Falling Flat

Writers: Eimi
Date Posted: 11th July 2019

Characters: U'kaiah, Y'ret, E'son, O'lun, S'kop
Description: U'kaiah feels out of place as he crashes a reunion..
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 3, day 13 of Turn 9
Notes: Horribly backdated! My apologies!

Being Weyrleader had it's perks. All U'kaiah had to do was catch a passing drudge or rider, tell them to run along to the kitchens to get him a bite to eat or a drink and it would be brought to him with all haste. That meant a lot of meals taken at his office desk or his weyr as he poured over hidework. It was just easier that way. Not only did it save time, it saved a lot of awkward moments. Though he had been at the Weyr for some time now, he still didn't really _know_ anyone.

He had a Wingsecond who he got along with well enough. There were a few of the more experienced riders with whom he could pass the time of day with. But many of them had families of their own, and U'kaiah felt like a third wheel at mealtimes. Often he and Hygalia would talk over a beer or a game, but their conversation usually revolved around Weyr matters, and when they strayed to the personal, it was just too painful to talk about.

Tonight, she was off tending to Weyrhold matters, and U'kaiah was tired of looking at the same four walls. He needed to be around people, if only for the space of a beer. So he grabbed a mug and began the awkward scan of the tables to find a place to sit. One green was eager to catch his eye a recent transfer who had already made herself known to a good number of the young bronzes, but who had never hidden her interest in the big prize. A few Turns earlier, U'kaiah would have been more than happy to oblige, but for some reason, he just could stomach the idea of being another notch in her belt. He purposefully walked off in the opposite direction without a destination in mind other than out of her direct line of sight.

"Weyrleader, won't you join us?" a young bluerider from his Wing called out.

U'kaiah looked at the table. It seemed to be a group of younger riders of similar age, both from his Wing as well as all the others. One face caught his attention as he realized the purpose of the gathering. "E'son," he said, reaching out his hand to grasp the greenrider's arm greeting. "The Healer's told me you are cleared to fly. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the skies at last."

"Thank you, sir," E'son said, beaming with excitement. "I will be in the Weyrwoman's Wing until Sidvelth gets her strength back, but then I will be proud to finally fly in the Weyrleader's Wing once more. I won't disappoint you."

"Of course you won't. D'bern told me you were one of his finest." Several riders scooted down the bench to make room for him, so U'kaiah felt obliged to take the offered seat. "Well to your health, and Sidvelth. Welcome back to the ranks," he said, lifting his mug in a quick salute.

"Welcome back!" came a chorus from the table.

The loud echo of his sentiment almost made him jump. If he had known the whole table was expecting a formal toast, he could have come up with something a little more eloquent than that one. Did every word out of his mouth have to be a speech, U'kaiah wondered with an inward sigh. "So..." he said, looking around and making a guess considering the similar ages of his companions and the fact none were transfers, "Clutchmates?"

"Clutchmates, Wingmates, bedmates... Even a Weyrmate somewhere!" the friendly bluerider said giving E'son a wink.

"I'm right here, Y'ret," another bluerider, O'lun, said with a shake of his head but a knowing smile. "You had your chance, he's _mine_ now."

"Yeah, me and how many others?" Y'ret said with teasing lift of his eyebrows and a hearty laugh as several hands around the table shot up, causing E'son to blush profusely.

"I've settled down since then, sir," the greenrider said by way of explanation to the Weyrleader.

U'kaiah held up a hand. "Please, it's fine. Trust me. I'm a bronzerider. We're just as bad."

"Did you hear that, S'kop?" Y'ret called down to a bronzerider towards the end. "We've been saying that about you for Turns!"

S'kop stopped his conversation with a pretty redhead only long enough to give the bluerider a tolerant roll of his eyes before resuming his flirtation in earnest.

"I was never all about sex," E'son said with amused exasperation.

"That's true, sir. He was quite the troublemaker, too," his weyrmate said helpfully.

"Here we go," E'son said, burying his head in his hands. "Go ahead. Tell him about the caprine. I know that's where this is going."

"S'kop, we're telling the caprine story. Maybe your friend might be interested in hearing this one," Y'ret said with a mischievous grin.

The redhead shook her head in disbelief. "I was there, Y'ret, remember?"

