Unimpressed Chapter 1
A/N
What happens if a dragon can't find the person he wants to Impress? It's canon (in Dragonseye, I think) that a newly-hatched dragon will die if it can't pair off with a human. But in "The Smallest Dragonboy," Lessa comments on dragons who can't find the right person, without sounding sad or distraught about it, so maybe they don't always die. I'm going to take her thought and make a story out of it. If that departure from canon isn't your style, then maybe this fanfic isn't for you. Otherwise, enjoy! This tale takes place during the 9th Pass.
o
"Father! You made it! You're just in time!"
The weatherbeaten man pulled off his sun-faded farmer's hat and grunted. "Yes, I made it, but it's very much against my better judgement, Falorender. All this nonsense about watching eggs hatch and riding away on a dragon! That's not the life you were born for. You need to learn what you're supposed to do with your life, and then do it."
"But, Father, what choice did I have?" Falorender answered, anxiously but respectfully. "The dragon riders said I was a prime candidate to Impress a dragon, and they took me away that very day! Ever since I got here, I've been learning about dragons, and how the Weyr functions, and it's amazing!"
The father shook his head firmly. "It's meaningless to you, son! That's not where your future lies. Your mother and I didn't raise you for fourteen Turns just to see you live in a cave with lazy men, loose women, and bloodthirsty dragons. You need to keep your feet on the ground and learn how to get your hands dirty in the good soil of our Hold, just like our family has always done." The man paused, frowned, and put a hand to his ear. "What's that humming noise?"
"It's the dragons!" the boy nearly shouted. "They're welcoming the new hatchlings. That means the eggs are about to hatch! I have to go join the other candidates, but you can find a seat up there with everyone else, so you can see."
"There's no need for that," his father muttered. "Those fancy folks in their fancy clothes wouldn't want to rub elbows with the likes of me. I can see anything that's worth seeing from right here." He leaned against the arched entrance to the Hatching Ground, arms folded, as his oldest son ran to join the other white-robed hatching candidates.
From the seat of honor, F'lar watched as the last of the candidates joined up to complete the circle around the eggs. There were forty-two eggs this time, and one of them was a huge queen egg. He turned to his weyrmate. "Ramoth is still the most prolific queen on Pern, Lessa. I know Mnementh is very pleased with himself over this clutch, but your dragon did all the work."
"It helps when she has a fine sire to work with," Lessa smiled back. Her meaning was double; their son F'lessan was finally learning some discipline, now that he had Impressed Golanth, and it looked like he would be every bit the superb dragonrider that his father was. Only time would tell, but so far, he showed signs of becoming his father's son. (Finally!)
F'lar touched his partner's shoulder lightly, then looked back at the eggs and the young men who surrounded them. "We might be looking at Benden Weyr's future leaders," he commented.
"You keep saying that!" she scoffed with a grin. "This Pass ought to be almost over by the time today's dragons reach full size. The two of us are still reasonably young; we've got plenty of leading left to do."
"Perhaps," he shrugged, "but the Weyr will still need a Weyrleader and a Weyrwoman when you and I decide to retire. Someone has to take our places someday. Why not that one?" He pointed to a tall, lanky son of a harper who was standing a bit closer to the eggs than the others.
"Oh, you mean Telecas? He looks brave enough," she nodded, "but the dragon chooses. That short boy right next to him has as good a chance of Impressing a bronze as the tall one."
On the hatching sands, that short boy was beginning to feel the heat through his sandals. Falorender adopted the side-to-side rocking motion common to everyone who ventured onto the sands. But it seemed to bother the others more than it bothered him. Maybe it was because he was accustomed to running around his father's farm barefoot; maybe his feet were tougher than the others. Still, it was uncomfortable to stand here waiting. He hoped the eggs would hatch soon. He didn't expect to get a bronze dragon - everyone wanted one of those, and there weren't enough to go around - but a brown or a strong blue would bring no disgrace on his family line, that was for sure. If he Impressed a green, his father would probably take it as some kind of personal insult directed at him by the Weyr, and he'd never hear the end of it.
The humming from the other dragons was rising in pitch. Some of the eggs were rocking back and forth. Falorender couldn't help chuckling at the thought - maybe the hot sands make the hatchlings as uncomfortable as we are! Then one of the eggs in the middle began to crack, and the top portion of the shell shattered into tiny bits. Its occupant raised his head through the opening, almost comically, before rolling forwards to break clear of the bottom half of the shell.
