Author note: This is my first fanfic, so I apologise for any screw-ups. Other parts of this story are forthcoming... and please review!

The characters I made up should be apparent; those by Anne McCaffrey are her property. I'm just a fan!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yarrow's Tale

by filfda

Yarrow rolled over, humming to herself. It was a pleasant sensation; she could feel the vibrations rolling around in her skull, even if she couldn't hear them directly. What do they know anyway? she thought. One minute more of this, and then she got up; if she didn't, her aunt and uncle would be on her like grubs on a dead body. About as pleasant, too.

The nightmare was still smashing at her mind, as she rose and threw on a light dress with a buckle. Worn fabric for a worn mind. She shook her head to clear it -- hopefully. But Yarrow kept seeing visions of Lord Holder Toric dying. It always happened like that, and the man always died in different ways. But he always yelled the same thing, and she wished she could hear it... wished she could hear anything. But then, would her Harper parents have trusted her with Harper secrets, like their real reason for visiting Southern? "Something's not right down there," she remembered her father signing to her with a wag of his head and a finger pointing at the map they had for where to go. "Masterharper Sebell wants us to investigate."

By "us," he meant Yarrow's mother too, but she knew they would also be taking her. Porilan had been very protective of his daughter since she'd been born, like she was a rock crystal or something. The Journeyman of Composition, Masterharper Sebell's second apprentice, made sure he knew what she was doing almost every second of the day, be it playing with some of the Hall firelizards or helping out in the kitchens with ever-so-patient Silvina.

She didn't know what the fuss was about; nobody really told her much, and she only really heard facts like this one: they were to go, and that was that. Not even Yarrow's mother Ulia said otherwise. She just made sure Yarrow packed clothes.

They were gone now; it didn't matter anymore. Now Yarrow was stuck with people she wasn't even related to -- who, if they even guessed why Yarrow's parents had come to the Continent, kept up the pretense for their convenience. They could always use a personal drudge, a free one at that. Who cared about Lord Toric dying anyway? Yarrow had wondered from the start what the big deal was. Harpers were strange sometimes. But that was not her life now.

Sure enough, there was Mink in the doorway, making rapid signs about how his cousin better get up before The Parents arrived. Yarrow and Mink had a sort of cautious neutrality to their relations; he didn't want to anger his parents, and his parents hated his deaf cousin, but he liked her well enough to give her these warnings. Mink had on his wrinkled blue tunic, that he wore in defiance of his father, so he must be feeling especially impish today. He pestered Harper Undabran often enough for her to know what he wanted to become someday. I wonder how long it will take before he gets his ears boxed for it -- this time, she thought. Mink did things just to irritate his parents, sometimes, she was sure. And it didn't take much to irritate Hannin and Petia.

No matter thatYarrow's own father had been a Master at the Harper Hall far away on the North Continent, and her mother had once been a singer there. When they'd been in Southern, where Yarrow felt it was far too hot, for only a sevenday, Porilan had gone out "fishing" (which Yarrow felt odd since he was from Ruatha, a decidedly landbound Hold). The boat had washed up in pieces near Southern, and Yarrow's mother had gone bezerk, like a firelizard around an angry dragon. "Listen to me!" she'd signed to the girl emphatically over and over, grabbing plump shoulders. Her nails had bit into the thin fabric of the Southern-style dress Yarrow had taken to wearing, as she'd signed rapidly something about "if something happens to either of us, Yarrow, you are to investigate -- it's very important that you investigate... Fax!" Yarrow knew her history well enough, but this had made no sense. Lord Fax and -- well most of his issue were long gone. She knew vaguely that nobody had liked Lord Toric as it was, so why the concern? But her mother didn't say why she was telling the girl either; she seemed to know something was going to happen.

Yarrow's mother had been devastated and died from heartache after three days of tossing and turning with fever, during which she signed over and over about "dangers" and "another Fax...", leaving the girl in the charge of her gruesome "relatives". She wished she could have been fostered to Master Menolly. The woman who could do anything... And then she wouldn't have been left here, with this family. Oh, Petia was nice sometimes, really, but... but... she was just so...

* * *

"Stupid!" the slim Lady Holder yelled, as her son's dog bit at her downstairs. Yarrow found it was sometimes a curse to be able to read lips. So it's 'kick the dog day', is it? she thought, and armed herself mentally for battle. The dog scurried over to her, visibly whimpering. Didn't matter what he did wrong; he didn't often do anything wrong as far as Yarrow was concerned.

She waved to her "aunt" and sat down at the table. Fall today, Mink conveyed to her in sloppy signing. She'd tried to teach him -- her cousin was certainly the brighter of the group -- but he only half comprehended what she was saying. It went about as well as her father trying to teach her uncle to write comprehensible words.

That explained the ringing in Yarrow's ears. Despite her uncle's constant insistance to visitors that she was "deaf and dumb" -- and of course therefore no good to anyone, not even to marry off -- Yarrow had a very good sensory system. The Masterhealer at the Halls had pronounced her fit as a fiddle when she was younger. Yarrow could produce sound, even, and had been trying for several years now to learn to speak -- something she hid from her relatives. She'd be ridiculed for it, if they knew. As it was, though, she could only so far produce a humming.

Maybe B'nick will come, she thought hopefully. Everyone here hated Fall, because it meant going out to see the grubs doing their duty -- the Hold's Harper, Undabran, insisted on it. To him, this was teaching. Yarrow thought that the middle-aged man had come to the same conclusion as she had when he'd gotten here; that these people were worse than drudges, and things like the grubbing needed to be drilled into their thick heads. But B'nick was a different story; he was a friend of hers from the Halls who'd come South with F'lessan and the others, a Dragonrider/Harper, first of his kind, and he and his dragon Visigoth could talk to Yarrow in ways that nobody else could. Yarrow got tingles down her spine when she thought of that.

