DragonWarrior
By Absinthe
Disclaimers: Ms. McCaffrey's wonderful planet of Pern belongs to her and her alone. No harm is meant by this little romp. Two of the characters are going to look suspiciously like a warrior and her bard, two characters that belong to Universal studios.
P.S. -- There's a guest appearance of some special creatures in here due to a request I recieved quite a while back. Nope, I didn't forget.
Part 7:
Merelan sat at the lower tables, watching the head table through half lidded eyes. Her friends went on around her, somber in contrast to their usual boisterousness. The object of Merelan's weary gaze was, as usual, Tara. The difference tonight was the distance. Usually they'd been seated together, but tonight Tara officiated at the head table halfway across the dining hall. Tara, too, was uncharacteristically quiet. She sat with F'deron to her left, for the weyrleader had fled Khlara's chambers come midafternoon. He remained silent on the subject of what had happened behind those doors, and seemed extraordinarily normal, all things considered. The heavy serving trays had already gone around and everyone was digging into the meal when she appeared.
A silence fell over the room like a blanket, starting near the entrance and making its way to the farthest reaches of the huge hall. A thousand pairs of eyes fastened on the tall blonde weaving her way into the room. Tara stood up, her chair sliding out behind her.
"What is SHE doing in my place?" Khlara demanded, pointing a finger at Tara, though the question was clearly directed at F'deron. Khlara stood in the space between the riders' tables and the head table. There were dreadfully dark circles under her eyes, and her clothes were just a little off. One sleeve was bunched up, and her pants appeared to be on backwards as though she'd had trouble remembering how to dress. Her usually immaculate hair was still mussed from bed.
"Well? Treacherous wherry of a mate of mine! What is she doing at your side? Go ahead, tell them all. Tell everyone what you've been doing!" Khlara's voice crept upwards in pitch at the end of each sentence.
"Khlara, why don't we go back upstairs and talk about this privately?" F'deron suggested, starting towards her.
"Don't come any closer to me you lying son of watch wher."
"We're not going to touch you, Khlara," Tara said, standing then, just behind F'deron, "Let's go up to your chambers, where we can talk about this, all right? You, me, and F'deron."
For a moment, it looked as if Khlara was going to attack Tara, but just as abruptly as the fit had begun, the woman deflated like all her anger was gone. F'deron led the way, Khlara walked between, and Tara brought up the rear of their small procession. Behind closed doors, F'deron explained the situation in great detail to his weyrmate. Tara stood at a discreet distance, close enough to help if she became dangerous, but far enough to give them a semblance of privacy.
In the end, he seemed to make her understand the basic concepts of his explanation, but nothing more.
She shuddered when they left. This was definitely not going well. When the gathered weyrfolk disbanded, Merelan tended to the sleepy Vath and snuck up to Tara's chambers. She froze just outside the door at the sound of voices within. Nerath was awake and agitated, she glanced at Merelan, but was not interested in anything but the argument going on in the other room.
"You almost had me convinced that you felt some real loyalty to her," Tara said, her voice frosty.
"My loyalty lies with the Weyr, just like all of us. And that Weyr is best served if we join forces. We must be united in this leadership."
"‘United' doesn't mean what you think it means. And why is it that the best interests of the Weyr necessarily lie with you? I will work with you, I will do everything I have to for the Weyr, but I will NOT help you abandon Khlara. Like as not, Tyolth will fly Kellinath, and Menth will fly Nerath again. I won't do anything to throw that off. I'm sorry F'deron, but you've already failed us once."
"But -- "
"Go back to Khlara. She needs you now."
Red faced, F'deron stormed out. He pushed past Merelan and their eyes met for a split second. In the moment their gaze held, she sensed his sudden realization in the look of disgust that came over him. He moved on at a faster pace, his heavy boots ringing on the stone floor.
Tara rushed out of her chamber, also brushing past Merelan to lean against Nerath's head. The former harper watched them draw comfort from one another with a lack of jealousy borne of her new understanding of the bond between dragon and rider. The blonde waited, her light skin stark against the dark stone wall behind her.
Tara held out her arm, still rubbing Nerath's head knob with the other hand. Merelan gratefully collapsed into her. As soon as their flesh touched, Merelan heard a fragmentary whisper of the conversation going on between Tara and Nerath.
. . . gone . . .
. . . we can't do . . .
. . . is the problem? He knows now. He does not know what to think of you now.
Merelan jumped back in shock. The loss of physical contact broke the mental link. Tara smiled knowingly.
"Please don't go," the dark woman said, "I don't want to sleep alone tonight."
"I won't leave."
Tara gave her dragon a final scratch before the behemoth settled herself onto her couch. Her color was a little better than earlier, but there were still dark circles under Tara's eyes and the dragon's wounds oozed a little.
"Miriam is with Fayn. The girl's not well," Tara said, her voice muffled as she pulled her tunic over her head.
