"Ethayder? What are you doing up here?" The man turned at his name to see the pair who kept watch on the heights, Evelia and Zein.
He grinned at Evelia and shrugged. "Hi, Evelia. Hey, Zein." He added with a nod to the large green-winged bronze dragon, though he didn't hear the dragon's answer. "I was just sitting up here. Too many people in the caverns." He said by way of explanation.
Evelia laughed and made her way to the edge and looked down. "That's hardly surprising. It's almost dinner time."
Ethayder looked up in surprise. He'd had no idea that he'd been up here so long. He was about to say goodbye to the watch pair, when something by the edge of the forest caught his eye. He frowned and turned to Evelia. "Hey! There's someone down there. Looks like they just came out of the forest." He said, and pointed to a small figure approaching Darkling Dawn.
Evelia frowned as she saw the figure, and spread her sunset-tinged wings in preperation to go down and meet the stranger. The spirit dragoness glanced back at Ethayder. "Do you want a ride, Ethayder?" She questioned good-naturedly.
Ethayder smiled at the dark purple dragon before shaking his head. "Naw, I'll find my own way down, thanks." With that, he rushed off to meet the stranger himself.
Jaurd shivered, pushing dirty-blond hair away from his face as he stared around him. He had been trying to get to Lynus Hold, but this place didn't seem to be anywhere near there. Or anywhere else on Pern, for that matter. Trees only grew this lush on the southern continent, and anyway, Lynus was in the middle of a shaffing desert, so how had he ended up in a seemingly endless forest?
A cracking noise behind him caught his attention, and the seventeen-turn-old whirled. A small, cat-like creature with silky, dark brown fur was watching him from the brush with pale blue eyes. Jaurd stared at it in confusion. That was definitely not a native Pernese creature.
"Go on, get outta here! Shoo!" He waved his hand at the creature threateningly. The animal seemed to smirk at him, and Jaurd could have sworn he heard a snicker as it disappeared into the surrounding forest.
Jaurd shook his head in bewilderment as he wandered on. He glimpsed what looked like a mountain up ahead through the thinning trees, and headed that way, hoping he would find civilization soon.
He wasn't disappointed.
He stepped out from the shade of the trees and blinked, shielding his eyes from the sudden bright sunlight. He didn't see the two large, winged shapes coming to meet him, but he heard the sweeping of their wings. Once the two dragons had landed, he lowered his arm and looked up, and gaped.
The larger of the two was a male bronze with minty-green wingsails that was regarding him with disinterest. His smaller companion, however, looked nothing like a traditional Pernese dragon. Her hide, which on closer inspection was actually tiny scales, was dark purple, and her splayed wings were the color of a sunset. Her head was adorned with short black horns and a slightly longer one on her forehead, her neck with a mane of black fur stopping at her shoulders.
Jaurd, startled out of his wits, tried to say 'hello', but it got lost somewhere on the way to his throat, and instead, what came out was, "Don't eat me, please."
The purple dragoness blinked, taken aback, and her green-winged companion bugled in laughter. After a moment, the dragoness joined in, giggling before she answered Jaurd. "Of course we're not going to eat you." She said reassuringly, but Jaurd was again startled by hearing the dragon speak aloud, which he had never heard of for normal dragons. But then, this sunset and purple dragoness was hardly normal.
She shook her head, regarding Jaurd with sanguine-colored eyes as he just stared at her. "My name is Evelia, I'm a Spirit dragon, from a place called the Ring of Fire." She explained, though this actually didn't tell Jaurd all that much, since he had never heard of spirit dragons or the Ring of Fire.
Evelia shook her head again. "Never mind about that. Why did you come to Darkling Dawn?"
Jaurd blinked. "Darkling Dawn?"
Evelia nodded. "Where you are now. It's between dimensions, outside of space and time."
Jaurd decided he wasn't even going to ask. "I don't know, I was going to Lynus Hold, but before I realized it, I was in the middle of a giant forest with no idea how I got there. So I chose a direction and started walking, and I ended up here."
