Turner
*******
(After lunch before dinner)

Tuner had been working way to hard lately. The new apartments his crew had
been working on were just about ready for their new riders to move into and
then everyone would be happy. The newest dragonriders were getting pretty
cramped in the ground level apartments every since their dragons had started
growing, so the new spaces were desperately needed.

It wasn't that he minded the hard work. In fact he'd never been happier. The
change from Telnor to the Cleft had been wonderful. He'd already made more
friends here, who were non-dragonriders then he'd ever had at Telnor. And it
didn't matter to then that he was the only male in his family who wasn't
joined with a dragon.

It was nice to have friends he could join for dinner who didn't speak of
nothing besides what they had done with their dragons that day. Not that he
minded it when his family spoke of their mates, but he knew there was more
to life that dragons.

D'ren had left word that they were to take the rest of the day off, this
afternoon when they finished laying the gas and water pipes for the six
apartments they'd been working on. "Even the slave labor needed time off for
their own pursuits once in a while," the stocky mason had told them good
naturally before he'd left to do something with the Warrenlady.

So here it was, and he had time on his hands. With not much else to do
around here as of yet, (besides working) the worker had made their own fun.
He was heading towards the dining hall where he planned on meeting some of
his friends later for a friendly game of dragon poker, but first he wanted
to get something to eat. Breakfast had been a long time ago.

After filling his plate he turned to look over the room to see if any of his
friends were there when he spotted a young man sitting off at a table in the
back of the room off by himself. The table before him was covered in big
charts that drew Tuner's attention. Some memory forced it's way into the
back of his head and suddenly he remembered the map maker his sister had
been complaining about having to fly around the day before. Was this him.

Tuner turned and headed his way.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked the young man when he drew up next to the
table. "I heard about you from my sister and would kind of like to see what
you're doing?"

"Your sister?" the man asked slowly. 

"Yea... the blond with the temper. Lenna," he grinned and took his seat even
though the man didn't offer. "I sort of feel sorry for you being stuck with
her. She's a sweet girl when things are going her way...but you have to
watch out if they don't. She tends to believe in pay backs to the extent of
making people want to kill her at times."

"Really?" the man grinned, but looked puzzled. "I haven't noticed that about
her. She's always seemed kind of..."

"I know what you mean," Tuner winked when the man paused and let it at that.
"So what are you doing here? How's the mapping coming along? And by the way,
I'm Tuner, I'm the third of four of Lenna's brothers."

"I'm Trevor, son of Kellie. Varie's rider," the man said in return.

"Know her. She's a good woman and a good rider," the blond-headed man
replied as he began eating. But even as he was lifting the fork to his mouth
he waved it over the charts he saw laid out on the table before him. "So
what are those?"

(Tag John...thought I'd give you someone else to write with. Tuner is
Lenna's 3rd brother and the only one without a dragon. He's a all around
smith who does manual labor and such around the warren. The parents Yarik
and Danki owe and operate the Leather goods shop in Cleft.)

Liese- Teacher
***************

"Okay class today we're going to do something a bit different," the teacher
stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. All eyes in the room
focused on her as she began to speak.

"All of you have heard about our new friends. The Nomads who live around us,
and have seen the ones outside the Warren gates," the teacher took a quick
look around the room to see the children's reactions. She'd heard some talk
from then about the Nomad's and decided it was a good time to set the
records to rights and maybe... hopefully if they learned something about
these people, they would be less likely to grow up with the same narrow
views as some of the older riders and parents.

"So today I've invited someone here who will tell us about her people and
maybe start to teach us all a little of their language," Liese told them and
that's when they noticed the other woman sitting in the back of the room.

"This is Sarina," Liese told them as she walked to the back of the room and
held out her hand to the woman. "She's agreed to come here today and help us
to learn more about our new friends."

>From the middle of the room two sets of identical blue eyes looked at
eachother and smiled. Then they turned to focus on the two women walking up
to the front of the room. 

Arly and Leyean as well as the rest of the class gave the women their full
attention. This was something new. Something worth taking an interest in.
Something so totally different from the things they usually study that the
kids were eager to learn.

"Now I want you all to realize that Sarina may be a little nervous standing
up here in the front of the class," the teacher told the class and gave them
all that look that warned them to behave and mind their mannors. "So let's
all help her by showing her our best sides today."

Arly saw the young woman's cheeks turning a slight shade of red and knew
what the teacher had said was true. She felt it was up to her and her sister
to keep the others in line. For some reason her and Lea hadn't discovered
yet... everyone always did what they did and followed them around. So she
spoke up first to let the others know they were to be nice to this woman.
Arly knew both her and her twin wanted to know what this woman had to say.

"Welcome to our classroom Sarina. I'm Arly. You know my Uncle Farr'in," the
young girl said and saw the woman smile.

"Know him," she replied. "Good man. Honest man. Sarina will miss him not
that he goes somewhere away from here."

The two of them shared a warm smile in remembrance of the man they both
missed. For it was Farr'in who had saved Sarina from a life of slavery by
bring her to the Warren. Here she could be her own woman and do what she
wanted to do with no one to tell her she couldn't or to order her around
with the treat of a beating if she didn't. Sarina missed the stocky rider
since he'd left.

"I'm Leyean," the other blond spoke up not wanting to be left out. "I'm
Farr'in's other niece."

Sarina's eyes traveled from one girl to the next and thought she was seeing
double. The girl's smiled with mischief as they looked back.

"You're the same?" Sarina chuckled suddenly.

"We're twins?" the girls said at the same time.

"And you really have to keep your eyes on them at times," Liese's voice told
her. "They're good girls...but like to play their little games with us
sometimes. Now class let's get started. I'm going to let Sarina start
telling you about her people and then when she's finished if you have any
questions for her I want to see hands raised."

A hand went up in the back of the room.

"Yes Jusha. You have a question?"

"Yes ma'am," a dark-headed boy asked. "Will Sarina be teaching us how to
talk like them so we can talk to them. Their kids I mean?"

"Yes. Will teach you to speak," the woman answered the question herself and
feeling a little more at ease around this group that she did when she walked
in, she leaned back against the desk in the front of the class. "It is good
you want to learn. Will make it easier that way."

--------------------    

(Nrpg: Okay my idea was that children learn faster than adults and if you
start them young enough they will grow up with a better understanding than
most adults.... start them off right for future generations to come if we're
going to be staying in the Cleft.)

**** Submitted by: ********

Barbara (a.k.a.

Liese (the teacher)
Arly & Leyean (the twins)
Cleft Warren