Sure enough, there were the rough, thick hands on her shoulders as she finished her morning klah and some tubers. The hands turned her around forcibly, making her look into the face of her uncle.

He knew she could read lips. "THERE -- WILL -- BE -- FALL -- TO-- DAY," he said, slowly like he was talking to a dunce. "DO -- YOU -- UN -- DER -- STAND?" For emphasis, the man took a hand and made little falling gesticulations with it, like it was raining.

Yarrow nodded. There was really nothing more she could do about it; when they were alive, her parents had both done their best to convince Petia and Hannin that no, the girl was in fact intelligent, and they'd been shut down by "common sense," as Mink said the two called it.

Weyrleader T'gellan, who came to check on them every so often -- as he should, as the Harper was constantly reminding them all -- would probably not have liked the knowledge that one of "his" Holders was illiterate. But there was no way for him to know, and no way for Yarrow, certainly, to get word to him.

There was only B'nick, the Greenrider at the Weyr here... and he was hard enough to contact. No, she was left alone with these people. Toric's heir since the Lord Holder's sudden death, and his numbweed-brained wife.

Hannin went on: "YOU -- NEED -- TO -- WRITE --" he made little scribbling signs "-- IN -- THE -- LOG. THE -- DATE -- IS -- TWENTY-FIVE-TWENTY-NINE -- WINTER..."

Someday, she thought, I'll leave here, and run -- run like Menolly did, or -- or anybody... but the trouble was, Yarrow couldn't think of anyone like B'nick wouldn't take her away; Greenriders didn't marry. They just -- well, they didn't, that was all. Some of them do, she corrected herself, remembering Lady Tia, Rider F'lessan's mate. But most Greenriders -- just didn't marry. She wasn't too sure about the rest, and the why of it, but...

Suddenly, Yarrow's ears vibrated painfully. Rush, Mink's bronze firelizard, came zipping into the hall, blinking in and out of the air with tiny sonic booms that only Yarrow seemed to catch -- but she resisted the urge to put her hands over her head. That made her uncle beat her, she'd learned a while ago. Nisha and Tointel, her little greens, who were better trained, came right for their mistress and lighted on the table near her, eyeing Hannin with suspicion, like always. They projected pictures of hunting to her, and a big feline... then the silvery strands that Yarrow knew meant Fall. I know, dears.

"THAT'S -- THE -- " her uncle started in again after making some rude jestures at his son, but thankfully he was interrupted by Undabran's wrinkled hand on his shoulder. The Harper jabbed a finger in Yarrow's direction and said something like "she knows what you're saying," to the man, who shook his head and walked off with it still wagging.

Yarrow and Undabran, who knew a small bit of signing himself, since Harpers had their own secret-speak, looked at one another. She put her hands to her ears and made a face, and he nodded, making a face of his own. She didn't really like the man too much, but he was all right sometimes. It was like the rest of the Hold: all right, but nothing special. "We have to go outside to observe Threadfall," he said to her. Everyone in the Hold knew Yarrow could read lips; it was just that not everyone understood her.

Her ears would be ringing for a while, she knew, but that wasn't important. Yarrow followed the rest of the Hold outside, crying children -- a different vibration -- and all. Harper lessons were supposed to be taken seriously. Sanetor's heir seemed to be intent on that one.

She knew the Lord and Lady of Southern were called Abominators, people against the technology of some sort that had been found on the Continent -- purists. They said that the things would destroy the old ways, and that the race on Pern would die out. She liked the Harper who talked to her of these things when he could; Undabran believed that there could be a proper balance someday between the technology of old and new times. He insisted on the people of Southern going out to watch Threadfall because he didn't want those ways dying out -- while Hannin and Petia, Yarrow was sure, thought he was going to help them preserve those old ways till they became the only Hold on Pern that kept to them anymore, and then they'd save the world just like Lessa once did.

Never mind that Lessa was a Weyrwoman, something Yarrow could never imagine Petia being. Everything she'd ever heard of Weyrwomen said they were strong people, intense. Petia was about as intense as numbweed. The Lady Holder of Southern only cared about ordering other people around -- little enough at that.

As they went out the thick Hold doors, Yarrow saw her "aunt" wince just like always. Nisha and Tointel remained in the doorway with Mink's bronze, broadcasting worry for their mistress. Yarrow saw her "uncle" mutter something about the Riders protecting them -- he hoped. If he's so intent on preserving the olden ways, B'nick had once asked her, laughing, why is he -- Lord Holder of Southern where the Riders still fly -- afraid of Fall like he is?

For her part, Yarrow loved to watch Fall. She knew it was dangerous; the people in the North Continent, where it was too cold for grubs, had to stay indoors during the Falls. She'd gone outside with the ground crews after Fall to make sure the land was cleared off, and after Fall she'd gone with a blowtorch to make sure every last bit of the wriggling pests were dead. But there was something lovely about them, in her opinion -- it must be something the hearing world couldn't understand.

Silvery rains fell down towards the ground, where the grubs dashed to meet them in frenzied excitement. What's it like to be a grub, Yarrow wondered, fascinated by the sight, as she always was.

Wouldn't you want to know? sent a familiar voice. Yarrow felt an excited thrill pass through her, and she forgot the ringing in her ears, the nightmare, her dislike

Visigoth!

Hah -- I see that I'm to be worth tubers today, sent B'nick, feigning insult.

You are both welcome -- really welcome, Yarrow sent, relieved. She sensed laughter -- and understanding, from both Dragon and Rider. Suddenly the world was good again.