Fic: A Fire Ever Burning (Dean/Sam) 1/2
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: NC-17 -- Wordcount: 16,600
Warnings: Pern!AU, angst, dub-con of the mating-heat variety, sex toys, miscommunication, mentions of homophobia, schmoop
Notes: For those not familiar with Pern - or who need a refresher - I've posted this short primer on all things Pernese in relation to the fic!
I want to take this time to thank my many amazing cheerleaders both here and on twitter, and my fantastic betas, akadougal and deirdre_c, without whom this fic would never have become what it is today. I also want to thank for the wonderful, sammycolt24 for the gorgeous art and for really helping to bring my vision to life! Last but certainly not least, I want to thank the mods at samdean_otp for running this minibang challenge!
Summary - Sam and Dean have always been oddities among the dragonriders; the youngest man to Impress a Bronze dragon in a hundred years and a boy who turned his back on the riders to become a dragon healer instead. But when fate steps in and chooses a far different path for Sam, the brothers and all the Weyrs of Pern will have to come to terms with much greater changes in their traditions.
The sands of the hatching ground are hot enough that even from the ridge where the riders will watch over the proceedings, Sam’s begun to sweat. The white-robed candidates are all in position around the small circle of twitching eggs. The clutch is relatively small - two likely Bronzes, another two that could be either Browns or Blues, a possible Green, and of course the one shining Queen egg. But what it lacks in quantity is made up for by the apparent health of the eggs.
With an absent glance down to ensure he’s not scribbling over his own writing, Sam jots down a few cursory notes. Benden Weyr born and bred, he’s attended enough hatchings to know the special kind of chaos that is bound to break out at any moment, as soon as the first egg starts to crack. It shouldn’t be long now and Sam would like to get in a bit of ancillary data before the proceedings begin. He takes a moment to check again that the wax-coated tablet he’s scrawling on isn’t melting from the heat. True, he’s been to plenty of these, but never in an official capacity and every bit of information could be useful.
Sam only realizes that he’s crouched down to lean over the kip of the stands and get a better look at the set of hairline fractures appearing on the surface of one of the shells - most likely a Brown - when he feels thick fingers hook in the collar of his tunic. Annoyed, he shoots a glare at Dean. His brother blithely maintains his hold, as if Sam is still a wayward weyrling, getting himself into trouble at every turn. He isn’t though, thanks so much. He’s a full grown man, a fully decorated Healer with the green garb to prove it. A dragon Healer, what’s more, as yet the one and only of his kind, and he’d more than appreciate it if his big brother would at least try to remember that.
Dean rolls his eyes but he lets go of Sam after a long moment, if only just. Above him bronze wings catch the russet light of the hatching ground as Impalath huffs his agitation as well. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have an over protective brother hovering over him every moment he’s at Benden, his brother’s dragon has to get in on the act as well.
From a few paces down, Lucifer gives them both a look, somehow loathing and smug at the same time. Lucifer’s Bronze, Deth, has found a perch beside, but a respectable distance from Joth. Deth looks unfazed by the goings on, largely apathetic in the face of his first, and obviously last, clutch by the great breeding Queen of Benden.
Joth’s scales have gone rosy with age, but she otherwise looks to be in good health, many Turns left yet ahead of her without the bother of Bronzes competing constantly for her attentions. Sam’s happy for her and Ellen in that respect, they’re certainly given enough of their lives to the constant grind of being the leaders of Benden, and in many ways, all of Pern. They’ve earned their reprieve. He just hopes they’ll be able to knock some reason into the head of whichever Queen and rider ascends in their wake. Benden needs someone with enough sense to keep Lucifer away from the Weyrleader position. One Turn of that will be more than enough as it is.
That thought still galls Sam in ways he can’t account for considering that he, many Turns ago, threw his lot in with the Healers instead of the riders. Still, Dean is a Wingleader and rider of one of the most impressive Bronzes in recent memory, not to mention the youngest candidate since the long Interval to have Impressed. Dean deserves to be Weyrleader, is certainly more equipped for it than Lucifer, and if not for some incidents of timing around Joth’s last mating flight which have Sam and many others more than a little suspicious, most likely he would be.
It doesn’t help that Lucifer is one of the hidebound sort of Weyr-raised who believes that anything outside of tradition is abhorrent, Sam and Dean included. Being the sons of one of the greatest Weyrleaders in Pern’s history is enough for most to have forgiven the fact that their father chose to forego the customary fostering and instead raised the two of them himself after their mother died. Or to be more precise, Sam thinks, their father chose to allow Dean to raise him and any number of kitchen drudges and kindly-minded riders to ensure that they were fed and clothed. That Dean would buck tradition by Impressing so young and Sam, in turn, by not becoming a candidate at all, did little to endear them to bigots of Lucifer’s ilk. And that was all before Sam single-handedly created an entirely new - no little bit controversial - branch of dragon-focused expertise the Healer Hall.
Sam is drawn out of his reverie by the sharp snap of an eggshell breaking, all but drowned beneath the swell of gasps among the gathered crowd. Instantly Sam focuses back on the proceedings, scribbling furiously as a shiny blue head begins to emerge from the first fractured egg.
Just as predicted, from there everything moves quickly. The Browns and Bronzes all begin to peck their way free at once, while the Queen egg wobbles auspiciously in place, semi-circles of nervous candidates edging closer, as if pulled against their will. A boy that Sam actually recognizes - Colin, son of an Ista Greenrider named Jody and, rumor has it, Bobby - ends up paired with a Bronze of reasonable size. The Browns are almost identical to it except for in coloring, which says a great deal for them, if slightly less for the Bronze; Bronzes, the second joins the fray a few minutes later with some floundering along the dusty hatching ground before it Impresses a boy closer to Sam’s twenty Turns than any of the other candidates.
Then it’s only the Queen egg, and the entire hatching ground goes still in honor.
There are already long cracks webbing over the faintly gleaming surface, some of them wide enough that Sam could easily wedge a finger into. His hand is beginning to cramp from trying to get the data down so quickly, but he can clean up the details later when he transcribes the report for the Master Healer. For now all of his focus is devoted to the motion from within the egg as thin membranes from inside the shell stretch and fight to hold something bright and glittering underneath.
The first shard falls away, thunking heavy as a dinner plate on the earthen floor. It takes another moment for a gold claw to tear its way free to begin chipping away at the remaining egg. The female candidates close ranks, most of the girls shaking where they stand, some of them outright crying. Sam can’t begin to imagine what it would really be like to stand there on the hatching ground and wait, though he’s had it described to him by dozens of riders over the years as if they might somehow coax Sam out of his decision not to become a rider. The hope and the fear are almost palpable as these girls stand and offer themselves up to a force of nature.
The Queen dragonet’s head appears suddenly, still slick and dripping from the innards of the egg, opening up her fine-toothed mouth to loose a scream like the grate of steel on flint. Her body is gangly and unsteady as she begins to climb her way out of the only home she has ever known. The candidates keep their distance, though Sam isn’t sure how when he, with no stake in the matter at all, can hardly resist the urge to jump down and help free her.
She’s nearly clear of the shell - even without seeing her in the entirety, it is obvious how large she is bound to become, the strength she’ll wield - when her left wing snags on a dagger-sharp jut of eggshell and another one of those terrible screeches explodes out of her.
It’s as if the world has been dunked in numbweed, each moment moving too slow for how fast Sam knows it must be happening. He can feel the collective intake of breath, fear tensing the bodies of the riders around him, anxiety reverberating off of Impalath down to him in waves. If the wing incurs serious damage, the little Queen will never be able to fly, never be able to mate, and Benden, all of Pern, will have lost the breeding stock of what looks to be one of the most powerful Queen dragons ever hatched.
All of which is a good enough reason and no reason at all to account for what Sam does next.
The shock when his feet hit the hatching ground floor aches through Sam’s shins and into his thighs, bones protesting the rough treatment before the heat of the sands even has a chance to soak through his boots. He pays it no mind.
The little Queen, luckily, is smart enough to have backed off of her first attempt at wriggling free but it is obvious she is panicking, ready to force her way out at any moment, blind to the harm she could do to herself. The only solution is to eliminate the danger.
The candidates look shock-stupid, limp-armed and frozen when action is imperative. Sam spares a fraction of a thought for what a sorry state Benden would be in if it had to rely on one of them to lead during Threadfall, but he’s already shoving them aside to launch himself at the egg.
One swift, firm pull at the offending protrusion and the piece of shell comes free in Sam’s hand, the force of his effort toppling him onto his back. He looks up again, only does it to check that the portion that broke loose really has left a straight, safe break in its stead, and the instant that he does, his life will never be the same again.
***
“There cannot be a male Queenrider!”
The shout carries through the heavy door out to the sparsely furnished weyr where Sam is sitting, fingers idly stroking over the river-stone-smooth scales of Winth’s distended belly.
Winth, his dragon, his Queen. It should feel stranger than it does to think that, but there’s nothing in him at the moment beyond sedate pleasure. Possibly those are Winth’s emotions resonating through their bond, but Sam doesn’t particularly mind. The alternative is getting tangled in the almighty uproar going on throughout the Weyr, and Sam could go the rest of his life without having to face that. He’s had enough scandals linked to his name for four lifetimes.
Scales oiled to glinting catch the light of the glow baskets as Winth shifts her head in his lap with a contented gurgle. She’d eaten almost half as much again as any of the other hatchlings, Bronzes included, a good sign for her health. The Healer part of Sam’s brain is busy filing away dozens of observations like that, things he’ll have to make more detailed notes on later, once the turmoil has died down.
“Clearly, there can be,” Ellen’s voice argues. Lucifer had been obviously none too pleased about the entire situation - and he was hardly alone on that count, the usual gaiety following a Hatching had been usurped by Sam and Winth’s unprecedented bonding - but he has at least proven himself smart enough not to openly challenge his current Weyrmate. Ellen may well be two heads smaller than the Weyrleader, but Sam doesn’t have a doubt that she could turn Lucifer over her knee and tan his hide if it came down to it.
Instead it is Rafael and Michael, both Wingmen in Lucifer’s Bronze Wing, who are doing most of the arguing.
“It’s an abomination, it cannot stand!”
