Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I’m sorry,” Xhinna said, her words crossing Taria’s. The green rider did a double take and Xhinna moved shyly toward her and then suddenly they were together, arms wrapped around each other, hugging tightly, crying and babbling at the same time, neither able to hear the other.

  “I wanted you here,” Taria said, waving toward R’ney. “And then … the feelings from Coranth … the Meeyus … Razz … I wanted what they had.”

  “It’s okay,” Xhinna said, hugging her and stroking her hair. “It’s okay. It’s your right, it’s your body, it’s your choice.”

  “But I should have asked you,” Taria said, pulling away far enough to look into Xhinna’s eyes. “It wasn’t right.”

  “It was passion, Taria,” Xhinna said. “It’s the passion that I love in you.”

  “I think I’m pregnant,” Taria told her quietly, her eyes glancing beyond her to R’ney, then back. “Is that all right?”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “They’ll only be blues and greens, most likely,” X’lerin said when he, Xhinna, and Bekka met at the beach the next morning to examine the eggs, “because the sire was a blue.”

  “And if he’d been a bronze, would that make a difference?” Xhinna asked. K’dan marched over to join them; he’d come earlier to take his turn at guard.

  “We don’t know,” X’lerin said with a shrug. “There was only Qinth from the green clutches, so we can’t be certain.”

  “We’re wondering if Tazith’s chewing firestone would make him sterile, like the greens,” Xhinna said, glancing toward Taria, who looked back in surprise at the question.

  “I doubt it,” X’lerin said. “The bronzes and browns chew firestone, and we’ve never had problems with them.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Taria said in a low voice, chagrined. She moved closer to Xhinna, absently leaning against her in a gesture of apology and solidarity.

  “So do you think we should throw the mating flights open to all, when they start?” Bekka asked, clearly continuing a prior conversation with X’lerin. Xhinna and Taria leaned in closer to the conversation, Xhinna’s arm going around Taria’s waist as they moved forward. Taria reached with her near hand and clasped Xhinna’s hand, pulling herself in tighter against the taller blue rider.

  Xhinna reached out with her free hand for R’ney, who arched back, hands raised, ceding the tender moment to her alone.

  “Perhaps a few, at least,” X’lerin said cautiously. He shrugged, adding, “After all, we’re going to be here for Turns.”

  “But only those from the current clutch and maybe the next clutches will be old enough to fight by the end of our three Turns back here in time,” Bekka protested.

  “True, but Weyrs will still need werylings,” X’lerin said. He turned back to the clutch on the sands, his hand open. “And this is a good start.”

  “And if we can hatch this clutch, perhaps there’d be reason for the others to come back,” K’dan added.

  “You mean so they could mate and clutch more hatchlings?” Bekka asked, her brows furrowed in thought.

  “Yes,” K’dan replied, nodding firmly.

  “You’re thinking to repopulate Pern’s Weyrs in three Turns?” X’lerin asked.

  “With enough queens and greens, we could do it,” K’dan declared.

  Just as there was no way to hide the eggs on the sands, there was no way that the news of Taria and R’ney’s new relationship could remain secret in Sky Weyr. Xhinna defused any tension by very obviously dragging R’ney over to sit with her and Taria. She noted with humor how T’rennor, rider of green Kisorth who had lost all her eggs in the Hatching sands at Eastern, smiled hopefully in R’ney’s direction. With less enjoyment, she saw the way V’lex eyed the brown rider reflectively, saw J’keran’s angry glower, heard W’vin extend his congratulations to all.

  “V’lex isn’t my type,” R’ney declared when Xhinna teased him about it later.

  “And what is?”

  “Well, like Taria,” R’ney said, “or you, only different.” He saw Xhinna’s raised eyebrows. “He’s too thick and slippery.” He added hastily, “Oh, by all accounts he’s a good rider, and he’s flown in far too many Falls for his prowess or his courage to be questioned, but …”

  “Tall and wiry works better for you,” Xhinna concluded, letting him wriggle free of his red-faced silence. R’ney nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I can make my own acquaintances,” R’ney said with a touch of frost in his voice.

  She smiled to let him know she was teasing him and R’ney ducked his head in acknowledgment.

