Xhinna could feel that special connection with Taria, that increased joy in her presence, the knowledge that they were free enough to go their separate ways without fear of hurting each other, and the greater joy that, when they could, they preferred each other’s company above all others. Not that they were exclusive—they couldn’t quite be, because of the nature of their bonds with their dragons. Taria was willing to cheer when Tazith outflew browns to catch other greens; Xhinna was willing to stand in honor as Coranth was caught by another blue. But Xhinna and Taria had learned to adjust and thrive in those situations. What mattered most was what they chose—not what dragon passion compelled.
As it was with them, so it was with the other greens and blues throughout the Western Isle.
“So what is it?” Taria asked, bringing Xhinna’s focus back to the present—and to the pleasant surprise that, in her reverie, she’d finished rinsing the last of the diapers. Taria passed her back her handful and Xhinna put them into the wet-bag, gladly sealing it and trudging out of the surf to the dry shore.
“Something’s bothering her,” Xhinna said grumpily.
“Not her scar?”
“No,” Xhinna said with a quick shake of her head. “You can hardly see that, and it’s not as though she’s worried about the looks she gets from the boys.”
“I like scars,” Taria said slyly, tracing the line of Xhinna’s scar through the shirt on her back.
“Whatever it is,” Xhinna said, accepting the oblique apology for the scar that J’keran’s knife had left, and continuing single-mindedly on the question at hand, “it’s not going to happen for a while.”
“How can you say?”
“Because she’s not that desperate,” Xhinna said. “She’d be angry with me, fighting with me, if this were something coming soon.”
“She could be wrong, you know,” Taria said.
“Well, even if she is, it’s getting me quite fit,” Xhinna replied, grinning as she caught the look of pleasure that spread across her partner’s face. Xhinna shook her head and trudged farther back up the sands. “I’ve got to drop these off and pick up Xelinan.”
“I’ll get Xelinan,” Taria offered.
“Or you could take these,” Xhinna countered.
“Oh, let’s see—cute, adorable boy or bag of smelly diapers? What a hard choice!” Taria said, racing to leap upon Coranth’s neck and urging the green skyward before Xhinna could utter another word. She waved down from above, a wicked grin spreading across her face.
Xhinna chuckled, shaking her head ruefully.
The Meeyu Plateau most clearly showed the industry that had occurred since Fiona, T’mar, and the others had come back in time to join Xhinna in response to the simple polyhedral marker she’d left at Red Butte, inscribed on all three upright sides with the same one word: Come.
She remembered the evening—nearly two Turns ago—when she got Fiona’s description of the events that led them there:
“So, there’s D’gan, all high and mighty right up until his Kaloth collapses from the injection of the dragon sickness cure, and then he starts bellowing and raging all over the place until we could calm him down and get him to his weyr,” Fiona had said as she brought Xhinna up to date on the several days they’d spent back in Telgar Weyr. She shook her head trying to shake her anger out of it. “And then, that last night, acting like he was the Weyrleader …”
“Well, he was,” Xhinna said.
“Half a Turn ago before he and all his dragons were lost between,” Fiona agreed. “But not now.”
“He has over three hundred riders who think otherwise,” Lorana disagreed from where she sat nearby. “And they’re planning on riding Fall with High Reaches today.”
Fiona made a sour face. “You should have heard him go on about the new firestone,” she said. “He practically accused me of sabotage for ordering the old stuff removed, and then one of his bronze riders nearly jumped out of his skin when one of our weyrlings dropped a rock in a bucket of water by accident.” She brightened. “After that, he changed his tune, but he never said anything to me.”
“He’d hoped to ignore us,” Jeila said.
“He might still succeed,” T’mar said. Fiona shot him an angry look and the bronze rider raised his hands defensively.
“He’s got almost more dragons than all the other Weyrs put together,” he pointed out. “We’re all exhausted, and his riders are still in their prime, ready for anything. We really can’t reject his aid.”
“And the blues and greens we brought back would have needed a sevenday at least to learn to chew firestone,” Fiona said in agreement. “So D’gan can ignore us, leave us out of the Fall, and we have nothing to do about it,” she ended bitterly. She sighed and sat back dejectedly in her chair. Xhinna threw her a questioning look.
“And another thing,” Fiona said, gesturing toward Shaneese, who sat nearby. “Remember how the weyrfolk were when we first arrived?”
Xhinna nodded, her stomach clenching in anger. The weyrfolk were used to D’gan: He demanded their instant respect and was not very caring when it came to women.
“Well, Shaneese’s L’rat is now alive and well,” Fiona said, her lips curled in anger, “and he believes that T’mar is a poacher.” She shook her head. “He even told T’mar: ‘As you’ve a woman already, I want mine back.’ ”
“Shaneese tried to deal with it diplomatically,” Jeila said with a sour look, “but that didn’t work.”
“We were like a Weyr within a Weyr,” Fiona said with an expression that was alarming both for its ferocity and its resignation. “When we found your first message, it was nothing to find enough volunteers—”
Xhinna coughed and gave the Weyrwoman a reproving look.
“Really it wasn’t,” T’mar added in agreement. He glanced around the strange plateau and the dragon-filled broom trees in the distance. “We hadn’t quite realized what you’d been planning, I must admit.”
“Well, once we found the second marker—wise of you to set them far apart—we realized just how much we wanted to see our children,” Fiona said, reaching for Lorana, “and our bronzes’ riders.”
“Particularly K’dan,” T’mar opined with a grin. Fiona started a hot retort, but then gave him a second, more probing look and just nodded.
“If only to relieve him of nonstop parental duties,” she agreed. A moment later she returned to her story. “And then D’gan came up to us, saying that there was a Fall at High Reaches and wanting to know how many of our riders could haul firestone for his fighting dragons.”
She changed her voice to a mocking imitation of the old Telgar Weyrleader: “ ‘I don’t allow shirkers in my Weyr.’ ”
“Uh oh!” Xhinna said.
“I told him: ‘This is my Weyr, bronze rider’ and he said, ‘We’ve no need for impertinence’ and then, can you believe it? He turned to T’mar and said, ‘If you can’t control your women—and you have far too many of them if you ask me—’ ”
“He didn’t!” Xhinna and Taria exclaimed in unison.
Fiona nodded solemnly and then looked up at them, eyes blazing, but it was Jeila who, with awe in her voice, said, “And then she said, ‘Enough. You will be silent now.’ ”
H’nez, Jeila, and T’mar all broke into laughter.
“I thought he was going to burst, the way his eyes bulged,” Jeila continued. “Shards, I didn’t think he could even speak, but just as he was about to, all three of our queens bellowed as one. The old queen called back, but she didn’t sound like she was angry, only resigned.” She glanced toward