Too Busy Thinking

Writers: Kastaka
Date Posted: 9th December 2008

Characters: K'sen
Description: Kelasen fails to adequately peel some tubers.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 13, day 12 of Turn 4

Peeling tubers in the kitchens made Kelasen feel right at home.

Sure, there were some differences. The pile of tubers was enormous, and there was more variety than he'd have expected to see at the farm. There were other people in the kitchen with him, from the full-time 'drudges' who knew where everything was to the other candidates complaining and trying to find excuses not to do anything too onerous, or pitching in and secretly hoping their enthusiasm for service would somehow radiate out to those precious dragon eggs over on the Sands. The kitchen was vast and contained all kinds of complicated food preparation devices rather than just a couple of knives that had seen better days.

But whatever the surroundings, you knew where you were with tubers. Tubers didn't judge you for coming from a cothold in the foothills, miles from any of the trappings of civilisation. Tubers didn't bat their eyelashes at you and get that disappointed look when you didn't react like they felt you ought to. Tubers didn't resent you for being flown in from another Weyr to take away their chances, their opportunity for a lifemate of their own.

Maybe he was just overreacting, ascribing feelings and prejudices to people based on what he'd be thinking in their situation, underestimating the generosity of spirit possessed by his fellows. But he doubted it. He thought it was much more likely that his cynical outlook was correct, despite the friendship that some had tried to show him.

He enjoyed his duties in the kitchens, even to the extent of fantasising about staying here Impression or no, but that always made him feel guilty about having left the cothold in the first place. Obviously he was doing his best to do right by his parents. They had wanted to do their duty to the Weyrs, he was here at Dolphin Cove to maximise his chances of doing what they wanted and bringing home a marvellous dragon to show them, of taking up a much more well-thought-of role than the one that he had previously expected to inhabit. But he still thought of the jobs he'd left undone at the cothold, the ineptitude of some of his siblings who would be forced to pick up the slack.

Life was much simpler back at the cothold. As simple as peeling tubers. He could scarcely credit how much some of the other Candidates were capable of screwing up simple household tasks and chores. Had they never been part of a family? He guessed that maybe they hadn't, the weyrbred ones, the children of flights and the confusing web of liaisons that replaced marriage and family here. Even the hard-working foster-mothers couldn't replace a proper family atmosphere, working and sharing together the fruits of their labours and the ground they worked upon.

Would he have children, raise a family here? The thought filled him with an uncomfortable vertigo, and not only from the strange new social structure he was subject to here. He'd heard them talking behind his back, about how a younger boy too slow for a craft would be hard to find a wife, and he'd resigned himself to that state of affairs. But if he was to be a dragonrider? Even leaving aside the issue of flights, dragonriders were glamorous figures, never heard to have a shortage of interest in that area. Already as a candidate he'd had uncomfortable attention paid to him, looks that suggested things a holder wouldn't even mention. And not only from girls.

He looked with dismay at the pile of tubers he'd been creating. Some still had dirt clinging to them, some were cut unevenly, some were peeled far too thickly so there was hardly any tuber left at all.

Maybe he did understand why the other candidates had such trouble with basic chores - they were all too busy thinking, too.

Last updated on the December 12th 2008

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Too Busy Thinking