Amidst Enemies (Caden)

[Requiem]

He balanced Riaren on a hip. The toddler was asleep. Teri, however, was quite awake and eagerly trying to pull free from his grasp. This was especially difficult when she still was a little unsteady on her feet and he kept on having to right her as he picked his way slowly through the kitchens. (Her eyes on those knives made it more than clear he should not be letting go of this tiny hand anytime soon. She was way too enthralled.) PMS, at least, was perched right on her head and calming her down a little. "Maman, maman, pie!" M'ta glanced sidelong at the toddler.

"R'wign really needs to stop spoiling you." His weyrmate's sweet tooth. "Veggies first. Are you going to ask them nicely for food? They won't give you any if you don't ask." The words were right, but the emotion behind them was lacking. Dark circles under his eyes made it clear that M'ta wasn't sleeping well. Behruth was alive. Miraculously. But he really wasn't...okay. The brownrider couldn't even tear himself away from the brown at night to return to his family. He was too worried that he'd fall asleep and...

But the man cared too much about these kids and his weyrmate to ignore them completely. Ruth was sleeping restlessly now, with a full infirmary staff around him. Including R'wign. So the least M'ta could do was take the kids for some lunch. He could be thankful that Riaren was sedate, if nothing else.

Teri certainly wasn't. Her nose was all scrunched up. "I don't wanna. Nasty greens nasty."

M'ta leaned against a counter, shifting Riaren on his hip so he could crouch next to his little adopted daughter. "You're going to be good for me in here. Remember what I told you? PMS is a privelege. If you're bad he'll come with me at night."

This was usually an effective method of getting Teri back in hand, but not today. Her small brow only furrowed further. "Maman gone. Why? Want see Ruthie. See Ruthie now."

[Ruby]

Caden was still in some sort of disbelieving fog. She spent most of her time outside Lessons with Nitrath, curled up with the baby Gold, Nitrath asking her question after question and delighting in every answer. The pair had a single weyr, which was probably a good thing - their chatter would have driven a roommate mad, even if it was mostly mental. They pretty much only left the room when Nitrath needed to be fed. Caden headed to the dining hall once a day, bringing back enough food to last her all night. It was the worst twenty minutes of Caden's day, but she did what she had to do.

Even when she was out of the room, though, she couldn't stop looking over her shoulder, poking and prodding at her link to Nitrath just for the pleasure of the Gold's attention. With Smath she had had the same sense of surprise, but the Blue had never been especially loving, and to a twelve year old 'boy' he was practically expected. Never, never in a million years did Caden actually believe she would reimpress, much less to a gold. She would have been less surprised if Nitrath had been Bronze. This glowing presence, so distinctly feminine, was totally foreign to Caden. A gruff blue calling her a pitiful excuse for a pussy when she wouldn't go swimming in the dead of winter? Sure. A Gold who wanted to know Caden's every thought, and who accepted and loved every one? That was something else entirely. It was quite an adjustment.

Unfortunately, right now was one of those times when Caden was out of the barracks, Nitrath drowsily replying to Caden's incessant questioning. Want me to bring something back? Looks like there's herdbeast for dinner, I'm sure I could find the head. Brains? Smath - She broke off, as she always did when the blue came up. Mmm? Smath what? You know I love to hear about him, silly girl. You love him, so I do too. That logic seemed airtight to Caden, but she still didn't quite believe the gold, expecting some sort of jealousy. The idea made Nitrath laugh.

Well, then, Smath always liked the brains. You might- "Sorry!" Caden had tripped over someone small, distracted by her dragon. Now she jumped back, interrupting herself and dashing after the bowl she'd dropped. It was only once she straightened up again, bowl in hand, that she realized who she'd run into - not a small person, a crouching one. "Mm-tuh?" she asked, looking down - far down - at the rider. He was the one, in the invasion, who'd been caught and tormented by Z'ves. Her eyebrows pulled together as she took in the little boy on his hip, and the girl he was speaking with. "I didn't know you had kids?"

[Requiem]

M'ta had a few questions about Teri that he needed to ask. She was...different. Two-turn-olds were not supposed to be this perceptive. Of course, she was still processing it like a child, but that she knew where his worry was even though she hadn't been told... "Okay, Teri-bug. After lunch we'll go see 'Ruth together. But I need you to eat for me first, okay? He's very tired right now. He might be awake enough to talk to you after you eat."