“Impression has been made,” Dean shouts over him. Sam doesn’t need to be in the room to know the expression of loathing on his brother’s face, any more than he has to see it to know that it’s likely only Sam’s own contingent of defenders that are keeping Dean from settling the matter with fists or beltknives. Dean is a smart man and an excellent leader when he puts his mind to it, but he’s never been able to be objective when it comes to Sam. “There is nothing to be done about it now.”
“He cannot be a Weyrwoman! We can’t allow it.”
And there, of course, is the real crux of the issue.
For all that humans have depended on dragons for their survival for as far back as Pernese history remembers, there is still so much of the lives of dragons that remain a mystery. Knowing that Joth was soon to retire from her breeding years, the natural expectation had been that Ruby’s Queen, Lilith, would become Weyr Queen. And yet even in just the few hours it’s been, the dragons all seem to be acknowledging Winth as Joth’s rightful successor. It’s unusual - even if Winth does grow up to be more powerful than Lilith, she won’t be able to mate until she’s at least a Turn old, and oh Great Faranth, Sam doesn’t even want to think about mating.
Nonetheless, being the rider of the acknowledged ascending Queen means that Sam will, someday in the not so distant future, become the Benden Weyrwoman. Weyrman. Weyrlord? It’s such a departure from tradition that there’s not even a term for it! And while Lucifer has never made it a secret that he wouldn’t mind Sam in his bed, having Sam - pushy, headstrong Sam, who’s disdain for tradition is no secret - as a Weyrmate would certainly make it difficult for him to run the Weyr with the sort of impunity he’d no doubt been anticipating with Ruby.
“Dragons choose for themselves.” Bobby cuts in pragmatically, “If they can allow it, I don’t see as we have any say.”
Bobby’s one of the oldest riders in Benden. Mostly he confines himself to training the Weyrlings and the new riders, but his Brown, Hath, still flies on the occasions they have Threadfall over more than one Hold. The Brown, Blue and Green riders look to him as something of a representative, a voice respected in Weyrs and Crafthalls alike.
“He’s a man! With a Queen dragon!”
“Greens will accept riders of either sex. There’s no reason to think that Queens wouldn’t be able to Impress a male, it’s just that they never have before.”
That’s Castiel, Dean’s Wing-second. Born in the High Reaches, Castiel spent most of his youth locked away because of that ‘malingering illness’ better known as being the unwanted bastard of a secretive Lord Holder. He’d eventually been picked up on Search and Impressed Bronze, the only obvious long-term effects of his isolated childhood being a near compulsive inability to socialize. How he and Dean came to be fast friends Sam doubts he will ever fully understand. Still he appreciates that Dean’s had someone to help watch his back when Sam wasn’t around.
“You stay out of this, you s-”
The dull smack of flesh meeting flesh cuts off whatever, no doubt stunning, insult Michael was about to spit.
With a sigh, Sam thinks Dean? in Impalath’s general direction. All he gets in response is a jewel-toned sense of pride and a deep rumble in the back of his skull. He’s never been at all sure whether it’s Dean that’s a bad influence on his dragon or if it’s the other way around.
Reluctantly Sam shifts to lift Winth’s head so that he can go help Bobby and Ellen break up the escalating scuffle. Except Winth grumps and opens her eyes enough to cast a scathing glare at the door the others have shut themselves behind and then Sam's head is ringing with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of dragon voices layered together in his mind.
We have chosen.
The silence that falls in its wake is just as deafening, broken only by the soft shuff of Winth's tail sweeping across the floor to wrap around Sam's chair and twine up his ankle. There. Better? she says, amusement washing out the sleepy irritation.
The door to the other chamber squeaks open, revealing Dean in front of the other assorted riders, all of them staring.
"Did you..." Dean squints his eyes at Sam, then Winth, when all Sam can do is shrug and gesture at the napping Queen. He develops that far-away look in his eyes that means he must be consulting with Impalath, and then he's grinning.
Arms crossed over his chest, Dean half turns and leans himself against the doorjamb, smirking at Michael, Rafael and Lucifer as he says, "Any other questions?"
***
Winth tucks her wings, a spark of gold catching the sun as she flips over in midair, letting gravity drag her down until the last possible moment when she flares them open again, thin vanes arching as she swoops back into the sky. She’s only reached the proper proportions for flight in the last few weeks and seems determined to make up for all the time she missed being grounded since hatching. She fancies herself quite the acrobat and Sam can’t help but agree with a slightly muddled mixture of academic appreciation and visceral pride.
Most of the wherries from the penned flock in the bowl of the Weyr have scattered away from her antics, but she’s managed to cordon off two of them from the group, twirling as she pretends to debate which one to eat when Sam knows that she’s just showing off. He probably ought to make her stop, but the bleed of her self-satisfaction into his own mind holds him back.
Eat your food, don’t play with it, little lizard. The deep voice in Sam’s head is colored by amusement, a soft undertone to the lightning-flash of Winth’s indignation.
Lizard! I’ll show you a lizard, you overgro- the thought breaks off sharply as Impalath dives down, smoothly insinuating himself and snatching up one of the pair of wherries Winth had been toying with. Hey, that was mine!
Catchers keepers.
Winth whines, Saaaaammmmm, in the middle of a barrel roll that easily intercepts the remaining bird, a quick flex of her claws ending the matter as painlessly as possible.
“You two play nice,” he sighs, knowing full well that they can’t pick out his voice from this distance, but that they’ll have heard him nonetheless.
He feels the presence of his brother before the creak of riding leathers gives him away as Dean settles on the grass next to him.
“How is it that our dragons turned out to be eight-Turn-old versions of ourselves?” he muses, flicking a glance over at Dean’s casual sprawl.
“And yours is a girl. Fitting,” his brother nods thoughtfully, doesn’t quite duck out of the way of the punch Sam aims at his shoulder.
You two play nice. Impalath’s tone is teasing, rich with affection. He’s landed on the grass a short distance away, far enough to keep the humans from getting squeamish. No matter that Sam’s spent most of his life around dragons and the rest of it with Healers, watching a wherry wrenched apart from up close is never going to be a favorite pastime.
Winth touches down next to the Bronze, tail flicking haughtily as she crunches into her prey. Despite the rapid growth - at this rate she could well turn out the largest Queen on Pern - she’s still tiny in comparison to Impalath. Even with her neck stretched out fully, her head would only just come to the great Bronze’s wing joint, though she can now nuzzle at the top of Sam’s head even when she’s laying down. The juxtaposition is striking and Sam can’t resist reaching into his pack to retrieve the sheaf of wood-pulp parchment he’s made a habit of keeping notes in.
Impalath has always had unusual coloring; rich, gleaming bronze so deep that as it fades toward the edges of his scales it becomes the exact shade of a moonless midnight. When he was first hatched, it was thought that something might be wrong with him, some deformation from lack of oxygen or inferior breeding. The fact that he’d Impressed on Dean, the youngest candidate on the hatching grounds by a full three Turns, did nothing to calm the speculation. Yet, as Turns wore on, it became evident that he was not only as strong and healthy as any of his clutchmates, he was also one of the most magnificent specimens of the species in living memory. Privately, Sam’s toyed with the idea that he might be the first example of a new classification - Ebonies, perhaps? Onyxes? - but his mating flights have only ever produced one hatchling with similar coloration and Sam’s done quite enough to rock traditional dragon-knowledge to its core without suggesting anything more. Yet.
Next to those deep-toned scales, Winth’s bright gold looks even more impressive, a glowing ember among the coals; both of them shining-sleek and powerful, if slightly less perfectly proportioned on Winth’s part. Her feet are still overlarge for her body, as is the finely-boned wedge of her head. Her tail and neck seem to be growing at equal rates, though, which bodes well for maintaining her aerodynamic figure. And her wingspan is positively enormous compared to the other Queens. It’s quite likely that she’ll grow into those a bit, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
“Sam.” Dean’s voice drags him away from some hastily scribbled observations of Winth’s relative size and density compared to Impalath’s. It takes him a moment to understand what his brother is getting at, but then he follows the line of Dean’s nod and finds his preening Queen rolling around like mad in the dust.
“Winth!” Instant stillness follows the sharp reprimand, dagger-like talons and a soft, ladder-scaled belly turned up toward the sky.
I need a bath she chirps innocently, twisting her neck to look at him rightside up.
“I wonder why,” Sam huffs back. This will make the second scrubdown he’s given her today and it’s not even midday yet.
But it itches! She mewls pitifully, turning back over onto her feet and bombarding him with the phantom sensation of the flaky patch of scales at the base of her neck.
“That’s because you’re growing too fast, glutton. You’re going to come right out of your hide soon.” Even Sam can hear the fondness in his voice underneath the sniping.
Obviously Dean can too, because he’s laughing, “You might have been off on eight, Sammy. She sounds more like you at fourteen.”
It’s true, of course, Sam remembers all too well the Turn or so he spent constantly starving and growing out of his clothes faster than he could break them in. More than anything he’s struck again by the curious fact the Winth has picked up Impalath’s habit of bespeaking both he and Dean. As far as anyone knows, all dragons are capable of communicating with humans besides their riders, but very few of them ever bother to, let alone on such a regular basis. Sam had always assumed Impalath included him because he and Dean had been so close and Dean had Impressed so young, but trying to get a straight answer out of a dragon is like trying to teach a watch-wher to fly. Sam’s gotten too accustomed to because I wanted to to bother arguing about it anymore.
Helpfully, Impalath leans down to rub his cheek against the offending spot on Winth’s hide, soothing the itch and setting Winth crooning. Her tail twines around his foreleg in a gilded swirl.
“Funny, I was thinking she reminded me more of you,” he fires back with a sidelong look. If there’s anyone in the whole of Benden Weyr who doesn’t know the reputation his brother made for himself in his adolescence as a shameless pleasure seeker, Sam hasn’t met them yet.
This time it’s Sam’s shoulder getting punched, but he supposes he probably earned it.
It still startles him at odd moments, the easy intimacy they’ve fallen back into. Dean tried hard, in the Turns that Sam spent at the Healer Hall, to keep things normal between them, but there was a limit to what he could do when they only saw one another a handful of times every Turn, and his resentment of Sam’s choice always wound up bleeding through. Sam hadn’t expected that tension to just disappear, and it still rears its head from time to time, but for the most part they’re back to how they used to be when Sam was a teenager. He’s not always certain how he feels about that fact, but he’s caught himself grinning with his brother for no reason more often than he ever would have thought he could when Winth’s Impression turned his life upside down.
