Brief author's note: This is a sample scene from a larger piece, which luckily can stand alone. I've only posted this first chapter for feedback, to see if it's worth continuing. Our main character is an OC, and our time watching his life on Pern is pretty much the length of this chapter. After this the setting is moved to Earth, but Pern will eventually factor back in. It just will take a while.

Fair warnings: There is a character death in this chapter, which is painful but necessary to the storyline. It's an original character - I'm not killing off Lessa or Petiron (but he dies on his own, so...) Also, anyone who is seriously agoraphobic might not be able to handle the later bits. Last warning - if you're homophobic to the point of being unable to handle the mere mention of homosexual tendencies (then how did you get through McCaffrey's books) then you definitely shouldn't read this one. Or just only read the beginning and ending.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything written by any McCaffrey... Though if I did, I wouldn't let Todd write in the Pern verse. He can find his own settings...

"Never been dragonback before?" Old G'sael clapped his green Tilliath on the shoulder, silently bursting with pride. It wasn't too often Crafters were awed by greens. They were the color of 'bad luck' for one. For another, they were often overshadowed by the huge browns and bronzes. Only the blues were smaller, but they at least had the color advantage. Tilliath, if he were honest, hadn't been impressive to anyone but him in almost twenty turns. She was as spry as ever, but she, like her rider, was getting on in years.

"Never. I'm what we sometimes call a 'walking journeyman'. The Masters thought I would do more good walking the length and breadth of the land than confined to a hold." Every line of the journeyman's form held admiration and respect. "The last time I even saw a dragon on the ground was when my hold was Searched for potential queenriders when I was six."

The apprentices waiting behind the young journeyman didn't look too impressed, but at least Journeywoman Menolly was suitably admiring. Rumor had it she didn't care about color or size of a dragon, but held them all in awed admiration. She'd written songs and ballads to honor less accomplished dragons than Tilliath before.

G'sael looked to T'pen and K'lor. T'pen would be carrying the apprentices on his blue Fenoth, while K'lor's brown Bath would carry Journeywoman Menolly. Usually a bronze would carry her, and usually even a brownrider would outrank G'sael, if not for their respective ages – he quite old, and K'lor quite young. He wondered idly at the Masterharpers requests…

"We'd best get going, being late to a High Reaches gather wouldn't go over well. Since you've never ridden before, listen up for just a minute. Journeywoman Menolly," he turned to address the tall woman, "you'll be riding with brownrider K'lor and Bath. Apprentices, the two of you will be with bluerider T'pen and Fenoth. They'll give you any further instruction you need before they take you up. Now," the old greenrider smiled at the attentive 'walking journeyman' as the other dragons immediately leapt into the air "safety rules. Due to an accident involving an idiotically stubborn weyrling, all passengers are now required to wear the same safety gear and have the same emergency safety information as we riders are. So. You'll need to wear this," he handed the lad a soft helmet, designed for protecting against cold, rain and between, "and this." A set of loops wasn't handed to him, but simply shown. "These are what we call beeners. We've used them to secure ourselves to our dragons probably since Faranth hatched, and they're critical equipment. You'll hook a minimum of two, preferably three, first to the loops on the riding straps, then to your belt." He glanced down briefly. "Good. Some people turn up not wearing belts, and then I have to awkwardly adjust my spare to fit them. Makes most holders uncomfortable for some reason. If there is an emergency and you need to get off in a hurry, you just unhook the beeners. There aren't many emergencies that would require that. They're more intended to keep people from slipping off. But if, say, a dragon were to fall for some reason and ended up in the water, then you'd want to get off in a hurry and not waste time fumbling about with knots. Got it?" As the harper nodded, he silently commented to Tilliath that it would be nice if weyrlings were half as attentive. "Since I see you're already well prepared otherwise we'll get going. I like the coat. That should keep you toasty up in the air, although we couldn't fight in things like that. Not aerodynamic enough." He liked talking to harpers. They understood big words and could discuss things like aerodynamics and air pressure and wind speed. As long as they weren't nervous about talking to a dragonrider, or to a man who they were hyperaware preferred the company of other men in his bed.

This harper didn't seem to have that problem, and only grinned in anticipation of being aloft. He was careful, and G'sael pleased to notice it, to secure his riding gear and adjust the beeners in such a way that they were secure, but would be easy to detach.

Tillioth love, take us up. We'll be late!

With a great surge, the aged green bounded into the air, as spry as a dragon a quarter of her age. They circled for a minute, letting the journeyman take in the view and gaining altitude against the mountains they would be coming out over. The air grew icy and thin, and both riders squinted and breathed carefully.

G'sael began to picture High Reaches Hold in his mind's eye, carefully checking the small details that could inadvertently send him falling through time. "Take a deep breath and hold it, and when we hit between you'll want to count to three slowly. Or recite a short teaching ballad, I know you harpers sometimes prefer that method." At this height he usually had to shout to be heard over the winds, but today was unusually calm, and the chilly air helped his voice carry instead. He barely had to speak at normal volume. Once he felt the journeyman take that breath – the lad had impressive lung capacity – he directed Tilliath between.

The cold hit him, and he held onto his calm, as he'd learned to do decades ago.

At the count of one, he felt sudden pain – which shouldn't have been possible – in his chest, as if a hatchling was sitting on it, or perhaps clawing through it, and lost the breath he'd held.

At the count of two, he realized what that sensation was – he'd felt it once before, and the weyr's healer had been very firm about his diet and what kinds of exercise he should avoid after that. But it had been fifteen turns since then…

At the count of three, he realized that in his pain and panic he had lost the image of High Reaches Hold.

As the pain went on and grew worse, he couldn't reformulate the image, and began to panic in earnest, as he hadn't done between since he was a weyrling himself.

Silently, he apologized to the promising young harper who had trusted him and Tilliath to carry him safely through the blackness, briefly sensing the harper's confused concern brush across his thoughts, and felt twice as horrid. He'd just effectively doomed a potential candidate?

At the count of seven he felt his mind begin to fade, between his lungs screaming for air, and his blood seeming to burn with the need for his heart to beat again and move it.

The last living thought of G'sael, rider of green Tilliath, was an apologetic goodbye to his beloved companion.

At the count of ten, Seban realized that he wasn't imagining the stretch of time in the void – something was wrong. Counts ago, he'd erroneously imagined that the old greenrider had apologized to him. For what, he couldn't think.

At the count of fifteen, journeyman harper Seban realized that it was too late to do anything but die with the dragonrider. He unhooked the beeners as well as he could without sensation, and held his breath as he'd been instructed.

Floating through the emptiness was disconcerting in a way he'd never before experienced. Like his body didn't exist…

For while, even as he kept his mind calm by counting, his body flailed desperately to find some sensation other than cold. The blackness seemed to be closing in around him, trying to swallow him whole, and his eyes and hands could find no point of reference – not even their own existence.

At the count of thirty, even his training as a harper and his good health couldn't make his body draw oxygen that didn't exist from his lungs, and his mind started to flicker with the terror he'd been suppressing. He knew he was going to die, and had accepted it – that didn't mean he wasn't afraid of it.

With his lungs empty, and his mind fuzzy, the biting cold and the absence of sensation became all the more frightening, like his recurring childhood nightmare of drowning.

Unknowingly, he began to call out into the emptiness, with breath he didn't have into a place where no one would ever hear.

Before he faded completely, he had a wild moment of creativity in which he almost imagined he felt greenrider G'sael's mind brush against his once more, and, almost, the impossible sensation of being embraced in warm arms.