  “As I well know,” Xhinna said, her lips curving up as she reached to punch him lightly on the shoulder. She glanced around at the gathering and said, “Well, as soon as your Rowerth can manage, we’ll see if we can’t get you to meet more riders elsewhere.”

  “That’ll be a while,” R’ney said with a sigh. They glanced up as F’denol and Jepara approached, hands linked.

  “Congratulations,” the bronze rider said to Xhinna and Taria, “you’re the first to clutch here in the Western Isle.”

  “I think it’s generous of you to be so free,” Jepara said to Xhinna. Her tone didn’t match her words.

  “Taria is not mine,” Xhinna told her firmly. “I don’t own her.”

  Jepara’s face hardened and Xhinna saw the way her hand clenched F’denol’s.

  “If I did,” Xhinna continued, “then I’d be the sort to say that you should be seeking out the company of a High Reaches rider.”

  “But—” Jepara gasped then subsided as she absorbed Xhinna’s words. Jepara was from High Reaches, it would be expected that she would return there—and that, according to Tradition, she would partner with a High Reaches bronze rider. “Oh.”

  F’denol reddened, looking embarrassed at the queen rider’s discomfort. Xhinna gave him a grin to ease his worries, saying, “I’m not like that. Hearts do what they do, and we’re best when we adjust.” She made a shooing gesture toward them with both hands, adding suggestively, “Wasn’t there someplace you wanted to be?”

  F’denol needed no further urging, but Jepara moved more slowly, a certain reluctance in her stride.

  “There’s one who only wants to play,” R’ney observed with an edge to his voice.

  “And F’denol’s not built to handle her,” Xhinna agreed. The miners’ daughter was a handful and getting more so every day. Bekka wanted nothing to do with her, nor did X’lerin, who, alone among the bronze riders, showed both sense and tact in dealing with her.

  Jepara found her position as gold rider a role she relished: paramour of so many dragonriders, queen of all she surveyed.

  “You’re the one who can tame her,” R’ney said. “You’re immune to her charms and she’s attracted to your power, especially as she can’t understand its source.”

  “And how, brown rider, did you get to be so astute?” Xhinna asked archly.

  “Five older sisters,” R’ney said with a sigh. “You get to know what’s happening pretty well.”

  Meeya, the sweet young rider of Calith, came forward to congratulate them, batting her eyes at R’ney in an obvious attempt for his attention. Xhinna led the conversation elsewhere and steered her in toward G’rial, the bronze rider from Fort. Xhinna thought he possessed the sort of quiet strength that the girl seemed desperate to have.

  “Good choice,” R’ney murmured when he had the chance. “He’s smart enough to know when to say no, and that’s rare.”

  “In a man?”

  “In anyone,” R’ney replied. He glanced after Jepara and then back toward Meeya. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “they both remind me of my sisters.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” R’ney said, grinning. “I remember when Sevra, the youngest and prettiest—and she knew it—decided she could get away with baiting Nerena, who was the shyest and meekest.”

  “And?” Xhinna asked. “What did your parents do?”

>   “Nothing,” R’ney said with a smirk. “They knew Nerena pretty well. One day, when Sevra had been at her worst for over a sevenday, Nerena blew her top and cut off all Sevra’s hair while she slept.” R’ney shook his head. “She thought she had the best hair.”

  “And what did you parents do then?”

  “They said, ‘Sevra, maybe now you’ll not taunt your sister so much,’ ” he replied, shaking his head and grinning at the memory. “You’ve never seen such outrage. Sevra learned two lessons from that.”

  “Two?”

  “Maybe four, now that I think on it,” R’ney said, lifting a hand and ticking off fingers as he said, “She learned that if you push someone too far, no matter who, they’ll fight back. She learned that no one will support her when she’s wrong, no matter how pretty and demanding she is. She learned what it was like to be the ugly duckling in our smithhall; it took months for her hair to get back to its old length. And,” he finished, ticking off the fourth finger, “she learned that there’s no point in demanding justice when you’re being unjust yourself.”

  “A lot of lessons,” Xhinna said, feeling a pang for sisters and brothers she never had.

