The Wrong Dragon: Part 2
It was still morning in the Half Moon Weyr. Midsummer was approaching,
and the air was sticky, overly warm and humid, promising rain later that day and bathing the apprentices in sweat as they worked through their exercises. Dean had finished the drills that were intended to increase his strength and stamina for battling the imminent onset of threadfall, always supposing he’d be able to Impress at the next hatching. Sweaty and feeling the pleasant aches that always attended a good workout, he made his way back into the barracks and headed for the weyrlings’ bathing room, pausing only to grab a bag of sweetsand from his sleeping area before finally sinking into the steaming water provided by the hot spring that fed all the caverns of the Weyr. He sighed and leaned into the current that poured through the pool while he scrubbed himself clean, watching the flow of water from the spring carry away the dirty water and replace it with fresh. Ducking down under the surface, he felt the water ease the aches and pains that the morning’s exercise had induced.
Washing quickly, he allowed himself to lie back in the warmth of the hot spring and drowse luxuriously for a few minutes before the peace he was enjoying was shattered by the boisterous arrival of his younger brother and Sam’s friend, Chad. He sighed as the pair of them yelled and cannon-balled into the deeper end of the bath and reached for the drying cloth he’d left ready, hoping that it hadn’t been soaked through by the antics of the newcomers. He adored his little brother-he always had-but he couldn't like Chad for the life of him, although he had no idea what about the boy made him feel that way.
Climbing out onto the tiled edge of the pool, he wrapped himself in the cloth and turned to study his brother as he grabbed hold of a handful of sweetsand, forming it into a paste so he could begin to scrub off the collected grime from their chores.
Sam was boisterous, made more so by close association with his constant companion. Dean shook his head as the pair of them started throwing the mud at each other with loud cackles. He loved Sam, but there were times when he just wanted to take him away from the other boy’s influence and try to instill some decorum in him. Right at that moment, he was afraid that Sam was running wild, and that he was going to be passed over for the chance to Impress when the next clutch of eggs was ready.
At the age of 22, Dean was beginning to wonder if he had it in him to impress a dragon and become a dragonrider. He’d already watched the other lads who had been brought in from Searches of the Holds and the Craft Halls as they faced the hatchlings together and had seen most of them Imprint the stumbling, starving dragonets and instantly fall in love with their new partners. He alone had failed, and sometime in the next few days would come his third and final chance to win a dragon of his own. If he didn’t succeed this time, he’d lose the opportunity and be forever cast as one of the failures, condemned to patrol the ground after threadfall, seeking out spores that might have evaded the flaming dragons in the sky above him, while successful riders occupied the air above, soaring and swooping as they defended the land.
He couldn’t imagine a worse fate.
The sad truth of things was that he’d been a hellion at first when he was recruited to the novices. He’d been full of himself and determined that rules were for sissies. With the disappointment of failing to impress on that first hatching, he’d been disillusioned, and the novice's wingleader, T’Moh, had taken him aside to try to instill sense into him. He had been temporarily chastened at first, but soon after had resorted to his old tricks once again. It had taken a second session on the hatching sands, once more returning dragonless while his companions all Impressed their dragonets, to teach him that he was throwing away his chances of ever becoming a dragonrider. After that he’d matured rapidly, spending as much time as he could with the older riders, learning what he could and assisting M’lik, the rider of bronze Chanth, who had shown him kindness following his second rejection at the recent hatching. It hadn’t stopped the other candidates from calling him a loser and heaping indignities on him whenever the opportunity arose, but he had learned from it, and was determined that this time he would succeed.
Now, he was trying his best to shape up. He had loved to spend time with Chanth, oiling and scrubbing the glossy scales until M’lik complained that Chanth was growing vain and that he was growing fat, since Dean had taken over maintaining his dragon’s beauty.
“I’m sure you’ll be lucky this time,” M’lik had told him. “And when you get your dragon you’ll be far too busy to tend to Chanth. What’s he going to do then? He’ll miss being the best-groomed dragon, and I’ll have chapped hands, trying to live up to his exacting standards!”
~*~
Dean presented himself to Headwoman Missouri for whatever chores she might have and was thrilled when she dismissed him off to see if Healer Rowena, now promoted to be in charge of the Weyr's well-being, had anything for him. There had been an outbreak of fire-head after some of the young dragonriders had returned from fighting thread over the new continent.
Greeting him with enthusiasm, Rowena soon set him to work and the day passed by very quickly as he labored. He'd paused to eat a quick meal of smoked wherry, frybread, and klah at the noon hour, and then returned to his job, making beds and bathing the foreheads of the sick riders with cold, wet cloths.
The evening meal hour was approaching when the dragons started to croon. Dean, who was in the middle of applying numbweed to a rider who had been threadscored, lifted his head to listen as the sound grew louder. He knew that the dragons were warning that the hatching was imminent, and he was feeling conflicted. He needed to be there to Impress his dragon, Threads willing, but at the same time he was in the middle of dressing a wounded rider. He had begun to tremble when Rowena, who had been watching him approvingly, finally told him to go before he missed the ceremony completely.
