Strange New Surroundings

Melieste sighed and swiped the rag over the scarred surface of the table top. Where they'd gotten wood for a table was anyone's guess, but the low-lifes that inhabited this Weyr were incredibly good at "coming up" with needful things.

Weyr. Ha. The idea of it almost made her laugh out loud. Only her self discipline kept the look of disdain off her face as she drove on through the menial chore. Not for the first time, Melieste cursed the circumstances that had brought her to this pass. When she'd been a candidate at Eastern Weyr, she'd still done chores, of course, but her training and head for numbers had been recognized, and so the work she'd done had been much more suitable to one of her birth and temperament. She'd been happy enough, waiting for her queen to be laid.

Then the dragons had started to die.

Her mind shied away from that time, those awful memories. It had been hard, but she'd made it through, and in the end, her only choice had been to come to this outcast Weyr to join the exiles.

For she would Impress a queen. It was her destiny.

Leja popped her head up from where she'd been rubbing down the bench legs of a nearby table. Had they been letting the whers in here, she wondered? How else was everything getting so...marked?

"You say something?" she asked brightly, not having had much chance to talk to the other girl previously, but obviously having already winkled out that Melieste had been at Eastern much more recently than Leja herself, and originally from the vinterhall. Having done a tour through the vinterhall with her father, Leja was doubly curious.

Melieste raised her eyebrows. "No," she said, "I don't think so. I was just trying to clean this table."

Her instincts told her to leave it at that. This other girl... Leeja? Leia? She couldn't remember. In any case, it was doubtful that she was in any way an Important Person to Know... but the truth was that Melieste felt somewhat lonely and a bit lost in this new place.

"Remind me of your name, please?" she said then, rather abruptly. She tried to soften the request with a smile. "I've met quite a few people recently, and I'm afraid the names and faces are all a blur."

"Oh." She'd known it was a sigh, not a word, but Leja beamed regardless. "Leja. I'm here from the Harperhall. Born at Eastern so I didn't need to be Searched just had to..." she looked around, visibly marshaled herself, and continued, "come home. A lot changed while I was gone. But you came from Eastern, right? Do you know if more people are coming?"

She'd liked the headwoman, and her crechemothers, and her fostermother, and she had siblings too, and wondered if she'd see them, and - she slowed her rampaging thoughts to actually listen to what the other young woman might say in reply.

"I'm sure I don't know," Melieste said, annoyed that she would be thought to have paid attention to such people. Certainly, the Headwoman was important, but when Melieste had made the decision to leave, she stopped thinking about her and everyone else who could do nothing to help her in her goal of Impressing a queen.

But then, that made her sound unfriendly, and that wouldn't do.

"How are you finding it here?" she asked, because it was what popped into her mind next. "It seems a strange place. Not at all what one imagines a 'Weyr' to be like."

Leja cocked her head at the reply, not because she'd picked up on the tone, but because she was - as always - curious. "Oh, it's quite different, from both Weyrs I've been to, the Hall, Eastern Hold, Southern Hold, Mountain -" she shook her head from listing all the major and minor holds she'd been able to visit and grinned, "I mean, I'd heard of White Lightning, the drink, but I didn't know they had a whole canyon, and I never would have imagined dragons with them, but new is certainly interesting, and it's impossible to grow up with harpers and not be concerned with interesting. How do you like it?"

"It all seems very... ramshackle," Melieste said with a smile that might have been construed as apologetic. "But they certainly do seem to be throwing themselves into making improvements, that's certain. It's not a traditional Weyr by any stretch of the imagination, but at least the dragons seem healthy here."

"You grew up in the Harpercraft? My father's the Mastervintner of Eastern Hold. I imagine you've seen him when you traveled through there. I am Melieste," she added, aware that she was potentially conferring great favor on this girl. Still... harper stock was generally respectable, and it was nice to have someone to talk to.

