Back to Where He Had Been

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 1st April 2007

Characters: R'haran
Description: R'haran has his 'children' out in the first snow of the Turn
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 3, day 15 of Turn 4

It wasn't much to him, but it was snow.

The children might have doubted that it existed but they showed no hesitation in getting out amongst it as soon as he led them down from the cliffs and out onto the open plain.

Even Tibby had insisted on being put down on his own feet whereupon he immediately flopped down on his hands and knees and pushed his face into the whiteness of it. R'haran pulled the toddler upright and showed him how to make snowballs.

It was an unnecessary lesson for the older children as he discovered in the only possible way.

"Argh!" He stood up and looked around but the four faces that looked back were studies in innocence. They looked less like waifs after five sevendays at the Weyr, their faces were already filling out and Sahna and Iselen especially were looking less solemn. Of course, not much of any one of them was visible under the layers of clothing he had insisted on them wearing. If they'd never been out in snow – even the pitiful amount that constituted the first fall of the Turn – how were they to know how cold it could be, especially with the wind coming right off the Sea of Azov?

"I know just how to deal with that," he assured them, reaching down and gathering up a nice handful of snow.

With a squeal they dispersed in different directions, leaving the greenrider standing beside Tibby watching the children scatter.

"You reckon I can hit Iselen from here?" R'haran asked, suspecting the children were underestimating a dragonriders' strength of arm and his aim. Even a dragonrider who didn't fly in the fighting wings. The training was the same and R'haran had never excused himself because Evielenth would never carry him against Thread.

"No," Iselen said with a grin, looking much more like the nine Turn old he was than he had since coming to the Weyr. The boy danced around, making a show of being a target.

Splat!

Surprised, the boy looked down at the snowy mess on the front of the dark blue woollen jacket he was wearing.

R'haran chuckled, lifting his arm and patting the muscles hidden under layers of clothing. "Dragonrider arms."

Splat, splat!

The children giggled. "Seacrafter arms!" Sahna called, already gathering more ammunition and dancing closer to fire it.

They would clear out the snow in the area soon and he would have to move them on to other patches, but – He picked Tibby up and tried to escape the barrage but in the end had to turn away to shield the toddler from the flying snow. R'haran laughed with the boy in his arms. How long had it been since he playing in the snow? Once he had been a child of a SeaHold like these five, used to distant tropics rather than the cold and snow. When he had first arrived at Dragonsfall with Evielenth he had been fascinated and made plenty of time to amuse himself in the snow but then the plague had come. Everything had changed. The course of lives had been altered all over the Continent. Even his own, with the attitudes against men who preferred men hardening in the new obsession with repopulation.

That he wouldn't be a father had marked him in those Turns – and now here he was. As close to being a father as he was ever likely to get.
And back to where he had been before the plague ... out playing in the first snow of the Turn at Dragonsfall Weyr.

Last updated on the April 3rd 2007

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