He had no time to change into the ceremonial white tunic worn by the candidates for Impression, and as he hurtled onto the sands, the hatching had already begun. A little brown dragonet fell out of its shell and stumbled past him as it answered its new companion, and Dean, out of breath and red-faced from his run down from the heights of the infirmary, tripped and fell as he avoided colliding with the little creature, landing close to the group of girls who had been coached to impress the one queen egg from this clutch if they could.
He smacked down face-first onto the hard-packed sand, and for a minute lay winded. Then, there was a voice telling him to 'get up'.
“Get up. I need you.”
Feeling utterly foolish, he rolled over, blinking owlishly as he tried to get himself oriented. The girls were all screaming, and he knew he'd just screwed his very last opportunity to impress a dragon and become a dragonrider. Disconsolate, he scrambled to his feet, but was almost knocked off his feet again as a small being with very sharp edges cannoned into him.
Looking down, he discovered that he was apparently being assaulted by a very focused, incredibly determined dragonet. "What?" he gasped.
""I told you. I need you." The words resounded in his head. "I need you. I'm hungry."
"You need me?" But..." Dean looked around him, panicked. "Listen, little one. I'm not supposed to... You can't pick me. I'm a man."
The little queen dragon fixed him with her gleaming eyes. "I can pick who I want, and I'm hungry."
When he looked back at things later, Dean couldn't believe how events had turned out. He knew that it shouldn't have happened that way, but he wasn't sorry. One look into Carith's whirling eyes, and he was lost, drowning in that golden gaze, in thrall to his new mistress.
He heard that Sam had Impressed a fine bronze long before he saw his brother again, but Carith kept him so busy that he barely had a chance to turn around. When they finally met up once more, Dean had taken her down to a nearby lake and was busily scrubbing all the itchy spots that drove her crazy as she grew. He loved taking care of her, scrubbing away the molting scales and then oiling her so her skin stayed supple, and she gleamed golden in the sunlight.
The day was warm and promised to be hot later that afternoon. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and small insects buzzed around Dean as he bent to his task. He was definitely looking forward to a dip in the lake, once he finished Carith's morning routine. He was soaked through and covered in sweetsand when he heard the trumpeting call of another dragon, and within a couple of minutes, Sammy-or S'mal as Dean figured he should call him -came down to land beside them. Looking up to see his brother's familiar face, he felt a rush of pride at Sam, tall, clean-limbed and beautiful.
As a youngster, he'd dreamed of this, both of them dragonriders, and the adventures they would surely have. Now more than ever, he couldn't wait to ride alongside his brother through the welcoming sky.
Sammy's familiar face beamed at him as his dragon settled beside Carith on the edge of the water.
"Hey, brother!" (That should be safe enough, he decided.) "Wow!" Eying up the sleek, half-grown bronze that Sam had just ridden down from the weyr, Dean looked impressed. "He's a beauty. What's his name?"
"Jo told me you'd be here." Sam held up his hand as the bronze plunged into the lake. "Manners, Erenth! Pay your respects before you go for your swim.” His dragon tossed his head and snorted but bowed his head to Carith before wading out into the water and disappearing under the smooth surface. Sam sighed. "Erenth keeps me busy. He's growing like a weed." Taking a seat on the grass beside Dean, he watched as Dean put the finishing touches to Carith's shiny scales. Carith flicked her gaze from Dean to Sam and back, and Dean suddenly remembered his own manners.
"Carith, this is my brother S'mal, rider of Erenth," said Dean, formally introducing his brother to his dragon, using Sam's new dragonrider name to show Sam the same respect he'd show to any bronze rider. Sam blushed under Carith’s golden gaze but succeeded in stuttering out a formal greeting to her.
“I haven’t had a lot of time, either. She’s pretty much doubled in size every week since I met her.” He smiled fondly and indicated Carith’s burnished scales as she took herself off to wallow in the warm water. “How is everyone? I’m afraid I’ve even been ignoring Chanth. Carith takes up all my time. How’s Chad? What did he Impress?”
A cloud drifted over Sam’s face as he shook his head. “Chad didn’t Impress any dragon. He’s being returned to his hold.”
“Oh, no! I’m sorry.” Dean hadn’t liked Sam’s constant companion, but he could see that his brother was distressed about something. “What happened? I thought he was one of the candidates…”
“He was discovered plotting against the Weyr.” Sam’s eyes had a hard, flinty sheen to them that Dean hadn’t ever seen before. “He tried to recruit me to do some of his dirty work, and I told T’moh what he was up to. He and his family want a dragon of their own to experiment on. Dean, he was going to steal one of the eggs.”
Dean’s blood ran cold at the thought. “The dragons are all in contact with each other, Sammy. I don’t see how they could do anything to one, even if they did manage to spirit an egg away.”
“God, Dean, you don’t even know! He told me some of the things they were going to do.” Sam shuddered. “That’s why I went to T’moh. It was evil-disgusting. They’ve got some leader who wants to destroy a dragon’s links to his peers.”
“I don’t see how they could do that. Why would they want to?" Dean's voice shook at the very thought. "Dragons have a kind of hive memory that goes back to before men came to Pern.” Dean was frowning as he tried to puzzle things out. “All the dragons would know if anyone was trying anything on one of their kind.”