Eyelids slipping closed, Winth slinks down onto her belly, wrapping herself more firmly around Impalath’s leg. Impalath rumbles with humor, but keeps nuzzling at her.
“Ok, maybe a little,” Dean concedes with a wry twist to his mouth as he watches.
“You don’t suppose I got a Green on accident, do you?”
Winth huffs hard enough that a small cloud of dust curls in front of her. I heard that. She doesn’t bother even opening her eyes, though, so she mustn’t be too upset about it.
Dean, on the other hand, looks much more insulted. “I think you just called me a Green.”
“Well, if the eyes match…” Sam teases, already moving in anticipation of the lunge Dean makes at him.
He doesn’t quite manage to get out of range and goes down hard on his belly, his brother rolling on top of him, and then over again as they jockey for dominance. Sam can’t remember the last time he wrestled with anyone, but he’s clearly out of practice because Dean pins him to the grass in short order.
In fact, Dean’s barely breathing hard as he grins down at Sam, hands braced on either of his shoulders, sitting on Sam’s stomach.
“Going to have to get you into shape if you’re going to fight Thread, baby boy.” Obnoxiously, he starts poking at Sam in the ribs, chest, stomach - skipping around whenever Sam moves his arms to protect himself. Now this is like being eight Turns old again.
Only, back then, Sam didn’t have size on his side.
With a massive effort, Sam heaves himself up, knocking Dean to the side and following after so that their positions are reversed, Dean’s legs splayed around Sam’s hips. Eyes shock-wide and lips parted, Dean looks like his mind just blinked Between. He just lays there for a long minute, certainly breathing hard now, as the color rises on his cheeks. Long enough, in fact, that Sam starts to worry he might have concussed Dean on a rock. But then Dean swallows and seems to come back to himself, shoving Sam off and wiping in vain at the new grass stains on his worn leathers.
He composes himself after a moment. Gives Sam a half-hearted glare out of the corner of his eye and settles next to him again, if a little more stiffly than before. Dean’s never been a very good loser.
In the time they were busy playing around, Impalath has laid down beside Winth, one wing draped over her so that only the curl of her tail is showing. It’s sweet, he thinks, that she has a protector, however little she might actually need one. All too much like he and Dean, really, but he appreciates it nonetheless.
Warmed by the thought, he bumps his shoulder against Dean’s and his brother bumps back gently, letting their arms come to rest lightly against each other. Sam catches the curve of a smile that looks like relief on Dean’s face but decides not to say anything about it. No point in ruining a good thing.
***
The wind sweeping the fire-heights is cool with the snow-kissed promise of rain. It leadens Sam’s hair, already hopelessly knotted, he’s sure, and leaves his skin tacky beneath his riding leathers. Then again, that may be the sweat.
I’m not going to drop you Winth snorts, miffed and amused at the same time. She’s abuzz with the excitement of the day despite Sam’s anxiety dampening her spirits.
“I know, dearheart. It’s not you I’m worried about.” The wind whips the sound from Sam’s mouth, drying his already parched tongue.
Lucifer shifts in his seat on Deth’s neck ridge, the long, lean Bronze remaining perfectly still in the cutting breeze. He spares a scathing look that turns heated a fraction through the slow trek down Sam’s body.
Surely riding leathers aren’t meant to fit this snugly, he thinks, resisting the urge to tug at the hide pulling tight across his thighs, shoulders, backside. Everywhere, in fact. Ellen had promised him that they’d loosen up with wear, but Sam’s not at all sure that makes him feel better. Wear, because this is his uniform now, the one he’ll be wearing for the rest of his life. It fits like he’s been stuffed into someone else’s skin.
Down below, the Weyr bowl is dotted with young riders and dragons, wobbling unsteadily on the air, Wingleaders surveying and trying to corral them into formation. Winth sniffs smugly at their efforts, already close to twice the size of the rest of her clutch. Of course, Queens naturally mature faster, but she’s taking it as a personal accomplishment anyway.
Unbidden, Sam’s mind is flooded with an image of these same Fire Heights, bright summer sun beating down from an entirely different angle onto a wide, stocky back of nearly black scales. Secondhand, he can feel shaking, abject terror cold as Between rolling in his gut.
Sam snaps back to reality, smiling despite the fine tremble still echoing through his limbs. He’s not sure anyone in the Weyr ever knew that Dean, mighty Bronzerider, was absolutely horrified of flying as a child. Shards, he’d almost forgotten it himself, considering how natural Dean is about it after all these Turns, but the reminder helps and he sends a rush of warm affection to the supportive presence at the back of his mind where Impalath tends to lurk unobtrusively.
Heart hammering at his chest, Sam smooths his hand over Winth’s shoulder and steels himself. Obligingly, she lifts her foreleg to help him step up, familiar, except that now there’s no one above to help pull him the rest of the way up into the cradle of the neck ridge. No one sitting behind or in front as he settles himself there. No one else to control the dragon beneath him, because she’s his, all his. One easy swoop of her wings between him and being a true dragonrider.
“Hang on,” Lucifer smirks, urging Deth forward and off the ledge. For a moment the two of them free fall through the air, nothing but heavy muscle under the pull of gravity. Then in a flash of bronze, Deth spreads his wings, rising with the whipping air to a near hover, a few dragonlengths overhead. Waiting.
It’s idiotic to hesitate now. He’s flown a thousand times before, has even been on Impalath by himself a few times, and his trust in Winth is as absolute as the stones beneath their feet. But still it… it means something to do this, to take flight on his dragon, his Queen. To accept their place in the Wing, the Weyr, all of Pern. He hasn’t been a Healer for a long while now, but this is the first time he’s ever had a choice in it.
“I’m ready,” whispers past his lips, dry as the sands of Igen, and then he’s weightless in a storm of cold-clawed speed.
Sam can barely see the plummet, bracing wind coaxing tears from his eyes that blot the Bowl floor into a riot of burred colors. He’s left his stomach somewhere back on the Fire Heights, he’s sure of it, but his heart’s right there in his throat pounding out a drum signal as they fall and fall and fall. Too far, they should have pulled up, Deth pulled up much earlier than this, but Sam’s not afraid, he’s- he’s exhilarated, he’s elated, he’s-
Flying.
Winth’s wings shoot out on either side of him, the very air roaring in defiance as she sails, beats once, twice, carrying them up. Above the sound, he hears shouts, screams. Opens eyes he hadn’t meant to close to find that they’re skimming close enough to the other new riders for Winth to pluck them right off their careening dragons.
“Troublemaker!” he shouts, silenced by the flood of air stinging his cheeks and the laugh he can’t choke back.
Someone has to show them how it’s done Winth breezes, self-satisfaction tinted with thrill as she dip-roll-dives, twisting in midair to dodge a floundering Blue and start winging her way higher.
They ought to make their way back toward the Star Stone - Lucifer will be waiting none-too-patiently for their first lesson in going Between - but Sam can’t resist the way Winth is reveling in a swooping circuit of the Bowl, showing off for the dragons and riders who’ve made their way outside to watch the young Queen.
Or maybe showing off for someone in particular, considering the entirely unnecessary flourish of a spiral she makes close enough to the third tier of weyr ledges. She ends it by pushing off of one with her hind foot before darting up and away again.
In the flicker of a moment it lasts, Sam sees the deep marks her claws score into the ledge, brilliant gold flashing between a set of glossy black, the whir of big silvery eyes above a much smaller, greener pair and a grin.
***
“What in the name of the first egg were you thinking?”
He gets, “I’m fine,” answered back at him, both in his brother’s voice and the deep rumble of Impalath inside of his head. He can feel them shoot a look at one another, feels the huff Impalath lets out as his massive chest swells against Sam’s side where he’s tending the livid Threadscore above the left wingjoint. Sam’s not sure if it was a blessing or a curse the day Dean Impressed a dragon just as self-sacrificing and overprotective as he is.
“You can’t go into Threadfall against the wind! Another few handspans and that could have been your head!” he snaps, tossing a glare at the jagged wound Dean’s rubbing numbweed into along his forearm.
Dean’s dragged one of the chairs from his room out into the larger chamber where centuries of dragon use have hollowed out a deep couch for Impalath. He’s stripped out of his jacket, the heavy wherhide dangling limp from the back of the chair along with Dean’s sweat-soaked shirt. His skin is still shining, pinked from hours trapped inside hide made to protect from Thread and the cold of Between.
“Thank you, Sam. I’m so glad you’re here to educate me since I never fought Thread while you were off safe in a Hold in your Healer greens.”
It’s an argument that got old long ago. Largely because, whatever Sam might feel about it, it never stops being true.
Rather than rehash old points, Sam applies himself to cleaning the burned hide around the edges of the injury, layering on numbweed and oil with careful fingers. It will still scar, but probably not badly, not with the meticulous attention he’s sure Dean will spend looking after it. If only he could say the same about his brother’s own skin.
“You’re making a mess of that,” he says after a few tense minutes of silence. Dean huffs around the roll of bandage he has stuffed in his mouth, trying to wrap his forearm one-handed.
Both of the dragons are watching them, large eyes swirling with tension that feeds back into the air and their riders and in turn to them again, a vicious cycle. Winth’s head is tucked in close to Impalath’s, slightly taller, now, when he’s laying down. Her wing is spread out over his uninjured side, a thrum too deep for Sam to register with his ears vibrating in his bones instead where she’s crooning comfort at him. It’s strange, even by the standards of their admittedly non-standard dragons. That level of physical contact among unmated dragons is rare; they’re an emotional species but not a tactile one. He wonders if it’s more bleed over from he and Dean, their own bizarre bond transcending the-
Sam startles at the sound of the numbweed pot Dean’s been using hitting the stone floor.
“Shards,” his brother curses, the bandage roll falling out of his mouth and unraveling itself across the floor as well.
Despite himself, Sam can’t help the smile that curls his lips any more than he can the sigh as he helps clear up the mess Dean’s made. The numbweed is still salvageable, only a small crack in the clay pot, although the bandage is stained with the red dust of the weyr floor. Glaring down Dean’s attempt to snatch it back from him, Sam retrieves another from his pack, settling down on his knees next to his brother’s chair to set to work.