"A bronze!" Telecas exclaimed.
"They say it means good luck if a bronze hatches first," Falorender murmured.
"It will be good luck if I Impress him!" the tall boy said. Sure enough, the newly-hatched dragon was wobbling toward them. He looked to both sides, glanced at Falorender for a moment, then rushed toward Telecas, who got down into a crouch to meet him.
"He says his name is Ibaneth!" he said in a voice full of wonder. After a few seconds, he led his new dragon friend away toward the feeding grounds, guided by one of the blue riders who was waiting to help. Other eggs began cracking, and suddenly the hatching area was filled with tiny dragons of all colors, frantically looking for the human they would partner with for life.
A bright blue dragon seemed to be headed in Falorender's direction, but turned aside to greet the grandnephew of the Masterfisher instead. Another, a green, seemed to be looking right at him, until she turned around and went back the way she came, to find her partner on the other side of the ring of candidates. A small bronze was staggering around the ring, checking each candidate in turn, until he finally found his rider two boys to Falorender's left. "Are you all taunting me?" Falorender exclaimed in disbelief.
Then the queen egg split open, and all eyes were on her. She seemed to waver back and forth between two pale, panic-stricken girls, but eventually settled on the one who seemed less frightened. The girl forgot her terror the moment she made eye contact with the wobbling golden dragon. By the time that dragon had made up her mind, nearly all the eggs had hatched and the dragons had chosen their riders.
That was when Falorender felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. "It's all over, son. You had your chance. Now it's time to go back to real life."
"But, Father!" Falorender protested. "It's not over. There are two eggs left!"
"Those eggs aren't moving," his father said firmly. "If they haven't hatched by now, then they never will. I've seen enough hatchings of other creatures in my day, so I know what I'm talking about. Come on! We have to get that crop into the ground in our northwest field before the weeds take it over."
"I thought I saw that egg move," the boy argued.
"Even if it did, so what?" the older man said harshly. "I watched half a dozen of those ugly things pass you by. If those last eggs hatch, they'll pass you by, too. Whatever it is that the dragons want, you don't have it. This whole trip was a waste of time."
"Father, please!" Falorender begged. "Just a few more minutes! I'll never have another chance like this!"
"I said no!" his father snapped. "If the riders had chosen your little brother Gisbon, I'd let him stay here all day. But you're my firstborn and my heir. You're destined to be a farmer and a Holder like me. Forget about flying around in the air all day, living off the tithes of what other people worked and sweated to produce, pretending you deserve it because you're some kind of Weyrfolk now! As I said, you need to learn what you're supposed to do with your life, and then do it." He took his fourteen-year-old son's hand and firmly led him away toward where the messenger dragons waited to take them home. Falorender tried to look back at those last two eggs, but the ring of unchosen candidates closed around them and he couldn't see them. After a minute, he gave up and sullenly followed his father.
There were still nearly thirty young men standing around those eggs, hoping against hope that one of them might still hatch. But as the minutes went by, with nothing to show for it but hot feet, the candidates began to drift away by ones and twos.
"Wait!" the Weyrwoman suddenly shouted. "Don't leave yet! Ramoth says it's not time for you to go!"
"How can she be sure?" F'lar asked her.
"She just knows," his partner said. A few moments later, one of the eggs stirred, and all of the candidates abandoned any thoughts of leaving early. The ones who had begun to leave dashed back to surround the eggs again. Then the second egg began to show cracks as well.
The two latecomers hatched within seconds of each other. One was a beautiful bronze; the other, a sturdy brown. The bronze got his bearings, then made a beeline for the overjoyed fourth son of the Lord Holder of Nerat. The brown looked around at all the candidates, but didn't move. He seemed confused.
"What's wrong with him?" F'lar asked. "He's got over two dozen fine young men to choose from."
"I suppose he doesn't see the one he's looking for," Lessa commented. "We almost had that problem a Turn ago, when young K'van tried to hide from Heth, but that pair managed to find each other."
"If this one is too choosy, he could wind up alone," the Weyrleader said. "What will happen then?"
