A Good Name

Writers: Emma, Jane
Date Posted: 29th November 2006

Characters: I'lan, Relli
Description: Foster-mother Relli and her children waylay I'lan and the puppies.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 1, day 5 of Turn 4

Relli and her four youngest were ready to ambush the young man the moment he appeared. When Teni shouted that he could see the canines, Relli scooped up the baby, grabbed the hand of Teni's full sister Lornia, and verbally shepherded Lisse along in Teni's wake. Not that the older pair needed much encouragement since they were already racing along the path ahead of her.

The foster-mother winced. Poor lad, for the young bronzerider wasn't much older than her eldest daughter who still shared their rooms, and he was probably enjoying being away from children for the first time in his life. And here came somebody else's, thundering down the sandy path toward him. Toward the canine, really, and the little balls of fluff that were the canine's puppies.

"Sit!" called the young man as he saw the children approaching. This would be a good test to see how much of the training the remaining two puppies had picked up in his effort to find homes for them. Bubbly obeyed, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he panted. The two pups strained on their leashes however. "Behave!" he said, gently pulling them in closer.

Relli grinned as she watched the puppies ignoring the young bronzerider.
She would show him how it was really done. "Teni! Lisse! Stop right there."

Ahh! Sometimes it worked so well. Relli smiled as she walked briskly (briskly in terms of the seventeen month old at her side) toward where the elder two stood frozen into statues. "Good, both of you," she commented as she drew level with them and they unfroze.

"Good afternoon," he said with a smile. I'lan could see the little one were just itching to see the puppies, they had that effect on most of the children in the Weyr, and he'd helped find homes for most of them that way. All but these last two.

"Good afternoon, bronzerider. I'm Relli, and these are Teni, Lisse, Lornia, and -" she hitched the baby of the family higher on her hip, "-
Emvini." She smiled conspiratorially at him. "And we've heard you're looking for new families for your little friends, here."

Teni was nearly dancing with impatience. "We want a puppy," he said bluntly in case the dragonrider hadn't understood.

"You do, do you," replied I'lan with a grin. "Well it just so happens that these two want someone to love them. You have to love a canine, not just want him or her."

"We have to love all the little ones that join the family," Teni said with an over-large sigh for such a small boy. "Even when they cry and smell. Relli says -" he cast a quick glance at his foster-mother, and continued, "- that a puppy will be just the same for a while."

"They will, until you train them how not to make a mess. Then you just have to love them, and feed them and walk them. Canines can't feed themselves like dragons, but they'll tell you if they are hungry."

Teni nodded and Relli felt like rolling her eyes at his attentiveness to the young man's instructions when he rarely listened past a few words of hers.

"Perhaps ... just one?" she suggested, thinking of the work involved.
"Do they have to go together?"

"No, they don't. They are sisters though."

"Relli, _please,_" Teni said, turning toward her, his eyes pleading as much as his tone.

"Oh dear." Perhaps it hadn't been wise to bring them out to ambush the bronzerider until there was only one left. "Could we have both of them?"
she asked, hoping he would refuse.

"I did half promise one of them to someone."

"Oh wonderful!"

"This one here on the left has no home yet, she hasn't even a name."

"Only one?" Teni asked, looking between the puppies and Relli and the woman tried to make her tone suitably disappointed as she confirmed that there would only be one puppy to join their family.

"But we can name her," she added.

"An' she is pretty," Lisse said, already crouched beside the low-slung creature.

"We'll take her, if we may," Relli said to the young man.

"By all means. And she needs a name soon, so that she learns it."

"I'll call her Fluffy-bottom," Teni said, crouching down beside Lisse.

"Ahh. Perhaps just 'Fluffy'?"

"Pr'haps," he agreed doubtfully, not finding that name nearly as amusing.

"Fluffy would be a good name," agreed I'lan. "Do you know how to look after a puppy? And do you have things for her?"

Teni shook his head but Relli nodded. "I've had one before." Otherwise she wouldn't have considered getting another for the children. With the large family she was raising she had little time to learn the routines of a creature she didn't have some knowledge of. "And there are older children to supervise the young ones," she assured him. Though none of the fosterlings she had currently were likely to harm a puppy, even inadvertently, it seemed better to be cautious while the children and puppy were new to each other.

"Well perhaps you'd like to come and pick her up tomorrow."

"There will be more of us tomorrow," Relli warned with a smile. Nobody would allow themselves to be left behind at such a significant moment.
She touched Teni's hair as he stood up. "But we'll have some toys made for her by then, won't we?"

"We will make them tonight," Teni assured the bronzerider.

"Just before the evening meal?" Relli suggested to the young man.

"That works. What do you think Fluffy?" he asked of the pup, who gave a 'yip' as her new name was mentioned.

"She knows her name!"

Relli grinned at the boy's excitement. "Yes, I think she does."

Last updated on the December 1st 2006

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A Good Name