His parents decided that he was too tender to be of any use where they lived, working on a metal-crafter's forge was something that slender Tilmat just couldn't do to any degree. But he often showed interest in helping out with the blisters and the scrapes and the burns, and soon he developed a good relationship with the local Journeyman Healer.
Having been sent to Mama Tani's Fosterlings when he was 11 turns old, Tilmat is now 15 and studying hard.
With his eyes cast up into the sky, however, Tilmat knows that a good weyr needs a good healer. That dragons are hard to tend and difficult work is something he knows well, but he always tried doing the hard work that his father set out for him, before being taken off of it.
"There. Don't do anything hard, don't lift anything with that arm, or the stitches will come out." He warned. Then, as the patient left the healer's weyr, Tilmat began putting the items away. The Journeyman noted that Tilmat made sure everything was clean, carefully packed, and in the proper place before shutting the small kit.
"Good job," he said. "If we weren't so far from the Healer's Hall, I'd say you should be up for a better class. I can't give you much more of an education without introducing you to the Masters."
Tilmat nodded, his silky black hair falling into his leaf green eyes. "I know that, sir. But I want to help as I can. And I'm needed at the Fosterling cothold, too."
"Squirmy kids," the Journeyman chuckled. "They can be the worst patients!"
"And the best," Tilmat thought about the little squeaker named Oryn who had arrived with a pair of scrapes on his knees and had the talent for getting into messes every afternoon like clockwork. He always liked treating Oryn because he was genuinely thankful. Once those scrapes no longer hurt, once the bleeding stopped, Oryn was on his way again.
That dreamy look on Tilmat's face caught the healer's eye again and made him laugh. "Go on home now, lad. You're going to be in for a surprise tomorrow, though."
"Why is that?" Tilmat asked.
"We've a dragon coming along. To deliver supplies. You can be here, can't you?"
With a broad grin, showing off his big, uneven teeth, Tilmat eagerly added, "yes SIR!"
He bolted away, into the light woods beyond the healer's weyr. The cothold was nearby, but it was late by the time he got home. Mama Tani knew where he had been, but scolded him anyway.
"There may be Thread falling and here you come in all alone..." She said, but her tone wasn't serious.
"There will be a dragon coming, Mama. To the healer's." When Tilmat said that, Tani looked at him with her soft, beautiful eyes. He was to leave her, she thought. So quickly. He wasn't even grown, standing only as tall as her shoulder. He would never be a very big lad, but...
Any dragon worth their weight would be able to see his potential. Raanatani put her hands on Tilmat's shoulders and kissed his forehead.
"Of course you can go, son."
"Why do you look so sad, Mama?" Tilmat asked, half innocently and half curious.
"Oh, Tilmat, you're going to make an excellent healer. But you've got to remember that so many of my Fosterlings grow up like you, into dragon riders."
There was a pause when Tilmat froze. He looked at his foster mother and then furrowed his eyebrows. "But I'm just going to be there to help unload the supplies, Mama. It's not like a search dragon."
"You do not know that," she said. "Now, have some stew while it's still warm, and then get yourself to bed. You will have a big day tomorrow."
***
Tilmat had a dream that night that he was soaring, almost like he had run off a gulley edge and never bothered to fall. When he woke, he saw that the sun wasn't quite up in the sky yet. He had time to take a bath and get his work clothing together. If he was going to be helping with supplies, he knew he'd be getting dirty!
He smiled to himself. Mama Tani was growing kind of strange, in her age. But... She seemed very sincere, about his potential. How could she know? She wasn't a dragon rider, now was she?!
Tilmat moved over the hilly land to the healer's weyr, and then waited with the Journeyman as the sky brightened. When the dragon did arrive, it was a big blue one. On his back was a smiling man, who waved and was given a cheery 'heyo' in return. The dragon's great wings blew things off the ground, and when the dust settled, Tilmat went cautiously over to the dragon.
"What kind of stuff did you bring?" Tilmat asked, craning his neck to see the rider being lifted down to the ground, on the wide wrist of the dragon's leg. Tilmat almost bounced up and down, but calmed himself.
The dragon leaned his nose down, as his rider lept to the ground and dusted himself off. The dragon then settled himself down on his belly, bringing his wings up high and out of the way. The rider announced himself as J'rin, and his dragon as Amitath. "We've cotton and bandages, and some barrel or other."