  “I learned a lesson, too,” R’ney said.

  Xhinna raised an eyebrow.

  “Just because she’s shy and modest, doesn’t mean a person won’t stand up for herself.” He paused just a moment before adding, “Did you know that Jepara has taken to calling Meeya ‘Meeyu’?”

  “Oh,” Xhinna said, rolling the notion around in her mind as an evil grin spread across R’ney’s face. Then she smiled, too. “You’d think she’d be smart enough to realize that those baby Meeyus will be Mrreows one day.”

  “You’d think,” R’ney agreed. Xhinna raised a hand and laid it on his shoulder. “You know, brown rider,” she said, “it’s worth repeating. I really couldn’t think of a better father for Taria’s child—if that’s to be.”

  R’ney turned red and placed his hand gently on top of hers. “I would like to take credit for having planned it in advance, but in all honesty I can’t,” he told her. “In other circumstances, the same thing might have happened with anyone nearby.”

  Xhinna shook her head at him. “Which of your sisters does Taria most remind you of?”

  “Nerena,” R’ney said without a moment’s thought. He raised his hands and shook his head, saying, “But you can’t think—”

  “No,” Xhinna told him soothingly. “But if someone like, say, Sevra were there, or someone even like V’lex …”

  “It would have been much easier to control my emotions—theirs being such less pleasant personalities,” R’ney admitted. He cocked his head at her, looking down into her deep blue eyes. “And how do you know this?”

  “I’ve been dealing with children for Turns now,” Xhinna said, smiling up at him. “Adults are only grown-up children, after all.”

  “And we all mature at different rates,” R’ney said thoughtfully, glancing again in the direction of Jepara. “Is that why you tolerate her?”

  “That and to honor a dead man who taught those I respect,” Xhinna said, her eyes going distant.

  “Mikal of the Harper Hall?” R’ney guessed. Xhinna shook her head. “Weyrleader M’tal of Benden?” Again, Xhinna shook her head. R’ney spread his hands in surrender.

  “No one important,” Xhinna said, thinking back to her conversation with Fiona. “Just a man who made a mistake and was never allowed to recover from it.”

  “D’gan of Telgar?” R’ney asked, then shook his head. “But they say he’s still alive, so he’s got a chance.”

  “Not him, either,” Xhinna told him. She could see he was perplexed, so she continued, “I was thinking of Vaxoram. He was the bully Kindan—K’dan—bested back at Harper Hall just before the Plague.”

  “ ‘Step by step,’ ” R’ney quoted, showing that he was familiar with the tale.

  “Exactly,” Xhinna said. A breeze wafted by and she smelled the scent of food being prepared nearby; her stomach reminded her that she should eat soon, her conscience reminded her that she needed to be certain that Taria had eaten, too. “I’m hoping we’ll give her the chance Vaxoram never had.”

  “And how are you planning on doing that?” R’ney asked skeptically.

  Xhinna pulled him close and whispered into his ear. When she was finished, he straightened, his eyes twinkling. “Oh, you’ll teach her a lesson Nerena would have loved!”

  “Would have?” Xhinna caught the bittersweet tone in his voice.

  R’ney dismissed his pain with a shrug. “She died in the Plague, keeping the rest of us alive.”

  “Nerena is a pretty name,” Xhinna said into the silence that followed. R’ney cocked his head at her. “I think that Tarena wouldn’t be bad, don’t you?”

  “You mean—for—” He cut a hand toward the Hatching sands and Taria. “—if it’s a girl?”

  “I’ve a thing for girls,” Xhinna admitted with a small smile. “They’re more biddable, to my way of thinking.”

  “Biddable!” R’ney snorted, shaking his head. “Blue rider, you need to acquire a mirror for when you next say that.”

  “Okay,” Xhinna said, patting him on the shoulder. “Perhaps not more biddable, but it would be a good name for a girl.”

  “Girls, as you may have noticed, are dangerous,” R’ney said. Xhinna looked at him, brow raised. “At least for me,” he allowed. “They find it incredibly easy to wrap me around their thumb.”

  “So, a girl it is, then,” Xhinna declared.