Dean refuses to meet his eyes, but holds his arm out obligingly, only grumbling after Sam’s started wrapping the wound.
“There are other dragons who could use you right now.”
“I’ve taken care of all of the vital injuries, everything else is just patching up. There’s not a body in Benden who doesn’t know how to handle that.”
“Besides me, I take it.”
“Why are you so determined to take everything as an insult?”
All he gets for an answer is a snort and tension in the corded muscles beneath his hand. They fall into a silence, only the sound of Winth’s thrumming as it bounces off of the domed weyr ceiling to tickle at the edges of his consciousness while he works.
This is how he learned, long before he threw his lot in with the Healer Hall. His hands moving over Dean’s skin, tacky and overheated from training or, later, fighting Threadfall.
There’s more than one scar marking Dean’s skin, most of them time-faded and familiar. New ones still creep up on Sam, though, when he has the time or opportunity to look. The one there, hiding on the inside of an elbow, is a stranger; a thin, clean line, beltknife more than likely.
More than his own temper, Dean’s always had a knack for bringing it out in others. Certainly had enough practice on Sam to have made him a master of the art, though a healthy dose of self-confidence, the age of his Impression, and the ability and willingness to bed every woman worth having who wandered through the Weyr was enough to encourage plenty of people to hold a grudge against him. If ever there was a man born to be a rider, it’s Dean. Not everyone takes kindly to that fact.
“There,” he says, fastening the bandage security. His touch lingers over the border of fabric and skin, checking the fit. Dean’s always been terrible about scratching at them if they’re wrapped too tight.
Dean’s eyes are on the darkening mouth of the weyr, apparently oblivious, but his fingers tighten on Sam’s wrist as he goes to pull away. Haltingly, Dean turns toward him, face a mottle of salt from dried sweat and ash. It highlights the crinkles that line the corner of Dean’s eyes, turns all the cracks and crevices of his neck bright so he looks older, worn, entirely too much like their father.
“Thanks,” he says softly, thumb bumping back and forth over the prominence of Sam’s wristbone.
Sam eases back to sit on his haunches, the turn of his hand to cup Dean’s as natural as breathing. He smiles, “That’s what I’m here for.”
***
The smell of boiling numbweed is persistently awful enough to have chased off everyone but the drudges from the Lower Kitchens. The drudges, Sam and Ellen, that is.
Ruby had begged off in favor of checking all of the flamethrowers the Queen riders will be using to fly Threadfall - probably imagining it would be an easier job, but Sam's seen the state of those since the Fall over Ruatha Hold. Eye-stinging as the production of numbweed may be, he doesn't envy her the task. Anna's Grath will be ready to Rise any day now, and Sam couldn't imagine the irritability that goes hand-in-hand with a broody Queen was going to make the curing and potting of salve go any faster, so he'd asked her to look after Lisa, who's still largely bed-ridden from her first birthing. He hadn't giving a second thought about the command and Anna hadn't hesitated to follow it. It was only afterward that it occurred to him that he's not, in fact, in charge of the Queen's Wing yet, but Ellen had simply smiled approvingly.
All told, he knows more about the production of numbweed salve than the rest of the young Queen riders put together, so it's probably just as well. Their stores from last Turn were largely depleted after Ruatha, and they’ll no doubt be needing more for the Fall over Lemos in twelve days.
Leaning in to check the color of one of the roiling pots, Ellen asks, “How’s Winth?”
Sam was far too young at the time of his mother’s passing to have any real memories of her, but Ellen has always held much the same place in his heart. She’d taken more of an interest in him and Dean than was perhaps strictly called for, particularly after their father had refused to remain Weyrleader when it meant taking her as weyrmate. It had never been quite maternal - she’d had more than enough on her hands as Weyrwoman - but she’d taken care to see to it that they had clothes that fit and weren’t getting into too much trouble wandering Benden on their own. She’d supported Sam when the time came for him to become a candidate and he chose the Healer Hall instead, was one of the only ones who did. Dean’s never said so, but Sam knows she’d helped keep Dean sane after their father disappeared Between.
Sam knows better than to think it’s anything close to casual when she asks after his dragon.
“She’s well,” he replies anyway, stepping in to stir a kettle that looks in danger of scalding on the bottom. “Healthy. There’s a small flaw in the scaling on her left foreleg, but I think she’ll grow out of it.”
“That’s good.” Ellen smiles, breaks away for a moment to stop the drudges from stacking up so closely together the ceramic pots of salve they’ve just poured. “Quite the flier, that one.”
“That she is.”
It isn’t hard to imagine what Ellen’s driving at, but Sam’s been rather deftly avoiding thinking along those lines, so he’s not inclined to make it easy on her.
“Have you given any thought to-“
The steaming contents of the kettle nearly slosh over with the force of Sam’s stir. “No.”
“Sam.” Ellen’s voice is sharp, serious. All of the drudges have suddenly found something to be extremely interested in.
Manfully, Sam resists the urge to fling the ladle in his hand across the room, wrapping his fingers around the handle until his knuckles have gone snow white instead. “Impalath is the only Bronze big enough to challenge Deth for her, and obviously...” metal clangs on metal as Sam makes himself let go of the heavy spoon, casting the bitter thoughts out of his head with a shake. “What’s the point in wasting my energy on it when everyone knows how it’s going to end?”
The room’s gone quite but for the soft bubbling sounds of revering salve, not quite enough to cover the rush of air as Ellen sighs heavily. “They take your preference into account.”
Sam would be hard pressed to say whether her tone is more exasperated or condescending. As if Sam doesn’t know this fact very well, as if he hasn’t lived most of his life in a Weyr and all the rest of it studying dragons. Blasted if it helps him, but he certainly knows it.
“Is that how you ended up with Lucifer for a werymate?” he snaps, fighting the instant flash of regret. It isn’t Ellen’s fault that Dean wasn’t there for Joth’s last mating flight, and he knows she would have favored him if he had been. Everyone in Benden knows Dean was born to be Weyrleader and now he might not ever be, all because Sam has an inborn knack for shattering tradition, whether he means to or not.
Ellen doesn’t even flinch. “Sam, I went beyond the romance of the matter a very long time ago. Preference is hardly a factor for me, certainly not enough to affect the outcome of a flight.”
Bill had been a good rider. Sam hadn’t ever known him well, but he’d flown second in John’s Wing before Sam’s father had essentially abandoned life as a rider, and he’d tried to help the man, by all accounts. His loss, so few Turns after Sam’s mother, had been a blow to all of Pern and Joth had never settled with another Bronze for more than a flight or two again. It was part of the reason Benden had struggled, never able to find a Weyrleader who could hold his place for long enough to accomplish anything. Sam wonders if the weight of that blame sits as heavily on Ellen as his own situation does on him.
“So what would you suggest I do?”
The smack is unexpected enough that Sam startles, rubbing at the stinging spot on his arm. At least Ellen had deigned to use the clean end of the spoon. “Stop being such a dimglow and do what feels right.”
She’s giving him a look that Sam can’t seem to interpret, frustrated and urging. He wishes on all things green and growing that everyone would stop blathering on about instincts and tell him what he ought to do.
Nudging another kettle over the fire to more evenly distribute the heat, Sam lets the ideas tumble in his mind.
Deth is the largest Bronze in Benden, but more than that, he’s clever, patient. Far too much like his rider, Sam thinks bitingly. Lucifer has spent years jockeying for position - moving between Fort and Igen, making a name for himself before he joined the ranks of Benden, always with his eye on becoming Weyrleader. Even now with the title on his shoulders like a mantle, Sam can tell Lucifer is just biding his time, waiting to secure his rule.
Sam’s skin crawls at the thought of what it would be like if Lucifer had the chance to make good on all of the heated looks and innuendos he’s aimed Sam’s way these last few months. Allowing him as a permanent Weyrleader would be unconscionable, but allowing him to put his hands on Sam’s body, into his bed every night…. The tightness in his throat isn’t entirely from the stink of numbweed salve anymore.
But against Deth, who could stand a chance? Michael’s Sworth or Rafael’s Faith would be just as bad. Sam and Benden both would be Lucifer’s in everything but name. Deth is lean, though, wiry; a Bronze of reasonable size but more muscle might be able to outmatch him in a burst for speed.
Sam still isn’t particularly good at blocking Winth - and for that matter, Impalath - out of his mind, but he does his best to tamp down on the connection as the image of Impalath swooping past Deth in midair forms in his mind. He doesn’t get the sense either dragon had been paying much attention anyway, preferring to keep their sensitive noses on the upwind ridge of the Bowl, playing around, he senses vaguely. This kind of political battle-planning isn’t usually of interest to dragons anyway, but better to be safe than stuck trying to explain himself to Dean if Impalath ever let the idea slip.
The trouble is, Dean does deserve to be Weyrleader, and alongside somebody who could temper his natural tendency to dive into situations headlong. Someone like Sam. They’d be ideal for the job, really, except-
No. Dean’s always done well at disguising how uncomfortable Sam’s tendencies make him, but the look on his face that first time he caught Sam kissing a boy will be burned in Sam’s mind until the day he dies. He hadn’t known what it was like to disappoint his brother back then - it hadn’t even occurred to him that it was possible. So to ask Dean, no, to force Dean into that situation through a mating flight, with his brother, no less, as if any man wouldn’t be bad enough in Dean’s mind… That thought actually makes Sam more sick to his stomach than letting Lucifer bed him.
With a huff, Sam shoves that stream of thought aside. It’s not an option. It isn’t even the same species as an option. But… but it might have a kernel of one buried inside it. Dean deserves to be Weyrleader. Winth being flown by Sworth or Faith would be tantamount to making Lucifer Weyrleader, because Lucifer controls Michael and Rafael. But Lucifer isn’t the only Bronzerider with a Wingsecond.
“Jimth might be strong enough,” Sam muses, sudden hope turning his breath short. “He hasn’t got Impalath’s size, but he’s fast. With Winth’s acrobatics, that could be enough to give him an edge.”Ellen stares at him over the shoulder of one of the drudges, sighs all over again, but it melts into a smile. “I suppose you’re right.”