Evelia cocked her head to the side curiously. "Huh. That's odd..." She trailed off as a human, not much older than Jaurd, approached the trio.
"You think that's odd?" The young man said. His short tan hair was currently being swept about in the wind, being blown in and out of the way of his eyes, pale grey in color. "When Darkling Dawn moved here, nobody noticed for at least a week. And there are over a hundred people here." He said, grinning.
Evelia cleared her throat disapprovingly and turned to the man. "Ethayder, this is Jaurd. Jaurd, Ethayder. He's a weyrbrat." Evelia said scathingly, emphasizing the last part as she glared at the man.
Ethayder looked completely unabashed. He grinned as he turned to look at Jaurd. "So, where're you from, Jaurd?"
Jaurd's face carefully went blank, and he replied in a dead tone of voice. "I used to live happily with my parents in a large hold. But...then the plague came. My parents...they didn't stand a chance." He said sadly, looking down in apparent agony at the memory. "So I was sent to live with an uncle far away. He didn't like me very much, he used to hit me a lot. Finally I got tired of it and ran away. Do you think...maybe, I could stay here for a bit? Just a few days?" He begged pitifully.
Jaurd inwardly sighed. Aw, geez. He thought to himself. I'm doomed. I'm standing in front of a pair of huge dragons that could chomp my head in one bite, and that's the best story I can come up with? They're never gonna buy it...
He chanced a look up, and was startled to see the other man sniffing, and wiping a tear from his eye. "That's-so sad. Of course you can stay, as long as you like." He said as Jaurd gaped at him in shock.
Evelia cleared her throat to gain their attention. "As soon as you clear it with Weyrwoman Teah, right Ethayder?" She asked, looking pointedly at Ethayder.
Ethayder grinned sheepishly and ducked his head. "Oh right, of course. Gotta go, then." He said, and promptly dashed off.
Jaurd shot a bemused look to Evelia, who only shrugged and rolled her eyes skyward at the weyrbrat's antics.
Ethayder and Jaurd met up again at dinner. Jaurd looked up as Ethayder sat down beside him, carrying a tray filled to the brim and towering dangerously with food. Jaurd just stared as Ethayder set down his food, winking at Jaurd and smiling winningly at a couple of girls not too far off.
"How can you eat all that?" Jaurd asked, astonished.
"Easily." Ethayder replied shortly, and promptly did just that.
A whining sound from underneath the table caught the boys' attention, and they both looked down. Jaurd was startled to see that it was the same non-Pernese creature he had seen in the forest earlier, and it was staring up at Ethayder pleadingly.
"Come on, please? Just one small bite. Or maybe two..." A small, soft voice said.
Jaurd was surprised to hear the animal talk. Something must have shown on his face, because Ethayder explained to him. "Rukels. Devilish little things, they have the attitude of a cat, only much, much worse." He said, or at least, that's what Jaurd thought he said. Since Ethayder's mouth was stuffed with food, it came out sounding more like, "'ookels. D'rvilersh 'ittl t'ings, they 'ave 'ee at'tude uvva cat, on'y mu'k, mu'k w'rse."
The rukel wrinkled its nose distastefully as Jaurd winced. "Anyone ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full? What manners you have." It said, and clucked its tongue, shaking its dark brown head, before jumping onto the table.
It caught Jaurd staring at it in surprise, and snickered. "I remember you." Then he pitched his voice into a falsetto and said mockingly, "'Go on, get outta here! Shoo!'". He snickered as Jaurd frowned, ears turning red.
The rukel turned to Ethayder pleadingly. "Come on, just one meatroll."
Ethayder shook his head forcefully. "No."
"Okay, two meatrolls and we'll call it even."
"..."
"One fish?"
"Go away, Cadus."
"Okay, okay. Two fish?"
"The red fish?"
"No, the blue fish."
