Supply Shortage (Raelwyn and D’seus if he wants)

[Ise]

Emera frowned as she looked over some of the papers she had, going over the numbers herself before she looked at the beastcrafters who had brought her the report. The numbers weren’t looking good. Under normal circumstances things would be fine, meat might get a little low in the deeper months of winter but it would have been fine. Instead they had the Northerners from the Expedition to feed and now a massive hatching. And some of those dragonets ate as much as a full grown green dragon. Only five times a day when an adult dragon ate once or twice a week.
“You’re sure these numbers are right?”
“Yes ma’am, double and triple counted myself. Also had some of the others counting as well just to make sure that all numbers were right.”
She nodded and looked back down before giving the young man a wave, signaling for him to leave.

Once he was gone, Emera sighed and leaned back in her chair. She closed her eyes, letting herself relax a bit as she thought. At this point there was very little she could do on her own. If she thought they could make it through the winter saving all the heardbeasts just for the dragons she would be willing to try it, people would complain and grumble but keeping all the dragons healthy was more important. But even if they did that, they still wouldn’t have enough beasts for all the dragons. The dragonets were only going to eat more as they got bigger.

She needed to bring in the Weyrleaders.

It was something she hated to do but they needed to know about the problems they were having. She gathered up the counts and other reports she had gathered to calculate just how much food they were going through right now, an estimation of how much they would need over the upcoming months, and how much they really had. Then she went in search of the Weyrleaders. Weyrwoman Raelwyn was the most important one to talk to but D’seus wouldn’t hurt either. She decided to check their weyrs first, hoping to find them in a private place to talk.

Emera made her way through the weyr, pausing in the kitchens to see how everything was going there and making sure that there was enough food there for now for any of the hungry dragonets. Once satisfied she continued up through the Weyr, taking her time to reach the Weyrwoman’s weyr, there was no need for her to show up there out of breath. Once she reached it she double checked to make sure she had all her papers with her before knocking on the door.
“Raelwyn, if you’re free I’d like to discuses some things with you. They’re important.”

[HG]

D'seus mumbled something as he heard the tapping on the door. Was it late enough in the morning to be troubled? He looked up in a haze of sleep. What time of day was it? You slept. You needed sleep. I slept too. When I woke I told everyone Evening Drills today instead of morning. The Bronze was much too pleased with himself. What on Pern made him so smug?! D'seus registered the fact then that there was something that woke him up.

A voice and a knock. That was what woke him. Shard it! He looked around while not quite able to get out of bed, for his closest pair of leathers. Not that he wanted to make excuses for himself but he could have used a little more sleep than what he had. He was up so late most nights and then waking up before dawn some mornings to check in on the Weyrlings. He wasn't getting enough sleep. His body had just proven it to him.

Slipping out of bed quickly looking utterly disheveled and in need of a shave, the man took a pair of his leathers off of the nearby chair. He hadn't thought of who would the voice belonged to and certainly had not realized the woman wanted to meet with the Weyrwoman. Although it would make sense, him being in her weyr. I informed Aeriath that we have a visitor. The Bronze again said with a hint of smugness. What was the damned dragon up to?

D'seus found an undershirt and a mug for some klah before finding a seat at the table. Whoever it was had business to dicsuss and despite his appearance he was more than ready to discuss business. “You may enter.” He said with a somewhat groggy sounding voice. Raelwyn would be along any moment now.

[Ise]

Emera waited at the door, she could hear some noise coming from the weyr, movement of some sort. Enough to tell her that there was someone in there even if they were taking their sweet time in answering. She frowned a little as she tried to remember if she had heard something in the weyr before she had knocked. This would be a very awkward visit if she had interrupted the weyrleaders doing their… private time.

She entered when D’seus invited her in at last, quickly closing the door behind her. She gave the weyrleader a look over before making a soft ‘tisk tisk’ sound and shaking her head.
“D’seus, look at you. What if it was one of those swooning little girls that had come by? You looking like this would give them a heartattack. And then how would you explain that?”
She looked over to the bronze dragon, giving him a nod.
“And good morning to you Zorometh. I hope you’re doing well and that this one,” she jerked a thumb over at D’seus, “Isn’t giving you too many problems. I know what a trouble maker you were Deseus.”
She looked over at the bronze rider, giving him a serious look before a smile tugged at her lips.

