“How will I know?”

“You’ll know when you fall over back into a coma,” Fiona said with a shake of her head. “Or, if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to your body and limit yourself accordingly.”

T’mar jerked his head to Zirenth’s lair. “You could make him stop me.”

“I could,” Fiona agreed, turning with a half-smile toward the slumbering bronze in the weyr beyond. She turned back to T’mar. “But they’re desperate for him and the night crew for the Fall at Fort this evening, so I’m going to rely on your common sense instead.”

And with that, she thrust the crutches toward him, turned, and walked briskly out of the room, passing through Zirenth’s weyr and murmuring a fond greeting to the dozing bronze before moving on to the rest of her day’s business.

Birentir and T’mar were left behind to exchange surprised looks.

“She has a way about her,” Birentir said.

“Makes you forget her Turns, doesn’t she?” T’mar asked with a grin.

“If there’s one thing this Weyr doesn’t lack, it’s a strong Weyrwoman,” Birentir said.

“For which,” T’mar said, his voice straining as he raised himself on his crutches, “I am extremely grateful.”

“And does she know that?”

T’mar greeted the healer’s question with a glowering silence marred by a wince as he took his first step.

“You two will be careful,” Fiona said as she glanced up at Lorana and Kindan perched atop bronze Zirenth later that evening. “And you’ll make sure that Nuella doesn’t get hurt, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Lorana assured her. Kindan added a nod in agreement.

“Zirenth, I hope you’re well rested,” Fiona said, patting the great bronze on his foreleg. The bronze rumbled in amused agreement. “Talenth and I are expecting you to be here for the Hatching, you know.”

“Yes, you’d better take good care of him,” T’mar called from the entrance to Zirenth’s weyr. “He and I expect many more mating flights!”

Fiona smiled at that and, with one last wave to Lorana and Kindan, stepped back from the bronze.

“In which case,” she said to T’mar, “you’ll need to get some rest.”

“Come up here and I’ll show you how much rest I need, Weyrwoman,” T’mar responded teasingly. To his surprise, Fiona jumped up onto the queens’ ledge and trotted over to him, even before Zirenth had leaped up to go between.

“I wish she wouldn’t do that,” T’mar muttered for her ears alone. “She should take him up to the Star Stones first.”

“She said she always knows where and when she is,” Fiona assured him.

“It’s not that,” T’mar told her, shaking his head, “it’s that it sets a bad example for the rest of the Weyr.”

“Good point,” Fiona said. “We should tell her when they get back.”