Nothing Like a First Impression

Writers: Chelle, Jelena
Date Posted: 10th June 2014

Characters: E'rae, Naevyn
Description: E'rae meets a greenrider wingmate and it doesn't go exactly well
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 7, day 13 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: D'hol, K'deren, Bahji

"You're feeding her stone too fast," the bluerider remarked off handedly as
he walked away from drills.
E'rae figured the girl for a weyrling come into the wings not too long ago.

"Excuse me?" Naevyn's eyes grew wide as she took in the bluerider's words.
For a moment she felt the
cold grip of self-doubt so common to her in the past, but she pushed it
down with determination, letting the
indignation at being questioned like that rise up instead as she hurried
after E'rae.
"What did you just say?"

He didn't talk with arrogance. He didn't talk with anger or even interest.
It was almost as if he had detached
himself from most of the world. "I said you're feeding her stone too fast.
Her flame could be longer and you
would use less stone which means less refueling." **And more fighting time
in the air**

Naevyn's eyebrows raised further at the odd tone in E'rae's voice. She
hadn't actually spoken with her new
wingmate before, but if he was starting the conversation like this, maybe
something was wrong with him, not
with her. **I'm a dragonrider. I'm Eslith's rider. I'm good at what I do**
It took all of her newfound courage to
even recite her mantra, but finally she looked up again and spoke with
hardly any tremor in her voice. "And you
know that better than me and our Wingleader why?"

"I don't know about your Wingleader, but I do know better than you. I've
been a rider for fifteen turns, been fighting
Thread for seven. And I've been Scored so I know how much mistakes cost.
Being better is always better." And if you
couldn't count on your wingmate, the whole wing was cracked. He kept
walking, dark eyes stark against the people
laughing and walking by.

"Well, I'll talk to K'deren about it, see what he thinks." Naevyn didn't
particularly like the thought of talking to D'hol
about something so seemingly trivial. K'deren was the next best thing. "But
to be honest, you could have said it a little
differently."

He stopped walking and turned toward her. "What do you mean differently?
Was I hard to understand?" After everything,
he really didn't care about female sensibilities or even young ones. It had
been too recent that he'd had Bahji in his face
telling him to go away. It had been too recent that he'd learned two of his
children had died and he hadn't even been there.
This, to him, was nothing to get upset over. "Listen, I am your wingmate
Naevyn, Eslith's rider. That means my life is in your
hands as yours is in mine. So if there is something you can do better, I
will tell you. If there is something I can do better, I
would expect my wingmates to tell me because if we are all better, there
are less deaths and injuries and we're a team."

"No, you were blunt," Naevyn said, taking a breath as she felt Eslith
backing her up. "And if you want me to tell you what you can do better, it
would be that. Not connecting properly with your wingmates can be dangerous
too, I can say that much from my own limited experience." She had
discovered soon after opening up a little how much it improved her wing
performance. "We need to trust each other and that is a lot easier if you
take a little effort to get to know each other. Being blunt and rude
doesn't help much."

"There is a difference between blunt and rude. Perhaps you've never had
anyone shut a door in your face to know." That was
all he was going to say about that. As it was, he knew if he did say
anything more, he was going to reveal too much and he didn't
want to get into it with a greenrider, young as she was. **Some of them
will die before I know their names. She hasn't been in the
wing long.**

Realizing where this conversation was going and also picking up on his
rider's thoughts, Leith tried to soothe E'rae through their connection.
His rider needed to calm down. He was going to the bad place, which was
happening much more often lately. As a last ditch effort, he sent
an image to Eslith. The little green saw a picture of E'rae's back and its
Threadscore. Hopefully that would explain things.

"Oh, yes I have," Naevyn said, her brow scrunching at the memory of life
with her parents. When Eslith relayed the image though, her gaze softened.
"That must have been a close call," she said softly, wondering if the man
knew his dragon had communicated with hers.

"Hm?" Indeed, he didn't know but it didn't take long to connect with Leith
and figure out what he had done. He couldn't be angry at his dragon,
though, and was glad he had only chosen that image to share out of so many.
"I almost died. Thankfully, River Bluff has good healers."

"So does Dolphin Cove," Naevyn nodded. "And great wingmates, if you take
the time to get to know them. Life's always better if you can share it with
friends. And I can tell, I only just started making friends a few sevendays
ago."

"I will in time. Right now I have many other things to worry about that are
a bit more pressing." Like Werenn. Like learning his way around. Like
fitting out the rest of his weyr. Learning Dolphin Cove's territory.
Figuring out his Wingleader. "Speaking of which, I will leave you now,
Naevyn. I've got to see about my daughter."

"Oh, alright, I will see you around I guess." Naevyn hesitated for a
moment, then looked back up, searching his eyes. "If you do need a friend
sometime, let me know."

Last updated on the June 13th 2014

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Nothing Like a First Impression