Someday Maybe

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 14th November 2005

Characters: Tsaera
Description: Tsaera can't sleep
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 8, day 20 of Turn 3

The minutes slipped through Tsaera's fingers like flower petals; some stuck to her palms, but most flitted away on an unseen breeze. She rolled over to check the candle that burned quietly in the corner. It was distressingly lower, but not low enough yet to get out of bed. It was three in the morning, and dark.

She got out of bed, paced the room. It was exactly twenty steps from her bed to the wall, and twenty steps back again. The floor, although covered by rugs, was blessedly cool against the soles of her feet.
**This is ridiculous,** she thought as she sat back down on her bed's corner. Her blankets, light-weight and colourful, seemed washed out in the gloom. **Go back to sleep. You haven't slept more than ten candlemarks in the last two days.**

She'd never slept particularly well when Tabanirth was on the Sands.
Tsaera never knew if it was because she missed having her dragon close, or because she was party to the low level of anxiety that Tabanirth herself felt while she had eggs to guard. And then there was the beast's disease, and the trickle of candidates, and poor Tulyav. Her throat closed up and she was dangerously close to crying, and there in the dark grief felt as heavy and stifling as thick winter coats and dusty furs. **It was his time,** Tsaera told herself. It made her feel old.

The candle in the corner had burnt down a little more, counting out another five minutes. Moments. It didn't matter. Tsaera rose, suddenly finding the atmosphere in the room too close and wanting fresh air on her face. She avoided looking in the mirror as she found her sandals and a light coat, and hurried out before she accidentally saw her own grey hair or the lines on her face. Her door creaked slightly as she opened it: she'd have to get someone in to oil it soon.

The hallways were quiet at this time of the night, and Tsaera was able to get outside onto the top of the cliff without running into anyone. The air was cool and her feet found the familiar path that wound its way around the cliff face, and the moons lit her way with a pale half-light. Down below she could hear the ocean murmur against the beach, and she idly wondered if the algae would be phosphorent tonight. She wondered if Tulyav had ever seen the ocean glow.

Up in the sky, the Red Star blazed like a malevolent eye, bright even in the twin lights of the moons. When she was at the Miner's Hall as a young woman, the Red Star had been pointed out to her as a navigational tool for the skies, and Thread had been talked about as a myth, a nightmare monster to scare children with, unreal. That one little star could cause so much trouble... It was funny how life changed. Tsaera had been content as a surveyor, and happy to Stand if it meant a dragon to fly her to remote locations and carry the sensitive equipment she needed to make her maps and learn the land.
And then Tabanirth had chosen her and her world had turned upside down. Then she was Lady Weyrholder, and now Weyrwoman. Her dragon had eggs on the Sands and she lost old friends to Thread, disease, and now age. The Weyrwoman sat down on a rock and stared out over the ocean.
Beilor was setting and its light danced over the distant waves. Maybe when Tabanirth's clutch had hatched, she'd take her dragon and they'd fly out over the sea as far as they could go, just to feel the wind on skin and hide and to watch the land fall away. Tsaera's lips twisted into a wry grin. Pipe dreams. **And an old lady who should find her bed,** she told herself. But she continued to sit on the rock and stare out over the waves until the sun dyed the sky as pink as the first blush of a rose, and she didn't get up until she was sure that someone, somewhere, would have a nice pot of klah ready. Klah made it easier to face the day.

Last updated on the November 15th 2005

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Someday Maybe