Once you get out of the Watchwher's cave, Vanetin speaks to you in a normal voice, "Well, now that you've seen Alaric's den, I can tell you more about him.  Watchwhers are distant cousins of Pern's dragons.  Dragons are, in turn, cousins of these two little creatures here," and she gestures to the blue and brown lizard creatures who landed on her shoulders as soon as she came out of the cave.  "These are called Firelizards.  Dragons were bio-engineered from them by Kitti Ping, to help rid Pern of Thread.  Thread is grey, sick-looking material that falls from the sky every 200 years for 50 year Passes.  It originates from the Red Star, another planet that orbits around Rukbat, our sun.  When Thread Falls, it devours alive any organic materials: animals, plants, and people.  It is killed by fire and water.  When Thread fell on the first colonists to come to Pern, the firelizards chewed Firestone and charred it from the sky before it could hit the ground, but it took many firelizards for each Threadfall.  So Kitti Ping tried to enlarge the firelizards, and increase their intelligence, and that's how we got Dragons... In a nutshell.."  She smiles as she watches you try to absorb all the information, "Don't worry, I'll write it all down, sooner or later.."  She gestures to the other cave entrances, "You want to keep exploring now?"
 
 

You, by the way, are the  person to have seen this part of my page since July 28, 1998!!  Hope you liked it, and be sure to sign either my Dreambook or my Guestbook if you did! (Even if you didn't, go ahead, I can always use helpful criticism.. :) )  Or you could view my Dreambook.. :)

Here are some links to other pages about Pern, Dragons, and other things like that.
Click Here to save the Dragons!!!