Caged Birds

Writers: Miriah, Nicole Bonvisuto
Date Posted: 15th March 2014

Characters: J'ackt, X'dris
Description: Jenackt and Xandris discuss their options after the Hatching
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 3, day 13 of Turn 7

J'ackt

Xandris savored his coveted prize at his cot. It was good: dry and strong.
The Hatching hadn't panned out, but he'd planned on that, and betting on
the outcome landed him a bottle of scotch. All in all, the odds were in his
favor.
He plucked the bottle out of his mouth as he heard loud footsteps
approaching, and looked up to see Amitko. The young man looked ready to
kill someone.

"You look like you could use a sip," he said, sloshing the bottle back and
forth as the fellow Candidate nearly stormed past him.

Jenackt drawing to a stop, he turned at the voice, glanced at the bottle
and grunted. "Don't drink." He stalked to his cot, slammed down his bag and
kicked it under his bed. He ran a hand through his hair pulled it for a
moment and then eyed the bottle. "Any good?"

"It cures what ails you," Xandris said and offered the brandy. "The
Hatching?"

He eyeballed the bottled for a longer moment before slowly taking it.
He stared at the contents, remembered his father and shook his head,
handing it back.
"I'll pass." He blinked at Xandris and snorted. "No. Hatching didn't
surprise me."

Xandris nodded, taking the bottle back and drawing a sip.
"Yeah, I hadn't planned on much either. You gonna stay?"

"Don't know." Jenackt looked down at his boots and scowled darkly. He
didn't really have much of a choice, as far as N'vanik said. If he left,
he'd be hunted.
"Weyrleader wants me to." He shook his head. "This is all ridiculous."

"Hey, if you got a personal request from the Weyrleader, that's pretty
good," Xandris inclined his head and set the bottle down.
"This place is crazy, but it's free food and roof over your head. What are
you in a hurry to get back to?"

Snorting loudly, Jenackt didn't look up. "You wouldn't understand."
He rested his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hand through his hair
again. The result was the blond strands darting all over his scalp in a
disarray. "Not a request either. Bloody arrogant bastard."

"Maybe," Xandris said with a shrug in response to Jenackt's first
statement. It wasn't his business where they boy was from, and everyone got
a clean, new start here.
"Yeah. He kinda runs the place, so you kind of expect that. But still, it
must mean he sees something good."

"Or it could just mean that they need riders so he's willing to stick me on
the sands and hope." He finally looked up at Xandris. "I'd rather be
hunting."

Xandris snorted. "They always need riders. You should hear one of the girls
I came with, she's convinced the cothold sent her here to die."
He sat up from where he'd leaned against his headboard. The warmth of the
alcohol flushed his skin.
"If you hunt, though, and want to line your pockets, I'll teach you my
uncle's trick for catching darters sometime. The ladies like to keep them
as pets and pay /very/ well."
He stashed the scotch beneath his matress.

"I never caught anything I didn't eat, to be honest." Jenackt sighed and
then frowned. "Pets. They keep wild things as pets?" He sat up. "Leave them
in the wild. It's where they're happiest."
He watched as Xandris hide the scotch and smirked a little. "Don't really
have much of a choice."

Xandris shrugged.
"Maybe. There are worse lives. They're fed, spoken to, kept with others of
their kind most often. Nothing's going to eat them."
He snorted.

"Shards, everything was wild at some point. There were canines, runners,
you name it all running wild after the plague. My uncle tells me about it,
like his da' told him. People died off, left no one to take care of them,
so they just took to runnin' around free. You don't find many of them now,
though. Maybe from Thread, maybe from people. Thread put us here, it put
them in the ground or in someone's barn. We all end up in cages sometime.
Everything's wild, but nothing's free."

Jenackt stared at him, his eyes intense. "Some wild things would rather
risk death than be in a cage, even if that cage has food and water. Freedom
has risks, but it's worth everything. " His eyes watched Xandris, the gaze
sharp. He wasn't talking about just animals anymore; the conversation had
gotten personal very quickly.
"Freedom...its beauty."