  The brown rider nodded in satisfaction, savoring the name: “Tarena.”

  “And, perhaps, Tareny if it’s a boy?” Xhinna suggested, enjoying the brilliant expression that spread across the brown rider’s face.

  “No, I’ve no objection,” X’lerin said when Xhinna found the time to approach him several days later with her request. “R’ney’s a good man and this will help him.” He smiled. “Besides, it will heal any ruffled emotions about the hatching sands.”

  “True,” Xhinna agreed, deciding not to be ruffled with the bronze rider for broaching the subject; as she’d said to R’ney, there were secrets that were kept in the Weyr or Hold, and there were those that were openly acknowledged. This was one of the latter.

  “What do you think of W’vin?” X’lerin asked.

  “He’s a steady, good man,” Xhinna said.

  “And J’keran?”

  Xhinna paused a long time before answering. “He does his work, he’s a good trainer, he’s—”

  “Tired, bitter, scared, worn out,” X’lerin broke in, saying the words she was trying to avoid.

  Xhinna took a breath to protest on the brown rider’s behalf but let it out again, nodding her head once in curt agreement.

  “You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve found him drunk,” the young bronze rider said mournfully.

  “But after all he’s done—all they’ve done—isn’t it our job to give him and all those with him new hope, new encouragement, and the rest they so desperately need?” Xhinna asked. She continued, “I’ve seen him fighting, I’ve seen him come back Fall after Fall when his friends and fellow riders haven’t, I’ve seen the light go out of his eyes, the fear come into them.”

  “Are we all going to be like that?” X’lerin asked, allowing just the slightest of his dread to leak into his voice.

  “No,” Xhinna declared passionately. “That’s what we’re here for, we’re here to see to it that we live, that Pern lives, or that if we have to die, it’s for only the best reasons.”

  “Sky rider,” X’lerin said. He said it not for the title but to honor her—Xhinna. It was the title that many of the riders, particularly those whom Xhinna had brought back in time herself, had started calling themselves.

  Xhinna grinned at him, acknowledging the compliment.

  “So we’ll have to show them reasons to love life again, just as we learn the difficult lessons that they’ve learned in staying alive through all these Fal
ls,” she said. “When we come back, we’ll come back with enough dragons to save Pern, enough weyrlings to replace them, and enough experience to handle the worst Falls ever.”

  “And how will we do that?” X’lerin asked. “Get that experience, I mean.”

  Xhinna smiled at him and tapped her forehead. “That, you’ll learn when the right time comes.” She paused, her smile fading. “For now, what do you suggest we do with J’keran and the others?”

  “Keep them busy, but not too much,” X’lerin said after a moment’s thought. “Put them on duties that mix them with more of us ‘youngsters,’ let them work with the weyrlings, get to know the new queen riders and bronze riders.”

  “And figure out a way to brew something with kick—more than what J’keran’s made so far,” Xhinna said. X’lerin gave her a surprised look. “They’re going to need to get very, very, very drunk a number of times in the next three Turns. They’ll need a chance to drink some of their nightmares into oblivion.” She frowned sadly, knowing it wasn’t the best solution, but she’d seen it work often enough that she wasn’t willing to give up on it just because it would mean having to clean up after drunken men, having to sort out blows, having to assert authority over them.

  “But if they get drunk, what if they don’t listen to us?” X’lerin asked.

  “There are six queen weyrlings here,” Xhinna reminded him. “How badly do you think they’re really going to behave?”

  “Point.”

  “And you, Weyrleader, will have all this time to impress those queen riders with your skills.”

  “And which of all these young queen riders did you pick out for me?” X’lerin asked.

  “It’s not my job to suggest that you use your eyes, man,” Xhinna told him brusquely. X’lerin braced at her tone. She relented, adding, “But to my tastes, I find Meeya’s shyness a bit too much; Jepara needs a strong hand and a man smart enough to see past where she is now to where she will be when she’s older.”

  “She’ll be Weyrwoman,” X’lerin said without any doubt.

  “Not with that attitude of hers,” Xhinna said. “The bronzes have as much choice as the queens in who rules the Weyr. If she doesn’t mend her ways, she’ll be queen-second for all her days.”