She took a seat at the table, setting the papers down in front of her and folding her hands over them. Clearly D’seus had just woken up, poor man looked like he could have used a little more sleep too. Everyone had been busy since the hatching, no one getting quite enough sleep. Hopefully with the weyrlings settling in things would return to a semi-normal state. Of course there was still the Northerns to worry about, but Emera felt that she had the right to dream.

[firethorne]

Apparently we have a visitor, MineLove.

Pausing in scrubbing her dragon’s foreleg, Raelwyn frowned and glanced up towards her weyr, as if she could see who it was. Rather unlikely. “Shards.” The woman sighed softly, glancing over her gold. There were still several spots that she hadn’t washed yet, though it wasn’t as if Aeriath needed the bath. She just loved to have them, and it was their special time to be spent together away from their boys. Of course, the queen adored her bronze, and D’seus was a fine Weyrleader, but still…sometimes, they needed their girl’s time. Very well. Zorometh told you, yes? After receiving an affirmation, the Weyrwoman felt a little relief. At least the bronzerider could keep the visitor company until she returned. That is, if he was even awake. A little smile curved Raelwyn’s lips as that thought occurred to her, remembering how she had left him this morning. Fast asleep, and looking as dangerously handsome as ever. Not that she was complaining, of course, because he kept her satisfied in more ways than one, but he had earned the extra sleep.

Ever since the hatching, Refuge had been a madhouse, trying to keep everything together and running smoothly with thirty-five new weyrlings added to the roster. She and D’seus had both been run ragged lately, each with their own respective duties to fulfill, much like now. Wading out of the lake, feeling a bit of a shiver run down her body at the cool air, Raelwyn waited for her queen to follow and then shake vigorously before climbing onto the dragoness. She was still wet, of course, as was the gold, but there was nothing for it, was there? Aeriath lifted easily into the air, more than happy to be free of the egg weight, and rose slowly to their ledge, minding her rider’s wet and cold state. Landing, before the two entered, the Weyrwoman pulled a knot deftly to allow her skirt to fall back over her legs. Generally, when bathing her queen, the woman always tied up her skirt high to avoid getting water on the fabric, and so she didn’t look too disheveled. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, her shirt was just a little damp on the bottom, and her skirt had small splotches of water. Otherwise, she looked presentable.

As Aeriath rumbled happily and stalked inside to her couch to twine necks with Zorometh, the queenrider pulled her hair loose and ran her fingers through it quickly. Finally, she entered from the ledge, walking past the dragons and turning to see the Headwoman seated with D’seus. She had a stack of papers before her, which meant she clearly had something important to discuss. Her ‘Weyrwoman’ expression quickly slid over Raelwyn’s face, and the goldrider strode briskly forward, smiling at her visitor. “Good morning, Emera.” She said, voice pleasant but curious. “I apologize for the wait, but Ari wanted a bath this morning.” Seating herself beside the bronzerider, the woman surreptitiously slid her hand over and squeezed the Weyrleader’s knee affectionately, and almost apologetically. She had meant to let him get more sleep, as had his dragon, but she was certain this was important. Emera wouldn’t have come otherwise. “Now then,” The Weyrwoman began, focusing her attention fully upon the Headwoman, “what did you need to discuss?”

[HG]

He smiled at the Headwoman, a somewhat roguish look in his eyes. “Oh Emera...” He said shaking his head. “In their eyes I could do no wrong.” The glint in his eyes revealing that he was used to the teasing and rather enjoyed it. He had no qualms with his private life and probably never would. Women loved him and he loved women. It was a fair exchange in his eyes.

Of course at the moment, his position, duties and Weyrwoman kept him more than occupied. Zorometh was a level headed Bronze most of the time and knew better than to give away his rider's shortcomings to the Headwoman. She knew too much about D'seus as a youth to need any more information. “ Zorometh has informed the lovely Aeriath of your arrival. Weyrwoman Raelwyn should be here soon.”

