“Neesa?” Fiona asked as she rounded the bend. She was met and hugged immediately by a round woman with gray hair and bright eyes. Immediately, Neesa thrust her away again with her hands on her shoulders, crying, “My, how you’ve grown!”

“I’ve nearly seventeen Turns now,” Fiona said. “I was back in time at Igen.”

“Back in time?” Neesa said. “Sallit, did you hear, Fiona went back in time.”

“She did, did she?” Sallit said as she bustled forward. “You’re so tall!”

“I grew,” Fiona said with a small smile.

“And you’ve got your own Weyr from what I hear,” Neesa said as she gestured toward the worktable. “Sit down, I want to hear all about it.”

“That’s good,” Fiona said, moving toward the table. Something in her manner alarmed Neesa who gave her a worried look and said, “What?”

Fiona’s face crumpled and she was in tears even before she found the bench. “I think I’ve done something terribly wrong!”

“Probably no worse than the tunnel snakes,” Sallit said, setting some mugs on the table and dragging a hot kettle from the nearby stove. “Let me brew us some fresh klah and see how the rolls are doing.”

“While you tell me all about it,” Neesa said, sitting beside Fiona and wrapping an arm around her comfortingly.

“You’ll hate me,” Fiona said.

“I doubt that,” Neesa said. “But it’s obvious you need to get this out of your heart.”

Slowly, Fiona told the two older women everything. Neesa had been her confidante, anchor, and disciplinarian all through her childhood at Fort Hold. The old cook doted on her and spoiled her, but only up to a certain point.

“You’re a Lady Holder and must act like it,” Neesa had told her many times.

Now, she haltingly told them about her time in Igen Weyr, about going to Telgar, about Talenth getting the sickness, how Lorana and Kindan came with the cure—

“He’s always been a good lad!” Neesa interjected.

—about T’mar’s injury—

“And he was the one …?” Sallit asked when Fiona got to that part of the story and Fiona nodded. “Ohhh!”

“Keep going,” Neesa prompted. Fiona told them about the mating flight and its consequences and how she was trying—

“You’ve taken a load on your plate and that’s no mistake,” Sallit said, glancing to Neesa.

“But you’re not the first,” Neesa told Fiona soothingly.

“What should I do?”

“You do what’s right for you,” Neesa told her. “You do what your heart tells you.”

“But my heart—”

“If you go this way, understand that it’s hard,” Neesa said. “For some it works, but for most it doesn’t.”

“Lorana said that there’d be pain.”

“She’s a smart one,” Sallit said. “There’s no love without pain, don’t let anyone fool you.”

“So I’m not terrible?” Fiona asked them. “I can do this?”

“I didn’t say that you could,” Neesa replied quickly. “Nor did I say that you couldn’t, either.” Fiona gave her a miserable look. “It’s your path, child. You’re the only one who can know for certain. And you’re not terrible.”