Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Pern. I do, however own many of the characters in this story.
Enjoy!
PS: Many of the poems at the beginning of the chapters are mine, so please don't steal them from me. I worked hard on them!
Hissing fiercely, bright golden,
At child of Hold of Sea,
To keep her away
From clutch this day
The little queen flew futile-y
Chapter One: A Shipwreck
Yria came to herself slowly; on her skin she felt damp, warm clothes, and warm sand, and warm sun, and a little bit of some warm liquid at her fingertips. Then, suddenly, memory returned and she sat up, startling a lovely, indistinct golden form away from the pile of sand at her side; she blinked, slowly. In the second of closed eyes what had happened flashed in her mind.
For many hours she had clung to the piece of wood, part of her Sea Holders' ship's mast that she had been on, sent out to fish; before that, the storm that had killed… Yria didn't want to think about that, or the pain above her ear, where her fingers, exploring, told her that she had a deep cut. When her eyes opened, she blinked several more times, making sure she saw what she did: a tiny, perhaps four or five hand-spans long, golden dragon queen and a mound of tiny, sand-covered eggs.
But not a queen dragon; she was far, far too small. A wild fire lizard queen- with eggs!
Slowly, it dawned on Yria to sit up and look at the eggs; as she did so the queen squeaked, and lunged at her. From stories, she knew that by holding the dragon' cousins by their necks, they would be unable to bite.
In one swift movement, she reached out and grabbed with both hands; the queen could not get away, and to go between she needed to free herself from the sixteen-Turn-old girl, tall and lanky in a graceful way, clutching her.
The southern-tanned girl felt rather guilty about manhandling the little lizard, but she wanted the eggs, very, very much. Not only would they be well appreciated and she would be welcomed back to Seawatch Sea Hold like a hero, but she would have a fire lizard of her very own, after Turns of envying, secretly, others miniature dragons.
Looking around swiftly, she saw a shirt washed up along with a tough wher-hide bag; the shirt served as something to wrap the struggling, clawing fire lizard in. As Yria used a wash-up strip of rawhide to hold the queen inside, a bronze and a green appeared; they made angry noises and disappeared between somewhere.
Behind where they had been was a broken-off bluff; looking around as she used stiff fingers to tie the other end of the strip to a large clump of sea-grass Yria saw that there were many, many fire lizards there, though all much smaller than the queen, peering out from holes that riddled the bluff.
Finished with the gold fire lizard, she looked around again, and almost cried for joy; she thought could faintly see the large, half-rotten tree that she had always marked as an ideal place to hide out, so she was near her hold, not on some Iggen or Ista coast as she had feared. Would she have a story to tell when she got back to Seawatch Sea Hold! And she could bring fire lizard eggs.
Now she grabbed the carisack and gently put sand and the clutch into the bag, which was scarcely damp and wonderfully warm from the sun that blazed in a sky free from all clouds.
She counted as she set the hard-shelled eggs into the sack. A grand total of twenty-three fire lizard eggs were in her sack, surrounded by warm sand. Wincing, she quickly freed the queen, and raced away with the heavy sack in both hands before the fire lizard could orient herself and attack.
It was a good thing she had found a clutch of lizards. Seawatch Hold was short on the little beauties right now, for no one had been able to find time to go hunting for their nests.
Seawatch was small, about the size of the slightly-larger Cove Hold, and situated near the sea so that their watch-whers, who had been out of places to go and practice their magnificent talents, could go to the sea and converse with the dolphins.
Using telepathy and scientific instruments, the wher-handlers had worked with the scientists there to study things under the ocean. These scientists tried to have someone with a properly trained fire-lizard near by when they were working, but there was little time to go find clutches and then few fire-lizards. Even the few that were there would have been enough, but they were not all trained to fetch supplies, send messages or give warnings of some things.
The little creatures had been found to have a great sensitivity to watch-whers, and they were a great help in finding the dolphins they knew and asking them to contact the watch-whers they knew. Many wher-handlers had a lizard for little chores, and some just as pets and companions. Several were able to hunt fish for their ugly, nocturnal cousins, who had taken greatly to it when first introduced.
Yria thought until she realized that she was almost asleep on her feet and walking nearly in a trance. She also finally felt a bone-aching exhaustion from her many bruises from the shipwreck.
With a sigh she lay down on the sand, piling the carisack high with still-warm sand (it was by then late evening and the two moons were starting to rise) and fell asleep.