Before Breakfast

Writers: Jane, AL
Date Posted: 31st October 2008

Characters: Eshmeir, Cerra
Description: Cerra and Eshmeir meet again before breakfast.
Location: Harper Hall
Date: month 12, day 16 of Turn 4

"You beat me out here, this morning," Eshmeir said when he found the girl-apprentice out in front of the part of the Weyr that was used for the Harper Hall.

"Is that so extraordinary?" Cerra turned her smiling visage to one of the newest additions to the Hall. "I mean, I don't usually make it a habit to be late."

"I guess not. We didn't agree on a time, though." He hadn't wanted to set the arrangement in stone since he wasn't sure if he could get out of the apprentice dormitory they way he had been able to just get up and leave the guest room.

"Well then, what would you suggest?" The girl's hands played at her skirt, making it dance about her ankles.

"What about showing me around the Weyr, if we have time." He worried about being late, and about missing breakfast. "The boys were going to show me last night but our chores ... Well, we had to do them again." He had been mortified by the journeyman's complaints but the others had seemed unperturbed.

"I can certainly do that." The girl sidled right back up to the new apprentice and took her arm in the familiar way she had done when they had first met. Then, as if hearing the worry in his thoughts, "We can grab some food and eat while we walk, that will give us more time. Of course, you won't be able to see _every_thing in the short amount of time we do have, but it will be a start."

"It won't matter that we don't go to breakfast?" he asked, still worried. Though she was an apprentice too, she was a senior, and he was the newest of new juniors and still being assessed to find his place in the various classes he would need to take.

"We _will_ be going to breakfast, silly." Cerra laughed and shook her head. "I should call you Worrywort. We're going to breakfast, we're just not staying and taking it with us. We can see more that way."

"All right. And I don't have chores in the morning," he remembered with relief. "I just don't want to get into trouble and get sent home. This is a big chance for me, you know." He would have thought being an apprentice would be the same for her - since it was only so recently that the Hall started accepting women.

"Oh don't worry about that!" Cerra assured him as she began to guide him toward the Dining Hall. "I won't let either of us do anything to jeopardize our positions here."

"I'm glad," he said honestly. "My family - this is a big opportunity for them to give me. I couldn't let them down - let alone miss this chance for myself. I could go anywhere, if I can become a harper. Anywhere on Pern."

"Where do you want to go?" Cerra asked as she strolled alongside her companion. "If you had the choice, where would you be?"

"Can we see the Hatching Grounds?" he asked tentatively. "Does everybody say that?"

Cerra laughed, the sound light and airy. "I would think there was something wrong with you if did _not_ ask to see them." She glanced over in that direction. "I don't know if we'll have enough time to walk there before our duties commence, but I will be happy to show you during our free time."

"In the evening? Though I have chores then. On the restday? The boys said you got them here, apart from a few chores."

"Of course we do." Cerra gave Eshmeir a queer look. "You didn't get restdays?"

"Well, not really. We did less, if we could, but often we couldn't. Where did you come here from?" Somewhere far different from his own small cothold background, he guessed.

"Oh I was born and raised in the Weyr." Cerra still couldn't quite believe that they didn't get restdays! Those were simply a part of life and shouldn't be taken away! "I stand when there is a clutch. Otherwise, I work on my craft."

"You're from _here_?" He waved a hand around to indicate the volcanic caldera in which they stood.

"Yes, silly, that's what I said, wasn't it?" Cerra laughed at the boy. "Why are you so surprised? Where did you think I was from?"

"I don't know. A big Hold, or somewhere." He gazed around, wondering what it would be like to grow up in a place like this one. The cliffs, the sea ... the _dragons_. "Is your family - Do you have dragonriders in your family?" he asked, his tone betraying a little of the awe he was feeling. Imagine such a life. Imagine it!

"Oh yes, my father is a brownrider, my grandmother a greenrider." Cerra explained as she stifled a laugh. The boy was easy to read and the expressions upon his face were priceless. "So at least two generations of dragonriders. Actually, three. My great grandfather was also a brownrider."

"And ... you might be one, too, one day?" he said, his words falling between statement and question as he was unsure whether it was a suitable subject for discussion. It was odd, now that he was thinking about her as a dragonrider, that he had always known some women were (dragonriders) and yet it had never occurred to him that women could be harpers. Surely dragonriding was far more dangerous and less conducive to having a family than being a harper? Why was it all right that women fought Thread and defended Pern, but not that they learned one of the crafts that had the most to do with children and people?

"Maybe." Cerra shrugged. It would be nice to be a dragonrider, but like everyone else, she had no idea why dragons chose whom they chose. Maybe she would impress, maybe she wouldn't. Until then, she was happy studying her craft. "You know, now that you're a resident of the weyr, you can stand too if you like."

"I _can_?" His voice squeaked a bit in his surprise. "But I'm at the Harper Hall, really."

"I guess that's true." The girl shrugged. "I don't see why you couldn't, though. If you're interested, just ask."

"Do all the apprentices Stand?"

"No." Cerra shook her head, "Some do, some don't. It's really up to you if you want to stand or not."

Eshmeir decided to save that information away for consideration at some other time. It was unexpected and almost unbelievable - though he didn't think Cerra would _lie_ to him - and he though he would need a while to think it over. "So _that's_ why you could apprentice. Because the Weyrs -"

'Have no morals,' was what he'd heard people say though he couldn't remember his parents ever saying anything like that. Whether the Weyrs did or didn't, it was undoubtedly a tactless thing to say to Cerra.

"Because they do things differently," he said instead, hoping his dithering hadn't been too noticeable.

It had been and the girl eyed him suspiciously, but then shrugged it off and didn't press the issue. "It wasn't always that way. Have you ever read the old records? Women used to be allowed to craft, even in the holds."

"I know that," he said, not wanting her to think he was ignorant. "But then the plagues came and it was more important for them to be mothers."

"But the plagues are gone." Cerra pointed out, eyebrows arching. "Not to mention it is possible for a woman to craft _and_ be a mother."

"But the population is still low," he said, knowing that from the place that he came from. Even the Hold closest to them had more empty rooms than full ones. He shrugged, though. "I suppose women _can_ do both but why should they have to? It's a big job, being a mother," he said, thinking of the work his own mother managed in running the cothold. "It's more than just having babies, isn't it?"

"I suppose so, but that doesn't mean a woman can't do both." Cerra pointed out, then added, "Or that her mate can't help her. Men should take more of a role too."

"Men are busy working," the very new apprentice protested.

"But that doesn't mean that children don't need their fathers." Cerra cast a glance over at Eshmeir. "It takes two to raise children, not just one, even in families where the women don't craft."

"But the mother is more important to children," he argued. "It's right that men shouldn't interfere with that."

"Interfere?" Cerra tilted her head back and laughed. "Who said anything about interfering? Helping isn't interfering, it's being part of a family!"

Eshmeir's father hadn't interfered and he had still seemed very much part of the family to his son. "Well," the new apprentice said, "I don't want to argue about it. Being from this place you probably have a different point of view."

"I think that's the understatement of the turn." Cerra stated with a delicate snort. "Come on, let's get some food and then we can begin the tour in earnest."

"Breakfast!" Once reminded the young man's stomach rumbled in anticipation. "Let's go."

Last updated on the October 31st 2008

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