Disclaimer: I don't own Pern. I do, however own most of the characters in this story.
Chapter One: Nairyry, Queenrider
The little queen hatchling swung her head, searching through the five girls before her for the right one. She looked at each girl carefully, trying to find her rider. After scrutinizing each she turned away with a hungry, sad creel. Then the little golden dragon stared across the Nais Weyr Hatching Grounds, up into the stands. The first Southern Weyr to be situated like most of the Northern ones, in a volcanic crater, was also the smallest on Pern, only looking after the few small family groups in the large region.
Nairyry looked on as the small creature stumbled awkwardly around in the hot sands. At last she stood directly beneath the apprentice Harper and cried piteously to her. "No!" cried Nairyry, seeing the little queen staring directly at her, not at anyone else on the Grounds, though the five girls were trailing after her with false hope.
"She wants you, Nyr! So get down there!" The little queen, who told the young woman that her name was Thyrath, hissed and demanded food. "Get down there!" cried Master Tarak, her uncle who had brought her to the Hatching as he pushed her forward. Her fire lizard, brown Chilfer squeaked as they were unceremoniously dumped off her shoulders, then flew in circles above her, caroling the dragon's choice.
I am most hungry, Nairyry! You are my rider- it is your fault if I starve, you know, called Thyrath, eyes whirling with a little red. She turned and stumbled along with the former Harper, who was dashing to the stairs. When she reached her new queen Nairyry hugged the large head to her and scratched under the chin.
She and the golden dragonet were brought with the other newly Impressed pairs and presented with a large bucket of meat.
As she fed her queen Nairyry wondered if she would be able to keep playing, even with the young gold dragon. Maybe the Weyrsinger could teach her as well. Maybe she would become his assistant.
If. Perhaps. Might. Maybe.
She knew better: music was now a thing of the past. Sometimes she might sing, but music was truly lost to her. Now that she had Impressed, though, she would not trade Jayrath for all the music in the Harper Hall.
000
Slowly Nairyry woke. The dream had been a memory of her Impression day to Thyrath, the year the meteor strike in the sea and the resulting tsunami. Looking back Nairyry was glad she had not been a dragonrider or a sea holder in that time; it was hard enough being inland, at the Harper Hall, knowing Masterharper Robinton would protect the Hall. Thought of the queen made her turn her head to her dragon's weyr; the sounds of Thyrath waking slowly made her smile.
Good morning, she called. The dragon muttered something about needing food today, and waited while her rider dressed and washed. Nairyry made her way to her queen and they dropped down to the Feeding Grounds. She watched as Thyrath quickly snatched a buck in either forepaw and carried them away to eat. When the queen was finished Nairyry called her back and she had her own, blood-free breakfast.
She called her dragon in. In their weyr she oiled the golden hide fully, and her dragon sighed. Nairyry smiled. You're not growing anymore, she noted. Good. Thyrath replied that there was a fierce itch on her shoulder. No, the other one. Ahhhhhh…
Invariably, as it always did, the thought of her queen stopping growing led to thinking of mating flights. What was it really like? Did the Queenrider, or Greenrider now that girls were allowed to rider green here at Nais, have any choice in the matter? And mating flights lead to more hatchlings, and hatchlings to fighting dragons, and fighting dragons to the nearly-gone menace of Thread. The Last Pass, the Ninth, would finish within the Turn. What would happen to the dragons? Queens would not be needed to produce good clutches, for there would scarcely be a need for large numbers of the great creatures.
As had everyone on Pern, she had heard that the Aivas machine was very close, with the help of a select (well, few was not right. A select many, really it was!) to the annihilation of Thread forever, not just this Pass. What would she do? All the dragonriders, except perhaps greens and blues who wouldn't mind becoming message carriers and a kind of fast transportation.
Her queen chirped. Brown Chilfer added his encouragements. Nairyry had to smile. They would go do anything they wished, for the world would not need them. They might even decide they didn't need this world. The Aivas had let it be known that humans came from another world. Were there other worlds, that might need Queen- and Bronzeriders? Even some Brownriders? And of course all their dragons.
The Weyrsinger, named W'lam, asked his bronze Jurcath to contact hers, telling her he was coming for her lessons. She smiled; her dreams of the impossible –being able to play as well as ride a dragon– were not so impossible as she had thought on her Impression Day. For a bronze rider he really was all right. And he was continuing to help her learn music, even though she had thought it was unlikely for her to be a Harper-Dragonrider. Well, she still wasn't, but at least she was still learning some music.
W'lam entered, and her fire lizard swooped around him, chattering excitedly to see their friend. He grinned when Chilfer landed on his shoulder. His own lizard, blue Freet flew about him and scolded the brown for taking over his human. He landed smartly on the other shoulder and licked a talon.
"Let him go, Chilfer. Come here!" Her fire lizard broke off his good-natured assault on the bronze rider's ear. His own landed on his now-vacated shoulder as the brown settled imperiously on Thyrath's large head as she ducked it out to greet W'lam.
The Weyrsinger made a show of relief at his deliverance. "I hope he'll sing with us today, even after bombarding me," he said with a grin. Nairyry gestured to a seat, and they each took one, still grinning. "Actually," he said, "I've a new song to sing with you."
"Really?" she asked eagerly.
The Weyrsinger nodded. "Special for the next Impression. I though we could sing it then, with the fire lizards." He handed her a sheet of the Aivas-improved paper with music on it.
"It needs three people," she observed.
He nodded. "Our trio will become a duet for now, and our friend will come in later. Now, you'll play the harp, I'll be on guitar, and our friend will come later with a violin. All of us will sing the chorus, but I'll do the first verse, you'll do the second, and our friend will do the third.
"On the end, here" he tapped the final measures "each one of us, me, you and than our friend, will take a line. Then we do the chorus together again, but with this ending." He pointed to an extra line down at the bottom that didn't fit with the song. "For now you and I'll just rehearse the words. Tomorrow we'll start instruments. Depending on where we are then, we'll put it together and our friend'll join us soon after."
"So who's 'our friend'?" asked Nairyry.
"Wait and see, Nyr." He grinned at her frown. "Just wait and see."
With a sigh at W'lam's secrecy, she turned her mind to the music.