Weyrbred

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 9th July 2007

Characters: Nalin, Jesten
Description: Jesten talks to his grandson, Nalin, about the boy's future.
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 5, day 4 of Turn 4

"Your turn to keep me company?" Jesten asked when the slightly built eight Turn old boy plonked himself down in the chair next to his own.
They were inside the common room, protected from breezes and the spray thrown up by the paddlewheel – out of harm's way. It made Jesten feel older and closer to death than he cared to. Perhaps he could convince the boy to at least let them move out onto the deck where real air would flow past them and he could keep a proper eye on their progress upstream.

"Uh-huh. Uncle Barr kicked me out of the boiler room, anyway."

"What were you doing that you shouldn't have been?" Jesten watched the youngster's quick glance and grin in this direction and was struck again by the fact that he didn't know the boy. Nearly every other child onboard had been there from birth; he was used to them and he knew their parents. Always one parent who was family, and one who wasn't but was often from another riverboat and he knew their crews almost as well as he knew his own. This boy, though, the most likely to inherit the Sungazer in his turn, was a stranger. Born and raised to half-grown in a far distant place. "What did you call yourself the other day?" he asked, having followed his own thoughts and moving off the subject of Nalin's transgressions in among the engines.

"Nalin?"

"No. Weyr ... Weyrbred." It wasn't a term the old man had used in his life, and although its meaning was clear it seemed odd to hear his grandson describe himself that way. "You're crew now, of course."

No matter how young or old, the people of the riverboat were always called crewmembers.

"I'll always have _been_ weyrbred," Nalin said stubbornly. "My family have been dragonriders for generations."

"And they've sailed the Sungazer for as long," Jesten countered, just as determinedly.

"Y-yes." Nalin gave that some thought, his light brows drawn together as he frowned. "I have two families," he said, finally.

Jesten supposed it wasn't surprising that Nalin hadn't really understood that before, having been born and raised exclusively with his mother's kin and seeing his father only intermittently. "Indeed. And you lived with one, before, and now you live with the other."

"I might not stay here, you know." Nalin glanced at his grandfather.
"Because I can Stand at hatchings at the Weyr because I'm weyrbred. If I Impress I won't come back."

"Do you want to be a dragonrider?" In Jesten's boyhood the dragonriders were almost mythical people because there were so few of them. He couldn't remember wanting to be one, but that was simply because his future on the Sungazer was set from the time he was born. Different for this young man, he thought, and the reality was that if Nalin didn't want the Sungazer when Lineal was ready to retire then there would be other family members to choose from. Although the inheritance of riverboats usually travelled down the male line from father to son, that was only a convenience. If it was better for the boat for it to be inherited by somebody else, it would be. The prosperity and survival of the riverboat and crew always came first in such decisions.

"I suppose so. My uncles are ..."

Jesten had met the brothers and liked both the men. Nothing wrong with them; nothing wrong with his grandson wanting to be like them. If Nalin wanted to go and take his chances with his dragonriding kin, then he was entitled to do so. Jesten himself wouldn't be around to protest, since it was an apprentice-age thing. Perhaps the girl would go back to the Weyr when she reached the same age – either to be a dragonrider or to apprentice. Lineal had been firm that both children were going to be free to return to their first home if they wanted to.

"But I wouldn't mind being an engineer, either."

Jesten's sharp, assessing eyes turned on his weyrbred grandson. "Is that so? What exactly _was_ this trouble you got into with Barr?"

Last updated on the July 11th 2007

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