Prompting Part XXIV

[sherlockbbc_fic]

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Fill: Who tries, Does (6/?)

[anonymous]

He woke in a cold sweat to find Maryth twitching beside him, caught in her own bad dreams. He soothed her gently until his own shaking subsided enough for him to fall back asleep.

The morning dawned and J’ohn forced himself to walk to the Weyrleader’s chambers, dreading the meeting. It had been made clear to him by L’sar that all the blame for the incident at Igen Weyr was going to be put onto him, and he dreaded to think what M’croft was going to think of him. A green rider who had started a fight with a bronze rider. It was unthinkable.

A woman who was unmistakeably the Fort Weyrwoman, Anthea, was sitting in the antechamber, poring over hides with a curious looking contraption. She didn’t look up as he came in but waved him through and he felt a little at a loss. Jenfa, the Igen Weyrwoman had been a formidable woman, but she had always talked to you when you passed her. She had been interested and involved in everything in the Weyr.

“Come in, J’ohn,” a voice commanded and J’ohn walked in.

M’croft looked exactly like J’ohn remembered him from his only previous memory of the man, he was not wearing wherhide, but the clothes he did wear looked no less like battle gear, even if they would not have been out of place on a Lord Holder at a feast. He smiled at J’ohn, but there did not seem to be any honest feeling behind the expression, in fact, J’ohn had the idea that the same smile was turned on anybody who walked through that door, from holders refusing to tithe to weyrlings who had allowed their dragon to overfeed, even the Weyrwoman, perhaps.

“Please sit down,” M’croft said, indicating one of the ornately carved wooden chairs. J’ohn did not take it. He could feel his leg protest, but he refused to give in. This was not a man to show weakness in front of, he could already sense that.

“Sir,” he said, instead. That made the Weyrleader’s smile twitch a little, as though he had had a moment of genuine emotion, but it was gone as soon as it had come.

“J’ohn, I did not bring you here to unsettle you in any way. Please sit. Your leg must be hurting you.”

“I was stabbed in the shoulder, not the leg,” J’ohn replied, tersely.

“And yet it is your leg that causes you pain,” M’croft said. “I have always found it fascinating how the brain works.” J’ohn couldn’t reply to that, and he wasn’t sure he was meant to. He clearly wasn’t, because M’croft continued on. “As I said, I did not bring you here to unsettle you, but you are a new rider in my Weyr, however unusually that situation may have arisen, and I find it is always best to talk to new riders.”

Is he being serious? J’ohn asked Maryth.

Diogeneth says nothing, she said, sounding a little confused. J’ohn noticed the smile on M’croft’s face twitch again.

“You have noticed already, of course, that the ways of Fort Weyr are not the ways of other Weyrs.”

“I have,” J’ohn agreed. He still wasn’t sure what this conversation was about. It didn’t feel like a ‘getting to know you’ chat, but it didn’t feel exactly like a warning chat either.

“I have always felt that to limit people to certain roles based merely on the colour of the dragon that they Impressed is a closed-minded and short-sighted way of doing things. While it is true that no blue has ever yet proved to have the stamina to fly a queen, it does not necessarily follow that no blue ever will. A brown rider as a Weyrleader is not only a possibility, I would suggest that it is, in fact, an inevitability.”

J’ohn blinked.

“Is this about L’strade?” he asked.

“Will you feel comfortable under the command of a brown rider?” M’croft asked.

“I don’t see how that’s any of my business.”

“You will be in his wing.”

“I barely know the man, or his dragon. I could hardly make a decision about his leadership skills based on five minutes of having met him.”

“I have met others who have thought they could,” M’croft commented.

“I’m sure if he managed to get the job then he’s good at it…” especially as he rode a brown, to be honest. M’croft was right about the colour prejudices in Weyrs, it seemed more likely that L’strade was overqualified for his position given the problems he must have had getting it.

“Excellent. Just a few extra addenda,” M’croft said, looking down at the papers in front of him.