The girl's scrunched-up face was beginning to smooth into happier lines when M'ta noticed the boy wandering toward them with that distant look on his face. Normally it would have been a simple matter of stepping aside. Then Teri would have been run into, though. An arm went around her protectively and he turned his back to the wandering person.

"You okay, Teri-bug?" The girl nodded. His braid was caught up in her small hands and she was peering at Caden curiously.

"She looks like a boy." Teri's nose crinkled. "Feel strange. Two?" The toddler didn't notice M'ta's confused look. She poked at the mind attached to Caden's just as she might have tugged on a person's pantleg to get their attention. Hi, hi! Where friend? It was too interesting not to ask. It felt a little like Auntie Meira, Riaren's mother. There were two but one was far away. Only this was two dragons. How did a person have two dragons?

The brownrider blinked up at the woman he'd mistaken for a man so many times. "Caden. Hi." He was still trying to figure out why Teri was talking about feeling strange, but he managed a mostly genuine smile for Caden just the same. (He'd gotten her name after the siege.) "My weyrmate's R'wign. Riaren's the child he had with Meira. Teri's our daughter." He set about extracting her tiny fingers from his braid. The man trusted that Caden would put together that Teri was a fosterling from that. There was no way he'd say anything along the lines of her not being his when she was right here. She was his, anyway. Just not biologically.

Riaren really wasn't. R'wign was so afraid of losing his son that he was...possessive. It led to M'ta feeling like he couldn't claim the child as his. Meira's and R'wign's. He was more like...an uncle. No matter. "Congratulations, by the way. How is Nitrath?" There was more behind the question than he actually said. The poor little queen had to see her clutchmates killed within minutes of her hatching.

Teri's eyes were wide, though. "Nitrath sad? Why?" M'ta blinked down at her again. Where was the child getting this?

[Ruby]

The little girl's statement made a corner of Caden's mouth quirk up, and she adjusted her tunic - still loose cut, and a man's - moving it to cover her hips. As if her Goldweyrling's knot didn't give her away already. "Smart one," she said, speaking to M'ta as much as to Teri, then changing her focus all the way to the child added, "No fooling you. Dunno about two, though. Only one of me." Exchanging a furrowed brow for M'ta's confused look, she shrugged, as if to say, 'Well, she's a kid, they hardly ever make sense anyway.'

She actually startled when she felt Nitrath's attention refocus, though. Something about it was different than Caden had ever felt, not to mention that Nitrath was never distracted if she was paying attention to something (usually Caden, when she was awake). A moment of change, and then Nitrath spoke. My friend? I am all alone, here, until Mine returns. Caden's eyebrows pulled down tighter as she sent a pulse in the Gold's direction, asking What?

Nitrath sounded as puzzled as Caden did, saying simply, There is another voice. She spoke to me; I spoke back. I do not know who it is.[/i] As an afterthought, she added, Who are you?[/i] trying to find the mystery speaker, but unsure where to focus her thoughts now that she wasn't simply responding. Caden, happy to leave the questioning to her dragon, shook her head slightly and turned her attention back to M'ta. "Sorry about..." she apologized again, waiving her hand vaguely at the floor before falling silent, letting M'ta answer her semi-question without interruption. Doing her best to keep a slight frown off her face when she put together the fact that his weyrmate was a man, she tried a smile on Riaren, getting no response out of the sleepy baby. Typical.

Wiggling her fingers absentmindedly at the baby that M'ta hadn't really claimed, she said, "I like them." Well enough, anyway; Caden had never been much of a fan of babies, not even baby dragons. Then again, neither Nitrath nor Smath had ever acted like much of a baby. Speaking of the Gold... "Oh, uh, thanks. She's - she seems to be doing well enough." Caden had revised what she was about to say with a little self-conscious smile - seriously, she already knew that Nitrath was and would be her favorite topic of conversation from now until forever. Well. Second only to one, and Nitrath understood. Either way, M'ta probably didn't want to hear about how the gold was eating exceptionally well, growing every day, and even... well, her digestion was certainly working right. "Very well."