"I asked the other Weyrwomen about that, shortly after K'van Impressed Heth," she replied hesitantly. "They said, most of the time, the dragon dies. Sometimes he changes his mind and picks one of the boys in front of him. Every dragon makes up his own mind about these things." They watched as the newly-hatched dragon looked wistfully toward the entrance to the Hatching Ground, then sat down and cheeped disconsolately.
"Ramoth tells me he's very hungry," the Weyrwoman said. "I don't know what we're going to do about that."
"Can one of the blue riders lead him to the feeding area?" F'lar asked.
"I'm sure they're willing," she replied, "but how will they talk to him? How will they tell him what to do? Only an Impressed rider can speak into a dragon's mind."
"Or another dragon," the Weyrleader thought out loud. "Maybe Ramoth could relay messages to him from you."
"She could do that today," Lessa nodded, "but she can't do it forever! She has other things to think about, like catching and eating her own meals, and looking out for her idea of what's best for me, and sleeping like the lazybones she is. I've got other thoughts to keep me busy, too. We'll have to find some other way of dealing with that little dragon."
"I'll speak to the other Weyrleaders when we meet next week," F'lar decided. "Maybe one of the them has heard of something like this happening. Maybe they even know a way to deal with it. In the meantime, I'll assign one of the older riders to look after this beast, in addition to his own dragon. An older dragon won't be so prone to jealousy... I hope."
"By the way," Lessa added, "Ramoth says his name is Warmoth."
o
The other Weyrleaders had no first-hand experience with a dragon who declined to choose a partner. G'dened said emphatically that such a thing had never happened during the Eighth Pass, and insinuated that F'lar's disregard for tradition was to blame for this misfortune. F'lar had to fall back on his own wits. He decided to try his plan to assign the young dragon to an experienced rider. For this unusual assignment, F'lar chose a veteran of a dozen Threadfalls named P'reed and his blue dragon, Smith. P'reed had been scored in several places over the past few Turns, and he couldn't move as quickly as he used to. That was something of a handicap in the air, but it wouldn't prevent him from caring for a newly-hatched dragon. Smith wasn't jealous at all; he knew who his rider was, and he sensed no special attachment to the newcomer.
The three of them began working out some simple hand signs, like "eat," "sleep," and "fly," so the human could signal his wishes to Warmoth without involving another dragon. Smith was willing to relay messages, but P'reed thought it would be good to be able to communicate directly when necessary. When communicating in the other direction, the little brown dragon could speak mentally to Smith, who would relay those thoughts to P'reed. They worked together reasonably well, as long as Warmoth was in the training stage.
"But it will never work in battle against Thread," P'reed told F'lar one day. "A fighting dragon has to react instantly when Threads are in the sky; he can't wait five seconds for a message to arrive via another dragon. He's got to flame, skip, and flame again with no delays and no hesitation."
"I'm not sure that dragon can fight Thread anyway," F'lar said thoughtfully. "Without a rider, how can he get more firestone to chew on? He may have to stay grounded in battle."
"Good luck with that!" the older rider exclaimed. "He's got the same instinct to fight Thread that any other dragon has. When Thread falls, he'll take off to meet it, whether he's ready or not. Besides, our casualties are mounting up, as you well know. We could use a strong brown dragon, and Warmoth looks like he's going to be a big one. We've got to find some way of making him into an effective fighter, or he's going to get scored from nose to tail in his first battle."
"Could he follow you and Smith into battle?" the Weyrleader thought out loud. "You could feed him firestone in the air from your own supply bags."
"I'm not sure I could carry enough for two dragons," P'reed answered. "Not only that, but if Warmoth grows as big as I think he will, then he's going to be in the air for hours every time Thread falls. Smith doesn't have that kind of endurance, and as soon as he gets tired, we'd have to land and rest, and where does that leave Warmoth?"
"Alone in the sky, with no guidance and no firestone," F'lar finished the thought. "Could all the riders take turns watching out for him and feeding him firestone when he needs it?"
"Do you want your riders to be distracted in the middle of Threadfall when they need to stay focused on their own jobs and their own formations?" P'reed asked. The answer was obvious, so F'lar didn't answer. He tried a different tack.
"What if he flew with the queens' wing? They don't move as fast as the others, so Ramoth or one of the others could send him commands mentally without compromising their task. Do you think that would work?"
