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“Well, that was nearly a disaster. Denny got you keeping watch, or are you just out here ‘cause you can’t keep your nose out of things?”
“Good to see you too, Gram,” D’vel grumbled, shifting over on the wide stone bench overlooking the bowl of the Weyr so his cousin could join him. Ista was packed full of dragonriders celebrating the outcome of Caylith’s mating flight, but Gr’lin was a surprise addition; D’vel hadn’t expected to see him, of all people, to say the least. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, you know. Last I heard you were still flying with the High Reaches.”
“Yeah, still there. Figured Denny could use the moral support though.” Gr’lin elbowed D’vel in the ribs as he sat down, grinning when the younger man scowled at him. “D’ram must be proud of G’dened following after him.”
“Eh, he was too busy helping sort out the bloody mess with the Oldtimers,” D’vel replied, shuddering. First T’kul, and all the chaos he’d caused, and then the MasterHarper nearly dying from a heart spasm; D’vel didn’t believe in bad omens, but the near catastrophes hadn’t sat well with most of the weyrfolk. Any death was a bad sign, but a dragon’s, during a mating flight…T’kul had been a fool to even attempt it. His attack on F’lar after Salth’s death only proved the man had been teetering on the brink of insanity.
Despite the festivities, more than a few people were still on edge. Except of course for G’dened and Cosira. They were still too wrapped up in each other to pay much notice to anything else.
“Your Da’s gone down to Southern, with F’lar, to sort out the remaining Oldtimers,” D’vel continued, eyes glancing to the side at his cousin. Gr’lin’s face had gone sober, and he nodded, stretching his long legs out in front of them. “I think he feels responsible for not trying to talk more sense into T’ron and T’kul, back when things got bad.”
“D’ram always had a strong sense of responsibility,” Gr’lin agreed, his voice even. “Or what a bronzerider’s should be, anyway.”
D’vel fell silent, watching the festivities below, contemplating the words his kinsman didn’t say. He’d never experienced the sense of not-quite-failure that Gr’lin had; his own father had never looked at Izoth and questioned why D’vel hadn’t Impressed a bronze. And D’vel knew D’ram thought highly of all Ista’s brownrider Wingseconds—Gr’lin included, though he’d never heard the old Weyrleader tell his son that. It was the same story, however, told throughout successive generations: bronzes and their riders were always the best, and browns were never quite the same measure.
“You ever wish Fendalth was something else?” D’vel asked quietly, ignoring the unimpressed huff his own dragon made in the back of his mind. “That this could have been you trying for the Weyrleader’s position, instead of G’dened? Do you think it matters?”
“Do you?” Gr’lin asked, making his own disbelieving snort. D’vel grimaced and swiftly shook his head. “Can’t be anything but myself. And I definitely wouldn’t want Fendalth to be a bronze. He’d drive everyone miserable if he was.”
Doesn’t he already? Izoth asked. D’vel muffled his laughter before Gr’lin caught it, but he had the faintest impression both their dragons were debating that comment.
“I know everyone looks to them,” Gr’lin continued, his own gaze moving over the crowd below, “but there’s more to a Weyr than the scant handful of bronzes that make up our ranks. The greens and the blues, us browns…we’re just as important. More so, if you’re asking for my opinion. Won’t ever convince me we’re somehow less just because a bronze is bigger.”
“In size and ego,” D’vel quipped, and Gr’lin chuckled.
“Yep,” Gr’lin agreed. “So you won’t ever find me wishing I’d Impressed something else. I’d choose Fendalth a thousand times over. Even if he’s not what D’ram would have wanted.”
“Ah well,” D’vel replied, leaning back on his elbows and looking up towards the slowly darkening sky. “I’m glad I never Impressed bronze, either. All this madness with today’s flight makes me glad I’ll never be Weyrleader.” He thought of F’lar, and D’ram, and poor, bitter T’kul; no, he would never want to be one of them. “Better to be exactly what I am.”
“Yeah, but you’re one of the Weyrleader’s Wingseconds now,” Gr’lin pointed out slyly. “Denny’s gonna be no better or worse than D’ram ever was. Which means you’ve got bigger headaches than I’ll ever have to put up with.”
“You can always come back, you know. Denny would be glad to have you back in his Wing.”
“You know what, ‘Vell? You can fuck right off with that suggestion.”
“Love you too, Gram. Love you too.”