A Family Visit

Writers: AL, Anaria
Date Posted: 16th May 2011

Characters: Meledei, Tiernan
Description: Meledei takes Tiernan for a visit to his family.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr, Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 1, day 28 of Turn 6

The Seawing had pulled into port at Coral Bay right on time, and
Tiernan quickly went to work getting everything he needed to do taken
care of, and his crew dismissed for shore leave. He then summoned
Squirt, tied a message to his leg, and sent the little blue flit off
on his way.

Squirt disappeared /between/, reappearing at Dolphin Cove Weyr. His
master had given him the images of Elleth and Meledei, and he found
himself near the gold dragon, who was sunning herself. Squirt landed
near one multi-faceted eye, and cheeped a few times inquisitively. He
send the image of Meledei to Elleth, and then cheeped once more,
shaking his leg to indicate that he had brought something for her.
n, who was sunning herself. Squirt landed near one multi-faceted eye,
and cheeped a few times inquisitively. He sent the image of Meledei to
Elleth, and then cheeped once more, shaking his leg to indicate that
he had brought something for her.

"Well hello there." Meledei reached into one of her pockets and
plucked a bit of dried meat. She kept it there for the Weyr was full
of firelizards and every so often she was sent a message - such was
the case at that moment. She passed it along to the creature, then
untied the message from his leg.

As soon as she saw who it was from, a smile broke out over her face.
"Good." She murmured to herself. Rather than wasting the parchment,
she turned it to the other side and wrote a quick message upon it,
then placed it back upon the creature's leg. Another small piece of
meat was the reward before she gave the creature instructions to go
back to his master. Once the blue was gone, Meledei stood and began
to get ready, changing her clothes and pulling out her riding gear.
**Come on Elleth, we're going for a visit.**

Squirt reappeared above Tiernan's head, twittering happily. He sent
images of Meledei to Tiernan, followed by an image of him eating his
treat, then landed on Tiernan's shoulder. Tiernan rubbed the
firelizard affectionately as he removed the note from his ankle. "Well
Squirt, it looks like Meledei is free today," he said with a smile. It
had been nearly a turn since he'd seen his mother, almost two turns
since he'd seen his father. The concept that he might be able to see
them today was something that excited him.

Meledei was quick to get ready. Her turns of being taught by and
helping her father plus the training she received as a weyrling
combined with personal experience since graduation made her fingers
quick and she was quite efficient at putting the straps on and getting
Elleth into the air. The two popped /between/ and only a few seconds
later, appeared above Emerald Falls. The goldrider refrained from
landing too close to the hold, but rather angled Elleth down just
outside to where she had asked Tiernan to meet her.

Tiernan was a bit slower at arriving, as he'd needed to walk out to
the large clearing that Elleth had landed in. Squirt flew in lazy
loops about his head, all the while continuing to chitter on happily
to himself. Tiernan smiled broadly once Meledei was in sight. "Good
afternoon! I'm glad to see that you had free time for us today!"

"Well, rest days are good days for free time." Not _always_, but
Meledei had tried to keep them as free as possible. She didn't
particularly care to work on rest days. They weren't rest days then!
"You ready to take a trip?" She asked, looking down from her perch on
Elleth.

"Of course," Tiernan said. "Squirt knows where we're going, so he can
pass on the coordinates," he said. He examined Elleth's side, a
confused look forming on his face. "So... uh.... how exactly do you
get on a dragon, if it's not to silly a thing for me to ask?" He was
glad his crew wasn't around to get a few jokes in on at his expense.

Elleth answered first by extending a foreleg and Meledei leaned down,
hand opened and stretched out toward the man. "Use her as a stool and
just climb on up. I'll help you." She smiled, winking and assuring
him. "It's not hard."

"Ah, alright," Tiernan said, stepping lightly up on Elleth's foreleg.
"Sorry if I hurt you at all, Elleth, this is very new to me!" He
grabbed Meledei's hand, and managed to get himself situated on
Elleth's back with relative ease. "Alright.... buckle me in!" Tiernan
exclaimed, as he looked at the riding straps with confusion.

"You mounted her as if you've done this before!" Meledei laughed,
then unbuckled herself so that she could turn and better show Tiernan
how to do the straps - or rather, do them for him while he watched.
"Here, they go through here, then loop around. And there, all
secure." She patted the gold beneath her. "Elleth wants me to
reassure you that you did not hurt her at all and she will take it
easy on you." She grinned and turned back around to secure herself
once more.

