Wasting My Time

Writers: Devin, Estelle
Date Posted: 21st September 2025

Characters: M'gan, N'vanik
Description: The morning after his timing accident, M'gan faces N'vanik
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 11, day 4 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: Cyradis

N'vanik

M'gan had slept longer and more deeply than he'd expected, after the exertions of the previous day. When he woke, morning light was already streaming in to the weyr, and it took a moment to remember exactly why he was on the wrong side of the cliffs. When he did, he wanted to pull the furs over his head and go back to sleep.

Instead, he groaned and sat up, rubbing his eyes. The weyr looked even more empty and lacking in homeliness in daylight. He'd have to see the Headwoman, he remembered. Maybe she could see if there were any alternatives.

}: Loseth says his rider wants to see you when you wake. :{

**Well, I'll have to bathe first.** The bronzerider pushed down a twinge of irritation. If N'vanik insisted on making him live in a cliff weyr without access to a bathing room, then he'd have to wait. He wasn't quite foolish enough to dawdle, though, and he wanted to get this over with. After a quick wash and change into clean clothes, he steeled himself and headed for the Weyrleader's office.

N'vanik looked up with a glare. "Took your sweet ass time, Wingrider. You ready to tell me what in the back of /between/ you were messin' around with time for?"

Again, M'gan had to clamp his jaw shut on the phrase 'none of your business'. He hadn't been a dragonrider for more than forty turns without learning that the Weyrleader could always make your life worse.

"No, sir," he said flatly. "It was a private matter, with no possible relevance to this time, and I don't plan on going back."

"Private?" N'vanik growled. "When you abandoned your Wing, your duties, _and_ your senses?"

"It wasn't intentional," M'gan said, defensively. "I meant to return to when I started." And if you hadn't stopped me, I might have got back there, he added silently, though he knew it was unfair, that the mistake was his and the Weyrleader could equally well have saved his life. Shells, the details of timing made his head ache.

"You shouldn't have gone at all! Time isn't something to be played with." N'vanik flouted rules left and right, but the thought of going /between/ times made him deeply uneasy.

M'gan had to agree with him there. "I take it that means you've changed your mind about telling the entire Weyr about this ability?"

"Nope. You're gonna be an example of why you don't do it." A lot of people assumed bronzeriders were more responsible, and yet here was M'gan, proving them wrong. "You were cocky enough to think it was no big deal and disappeared for months. And you were _lucky_ that's all it was."

"Indeed. And that's why telling everyone is such a horrible idea!" He'd tried to restrain himself from calling the Weyrleader an idiot, but this was the limit. "The more people who know it's possible, the more are going to try it. That's just mathematics plus human nature. Who hasn't got something in their past they'd like to revisit?" He scowled. "I won't let you put my blue and greenriders at risk."

"_Your_ blue and greenriders?" So much for M'gan having more sense in the morning. "You lost any right to say that when you pulled this stupid stunt. I think the average greenrider's got more sense than you, and _your_ job is convince them going /between/ times is dangerous."

"Sorry. Force of habit." M'gan didn't sound all that apologetic. "What do you mean, my job? I'm certainly not going around talking about this. People will think I've lost my wits."

"You _have_!" N'vanik slammed his fist on the desk.

"Not what I meant." He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes briefly. "Have you spoken to the Weyrwoman about this plan of yours? Or the other Weyrleaders, since the news will surely spread beyond Dolphin Cove? I understand you're angry - shells, I would be in your position - but if you want to make my life miserable there are ways to do it without throwing all the Weyrs of Pern into chaos."

"I'll talk with her later," the Weyrleader said through gritted teeth. "You don't get a say in _any_ of this." The anger was still blazing inside him, but now grief clawed its way up. "Do you have any idea how many times I wished I could . . ."

"Oh." Understanding dawned, and M'gan blamed himself for not seeing it before. Although like any dragonrider in a Pass, he'd made mistakes, lost friends and too-young wingriders, it had simply never occurred to him to try to change the past. He'd known by instinct that it couldn't be done. "That - it wasn't what this was. It was further back, in the Interval." He could say that much at least. "It was just something I had to know."

"Something you had to know," N'vanik repeated, low and dangerous. "You don't even have a good fecking reason why. I wish you'd been lost for good." He didn't really mean that and felt an immediate pang of guilt.

Whether he'd meant it or not, it was clear at once that the older bronzerider believed it. After a moment's shock, his jaw tightened, his lips pressing into a hard line and his eyes cold as chips of ice. When he spoke, his voice had a hard edge to it that was so unlike his usual tone that it seemed to belong to another man. "Will there be anything else, Weyrleader?"

"Since you won't tell me what you were doing, I guess I'm just wasting my time." N'vanik wasn't going to apologize, not when M'gan was being so stubborn. "You can start by telling all the bronze and brownriders where you were while I talk with Cyradis about the rest."

M'gan had no intention of doing anything of the sort. What did the Weyrleader expect him to do - call a meeting? Wander around the lower caverns accosting riders to tell his story? There was only one bronzerider who did deserve to know the truth - and one greenrider. But he wanted to get out of there and find the people who mattered, so he didn't argue. "If you'll excuse me, then?"

N'vanik wanted to throw something. Hit something. "Yeah, get out."

M'gan turned and left without a backward glance. Perhaps Cyradis would talk some sense into the Weyrleader, but he was almost too furious and hurt to care. If the man wanted to make foolish decisions and put riders' lives at risk, who was he to stand in the way? He had more important things to do. Steeling himself, he asked Isarth to tell Thadath that they had returned.

Last updated on the October 12th 2025

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Wasting My Time