Xandris met his gaze and snorted, jerking his head in a quick nod.
"That's why the darters try so hard to get away." He thought back to the
frightened little bodies, all stuck to sticky sap along a branch.
Most survived, though some had broken legs or died from the stress. Xandris
hadn't failed to grasp the horror of what they'd done that urn, but crops
were bad, and this was a means to survival.
"I didn't want to be here, either, if it's any consolation."

"You're hold-bred. Why didn't you just say no, then?" Jenackt was
immediately confused. "You have a choice."

"Did I?" Xandris asked, meeting his gaze, his eyes angry and intense for a
moment. He let out a long breath and leaned back.
"My cothold lives on farming. My father is the only trained farmcrafter we
have, and his arthritis is so bad, most days, he can barely hold the plow.
So, when the Weyr comes to take half of the able men we have of age to
Stand, of course I have to go. This is my one-way safe ticket to the
Farmcraft Hall."
He suddenly regretted putting away the scotch.
"Unless Flita's right, and we all die in Threadfall or going /between/ or
the dozen other things that kill dragonriders. I figure I'll Stand one more
time, that'll pay back what I owe the Weyr, and I'll catch a ride."
He shrugged.

At least he had somewhere to go back to. "I really don't understand your
reasoning. If your father needed help, you could have refused."

"I tried," Xandris said, "It's not that simple. They won't just need help
when he's not able to work, they want someone /trained/, and we're a long
way from the Farmcraft Hall during a Pass."

"Hmm..So from here, it's to a Craft Hall, right?"

"After the next Clutch, provided everything goes right."

Jenackt scrubbed a hand through his hair. "And if it doesn't and you end up
a Weyrling?"

"I don't know," Xandris frowned. "I guess...it's a risk they were willing
to take. They'd find sometone to replace me, I'm sure. There are other
boys my age, younger, who weren't Searched."

Xandris shrugged.
"Let's just hope the dragons think I'd make crackdust for a rider," he
chuckled. "But, if not, that would be freedom, in a way. Everything's so up
in the air right now, I just have to see which way the egg cracks."
"Have you thought about what if you Impress?"

Jenackt mirrored Xandris' shrug. "No. Don't think it'll happen. Was only
supposed to stand once."
"Well, you're still here. Anything's possible." He chuckled. "Or we could
just make a pact to shove whatever unfortunate wherry is next to us in
front of any approaching hatchlings."
He considered Xandris and then chuckled. "Don't think it works that way,
but we could try that."

He shrugged.
"What's there to lose? I'm just hoping there will be bronzes this time,
just in case we do Impress." Xandris assumed Jenackt wanted a bronze at least. All the boys wanted
bronze. Well, most.

"Bronzes are the leaders. You want to be a leader?" Jenackt blinked at
Xandris. "Lots of work."

"Pssh," Xandris hissed. He was no stranger to lots of work.
"Bronze is a chance to be something. Think about it: how many bluerider's
names do you know off-hand?"

"Other than weyrling staff? None. But I doubt that a blue would want me.
Don't do the whole wanting boys bit." He frowned slightly. "I don't know.
I'm just not really holding out for anything. Everyone keeps telling me
that the dragons choose, so my opinion don't mean wher droppings."

"Yeah, but one can hope," Xandris said. "I mean, if I'm going to risk dying
in Threadfall every sevenday, I'd at least like to amount to something.
Come on, haven't you ever had a dream? Something you really wanted to be
if you could do anything?"

Blonde brows furrowed as he contemplated Xandris' question. "A dream? No.
That really wasn't ever an option." And it hadn't been. Dreams were
something intangible and useless in the grand scheme of survival. He
couldn't recall a time that he had been able to really pause and think
about what he wanted for himself other than to live to the next day, or
even the next week.

"It is now. See? Maybe living at the Weyr won't be so bad after all."

Last updated on the March 16th 2014

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Caged Birds