Swearing to himself, F'lar gave chase. The lying girl had dared provoke a dragonman into killing for her! And for what? Ruath was a ruin; she might claim it by right, but she wouldn't Hold it as easily as she thought.
He entered Ruath's main hall - if she was trying to excape the Hold, she'd have to pass through it first - and found it near deserted. The girl was quicker on her feet than she had any right to be. But F'nor was at the door.
"Has that creature come this way?" he asked his brother.
"No, Is she the source of power after all?"
"Yes, she is," F'lar answered, galled all the more. "And Ruathan Blood at that!"
F'nor's eyes lit up. "You were right to bring the Search here. A Ruathan girl of the blood...what a Weyrwoman she'd make!"
"She's claimed Ruath Hold, by right of her blood. How she thinks she can keep it..."
At that moment, he felt Mnementh touch his mind.
I can see the girl you were chasing. She's climbing out of an upper window. I don't know where she's going. She'd need wings to get down.
Just watch, for now. I'm on my way. F'lar beckoned to his brother. "Outside. Mnementh's spotted her."
He strode down the steps, past the body of the former Lord of the High Reaches and out into the main court. Mnementh was still perched on top of the gate-tower, his eyes whirling watchfully. Screening his eyes from the bright daylight, F'lar turned and raised his gaze to the Hold's heights. The girl was clinging to a precarious stone ladder carved into the rock face, inching her way towards the large opening of the Drum room. She had tenacity as well as wits and malice, F'lar decided as she disappeared inside again. Did she know the drum codes herself? he wondered. Or, would she simply coerce the drummer stationed there to send the message of her choice. She had the power to do it. F'lar could even guess what her message might be. The Lords Holder wouldn't normally accept a woman as Lady Holder in her own right, so how could she ensure they'd act to her advantage? By placing herself in opposition to the Weyr, against the dragonriders who'd slain Ruath's Lord and now sought to remove its rightful blood to the Weyr, that was how. Damn you, R'gul, F'lar thought to himself. If the Weyr had been in better odour with the Holds, if he'd been able to Search her properly...Faranth, Fax ought to have thanked him for removing the source of Ruath's misfortune to the Weyr. If, if, if.
The first rumbling sequence of drumbeats echoed out of Ruath Hold's heights: the staccato signal of an emergency.
F'lar turned away and called Mnementh down from his perch. His Search had failed.
Lying beside him on the heaped furs, F'lar eyed Kylara with a ready smile. "Ah, but you never saw Jora! Did you never wonder why none of the rest of us became Weyrleader?"
She batted her eyelashes alluringly. "We all know what the Holders say of dragonmen. Dragonwo-"
He cut her off mid-word. "You were saying?" he asked, long enough later to have thoroughly proved his point.
She sighed. "Ramoth won't put up with it for much longer. And I certainly won't! R'gul's such a bore! He can't decide whether he's offended by the fact that I take lovers, or pleased that I haven't shown a clear preference." She rolled over and planted a kiss on his midriff. "Yet," she added slyly.
F'lar heartily disagreed with R'gul on both counts. "Keep him guessing," he suggested. Kylara was fickle enough that there was still a chance she favoured T'bor, or S'lel... F'nor had told him that she'd even tried to bed him the once, but thankfully his half-brother had had enough of a sense of loyalty to decline. Others hadn't. Some only rode brown or blue, rumour said. And some weren't even dragonriders at all. "Ramoth will rise soon. I'm surprised he hasn't figured that out for himself yet."
"What makes you think he hasn't?"
F'lar held his smile through force of will alone. "The Weyr won't have the respect you want for it if R'gul keeps his knots." Kylara might want the Weyr's rightful prestige more for the sake of her own vanity than anything else, but there'd be a clutch on the sands within the Turn - a large one, if Kylara's own enthusiasm was anything to go by - and they'd need a substantial improvement in tithes by then. Thread was coming, he was certain of it, and the Weyr needed to be strong. If only his father hadn't got himself killed, if R'gul hadn't become Weyrleader. If Ruatha's Lady Holder hadn't turned their staunchest ally, Benden Hold itself, against the Weyr with her recent marriage. If, if, if.
"We ride on Search."
F'lar's words hung in the silent air of Ruath Hold's Great Hall. Lady Lessa considered his words thoughtfully; as small as she was, she dominated the room with a presence that he couldn't help but admire. Her husband was nowhere in sight, but the other decorative touches she'd made to her Hold were a great improvement over what he'd seen three turns previously. The Hall smelled fresh, and scented leaves were mixed in amongst the rushes. The flags and the tables were well scrubbed, and the fresh hangings might have added a homely warmth to the place were it not for the choice of motifs Ruatha's Lady had selected. There was an edge to the pastoral imagined scenes of a prosperous Ruatha, with the hard at work shown happy, and the indolent punished. He recognised the faces of two of Ruath's past warders on the tapestry hanging nearest to the door. Dragons were few and far between...and were given short shrift where they did appear.
Slowly, Lady Lessa rose from her chair. She was pregnant, F'lar realised. Would that make her easier to deal with, or not?
"Tell me, bronze rider," Lessa began, "what is the purpose of the Weyr?"
"To protect Pern from the Threads."
"Ah. The Threads. And do you, bronze rider, truly believe that Thread will fall again?"
"I do. They will."
"Then you're one of the few, and more fool than you look. The others lie out of self-interest. You do it because you lack the sense to admit that you're wrong. The Threads are gone, and your Weyr serves no purpose at all. A wher is useful. A wher guards, a wher protects, and a wher knows its place. Dragons? Pah! If you were truly Pern's protectors, you might have stopped Fax in his tracks before he slaughtered my family. If Weyrs were truly needed, we'd still have six of them. And if Thread was due to return, it ought to have done so by now - the solstice is months past.
"Protectors of Pern! Who do you think you are, up there in your lofty, isolated Weyr, thinking yourself better than everyone else. The other Weyrs are empty. They knew what anachronisms they'd become, and they let themselves disappear with dignity. You, Benden. You make demands, and offer nothing. You'll no more Search within my Hold's borders, than you'll receive a single grain of tithe-wheat from my hands."
Lessa's last words were a shout directed at F'lar's departing back. He should have known better than to come back here. Come, Mnementh, he called to his bronze. Call the others. We're not welcome here.
But what of Search? the dragon asked.
We'll think of something. If Weyrleader T'bor doesn't know about it, he won't need to worry about it. He gave the signal for the Wing to depart, and stared out across Ruatha's fields as the dragon ascended into the sky. New runnerbeasts suckled and pranced in the pastures, and the crop-fields were already showing the first signs of spring growth. What a feast Thread would make of this place!
Assuming it returned. If it returned. If, if, if.
AN: As this is a Dragonflight AU, the reader may recognise Anne's prose in places. If it follows canon, the text is hers; where it diverges into AU, the words are mine. It's the result of a fun half hour filling a prompt for Lily over on AMCF, and as such it's rather brief and sketchy (as is Dragonflight itself in places).