“Well, I don’t know much more than I’ve told you already, but Chad seemed to think that was why they wanted an egg. Anything they do to change a dragon has to be done before they hatch.” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “That’s pretty much all I know. He didn’t tell me anymore after that. Just asked me if I would join him in the task.”
“But that’s dark magic.” Dean sounded horrified. “Whatever did you say to him?”
“What do you think I said?” Sam was obviously very angry. “I want my own dragon to fight thread, not for some insane would-be warlord to experiment on. I told him to go to the queen and apologize to dragonkind for the wrong he was proposing to do. Then I went to T’moh and told him about it.”
Dean listened gravely and then reached to pull his brother in for a hug. “Threads above, brother, I’m so proud of you for that."
"Yeah, that's great, but why would anyone want to pervert dragons? Is it just to take over the world? Why would anyone want to do that? Life is great for us here. The threads will be over and done within a year or two, and then we'll be free to explore the land, make our claims, and prosper." It seemed that Sam was still furious. "The folk that came to help get us established will have gone back to their lives, and Half Moon will be independent. We're so close. All we need now is for some megalomaniac to come along and destroy what we've been building. I can't even guess why, let alone what they're looking for."
"Some people just want to be in charge." Dean nodded his agreement. "They want to make others do their work for them. You and I are happy to work on our dragons and learn how to keep them safe, but we see them as friends. I guess someone like Chad feels that they are things to possess, not friends."
A huge splashing and commotion from the lake heralded the end of bath time as their dragons took off and swooped over to where the herdbeasts were penned, leaving their two riders to make their own way to the feeding grounds. As they began to stroll along the steep path, they could see Carith swoop down on yet another fat herdbeast and carry it off, while Erenth finished off a wherry with a grumble of appreciation.
"She's going to burst out of her skin again any minute," said Dean with a long-suffering sigh. "I guess there's no peace for the wicked."
"She's going to be an amazing queen. Look at her wingspan already. She's even bigger than Erenth, and she's barely half-grown." Sam chuckled. "I wouldn't want to make her angry."
"She seems to like Erenth, anyway. It's funny because she hasn't really become friendly with any of the others from her clutch." There was a pause as they both clambered over the fence around the pen and then Carith swooped down beside Dean and laid her head on his shoulder, twisting her neck to gaze into his eyes in a flirtatious manner.
"I'm so very tired," she cooed, nuzzling his neck. "I need to sleep!" Dean laughed out loud at her wheedling tone and turned to his brother.
"Looks like I've been summoned back to the weyr, I'm afraid," he announced. "Madam here needs her beauty sleep." he poked her full belly as he spoke, and she made a playful snap at him.
"No rest for the wicked," snickered Sam as Dean prepared to mount Carith to fly back up to the weyr.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you," murmured Carith, nuzzling Dean's ear. "I must have sensed your innate wickedness." She gave a snort of humor. "Are you ready?"
"Always!" Dean petted her eye ridges for a minute, and then they were off.
~*~
Time passed. Dragons grew, and boys rapidly became men. Carith became a fine queen, and it was expected that she'd soon rise to mate. The Weyr buzzed with excitement each time she flew down to the feeding grounds, and the bronze riders all watched every move she made, wondering who their new queen would choose as a mate. It was assumed that M'lik would be the one to succeed with his bronze Chanth, mostly because it was known that Dean had worked with the mighty bronze and was friends with both dragon and rider, although T'moh and his dragon, Gadranth, was a favorite too. Carith just giggled when Dean asked her to tell him who she liked best and told him to wait and see who the biggest and strongest would be.
Bobby the Masterharper had visited Half Moon regularly as the boys grew and spent as much time as he could with the two brothers as they became full-fledged dragon riders. He passed much of his time sitting with Carith, singing to her about the destiny of a queen dragon, and talking to both boys about the mother and father they had lost on the fateful night when Winchester Hold was attacked and destroyed. Sam, of course, had been too young to remember anything about the invasion and destruction of Winchester Hold that had occurred, and Dean, it seemed, had no remembrance of the events at all, other than a vague sense of running, terrified that he would lose something precious if he didn't keep going.
"But why did that happen? Who would want to kill our family?" Sam, ever curious, wanted to see all the details that had been recorded and constantly pondered the reason for the attack.
"That I can't tell you for certain. I was there the day it happened, but I regret to say I hid until the marauders were gone. Attackers appeared to materialize out of thin air. It was very strange, I can tell you, son." The old man sipped at a glass of the wine that he'd brought from Benden with him as a gift for the Weyr. "You were born on the very day your mother, rest her soul, found the prophecy on one of the old documents she was studying. So much happened at that time. She and I pondered that scroll for a long time, and fortunately, I had made notes or it would have been lost again. The actual pages from which we copied disappeared the same day, and because there was such a hubbub when Mary went into labor we didn't think to put it somewhere safe. I'll never forgive myself for that, although there was such a clamor, I figured it would be best if I made myself scarce! I've often wondered what happened to that darn fool document. Was it relevant to the things that happened afterward? Did it have any meaning at all?" Singer leaned back and closed his eyes, reciting the words from memory, and both Sam and Dean, who had just come in from assisting Rowena in the clinic, listened, round-eyed.
