Chap. 163 B'rost's Return

Chap. 163 B'rost's return

He was finishing breakfast when he heard a familiar voice say "Hello, K'ndar!" behind him.

It was B'rost, with a tray laden with food.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked.

Flabbergasted, K'ndar could only nod dumbly.

B'rost sat and began to eat.

After a few moments of watching, K'ndar saw how thin the blue rider was, and how he was gobbling as if he'd not eaten in a month.

He was torn. He wanted to head out on Raventh, go exploring. But his sudden re-appearance demanded some answers from the prodigal B'rost.

B'rost looked up and could see it. He paused.

"You're on your way to somewhere?" he said.

K'ndar nodded.

"I won't keep you, then."

K'ndar felt confusion and aggravation all in the same vexing moment.

"Right. You vanish like a dragon without warning and weeks later show up and I'm not supposed to wonder?"

"I know," B'rost said, between mouthfuls.

K'ndar wondered if the other was messing with him for some unknown reason. Shaff it, I want to go…

You won't be able to relax as long as you're wondering all these wonders. So talk to him and then we can still go exploring. Rath is here, he ate the scraps the fire lizards missed on a two day old kill, and then went to sleep. He said he was too tired to hunt. He looks exhausted and as if he's not been oiled in over a month. Raventh said.

That's about how long they've been gone. Is Earth with him?

No. He didn't say a thing about her. Just licked the bones clean and fell asleep by the skeleton.

B'rost's eating had slowed, and several minutes later, he sighed and put down his fork. He'd left not even a crumb.

"Done?" K'ndar asked.

B'rost nodded.

K'ndar collected their trays and dishes and returned them, then sat down with a mug of klah.

B'rost took a sip, but it was obvious that, for the moment, he was satiated.

"By the egg, you ate enough to fill a dragon. WHAT ….

"It's the first full meal I've had in a month," B'rost said.

"No doubt. You're rail thin and Raventh said Rath was so tired he couldn't hunt, he licked the bones clean from a two day old skeleton. WHAT in…"

"It's a long story, K'ndar, and I know you're probably pissed that we left without so much as good bye."

"You're right, there, and I'm not going to apologize for prying. Why did you just skyhoot off without a bit of notice, where is Greta, what have you been up to?"

B'rost sighed. "Come on, let's go out to the firepit, so we're not taking up room, and we can talk a little more privately," he said, standing up.

Exasperated, but intrigued, K'ndar agreed.

The sun felt good on his shoulders. It was coming on fall, and while the day would warm up, still, there was a chill in the early morning air. The firepit, while not active, would still have coals. He stirred them up until a small fire re-ignited.

"Speak," K'ndar ordered.

"I'm sorry, well, I am sorry that we left just like that. It was Greta's idea, she insisted I go along with her. But I'm not going to apologize for her," B'rost said. "I should have said SOMETHING to somebody, I guess," he said.

"Where is she?" K'ndar demanded, wondering why he was so worried about the girl.

"I…I don't know."

"What? You don't know? What the shaff…"

"I know you're pissed. It was just so sudden, you know? She said, Come on, let's get out of here, you and me, I'm bored. SO we…just did."

K'ndar lost his temper. B'rost had always been rash, taking risks without thinking things through beforehand. Maybe it was his place to check him, like a fractious horse. He knew he was probably the only one who could get through to B'rost. Maybe, he thought, I'm the only friend B'rost had. Or Greta.

"B'rost, your impulsiveness, this thoughtlessness is going to get you killed someday," K'ndar snapped.

"It almost did, K'ndar. It almost did." B'rost said, and his tone sobered K'ndar.

"First, we headed just, everywhere. Like a feather on the wind. She led the way, she chose where we went. I swear, she knows every spot on this planet. She's from Northern, and we went from hold to hold, you'd think she was a Wanderer. Every day it was move, move. Almost as if she were searching for something. I've never known someone so antsy. Always ready to move on, first here, then there, flitting like a fly from one spot to the next. We'd sleep outside. We'd eat what we'd find, fruit, berries. Sometimes we'd even steal a hunk of meat from one of the dragon's kills, but that wasn't often, because, well, we didn't have permission to hunt on other weyrs or holds. Sometimes we even raided a farmer's orchard. Sometimes we'd hide the dragons and walk to a farmer's hold and beg for something to eat. Most times we weren't welcome, people thought we were either Holdless bums or raiders and now I know why some holders dislike them. Sometimes they'd set their dogs onto us, but Roany would chase them off.
Greta loved it. She loved what she called 'the nomads' life. But me? I know, now, I don't want that life."

"But…why?" K'ndar asked, now entranced.

"I'm getting there," B'rost said, rubbing his face, "I'm still sort of confused myself. It's like I was mesmerized by her, by the, oh, the thrill of adventuring, of doing something with someone who, yeah, you're right, is riskier than me. I liked her, K'ndar, I've never gotten to know a girl as much as her, and we both love geology. Oh, we have seen some spots on Pern that are just AMAZING for a geologist. There were places I'd happily live in, just give me my hammer and a specimen bag and I could spend a year there. I had to give up collecting specimens, I had two bags full of rocks and we were moving, moving.

But part of it was, she knew Earth was coming into heat, and Greta didn't want to…um,…welllllll, she didn't want to have sex with anyone."

"Oh." K'ndar said. Warily, he asked, "She knew about your being gay, right?"

"Yes, she knew. I think that's why she insisted on me coming with her. She said it, she said I was safe because even if our dragons mated, which they did, I wouldn't want to have sex with her."

