Putting Up With It

Writers: Jane, Rochelle
Date Posted: 30th September 2009

Characters: R'syl, Zharesti
Description: Zharesti discusses the candidates with the Weyrlingmaster -who isn't happy about her decree for everyone of age to Stand.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 5, day 10 of Turn 5

Zharesti leaned out the door of her office and shouted.

"Weyrlingmaster!"

Better than calling his name since so many elided names sounded alike,
she thought, and Veyeth was sleeping like the dead so there was no
chance of contacting the man more discretely. And he wasn't _that_ far
away. He had only just passed her open office door and she had got up
right away to cross the room and call out to him. It wasn't as if he
was half-way across the Bowl or anything.

R'syl blinked as his title echoed off the walls of the passageway, and
turned to see Zharesti leaning out of her office behind him. "You
called, Weyrwoman?"

She waved him back toward her and did wait to speak until he was closer.
"Weyrlingmaster seemed like a better thing to yell," she admitted. "But
no need for that 'Weyrwoman' stuff." She was perfectly comfortable with
her rank but she saw no value in repetitious reminders of it. "Do you
have a moment to go over what you do with the Candidates?"

Traditionally Candidates were the Headwoman's responsibility but it was
a shared role since many of the lessons and chores of Candidacy were
given and supervised (respectively) by the Weyrlingmater staff.

"Depends on how long you need." He admitted cautiously. He had another
class to work with in a candlemark, and he wasn't sure he wanted to get
into any discussion about candidates with the Weyrwoman at the moment.

"Just an overview - so I have something to think about." She could
always do with more information. "But not if it will disrupt the
weyrlings' schedule."

"I have a class in a candlemark, but I can be brief." He conceded. She
was the Weyrwoman, after all. "What do you need to know?"

"Come in," she said, moving back into her office and waving a hand
toward the one free armchair in the midst of seemingly endless piles of
hides and papers set upon every horizontal surface. "Sit down. I want
to know the things you and your staff do with the Candidates here. Egg
visits, first feeding lessons, Weyr traditions - or do you get the
harpers to teach that one?"

He shook his head as he settled into the open chair. "No, we cover it.
All the candidate classes are taught by the my staff, and we try to
arrange for egg visits when the queens are willing. The Headwoman
oversees all the day to day details of the chores and housing, but my
staff and I are responsible for the rest of their education."

"You'll likely have a wider range of people Standing this time," Zharesti said with a ridiculous amount of innocence in her tone given that she was responsible for requiring anybody of suitable age to Stand. "So perhaps you'd better give them extra lessons on staying out of the hatchlings' way."

"I've already had to increase the classes sizes." He pointed out. "And I'm well aware of the issues they're causing." He grimaced. Fights had nearly tripled since Zharesti's announcement.

"Issues? What issues?" Her slanted eyes narrowed. "The hatchlings deserve the widest possible choice - for their own sakes - and everybody will just have to put up with it."

R'syl frowned, trying and failing to choke down his irritation at Zharesti's phrasing, and re-evaluating his estimation of the new Weyrwoman considerably lower. She sounded like a spoiled holdbrat instead of an experienced weyrwoman his age -and he was spending far too much time dealing with the repercussions of her ego trip to be tolerant of it.

"Weyrwoman, I am in charge of all the classes for the candidates, including working with the Headwoman and craftmasters to arrange appropriate schedules." He said crisply, meeting her narrowed gaze with his own. "This now entails with scheduling almost three times as many candidates than any other Weyr I know of has ever had to deal with before, with a staff comprising of mostly retired, underage, and injured riders barely adequate for our normal numbers, while _still_ dealing with regular weyrling training. What time I don't spend dealing with classes themselves is spent breaking up fights between idiots who don't want to be there, dealing with irate craftmasters, parents, and staff, and trying to keep my staff from collapsing. I haven't slept in nearly two days because I _am_ "putting up with it," Weyrwoman, and I don't appreciate the inference that I'm slacking."

"Did I suggest you were slacking?" Zharesti countered. "They'll behave better next time, once they're used to it and have grown used to the idea that they all have a duty to Pern."

"Next time?" R'syl didn't want to think about next time, and for a fleeting second he toyed with the idea of putting in his resignation then and there. "Frankly, I don't think there should be a next time. There is a reason we run Search, and not just to increase candidate numbers. There are things that dragons look for that just aren't present in most people even in a weyr, and volunteering to Stand shows a certain amount of responsibility necessary for a rider. And what's the point of forcing them? All of these people would be in the stands anyway, and I've never known a dragon to hesitate just because their rider isn't on the Sands. In the incredibly rare situation that they decide they want someone who _hasn't_ volunteered, that it."

"Well they won't be in the Stands this time," the goldrider said firmly. "They'll be on the Sands. Do you really think the defense of Pern is only for volunteers? The hatchlings will find the all the young people of the Weyr available to them and will _make_ riders out of the ones they choose."

R'syl was starting to get a headache from trying to keep his jaw from grinding. "The young people of the weyr were already available to them Weyrwoman. We were simply conserving our rather limited resources by concentrating on the most likely candidates. Besides, the dragons don't _make_ riders, _I_ do. They choose their lifemates, but the weyrlings don't train themselves. And if you continue to insist on this, I'm going to need more staff or we risk putting less than ready riders in the air because we're spending all our time dealing with the candidates." He said shortly.

"Perhaps you could let the Headwoman and her staff deal more the with Candidates. And the harpers? They're set lessons, after all."

"The Headwoman is already dealing with as much as they can, and I've been discussing it with the Harpers, but they have to understand the material and we don't have any time to teach them so I still have to have a staff member in there to answer questions."

"Well you'll have all the bumps in the process ironed out for next time, won't you," Zharesti said calmly. This bronzerider didn't seemed to be inclined to rise to the challenges of his appointment and was proving more than a little tetchy. "Did you say something about a class you had to teach?"

"I did." R'syl agreed shortly, pushing himself to his feet. He wasn't nearly as tired now, and her dismissal just now was simply aggravating him more. Faranth, but he was glad Usaeth hadn't flown her gold! Bad enough that he had to put up with her irrational, spoiled brat behavior... Biting back the retort he _really_ wanted to say for the sake of keeping his job, he forced himself to settle with "Have a good day, Weyrwoman. My regards to Veyeth."

"Thank you, and I will."

Last updated on the October 17th 2009

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Putting Up With It