Doing Their Jobs

Writers: Jane, Kaysea
Date Posted: 2nd September 2008

Characters: K'hetah, Xara
Description: K'hetah chats to Xara while he waits for a dragon, and he hears something unexpected.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 11, day 24 of Turn 4

It was late at night and K'hetah had no intention of waking his dragon to come and fetch him. Instead he was waiting for a weyrling to meet him out of the front of the dining cavern and ferry him up to his isolated weyr on the seaward arm of the Weyr.

Evenings at Dolphin Cove were busier than they would have been at home - and why not? The temperature was more reasonable than it often was during the day so that it was comfortable to wander around, socialising, sometimes working at things that were quicker to do in the pleasantness of the evening. Perhaps he was heading that way himself, doing his hidework late at night, or perhaps he just preferred to work when there were fewer interruptions.

Perhaps he preferred not to spend a lot of time sitting on Loeth's ledge with Zelle only a quick call away on a nearby ledge.

"You seem lost in the dark..." Xara chuckled softly as she stopped in front of the bronze rider. She had been working late in the kitchens, helping plan the menu for the Turns End and Beginning Celebrations. It would take all of the next month to prepare and organise supplies for the feasts that would take place in the Weyr and the final preparations were taking every spare moment the kitchen staff had.

"Do I?" The Wingleader smiled in the half light spilling out of the dining cavern. "I'm fairly sure I'm just waiting for a ride back to my weyr."

"Oh...is that the reason? Loeth not willing to come down and collect you?" she asked, a smile on her lips. "One of these days you'll regret asking for such a distant Weyr."

"Not this day, that's for sure. Loeth would come, if I woke him, but I wouldn't do that." He sighed. "The times when Loeth _won't_ cooperate are when he's bobbing about in the bay. My bronze thinks he's a dolphin, now that he's got warm water to play in."

"I've seen him on occasion. He does a good impression of one." she laughed softly. She glanced around in the darkened Weyr, there were very few others around this late at night, "Have you been waiting long?"
she asked, trying to think of something else to say to give her an excuse to stay with him a little bit longer.

"No, not really. I asked a rider to pass on a message to the watchrider, and he'll have told the weyrling on duty. Just waiting my turn now." He smiled. "I do know how to do that, you know."

"Yes, I seem to remember you doing quite a bit of it when you first arrived, it seems some things haven't changed." she laughed softly.

"Some things shouldn't." He shrugged. "Did you ever have any problems after the door got you? After the black eyes went away and the swollen nose went down," he asked, his tone teasing.

"Apart from some thinking you'd beaten me?" she asked, her smile widening a little. "Though I hope that healers suspicions didn't come to anything?" She had been a little concerned at how pressing the healers questions had become regarding K'hetah and had hoped fervently that she wouldn't come out and openly accuse the Wingleader of the assault.

K'hetah tried to make sense of Xara's comment. "Who thought I'd beaten you?"

"The healer who dealt with me when you took me in." she flushed, but was grateful for the darkness to hide her embarrassment. "Sorry - I.... never mind." she shook her head.

K'hetah thought back to that night - and the journeywoman healer. "No wonder she wanted me out of the way. Did she ask you if I'd hit you?"

With hesitation, Xara nodded. "Yes, once you had left the room." she admitted, quietly. "I told her that it was an accident, and that you had nothing to do with it, but she seemed a little disbelieving."

He understood exactly what the journeywoman had been thinking. He had spent too many Turns as a healer himself not to, but it had never been him on the receiving end of suspicions before. "Probably because I took Zelle there too. Same journeywoman, now I think about it. And -" He sighed. "I had actually - accidentally - hit Zelle while she was flailing around on the rocks."

"Zelle?" He appeared to have a deep friendship with the rider, she wondered if they weren't, perhaps, more than friends? "Oh.... Then yes, maybe she did have some reason to thin... sorry." She hadn't meant to voice her thoughts, but they had slipped out anyway. "It must have looked suspicious."

"Hmm." He sighed. "No point in trying to defend myself against suspicion, either, because that'll just add firestone to the flame." He shrugged, trying to dismiss the issue since there was nothing he could do. "No need for you to apologise, Xara. It's just the healers doing their jobs."

"Yes...I know. But you were helping me. I did tell her that, quite firmly."

"Sadly lots of women who are being hurt by their men do exactly that."

"If anyone had been concerned enough to ask me about my bruises, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell them my father had beaten me." She felt the resentment building up within her. "I know when I've been beaten," she spat out, then realised just who she was talking to. "Oh shards, I'm sorry K'hetah!"

He reached out an arm and hugged her around the shoulders. "Ahh, don't apologise to me, Xara. I'm sorry that you do know." He sighed. "It's a stupid old world, sometimes."

"You're right. Which is why I got a little upset with the healer, I'm afraid I was a little more abrupt with her than normal, but it angered me that she wouldn't believe me." He had his arm around her shoulder and it was all she could do to keep from babbling on at him.

"Never mind. Let them be suspicious. They'll give it up when there's nothing else to fuel the suspicion." he chuckled. "And I'll try to stop taking injured women to the infirmary. From now on I'll just leave you all where you fall."

"You will?" she asked, looking up at him curiously. She had been so lost in his arms that for a moment she had forgotten the thread of their conversation.

"Don't you believe me?" he teased, looking down at her in the light spilling from the dining cavern.

She came out of the fugue she had entered and laughed up at him, "You know, I do actually believe you. Unfortunately."

"Good girl. People are not always as nice as they seem," he said, leaning forward to kiss her lightly, then lifting his head and adding: "This will be my ride home. Thanks for keeping me company, Xara."

"Yo- you're welcome." she said, a little taken aback by his kiss. "See you in the morning..." she took a step back as the downdraft from the dragon wings stirred up the dirt on the weyrbowl floor.

"'Night Xara!" he called, waving as the weyrling dragon took off into the darkness.

Last updated on the September 3rd 2008

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Doing Their Jobs