gwyr2

"You want to visit Gwyr again? You're crazy!" I exclaim. The visitor puts large hands on my desk and leans forward. "But entirely justified in your curiosity," I say resignedly.
I lead the visitor to the back of the Hold, and out the door, where I last saw my mentor. That brat Hantrelt spilled water all over an entire Turn's worth of old records, and Gwyr's been limping around in a sour mood, trying to get them dry enough to read.
Sure enough, there he is, crashing through the underbrush on his way to and from the only place around here in sun--a large rock shelf. "Rohany," he greets, irritably. "Go weigh down those loose leaf bits with stones. Take your friend with you--you might not be able to reach."
I do love my mentor's cheerful nature.
A rustle of very large wingsails distracts me from my task. The stranger, who isn't helping at all, just standing around gawking, has a brief stunned-herdbeast look before he or she pulls the cloak hood more firmly over his or her face. The timbers of NoWher Hold creak.
By Faranth's egg...
There is a small green dragon on the roof of the hold. Yes. On the roof. She's peering down at the bitter thinness of my mentor as he stands in the shade, seperating pages with delicate fingers.
Gwyr shudders and spins 'round. I can barely hear him over my own noisy breath, but he seems to be telling the dragon off.
A muscular young woman rounds the corner of the building. She has a stentorian alto--I can hear her perfectly. "Don't be fussing at Reth, man. She's tryin' to do you a favor. Will you Stand for the clutch of gold Veralineth and brown Rajinath?"
For once, my mentor is struck dumb, though I don't know if it is with joy or inexpressible rage. He gives a short, sharp nod.
"Good. I'm Beka, this is green Reth. Climb aboard." Beka surmounts the steps to the roof and is up her green's side in a flash.
Gwyr climbs the stairs, slowly and painfully, and stands, looking up at the insurmountable height of the dragon's foreleg.
"Something the matter?" asks the greenrider, briskly. "You're standing kinda funny...here, I'll get Ree to lay down, if it's a trouble."
I can see the thunderclouds building on his brow, but my mentor also knows when he does need help. He watches impassively as titanic green bullk settles closer to the ground. He even allows Beka to give him a hand up. Once settled between the straps, he murmurs something to the greenrider.
They alight gracefully, through Reth has to gain altitude too quickly for dignity. Before zooming off *Between*, they pass low over the rock shelf, and Gwyr bellows over the creak of wingsails and the squaking of new leather, "Work, don't gawk, Apprentice Rohany!"
The visitor gives up in disgust as I wearily prepare more of the ancient Archives to be read.