Ethayder groaned and pushed the rukel off the table, where he landed on the floor with a yelp. "You can't eat all that by yourself!" The rukel, apparently named Cadus, protested from the stony ground.
"Sure I can, just to spite you, Cadus." Ethayder said cheerfully.
Jaurd watched the two banter back and forth with a bemused expression on his face. "So what is he, Ethayder? Your pet?"
The rukel drew himself up to his full height indignantly. (Which really only came up to Jaurd's knee or so, the rukel being roughly the size of a large cat.) "I am no one's pet! I am a member of a highly evolved, superior race. I do not follow one petty human around all my life, begging for table scraps."
"Because begging for table scraps from everyone is so much more convenient?" Ethayder said drily.
Cadus shot the human a dirty look before continuing. "You humans, thinking you're so great just because you happen to be large and the preferred choice of bonds for dragons." He scoffed. "I would never suffer the indignity of allowing myself to be considered a pet." The rukel finished, shaking his head in disgust.
"Really?" Ethayder spoke up. "Because that doesn't seem to stop most of your kind."
Cadus snorted. "Yeah well, that's their problem. I am my own master, I think for myself."
This statement sent Ethayder into a fit of snickering, causing Cadus to glare at him. Jaurd just sighed at the antics of the two.
The rukel and human looked as though they were about to continue their 'conversation'. Jaurd took the momentary silence to interrupt them. "So, Ethayder, you were born in the Weyr?"
Ethayder shrugged. "No, actually I was born in a hold, then I was fostered here. Once it moved off of Pern, I just stayed here."
Jaurd blinked. "Don't you miss your parents?"
Ethayder snorted. "No. They were obsessed with me being a dragonrider. 'Oh, Ethayder, you have to be searched, you'd make such a wonderful dragonrider. There's absolutely no reason you wouldn't be searched for candidacy.'" He said, mocking what was presumably his parents' voices.
Cadus snickered as he leaped back onto the table. He reached over with one paw and took a meatroll from Ethayder's plate when he wasn't looking, and stuffed it into his mouth. "'t d'oesn' m'ter a'ny'ay, 'e can'th 'ear 'rag'ns." The rukel said with his mouth full.
Ethayder shot a venemous glare at the rukel. "And you say I have bad table manners..."
Jaurd's eyebrows furrowed. "What did he say?"
"Nothing." Ethayder answered quickly, shooting the rukel a glare that, if looks really did kill, would have the rukel screaming on the ground for mercy. "Nothing at all." He said through gritted teeth.
Cadus ignored the warning glances, however, and after licking the crumbs from his fur, which was all that was left of the meatroll, answered Jaurd's question anyway. "He can't hear dragons. Fine lot of good he'd be, with a dragon he wouldn't be able to talk to anyway."
Again, Ethayder sent murderous looks at the rukel, and was clearly thinking of long, painful deaths to inflict on the creature.
Jaurd frowned. "Can't hear dragons?"
Finally, Ethayder sighed. "Yeah. Never have been able to. Main reason I haven't been searched. The searchriders said I might have potential, but it's not likely if I can't even talk to them."
Seeing this was obviously a sore spot with the eighteen-turn-old, Jaurd fell silent. Shortly after, Ethayder and Cadus resumed their bantering arguments, and Jaurd sought out his bed.
The sun was just beginning to climb into the sky. The sky, a dull gray that gradually turned to a brilliant, bright blue, then to a gentle golden glow near the sun, was bereft of all but the faintest wisps of clouds. A light, cool wind rippled through the trees, playing with the green leaves and making the trees almost seem to dance. Songbirds were waking up and beginning their rhapsody of sweet music, and just generally agreeing that it was a nice day.
The beauty was lost on Jaurd, however, as he was apparently not a morning person and was still fast asleep in bed. Ethayder was awake, however, and sitting on the watchheights, looking down at the forests, lost in thought.
