(Dragonriders of Pern, and all related concepts are copyright of Anne McCaffrey. I'd like to extend a personal thanks to her for not only the wonderful world of Pern, but permission to play in it.)
(Yung Weyr and all related concepts belong to Yung Weyr and to Despairing of the Weyr. Yung is an excellent roleplaying community, and we look out for our own. Anyone found using the ideas of its history will be persecuted not only by Despairing, but by the whole of the weyr. However, being persecuted by Despairing is scary enough in its own right.)
(Lastly, Lanark, his family and his story belong to me. Enough said.)
(I lied. Liliencamp is one of Yung Weyr's principal holds.)
The Lord Holders have long ago begun to disbelieve the possibility that Thread will ever return to Pern, and the Weyrs have fallen into disrepute. As they are autonomous, suspicions run high as each begin to gather their secrets, which grow more and more sinister in quality as time passes onward. (And Fort Weyr is the first, and only, to discover that the dragons can pass /between/ time..)
Racism begins to crop up- or, more specifically, nationalism; pride for your birthplace so distinct that those folk considered others to be inferior, lesser, unworthy. As the paranoia achieves its zenith, Ista makes its move- and, in a single devastating swathe, destroys the populations of all the other Weyrs in order to make room for its own growth. The few survivors are made to swear allegiance to Ista or to go down with the rest of their Weyrs. But though the brief holocaust is over, the revolution is just beginning..
Enter Saresa, a backstabbing goldrider of the High Reaches who lies through her teeth about allegiance. What cares she for the dragonman's honor when it is her lifemate at stake? And why do they think she'd be foolish enough to waste the rest of her life in a little Weyr where she will always be belittled for her origins? And revenge- revenge, too, is a prominent factor in her mind.
Over the Turns, she gathers supporters, until finally, actions /must/ be proposed.. or else. And what she proposes is this: They are not strong enough in numbers to attack Ista, so they are to retreat to the south, to breed and to grow, until their ranks are strong enough to take Ista down. Reluctantly, the plan is agreed to, and they- aided by the information of a very reluctant Fort rider- retreat several Turns into the past to build their Weyr, subsequent hold, and to grow.—history of Yung Weyr
The day was like the countless others which spanned before and behind Lanark. His days had been dutifully chewed and swallowed and rendered into a monotony interrupted only in pricks and sparks of vague hope. The young man's hopes lay in the promise that with age his life was to get notably worse or better. It didn't really matter to him one way or another: for all he could care they could break the afternoon he laid in now, sack the hold and take his life. If anything else death would help the days pass quicker. A slow smile snarked across the corners of his mouth as his eyes came into focus as he was called out of the gray spaces in his brain by a picking voice, "My boy I swear you were born under the glow of the red star."
Lanark opened his eyes and found his reflection locked in the eyes of his mother. He said nothing in response save a moody swing of his body over the chair and a cheeky expression which wordlessly agreed with the words of his mother. She was a woman gray and expanded with the burdens of age: one would guess by her hips and breasts that she carried her share of the population in her time. In many ways she had: she managed a small heard of weans in the crèche with a handful of other women skilled in such manors. However, her offspring which were hers by blood numbered only one: and in the past few years he morphed from an ambitious and charismatic child to a teenage stranger who could only be described as lanky.
Controlling a boy like Lanark, even in the manor of maternal guidance was about as effective as lion-herding with a cow. His rebellion was of the subtlest breed: he was a bright boy, shining with intellectual ambition that outglew the lights of not only his peers, but most of the adults as well. The problem stemmed from the fact that he made this painfully obvious. Cynical teens whom placed themselves above the general majority society generally had little place in society.
This was also emphasized painfully by the fact that Lanark had no practical talents. He was pale, thin, and rather sickly. It was a minor miracle that he hadn't been mercifully whipped from existence during childhood. He knew his physical boundaries and felt not need to push them without higher purpose. Unfortunately both he and his mother were becoming quickly aware that the life he was persisting was much like that of a professional student, stuck in a limbo in which one becomes familiar, but never very good at many things. More times than he cared to admit potential apprenticeships had been warded off by those wary to claim him as pupil. Coldness grew in the air which hung between he and his mother, and the bitterness was almost tangible.
"Did you hear your father and the other men talking?"
The intent behind this comment was masked, and Lanark cocked his head at her sudden change of tone, uncertain to which the purpose of it truly lay. It could just as easily have been a jab at the fact that he did not associate with the other men—and thus would not have heard the men talking, as it could have been a genuinely interesting piece of gossip she held. After some deliberation he responded without any outward signs of emotion, "No."
"Yung's Queen has finally risen and claimed her mate."
"Oh?"
Mild bemusement was the only sign that the boy was paying any attention. The weyr to him was something which, because of a lack of real importance in his daily life, was unnecessary at best. Yung and its foundation were if anything a slight embarrassment of Lanark. He was merely at Liliencamp—its principal hold for convenience's sake. His father was trained briefly in the beastcraft, and however spotty his learning had been, he was unlikely to be missed. It would've been exceedingly dangerous for someone likely to be missed to travel to Liliencamp: however for those who could afford to go missing the new hold held unprecedented chances of social mobility. Lanark and his mother had been dragged down to the hold subsequently. A few seconds passed as this brief history of exactly why he was stuck in a hastily built hold likely to be destroyed at any notice, dryly, and after much thought he added, "It's about time."
A few more seconds of thought, and a look of slight disappointment on the part of the older woman whom seemed to be genuinely surprised that her son was not bouncing up and down with the news—Lanark meanwhile mused, "I mean, she had to be born after the holocaust, else there's a good chance she would've been killed: but not to far afterwards, as it takes some time to organize something like Yung."
"My son. You know little of weyrlife."
"Nor do you."
"I'm not pretending I do."
"Shaffit mum. I know little of weyrlife, but I do know this much: the hold needs to be wary of the sharding weyrwoman and the whole sharding weyr. The only reason we were not incinerated like so many of the dragonmen say they were was because we were not dragonmen. The hold is finally starting to settle down and we'd be going forked tail first if we thought to celibrate matters such as the queen's rising. That means a change in weyr leadership?"
Lanark's mother had adopted the clandestine smirk-smile so often worn on the face of her son, and like the Cheshire cat turned and began to walk out, not of course before adding, "It'll be a hot day between when I'll have any respect for a man whom cannot admit that he's ignorant. My son: you forget that not everyone here comes with the same ambitions as your fathers."
Dryly the boy mumbled, "All of the holderfolk do."
"I've hoped better for you."
"I have no sharding idea what you're talking about."
"Of course. You're father will be home shortly. You can see what he thinks about this."
"He'll have his head in a bend because he knows that the sharding searches will start to run and his animals will be sacrificed to the weyr at the expense of the hold."
"Indeed."
With that the woman left the room, quietly, and left Lanark to brood upon the world he was thrust into. It was almost amusing the watch the insects as they crawled around frantically, pray to any rumor which happened to befall them.