Good day. You know how he is... The Bronze's suavemind voice reached out to the Headwoman. “Great, seems your conspiring with my Bronze...” D'seus held a mocking tone in his voice. “I wasn't that bad. Was I? All that charm and I am pretty sure most the ladies were fond of me even then.” His smile remained though the talk made him think of his random children in the Weyr. “I sure hope my brats aren't giving you any trouble.” Not that he ever looked after them.

Again being Weyrleader was no easy task and did not give him enough time to see much of his children. D'seus mouth formed more of a frown then though he knew there was not much he could do about his circumstances. He was a typical dragonriding father. He knew of his children but rarely saw them. The Weyr was raising them which was as it should be.

As his thoughts drifted, he heard rather than saw Raelwyn enter. The smile he had before instantly returned upon her approach. Zorometh returned the Queen's affection in kind, offering her more room on the couch to relax. Intent on watching the humans as they talked the dragon's curious side wanted to know what this conversation was about. As did D'seus. The Bronzerider was always at ease in a room full of women (regardless of age) so it was no surprise that he was comfortable with both Raelwyn and Emera there.

His eyes took on a bit of the playfulness of before. “Yes, dear Headwoman, what has happened now?” He knew the only time they met with the Headwoman was when something was wrong. He could have let the two women talk without him but there was no reason he could not contribute. Besides D'seus needed to use this meeting to show the Lower Caverns that the Weyrleader cared as much for their well being as the Weyrwoman did. Couldn't hurt to have more admirers could it?

[Ise]

“It’s so good to see that your ego is in check D’seus. I would hate to ever see you get big headed, especially over your looks.” She smiled cheerfully at the man as she waited for the Weyrwoman. She had watched D’seus grow up and had babysat him a few times when his mother had been busy. She had been proud to see him Impress, and once again when he had won the chance to be Weyrleader. He had a good head on his shoulders and stayed active within the Weyr, unlike some of the leaders from the past.

She chuckled as Zorometh spoke to her. It was a bit odd to hear the dragons in her head but she had gotten use to it long ago. She gave D’seus a little shrug, a slight smirk rising to her lips.
“It takes more then one person to help keep you in check D’seus. And you were fine for the most part. No worse then the average brat. And far from the most horrible. And I’m sure all the women in the kitchens loved you, you were either so cute to them or so handsome.”
She shut her eyes for a moment, thinking if any of them had done anything worth mentioning lately.
“Riseus is the only one to watch out for really. He’s mostly harmless though he’s taken an interest in find things to gross out some of the other children. His latest thing has been hairballs coughed up from some of the felines in the Weyrs. But Desera is a sweet little thing and Lareseu has become very talkative lately and picking up new words.”

Emera looked over as Raelwyn and Aeriath showed up. She stood up and gave a slight but respectful bow to both Weyrwoman and the gold.
“Good morning Raelwyn and no need to apologize, I haven’t waited long and your ever charming Weyrleader has kept me company. Though I’m sorry that I interrupted your bath Aeriath. If I didn’t feel this was important though I would have waited until we crossed paths naturally to talk to you.”

Emera sat back down, flipping through a few of the papers until she found the one she wanted and slid it over to the two leaders.
“This is a list of our current herds of various beasts. The totals are on the left side, the rest is just breaking it down telling us how many males, females, and immature animals we have.”
She pushed another paper over to them.
“This is a list of the number of animals we’re going through a week, going back the past few months. The first increase is due to the Northerns coming. The second larger increase is from the hatching.”
She pulled out another sheet, this one with some numbers on it along with a graph showing that they were using more food then they had.
“And this one shows that we’ll be in trouble soon if we don’t get another herd of animals soon. If we stop butchering them for our meals we’ll be able to last a little longer but not long enough until spring. While we made preparations for more mouths to feed when Aeriath had her flight, we didn’t expected to have thirty-five eggs, much less thirty-five dragonets to feed. After the last few hatchings we expected her clutch to be closer to twenty. By the time she laid her eggs, people were already getting ready for winter and while I managed to add a few more creatures to our numbers but not nearly enough.”