Teri, apparently, didn't agree. "... Sad?" Caden echoed, consulting the gold. Well, it is true, after all,[/i] Nitrath said, just a hint of wistfulness in her voice. Both so young, and yet we have both lost... "M'ta? Is your daughter talking to my dragon?"

[Requiem]

"Not you," Teri responded, wrinkling her nose. Silly 'dults just didn't understand, did they? PMS crooned to her sympathetically. No, not at all. Still, the child smiled at being called smart. Even colored a little bit and half-ducked around M'ta's knee. Her hands wrapped around his leg and she peered up at Caden shyly. The brownrider couldn't resist a soft snort at her behavior. Teri? Shy? Hardly.

But then, did she really have a chance considering the men who were raising her?

The other, the girl insisted to the gold, but she didn't try to explain any further. She wouldn't have asked if she knew what it was she was feeling, after all. Even though the gold was no longer directing her words at Teri, the girl had no trouble hearing her. It sounded like someone playing hide-and-seek, calling for you while facing the complete wrong direction. She did just as she did when they were wrong in hide-and-seek. Giggled. Over here! I'm bug.

The brownrider wasn't completely oblivious to the shadow that crossed Caden's face. It was a mild enough reaction and he was polite enough to ignore it. No doubt she'd have a much worse reaction to seeing them together. R'wign wasn't shy about his affections in the slightest, and M'ta had gradually become more and more comfortable with it. (At least having the Wastelanders here had more or less squelched R'wign's exhibitionist tendencies.)

The man laughed at her assessment. "Most people do. Especially when the kids aren't theirs." He ruffled Teri's hair. "These two are good, though." He might have said something more - something polite and meaningless in response to Nitrath being well - but Caden's question caught him flatfooted. "What? Why-" But his daughter was giggling again and he knew that look. It didn't do much to help with his confusion, though.

Ruth? he ventured, feeling the brown stirring on the edge of wakefulness. Mmm? Teri's never spoken to you, has she? All the time. What? Why didn't you tell me? It didn't seem important? I talk to other people so why shouldn't they talk to me? Because people can't, Ruth. That doesn't sound right. Teri-little can.

M'ta resisted facepalming and turned his attention on his daughter. "Are you talking to Nitrath, Teri-bug?"

The girl tilted her head to one side. "No. Sunshine dragon. She doesn't know where the other is. Do you know?" the child asked Caden.

[Ruby]

Caden was pretty much poleaxed by what was going on. She wasn't the quickest at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. It was always easier when people just explained things. She went through the paces of answering M'ta, agreeing with his assessment about children, but it was soon clear she was as distracted as he was, if not more. Her eyes were the blank of human-dragon communication, but she wasn't saying anything; instead, she was listening, straining for some other dragon-voice she'd never hear.

Nitrath, on the other hand, could easily be described as intelligent. While Caden fumbled around for a phantom Dragon, anything to explain away what seemed to be impossible, Nitrath applied her generous helping of smarts and powers of deduction. Bug? Behruths's bug?[/i] He had just called her that, after all. Then, her tone grew warm, her mindvoice seeming to 'focus' on Teri better now that she knew who she was talking to. Lovely to meet you. She left it at that, though, more interested in borrowing Caden's ears so she could hear the human end of the conversation.

Caden opened her mouth to stutter out some confused answer at Teri, but Nitrath had finally figured out what was going on here. Teri could speak like a Dragon spoke, simple enough; the question about the 'other' might have been perplexing to a lesser dragon, but Nitrath had an idea. Interrupting Hers with the bubbling laughter she so often employed, and just momentarily opening her voice up to include M'ta, she explained, I am Nitrath, Bug, although I believe I prefer Sunshine dragon. The other one - Caden, we spoke of Smath. Could that be the 'other'?[/i]

The Weyrling's jaw tightened, her eyes shifting away. "Don't know," she grumbled, although whether she was answering Teri's question or Nitrath's was unclear. No matter what, she did not want to talk about it. Teri was right; she was sad. Shards.

[Requiem]

Hi! the girl chirped back to Nitrath. Her small face screwed up at all the colors. (Teri didn't really see emotions. It was just the way her mind could understand the tastes and scents of feelings all around her. And why not? She knew what it tasted like when Behruth's eyes tinted orange. Only natural to associate the color with the emotion.) The child hadn't meant to make waves like this, so to speak. Her small hands fisted in the fabric of M'ta's pants.

