Chapter One Long, slender fingers gently prodded the finely-formed clay pot, painted in a delicate scene of a blue firelizard emerging from the shell on a sandy-colored background.  The man examining the cup glanced over at a young man of around 18 or so with a bright, hopeful face and fingers that, if anything, looked like a woman's.  "Well, Janiual, all I can say is that it need much work," The old man said, turning the cup over in his hands.  "The handle is much to thin, and slightly lopsided." The boy's face darkened.  "Mastercraftsman Zailalim, what am I doing wrong?" He asked, not sure why the man was critizing his work; two of the journeymen had just declared it better than anything that they could do, and he'd painted the scene himself. "Boy, you're not trying!" Zailalim said angrily, placing the cup next to a now-complete set with the same scene on each one.  "You're not doing what you could, and everyone expects you to walk.  How am I supposed to make sure that you walk whenever you can't even make a decent cup?  Yes, they look good to you, but not to me!" Janiual looked at the set critically, each piece of which several journeymen had congratulated, along with a craftmaster once, and every one of which Zailalim had pronounced horrible.  "I'm sorry, sir." "Well, spend less time apologizing and more time working, and you might walk," Zailalim fumed, storming out of the room and leaving a confused Janiual in tears. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ "So what, you're not going to walk?" Yila asked Janiual as they sat down to dinner.  "It's not all too terrible, you know!" She said, slightly miffed at his anger.  "I mean, look at me, I've been here since I was ten years old, and I've barely got my senior apprentice knots."  The young woman tossed back her golden hair, violet eyes shining.  "Don't be so disappointed, the only thing that I'm worried about is that means that those two brats, Gandol and Ishanir are walking, they're the only two that are half good." Janiual reached up with one hand to push back his dark brown hair, sighing.  "Yes, and I hate to be like the craftmasters, Yila, but you are a girl, and girls barely walk to a journeywoman.  It's just rare.  And wait, here they come!" He said as the MasterPotter stepped up, ready to announce the new journeymen. "Alright, then, friends, you all know that many of these Senior Apprentices have worked hard, many of them struggling to please.  And tonight, two of these lucky men are going to walk the tables."  He said, approaching one of the Senior Apprentices and standing behind him.  "Journeyman Gandol?" He inquired, and the young man stood up, face split with a grin as everyone began to chant. "See, two men, as he put it, and one's Gandol.  Told ya so," Yila said, poking Janiual in the ribs playfully.  "And I wonder who's next, I'll lay a mark on you." "No way, it's going to be Ishanir, like you said," Janiual replied.  "But I haven't a shaving of a mark, so I can't go against it...  See?" He asked, as the MasterPotter hesitated behind Ishanir's chair, causing the boy to smile broadly.  "Journeyman Janiual?" He asked, suddenly turning his head towards where Janiual and Yila were sitting side by side.  When Janiual didn't move, he asked again, "Journeyman?  I belive that now you're supposed to stand up and walk to the next table." Janiual began to stand up, quickly and quitely, afraid that this was all a dream that was going to end much too soon.  "Walk, Janiual, walk!" The MasterPotter said, and the others began to take up the chant.  However, as the new Journeyman's life began to change, the only thing that he cared about was Yila's beaming face as tears began to course down her cheeks, as well. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ "I don't know, MaterPotter Vaklin, I don't want to send the boy to the weyr; too many of the Journeymen that we've sent there have gone and Impressed, we even had two Impress bronzes from the stands.  What's to happen if he goes?" The senior Journeyman Candis replies, his brows furrowed. "Then he Impresses, and we have another dragonpair happy," Vaklin replied smoothly.  "Assign Janiual to the weyr." Shrugging, as he knew that he couldn't disobey the MasterPotter's orders, Candis wrote down Janiual's name down next to the words "Dark Moon Weyr," wondering if this boy would end up the same as the others. Back to Janiual's Weyr Chapter Two (Not up yet)