"Ah! Excellent!" The journeyman said, and the rider went off to get the packs off his dragon's back. Tilmat remained where he was, looking into the great dragon's whirling eyes.
"He's beautiful," Tilmat breathed, when J'rin went by.
"I know," he said. Then, J'rin looked at the blue with a tilt to his head. "I know that too, you lug! You're always right!"
"What?" Tilmat asked, whining a bit. "What is it?"
"Oh, nothing..." J'rin said, holding out a box of bandages to the healer. "Just that he is absolutely posititve that you'd be good to stand at our Weyr's first hatching. That's all."
When Tilmat's heart started beating again, he finally shook his head and his hair lost some of the dust that had settled on it. "You mean... Really? Then Mama Tani was right?"
"She's usually right, boy," J'rin laughed. "If she said you'd be searched, she was right again. She's got the instincts of a rider, you know. Just never got herself a dragon."
"That's... What her children usually say..." Tilmat was in a daze. "So," he recovered quickly enough, "where? And when?"
"Ryslen Weyr, and soon. The eggs are hard and their dam is getting restless. It's a good first clutch, so ... I can't afford to have you wait around here for very long."
"Go lad," the healer smiled. "Get your things. I'll have another apprentice soon enough. And you'll be needed where you're going."
Tilmat didn't stop while he yelled a thanks, he only bolted back home, to tell everyone!
But it wasn't going to mean anything soon enough. The hatching came one early evening, and he was just as thrilled as all the other candidates. They walked gingerly across the sands, and waited. A beauty of a brown hatched first, a great sign for this new Weyr.
Two blues hatched, but only one found his proper mate among the candidates. The other continued looking while a green broke shell. She delicately nudged the second blue at the candidates, as she headed on.
She leaned against Tilmat and almost seemed to grin. Her weight was more than half his own, so he teetered. You're my rider, Ma'ti, I am Dilith.
Certainly the scintilating eyes of this beautiful dragonet couldn't have caught anyone else. Tilmat -- Ma'ti, grinned broadly and nodded. He was practically mute with joy!
I will fall, I just know it!
"You will not!"
I will, and you'll fall too and oh! I do not want that to happen! I will not fly...
The fear in the green's mind started to pale as she watched the other weyrlings spreading their wings and attempting their first short flights. Soon, she was eagerly flapping her strong wings, and Ma'ti laughed even harder when she nearly took to the air before the weyrling master asked them to!
You see how easy that was! I cannot believe it! Oh, Ma'ti, I love flying! It is the best thing ever!
"Just wait until you start chewing firestone..."
Ma'ti on the other hand, was a bit startled when the blue rider who caught Dilith remained with him in his weyr overnight. Waking, abruptly, to find an admittedly handsome man next to him was almost more than Ma'ti could take.
He nearly fell from his cot. D'usk was a prominent member of the Paveh family, and he laughed at the green rider with a broad smirk on his face. "Now I've never had *that* happen before..." D'usk said, "don't get up... I can go if you want..."
Ma'ti collected his wits when his dragon pleasantly purred into his mind, Oh relax. Sastrath is fine, D'usk is fine, I'm fine...
I'm not fine. I don't bed with men, Dilith.
You just did, and you sounded like you enjoyed it, my rider. It is okay. If D'usk was no good for you, I would not have let Sastrath take me...
Ma'ti groaned. He slumped down the wall nearest and watched the dark skinned rider as he dressed. It was like it wasn't anything to him, Ma'ti thought. But he hadn't been brought up in a weyr, nor with the easy acceptance of such things as apparently the Pavehs had.
D'usk looked at his overnight weyrmate and sat back on the cot. "Accept my apology," he said, politely but with seriousness. "I'm sorry, Ma'ti, healer. If I've offended you, it... wasn't on purpose. I've had mates before, and you will too."
"Not male ones," Ma'ti blurted out. D'usk stood and nodded.
"Then next time your dragon rises, you need to send word out that you're looking for female riders. It'll save you some distress." D'usk bowed to the green rider, sent to his dragon, and flew off in the Paveh way.
Ma'ti thought about his next move...