He was distracted from his mullings as the sunlight flashed off the bright blue body of a dragon winging in to land. A glint of green followed, signalling that a green dragon had followed. Ethayder could recognize a good number of Darkling Dawn's dragons on sight, and knew that these were not among them. He stood up, stretched to relieve his limbs, stiff from staying in one position too long, and made his way down to the Great Hall.
He met Jaurd, who was now (dimly) awake, and they both entered the Hall together. Quickly, Ethayder picked out the tall forms of two unfamiliar riders, talking with two of the searchriders at one of the far tables. Jaurd had not noticed anything, and seemed only interested in getting food and a cup of coffee. (A strange, klah-like substance one of the offworld riders brought back from their homeworld.) Ethayder wrinkled his nose at the strong smell of the drink and sat down on the other side of the table, snatching a hot roll from the nearest tray as he tried to get a good glance at the strangers.
Now that Jaurd was fully awake, (thanks to three cups of coffee) he had finally noticed Ethayder's strange behavior as the other boy ducked his head, weaving from side to side, before stretching his neck to see past the various Weyrfolk in the Great Hall. He blinked in bemusement as he watched the weyrbrat's antics. "Ethayder, what are you doing?" He finally asked.
"There are two riders I've never seen before. Looks like a blue and a green rider, judging by the dragons I saw outside earlier." He answered, craning his neck to see past a particularly tall rider.
Jaurd paused in an effort to understand this. "Oh." He said. "Why?"
Ethayder scowled. "Because I'm a snoop. Now shut up." He snapped, raising a hand to silence Jaurd as he tried to listen to the searchriders' conversation. Unfortunately, he was too far away, and the Hall too noisy to be able to hear what was said. Jaurd just shook his head and decided it would be safer not to inquire further.
"Did anyone ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop on other people's conversations?" Someone said from behind them. They both turned to see a short, blond-haired man in his late twenties standing behind them, a dark cloak thrown over his shoulders.
Ethayder grinned cheekily. "Hey, G'vin. What are you doing over here?" He asked nonchalantly.
"Hello, Ethayder." The man said drily. Jaurd recognized him as one of the riders the two strangers had been talking to earlier. Then the blond man noticed Jaurd. "Who's your friend?" He cocked an eyebrow curiously.
Jaurd didn't have a chance to answer as Ethayder slung an arm around the other boy's shoulder. "This is Jaurd. He arrived yesterday evening. Jaurd, G'vin's one of the searchriders."
"Hello." Jaurd said weakly, removing Ethayder's arm from his shoulder.
G'vin didn't answer. His blue eyes seemed to become unfocused, apparently his dragon was saying something to him. "Great then, that's two." The searchrider muttered to himself.
Ethayder looked up at him curiously. "What's two? Huh?"
"Hmm?" G'vin looked over to them. "Oh, it's nothing. It's just you two have been searched." He said in the same nonchalant tone of voice Ethayder used earlier.
Jaurd sat up in surprise, Ethayder did the same beside him. "What!?"
"You've been searched to stand at Mountain Lake Weyr." G'vin said cheerfully. "The searchriders are already here to pick you up."
Ethayder, for once, was speechless. "But-I can't Impress! I can't hear dragons!" He protested.
G'vin shrugged. "The Mountain Lake searchriders insisted that you had potential, the both of you. And Aavaanaath just confirmed it." Aavaanaath, apparently, being G'vin's dragon, Jaurd assumed. "Oh, don't worry about it, Ethayder." G'vin continued as Ethayder tried vainly to form a protest. "Things will work out somehow. Besides, even if you don't Impress, it never hurts to try." He pointed out.
Ethayder glanced at the rider suspiciously. "Is some sort of trick?"
G'vin affected a deadpan expression as he answered. "You're right, this is actually a cheap plot to get you out of Darkling Dawn in hopes of getting rid of you." Ethayder just stared at him, and he sighed. "It was a joke." G'vin said, rolling his eyes. "Well?"