Part 2
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: NC-17 -- Wordcount: 16,600
Warnings: Pern!AU, angst, dub-con of the mating-heat variety, sex toys, miscommunication, mentions of homophobia, schmoop
Notes: For those not familiar with Pern - or who need a refresher - I've posted this short primer on all things Pernese in relation to the fic!
I want to take this time to thank my many amazing cheerleaders both here and on twitter, and my fantastic betas, akadougal and deirdre_c, without whom this fic would never have become what it is today. I also want to thank for the wonderful, sammycolt24 for the gorgeous art and for really helping to bring my vision to life! Last but certainly not least, I want to thank the mods at samdean_otp for running this minibang challenge!
Summary - Sam and Dean have always been oddities among the dragonriders; the youngest man to Impress a Bronze dragon in a hundred years and a boy who turned his back on the riders to become a dragon healer instead. But when fate steps in and chooses a far different path for Sam, the brothers and all the Weyrs of Pern will have to come to terms with much greater changes in their traditions.
The sands of the hatching ground are hot enough that even from the ridge where the riders will watch over the proceedings, Sam’s begun to sweat. The white-robed candidates are all in position around the small circle of twitching eggs. The clutch is relatively small - two likely Bronzes, another two that could be either Browns or Blues, a possible Green, and of course the one shining Queen egg. But what it lacks in quantity is made up for by the apparent health of the eggs.
With an absent glance down to ensure he’s not scribbling over his own writing, Sam jots down a few cursory notes. Benden Weyr born and bred, he’s attended enough hatchings to know the special kind of chaos that is bound to break out at any moment, as soon as the first egg starts to crack. It shouldn’t be long now and Sam would like to get in a bit of ancillary data before the proceedings begin. He takes a moment to check again that the wax-coated tablet he’s scrawling on isn’t melting from the heat. True, he’s been to plenty of these, but never in an official capacity and every bit of information could be useful.
Sam only realizes that he’s crouched down to lean over the kip of the stands and get a better look at the set of hairline fractures appearing on the surface of one of the shells - most likely a Brown - when he feels thick fingers hook in the collar of his tunic. Annoyed, he shoots a glare at Dean. His brother blithely maintains his hold, as if Sam is still a wayward weyrling, getting himself into trouble at every turn. He isn’t though, thanks so much. He’s a full grown man, a fully decorated Healer with the green garb to prove it. A dragon Healer, what’s more, as yet the one and only of his kind, and he’d more than appreciate it if his big brother would at least try to remember that.
Dean rolls his eyes but he lets go of Sam after a long moment, if only just. Above him bronze wings catch the russet light of the hatching ground as Impalath huffs his agitation as well. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have an over protective brother hovering over him every moment he’s at Benden, his brother’s dragon has to get in on the act as well.
From a few paces down, Lucifer gives them both a look, somehow loathing and smug at the same time. Lucifer’s Bronze, Deth, has found a perch beside, but a respectable distance from Joth. Deth looks unfazed by the goings on, largely apathetic in the face of his first, and obviously last, clutch by the great breeding Queen of Benden.
Joth’s scales have gone rosy with age, but she otherwise looks to be in good health, many Turns left yet ahead of her without the bother of Bronzes competing constantly for her attentions. Sam’s happy for her and Ellen in that respect, they’re certainly given enough of their lives to the constant grind of being the leaders of Benden, and in many ways, all of Pern. They’ve earned their reprieve. He just hopes they’ll be able to knock some reason into the head of whichever Queen and rider ascends in their wake. Benden needs someone with enough sense to keep Lucifer away from the Weyrleader position. One Turn of that will be more than enough as it is.
That thought still galls Sam in ways he can’t account for considering that he, many Turns ago, threw his lot in with the Healers instead of the riders. Still, Dean is a Wingleader and rider of one of the most impressive Bronzes in recent memory, not to mention the youngest candidate since the long Interval to have Impressed. Dean deserves to be Weyrleader, is certainly more equipped for it than Lucifer, and if not for some incidents of timing around Joth’s last mating flight which have Sam and many others more than a little suspicious, most likely he would be.
It doesn’t help that Lucifer is one of the hidebound sort of Weyr-raised who believes that anything outside of tradition is abhorrent, Sam and Dean included. Being the sons of one of the greatest Weyrleaders in Pern’s history is enough for most to have forgiven the fact that their father chose to forego the customary fostering and instead raised the two of them himself after their mother died. Or to be more precise, Sam thinks, their father chose to allow Dean to raise him and any number of kitchen drudges and kindly-minded riders to ensure that they were fed and clothed. That Dean would buck tradition by Impressing so young and Sam, in turn, by not becoming a candidate at all, did little to endear them to bigots of Lucifer’s ilk. And that was all before Sam single-handedly created an entirely new - no little bit controversial - branch of dragon-focused expertise the Healer Hall.
Sam is drawn out of his reverie by the sharp snap of an eggshell breaking, all but drowned beneath the swell of gasps among the gathered crowd. Instantly Sam focuses back on the proceedings, scribbling furiously as a shiny blue head begins to emerge from the first fractured egg.
Just as predicted, from there everything moves quickly. The Browns and Bronzes all begin to peck their way free at once, while the Queen egg wobbles auspiciously in place, semi-circles of nervous candidates edging closer, as if pulled against their will. A boy that Sam actually recognizes - Colin, son of an Ista Greenrider named Jody and, rumor has it, Bobby - ends up paired with a Bronze of reasonable size. The Browns are almost identical to it except for in coloring, which says a great deal for them, if slightly less for the Bronze; Bronzes, the second joins the fray a few minutes later with some floundering along the dusty hatching ground before it Impresses a boy closer to Sam’s twenty Turns than any of the other candidates.
Then it’s only the Queen egg, and the entire hatching ground goes still in honor.
There are already long cracks webbing over the faintly gleaming surface, some of them wide enough that Sam could easily wedge a finger into. His hand is beginning to cramp from trying to get the data down so quickly, but he can clean up the details later when he transcribes the report for the Master Healer. For now all of his focus is devoted to the motion from within the egg as thin membranes from inside the shell stretch and fight to hold something bright and glittering underneath.
The first shard falls away, thunking heavy as a dinner plate on the earthen floor. It takes another moment for a gold claw to tear its way free to begin chipping away at the remaining egg. The female candidates close ranks, most of the girls shaking where they stand, some of them outright crying. Sam can’t begin to imagine what it would really be like to stand there on the hatching ground and wait, though he’s had it described to him by dozens of riders over the years as if they might somehow coax Sam out of his decision not to become a rider. The hope and the fear are almost palpable as these girls stand and offer themselves up to a force of nature.
The Queen dragonet’s head appears suddenly, still slick and dripping from the innards of the egg, opening up her fine-toothed mouth to loose a scream like the grate of steel on flint. Her body is gangly and unsteady as she begins to climb her way out of the only home she has ever known. The candidates keep their distance, though Sam isn’t sure how when he, with no stake in the matter at all, can hardly resist the urge to jump down and help free her.
She’s nearly clear of the shell - even without seeing her in the entirety, it is obvious how large she is bound to become, the strength she’ll wield - when her left wing snags on a dagger-sharp jut of eggshell and another one of those terrible screeches explodes out of her.
It’s as if the world has been dunked in numbweed, each moment moving too slow for how fast Sam knows it must be happening. He can feel the collective intake of breath, fear tensing the bodies of the riders around him, anxiety reverberating off of Impalath down to him in waves. If the wing incurs serious damage, the little Queen will never be able to fly, never be able to mate, and Benden, all of Pern, will have lost the breeding stock of what looks to be one of the most powerful Queen dragons ever hatched.
All of which is a good enough reason and no reason at all to account for what Sam does next.
The shock when his feet hit the hatching ground floor aches through Sam’s shins and into his thighs, bones protesting the rough treatment before the heat of the sands even has a chance to soak through his boots. He pays it no mind.
The little Queen, luckily, is smart enough to have backed off of her first attempt at wriggling free but it is obvious she is panicking, ready to force her way out at any moment, blind to the harm she could do to herself. The only solution is to eliminate the danger.
The candidates look shock-stupid, limp-armed and frozen when action is imperative. Sam spares a fraction of a thought for what a sorry state Benden would be in if it had to rely on one of them to lead during Threadfall, but he’s already shoving them aside to launch himself at the egg.
One swift, firm pull at the offending protrusion and the piece of shell comes free in Sam’s hand, the force of his effort toppling him onto his back. He looks up again, only does it to check that the portion that broke loose really has left a straight, safe break in its stead, and the instant that he does, his life will never be the same again.
***
“There cannot be a male Queenrider!”
The shout carries through the heavy door out to the sparsely furnished weyr where Sam is sitting, fingers idly stroking over the river-stone-smooth scales of Winth’s distended belly.
Winth, his dragon, his Queen. It should feel stranger than it does to think that, but there’s nothing in him at the moment beyond sedate pleasure. Possibly those are Winth’s emotions resonating through their bond, but Sam doesn’t particularly mind. The alternative is getting tangled in the almighty uproar going on throughout the Weyr, and Sam could go the rest of his life without having to face that. He’s had enough scandals linked to his name for four lifetimes.
Scales oiled to glinting catch the light of the glow baskets as Winth shifts her head in his lap with a contented gurgle. She’d eaten almost half as much again as any of the other hatchlings, Bronzes included, a good sign for her health. The Healer part of Sam’s brain is busy filing away dozens of observations like that, things he’ll have to make more detailed notes on later, once the turmoil has died down.
“Clearly, there can be,” Ellen’s voice argues. Lucifer had been obviously none too pleased about the entire situation - and he was hardly alone on that count, the usual gaiety following a Hatching had been usurped by Sam and Winth’s unprecedented bonding - but he has at least proven himself smart enough not to openly challenge his current Weyrmate. Ellen may well be two heads smaller than the Weyrleader, but Sam doesn’t have a doubt that she could turn Lucifer over her knee and tan his hide if it came down to it.
Instead it is Rafael and Michael, both Wingmen in Lucifer’s Bronze Wing, who are doing most of the arguing.
“It’s an abomination, it cannot stand!”
