Annul Weyr Redux

[Goldrider]

AIVAS said that the twin explosions on the Red Star would knock the planet out of orbit. AIVAS was right, and the dragonriders immediately saw the effects. Where the Red Star should have been it wasn’t. Though only a small difference when seen by the human eye, the red-tinged planet had actually moved many miles from its original erratic path. The Red Star had moved, but this generation of Pernese would not get to bask in the glory of there being no Thread. Instead, every Threadfall a Weyr always took to the skies. The dragons knew that these Threadfalls would be their last. The dragons intended to make the last Threadfalls as adventurous as the first dragon-scored falls had been.

Unfortunately, the Red Star decided to go out with a bang, literally. When the dragons had forcefully moved the planet out of it’s orbit, more of the Thread nodules escaped than normal. Not even the Yokohoma could possibly help the dragonriders with the flood of Thread that would befall the planet in only a sevenday. Fortunately, the weather and space systems were all in check, and the dragonriders had a fair amount of warning. They supplied themselves with firestone and readied the ground crews. And all of the Weyrs joined in this monumental Threadfall.

Of the Queens, the clutchers of the draconic world, only two would come out alive.

Of all the Bronzes, only seven would live.

Of the Browns, only twenty-one survived.

Of all of the Blues, twenty would escape death.

Of the Greens there would be thirty-two.

In the end, Northern Pern was a ravaged wasteland. Thread burrows littered the ground, gobbling up anything living in their tracks. The two Queens and their riders were the last Golds and Goldriders on the planet. Plith of Gold Amazoth was older than Meer of Gold Norjath. It was Plith who decided to escape to the Southern Continent. Many Holders and all of the dragonriders agreed. All of the dragonriders but Meer. Meer knew that, with a bit of manpower and determination, Pern could be won from Thread’s clutches. Plith didn’t want to try, even though her dragon, Amazoth, agreed with Meer.

Only six riders changed their minds. Those six riders stayed with Meer. Those riders were B’oron of Bronze Seeth, D’rayan of Brown Teerath, Z’an of Blue Creeth, T’or of Blue Malth, L’eef of Green Zeyeath, and Sara of Green Mournth. The rest of the dragonriders, and all but three Holders and their Holds, ran from Pern.

Then began the slow and arduous task of rebuilding Pern. The riders lived in Fort Weyr. First they found as much of the dead as they could and buried the dead in Ista Weyr. A Turn later, Norjath rose for a Flight. Having only two real chasers, the Gold allowed the Blues to Fly, also. Almost as if by accident, T’or of Blue Malth caught Norjath. While Meer was fuming at her dragon for letting a Blue catch her, Norjath was happy. It’s time for a change. Norjath told her rider while snuggling against the much smaller Blue.

No one knows exactly when this happened, as all Records of this happening were lost in the great war. Either way, it was around the end of what was supposed to be the 10th Pass that a woman named Ashia, learned in the ways of the past by reading disused AIVAS files, found that the dragons she had taken as granted were not the dragons of the old. The dragons in her time period were all of middle size, with the Greens, Blues, and Pinks slightly larger than the never-changing Browns. The Golds and Bronzes, as well as the Blacks and Silvers, were all smaller than the Browns. The Whites were the smallest still. But, Ashia knew, the dragons of the old where different. The Golds and Bronzes were larger, the Greens and Blues were smaller. The Greens had been sterile, but now the Greens and Golds clutched the same amount of eggs. Even the egg colors were different. Where there used to be a golden egg that hatched a Gold now the eggs were all the same; even the Gold eggs were the same colors.



The riders at Fort Weyr had never really thought they were Fort Weyr dragons, even if, a long time ago some dragons had survived from Fort Weyr. Instead, they considered themselves to be Weyrless. There were a few dragonriders and Holders who thought they should be Fort Weyr dragons, as their ancestors had lived in that Weyr for hundreds of Turns. A larger group insisted that they could not be named for dragons long deceased.

The riders, dragons, and dragonless people got stirred up over such a trivial matter. Many of the newer colors chose the side of ‘it’s not our name,’ while many of the Golds and Bronzes, if not all, chose the other side. Over the skies of Fort Weyr a battle raged. Normally, the dragons would never fight each other, but Ashia had convinced the Goldriders and Bronzeriders that they were the rightful leaders of the Weyr. The battle was fought without firestone or fire. Instead, the dragons fought with tooth and claw; one side fought for their ancestor’s past Weyr name to remain unchanged and the other lusted for power.

As the Greens and Blues were larger, and immensely more agile, the opposing side only lasted for three days. Nearly twenty Gold and Bronzeriders lay, dead, wounded, or unscathed, on the unforgiving ground. They were bathed in blood and ichor, as was everyone else. But these people were also mentally wounded: their dragons had gone between. The Browns had been wise and had not participated in the war, no matter how much their riders wanted to. Several Blue, a lot of Black and Green, and two Pinkriders lay in much the same ways as the Gold and Bronzeriders. No Silvers or the lone White had been killed, though three Silvers were injured.

And only a half a Turn before the presumed Pass of the Red Star, a woman intruded upon the unnamed Weyr. This woman was pregnant, and already six months in her pregnancy. D’en of Blue Harrasath, the current Weyrleader, and his patrol, Pink Glitith, Brown Iith, and Gold Santath, found her asleep in the middle of a flowering field. He brought her back to the Weyr and sent her to the Infirmary. When the woman woke up she was surprised, but not just because she was in a bed. She was surprised that there were dragons around at all. The woman, named Beckanne, had been exiled. She came from the Southern Continent, and to be more precise, Southern Weyr. The dragonriders there had recruited scribes for as long as anyone could remember. Scribes were people who recorded any event that needed to be recorded, whether by art or by written hand. Scribes had to follow very strict rules, and Beckanne had not followed one of them: one must never get pregnant. Scribes were allowed to love, but pregnancy, and the time needed for the child after its birth, was considered troublesome and took time away from the scribe’s work.

Beckanne was at first surprised that anyone could survive in the Northern Continents, as the people ruling the Weyrs in the Southern Continent always described the land being hard and craggy without a tree in sight. On the contrary, the Northern Continent was possibly the better foliaged continent. The dragonriders, with the combined efforts of the grubs, the fire-lizards, and the whers, had rid the Northern Continent of all of the Thread burrows nearly 300 Turns before. Secondly, the only Weyrleaders she knew rode Gold and Bronze dragons that were, though large, smaller than the Green and Blue dragons found on the Northern Continent. She called that annul, which the Weyrleader’s became confused about until she explained the meaning of the word to them. To become annul was to void, which was exactly what the Bronze and Gold dragons had become. Where they had once been the ‘top of the food-chain,’ now they were at the bottom. The Weyrleaders, D’en of Blue Harrasath and Operza of Green Uelleth, decided to name their Weyr after that word, and thus the Weyr, after Turns of being nameless, became known as Annul Weyr.



Five Turns later Operza broke her leg in a freak accident, and her dragon, Uelleth, had torn most of her wing membranes in that same accident. Knowing that Uelleth could not rise to Fly any longer, Operza stepped down. There were three other Greens that could vie for the spot of Senior Weyrwoman. Unfortunately, both Greens (Dotth and Xolth) flew at once, and immediately squabbled and fought. They went between. This meant that the only other Green nearing her first Flight was Hyacinth. The seventeen year old was the Senior Weyrwoman without having to do anything. Hyacinth rose and chose a Blue, Jayth, to be her mate. His rider, M’nan, was to be the Weyrleader. And now Hyacinth’s clutch, a clutch of 15 eggs, is hardening on the Sands.



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