Ethayder gaped for a little while longer, then sighed and gave in. "Alright, fine. So when do we leave?"
Cadus appeared suddenly from underneath the table, scaring Jaurd half out of his seat. "He already told you, didn't he? They're waiting outside now." The rukel snapped as he jumped onto the table beside Jaurd's by now empty plate. He shot the rukel a warning look anyway, but Cadus ignored it.
G'vin sighed in irritation as he glared at the rukel. "Maybe we could send you off with them. You know, say you're a pet or something. Maybe we'd lose you too."
Cadus hissed at him and ran off. Apparently, he wasn't interested in a long trip. G'vin rolled his eyes. "Ah well, it was worth a try." He shrugged. "Well then, come on, you two. I'll introduce you to the riders from Mountain Lake, then you can pack your stuff." Jaurd and Ethayder exchanged glances, then they followed the searchrider to where the dragons waited.
Ethayder, however, was much calmer than his friend, convinced he couldn't bond. He shook his head to clear his sandy air from his face, and stood with his arms crossed, watching the eggs.
With a crack, the first egg hatched, revealing a wet, brownish-bronze hide. The light bronze moved unerringly towards his rider, a young man named Feuralorn. He pronounced the bronze's name as Kralith delightedly.
During that time, three more eggs had hatched as Jaurd twitched impatiently, watching some of the eggs still yet to hatch. Ethayder barely moved, only looking up to note the women who Impressed the three greens that emerged.
The smallest of the eggs cracked open, revealing the milky hide of a white underneath. The male dragon climbed out, looking very lost as he wandered around the sands, until stopping in front of a girl from another world. Ethayder remembered that her name was Mesaki.
Jaurd looked excited at the appearance of a rare. "A rare! I wouldn't expect a rare dragon from a gold's clutch, especially her first. Do you think there are any more, Ethayder?" He asked curiously.
Ethayder just shrugged noncommittedly. "Maybe." Jaurd rolled his eyes at his friend's unresponsivness as three more eggs broke shell. The first brown and the blue paired off quickly. The other brown, a light dirt color, paused, then trotted over to the candidates, inspecting them closely.
He stopped in front of Ethayder, and he looked down at the hatchling with a look of shock on his face. "Larabith...You can't want me..." He whispered as he felt the dragon's mind brush against his own.
A wave of emotions swept through him suddenly; happiness, loyalty, and love mixed with a strong feeling of denial directed at the man's words that nearly bowled Ethayder over. He gasped, then slowly smiled at Larabith. "You really do want me...?"
A strong, fierce sense of agreement accompanied Larabith's nod, followed by a wave of hunger. Ethayder-rather, E'der now-laughed. "Come one, then, and let's get you fed."
A sense of excitement and gratitude swamped E'der as his dragon whole-heartedly agreed, without words.
Jaurd grinned as he watched his friend leave with the brown hatchling, then turned his attention back to the eggs.
Several more eggs hatched, including a silver and not one, but two queens, then a dark blue dragon emerged, looking around happily. With a flick of his tail, the blue trotted to the remaining candidates. He came to a stop in front of Jaurd, his claws sliding in the sand.
These sands are hot. The hatchling said conversationally. And slippery, too. I mean, how are you supposed to brake properly when the ground keeps moving beneath your feet? Oh, I'm Andrath, by the way. He added the name almost as an afterthought.
Jaurd laughed and patted the hatchling's head. "Slow down, Andrath! I can't keep up."
Andrath snorted and butted his head against Jaurd's leg. Come on, let's go and eat. Larabith said he would eat all my food if I didn't hurry up.
Jaurd laughed again and followed his dragon to the kitchens.
(To clarify: Larabith is by no means mute. E'der cannot hear him speak simply because he's never been able to hear dragons. However, with other dragons and some humans, Larabith does talk. E'der can sense his emotions, and vice versa, because they are bonded, even though no words pass between them.)
