
keep the male dragons happy. That sounds like a win-win-win to me."

"Things didn't go well with your family, then?" E'yrien asked J'kellar.

J'kellar forced another stitch through the leather. It looked
relatively even to his eye, though it was hard to resist the urge to
make the stitches longer to get done faster. He had to remind himself
that if his straps didn't pass muster, he wouldn't get to fly -- and
that would be humiliating. "No. They don't ever want to see me again,
don't even want me to tell anybody where I'm from. Whatever. I don't
need 'em, anyway. If they're too stupid to see how great Rokolth is,
they don't deserve to know him. And _he_ doesn't care about _them_ at
all. I don't think he cares about any non-riders at all. Is that
normal? They just don't care where you came from, or what you've done
or haven't done before they hatched?"

"I hadn't really thought about that, but... You're right. Luvirath has
never asked me about my family. I mean, she met them immediately after
the Hatching, but she's forgotten about them already. I kind of like
that though, it's like, _you_ are your dragon's whole world," H'yllin
said.

J'kellar smiled -- an actual genuine smile, though his eyes went a
little distant as he gently reached out to touch Rokolth's sleeping
mind. "Yeah, I like that, too. I guess for them, since they only just
hatched, their whole world _did_ just start with us. All the stuff
that came before, anything we did... nothing matters to them except
_us_, the way we are _now_. That's sort of... poetic, I guess. Not
that I'm some kind of poet or anything," he added quickly. "Luvirath
probably even loves your bad fashion sense."

"Of course she does," H'yllin said with confidence.

E'yrien tapped a finger to his lips. "Although... she _hasn't_ seen
you in your sparkly thong, yet, so I guess we'll get to test out how
unconditional a dragon's love really is."

"Maybe it better wait until she's older, in case seeing it makes her
sick and stunts her growth," J'kellar suggested. He looked over his
straps, satisfied, and held them up. "A whole section done! I think
I'm getting the hang of this."

Last updated on the March 19th 2024

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Stitching Bonds