Post by weetia on Sept 30, 2011 9:06:18 GMT -5
Kalena had cheerfully accepted the help of a few weyrfolk moving her meager belongings into her new quarters, but she had kept the lap harp in its battered case possessively in her arms. No one was allowed to touch it, which luckily hadn't offended anyone, since harpers were known to sometimes be cautious to the point of paranoid with their beloved instruments. Kalena certainly did love her lap harp, and she sat heavily on her empty bed after the others left the room, caressing the leather case. She finally began unfastening the case, and opened to reveal the destringed harp with cloth packed tightly into its cavity. After glancing again to make sure her door was closed, Kalena began pulling the cloth away to reveal the hard shell of a fire lizard egg. She caressed it even more lovingly than she had the harp case. "If I can keep you a secret, you might eventually be my way out of this mess," she whispered to the egg, before using the old cloth to make a nest for the egg under her cot. Based on what G'les had told her, the egg should hatch within another day. Surely she could justify spending the next day or so organizing her predecessor's paperwork from her room. The man had been legendary for his haphazard planning, and scatterbrained approach to keeping records. She would probably genuinely need that long before she took on the little students at the Weyr.
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Kalena had been completely correct: the previous harper had left his class records in such disarray that noone questioned her decision to spend the next day enclosed in her quarters. She genuinely did focus almost entirely on making sense of the chaos, making a file for each student in the Weyr, and arranging the class schedules by age. She had a little bundle in her lap, though, hidden from the door and sharing her body heat. She would feel it when it started to rock, the midmorning after her arrival, and she noticed it pretty quickly. Her eyes widening, she grabbed the meatrolls she had saved from her breakfast from the basket near the hearth, and settled the egg carefully on a pile of old clothes on the floor, curling next to it as she watched it shudder and rock until a lovely dark bronze hatched out of the shell, and she started feeding him before he could even think to voice a complaint, stroking him as she gave him the second piece of meatroll, until she had coaxed the hatchling into a deep sleep in the crook of his arm. She settled back at her desk, finally, after doing her best to clean up the mess left by the egg.
She had been surprised by how much the bronze ate, and Kalena was recalculating how much meat she would have to set aside from her meals every day to keep anyone from noticing. She sighed heavily, knowing that she needed to lose some weight anyway. This was more important than feeling her own empty belly. This was her chance to eventually doublecross her blackmailer. She cuddled the little lizard closer to her chest with her off hand while she got back to her recordkeeping. "Haki," she murmured to the little bronze, while she worked. She was realizing now that she would feel sad to go to teach while she left him curled up in her bedclothes. It was necessary, but Kalena hoped that someday it wouldn't be.
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Kalena had been completely correct: the previous harper had left his class records in such disarray that noone questioned her decision to spend the next day enclosed in her quarters. She genuinely did focus almost entirely on making sense of the chaos, making a file for each student in the Weyr, and arranging the class schedules by age. She had a little bundle in her lap, though, hidden from the door and sharing her body heat. She would feel it when it started to rock, the midmorning after her arrival, and she noticed it pretty quickly. Her eyes widening, she grabbed the meatrolls she had saved from her breakfast from the basket near the hearth, and settled the egg carefully on a pile of old clothes on the floor, curling next to it as she watched it shudder and rock until a lovely dark bronze hatched out of the shell, and she started feeding him before he could even think to voice a complaint, stroking him as she gave him the second piece of meatroll, until she had coaxed the hatchling into a deep sleep in the crook of his arm. She settled back at her desk, finally, after doing her best to clean up the mess left by the egg.
She had been surprised by how much the bronze ate, and Kalena was recalculating how much meat she would have to set aside from her meals every day to keep anyone from noticing. She sighed heavily, knowing that she needed to lose some weight anyway. This was more important than feeling her own empty belly. This was her chance to eventually doublecross her blackmailer. She cuddled the little lizard closer to her chest with her off hand while she got back to her recordkeeping. "Haki," she murmured to the little bronze, while she worked. She was realizing now that she would feel sad to go to teach while she left him curled up in her bedclothes. It was necessary, but Kalena hoped that someday it wouldn't be.