There was a moment's silence while the words seemed to resonate in the cave where they sat. Then Sam sat forward, looking as though he might explode from suppressed excitement.
"But that could be us! What do you think, Dean?"
"I think you're developing a very over-active imagination, Sammy. How could it be us? What vileness is overshadowing the land?" Dean, always pragmatic, went straight to the heart of the matter.
"I was thinking about that thing with Chad," said Sam, very quickly. “That strikes me as plenty dark, and when Carith lays her eggs for the first time, we're going to need to keep a close watch over them or we'll be allowing that vileness to happen on our watch."
"You have a point, Sammy." Dean nodded. "We'll keep an eye on Carith's eggs for sure. That was a horrible thought."
"Bobby, were there any other papers from the same batch that weren't given to someone to study?"
Sam was thinking, and Dean knew his brother. He knew better than anyone that Sam would worry at the situation until he found answers, even if it took the rest of his life. "I wouldn't mind taking a look through them to see what I can find. Downtime between threadfalls would be a great time for me to peruse them and see what I can discover."
"You know, S'mal, that ain't such a bad idea." The old harper grinned, apparently satisfied that Sam had taken the bait that he'd been angling for. "The cave we found that box in was full of rubble, and has taken a while to clear, but I believe we can access the other boxes now. Maybe you could take me back to the Harper Hall, and I could load you up with some to bring back?"
"Done!" Sam leaped to his feet. "Come on then. Let's go."
~*~
A few days after Sam had returned from the Harper Hall bearing his trove of moldering documents, the world changed for Dean, and for the Half Moon Weyr. He had a dull, throbbing headache which didn't seem to want to leave even after several cups of klah. Carith had also woken up in a really bad mood, and it seemed that the rest of the dragons were beginning to feel the effects too. Even the usually unflappable T'moh snapped at him when he inadvertently fumbled with the flamethrower which was the queen's contribution to the war on the threads.
By midmorning, it suddenly became clear what was at the heart of the mood that was afflicting the Weyr. Carith, who had been impatient with Dean all morning, suddenly left the drill to fly down to the feeding ground, and in a trice had killed two of the herdbeasts and now stood over them, trumpeting her defiance to the heavens as Dean called her back.
It was one of the older dragonriders, M'kal, who stepped up to Dean's side to explain what was happening. "She's ready to rise for a mating flight. I've seen this before. You have to hold her until she flies or she won't have a good clutch."
Mixed excitement and terror pooled in Dean's belly. He'd avoided thinking about the inevitability of Carith's mating, believing that it wouldn't happen because she'd picked him for a rider. Now, as he pulled at Carith's emotions, holding her back from devouring her kill, it seemed that the unthinkable was indeed going to happen, and he needed to step up to the challenge. As Carith snapped and snarled in a battle of wills with him, he looked wildly for his brother for reassurance and thought he saw him, standing with the other bronze riders, but then it was too late. Carith gave a growl and abandoned her brunch in favor of launching herself into the air, her powerful wings beating as she soared aloft.
Dean was up in the air with Carith, but at the same time, he was aware of the thunderclap as the larger male dragons, mostly bronze, rose into the air to pursue their queen. He could feel a press of bodies around him, smell arousal, sense it in Carith's joyful headlong flight, and willed her onward as her excitement resonated in him, carrying him with her.
" Puny males!" she crowed. "I won't be caught by them. I won't!"
Already, two of the smaller bronzes, and the only brown to try his luck were returning to the Weyr, disconsolate, as Carith looped and rolled, neatly avoiding Gadranth, whose miscalculation sent him careening into a near collision with the limestone of the Weyr. T'moh, his rider, staggered as he tried to keep Gadranth from serious injury, and Carith flew high again, rapidly moving out of sight save for three bronzes who were still in full pursuit of their prey.
Carith was trumpeting insults to the remaining pursuers, telling them that they were just not good enough to catch her, and one old bronze, Pellanth, paired with the tactical advisor, R'fus, seemed to tire and eventually turned back to rest, pale with exhaustion. That left two bronze dragons still attempting to claim Carith. She was employing every kind of maneuver she could to avoid them while still making fun of them, and Dean could see when she finally made a mistake. She had suddenly halted in mid-air, allowing the dragon in the lead to overshoot and pass her by, but the second, hard on her tail, saw his opportunity and banked to avoid passing her, suddenly wrapping his wings around her and claiming her as his mate.
Dean couldn't think, could only feel the arms around him and the hard body that had suddenly pressed against him. Suffused with the need to be possessed, he was aware only of the craving for penetration and the satisfaction that flooded through him as Carith was taken and utterly possessed. He was completely lost in the need and the pleasure that the assault was creating in him. His body and Carith's need to mate were all he knew as the other riders bore the two of them up to the queen's weyr and privacy.
~*~
Sometime later, Dean awoke. His body ached, and he was conscious of brawny arms holding him captive. A quick mental search revealed that Carith was back at the weyr with her new mate, radiating an aura of both smugness and satisfaction. Having reassured himself that she was fine and that she had experienced no ill effects, he finally opened his eyes, squinting against the light from the mouth of the cave.
Blinking as his eyes watered, he finally turned to find out just who was hugging him so tightly and sat up in dismay as he recognized his new partner.