She sighed a little bit and leaned back in her chair. Emera blamed herself for this one. She couldn’t think of anything else she could have done though. Since being in the South, no queen dragon had laid so many eggs. And it had become rare to not have either a few duds in the clutch or dragonets who suicided.
“We have a few people who know how to fish so it might be a good idea to start sending them out to try and add to our food stores. And after that feline attack it might be good to send a few Shield members with them as well, it could give a couple of them something to do I hear them whine often enough about how all they do is patrol. But I don’t think a few fishers are going to be able to bring us enough food to feed all the dragons we currently have over the winter. Though I guess we could try to find out if Haven has anything to spare.”

[firethorne]

Settling down and crossing her legs, Raelwyn prepared herself to talk business. It sounded like Emera had some very important matters to discuss. Of course, the Headwoman was one of the few, besides D’seus and Eriol, that she trusted explicitly with her weyr, which leant her a certain amount of lenience with the Weyrwoman. She could interrupt Aeriath’s bath without the queen growing too irritated, since the older was viewed as a responsible person in her rider’s eyes, and act with much less formality than many of those that entered the gold’s weyr. Speaking of which…the Weyrwoman glanced over for a moment at the bronzerider from the corner of her eye, smiling slightly and looking back at Emera before the two certainly noticed anything. Ever charming, was it? Well, she couldn’t find a reason to disagree with that. D’seus had all the charms he needed, and the ones women wanted.

She nodded at the Headwoman’s reply, and Aeriath rumbled softly from her couch, her eyes bright. It was a quiet and mellow sound, certainly a sign that she held no ill will about having her bath interrupted. After all, she had her bronze to cuddle up to, and that was all she needed. Well, that and her bath could be finished later. Folding her hands in her lap, the Weyrwoman listened intently to Emera’s oration, resting her fingers lightly on the proffered list and sliding it closer to study. She did the same with the next lists, nodding to herself and biting her lower lip. Raelwyn had wondered if this would happen after the dragoness laid her rather large clutch, and now her worries had been confirmed. Although, there was a solution to this. An unorthodox one, true, but this was a desperate time. Perhaps…

It would be a good solution. The queen interrupted, whirling eyes focused upon her rider. Dragons are natural hunters. It would be easy enough to kill them.

The goldrider frowned. It isn’t enough to kill them, Ari. We need to catch them and bring them in for breeding. Besides, where would be keep all the meat if we slaughtered them?

Silent for a moment, clearly having not thought of that, Aeriath nodded her head slightly. An apt point, MineLove. Still, I am certain it can be done. If anyone could do it, it is you and my bronze’s rider.

Smiling gently at that, the Weyrwoman’s eyes regained their focus, the green orbs now sharpening and resting upon Emera and D’seus. “Actually, I think Ari and I may have already found a solution to our problem.” The woman mused, gaze flicking over the papers before her and then back to her two companions. “We take nearly daily flights together, since she gets so restless when Zorometh is gone to practice with his wing. Upon one such flight, she suddenly smelled something unusual and when we went to investigate, we found an entire herd of herdbeasts in the jungle.” Pausing for a moment to gauge the reactions of the two before her, Raelwyn then frowned lightly, tapping her finger on her knee. “I’m not quite certain how they came to be there, of course, I can only guess they have escaped one by one over the turns and slowly built their own wild herd. How they have avoided the felines is beyond me, unless their numbers have finally just grown large enough that they breed faster than they are slain.”

“Nevertheless,” she continued, the plan already forming in her mind, “they number well into the hundreds. I had intended to speak with D’seus about it, but it seems this is as ample an opportunity as any. I’m certain some of our riders, as well as a few Shield members for protection, could find a way to herd them back here without too many casualties among the beasts.” The Weyrwoman fell silent then, eagerly awaiting the input of her Weyrleader and Headwoman. Certainly, this would take some planning and some careful management, but after it was all said and done, they could add quite a bit of stock to their current herdbeasts…if they managed to get them back alive.

