welcome

[giftwrapped]

Hatching Sands were familiar. The heat of the caverns, the feel of the sand crunching under her boots, the crackle of old egg fragments when she occasionally stepped on them...all of it was familiar and right to her. She was Pernese born and bred, and as easily as she had taken to the offworlders' ways of speech and advanced technology...she was not one of them. And it was times like this, with a clutch of something unmistakably awful brewing in a laboratory that smelled like metal and disinfectant instead of a cavern that scented of heated stone and millennia of tradition, that she took to old familiar refuges.

She paused in the center of the sands, picking up a sizeable fragment of eggshell that she turned over in her hands. Dull on one side, and on the other...iridescent white, with the slightest of feathery imprints, and a single sparkle of orange. A fragment of Ledath's shell. She sighed quietly. Pern changing didn't bother her...but sometimes the way the offworlders ignored the Pernese entirely, crafting the world in whatever ways they saw fit...sometimes that stung a little bit more than it probably should have.

She sighed, momentarily engrossed in the palm-sized fragment of shell.

[tuathade]

It felt strange, being back here. It wasn't that the hatching caverns were off-limits to him; Alex was free to go as he pleased, with the exception of the wher quarters and the weyrling barracks. The senior gold herself had said so. What other authority did you need to set foot on the sands?

Nonetheless, it felt like an intrusion. His own first moments had been in a laboratory on the Peregrine, much like the one where the eggs now lay. Strange to think that dragons and whers were not native to Pern, any more than the hybrids were... But after millennia of culture and tradition, they seemed that way. They fit here, dependent on humans as they were to survive. No one knew quite what to make of the hybrids yet. That would remain to be seen.

He recognized the figure on the sands, though at this distance he wasn't entirely sure what she was doing. Nonetheless, he paused at a respectful distance from her, and coughed once. The soft sand muffled his footsteps, and R'ley was one person he did not want to surprise in the caverns.

[giftwrapped]

Had R'ley been anywhere else, she might have startled at the sound. But there was something so inherently comforting about the Hatching Sands that she merely glanced over her shoulder, expression shifting from anxiety to one of halfhearted anger as she looked at the hybrid. Over the months, Nostromoth had insisted on tolerance long enough that R'ley had reluctantly (and in spite of her best efforts) gotten used to his presence.

"Alex," she said quietly, turning to face him. She didn't let go of the egg shell, still turning the fragment over in her hands as she took a few steps toward the hybrid. After a few moments, she moved toward the stands, sitting down on the wall that divided spectators from hungry dragonets and touching the empty stone beside her. She didn't expect the hatchling to sit on the wall next to her, like she might have intended had she given the gesture to a human, but it was an invitation to come into her space, nonetheless.

"Something bothering you?" She couldn't think of a reason the hybrid would come to the Sands otherwise.

[tuathade]

The hostility had gone out of her, more or less; where once she would have looked at him with open hatred, now the anger in the goldrider's eyes was half-hearted. (He was getting better at reading these things. All it took was practice.) Weyrwoman, he greeted in return. It was better, in general, for him to make his presence known before he mindspoke to someone. Riders in particular were easily startled by a voice in their head that wasn't their bondmate.

Idly, he wondered what that would be like.

I needed a break from watching over the clutch, he admitted, taking the invitation to sit next to her. Or, well... More accurately, he hopped up onto the wall next to her, then stretched out on it like a feline on a windowsill, letting his tail and one foreleg dangle. His head rested on the stone, not precisely in her personal space, but close enough that she could quite possibly reach out and touch him. You can understand, I hope.

[giftwrapped]

The clutch.

R'ley had...mixed feelings about the clutch. Well, no. R'ley and Nostromoth had mixed feelings about the clutch. R'ley herself viewed the group of eggs cooking in Peregrine's labs as an abomination. If she had it her way, the things would be smashed, embryos inside destroyed, and all of it torched just for good measure. Alex was...tolerable. But she did not trust other terrible things. Or Salvador. The man had lied to her. He had lied to everyone.

And she didn't know the reason behind the things he did. The strange colours, the wherlizards...there was a purpose behind the things the man did, something more than a mere, 'let's see what we can do'. He wanted something, and she didn't know what. But as long as Nostromoth insisted that they allow it, she wouldn't stop them. "I...can guess," she answered slowly.

Sh'ard had prevented her from seeing the clutch precisely because she knew R'ley's feelings. So all she had to go by was the words of her weyrmate and the others who had seen the clutch. "You picked a good place," she added after a moment, staring at the fragment of eggshell instead of looking at the hybrid. "It's quiet here."

[tuathade]

I'm worried, Alex admitted abruptly. A low quiet rumble, almost off the bottom edge of human hearing, emanated from somewhere in his chest. It was not something that he would admit to Salvador... The prototype still hadn't quite sorted out his feelings towards the man who had engineered him. It was complicated - difficult to sort out love and fear and resentment and that failed attempt at Impression.

The clutch... It's hard to tell. We won't know until they hatch. But I'll be there in case the Candidates are in danger. An ear twitched uneasily, and he shifted to rest his head on his forepaws, fixed-color pale eyes staring off over the empty sands.

[giftwrapped]

For a while after Alex spoke, R'ley stayed silent and stared at the piece of shell more. Then she sighed and turned to face the hybrid. She hesitated, then, expression one of complete ambivalence, but it passed, and she reached out, scratching Alex's eyeridges like she would have for a dragon. Had he been human, she would have laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. This just...felt right.

