“Maybe you should practice anyway,” Fiona said, tossing her blade toward Jirana before racing off to the shaded awning.
Jirana caught the leather-wrapped hilt easily and deftly sliced the air with a brilliant show of skill before lowering the blade to the ground.
“You need to practice more,” she said to Xhinna. “You’ve got to be able to disarm her.”
“Wouldn’t it just be easier if you’d tell me why?” Xhinna asked irritably. The whole set of exercises, the months of sword practice, had all been at Jirana’s urging.
“It might not happen,” Jirana said with the same resigned but wistful tone that Xhinna had come to associate with the youngster’s visions of things yet to come.
Xhinna abruptly dropped her practice blade and grabbed the little queen rider by the shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace. Pushing back, she raised Jirana’s head with a gentle hand to meet her eyes and said, “You’ve asked me to trust you, little one. Can’t you do the same with me?”
Jirana jerked her head from Xhinna’s grasp and looked down at the ground. In a low voice she explained, “If I tell you, that might make it happen.”
Xhinna sighed; it had not been the first time the girl had said such to her.
“He’s chiding for his mother, yes, he is,” Mirressa said in her singsong voice as she passed little Xelinan up to Xhinna a short time later.
Xhinna’s nose twitched. “And he needs changing,” she added ruefully.
“Only just,” Mirressa said, rising awkwardly from the ground on which she’d sat for the last several hours. She searched the carisak that hung from her side, pulled out a diaper, and handed it over to Xhinna. “When you’re done, would you rinse out the others before bringing them back?”
“If you’ll watch him.”
“Of course!” Mirressa loved babies, and even though she had two herself, she was more than willing to look after any others.
Xhinna smiled at her, laid Xelinan down on the changing towel, quickly unwrapped the soiled bundle, and cleaned him up with practiced ease. As she did, Mirressa prattled on. “Taria’s got R’ney watching Tarena and Taralin. Don’t you think it’s nice that he’s so helpful?”
“I do,” Xhinna agreed with a slow smile. “But if you think after all these months that you’ll get me to tell you who’s the father, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Mirressa sighed. “It’s just that it’d be a help, you know—”
Xhinna stopped her with a quickly raised hand, then just as quickly returned to her task.
“You’ve got the whole island guessing,” Mirressa persisted.
“Good,” Xhinna said, finishing with Xelinan’s diaper and leaning down to plant a big kiss on his beaming face. “It makes a pleasant diversion and reminds everyone that we are all entitled to our secrets.”
“I suppose,” Mirressa allowed. A moment later, as she handed Xhinna the wet-bag, she added, “And is it a secret about tonight’s meeting?”
“Meeting?” Xhinna frowned and shook her head, thrusting the dirty diaper in the wet-bag and closing it quickly. “Tonight?” She shrugged. “I expect it’s for planning. I don’t doubt that K’dan is going to be reorganizing the fighting wings.”
“Is he going to start the greens chewing firestone?”
“I don’t know, Mirressa, he hasn’t told me.”
“But you know everything that goes on!”
“No, I knew everything,” Xhinna corrected her. “Since then, I’ve had a baby and am quite happy to let others handle the bigger problems.”
Mirressa made an unhappy noise.
“Can you watch him while I make a diaper run?” Xhinna asked, lifting Xelinan into her arms while at the same time deftly shrugging the heavy wet-bag onto her shoulder.
“Of course,” Mirressa agreed easily, moving to take the baby from her. “Didn’t I just say I would?” She scrunched up her face. “Or does this mean you plan to make a run of the whole beach?”
“Of course,” Xhinna allowed. “No point in not getting all the diapers I can.”
“You’re a good person, you know.”
It was a messy, stinky job made both more difficult and easier by doing it in the salt water on the ebbing tide. The diapers, so rinsed, would be boiled and properly cleaned when Xhinna brought them back to the burnt plateau, now more often called Meeyu Plateau; rinsing and recycling were more crucial now than ever, now that cloth was in such short supply with the added need to provide diapers and baby clothing.
It was an unanticipated side effect of the widespread realization that here on the Western Isle and now, back in time before the Third Pass, was the best time for the young women who rode blues, greens, and queens to complete their families.
Xhinna was chasing down a diaper that had gotten away from her and was threatening to be carried out to sea when a shadow above her alerted her to the arrival of Taria on green Coranth.
A few moments later, the green rider helped her snag the errant cloth and passed it back to her. “Doing stinky duty again, I see!”
“Someone’s got to do it.”
“And you don’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Xhinna protested. “But as Mirressa was watching the baby, it seemed a fair trade.”
“Fair trade” was a phrase borrowed from the traders who had grown in importance and meaning as the inhabitants had outgrown Sky Weyr and overflowed throughout the Western Isle. It was all the result of Xhinna’s simple message, left nearly three Turns back at the Red Butte, by the grave of Tenniz, Jirana’s father and the Seer who had glimpsed this strange island future. It seemed more than fitting to Fiona, Lorana, and Xhinna that the dragonriders saved by the vision of the trader be willing to borrow from his people’s customs and his bequests—particularly the strange Sights that his daughter, Jirana, had provided.
“You’re thinking about her again,” Taria said suddenly. “She and her queen were back in the trees just now.”
“Did she send you here?”
Taria’s silence was answer enough. A moment later, she sighed. “Her queen will be old enough soon.”
“That doesn’t worry her,” Xhinna said, recalling a recent conversation with Jirana. “She’ll rise when we’re ready,” Jirana had assured her. Laspanth, the first of six “green queens” was still small for a gold and clearly growing, so perhaps there was no reason to doubt Jirana on this. That hadn’t stopped Fiona from bringing the matter up with Xhinna, nor Xhinna from worrying about it.
“So what does?” Taria asked. Confidentially, she added, “She’s always sending me to you when you get worried about her, you know.”
“Trying to distract me?” Xhinna guessed.
“Hmph!” Taria said. “One, you’re impossible to distract when you’ve your mind on something; and two, if I wanted to distract you, I wouldn’t be talking about it.”
Xhinna chuckled, rinsed another diaper, and placed it back into the bag. She motioned to Taria who, with a wrinkle of her nose, gamely pulled out a few diapers and joined in the cleansing.
The dark-haired rider was right on both counts: Xhinna would not let herself be distracted when she thought something was important; and regardless, no matter how important her thoughts, Taria could always distract her if she really desired.
In the past two Turns their relationship had grown both stronger and freer than Xhinna could possibly have imagined. They no longer needed to be in sight of each other or constantly touching; in fact, they now took joy in being able to recount separate adventures, to revel in the strength of their bonds rather than railing against them.