It was Sam.
Back to the Master Post | On to Part 3
and the air was sticky, overly warm and humid, promising rain later that day and bathing the apprentices in sweat as they worked through their exercises. Dean had finished the drills that were intended to increase his strength and stamina for battling the imminent onset of threadfall, always supposing he’d be able to Impress at the next hatching. Sweaty and feeling the pleasant aches that always attended a good workout, he made his way back into the barracks and headed for the weyrlings’ bathing room, pausing only to grab a bag of sweetsand from his sleeping area before finally sinking into the steaming water provided by the hot spring that fed all the caverns of the Weyr. He sighed and leaned into the current that poured through the pool while he scrubbed himself clean, watching the flow of water from the spring carry away the dirty water and replace it with fresh. Ducking down under the surface, he felt the water ease the aches and pains that the morning’s exercise had induced.
Washing quickly, he allowed himself to lie back in the warmth of the hot spring and drowse luxuriously for a few minutes before the peace he was enjoying was shattered by the boisterous arrival of his younger brother and Sam’s friend, Chad. He sighed as the pair of them yelled and cannon-balled into the deeper end of the bath and reached for the drying cloth he’d left ready, hoping that it hadn’t been soaked through by the antics of the newcomers. He adored his little brother-he always had-but he couldn't like Chad for the life of him, although he had no idea what about the boy made him feel that way.
Climbing out onto the tiled edge of the pool, he wrapped himself in the cloth and turned to study his brother as he grabbed hold of a handful of sweetsand, forming it into a paste so he could begin to scrub off the collected grime from their chores.
Sam was boisterous, made more so by close association with his constant companion. Dean shook his head as the pair of them started throwing the mud at each other with loud cackles. He loved Sam, but there were times when he just wanted to take him away from the other boy’s influence and try to instill some decorum in him. Right at that moment, he was afraid that Sam was running wild, and that he was going to be passed over for the chance to Impress when the next clutch of eggs was ready.
At the age of 22, Dean was beginning to wonder if he had it in him to impress a dragon and become a dragonrider. He’d already watched the other lads who had been brought in from Searches of the Holds and the Craft Halls as they faced the hatchlings together and had seen most of them Imprint the stumbling, starving dragonets and instantly fall in love with their new partners. He alone had failed, and sometime in the next few days would come his third and final chance to win a dragon of his own. If he didn’t succeed this time, he’d lose the opportunity and be forever cast as one of the failures, condemned to patrol the ground after threadfall, seeking out spores that might have evaded the flaming dragons in the sky above him, while successful riders occupied the air above, soaring and swooping as they defended the land.
He couldn’t imagine a worse fate.
The sad truth of things was that he’d been a hellion at first when he was recruited to the novices. He’d been full of himself and determined that rules were for sissies. With the disappointment of failing to impress on that first hatching, he’d been disillusioned, and the novice's wingleader, T’Moh, had taken him aside to try to instill sense into him. He had been temporarily chastened at first, but soon after had resorted to his old tricks once again. It had taken a second session on the hatching sands, once more returning dragonless while his companions all Impressed their dragonets, to teach him that he was throwing away his chances of ever becoming a dragonrider. After that he’d matured rapidly, spending as much time as he could with the older riders, learning what he could and assisting M’lik, the rider of bronze Chanth, who had shown him kindness following his second rejection at the recent hatching. It hadn’t stopped the other candidates from calling him a loser and heaping indignities on him whenever the opportunity arose, but he had learned from it, and was determined that this time he would succeed.
Now, he was trying his best to shape up. He had loved to spend time with Chanth, oiling and scrubbing the glossy scales until M’lik complained that Chanth was growing vain and that he was growing fat, since Dean had taken over maintaining his dragon’s beauty.
“I’m sure you’ll be lucky this time,” M’lik had told him. “And when you get your dragon you’ll be far too busy to tend to Chanth. What’s he going to do then? He’ll miss being the best-groomed dragon, and I’ll have chapped hands, trying to live up to his exacting standards!”
~*~
Dean presented himself to Headwoman Missouri for whatever chores she might have and was thrilled when she dismissed him off to see if Healer Rowena, now promoted to be in charge of the Weyr's well-being, had anything for him. There had been an outbreak of fire-head after some of the young dragonriders had returned from fighting thread over the new continent.
Greeting him with enthusiasm, Rowena soon set him to work and the day passed by very quickly as he labored. He'd paused to eat a quick meal of smoked wherry, frybread, and klah at the noon hour, and then returned to his job, making beds and bathing the foreheads of the sick riders with cold, wet cloths.
The evening meal hour was approaching when the dragons started to croon. Dean, who was in the middle of applying numbweed to a rider who had been threadscored, lifted his head to listen as the sound grew louder. He knew that the dragons were warning that the hatching was imminent, and he was feeling conflicted. He needed to be there to Impress his dragon, Threads willing, but at the same time he was in the middle of dressing a wounded rider. He had begun to tremble when Rowena, who had been watching him approvingly, finally told him to go before he missed the ceremony completely.