For the brownrider's part, he found the baby gold's voice in his head a bit surprising. Oh, sure, other dragons spoke to him on occasion. Probably more than to other people solely because Behruth was a very friendly dragon and spoke to everyone. No elitism there. Sometimes dragons felt the need to return the favor for one reason or another. Still, there was something vaguely intrusive about a dragon in his mind that wasn't bonded to him.

There was no disguising the protective gesture of the arm circling around Teri. M'ta's eyes quickly scanned the kitchen for any signs of people taking interest in this conversation. A couple curious glances made his jaw tighten slightly. "Maman. Sowwy," the girl whispered, her head half-buried into his leg. The man smiled slightly, masking himself belatedly just as he had to do with Behruth.

"It's okay." A glance at Caden's face made him rethink that. Smath. He certainly wasn't a mindreader - like his daughter seemed to be - but it wasn't much of a mental leap. Had she been dragonless, then? M'ta caught up Teri. They could worry about food later. The man nodded toward the tunnels leading outside. Too many curious faces about making him nervous. No one ever said that the brownrider wasn't ridiculously paranoid. "Caden. If you'd follow." He pivoted and moved briskly through the kitchens.

Feel sunny. Bug glad sunshine dragon like name. That and Teri wasn't sure she could say the other name anyway. Her arms were wrapped around her father's neck. Yes, Smath is other. Where Smath? Caddy miss him.

[Ruby]

M'ta wasn't the only paranoid one around. Caden had started glancing over her shoulder as soon as Teri had displayed any oddness, and that only got worse as things got more confusing. As such, she was more than ready to tail M'ta out of the kitchens no matter what it was he wanted, food or no food. Caden felt Nitrath's physical shift as the Gold moved to leave her couch, coming to meet them wherever they were going. No, Caden commanded, not quite realizing how much authority she had over the Gold until Nitrath sent a disappointed pulse her direction. Don't want you wandering around the Weyr alone, she clarified, trying to keep the Dragon calm. Didn't want her Gold to let any more secrets slip... not that many were more important than that one.

Keeping her head up and working on wrestling all of her emotions into a steel grip - not for Teri's sake, she hadn't put two and two together there, but for her own - Caden lengthened her own stride a little so she was walking next to the shorter man, not behind him. With her mind elsewhere, she didn't realize that people were actually moving out of their way, but they were. Drudges were usually good about getting in the way of angry Riders, and Caden certainly looked the part. Mine - Nitrath began, trying not to sound overly concerned, but Caden cut her off and kept walking.

Not sure what to do about her brooding Rider, Nitrath turned her attention instead to Teri, doing her best to keep... feeling sunny. Nitrath being Nitrath, it wasn't hard. Smath is... gone? she asked, the innocence in her tone making it clear she didn't really understand what had happened to the Blue. She was far younger than Teri, after all, despite the fact that Nitrath had never really seemed young. Gone enough that Caden is mine, now. She paused to see if Caden would supply an explanation, but none was forthcoming, so the dragon simply agreed, She does miss him.[/i]

[Requiem]

Little Teri did not really understand what it was the sunshine dragon was trying to tell her. She didn't know much about dragons and people and that bond. The child could tell which dragon and which human went together even when they weren't nearby - as she'd shown - but that was observation. Not comprehension. The little one gave Nitrath the equivalent of a mental hug and let the subject drop with a quiet, Sowwy, that was more like a brush of a feather than an actual word.

And was she ever sorry. The emotions off Maman were nothing like that off Caddy and she felt she'd done something very wrong.

M'ta didn't end up going altogether far. He had a Teri and a Riaren with him, after all. But he knew the passages in the Weyr intimately, something that hadn't changed even as more of the weyrs were filled with strangers. It had been the task Ka'yrs had set him. So finding an empty weyr was nothing, and in no more than a couple minutes he'd come to stand against the wall, setting Teri up on an abandoned table. The brownrider leaned against it himself. Mostly because she still was refusing to let him go. And to look at Caden. Her face was buried into the side of his arm.

