An Inspiration

Writers: AL, Jane
Date Posted: 23rd September 2009

Characters: Zharesti, Cala
Description: A lower caverns worker sees Zharesti about an exemption from Standing.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 5, day 9 of Turn 5

Zharesti stared at the eye lenses the young woman wore, rather
awe-struck. "You'd be one of the limp and lame," she said when she found
the Candidate-aged woman waiting in her office on her return from
supervising drills for Cascade Wing. It wasn't that she hadn't seen eye
lenses before, she just didn't think she'd ever seen any so thick.

The young woman blinked, her eyes more like globes thanks to the lenses
she wore, bulbous things with magnified pores on the skin. Pores! On
eyelids! Who would have thought. She smiled a bit sheepishly at the
Weyrwoman and shifted, nervous. "Y...yes ma'am." She lifted a finger to
push the lenses further up on her nose, a gesture she didn't even
realise she did any more, it was so much a habit. "I uh...didn't think
I'd be allowed to Stand."

For a moment the Weyrwoman tried to maintain a neutral expression but it
lasted only moments before she smiled. "If those lenses got knocked off
during the scuffle of Hatching you'd be pretty much blind, wouldn't
you?" It wasn't unkindly said; Zharesti was pleased that _this_ time the
person reporting to her for an exemption from Standing had a genuine
reason ... or seemed to.

The girl didn't even wince at the comment, but simply nodded. "When I
was little, I couldn't see very well at all. I'd just as well close my
eyes and walk around that way because it was too frustrating to see
colours, but only have complete blurs."

"And those lenses - do they make it better?" The goldrider had never
seen anything so extreme and had to admit she was curious.

"Oh yes, much better!" She wouldn't have been able to see without them.
she'd probably go back to bumping into things and having headaches. The
headaches were one of the worst parts. "I can actually tell what people
look like."

"_Can_ you? Well!" She grabbed a pad from on a pile of papers filling an
armchair and passed it over to the young woman. "Can you recognise who
that is?"

Despite her 'little pictures' being sketches with more emphasis than
strict accuracy, most people could identify the subjects easily enough
if they knew them. In this case it was the Weyrleader, looking very
noble and well-suited to lead the fighting wings against Thread. If
there was an undertone of amusement in the exaggeration in the drawing
it wasn't obvious enough to be unkind.

The girl peered at the picture, her hesitation more out of startlement
than anything. She hadn't expected the Weyrwoman to ask her that sort of
question - in fact, she hadn't expected the Weyrwoman to be an artist of
any sort. She smiled a little and nodded. "Yes, that's the Weyrleader.
Wow, I didn't know you could draw."

"Amazing. Not that you didn't know that I could draw - I don't expect
everybody to know everything about me - but that those lenses work so
well. Do you mind if I look through them?"

"Certainly." Who was going to deny the Weyrwoman? The girl pulled the
glasses off and gingerly held them out to the goldrider.

Zharesti took them in strong, sure fingers, rather surprised at the
weight of the glass. "And now you can't see anything? Just light and
dark, I suppose?" she asked as she held the lenses up to her eyes and
reared back in surprise. "Shards! How can they possibly _help_?" More
cautiously she leaned forward into the lenses again and struggled to
focus through them.

"I can see colours. I can see a blob of colour right where you are
standing." The girl explained, her expression one of almost pain. "But I
can't make out shapes, just blurs of colours and light and shadows.

"You'd better have these back," the Weyrwoman said, putting the lenses
in the other woman's hand. "And you're more than excused Standing. What
do you do for the Weyr?" she asked. One day, hopefully not too far in
the future, she would recognise most people in the Weyr by sight, and
gather up their details - names and jobs and family connections - after
that so that she could properly run her Weyr, but for the moment she had
had no qualms about asking.

"I mainly help clean, laundry, that sort of stuff." And for it she had a
roof over her head, food to eat, and no one threatened to kick her out.
"I wish I could do more. My job isn't very important...but my sight,
even with the glasses, limits me."

"Your job is just as important as most." The was no denying that
dragonriders were the reason for the Weyr's existence, but after that
all jobs supported dragonriders in their new role as defenders of Pern.

"Are the laundries here easy to work in?" Having been occupied
continuously during the long interval River Bluff was blessed with many
labour-saving advances that the Weyrs that were abandoned and reopened
lacked. "I haven't had the chance to visit them yet."

"I wouldn't call laundry easy. There's a lot of it and there are
problems with stains and people complaining that things aren't clean
enough." The girl trailed off. She didn't want to sound like she was
whining. "But I can do it and not get hurt if my glasses fall off or
something. That happened to me once in the kitchen, my glasses fell
off, I couldn't see and I burned. Not badly, but it made me realise it
was probably best not to work there."

"Well I'm glad they found somewhere you fitted. Do you mind not being
allowed to Stand at the Hatchings?"

At the question, the girl shifted and looked away. "I can't say that I
haven't thought about being a dragonrider, about what it would be like,
but..."

"I'm sorry. It was a thoughtless question." It wasn't a choice given the
girl, so why belabour the point.

"Well...part of me is relieved." The girl admitted with a half smile.
"But that's all right. It doesn't matter."

"If it matters to you it matters - You didn't tell me your name."

"Oh, Cala." The girl gave a small. "Just Cala."

"It's been a pleasure meeting you, Cala. You and your lenses are an
inspiration." Zharesti had no idea how she would have fared with such a
disadvantage but she knew her life would have been very different from
the one she currently enjoyed.

Cala had never had anyone call her glasses an 'inspiration' before. She
couldn't understand how they could inspire anyone. All she knew was that
they allowed her to see reasonably well and she didn't have to fumble
and try to figure out what blobs of colour were. "Well, thank you
Weyrwoman."

"You're welcome, Cala. Enjoy the rest of your day."

Last updated on the September 27th 2009

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An Inspiration