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Time To Shimmy


Date:  April 7, 2008
Place:  Igen Weyr's Living Cavern
Game:  PernMUSH
Copyright Info:  The World of Pern is copyright(c) to Anne McCaffrey 
l967. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is a registered copyright.

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Kassi's Note:  Of course Kyana and Kassima have to shimmy; they have 
to out-wiggle the future father of Kyana's offspring!  Conceived when
Kassi points at her and declares her pregnant.  It's a weird day at 
Igen.  Mystical impregnations aside, Kassima and A'deth strike a sort
of bargain, and trade dangerously sentimental sentiments.

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The Log:

You head into the Igen Weyr Living Cavern.

Kassima doesn't walk in so much as drift, stride so much as meander. It's
the scrap of hide she's holding that's to blame. It has more of her
attention than simple locomotion does, and that she doesn't run into anyone
she passes on the way to the juice pitchers is more to the credit of their
awareness than hers.

Kyana is sitting next to the hearth, brooding over her latest batch of
eggs. Who needs a mama firelizard when you have a Kyana? As she hears
footsteps, however, she emerges from her reverie long enough to wave and
call out, "Afternoon Kassima!" to the spacey green-rider.

Kassima isn't quite so out of it she doesn't catch her name; "Heyla,
Kyana," she hails in return once she's looked over to see who called it.
"How are they? Still a safe distance from cracking?"

Kyana nods as she smiles at Kassima. "I think so; although they're getting
harder by the day!" she says with a small grin. "Do you know how long it
takes for eggs to hatch? I'm not sure myself..."

"Depends on how far along 'twere when you found 'em. Hard t'be guessing
when you don't know when 'twere laid--" Kassima abandons her quest for
juice long enough to head to the hearth and peek into the drum for herself.
"Where'd you find this? It looks as though it used t'be a drum."

Kyana smiles softly and nods. "I borrowed it from the harpers; it's one of
the drums waiting to be repaired, so I got permission to use it so long as
it makes it back eventually.." she says with a grin. "And yea, hard to know
for sure."

Kassima shakes her head in vague wonder. "Works as well as aught, I guess.
Mayhaps they'll be born musical. Won't the Impressees thank you
then--imagine little 'lizards singing at the top of their lungs from the
moment they're born! Grabbing up nuts and spoons and who knows what else as
soon as they can, hurling 'em to the floor for lack of any other percussive
instrument! I'm going t'stop talking about that now. I don't want t'give
m'fair Ideas." She flashes a grin, then retreats, not far, but back to pour
her postponed cup of citron. "Did you ever figure out who you want t'be
spawning with?"

Kyana giggles and blushes deeply. "No...." she says as she sips her juice.
That was there all along. For her to hide her face in. "I mean, I've not
even been approached for a walk on the river, let alone...." and she
pauses, then grins. "Spawning. It's as good a word as any I suppose."

A'deth walks out of the infirmary.

Juice can be handy that way! Kassi doesn't hide behind hers; she doesn't
need to, quite yet. "If'n, theoretically, I can point at you and make you
pregnant by whomever I please--I'm thinking the stress is much on
'theoretically'--you don't need a relationship. Just name a man. D'you want
t'bear A'zric's babies? I can make it happen." Amusement sparkles green in
her eyes. "You don't need t'be answering in truth. I'm teasing, only."

"Why is it that every time I come out here, there's talk of you
impregnating others, Kassima?" A'deth inquires curiously from the entrance
to the infirmary.

Kyana giggles as A'deth's voice drifts over, and she shakes her head at
Kassima. "Theoretically? If you're gonna be all theoretical, might as well
make it A'deth!" she teases, then waves her hands. "Although that might be
a /tad/ weird." and she grins over at the other greenrider.

"Because your timing is impeccable," Kassima informs A'deth, raising her
glass to him. "I'm thinking it draws you like a fish to the intestines of
another fish. --Ah-hah! All right, then. We have our parents," she
announces with a bit too much triumph for anyone's peace of mind--a bit too
much amusement, too. "Kydeth. Kandeth. Kethanada. What was your name a'fore
you Impressed, A'deth?"

A'deth arches a brow, though a vague hint of pink colors his cheeks. "I
haven't fathered a child in a few decades now. I'm apparently not very
fertile. Ah..." And he blinks bemusedly at them both. "Ardeth. That sounds
so odd to say nowadays, you know."

Kyana gets into the naming. "Kardetha? Kanar? Kadeth?" and she grins over
at A'deth. "Don't worry. It's all theoretical." she really likes that word
apparently.

Kassima ruminates, "Karyan, Kathyan, Kryane, Kanara. Kyndeth. Kynde, only
that sounds more as if'n you've spawned with Kindre. I seem t'recall," she
asides to A'deth, "your saying upon a time you'd never have any. Are you
sure?"

