Title: Requiem For the Harper
Author: Kiara Alexis Klay
Rating: Everyone
Spoiler Alert: If you have not read All the Weyrs of Pern or The Dolphins of Pern or any of the stories after the Harper Hall Trilogy do not read this.
Summary: Just a response to some reading.
Disclaimer: Anne McCaffrey owns the world of Pern and I nothing.
Requiem For the Harper
Requiem: a funeral song, elegy, lament, chant, hymn…usually a dark piece of music
Everywhere he went,
Love went with him.
Everywhere he went,
Mystery surrounded him.
He championed the unwanted,
He saved the Saviors of this world.
His weapons were not forged of steel or fire,
But of wood, and string, flute, and lyre.
His gray eyes pierced the fog of riddles,
Seeing that which no one wanted to see.
Tall and lithe of stature, with a presence
Even Lords and Dragonriders paid heed.
He didn't hesitate to step in when his world was in need,
He risked it all: health, love, friendship all.
His true love was the sweet sound of music,
To teach, to guide, to love, to inspire.
The sea and sickness claimed the wife of his youth,
But the songs carried him on to survive the next generation.
Dragons keened in agony
At the one they called friend and Harper.
Weyrleaders were brought to their knees,
Grieving at their champion's loss
A Craft mourned their greatest Master;
Never again would that great voice rise in song.
A faithful bronze fire lizard lost his soul's half,
And joined him in the cold gray of dance in one last tribute.
So we raise our glasses, filled with Benden wine,
To a night time sky and listen for a voice never to be heard again.
To Robinton, Master and Father.
He is and will forever be
The Harper.
Finis
Extremely long A/n: I don't know why I wrote this except that I was re-reading All the Weyrs of Pern and I came to the part where Robinton dies. Robinton was, and will always be, my favorite character of all and I still cry at even the thought of his passing.
I remember when I first read it, I was in the library reading AtWoP and I just broke down in tears and sobbed right then and there. I couldn't finish reading the book and when I could I still wept, especially at Jaxom, Ruth, and the other dragons reactions to his death.
I cried harder still when I realized little Zair followed Robinton into death rather than stay without him. For some reason that just made it all the worse for me and made it so much more real. I mean, you never hear about how other firelizards reacted to their master's death, but somehow what Zair did seemed so poignant.
This isn't a song, or a very good poem, or even a decent fic but I think it helped bring some of this in the open. It's just there, like a raw, festering wound for all to see that never healed. I don't know; make what you will of this.