He had no time to change into the ceremonial white tunic worn by the candidates for Impression, and as he hurtled onto the sands, the hatching had already begun. A little brown dragonet fell out of its shell and stumbled past him as it answered its new companion, and Dean, out of breath and red-faced from his run down from the heights of the infirmary, tripped and fell as he avoided colliding with the little creature, landing close to the group of girls who had been coached to impress the one queen egg from this clutch if they could.
He smacked down face-first onto the hard-packed sand, and for a minute lay winded. Then, there was a voice telling him to 'get up'.
“Get up. I need you.”
Feeling utterly foolish, he rolled over, blinking owlishly as he tried to get himself oriented. The girls were all screaming, and he knew he'd just screwed his very last opportunity to impress a dragon and become a dragonrider. Disconsolate, he scrambled to his feet, but was almost knocked off his feet again as a small being with very sharp edges cannoned into him.
Looking down, he discovered that he was apparently being assaulted by a very focused, incredibly determined dragonet. "What?" he gasped.
""I told you. I need you." The words resounded in his head. "I need you. I'm hungry."
"You need me?" But..." Dean looked around him, panicked. "Listen, little one. I'm not supposed to... You can't pick me. I'm a man."
The little queen dragon fixed him with her gleaming eyes. "I can pick who I want, and I'm hungry."
When he looked back at things later, Dean couldn't believe how events had turned out. He knew that it shouldn't have happened that way, but he wasn't sorry. One look into Carith's whirling eyes, and he was lost, drowning in that golden gaze, in thrall to his new mistress.
He heard that Sam had Impressed a fine bronze long before he saw his brother again, but Carith kept him so busy that he barely had a chance to turn around. When they finally met up once more, Dean had taken her down to a nearby lake and was busily scrubbing all the itchy spots that drove her crazy as she grew. He loved taking care of her, scrubbing away the molting scales and then oiling her so her skin stayed supple, and she gleamed golden in the sunlight.
The day was warm and promised to be hot later that afternoon. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and small insects buzzed around Dean as he bent to his task. He was definitely looking forward to a dip in the lake, once he finished Carith's morning routine. He was soaked through and covered in sweetsand when he heard the trumpeting call of another dragon, and within a couple of minutes, Sammy-or S'mal as Dean figured he should call him -came down to land beside them. Looking up to see his brother's familiar face, he felt a rush of pride at Sam, tall, clean-limbed and beautiful.
As a youngster, he'd dreamed of this, both of them dragonriders, and the adventures they would surely have. Now more than ever, he couldn't wait to ride alongside his brother through the welcoming sky.
Sammy's familiar face beamed at him as his dragon settled beside Carith on the edge of the water.
"Hey, brother!" (That should be safe enough, he decided.) "Wow!" Eying up the sleek, half-grown bronze that Sam had just ridden down from the weyr, Dean looked impressed. "He's a beauty. What's his name?"
"Jo told me you'd be here." Sam held up his hand as the bronze plunged into the lake. "Manners, Erenth! Pay your respects before you go for your swim.” His dragon tossed his head and snorted but bowed his head to Carith before wading out into the water and disappearing under the smooth surface. Sam sighed. "Erenth keeps me busy. He's growing like a weed." Taking a seat on the grass beside Dean, he watched as Dean put the finishing touches to Carith's shiny scales. Carith flicked her gaze from Dean to Sam and back, and Dean suddenly remembered his own manners.
"Carith, this is my brother S'mal, rider of Erenth," said Dean, formally introducing his brother to his dragon, using Sam's new dragonrider name to show Sam the same respect he'd show to any bronze rider. Sam blushed under Carith’s golden gaze but succeeded in stuttering out a formal greeting to her.
“I haven’t had a lot of time, either. She’s pretty much doubled in size every week since I met her.” He smiled fondly and indicated Carith’s burnished scales as she took herself off to wallow in the warm water. “How is everyone? I’m afraid I’ve even been ignoring Chanth. Carith takes up all my time. How’s Chad? What did he Impress?”
A cloud drifted over Sam’s face as he shook his head. “Chad didn’t Impress any dragon. He’s being returned to his hold.”
“Oh, no! I’m sorry.” Dean hadn’t liked Sam’s constant companion, but he could see that his brother was distressed about something. “What happened? I thought he was one of the candidates…”
“He was discovered plotting against the Weyr.” Sam’s eyes had a hard, flinty sheen to them that Dean hadn’t ever seen before. “He tried to recruit me to do some of his dirty work, and I told T’moh what he was up to. He and his family want a dragon of their own to experiment on. Dean, he was going to steal one of the eggs.”
Dean’s blood ran cold at the thought. “The dragons are all in contact with each other, Sammy. I don’t see how they could do anything to one, even if they did manage to spirit an egg away.”
“God, Dean, you don’t even know! He told me some of the things they were going to do.” Sam shuddered. “That’s why I went to T’moh. It was evil-disgusting. They’ve got some leader who wants to destroy a dragon’s links to his peers.”
“I don’t see how they could do that. Why would they want to?" Dean's voice shook at the very thought. "Dragons have a kind of hive memory that goes back to before men came to Pern.” Dean was frowning as he tried to puzzle things out. “All the dragons would know if anyone was trying anything on one of their kind.”