"Apparently I was wrong. I have two sons that I know of." That, too, seems
to bemuse A'deth. "But neither of them were named after dragons, fortunately."

Kyana looks curiously over at A'deth. "People get named after dragons?" she
asks and shrugs. "there are weirder things to be named after, but..." and
she giggles at Kassima. "What about Kyada? Or is that too clumsy?"

"Congratulations," Kassi says, sincerely despite the almost certain
belatedness. "One could do worse than dragons; Jaelith's got a lovely name
t'use, except for the lack of K. I can't think offhand of a dragon-named
child." She mulls over it, sipping citron. "Nay, nay a one. But it seems
I've heard the idea a'fore, for the flightborn. Kyada's a fine name. What
will you do if'n 'tis a lad, though?"

"What do you think my mother did to me? Named me after some cousin of hers'
dragon, she did." And A'deth heads for the meal table, and the klah. "Or so
I'm told."

Kyana thinks hard, grinning at A'deth's answer. "Perhaps Kyeth?" she says
with a grin and a shrug. "Or maybe Kath?"

Kassima supposes, "Could name him Keth, but then there'd be horrible jokes
about G'rel and riding and 'tis really best nay t'go there. Kyeth isn't
bad. Kath sounds female t'me--might give the lad a complex."

"Perfect for a green." A'deth gives a pronounced feminine sway to his hips
as he strides, and perhaps does it a little too well. "Take after his father."

Kyana giggles and shakes her head. "You greenriders are too much.." she
says, eyes crinkling a bit. "Are all greenriders this fun to hang out with,
or is it just you two?" she asks after a bit, taking another sip of juice.
Seems like she's out of names.

Kassima nearly chokes on her juice, trying not to laugh. "You do that so
much better than I do," she marvels, and encourages, "Do it some more! Most
greenriders I've known are interesting, certes, that's a fair word for 'em.
But we," she assures Kyana, "have decent fashion sense."

A'deth shrugs, and pauses to shimmy his hips in a floor-bound table-dance,
shameless enough to make some scattered few riders clap and make catcalls.

Kyana giggles again and shakes her head. "With a shimmy like that, you
could surely father another one..." she teases, clapping slightly, the
raising an eyebrow at Kassima. "Oh?"

It's a good afternoon to get caught up in absurdity. Kassima sets her juice
on a conveniently nearby surface and imitates him--with dubious success,
but she's entertained enough not to dwell on that. "C'mon, Kyana, mayhaps
you can out-shimmy the father of your children! --A'course we do. Granted I
can't speak for A'deth, but you'll never see me in pants with important
bits missing. Fashion sense, I'm telling you."

"Because I don't have any, I can't take mine for granted," A'deth remarks.
"You've got to curl your spine a little, like--" And A'deth demonstrates a
fluid roll. "...And look, all of my children are strange. Stranger than I!
You don't want one of mine. /I/ can't even stand them. You won't, either."

Kyana grins at A'deth and nods, standing a little reluctantly. "I'm really
not a great dancer.." she protests but does a test shimmy, rolling her
hips, looking around her to make sure she doesn't bump into anything.
"Strange is fun, sometimes, but yea.." she says to A'deth.

Kassima wants to know, "Where'd you learn this, anyway?" as she attempts to
copy, not so fluid but perhaps entertaining the catcallers too albeit in a
different manner. "That just begs explanation. Strange *how*?" She beams at
Kyana when the younger woman joins in, and claps her hands above her head,
for no real reason but that it seems the thing to do.

"If you meet them, you'll know." A'deth has to stop soon enough, damaged
muscles pulling taut and tight tendons twinging hard, and he having no
motivation to keep going overlong-- and no inclination to slow down to
accomodate his own limits. "Learned it from some Fortian greenrider. A
lover of mine said, once, that the only thing he regretted about not liking
women was that most men can't dance like one. So."

[Editor's Note:  Kyana got disconnected here.]

Kassima keeps at it a bit longer, from sheer perversity and a wish to get
the hang of that roll; but she can only run with being ridiculous so long
before dropping into a chair with laughing eyes and a red blush. She fans
herself with her sunhat. "The only other dancers of that type I've seen
were women," she admits. "Tarlo tried t'teach me once. I'm thinking an
inner mantra of 'I look like an idiot' is nay helpful in picking it up."

A'deth jerks a thumb at some of the eavesdropping riders, who also seem to
be red-faced... but for, perhaps, slightly different reasons. "Fortunately,
they're not paying attention to that."

"They're paying attention t'you," Kassima half-agrees, half-teases,
entirely amused and very likely at least in part accurate. Not that she
doesn't redden more, anyway. "Sensible of them. You're quite worth the
watching."

