It's All So Strange...[OPEN]

[set Day 3 of the bushfire, a day after the hatching]

Everything was wrong. It was just wrong. Nothing was supposed to be as it was; nothing was going right. Hatchings, and the days that followed them, were supposed to be happy occasions, with celebration, but no feast had followed Delanth's hatching. Nobody even had time to stop and congratulate the new - new weyrlings. The word still felt odd.

All because of the fire, and the Thread, and...everything happening at once. Nobody could have predicted it, least of all Rowan. Everything was just so much in turmoil...the fire - which was still very much a danger - the Threadfall, the hatching, and, only this morning, the messenger that came back and ordered the 2nd Pass Riders home. That had distressed Rowan - for some reason, the thought of M'urn and Morganath leaving, now, after all they'd done to help the Weyr, made her chest ache. But, thank goodness ,they'd stayed - in fact, most of the riders had stayed, only a few making the trip back. It astonished Rowan, the loyalty these future riders had to Caldera Weyr now, but it also pleased her. They would need their guidance in coming times, most certainly.

And most certainly they still needed every rider they could get to help with the fires. They still weren't gone, even after days of torment, and despite the dragonriders' best efforts, the torrent of black smoke and the hungry flames loomed closer than ever on the horizon. The caldera - the Weyr - was in danger. In truth, Rowan probably shouldn't be out here at all, but she didn't care. She simply couldn't bear to be cooped up inside, even with the bushfire threatening; with all this going on, she needed some semblance of space.

And besides, she wasn't far out into the Weyrbowl, just outside the entrance to the living quarters, where she now made her home in the weyrling section. Beside her, Loriliqueth lay brooding, large eyes whirling slowly into the distance, staring at the line of red that marked the still-raging fire. Little relief could be found outside today, with skies stained black by smoke, but even so Rowan would rather be out here than inside, and so would Loriliqueth. The day-old green hadn't stopped staring at the fires for an instant, it seemed; Rowan could almost have said that the hatchling would venture closer to it if she could, if only to examine the flames, which seemed exotic and endearing to her. Powerful. Something to be desired.

This was confusing too, only adding to the turmoil. Rowan had Impressed, which was all she'd wanted for a long time, but exactly what had she Impressed to? Love threatened to overcome her every time she gazed at her green, no mater how skeletal and ghostlike, but at the same time the hatchling's attitude unnerved her deeply. She hated bronzes - up to and including her father - and had shunned all of them upon choosing her quarters, insisting on rooming as far away from them as possible...while, of course, remaining close to her sisters. She murmured disjointed, cryptic things; she had a disturbing fascination for dangerous, horrible things - like the fires - and...well, frankly, she was creepy. Wonderful - Rowan knew she had no choice but to love her with all her heart - but...creepy.

The redheaded artist fingered her sketch pad warily. Ever since last night she'd had an intense desire to actually draw the fire, draw the Weyr as it was in its turmoil. At first she'd tried to ignore the urge - it was somehow disturbing, like admiring a dead body instead of getting the hell away from it - but now she'd given in. After all, how many chances did one have to draw such a landscape? Her hand itched to let the colors flow, and she obeyed it now, leaning down over the pad in an attempt to block out the rest of her uneasy musings. Crimson and burnt orange for the flames, billows of grey and black for the smoke...every other color, for the land, would be muted, dull. A menacing scene.

Swirl appeared suddenly, chirping agitatedly at her before settling on her shoulder. Rowan brushed wisps of fiery hair out of the way to avoid the green firelizard pulling at them, and paused to stroke the little green. She hadn't been able to find her yesterday, and had been afraid something bad had happened to her, but thankfully Swirl had shown up this morning, safe, if ruffled. Loriliqueth didn't seem to enjoy having the flitter around, but at least tolerated her.

As if Rowan's renewed speculations about the green had summoned her from her own brooding, Loriliqueth raised her head, and turned her wide eyes from the horizon to Rowan's pad. Rowan recreates it... she murmured, eyes narrowing in thought. Very good, very clever girl. As in life, also on paper...but can she do other? Can Rowan capture the pain, the suffering? Can the heat of the flames flow from the page? Can it burn? She gradually fell silent, her mumbling becoming too low for Rowan to hear until it lapsed away, but the words still echoed in the artist's mind. Can the heat of the flames flow from the page...can it burn? It was a chilling thought; where Rowan saw as simple images, captured in paper as in memory, Loriliqueth viewed another plane of being...reality, locked into place on a page. Endless possibilities...

"What, Loriliqueth - no, it's...it's not real. It's just a picture. It can't burn. It's not - it's not magic."

Again, the green turned her head, chilling, staring eyes settling on her rider. No? But look - look into it. She gestured to the sketch. Clearly there is danger...clearly there is fear...It whispers of death and destructions, of lives gone - the deserted, desolate land - of more lives to be ended...If such emotions can be portrayed, captured here, why not more? Looking at this picture, it makes you afraid. Looking at a picture of madness, it makes you angry. Seeing one of despair, you want to weep. If that is so, then why would a picture of fire not burn? Why would one of rain not make you wet? There was a long pause while the green apparently contemplated, and Rowan felt herself growing cold with unease. Rowan is a soul-catcher.

At this, the artist jumped up, pad and colored pencils tumbling to the ground. "No! That can't happen, because it''s not real!" she shouted. She couldn't help it; Loriliqueth was getting to her. With everything going on, her nerves were frayed, and this business about magic and - and soul-catching was too much. "I'm not a soul-catcher! I'm just an artist! They're only pictures, so that you can look back on them later and remember what happened; they don't do anything! Stop this, please!"

Loriliqueth had stood up, too, and now she stared into her rider's wild eyes with disturbingly calm ones. Rowan is a soul-catcher, she repeated, but her voices was different. Warm, almost admiring. Because Rowan can do this. She catches it - the moment, its meaning, its soul. She keeps it on the paper forever, to look at, to remember. Being a soul-catcher is a very good thing. Her voice lowered again, returnig to the same thread she'd had going before. And with practice...with effort...the rest will come...Rowan's fire will burn/

The heat, perhaps just wild hysteria, drained from the weyrling's eyes. "I guess I see what you mean. Thank you. But I - I'm just an artist. That's what it's called. My work isn't that great, and it could never be like real life. It's not the same."

This time ,the green did not answer; she seemed to be deep in thoguht again. And slowly Rowan sank back to her perch, and Swirl, who had taken flight when Rowan had burst up, settled back on her shoulder. It's okay, it's okay, she told herself, trying to put energy into ehr words. You'll get used to her, eventually. She's harmless...surely this will stop soon...she'll grow out of it...

All much too strange.