“Impression has been made,” Dean shouts over him. Sam doesn’t need to be in the room to know the expression of loathing on his brother’s face, any more than he has to see it to know that it’s likely only Sam’s own contingent of defenders that are keeping Dean from settling the matter with fists or beltknives. Dean is a smart man and an excellent leader when he puts his mind to it, but he’s never been able to be objective when it comes to Sam. “There is nothing to be done about it now.”
“He cannot be a Weyrwoman! We can’t allow it.”
And there, of course, is the real crux of the issue.
For all that humans have depended on dragons for their survival for as far back as Pernese history remembers, there is still so much of the lives of dragons that remain a mystery. Knowing that Joth was soon to retire from her breeding years, the natural expectation had been that Ruby’s Queen, Lilith, would become Weyr Queen. And yet even in just the few hours it’s been, the dragons all seem to be acknowledging Winth as Joth’s rightful successor. It’s unusual - even if Winth does grow up to be more powerful than Lilith, she won’t be able to mate until she’s at least a Turn old, and oh Great Faranth, Sam doesn’t even want to think about mating.
Nonetheless, being the rider of the acknowledged ascending Queen means that Sam will, someday in the not so distant future, become the Benden Weyrwoman. Weyrman. Weyrlord? It’s such a departure from tradition that there’s not even a term for it! And while Lucifer has never made it a secret that he wouldn’t mind Sam in his bed, having Sam - pushy, headstrong Sam, who’s disdain for tradition is no secret - as a Weyrmate would certainly make it difficult for him to run the Weyr with the sort of impunity he’d no doubt been anticipating with Ruby.
“Dragons choose for themselves.” Bobby cuts in pragmatically, “If they can allow it, I don’t see as we have any say.”
Bobby’s one of the oldest riders in Benden. Mostly he confines himself to training the Weyrlings and the new riders, but his Brown, Hath, still flies on the occasions they have Threadfall over more than one Hold. The Brown, Blue and Green riders look to him as something of a representative, a voice respected in Weyrs and Crafthalls alike.
“He’s a man! With a Queen dragon!”
“Greens will accept riders of either sex. There’s no reason to think that Queens wouldn’t be able to Impress a male, it’s just that they never have before.”
That’s Castiel, Dean’s Wing-second. Born in the High Reaches, Castiel spent most of his youth locked away because of that ‘malingering illness’ better known as being the unwanted bastard of a secretive Lord Holder. He’d eventually been picked up on Search and Impressed Bronze, the only obvious long-term effects of his isolated childhood being a near compulsive inability to socialize. How he and Dean came to be fast friends Sam doubts he will ever fully understand. Still he appreciates that Dean’s had someone to help watch his back when Sam wasn’t around.
“You stay out of this, you s-”
The dull smack of flesh meeting flesh cuts off whatever, no doubt stunning, insult Michael was about to spit.
With a sigh, Sam thinks Dean? in Impalath’s general direction. All he gets in response is a jewel-toned sense of pride and a deep rumble in the back of his skull. He’s never been at all sure whether it’s Dean that’s a bad influence on his dragon or if it’s the other way around.
Reluctantly Sam shifts to lift Winth’s head so that he can go help Bobby and Ellen break up the escalating scuffle. Except Winth grumps and opens her eyes enough to cast a scathing glare at the door the others have shut themselves behind and then Sam's head is ringing with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of dragon voices layered together in his mind.
We have chosen.
The silence that falls in its wake is just as deafening, broken only by the soft shuff of Winth's tail sweeping across the floor to wrap around Sam's chair and twine up his ankle. There. Better? she says, amusement washing out the sleepy irritation.
The door to the other chamber squeaks open, revealing Dean in front of the other assorted riders, all of them staring.
"Did you..." Dean squints his eyes at Sam, then Winth, when all Sam can do is shrug and gesture at the napping Queen. He develops that far-away look in his eyes that means he must be consulting with Impalath, and then he's grinning.
Arms crossed over his chest, Dean half turns and leans himself against the doorjamb, smirking at Michael, Rafael and Lucifer as he says, "Any other questions?"
***
Winth tucks her wings, a spark of gold catching the sun as she flips over in midair, letting gravity drag her down until the last possible moment when she flares them open again, thin vanes arching as she swoops back into the sky. She’s only reached the proper proportions for flight in the last few weeks and seems determined to make up for all the time she missed being grounded since hatching. She fancies herself quite the acrobat and Sam can’t help but agree with a slightly muddled mixture of academic appreciation and visceral pride.
Most of the wherries from the penned flock in the bowl of the Weyr have scattered away from her antics, but she’s managed to cordon off two of them from the group, twirling as she pretends to debate which one to eat when Sam knows that she’s just showing off. He probably ought to make her stop, but the bleed of her self-satisfaction into his own mind holds him back.
Eat your food, don’t play with it, little lizard. The deep voice in Sam’s head is colored by amusement, a soft undertone to the lightning-flash of Winth’s indignation.
Lizard! I’ll show you a lizard, you overgro- the thought breaks off sharply as Impalath dives down, smoothly insinuating himself and snatching up one of the pair of wherries Winth had been toying with. Hey, that was mine!
Catchers keepers.
Winth whines, Saaaaammmmm, in the middle of a barrel roll that easily intercepts the remaining bird, a quick flex of her claws ending the matter as painlessly as possible.
“You two play nice,” he sighs, knowing full well that they can’t pick out his voice from this distance, but that they’ll have heard him nonetheless.
He feels the presence of his brother before the creak of riding leathers gives him away as Dean settles on the grass next to him.
“How is it that our dragons turned out to be eight-Turn-old versions of ourselves?” he muses, flicking a glance over at Dean’s casual sprawl.
“And yours is a girl. Fitting,” his brother nods thoughtfully, doesn’t quite duck out of the way of the punch Sam aims at his shoulder.
You two play nice. Impalath’s tone is teasing, rich with affection. He’s landed on the grass a short distance away, far enough to keep the humans from getting squeamish. No matter that Sam’s spent most of his life around dragons and the rest of it with Healers, watching a wherry wrenched apart from up close is never going to be a favorite pastime.
Winth touches down next to the Bronze, tail flicking haughtily as she crunches into her prey. Despite the rapid growth - at this rate she could well turn out the largest Queen on Pern - she’s still tiny in comparison to Impalath. Even with her neck stretched out fully, her head would only just come to the great Bronze’s wing joint, though she can now nuzzle at the top of Sam’s head even when she’s laying down. The juxtaposition is striking and Sam can’t resist reaching into his pack to retrieve the sheaf of wood-pulp parchment he’s made a habit of keeping notes in.
Impalath has always had unusual coloring; rich, gleaming bronze so deep that as it fades toward the edges of his scales it becomes the exact shade of a moonless midnight. When he was first hatched, it was thought that something might be wrong with him, some deformation from lack of oxygen or inferior breeding. The fact that he’d Impressed on Dean, the youngest candidate on the hatching grounds by a full three Turns, did nothing to calm the speculation. Yet, as Turns wore on, it became evident that he was not only as strong and healthy as any of his clutchmates, he was also one of the most magnificent specimens of the species in living memory. Privately, Sam’s toyed with the idea that he might be the first example of a new classification - Ebonies, perhaps? Onyxes? - but his mating flights have only ever produced one hatchling with similar coloration and Sam’s done quite enough to rock traditional dragon-knowledge to its core without suggesting anything more. Yet.
Next to those deep-toned scales, Winth’s bright gold looks even more impressive, a glowing ember among the coals; both of them shining-sleek and powerful, if slightly less perfectly proportioned on Winth’s part. Her feet are still overlarge for her body, as is the finely-boned wedge of her head. Her tail and neck seem to be growing at equal rates, though, which bodes well for maintaining her aerodynamic figure. And her wingspan is positively enormous compared to the other Queens. It’s quite likely that she’ll grow into those a bit, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
“Sam.” Dean’s voice drags him away from some hastily scribbled observations of Winth’s relative size and density compared to Impalath’s. It takes him a moment to understand what his brother is getting at, but then he follows the line of Dean’s nod and finds his preening Queen rolling around like mad in the dust.
“Winth!” Instant stillness follows the sharp reprimand, dagger-like talons and a soft, ladder-scaled belly turned up toward the sky.
I need a bath she chirps innocently, twisting her neck to look at him rightside up.
“I wonder why,” Sam huffs back. This will make the second scrubdown he’s given her today and it’s not even midday yet.
But it itches! She mewls pitifully, turning back over onto her feet and bombarding him with the phantom sensation of the flaky patch of scales at the base of her neck.
“That’s because you’re growing too fast, glutton. You’re going to come right out of your hide soon.” Even Sam can hear the fondness in his voice underneath the sniping.
Obviously Dean can too, because he’s laughing, “You might have been off on eight, Sammy. She sounds more like you at fourteen.”
It’s true, of course, Sam remembers all too well the Turn or so he spent constantly starving and growing out of his clothes faster than he could break them in. More than anything he’s struck again by the curious fact the Winth has picked up Impalath’s habit of bespeaking both he and Dean. As far as anyone knows, all dragons are capable of communicating with humans besides their riders, but very few of them ever bother to, let alone on such a regular basis. Sam had always assumed Impalath included him because he and Dean had been so close and Dean had Impressed so young, but trying to get a straight answer out of a dragon is like trying to teach a watch-wher to fly. Sam’s gotten too accustomed to because I wanted to to bother arguing about it anymore.
Helpfully, Impalath leans down to rub his cheek against the offending spot on Winth’s hide, soothing the itch and setting Winth crooning. Her tail twines around his foreleg in a gilded swirl.
“Funny, I was thinking she reminded me more of you,” he fires back with a sidelong look. If there’s anyone in the whole of Benden Weyr who doesn’t know the reputation his brother made for himself in his adolescence as a shameless pleasure seeker, Sam hasn’t met them yet.
This time it’s Sam’s shoulder getting punched, but he supposes he probably earned it.
It still startles him at odd moments, the easy intimacy they’ve fallen back into. Dean tried hard, in the Turns that Sam spent at the Healer Hall, to keep things normal between them, but there was a limit to what he could do when they only saw one another a handful of times every Turn, and his resentment of Sam’s choice always wound up bleeding through. Sam hadn’t expected that tension to just disappear, and it still rears its head from time to time, but for the most part they’re back to how they used to be when Sam was a teenager. He’s not always certain how he feels about that fact, but he’s caught himself grinning with his brother for no reason more often than he ever would have thought he could when Winth’s Impression turned his life upside down.
