Book Club

Writers: Halyonix, Shawna
Date Posted: 17th March 2025

Characters: Zariah, O'dyn
Description: Zariah meets another volunteer for the Book Dragon program
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 3, day 28 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: Aleriand

Notes:
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Now that he was a full-fledged dragonrider, he and Genireth could go anywhere! Well, mostly anywhere. They still had duties, even if they weren't in a Wing, but they still had a lot of free time in between those duties and since places were only a (scary) skip /between/ away, O'dyn was determined to get to the things that he had been waiting to do for months!

Like finding out more about this supposed book exchange service that a greenrider at Dragonsfall Weyr was doing!

Genireth spoke with the watchrider on duty at Dragonsfall since O'dyn didn't want to mess up the image (but also it helped because then they knew that they were coming!) and wow it was really cold here! Not as cold as /between/ but...was that snow on the nearby peaks? Wow! "Okay, so we're looking for a Relsath," O'dyn said as Genireth passed the watchrider.

}: I've already spoken with her. She's expecting us. :{ The sleek blue changed directions and angled straight for a weyr.

Relsath had moved politely to the back of her ledge to give the young blue plenty of room to land. Almost as soon as they had landed, the greenrider walked out of the private area of the weyr. "You must be O'dyn? You were wanting to know about the book exchange? I should tell you it's awful and refuse to introduce you around the Printer Hall, you know? Trying to steal my job." Zariah was grinning at her own joke.

"Steal your-- I'm not!" O'dyn cried, missing the joke entirely until Genireth explained it to him. "Oh. Um...oops. Hi! I'm O'dyn! This is Genireth! We just graduated and we can't go to the Wings just yet and I came from Printer Hall actually and could show you around if you wanted but we heard that you ferry books to the Holds for Holders to read and we really like that idea and wanted to know if you wanted some help with it because we have some free time, well, free Turns I guess? Free time and Turns until we get old enough to join the Wings and--"

He stopped, but mostly because he ran out of breath.

Zariah laughed, "So, you don't need the introduction to the Printer Hall then. You might have gone the long way about this. I'm actually doing the deliveries for the Printer Hall; they hired me. If you want to actually get hired on and paid, you'll want to talk to Master Aleriand or Master Shassene, but if they're alright with having another rider pair on staff, I'd be happy to show you the ropes, and honestly I think they could use it. Right now I'm bouncing around half the continent on delivery days, and I'm constantly getting holder requests to do deliveries more often."

"It was Master Aleriand who told me about you," O'dyn said with a big grin. "He mentioned that I could help the Hall again and then mentioned you and I think it's a great way to get people to read and get them to use Printer Hall because reading is important!" He tilted his head to one side. "Do you spend the whole day delivering? How often are you delivering?"

"Do you want some tea? Klah?" Zariah belatedly remembered her manners. "It's usually an all day job, yes. I do it once a month right now but I think people wish it was more often."

"Yes please!" O'dyn answered before realizing that he hadn't actually given his preference as to which option she had offered. "Um...klah. Klah's good." Klah was an adult drink and he honestly preferred juice but he was a fully (well, mostly fully) fledged dragonrider now so he should do more adult things. Eventually. Not all at once. "Well, since Genireth and I can't go into the Wings just yet, maybe we could help expand it to two days a month?"

Zariah went to her little kitchen area and gave a carafe an experimental shake. It was still more than half full, so she set it near the fire to reheat. "I think that's a great idea. How... how long until you join the wings officially?" She amended her sentence halfway through from 'how old are you'. He had a grown dragon, she shouldn't treat him like a child.

"At least a Turn," O'dyn replied. Part of him was a little disappointed -- he had watched all of his classmates graduate and he was left behind -- but a greater part of him was relieved because, well, Thread was _scary_ and he wanted more time practicing before he went up there to fight. "So plenty of time!"

Nodding, Zariah said, "That is quite the wait. I can see why you'd want something to keep you busy. Why this instead of returning to your craft work?" She sounded curious, not judging.

"Well, this is kind of adjacent to my craft work! I'd be helping Printer Hall in a different ca...uh...capacity! That's the word! Just not learning how to make books. I mean, I could still take some classes on that in the meanwhile. It might help us over here if a book breaks in our own little library. Do you have a library here?"

"Well, there's a shelf down by the dining hall that's kind of a weyrwide 'take one, leave one' library- those books get really rough. I think the weyrharper has a stash. My personal library is pristine," she proudly nodded her head in the direction of her overstuffed bookshelf, "I admit I've mostly been turning my delivery wages right back over to the Printer Hall. I'm going to need more shelves. What about Dolphin Cove? I haven't spent much time there."

"We have a library but well, it's not _really_ a library. I mean, it could be bigger. But it's a room of books so it's a start. But a lot of Records are in there too so it gets a bit musty and I really think we need to move the Records to their _own_ room because some people want to read for fun and Records are history so that we can find out the pre-- uh...presi-- nope, _precedents_, so it would be really bad if someone got those roughed up while looking for something fiction," O'dyn explained. He was supremely proud of himself for remembering the word "precendent". "I just got my own weyr so I'm working on my own library too! I have one shelf right now and I'm going to get more."

"You aren't wrong. The records room feels pretty formal. I don't associate it with reading I'd do for fun. But I suppose that's where we come in with the delivery program. All of the printer hall ready to order." She checked the klah and, finding it suitably more than lukewarm, poured it into two mugs, offering O'dyn one. "There's some sugar in there but I have more."

In typical teenage style, O'dyn heaped sweetener into his klah until it could be argued that it was more of one substance than the other. "Exactly!" he said. "So, I'd like to work the with Headwoman -- I mean, I guess that's a thing I can do now? I really don't know what I can and can't do now that I'm graduated -- but I'd like to get that sorted out so that people _want_ to read and don't find it boring."

"I think that's a wonderful idea," Zariah enthused. "Sometimes I think everyone focuses too much on the work and not enough on how to fill the spare time. Probably not as big an issue at Dolphin Cove, but we have plenty of days where the weather is too bad to do much more than curl up with some hot tea and books. Everyone should have the opportunity, even if they can't afford the book subscription."

Since the weather of Dragonsfall was an absolute unknown to young O'dyn, he couldn't understand why someone would want to drink something _hot_ but inspiration struck him and he said, "Or on a beach! We have lots of beaches near us. People love to sit on the sand and read too!"

Zariah returned a skeptical look of her own at the idea of spending a lovely beach day reading, but to each their own. "I imagine that would be nice and warm... and bright. It sounds like your Weyr needs a library," she grinned. "And maybe if you impress Master Aleriand with the book dragon deliveries, he'll offer some help with setting up the library."

O'dyn somehow brightened even more. "Yeah! That's what I've been _trying_ to do! Okay, well, not trying trying because I've been in training but I've _wanted_ to get a bigger library at the Weyr ever since I arrived! Do you think Master Aleriand will copy a dictionary for me to add to our collection? I know they're big and expensive but they're so _cool_!"

"If you do go to work for the book deliveries, I'm sure you can work something out. I take my payment in copies of books often enough. So, I take it you'll be joining me? My next book delivery is two weeks from today." Zariah wasn't sure how she kept recruiting help to this mission, but she certainly didn't mind it ... As long as it didn't cut into her own book allowance. Maybe she could ask for a recruiting bonus.

"I'm in!" O'dyn exclaimed. "This is going to be great!"

Last updated on the March 26th 2025

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