A'deth snorts. "You just keep telling yourself that. Oi!" And he turns to a
particularly... attentive... brownrider and makes a shooing motion. "Put
your tongue back into your head, you mannerless lout! No woman'll want a
man who's trying to wash the floor with his tonsils!"

Kassima crinkles her nose at him. "Hah. You can't have polished the dance
without knowing well how you look doing it." Stifling laughter at the poor
brownrider's chastisement, not too well, she reclaims her juice and gulps
it to cool her blush away. Or try. "He wasn't drooling that badly... was he?"

Said brownrider nearly sinks beneath the table as his companions gang up on
him for a free-for-all of mockery. A'deth fetches himself some klah and
joins Kassima. "Yeah. It's like he was a dragon and your hips were Thread."

"So you're saying he wanted t'be setting them on fire." Can one blame
Kassima for eyeing that brownrider in a new, disturbed way? A'deth, though,
gets a grin for joining. "I don't intend t'be dancing in Caverns often. In
any style, much less that one. But in the interests of doing it right, if'n
nay for pyromaniac brownriders--d'you give lessons?"

A'deth nods quite agreeably. "You can pay me with discussions of politics."
The brownrider raises his hands in chagrined surrender to them all!

Kassima shakes her head at him, but not in refusal. "That's a bargain for
me but a poor deal for you. Bland form of payment, isn't it? But I'd be
betraying the natural order of things t'pass up a bargain." Pause. "By the
by, that lady bluerider over there? Still looking at your rump. Just so
y'know."

A'deth glances over his shoulder. "The only lady here I care to have look
is you," he mutters. But he waves cheerfully at the woman anyway.

Kassima laughs, and grins at him, and says nothing about whether she looked
too--nothing at all. "Flatterer," she says. "As ever and always. Shouldn't
dance if'n you don't want admirers, pure and simple." At least the
bluerider isn't drooling, and at least she has the dignity, or sense, to
wave back and not make a spectacle. Of course, the direction of her gaze
doesn't change much for it.

A'deth shrugs lightly, and turns back to Kassima. "She'll have her chance
when Jaelith rises again," he states carelessly. "Until then, she can
stare. And-- it's a bargain. Most of what I say and do may be about baser
exploits than those of most of Pern's luminaries, but that's just words and
actions... Nothing to do with the restlessness of a man's mind."

Kassima chuckles under her breath. "I appreciate the more that you don't
mind m'looking, come t'think on it, since that's a door sadly closed. How
well d'you know Pern's luminaries?" Wry, that; amused, too, but at the
luminaries' expense if anyone's, not his. "Your mind and thoughts interest
me, so 'tis easy t'be agreeing for more reasons than one. When and where
shall I pay?"

A'deth tilts his head to the side. "Closed? You can open it with some
things easily enough... and wherever, whenever you like."

"*Flights*," Kassi clarifies in a very droll tone. "I'd be ruddy out of
luck if'n I had t'hope for flights." Great, she's back to red again. It's
somewhat of a wonder she ever manages a normal complexion in his company.
But how much can she mind? She says, "Whenever--I seem t'recall mention of
tomorrow, yesterday; and see? I'm all jeweled and sparkly." She tilts the
brim of her sunhat to make the brooch pinned to it flash. "Wherever, I
picked the venue of our discourse last time. Your turn. Somewhere fair
suited t'dancing?"

A'deth just smiles blandly, and drains his klah. "The infirmary's too
medicinal. The beach... too cold? Though I've that lovely little southern
one... weyrs'll do well enough. The balcony? Too many onlookers..."

Mention of a beach is usually good for getting Kassi's attention. "Winter,"
she agrees a little wistfully. "Though in Southern... definitely nay the
balcony. Do nay even think about the balcony. One doesn't discuss politics
on the balcony!"

A'deth shrugs, and rises. "Warm down south."

Kassima drains her glass and follows suit... not without a quick and wary
upward glance at yon balcony, just in case there might be political
discussion going on there even now. "Then that suits fine." She bows to
him. It would be a pretty gesture, but there's that hat. "Where you lead, I
follow."

A'deth offers an arm to her. "That could be a dangerously sentimental...
sentiment."

"Depending on how 'tis taken." Kassima rests her hand lightly on his arm,
and leans to press her shoulder briefly against his. "Would you say the same?"

A'deth bends his head to kiss her cheek very lightly. "I would."

Kassima finds his hand with hers, twines her fingers through his; "Perhaps
nay too dangerous, then." A warm smile, a bright one. "'Twill let it stand."

A'deth nods quietly, thoughtfully, and leads the way out to the bowl.

A'deth walks out to the Bowl.

You walk out into the Bowl.