When I Grow Up

Writers: Eimi, Rochelle
Date Posted: 30th August 2010

Characters: R'mer, Adaric
Description: R'mer has a conversation with Adaric, his Wingthird's son.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 10, day 5 of Turn 5

Adaric sat on one of the benches carved out of the bowl walls, legs
swinging absently as he watched the wings doing maneuvers. He'd always
liked watching the dragons drill, and as long as he behaved and didn't
wander off or interfere with the riders, his grandmother let him watch
after harper classes were finished.

He sat a little straighter as he watched the higher wing bank in perfect
formation, then start to glide in for a landing. A second wing blinked
out of existence to the right, and he held his breath until he saw them
return into being again, searching silently until he spotted the solid
brown of his uncle's dragon near the middle of the formation. The first
wing was getting closer now, and he could see the bottle green of his
mother's dragon near the front, the dark blob of her rider coming into
clearer focus as they neared.

Pulling his knees up to his chest, he watched hungrily as his mother's
wing came in for a landing a few dragonlengths away from him. This was
what he wanted to be. Dyrada and all the other adults kept telling him
that he needed to pick a craft in case he didn't Impress, but he didn't
think that was possible. All of his uncles and his aunt were
dragonriders, and both of his parents. But he planned to pick a craft
anyway. No one in his family had Impressed their first time, and he
didn't want to be stuck cleaning weyrs for turns until his dragon found
him.

After a short meeting, the riders began to disperse for the day, some in
pairs or groups, others launching back up into the sky on their mounts
to get a ride back their weyrs. R'mer had pulled his rider cap off,
slicked his sweat-soaked light brown hair back out of his eyes and
started walking for the Weyr entrance. He promised his bronze he would
meet him by the Weyrlake soon and give him a good scrub, just as soon as
he could get out of those clothes and into something a bit lighter.

As he passed by the bench the boy was sitting on, he stopped,
recognizing him instantly. "Adaric?"

Adaric jerked surprised that anyone had noticed him. He hadn't been
doing anything wrong... Oh. It was the bronzerider friend of his mom,
the one who had got him out of the lower caverns when they flooded
during the hurricane. He hadn't seen him in a while."Hi R'mer."

"What are you doing out here? Are you waiting for your mother?" R'mer
automatically looked over his shoulder, his eyes searching for her.

Adaric hesitated, then shook his head. "No. I just like to watch. But
sometimes she lets me help with Gliorith afterward."

"You like dragons then?" It seemed like an interest boys all over Pern
shared.

Adaric gave R'mer the look every child makes when an adult asks a stupid
question. "Yes. I'm going to be a dragonrider when I get older."

The look was not lost on R'mer. **Great, even kids think I'm an idiot
now.** "How long before you start Standing?"

"The next hatching." Adaric shrugged, and pushed off the wall, sliding
off the bench. "I still need to pick a craft though. I won't get my
dragon for a few turns probably."

"That's smart." Luckily R'mer had Impressed his first time on the
Sands, but he knew a lot of Candidates still waiting. "What kind of
craft?"

Adaric shrugged. "I dunno yet. I thought maybe a miner, or a woodsmith.
I don't want to be a harper though. Or a baker."

"It feels good to do something with your hands, and to actually be able
to _see_ your work." R'mer missed that feeling sometimes. The feel of
moist soil, the smell of freshly turned ground, the sweet exhaustion
after a long days work. That's where he'd be right now, if it weren't
for Hanunth. Of course, he and his family would also be on the knife's
edge of starvation, too.

Adaric frowned, confused. "What do you mean? I use my hands all the
time."

"Yes, but it's different when you actually make something or do
something. Something big. Something you can be proud of." R'mer
leaned up against the stone next to him, wondering how to explain it.
"The feeling I got when I brought in the harvest, for example. I always
felt like I really accomplished something. It makes you feel... well,
like a man, I guess."

Adaric looked steadily at the bronzerider, clearly dubious about his
explanation before stating pragmatically, "But I'm not a man yet. I'm
still a kid. And I don't want to be a farmer anyway."

R'mer smiled slightly. He was definitely still a kid. Which was a good
thing. When he had been this boy's age, he was already putting full
days in out in the fields of his family's farm. "You don't have to be a
farmer. Miners and woodsmiths work with their hands too. They do a
good days work."

Adaric still didn't understand what the bronzerider was babbling about
when he talked about working with his hands, but figured it had to be
craft related, and decided to ignore it. "A miner could be fun. They get
to learn about firestone."