“Well, I don’t know much more than I’ve told you already, but Chad seemed to think that was why they wanted an egg. Anything they do to change a dragon has to be done before they hatch.” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “That’s pretty much all I know. He didn’t tell me anymore after that. Just asked me if I would join him in the task.”
“But that’s dark magic.” Dean sounded horrified. “Whatever did you say to him?”
“What do you think I said?” Sam was obviously very angry. “I want my own dragon to fight thread, not for some insane would-be warlord to experiment on. I told him to go to the queen and apologize to dragonkind for the wrong he was proposing to do. Then I went to T’moh and told him about it.”
Dean listened gravely and then reached to pull his brother in for a hug. “Threads above, brother, I’m so proud of you for that."
"Yeah, that's great, but why would anyone want to pervert dragons? Is it just to take over the world? Why would anyone want to do that? Life is great for us here. The threads will be over and done within a year or two, and then we'll be free to explore the land, make our claims, and prosper." It seemed that Sam was still furious. "The folk that came to help get us established will have gone back to their lives, and Half Moon will be independent. We're so close. All we need now is for some megalomaniac to come along and destroy what we've been building. I can't even guess why, let alone what they're looking for."
"Some people just want to be in charge." Dean nodded his agreement. "They want to make others do their work for them. You and I are happy to work on our dragons and learn how to keep them safe, but we see them as friends. I guess someone like Chad feels that they are things to possess, not friends."
A huge splashing and commotion from the lake heralded the end of bath time as their dragons took off and swooped over to where the herdbeasts were penned, leaving their two riders to make their own way to the feeding grounds. As they began to stroll along the steep path, they could see Carith swoop down on yet another fat herdbeast and carry it off, while Erenth finished off a wherry with a grumble of appreciation.
"She's going to burst out of her skin again any minute," said Dean with a long-suffering sigh. "I guess there's no peace for the wicked."
"She's going to be an amazing queen. Look at her wingspan already. She's even bigger than Erenth, and she's barely half-grown." Sam chuckled. "I wouldn't want to make her angry."
"She seems to like Erenth, anyway. It's funny because she hasn't really become friendly with any of the others from her clutch." There was a pause as they both clambered over the fence around the pen and then Carith swooped down beside Dean and laid her head on his shoulder, twisting her neck to gaze into his eyes in a flirtatious manner.
"I'm so very tired," she cooed, nuzzling his neck. "I need to sleep!" Dean laughed out loud at her wheedling tone and turned to his brother.
"Looks like I've been summoned back to the weyr, I'm afraid," he announced. "Madam here needs her beauty sleep." he poked her full belly as he spoke, and she made a playful snap at him.
"No rest for the wicked," snickered Sam as Dean prepared to mount Carith to fly back up to the weyr.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you," murmured Carith, nuzzling Dean's ear. "I must have sensed your innate wickedness." She gave a snort of humor. "Are you ready?"
"Always!" Dean petted her eye ridges for a minute, and then they were off.
~*~
Time passed. Dragons grew, and boys rapidly became men. Carith became a fine queen, and it was expected that she'd soon rise to mate. The Weyr buzzed with excitement each time she flew down to the feeding grounds, and the bronze riders all watched every move she made, wondering who their new queen would choose as a mate. It was assumed that M'lik would be the one to succeed with his bronze Chanth, mostly because it was known that Dean had worked with the mighty bronze and was friends with both dragon and rider, although T'moh and his dragon, Gadranth, was a favorite too. Carith just giggled when Dean asked her to tell him who she liked best and told him to wait and see who the biggest and strongest would be.
Bobby the Masterharper had visited Half Moon regularly as the boys grew and spent as much time as he could with the two brothers as they became full-fledged dragon riders. He passed much of his time sitting with Carith, singing to her about the destiny of a queen dragon, and talking to both boys about the mother and father they had lost on the fateful night when Winchester Hold was attacked and destroyed. Sam, of course, had been too young to remember anything about the invasion and destruction of Winchester Hold that had occurred, and Dean, it seemed, had no remembrance of the events at all, other than a vague sense of running, terrified that he would lose something precious if he didn't keep going.
"But why did that happen? Who would want to kill our family?" Sam, ever curious, wanted to see all the details that had been recorded and constantly pondered the reason for the attack.
"That I can't tell you for certain. I was there the day it happened, but I regret to say I hid until the marauders were gone. Attackers appeared to materialize out of thin air. It was very strange, I can tell you, son." The old man sipped at a glass of the wine that he'd brought from Benden with him as a gift for the Weyr. "You were born on the very day your mother, rest her soul, found the prophecy on one of the old documents she was studying. So much happened at that time. She and I pondered that scroll for a long time, and fortunately, I had made notes or it would have been lost again. The actual pages from which we copied disappeared the same day, and because there was such a hubbub when Mary went into labor we didn't think to put it somewhere safe. I'll never forgive myself for that, although there was such a clamor, I figured it would be best if I made myself scarce! I've often wondered what happened to that darn fool document. Was it relevant to the things that happened afterward? Did it have any meaning at all?" Singer leaned back and closed his eyes, reciting the words from memory, and both Sam and Dean, who had just come in from assisting Rowena in the clinic, listened, round-eyed.