"Oh, right." The bluerider turned back to U'kaiah. "Well, sir, when we were Candidates, a pipe burst in the girls barracks, so while they fixed the problem, they had to share a barracks with all of us. It was just for a couple nights, and they put all the girls in cots on one side of the room, and all us boys in bunks on the other. They put a long curtain down the middle and every ten minutes or so, one of the weyrlingmaster's assistants would patrol up and down to make sure no one was crossing from one side of the curtain to the other. Well S'kop and O'lun were sharing a bunk with O'lun on top and S'kop on bottom."

"Sounds like that would be about right!" one of the other riders chimed in to a chorus of laughter.

"So anyway, sir," Y'ret continued, "S'kop liked sleeping naked and figured that curtain wasn't enough privacy for him at night, so he rigged up a blanket to act as an extra curtain.

"Didn't drown out the sounds, I assure you," one of the girls said with a wink towards the bronzerider.

"I for one wasn't complaining," O'lun said with an innocent shrug.

"Anyway, sir, once S'kop is out, he sleeps like the dead. So on the second night, after he's asleep, E'son, who was in the next bunk over, and O'lun started sewing the middle of the blanket to the mattresses so he couldn't get out, and used O'lun's rigging skills to secure one end to a post. E'son led a caprine in and got it up on the bed and then quickly tied the other end up too so they were completely trapped in there. Well, that woke S'kop up and he started screaming, the caprine started bleeting, O'lun and E'son and me were laughing uproariously from our bunks. The whole barrack is awake by this time. The Weyrlingmaster comes charging in to find out what's going on. The girls start streaming through the curtain to find out what's happening, and suddenly S'kop comes ripping through this blanket, naked as the day he was born, followed by that stupid caprine!"

U'kaiah joined in with the laughter as everyone who had born witnesses to the event relived that moment in their minds. "That's pretty good," the Weyrleader agreed, giving E'son a clap on the shoulder. "So, I've got one."

Everyone immediately fell quiet and politely turned their attention to him as if he were about to give them their assignments for the day.

"Uh... so... We had Impressed about a month before. We all decided to play a trick on K'zeron. He was this snooty Northerner." U'kaiah suddenly remembered where he was. "See there weren't many people being Searched from the North back then, so he thought he was really special to have been chosen..." His explanation was met with polite stares. "Yeah, so anyway, he was this real pain, no one liked him. Because he was a pain, not because he was from the North. Anyway, uh, this was like a month after we Impressed, so it would be month 12. We got this freak blizzard. Oh, you see it snows a lot at Dragonsfall, even into month 12, so it's not unusual to have cold weather but it's not usually _that_ cold. So anyway, G'telo -he was one of our Clutchmates- he and I got this idea to take an empty wineskin and pee in it and stick it in the snow. You see in a blizzard it would be cold enough to freeze it pretty fast. Of course we had to put it somewhere D'wrayt wouldn't see it. He was our Weyrlingmaster. He was a Weyrleader later," he added, wondering if maybe they had heard of him since Weyrleaders were generally known Pernwide, "but at that time he was our Weyrlingmaster. So... yeah... anyway we went up to the Plateau... Dragonsfall has this plateau up at the top you see, and we... uh..."

As he struggled to explain all the details of the story, U'kaiah saw their eyes glazing over, like in a meeting that had drug on too long. This story was one of his favorites at his own Clutchmate's gathering, but was obviously falling flat here. U'kaiah knew it was time to admit defeat. "I'm sorry," the bronzerider said with a shake of his head. "I have to stop. I can't get this question out of my head. Where on Pern, E'son, did you get a caprine from?"

The group instantly perked to life. "Well," Y'ret said excitedly, "that, sir, is a whole other story..."

The Weyrleader sat through several more stories of the adventures of E'son and his Clutchmates, but as entertaining as it should have been, it was excruciatingly painful to endure. It only reminded him of all he had left behind. Where were _his_ Clutchmates? Where were _his_ old friends ready to tell some embarrassing tale about his youth and pull the bronzerider down a couple pegs? Where were the people he could talk about Dragonsfall with and not have to explain all it's little quirks?

U'kaiah laughed heartily at yet another private joke that he only barely understood before draining the rest of his beer and excusing himself. Hidework called, he said, and made his way back to his weyr. When he was behind his own door, it was finally safe to give voice to the thought that never seemed to leave his mind, "I just want to go home..."

Last updated on the August 13th 2019

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Falling Flat