[HG]

While he had spoken in jest, the seriousness in Emera's voice gave way to a more serious conversation. The problem was one they had not expected to face. It was unheard of for there to be such a large clutch on the sands. Then for all of them to be healthy and strong, well as much of a blessing as it might seem it was also a burden. There was much that they were unprepared for. The Weyrling Master was going to need more help than usual, especially when the young ones were old enough to fly and the next clutch would hopefully be on the Sands. Should all things go according to plan, Aeriath would hopefully begin rising every Turn as Queens of old had done. There were plenty of people in the Weyr who were hoping the same thing. However, Emera's point brought home all the issues of having the dragons grow in number. The Weyr was not prepared to support them all.

His face became more serious as he looked at how Raelwyn was taking in the information. “This herd would be helpful in restocking our own beast population. I'll arrange for selected riders to meet with the Shield leader, Eriol and the Beastcrafters to organize how they feel it best to proceed. Also I think that we could use a meeting with the beastcrafters ourselves. We need to focus on maintaining some herds and not losing such numbers again. Perhaps they can let some of the better breeding animals be placed in a different area so that the dragons will not hunt them. We need a different system of doing things if even the thousand this herd has to offer is going to last us.” D'seus was in full support of her plan. He just wanted to clarify some things with the beastcrafters.

He thought about what Emera said about the fishing. It would benefit them to have some fish stored to help till the Weyrlings were a little older. “After this mission to collect the herd has been successful we could also engage in a fishing trip. There are pletny of dragonriders who would not mind conveying people to a beach destination.” He smiled thinking of how dragons and their riders liked to relax in the sun. No harm could come from giving some of the hard working dragons a day of rest. Especially with things in the North looking so glum. If Thread was indeed returning, there would be few days of rest left to them.

“Is there any way we can make meat portions smaller for human consumption until we get that herd here?” He had some ideas but he was no cook. There was no telling what they could and could not do as far as food went. The dragonets could not go without. “I'll have the older dragons try to eat only what they need to get by till then and make drills less strenuous on them until they are back on normal rations.” He was just as concerned about the adult dragons but they could go a sevenday without a regular meal and it wouldn't do too much to them. Whereas a dragonet would need to eat in order to grow properly. An ill proportioned dragon would be difficult to assign to a wing without creating potential danger in some formations.

[Ise]

Emera was pleasantly surprised to hear about the wild heard that the Weyrwoman and her dragon had found. She would need a better count of the animals before she could say anything for certain but even a hundred beasts would greatly improve their situation.
“I’ve spoken to the beastcrafters a little bit. If this was a normal year we’d be fine, it’s the forty new mouths to feed that have hurt us. If we can, we’ll probably want to take any younger females from the wild heard and keep them alive for breeding to help restock our supplies. Or it could be a better idea to even move the breeding animals off of Weyr grounds, see if we can’t get some people from the hold to make a farmer that’s only for the Weyr’s animals. If not then we’ll need to bring in some more crafters to help care for a heard that large.”

The Headwoman looked over to the two dragons as she thought. Clutches this large didn’t happen for no reason. And there was a good chance that this massive clutch wasn’t a fluke. A meeting with the beastcrafters would be good. They would have to redo the whole breeding program if clutches this large became common.
“I’ll let the crafters know that you’ll want to talk to them, give them a chance to come up with some ideas for what we need to change. I also suggest taking one or two of them out to see the heard, once we have a better idea on how many animals we’ll have coming in, we’ll be able to do more. We’ll need to make sure that we have room for them in the Weyr and if we don’t we’ll need to start making pens for them outside of it. I don’t think the Weyrs pens have ever been completely full but I think we have room for ohh three hundred animals? You’ll want to check with someone else before sticking to that number.”

Emera chuckled a little as D’seus brought up dragon riders doing the fishing. It would be the fastest way to do it. And she was sure that some of those riders could use a little time off.
“So long as you send people out who will get some work done. I don’t want half a dozen riders going out and then returning home empty handed. Or only with a few little fish between them. And I’ve already told the kitchen staff to cut back on meat. I’m sure some people are grumbling about not having any meat or making it rather limited but they’ll live. And I’m sure the rumors will start up soon enough that we’re running out of food and people will quit their whining. The sooner we can get that heard in though, the better.”