"Firestone is fun?" R'mer asked, eyebrows raising slightly. 'Fun' was
not a word he'd have thought to apply to it. Smelly. Necessary. But
fun?

"Dragons eat it." Adaric didn't think it needed any more explanation
than that.

R'mer snorted. "Yeah, they throw it up, too."

Adaric giggled. As gross as the comment was, he was still twelve, and
disgusting things fascinated him whether he wanted them to or not.
"Ewww."

R'mer remembered what it was like to be twelve. Besides, his youngest
brother was Adaric's same age. "It's not so bad. They usually do it
/between/. The worst is that before they go /between/, you have to
shovel up their crap every day. Have you ever tried to shovel up a
dragon-sized pile?"

Adaric shook his head. "No. But I watched Thisbor do it once." He
grinned. It had been the bully's punishment for picking on the younger
kids, his brother Eleaxol included. He and Eleadan stood up for his
slower brother most of the time, but it was always nicer when they
didn't have to. "He had to spend a day in the dragon infirmary. I saw
him when I went with mom to check on one of the dragons."

"It's the worst," R'mer said with a shake of his head at the memory.
"And I had a _bronze_ sized mess to clean every time. It made me envy
the greenriders just a little."

"Greenriders have more fun than bronzeriders." Adaric said staunchly.
"That's what mom says."

"So you want to be a greenrider then?" The bronzerider was pretty sure
that was not the case.

"If they want me." Adaric wasn't sure about that. After all, most
greenriders were girls like his mom, although he had an uncle who rode
green. He didn't like uncle T'ledyr much though. "I don't know. Probably
blue. Or brown."

"I suppose it doesn't really what color they come in." R'mer would have
been just as happy if Hanunth had been brown. "Do you help you mother a
lot? Washing her green, I mean?"

"Yeah, sometimes. But I don't get to do her back or her wings. Eleaxol
or Eleadan get to do those -they're smaller." Adaric grumbled. He really
didn't know why it irked him that his younger brothers did the choice
bits so often, but it did.

"Size doesn't matter so much on a bronze I guess," R'mer snorted. "I'm
usually the one up there doing his back." Those the wings had to be
done very carefully.

"You don't use candidates?" Adaric was surprised. He would have expected
the bronzerider to take advantage of the willing hands of the younger
weyr population.

"No often." Truth be told, he didn't have so much to occupy his time
that he couldn't do it himself. Besides, he liked spending time with
Hanunth. It was calming, and he was not afraid of the work.

"Why?" Most of the riders Adaric knew liked having candidates help them,
or used it as a way to spend time with their families. He'd grown up
helping with Aunt Nesily's green and Uncle C'radan's brown as well as
his mother's green, plus his father's blue and every other family member
who dropped in to visit his grandmother. He was something of an expert
on dragon baths at this point.

R'mer didn't think he wanted to explain it all to him. It sounded a
little pathetic, in a way. "I like the work," he shrugged. "But... If
you ever wanted to help me..."

"I'd help." Adaric confirmed. He didn't get to go bronzes very often,
especially since his Uncle D'rayn mostly stayed at Fort. "I'm really
good. Uncle C'radan says so."

"Well, I'm going to wash him as soon as I get my gear from my weyr. You
want to prove how good you are?" the bronzerider asked with a slightly
challenging smile.

Washing a dragon that was _not_ related to him somehow? "Sure!" Then he
hesitated. "Um, I gotta ask Dyrada first though."

That was easily done, R'mer was sure. "It will take me a while to get
out of these clothes and grab all my stuff. Go ask your foster mother
and I'll meet you down by the lake in half a candlemark."

"Okay." Adaric pushed off the bench, shooting a quick look around.
Sometimes his mother... Nope. She was talking to the Wingleader. His
uncle had already vanished, but he could see his aunt's green taking off
in the direction of her weyr. So his grandmother was probably running
herd on his cousins in her weyr. "Do you want me to bring anything?"

"Nope," R'mer said as he turned to walk towards the entrance. "I'll
take care of the rest."

Adaric nodded, and broke into a sprint in the direction of his
grandmother's weyr. A bronze. He'd washed all the colors but gold
before, but _this_ bronze wasn't snooty uncle D'rayn's. It was not an
opportunity he was going to pass up by being late.

Last updated on the September 23rd 2010

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When I Grow Up