He shook his head. "She was right, K'ndar, but it made me feel, well, like I was being used, like I'd been chosen, not for who I was but what. Chosen!! Like I didn't have feelings? Like I was a gelding? I liked her a LOT, but not in that way, even when Earth and Rath mated," he said, reddening.

"Did you feel anything? Any…um, desire for her?"

"Oh, shards, yes…but, well, K'ndar, you're straight, I don't think it's something anyone who is can understand. But let me get to the end, and then you can go do what you had planned because I need a bath and then I need to get some sleep," B'rost said.

K'ndar looked at the sun, it was still early enough that he and Raventh could do just that.

"About a week ago, she said, let's go to Far Western, I want to show you something. She had the most phenomenal memory, K'ndar, I think she had every cairn, every dragonstone, every coordinate in her head. She even said it, she said, "there's no place on this planet that I can't visualize," and by the egg, she could. She had this gift, like an artist or a musician, all she had to do was imagine it and we'd pop into the spot. We even went to the islands, they're beautiful, K'ndar, you should see them. The sea is so clear you can see meters and meters to the bottom. And she got us there that just by thinking that she'd been there."

"Had she been there before?"

"No! That's what I'm saying, maybe she looked at a map? But she said she'd never been to one physically. There was no cairn, no dragonstone, no obvious coordinate that I could see. By then, I'd seen her gift, how it worked, so when she pushed the image into Earth, Rath picked it up and boom, we were there, on this beautiful, empty beach. When she dismounted, it was like she'd won something, she said, "One left," and she didn't explain."

He sighed and sat down on one of the benches. K'ndar joined him, still wanting to head out on on Raventh, but snared by B'rost's account.

"So we went to Far Western continent. She wanted to 'see more of it,' from your expedition. You're right, it's interesting, but it's not habitable, at least in my opinion. It's not even geologically interesting. We spent a few days there, watching how the new telescope is coming along. It's a good spot you found, K'ndar, I think it's the best ever for a telescope, and I'm no astronomer," B'rost said, "it's in a seismically calm zone, they won't have to worry about quakes."

"Don't give us the credit, it was the Sea Dragon's captain who found it, after all the time we'd spent surveying," K'ndar said, wondering if he knew about the cave where they'd found the opals.

"She said that. I was fascinated by how the scope is going up. We also went to that big caisson you found, on the northern side of the strait, and I'm sorry but I can't figure out what it was built for, either," B'rost said.

"Did you, um, go inland? Like way into the interior?"

"No, she said there was nothing there, just willows and stuff so thick there's no place for a dragon to land. She said it was the most boring, featureless landscape she'd ever seen," B'rost said.

"She's right," K'ndar said, relieved. He wasn't worried about B'rost finding out about the opals as much as him blabbing to the world about it, provoking a treasure-hunting rush. Far Western needed to stay wild.

"Anyway, after that, we went back to the first telescope and she talked the staff into letting her look through it. It's incredibly powerful, far more than the little one we have here. She spent almost an hour just looking through it, the staff had to shoo us out of the observatory, you know? I mean, I looked through it. I saw the moons and the Yokohama, but what's there to see? It's boring, really. But she looked at the Yokohama for almost that whole time. And after that she got strange, quiet, like she was upset with me.

We were lucky, the staff let us sleep in one of the rooms they had set aside for visitors, because they remembered her from the expedition. We even got a few good meals from their kitchen. I helped clean up for them, to repay them. They're nice people there, but they get so many yobs there, people who just want to bother them, they usually have to run people off.

Greta got very irritable, testy, like when Earth was in heat. I was afraid, K'ndar, afraid of her wanting something from me that I wasn't willing or able to provide. She didn't want to talk about what was on her mind, and I finally lost my temper and said I was tired of this, I'm ready to go home. She said, that was fine with her, she was done with me, anyway. Then she left, and I fell asleep." He shook his head.

"The next morning, she was gone and I figured she'd left without me. I told the staff I was leaving, thank you for putting us up, did they know where Greta was? and no one knew.

Rath said Earth had gone between, but Roany was with him. With Rath, not Earth. Roany was crying."

""Crying""?

B'rost nodded.

"He didn't go with Earth and Greta?" K'ndar asked, astounded.

"No. He was crying, I don't know much about fire lizards but I've never heard one make that sound. It sounded like, well, like crying. He was in a frenzy, searching, popping in and out of between, calling, looking everywhere, like a mother dog does when her puppy is missing. He was frantic, K'ndar. He kept looking for Greta, Rath said, he was out of his mind. He asked Roany where was his mum, where was Earth and all he could get out of Roany was darkness, and a bright light."

"Then, Roany vanished and didn't come back. Rath said he'd gone between. Forever."

K'ndar gulped.

"And Greta? Earth?"

B'rost shook his head.

"I hung around all day, waiting for her, wondering what was going on. Then I figured it out."

"What? Figured what out?"

"She said something, once, long before we left the weyr, about there being only 'two spots left on her list'. I didn't know what she meant, at the time. Now I think that we did all that moving around like, well, like it was a contest of hers, a hunt, you know? Marking off the spots she'd always wanted to see? When we landed on one of the islands she seemed..gratified. As if she'd won something. Then we took off again. And now I think I know where she went, and I have a feeling it didn't end up well," he sighed.

"Why?" K'ndar asked, feeling an icicle growing in his stomach.

"Rath said he couldn't hear Earth. You know what I think? I think…I think Greta tried to get to the Yokohama," B'rost said.

He began to cry.