"I'm sorry." His dark eyes focused on her intently, as if trying to read just what was going on behind the tight features of her face. "I didn't know..." About Teri's gift, Caden's loss, any of it. He had nothing to say to her, really, that wouldn't sound thin. M'ta had only lost a flit in the way of mindmates. Oh, he had his own regrets, a past darker than most. R'wign made a point of saying that he didn't hold anything against M'ta for all the things he'd done pre-Selenitas...which was kind of ironic. R'wign saying that meant they were things that the healer thought he should hold against M'ta. But that was another thing entirely.

"I...we really shouldn't mention any of this." Especially if Caden wasn't here quite legally. And Teri's ability...that couldn't get out. The girl would either be feared for the dangers she posed or used, and either situation made M'ta's heart ache.

[Ruby]

Caden hovered in the center of the empty weyr, not sure what to do with herself. M'ta had taken over the table, and everything else was either too far away or too close to lean on comfortably. Oh well, maybe this way she wouldn't have to be here long, and could flee back to Nitrath... or maybe somewhere she could see the blue smudge of ocean on the horizon, to meditate or contemplate or whatever until she calmed down. Had to calm down. She was upsetting unupsettable Nitrath, and even the kid seemed to be picking up on it.

She did a good job keeping whatever emotions she was feeling off her face, though, bottling them up as effectively as ever. She couldn't quite meet M'ta's eyes, though, keeping her eyes cast down and to the side. Didn't stop her from responding to him, though. Her hands found a familiar position at her sides, her shoulders squared as if on their own - her stance was clearly military, at attention, ready for battle. "Not your fault. No one here - no one Selenitas, anyway. It's their fault." She tilted her chin up a little on the emphasized word, eyes seeking the North. Fort, Benden, Wasteland. Everywhere but here.

Releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding, she relaxed a little, slumping. "Not your fault," she repeated, with a tiny shake of her head. "Hardly anyone does. S'rei, Kaegan..." That was it, pretty much. It wasn't something she liked to mention for exactly this reason. "And I'm usually good at keeping my mouth shut." Her eyes found Teri, even though she wasn't sure that's what M'ta meant. She couldn't help but soften a little, now that she was looking at the kid - Caden had about 0 maternal instinct, but it sounded like the little girl had a tough life ahead of her. Secrets and lies from practically birth - sound familiar?

[Requiem]

Their fault. M'ta said nothing to that. The northern world that was such a part of him was one that he hated, though it could be said that he'd never really had much of an opportunity to see any of the good points to it. Except for that small little thing called survival. It wasn't like he appreciated the south much more; they willingly ignored anything that didn't fit into their ideal world until it smashed them in the face. Maybe they hadn't provoked the northern forces, but they'd done nothing to keep it at bay, either. The situation at Selenitas was not solely the fault of the Wastelanders and never had been. But he knew the hatred just the same; he'd lost and killed and darkened his soul with all the rest of them. Though he thanked whatever powers there might have been that he hadn't lost Behruth.

Yet. The brown's wings weren't healing as they should, and that prospect...it was what devoured his sleepless nights. If they rid themselves of innocent hatchlings that couldn't fly, what would they do with a dragon who'd attacked their own?

Pushing the thought aside, he nodded. M'ta looked down at Teri, then offered Caden a wan smile. "I appreciate it. This...and everything else. I need to apologize for what happened..." Even if it seemed that maybe it was meant to. The brownrider had more than enough reason to believe that dragons had one mindmate and one alone. He'd waited through five failed hatchings before Behruth Impressed to him. He believed that Nitrath was meant for Caden, that Caden had to be here. But it didn't make the circumstances for her staying any better.

"I'll make sure Teri understands not to talk about... We won't let your secret get out. I need to talk to R'wign about this. He's the one who knows these things." Talking to himself now, clearly; his eyes had taken on a distant look. They refocused on her after a long moment. "If you need anything, feel free to contact me at any time. But I should probably let you go so I can get the kids fed and get back to 'Ruth." The brown was awake and hurting more than usual; his presence in M'ta's mind was very subdued.

The brownrider didn't mention the fact that Caden looked like she wanted to escape at any moment. He didn't move, not wanting her to think he was rushing her along and in case she had anything she wanted to talk about...but his mind was already back with his brown. With a new worry to add to the rest. Teri. How long had she been talking to dragons, and how many had mentioned it to their riders?