"Well, I trust her with my life!" Tiernan said, after watching
carefully so if he ever needed to buckle himself to a dragon in the
future, he could do so with ease. Taking a deep breath, he got himself
mentally prepared for the new sensation that flight would be. "Squirt
says he's passed on the destination, so I think we should be good to
go!"

**You have it?** Meledei always checked - she preferred to be sure
rather than risk her dragon's life, or her own! Not to mention her
passenger's!

}:I have it.:{ Elleth passed long the image and Meledei grinned. The
gold had a firm vision in her mind and so the girl urged her up into
the air. Elleth may have been small for a gold, but she was no less
powerful, her leap followed by great strokes of her wings that sent
them soaring.

Tiernan forced his head not to snap his neck back at the ascent,
taking deep breaths to steady himself. Fortunately, the motion of the
wingbeats was barely worse than a ship on the sea, so he didn't get
sick. After a moment, he cautiously looked down, amazed at what it
looked like from so far up. He let out a shaky breath, "This is really
amazing," he said, his voice low with awe.

Meledei didn't catch those words, the wind whipped them away before
they could ever come close to reaching her ears. She did crane her
neck, however and shouted a warning, "Get ready, we're going
/between/!" A half breath later, they plunged into darkness. Into
nothingness. Black...blacker...blackest...

Nothing - not a word, not a harper ballad, not even the entire records
room from the Weyr - could have prepared Tiernan for the utter lack of
sensation that was /between/. It was cold, and Tiernan couldn't feel
anything - not Meledei in front of him, nor the straps about his
waist, or Elleth beneath him. Just when he thought he couldn't take it
any longer, it was over, and they were hovering about the Sea Hold. He
forced himself to catch his breath, which he didn't realize that he'd
been holding all this time. Today was a day of myriad firsts.

Meledei twisted around to look at the man behind her. First timers
reacted in a variety of ways. Some got sick though she had yet to
have that happen to her - she wasn't generally pulled into shuffling
duty. Some were frightened out of their wits - that was the most
common she had seen. Others were unnerved, but not exactly
_frightened_. She smiled at the expression on his face and curled her
arm behind her so she could take his hand and squeeze it light. She
let go after the brief gesture and urged her dragon down in a gentle
spiral outside of the hold proper.

Once there, Meledei undid the straps and then took care of Tiernan's.
"You all right?" She asked, brushing a lock of hair back behind her
ear and waiting to make sure he wasn't going to topple over before
getting down.

Once the initial shock got through him, Tiernan, a natural risk taker
and thrill seeker, began to laugh uncontrollably. "Alright!? That was
_incredible!_" He said, his voice low and intense. "You get to do that
every day? Does it ever start feeling less disorientating?" He asked.
For him, it was an odd feeling - but disorientating in the way a good
nip of alcohol was, not necessarily in a bad manner.

It had been the first time Meledei had ever seen someone react in such
a manner. Frightened, yes. A little shaken, yes. Curious and calm,
certainly. But laughing and excited about it? **Shards, the man
should have been a dragonrider!** She laughed to herself. "Yes, it
does start to feel less disorienting after a while, but there's always
a certain sense of oddness to it." Meledei reached up to offer her
hand and help him down if he desired it. "Now come on, you need to
show me around."

"Oh! Yeah, of course!" He said, forgetting for a moment why they were
there. He dismounted easily with the assistance of Meledei, then
peered around a bit, trying to place himself. "I sent Squirt over
ahead of time so my mother would be expecting us," he said as he led
her to a small cothold near the water. Da should be here for once as
well."

"Good. A gold dragon landing unexpectedly at a hold can certainly
cause a stir." Meledei knew that Elleth garnered attention - it was
part of being who she was. Meledei picked up her pace so that she
kept up with the Captain. "I hope she doesn't mind."

"Um, I don't necessarily think she minds, so much as she thinks....
erm..." Tiernan wasn't normally a man who had difficulty with words,
but he wanted to word his next phrase properly. "Suffice it to say, my
mother refuses to accept anything other than the thought that
we're.... involved."

"Are you serious?" Meledei looked at Tiernan then burst out laughing.
"Are you _really_ serious? She thinks we're involved?
Romantically?"

Tiernan sighed. "Yes... my mother has been pushing me to get married
for... well, turns really. I haven't brought a girl home since I was
in my early Journeyman stages, so this is not something that they're
used to. I apologize in advanced if the terms 'grandchildren' or
'birthing hips' get dropped at any time."

"Well, I'll try my hardest to be sociable but not look overly like we're together." Meledei had to admit, though, it sounded like it would be a very, very interesting trip indeed!

Last updated on the May 19th 2011

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A Family Visit