"It would be the same problem, but coming from the other direction," the blue rider replied. "Warmoth won't have enough stamina to stay with the queens through an entire Threadfall."
"That's true," F'lar nodded, "but at least he could fight. But I just thought of something else as well. The queens are accustomed to working with each other and with their riders' flamethrowers. They know exactly how far a flamethrower can shoot, and they arrange their formation accordingly. A brown dragon's flaming breath won't work like a flamethrower, and the queens will have to alter their formation and their tactics, or someone's rider will get burned. Would they do that for Warmoth? I rather doubt it."
"It's not fair to ask all the queens to change everything, just to accommodate one riderless dragon," P'reed agreed.
"So you're right," the Weyrleaded decided. "We need to come up with something else. Until I think of something, please keep working with Warmoth, as best you can. I hear that you're doing good work with him. He's responding to a good range of commands and hand signals."
"Thank you," the blue rider nodded. "It's a challenge sometimes, but Smith enjoys doing something different for a change, and I know we can use that dragon when he's full-sized."
"If only I could figure out how!" F'lar said firmly.
o
A few months later, as Lessa sipped her klah one morning, she casually said, "I had an idea."
"About what?" F'lar wondered, instantly on his guard. When Lessa sounded that innocent, it nearly always meant trouble for somebody.
"About Warmoth, the dragon without a rider," she went on. "What if we got him a rider?"
"We tried that at the hatching," her partner said as he began to relax again. "At least, that was the plan. He had almost thirty boys to choose from, and he didn't accept any of them. Do you think you know what he's looking for, so you can find the right boy for him?"
"No, but that's not my plan," Lessa said. "Ramoth has been talking to Warmoth now and then. She tells me that he's very lonely. What if we provide him with someone to fly with him and take care of him, even though they don't Impress? In his current state of mind, he might be more willing to take a human friend."
"He might," the Weyrleader nodded. "You don't think P'reed is working with him well enough?"
"P'reed's first love is Smith, and that's how it ought to be," she said. "He can't focus his full attention on Warmoth. If Warmoth has his own designated rider and friend, they can become friends and spend time together. It's not the same as an Impression, of course, but it's more attention than he could ever get from another dragon's rider."
"That's reasonable," F'lar said. "Who would we offer to him?"
"Are you serious?" Lessa burst out. "There are at least a dozen young men in the lower caverns who would cheerfully violate every tradition the Harpers could ever name, if it meant they could ride a dragon of their own! Just to be fair, we can present them all to Warmoth at once and let him choose one. It will be like his hatching, only just for him, and with no Impression."
F'lar considered that. "If he doesn't choose one of them, then we're no worse off than we were before. I suppose the rider could learn the commands and the hand signals that P'reed invented, so he can talk to the dragon. But there's no way for the dragon to talk to him."
"Hmm. I hadn't thought of that part," his partner admitted. "But how much does a dragon have to talk during Threadfall? He can turn his head to ask for more firestone, without saying a word. If he's hurt by Thread, he won't have to speak to make that clear to his rider. I can't think of anything else a dragon has to say while he's in the air."
"That's probably true, although in this case, I can almost guarantee that he'll eventually have to say something to his rider, just because he can't," F'lar commented. "Next question: how do we tell him that he's going to choose a rider?"
"Any of our dragons can relay the message to him," the Weyrwoman answered. "So far, Ramoth has been doing most of the talking to him. Maybe Mnementh would like to be involved in this project?"
"I'll ask him," F'lar said, and mentally described the situation to his dragon, who was sunning himself nearby. "Would you be willing to relay the message to Warmoth that he's going to have a chance to select his own rider?"
I just did.
"Well, the die is cast," F'lar shrugged to his wife. "My big friend thought we were ready to send the message to Warmoth, so he's already done it."
"Shards!" Lessa slammed down her klah. "I'm not even close to ready! I don't even know who's willing to take a part in this project. Now the dragon will think we're on the verge of offering him his choice, right now, and I hate to disappoint him. I've got work to do!" She gathered up her skirt and ran back to their weyr. "Ramoth, I need a fast ride to the lower caverns!" she shouted as she ran.
F'lar watched her leave. "I hope we don't think of any more problems with this idea of yours," he said to no one. "It's too late to back out now."