Eyelids slipping closed, Winth slinks down onto her belly, wrapping herself more firmly around Impalath’s leg. Impalath rumbles with humor, but keeps nuzzling at her.
“Ok, maybe a little,” Dean concedes with a wry twist to his mouth as he watches.
“You don’t suppose I got a Green on accident, do you?”
Winth huffs hard enough that a small cloud of dust curls in front of her. I heard that. She doesn’t bother even opening her eyes, though, so she mustn’t be too upset about it.
Dean, on the other hand, looks much more insulted. “I think you just called me a Green.”
“Well, if the eyes match…” Sam teases, already moving in anticipation of the lunge Dean makes at him.
He doesn’t quite manage to get out of range and goes down hard on his belly, his brother rolling on top of him, and then over again as they jockey for dominance. Sam can’t remember the last time he wrestled with anyone, but he’s clearly out of practice because Dean pins him to the grass in short order.
In fact, Dean’s barely breathing hard as he grins down at Sam, hands braced on either of his shoulders, sitting on Sam’s stomach.
“Going to have to get you into shape if you’re going to fight Thread, baby boy.” Obnoxiously, he starts poking at Sam in the ribs, chest, stomach - skipping around whenever Sam moves his arms to protect himself. Now this is like being eight Turns old again.
Only, back then, Sam didn’t have size on his side.
With a massive effort, Sam heaves himself up, knocking Dean to the side and following after so that their positions are reversed, Dean’s legs splayed around Sam’s hips. Eyes shock-wide and lips parted, Dean looks like his mind just blinked Between. He just lays there for a long minute, certainly breathing hard now, as the color rises on his cheeks. Long enough, in fact, that Sam starts to worry he might have concussed Dean on a rock. But then Dean swallows and seems to come back to himself, shoving Sam off and wiping in vain at the new grass stains on his worn leathers.
He composes himself after a moment. Gives Sam a half-hearted glare out of the corner of his eye and settles next to him again, if a little more stiffly than before. Dean’s never been a very good loser.
In the time they were busy playing around, Impalath has laid down beside Winth, one wing draped over her so that only the curl of her tail is showing. It’s sweet, he thinks, that she has a protector, however little she might actually need one. All too much like he and Dean, really, but he appreciates it nonetheless.
Warmed by the thought, he bumps his shoulder against Dean’s and his brother bumps back gently, letting their arms come to rest lightly against each other. Sam catches the curve of a smile that looks like relief on Dean’s face but decides not to say anything about it. No point in ruining a good thing.
***
The wind sweeping the fire-heights is cool with the snow-kissed promise of rain. It leadens Sam’s hair, already hopelessly knotted, he’s sure, and leaves his skin tacky beneath his riding leathers. Then again, that may be the sweat.
I’m not going to drop you Winth snorts, miffed and amused at the same time. She’s abuzz with the excitement of the day despite Sam’s anxiety dampening her spirits.
“I know, dearheart. It’s not you I’m worried about.” The wind whips the sound from Sam’s mouth, drying his already parched tongue.
Lucifer shifts in his seat on Deth’s neck ridge, the long, lean Bronze remaining perfectly still in the cutting breeze. He spares a scathing look that turns heated a fraction through the slow trek down Sam’s body.
Surely riding leathers aren’t meant to fit this snugly, he thinks, resisting the urge to tug at the hide pulling tight across his thighs, shoulders, backside. Everywhere, in fact. Ellen had promised him that they’d loosen up with wear, but Sam’s not at all sure that makes him feel better. Wear, because this is his uniform now, the one he’ll be wearing for the rest of his life. It fits like he’s been stuffed into someone else’s skin.
Down below, the Weyr bowl is dotted with young riders and dragons, wobbling unsteadily on the air, Wingleaders surveying and trying to corral them into formation. Winth sniffs smugly at their efforts, already close to twice the size of the rest of her clutch. Of course, Queens naturally mature faster, but she’s taking it as a personal accomplishment anyway.
Unbidden, Sam’s mind is flooded with an image of these same Fire Heights, bright summer sun beating down from an entirely different angle onto a wide, stocky back of nearly black scales. Secondhand, he can feel shaking, abject terror cold as Between rolling in his gut.
Sam snaps back to reality, smiling despite the fine tremble still echoing through his limbs. He’s not sure anyone in the Weyr ever knew that Dean, mighty Bronzerider, was absolutely horrified of flying as a child. Shards, he’d almost forgotten it himself, considering how natural Dean is about it after all these Turns, but the reminder helps and he sends a rush of warm affection to the supportive presence at the back of his mind where Impalath tends to lurk unobtrusively.
Heart hammering at his chest, Sam smooths his hand over Winth’s shoulder and steels himself. Obligingly, she lifts her foreleg to help him step up, familiar, except that now there’s no one above to help pull him the rest of the way up into the cradle of the neck ridge. No one sitting behind or in front as he settles himself there. No one else to control the dragon beneath him, because she’s his, all his. One easy swoop of her wings between him and being a true dragonrider.
“Hang on,” Lucifer smirks, urging Deth forward and off the ledge. For a moment the two of them free fall through the air, nothing but heavy muscle under the pull of gravity. Then in a flash of bronze, Deth spreads his wings, rising with the whipping air to a near hover, a few dragonlengths overhead. Waiting.
It’s idiotic to hesitate now. He’s flown a thousand times before, has even been on Impalath by himself a few times, and his trust in Winth is as absolute as the stones beneath their feet. But still it… it means something to do this, to take flight on his dragon, his Queen. To accept their place in the Wing, the Weyr, all of Pern. He hasn’t been a Healer for a long while now, but this is the first time he’s ever had a choice in it.
“I’m ready,” whispers past his lips, dry as the sands of Igen, and then he’s weightless in a storm of cold-clawed speed.
Sam can barely see the plummet, bracing wind coaxing tears from his eyes that blot the Bowl floor into a riot of burred colors. He’s left his stomach somewhere back on the Fire Heights, he’s sure of it, but his heart’s right there in his throat pounding out a drum signal as they fall and fall and fall. Too far, they should have pulled up, Deth pulled up much earlier than this, but Sam’s not afraid, he’s- he’s exhilarated, he’s elated, he’s-
Flying.
Winth’s wings shoot out on either side of him, the very air roaring in defiance as she sails, beats once, twice, carrying them up. Above the sound, he hears shouts, screams. Opens eyes he hadn’t meant to close to find that they’re skimming close enough to the other new riders for Winth to pluck them right off their careening dragons.
“Troublemaker!” he shouts, silenced by the flood of air stinging his cheeks and the laugh he can’t choke back.
Someone has to show them how it’s done Winth breezes, self-satisfaction tinted with thrill as she dip-roll-dives, twisting in midair to dodge a floundering Blue and start winging her way higher.
They ought to make their way back toward the Star Stone - Lucifer will be waiting none-too-patiently for their first lesson in going Between - but Sam can’t resist the way Winth is reveling in a swooping circuit of the Bowl, showing off for the dragons and riders who’ve made their way outside to watch the young Queen.
Or maybe showing off for someone in particular, considering the entirely unnecessary flourish of a spiral she makes close enough to the third tier of weyr ledges. She ends it by pushing off of one with her hind foot before darting up and away again.
In the flicker of a moment it lasts, Sam sees the deep marks her claws score into the ledge, brilliant gold flashing between a set of glossy black, the whir of big silvery eyes above a much smaller, greener pair and a grin.
***
“What in the name of the first egg were you thinking?”
He gets, “I’m fine,” answered back at him, both in his brother’s voice and the deep rumble of Impalath inside of his head. He can feel them shoot a look at one another, feels the huff Impalath lets out as his massive chest swells against Sam’s side where he’s tending the livid Threadscore above the left wingjoint. Sam’s not sure if it was a blessing or a curse the day Dean Impressed a dragon just as self-sacrificing and overprotective as he is.
“You can’t go into Threadfall against the wind! Another few handspans and that could have been your head!” he snaps, tossing a glare at the jagged wound Dean’s rubbing numbweed into along his forearm.
Dean’s dragged one of the chairs from his room out into the larger chamber where centuries of dragon use have hollowed out a deep couch for Impalath. He’s stripped out of his jacket, the heavy wherhide dangling limp from the back of the chair along with Dean’s sweat-soaked shirt. His skin is still shining, pinked from hours trapped inside hide made to protect from Thread and the cold of Between.
“Thank you, Sam. I’m so glad you’re here to educate me since I never fought Thread while you were off safe in a Hold in your Healer greens.”
It’s an argument that got old long ago. Largely because, whatever Sam might feel about it, it never stops being true.
Rather than rehash old points, Sam applies himself to cleaning the burned hide around the edges of the injury, layering on numbweed and oil with careful fingers. It will still scar, but probably not badly, not with the meticulous attention he’s sure Dean will spend looking after it. If only he could say the same about his brother’s own skin.
“You’re making a mess of that,” he says after a few tense minutes of silence. Dean huffs around the roll of bandage he has stuffed in his mouth, trying to wrap his forearm one-handed.
Both of the dragons are watching them, large eyes swirling with tension that feeds back into the air and their riders and in turn to them again, a vicious cycle. Winth’s head is tucked in close to Impalath’s, slightly taller, now, when he’s laying down. Her wing is spread out over his uninjured side, a thrum too deep for Sam to register with his ears vibrating in his bones instead where she’s crooning comfort at him. It’s strange, even by the standards of their admittedly non-standard dragons. That level of physical contact among unmated dragons is rare; they’re an emotional species but not a tactile one. He wonders if it’s more bleed over from he and Dean, their own bizarre bond transcending the-
Sam startles at the sound of the numbweed pot Dean’s been using hitting the stone floor.
“Shards,” his brother curses, the bandage roll falling out of his mouth and unraveling itself across the floor as well.
Despite himself, Sam can’t help the smile that curls his lips any more than he can the sigh as he helps clear up the mess Dean’s made. The numbweed is still salvageable, only a small crack in the clay pot, although the bandage is stained with the red dust of the weyr floor. Glaring down Dean’s attempt to snatch it back from him, Sam retrieves another from his pack, settling down on his knees next to his brother’s chair to set to work.
