Feigning Stupidity

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 9th November 2007

Characters: Tarehg
Description: Tarehg talks to his son about his apprentice dolphineer grandson.
Location: Dolphin Hall
Date: month 7, day 1 of Turn 4

The master dolphineer stopped beside his journeyman son and waited until Lahnen looked up from his meal. "That boy of yours is feigning stupidity."

"Really?" Lahnen gave the matter some thought. "I thought he really was stupid."

Some days Tarehg thought that Lahnen was Renada's ultimate revenge on him; a slow, imperturbable son. Even Renada could be argued with.
Lahnen just floated along with the tide.

"Of course he's not stupid. He works too hard at being lazy –"
Tarehg's mouth snapped shut. Perhaps Lahnen was right. Putting the amount of effort Seriand did into doing less than he ought to _was_ stupid.

"What's he done now? Something to annoy you? Or one of the other masters?" The senior journeyman scratched his chin as he tried to imagine what he would do with his son if the boy's apprenticeship was terminated.

"He's just being _lazy._ Seriand has a perfectly good mind but he chooses not to use it," Tarehg grumbled. He had two children; slow thinking Lahnen and ultra practical Greah. Lahnen's two children were more what he had expected his own to be; exceedingly clever and mentally agile. The problem was that the one that had apprenticed in the Hall regarded laziness as an art (and one which he practised assiduously in the hope of perfecting it) and the other had chosen to apprentice as a healer. A healer!

"Shall I speak to him?" Lahnen offered calmly, a rather rhetorical suggestion since his father could no more refrain from being involved than he could jog along the beach.

"And what do you think you'd say to him?" the master dolphineer prompted. Lahnen's concerns about his children started and finished with them being 'good'.

"Er –" Lahnen hadn't expected the question. "I'd tell him ... I'd tell him to behave himself and be –"

"_Good?_" Tarehg sighed. The odd thing about Lahnen was that he wasn't stupid – in many ways he was very clever and could come up with solutions to technical problems that Tarehg himself would have never thought of– but he was slow and cautious and far too willing to see the best in everybody. Even the best in his two children who Tarehg more realistically recognised as having more of his own quick wit and minimal respect for authority. Telling Seriand and Grehga to 'be good' was hopelessly inadequate. "Don't bother. I'll speak to him."

Lahnen smiled and nodded, glad the conversation was back on its expected tack.

Tarehg looked at his only son's expression of calm and tried to resist rolling his eyes.

"What about Grehga? Do you know how she's getting on at the Weyr?"

Lahnen nodded. "Greah's there to look after her and she's a good girl."

"But is she working hard? Progressing well? Or are the healer journeymen and masters about to send her back to you as hopelessly unsuited to the craft? Have you been down there and spoken to them?"

Lahnen studied his father's expression. "I'm sure somebody would say something before things got that bad," he said calmly. "She must be doing fine."

"Would you like me to speak to her, too?"

"Well, if you like, but I'm certain she's working hard," the journeyman reiterated. "Nobody's ever suggested that Grehga's stupid."

Tarehg smiled. It was true. A number of people had found Grehga a difficult child, but that wasn't because she was stupid. When he was her age a few people had found him difficult, too.

"And she visits most restdays," Lahnen went on. "She would have said if the craft wasn't suiting her."

"I shall ask her about it next time I see her," Tarehg said, nodding.
"But Seriand needs to be talked to sooner than that."

Lahnen watched his father limp away, wondering if he should warn his son. No, he decided, returning to his interrupted meal, it would do the pair of them good to try to outsmart each other with their quick-thinking clever-tongued ways.

And it would stop both of them bothering him.

Last updated on the November 9th 2007

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Feigning Stupidity