"It is very nice to meet you, Melieste. I haven't met your father - the Mastervinter, that is so interesting! - but my father has. He's a Harper, and I was able to travel with him, or take lessons at the Hall, for the last six Turns. He's a harper from a family of harpers - since before there was a hall in the south, as far as the records go." Leja had, of course, read her way through all the records she could get her hands on, which was quite something at the harperhall.

"You were at Eastern during the sickness then - oh, I won't ask you about it," not yet, but she very much wanted to, "that must have been quite hard. Do you miss the vinters, ever? Everything was so lovely there, with the vineyards."

"They are lovely, especially in the summer," Melieste said with a smile. "And I do miss the scent of sun on warm grapes. But it's worth it, to find one's place in the world, don't you think?" she asked. "Though, since coming here, I swear I might do murder for a decent white," she added with a tiny roll of her eyes. Rotgut liquor was for drunks and thieves. Ladies drank wine. Good wine, at that. She wondered if she should write to her father.

Leja smiled and ducked back under to finish up on her bench-leg. "I agree. Knowing one's place is - reassuring, I guess I'd say. It will be nice to be settled again, and I'm sure you can get some wine here, now that everyone knows the canyon exists!"

"Indeed," Melieste said.

And then fell silent. Because there wasn't much else to say while they were scrubbing tables. Not that she could imagine, that is.

"Ugh, but I do hate manual labor," she groused. "I'm happy to do my share, of course, but I was trained for... well... other things than this!" she said, not really meaning to speak out loud.

Leja's head popped back up again. "What were you trained for?" she asked, clearly deeply, genuinely interested. "Do you think you'd have a chance to do it here? Until the hatching?"

Harpers taught that you could always learn so much in small, everyday moments. Chores, walks between meetings - to the point that younger harpers were always put to work, or volunteering to help. It made her feel a little more settled, seeing that hold true in this new place.

Melieste gave her a small smile. "Why, to run a Hold, of course. Or be the wife of a Craftmaster, at the very least. In any case, I'm quite good at managing accounts and inventories. I assisted the Headwoman at Eastern in this capacity. I'd be happy to do the same here, but it seems that the... ah... smugglers have their own people."

Leja's nose wrinkled slightly. "But all the craftmasters and Lords are old. Well, some of the Heirs are..." she thought about it, then shook her head. For sure the Weyr was better, no matter that it was still figuring out the kind of Weyr it wanted to be. "You're way too pretty for any of them. Maybe you can help the Weyrsenior with recordkeeping. I bet the Leaders are so busy they could use it!"

Melieste's smile broke over her face like the sun rising over the horizon. "What a lovely thing to say!" she said, with genuine pleasure in her voice. A slightly mischievous look came into her eyes, and she grinned at Leja. "One might say that I agreed with you, but that would be vain. But, you'll note, I took the opportunity to come to Eastern, rather than stay with any of those prospects. And I suppose I might be able to help the Weyrsenior... but how to suggest such a thing. One doesn't want to put oneself forward too much, you know. It looks ill."

Leja grinned in response, as always thrilled to have a new friend who knew so many new things, and maybe just a little awed by his slightly older and much more glamorous woman. "I'm sure there's a way to get you in there," she said, thoughtfully. "I mean, the Weyrsenior will talk to us at some point, right, like the Weyrwoman would at Eastern? So then. It doesn't even have to be you, I can find a way to mention it."

"You're a dear," Melieste said. "I appreciate it. But let's just wait and see what happens. I imagine we'll have eggs here before long, won't we? What with that shadow queen rising, and all. What an odd turn of events. I find myself intensely curious about what sort of clutch might result."

In truth, if she could manage to make herself useful to Br'son, that would be excellent. One might learn all kinds of things taking care of the Weyrsenior's correspondence. It was worth thinking about, at least.

"Oh yes, I can't wait to see the new clutch. Do you know they're talking about how there may be even more new colors! Who knows if this is all there is. It is so interesting! And the queen is so young, so I wonder if there will just be a few eggs? At any rate, I am sure there will be just absolutely plenty of ways for you to show all your talent, and in the meantime," she flapped the rag a bit, "I'm sure there are more fascinating things to learn around this room while we do chores."