There was a moment's silence while the words seemed to resonate in the cave where they sat. Then Sam sat forward, looking as though he might explode from suppressed excitement.
"But that could be us! What do you think, Dean?"
"I think you're developing a very over-active imagination, Sammy. How could it be us? What vileness is overshadowing the land?" Dean, always pragmatic, went straight to the heart of the matter.
"I was thinking about that thing with Chad," said Sam, very quickly. “That strikes me as plenty dark, and when Carith lays her eggs for the first time, we're going to need to keep a close watch over them or we'll be allowing that vileness to happen on our watch."
"You have a point, Sammy." Dean nodded. "We'll keep an eye on Carith's eggs for sure. That was a horrible thought."
"Bobby, were there any other papers from the same batch that weren't given to someone to study?"
Sam was thinking, and Dean knew his brother. He knew better than anyone that Sam would worry at the situation until he found answers, even if it took the rest of his life. "I wouldn't mind taking a look through them to see what I can find. Downtime between threadfalls would be a great time for me to peruse them and see what I can discover."
"You know, S'mal, that ain't such a bad idea." The old harper grinned, apparently satisfied that Sam had taken the bait that he'd been angling for. "The cave we found that box in was full of rubble, and has taken a while to clear, but I believe we can access the other boxes now. Maybe you could take me back to the Harper Hall, and I could load you up with some to bring back?"
"Done!" Sam leaped to his feet. "Come on then. Let's go."
~*~
A few days after Sam had returned from the Harper Hall bearing his trove of moldering documents, the world changed for Dean, and for the Half Moon Weyr. He had a dull, throbbing headache which didn't seem to want to leave even after several cups of klah. Carith had also woken up in a really bad mood, and it seemed that the rest of the dragons were beginning to feel the effects too. Even the usually unflappable T'moh snapped at him when he inadvertently fumbled with the flamethrower which was the queen's contribution to the war on the threads.
By midmorning, it suddenly became clear what was at the heart of the mood that was afflicting the Weyr. Carith, who had been impatient with Dean all morning, suddenly left the drill to fly down to the feeding ground, and in a trice had killed two of the herdbeasts and now stood over them, trumpeting her defiance to the heavens as Dean called her back.
It was one of the older dragonriders, M'kal, who stepped up to Dean's side to explain what was happening. "She's ready to rise for a mating flight. I've seen this before. You have to hold her until she flies or she won't have a good clutch."
Mixed excitement and terror pooled in Dean's belly. He'd avoided thinking about the inevitability of Carith's mating, believing that it wouldn't happen because she'd picked him for a rider. Now, as he pulled at Carith's emotions, holding her back from devouring her kill, it seemed that the unthinkable was indeed going to happen, and he needed to step up to the challenge. As Carith snapped and snarled in a battle of wills with him, he looked wildly for his brother for reassurance and thought he saw him, standing with the other bronze riders, but then it was too late. Carith gave a growl and abandoned her brunch in favor of launching herself into the air, her powerful wings beating as she soared aloft.
Dean was up in the air with Carith, but at the same time, he was aware of the thunderclap as the larger male dragons, mostly bronze, rose into the air to pursue their queen. He could feel a press of bodies around him, smell arousal, sense it in Carith's joyful headlong flight, and willed her onward as her excitement resonated in him, carrying him with her.
" Puny males!" she crowed. "I won't be caught by them. I won't!"
Already, two of the smaller bronzes, and the only brown to try his luck were returning to the Weyr, disconsolate, as Carith looped and rolled, neatly avoiding Gadranth, whose miscalculation sent him careening into a near collision with the limestone of the Weyr. T'moh, his rider, staggered as he tried to keep Gadranth from serious injury, and Carith flew high again, rapidly moving out of sight save for three bronzes who were still in full pursuit of their prey.
Carith was trumpeting insults to the remaining pursuers, telling them that they were just not good enough to catch her, and one old bronze, Pellanth, paired with the tactical advisor, R'fus, seemed to tire and eventually turned back to rest, pale with exhaustion. That left two bronze dragons still attempting to claim Carith. She was employing every kind of maneuver she could to avoid them while still making fun of them, and Dean could see when she finally made a mistake. She had suddenly halted in mid-air, allowing the dragon in the lead to overshoot and pass her by, but the second, hard on her tail, saw his opportunity and banked to avoid passing her, suddenly wrapping his wings around her and claiming her as his mate.
Dean couldn't think, could only feel the arms around him and the hard body that had suddenly pressed against him. Suffused with the need to be possessed, he was aware only of the craving for penetration and the satisfaction that flooded through him as Carith was taken and utterly possessed. He was completely lost in the need and the pleasure that the assault was creating in him. His body and Carith's need to mate were all he knew as the other riders bore the two of them up to the queen's weyr and privacy.
~*~
Sometime later, Dean awoke. His body ached, and he was conscious of brawny arms holding him captive. A quick mental search revealed that Carith was back at the weyr with her new mate, radiating an aura of both smugness and satisfaction. Having reassured himself that she was fine and that she had experienced no ill effects, he finally opened his eyes, squinting against the light from the mouth of the cave.
Blinking as his eyes watered, he finally turned to find out just who was hugging him so tightly and sat up in dismay as he recognized his new partner.
It was Sam.
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