McCaffrey, Anne – DragonQuest. Chapter 3, 4

Brekke’d had the wit to bring a full haunch of buck, though the Weyr might eat light that evening. So they had gorged the hatchlings into such a somnolent state that they could be carried, unresisting, back to the Weyr, or to Brekke’s Infirmary.

“You’re to fly home straight,” Brekke told F’nor, in much the way a woman spoke to a rebellious weyrling.

“Yes, ma’am,” F’nor replied, with mock humility, and then smiled because Brekke took him so seriously.

The little queen nestled in his arm sling as contentedly as if she’d found a weyr of her own. “A weyr is where a dragon is no matter how it’s constructed,” he murmured to himself as Canth winged steadily eastward.

When F’nor reached Southern, it was obvious the news had raced through the Weyr. There was such an aura of excitement that F’nor began to worry that it might frighten the tiny creatures between.

No dragon can fly when he is belly-bloated, Canth said. Even a fire lizard. And took himself off to his sun-warmed wallow, no longer interested.

“You don’t suppose he’s jealous, do you?” F’nor asked Brekke when he found her in her Infirmary, splinting the little blue’s wrenched wing.

‘Wirenth was interested, too, until the lizards fell asleep,” Brekke told him, a twinkle in her green eyes as she looked up at him briefly. “And you know how touchy Wirenth is right now. Mercy, F’nor, what is there for a dragon to be jealous of? These are toys, dolls as far as the big ones are concerned. At best, children to be protected and taught like any fosterling.”

F’nor glanced over at Mirrim, Brekke’s foster child. The two green lizards perched asleep on her shoulders. The injured brown, swathed from neck to tail in bandage, was cradled in her lap. Mirrim was sitting with the erect stiffness of someone who dares not move a muscle. And she was smiling with an incredulous joy.

“Mirrim is very young for this,” he said, shaking his head.

“On the contrary, she’s as old as most weyrlings at their first Impression. And she’s more mature in some ways than half a dozen grown women I know with several babes of their own.”

“Oh-ho. The female of the species in staunch defense …”

“It’s no teasing matter, F’nor,” Brekke replied with a sharpness that put F’nor in mind of Lessa. “Mirrim will do very well. She takes every responsibility to heart.” The glance Brekke shot her fosterling was anxious as well as tender.

“I still say she’s young …”

“Is age a prerequisite for a loving heart? Does maturity always bring compassion? Why are some weyrbred boys left standing on the sand and others, never thought to have a chance, walk off with the bronzes? Mirrim Impressed three, and the rest of us, though we tried, with the creatures dying at our feet, only managed to attach one.”

“And why am I never told what occurs in my own Weyr?” Kylara demanded in a loud voice. She stood on the threshold of the Infirmary, her face suffused with an angry flush, her eyes bright and hard.

“As soon as I finished this splinting, I was coming to tell you,” Brekke replied calmly, but F’nor saw her shoulders stiffen

Kylara advanced on the girl, with such overt menace that F’nor stepped around Brekke, wondering to himself as he did so whether Kylara was armed with more than a bad temper.

“Events moved rather fast, Kylara,” he said, smiling pleasantly. “We were fortunate to save as many of the lizards as we did. Too bad you didn’t hear Canth broadcast the news. You might have Impressed one yourself.”

Kylara halted, the full skirts of her robe swirling around her feet. She glared at him, twitching the sleeve of her dress but not before he saw the black bruise on her arm. Unable to attack Brekke, she turned, spotting Mirrim. She swept up to the girl, staring down in such a way that the child looked appealingly toward Brekke. At this point, the tension in the room roused the lizards. The two greens hissed at Kylara but it was the crystal bugle of the bronze on G’sel’s shoulder that diverted the Weyrwoman’s attention.