Dean refuses to meet his eyes, but holds his arm out obligingly, only grumbling after Sam’s started wrapping the wound.
“There are other dragons who could use you right now.”
“I’ve taken care of all of the vital injuries, everything else is just patching up. There’s not a body in Benden who doesn’t know how to handle that.”
“Besides me, I take it.”
“Why are you so determined to take everything as an insult?”
All he gets for an answer is a snort and tension in the corded muscles beneath his hand. They fall into a silence, only the sound of Winth’s thrumming as it bounces off of the domed weyr ceiling to tickle at the edges of his consciousness while he works.
This is how he learned, long before he threw his lot in with the Healer Hall. His hands moving over Dean’s skin, tacky and overheated from training or, later, fighting Threadfall.
There’s more than one scar marking Dean’s skin, most of them time-faded and familiar. New ones still creep up on Sam, though, when he has the time or opportunity to look. The one there, hiding on the inside of an elbow, is a stranger; a thin, clean line, beltknife more than likely.
More than his own temper, Dean’s always had a knack for bringing it out in others. Certainly had enough practice on Sam to have made him a master of the art, though a healthy dose of self-confidence, the age of his Impression, and the ability and willingness to bed every woman worth having who wandered through the Weyr was enough to encourage plenty of people to hold a grudge against him. If ever there was a man born to be a rider, it’s Dean. Not everyone takes kindly to that fact.
“There,” he says, fastening the bandage security. His touch lingers over the border of fabric and skin, checking the fit. Dean’s always been terrible about scratching at them if they’re wrapped too tight.
Dean’s eyes are on the darkening mouth of the weyr, apparently oblivious, but his fingers tighten on Sam’s wrist as he goes to pull away. Haltingly, Dean turns toward him, face a mottle of salt from dried sweat and ash. It highlights the crinkles that line the corner of Dean’s eyes, turns all the cracks and crevices of his neck bright so he looks older, worn, entirely too much like their father.
“Thanks,” he says softly, thumb bumping back and forth over the prominence of Sam’s wristbone.
Sam eases back to sit on his haunches, the turn of his hand to cup Dean’s as natural as breathing. He smiles, “That’s what I’m here for.”
***
The smell of boiling numbweed is persistently awful enough to have chased off everyone but the drudges from the Lower Kitchens. The drudges, Sam and Ellen, that is.
Ruby had begged off in favor of checking all of the flamethrowers the Queen riders will be using to fly Threadfall - probably imagining it would be an easier job, but Sam's seen the state of those since the Fall over Ruatha Hold. Eye-stinging as the production of numbweed may be, he doesn't envy her the task. Anna's Grath will be ready to Rise any day now, and Sam couldn't imagine the irritability that goes hand-in-hand with a broody Queen was going to make the curing and potting of salve go any faster, so he'd asked her to look after Lisa, who's still largely bed-ridden from her first birthing. He hadn't giving a second thought about the command and Anna hadn't hesitated to follow it. It was only afterward that it occurred to him that he's not, in fact, in charge of the Queen's Wing yet, but Ellen had simply smiled approvingly.
All told, he knows more about the production of numbweed salve than the rest of the young Queen riders put together, so it's probably just as well. Their stores from last Turn were largely depleted after Ruatha, and they’ll no doubt be needing more for the Fall over Lemos in twelve days.
Leaning in to check the color of one of the roiling pots, Ellen asks, “How’s Winth?”
Sam was far too young at the time of his mother’s passing to have any real memories of her, but Ellen has always held much the same place in his heart. She’d taken more of an interest in him and Dean than was perhaps strictly called for, particularly after their father had refused to remain Weyrleader when it meant taking her as weyrmate. It had never been quite maternal - she’d had more than enough on her hands as Weyrwoman - but she’d taken care to see to it that they had clothes that fit and weren’t getting into too much trouble wandering Benden on their own. She’d supported Sam when the time came for him to become a candidate and he chose the Healer Hall instead, was one of the only ones who did. Dean’s never said so, but Sam knows she’d helped keep Dean sane after their father disappeared Between.
Sam knows better than to think it’s anything close to casual when she asks after his dragon.
“She’s well,” he replies anyway, stepping in to stir a kettle that looks in danger of scalding on the bottom. “Healthy. There’s a small flaw in the scaling on her left foreleg, but I think she’ll grow out of it.”
“That’s good.” Ellen smiles, breaks away for a moment to stop the drudges from stacking up so closely together the ceramic pots of salve they’ve just poured. “Quite the flier, that one.”
“That she is.”
It isn’t hard to imagine what Ellen’s driving at, but Sam’s been rather deftly avoiding thinking along those lines, so he’s not inclined to make it easy on her.
“Have you given any thought to-“
The steaming contents of the kettle nearly slosh over with the force of Sam’s stir. “No.”
“Sam.” Ellen’s voice is sharp, serious. All of the drudges have suddenly found something to be extremely interested in.
Manfully, Sam resists the urge to fling the ladle in his hand across the room, wrapping his fingers around the handle until his knuckles have gone snow white instead. “Impalath is the only Bronze big enough to challenge Deth for her, and obviously...” metal clangs on metal as Sam makes himself let go of the heavy spoon, casting the bitter thoughts out of his head with a shake. “What’s the point in wasting my energy on it when everyone knows how it’s going to end?”
The room’s gone quite but for the soft bubbling sounds of revering salve, not quite enough to cover the rush of air as Ellen sighs heavily. “They take your preference into account.”
Sam would be hard pressed to say whether her tone is more exasperated or condescending. As if Sam doesn’t know this fact very well, as if he hasn’t lived most of his life in a Weyr and all the rest of it studying dragons. Blasted if it helps him, but he certainly knows it.
“Is that how you ended up with Lucifer for a werymate?” he snaps, fighting the instant flash of regret. It isn’t Ellen’s fault that Dean wasn’t there for Joth’s last mating flight, and he knows she would have favored him if he had been. Everyone in Benden knows Dean was born to be Weyrleader and now he might not ever be, all because Sam has an inborn knack for shattering tradition, whether he means to or not.
Ellen doesn’t even flinch. “Sam, I went beyond the romance of the matter a very long time ago. Preference is hardly a factor for me, certainly not enough to affect the outcome of a flight.”
Bill had been a good rider. Sam hadn’t ever known him well, but he’d flown second in John’s Wing before Sam’s father had essentially abandoned life as a rider, and he’d tried to help the man, by all accounts. His loss, so few Turns after Sam’s mother, had been a blow to all of Pern and Joth had never settled with another Bronze for more than a flight or two again. It was part of the reason Benden had struggled, never able to find a Weyrleader who could hold his place for long enough to accomplish anything. Sam wonders if the weight of that blame sits as heavily on Ellen as his own situation does on him.
“So what would you suggest I do?”
The smack is unexpected enough that Sam startles, rubbing at the stinging spot on his arm. At least Ellen had deigned to use the clean end of the spoon. “Stop being such a dimglow and do what feels right.”
She’s giving him a look that Sam can’t seem to interpret, frustrated and urging. He wishes on all things green and growing that everyone would stop blathering on about instincts and tell him what he ought to do.
Nudging another kettle over the fire to more evenly distribute the heat, Sam lets the ideas tumble in his mind.
Deth is the largest Bronze in Benden, but more than that, he’s clever, patient. Far too much like his rider, Sam thinks bitingly. Lucifer has spent years jockeying for position - moving between Fort and Igen, making a name for himself before he joined the ranks of Benden, always with his eye on becoming Weyrleader. Even now with the title on his shoulders like a mantle, Sam can tell Lucifer is just biding his time, waiting to secure his rule.
Sam’s skin crawls at the thought of what it would be like if Lucifer had the chance to make good on all of the heated looks and innuendos he’s aimed Sam’s way these last few months. Allowing him as a permanent Weyrleader would be unconscionable, but allowing him to put his hands on Sam’s body, into his bed every night…. The tightness in his throat isn’t entirely from the stink of numbweed salve anymore.
But against Deth, who could stand a chance? Michael’s Sworth or Rafael’s Faith would be just as bad. Sam and Benden both would be Lucifer’s in everything but name. Deth is lean, though, wiry; a Bronze of reasonable size but more muscle might be able to outmatch him in a burst for speed.
Sam still isn’t particularly good at blocking Winth - and for that matter, Impalath - out of his mind, but he does his best to tamp down on the connection as the image of Impalath swooping past Deth in midair forms in his mind. He doesn’t get the sense either dragon had been paying much attention anyway, preferring to keep their sensitive noses on the upwind ridge of the Bowl, playing around, he senses vaguely. This kind of political battle-planning isn’t usually of interest to dragons anyway, but better to be safe than stuck trying to explain himself to Dean if Impalath ever let the idea slip.
The trouble is, Dean does deserve to be Weyrleader, and alongside somebody who could temper his natural tendency to dive into situations headlong. Someone like Sam. They’d be ideal for the job, really, except-
No. Dean’s always done well at disguising how uncomfortable Sam’s tendencies make him, but the look on his face that first time he caught Sam kissing a boy will be burned in Sam’s mind until the day he dies. He hadn’t known what it was like to disappoint his brother back then - it hadn’t even occurred to him that it was possible. So to ask Dean, no, to force Dean into that situation through a mating flight, with his brother, no less, as if any man wouldn’t be bad enough in Dean’s mind… That thought actually makes Sam more sick to his stomach than letting Lucifer bed him.
With a huff, Sam shoves that stream of thought aside. It’s not an option. It isn’t even the same species as an option. But… but it might have a kernel of one buried inside it. Dean deserves to be Weyrleader. Winth being flown by Sworth or Faith would be tantamount to making Lucifer Weyrleader, because Lucifer controls Michael and Rafael. But Lucifer isn’t the only Bronzerider with a Wingsecond.
“Jimth might be strong enough,” Sam muses, sudden hope turning his breath short. “He hasn’t got Impalath’s size, but he’s fast. With Winth’s acrobatics, that could be enough to give him an edge.”Ellen stares at him over the shoulder of one of the drudges, sighs all over again, but it melts into a smile. “I suppose you’re right.”
Part 2