"I'm worried, too," she admitted quietly. There was no way for her to say what she was thinking to the hybrid, because it was, 'If that's what you were like, then I can only imagine what a dozen of them at once will be'. But the sentiment hung awkwardly in the air as she sat. Her hand stopped moving on the hybrid's eyeridges, resting lightly on his muzzle.

"Thank you for that," she added. "We - no." It wasn't we. Nostromoth didn't care. And R'ley didn't presume to speak for Sh'ard. "I appreciate it."

[tuathade]

At first, when R'ley's hand came down to rest on his eyeridges, Alex froze in indecision. He was uncertain of what to do. Was this the same weyrwoman who most likely would have happily torched him with a flamethrower, had her dragon not intervened? And she had invited him not only to sit with her, but... she was scratching his eyeridges, like he was a perfectly ordinary dragon.

A low hesitant thrum built up in his chest, then turned into a rumbling purr. He nudged his muzzle up against her hand, then shifted forward just slightly so that he could rest his head against the goldrider's leg.

I didn't intend to hurt anyone, Alex admitted, still subdued. But I don't think all the hatchlings in this clutch will feel the same way. His memories of his own hatching were dim, fuzzy, colored with vague sensations of hunger and fear. But by three months he'd been independent enough to break out of the lab, sneak onto the hatching sands, and attack a dragonet. There were going to be a lot more young hybrids very, very soon. This did not bode well for anyone.

[giftwrapped]

The sudden closeness of the hybrid briefly surprised R'ley, who lifted her hand in startlement before slowly setting it back down, resting it on Alex's neck just before it met the shoulder. She dug her fingers in just a little, scratching the juncture between neck, wing, and shoulder lightly. He was purring; it was hard to be afraid of or hate an animal that purred when you stroked it. It was just too much like felines for her to feel properly annoyed. And somehow, in the quiet of the hatching caverns, it felt even more peaceful. Almost...right.

"I know you didn't," she answered quietly, reluctant to break the comfortable silence that had descended on the two of them. "And I know you're probably right about that, too. And it scares me." She sighed quietly, closing her eyes and trying not to imagine worst-case scenarios for the entire situation. She already knew that she wouldn't be safe near the young things, that her own prejudices and gut reactions would make her a danger to the newly-hatched. Sh'ard had offered to go, and told her on no uncertain terms that this was a time when R'ley was doing the right thing by distancing herself. Even if she didn't like it, she had to concede her weyrmate's point. Her fingers brushed over the collar on Alex's neck, and the heavy band reminded her uncomfortably of what she was dealing with.

For a moment, she rested her fingers on the collar itself, then reached around it to scratch under it. She could only imagine it would itch after a while, worn day-in and day-out without reprieve. "Sh'ard and I agreed that I wouldn't be there to see them hatch," she said. "It would probably be dangerous for everyone if I was." And the bittersweet smile didn't quite go away like she wanted it to. Joking about lighting babies on fire wasn't kosher, so R'ley would keep the flamethrower jokes to herself. But they were present in her mind even when she didn't voice them.

[tuathade]

R’ley’s continued attentions were met with an even more insistent rumbling croon, and he shifted a little, angling his head to give her better access to the hide under the omnipresent collar. It was one of those things that he had learned to live with… one of those itches that you simply ignored, like white noise, until someone brought it back to your attention. In this case, by relieving it. Shards, that was wonderful. Opposable thumbs were wonderful. Eyes half-lidded, he let himself go comfortably limp, a boneless sprawl still draped over the wall they both sat on.

It’s probably for the best, he agreed gently, giving R’ley a thoughtful look. Even if she was being polite for his sake, it had never been anything but clear that she didn’t trust the hybrids… Or Salvador. With good reason, most likely. I doubt that Salvador would let you bring in a flamethrower. And we’re not sure yet if I can chew firestone or not, but I don’t think he’d allow that either. Still, I suspect fire is the only way to be sure, he added with a grim mental chuckle. Morbid? Maybe. Sad, that he should be so wary of others of his own species? Certainly. But also brutally honest.

[giftwrapped]

The hybrid's comment about fire startled R'ley, who gave a whoop of harsh, raucous laughter that echoed across the empty Sands and startled her into silence again. She waited for the echoes of the sound to die down before looking back at Alex. Her hands had fallen still on the hybrid, but she stroked his muzzle in something that might almost have been fondness as she looked down at him. "We should at least give them a chance," she began, though she couldn't mask the doubt in her voice. "I guess it's always possible that some of them could turn out all right." And there, the confidence returned a little bit. R'ley was ill-suited to the sort of unsurety that had plagued her since the Hatching. She didn't like waiting and worrying and hoping things would be all right.

But at least she had a like-minded companion in the older hybrid. R'ley drew away from Alex, folding her hands in her lap. Her fingers found the fragment of shell again, and she found herself absently turning it over in her hands. Then she spoke, shooting a sly smile at the hybrid. "After all, Alex" she said wryly, "you turned out all right."

[tuathade]

He chuckled along when she laughed, a low rasping huff that approximated the closest that hybrid vocal cords could come to human laughter. A habit he had picked up from long association with humans? Perhaps. In many ways, his mannerisms were very human… That was what happened, when you were raised by humans rather than amongst fellow dragonkin. But others were very much not: the rumble which died away in his throat, the hesitant way in which he shifted forward before gently butting his head up under her chin. Then he leapt down from the wall, placing a stride or two of distance between them, before turning back to look at her again.

He stood that way apparently frozen in indecision, and was silent for a long moment, his pale gaze fixed on the shard of egg shell that the Weyrwoman turned over and over in her hands. I can’t stay. They’ll notice if I leave for too long, and someone will come looking for me. Then with a flick of his tail he was off, loping out across the deserted sands and away.