"What do you mean, ‘not well'?"
"She can't stop shaking. Seith has calmed some, but she's off color and skittish. She won't make mind contact with any other dragons, she'll only communicate with Fayn. They're both asleep in Seith's weyr. Miriam is taking the first shift. J'noran, his bronze Illeth flew Seith today, is going to stay with her the rest of the night."
"What about Khlara?"
"She'll live, but she's not the same. It's kind of like . . . all the social niceties have been stripped away from her. . ." Tara trailed off, climbing into her huge bed, "I keep thinking about what I could have done differently. We should have forced her to leave."
"And you really think you could have?"
"We should have tried at least."
"Maybe," Merelan shrugged, curling up beside her love, "but you did what you thought was best at the time, you can't expect to know the future."
"Miriam knew. We thought we couldn't MAKE her leave, not without endangering the unity of the Weyr. Not without endangering our standing with the other Weyrs and their leaders. Now Khlara may be a danger to herself and to us. This has never happened before," Tara sighed, "I don't know what to do."
"Wait. That's all you can do," Merelan counseled, burrowing her face into Tara's hair, "Wait and see. Maybe she'll recover."
"I don't know."
"It hasn't even been a day yet, you have to give it all time to settle down."
"You're right. You're right."
They fell asleep almost as soon as they stopped talking, exhausted. The next morning, Merelan woke up alone. Tara was already up and gone, as usual. The former harper scrambled from bed to meet the day, throwing on her clothes as she dashed down the stairs and across the bowl to her dragonet.
"And where were you all night?" L'non demanded as soon as he caught sight of the errant weyrling.
"Apologies, Weyrlingmaster, I spent the night with Tara, she wasn't feeling herself last night. I didn't want to leave her alone."
"She's the Weyrwoman now, Merelan, you should address her as such," L'non warned her, but his glance encompassed the rest of the gathered weyrlings, "Absence forgiven, but that's one mark out of your favor."
Merelan bowed her head in acquiescence, though she fumed inwardly. She often felt as though she were an apprentice at Harper Hall all over again. But this was more important than anything she had learned about music and teaching. Shards, if the Masterharper could hear her thinking he would have a fit. Merelan giggled as she helped clean the barracks, winning herself a good hour of harrassment from her peers.
Meanwhile, Tara stepped into her new administrative position seamlessly. She'd already been doing much of the behind-the-scenes work, now she merely picked up the more visible aspects of it too. She met no resistance, but that only served to make her edgy. It was much too simple a transition after such a strange occurrence. If she couldn't see the unrest, it was going on behind her back, which meant that there was probably some kind of conspiracy going on to return things to the way they'd been. Or perhaps she was simply being overly paranoid. This was a weyr, not a hold, after all. People didn't think the same way here as they did in the outside world.
In any case, life went on. The moon rose and fell each night, and the red star grew closer every seven-day. Vath's siblings and he would be the last clutch to join the fighting wings before first fall. It would be a week at most before Nerath rose again, and this time, Vath would likely join the flight of bronzes in pursuit of her. He'd followed the latest young queen's first mating flight half-heartedly, staying back with the smaller bronzes as though he wasn't really trying. Merelan sincerely hoped he'd show more interest in Nerath.
The eve of a rest-day, Tara made a bid for escape. As soon as she and Merelan managed to escape their duties, they packed up bedrolls, a little food and some fresh water and took off in the slanted afternoon sun for an overnight camping trip. Tara claimed that she needed some "air" and that she hadn't seen her old friend in moons as her excuse for sneaking out. Only L'non would be able to contact them. He was one of the few men Tara trusted with the discretion to know if a situation truly required her presence or not.
They were off their dragons almost as soon as the beasts touched down on the loamy soil of the southern continent. Side by side, the two women unbuckled their companions' flying harnesses before the two dragons took wing again to find optimal spots to catch the last of the days light. Tara carried their bags down to the shore, setting up a makeshift camp in the soft sand while Merelan stared at the horizon.
"Lookin' for something?" Tara teased.
"I think I saw something jump . . . There it goes again!"
"I don't see anything."
"Keep watching," the bard pointed, still watching intently. This time, close enough for them to see the fish's smooth grey skin, a huge animal leaped clear of the water, followed by a second and a third.
"I saw it that time," Tara replied, "we have them at home, but they don't usually come so close."
"You're right, I think. They're odd looking for fish."
"Enough with the fish already, let's go have a look around before it gets completely dark."
The duo's explorations yielded redfruit galore, fresher and riper than anything to be had up north, and they ate by firelight, juice running down Merelan's chin.
"You're such a mess. Can't take you anywhere, can I?" Tara teased, scooting closer to her friend to wipe some of the liquid away with her fingers. She licked the sweet, sticky fluid from her hand and smiled a warm, slow smile. They had been far too long apart.
Chapter 8
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