Author's Note

Hello! Let's just start off by giving a little note about the timeline. This story, Harper's Folly, takes place around, during, and shortly after The White Dragon. Future stories I this series (I hope,) will take place after The Skies of Pern, so as to fit in effectively with Anne's canon storyline. I don't think I'll need an alternate universe to take care of these characters and relationships; Anne has given us so many fantastic plot points to work with, without doing anything that is totally implausible by Pernese standards.

If you have a problem, a comment, a note, or a correction, please politely and respectfully inform me, and I will look into fixing it. I am visually impaired, and I often make silly little spelling or grammatical typos. The impairment is recent, and I've not yet gotten used to coping with it. If you see one of these errors, please, please point it out to me and I will correct it instantly. Because of my disability, even with spellcheck, it is very difficult sometimes for me to find those on my own. I will not be offended if you point one out; in fact, I'll be grateful.

Please, please review, if you read! If you love it, please review! If you don't love it, please review and tell me why! Have no problem writing simply for my own pleasure, but I won't post anything unless I think that people are reading it. I'm too busy to stick to posting on a deadline if no one's responding. ;) If you'd like to hear more, tell me so! All it takes is a simple comment saying "I'm reading!" r something of that ilk. Granted I much prefer if you actually comment on the work in some way, but if you don't have time, just let me know you're there and I'll be very, very happy. 

Oki, you can read the story now.

Thanks, loves.

H.S. Shore

Chapter One: Those Dangers Harper-Braved

At the beginning of The White Dragon

Robinton wretched. He all but threw himself over the side of the small craft, clutching the railing for support as sobs of seasickness wracked his body. The waves just went on and on and on, shaking the boat, and almost upending the makeshift table upon which Menolly had laid out some bread and cheese. He couldn't touch the food now, not until he'd finally managed to stop being sick. If only the sharding ship would stop shaking so…

"Master?" Even as he hunched yet again over the side of the ship, Robinton felt Menolly's cool hand on his neck, her voice tinged with concern. He gave himself a moment to collect himself, and then turned around with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Menolly didn't look particularly reassured. "Oh," she murmured, eyes widening.

"A seaman's life," Robinton began, "doesn't seem to quite agree with my…sensitive nature." The ship surged up on a wave, and the Masterharper spun on his chest heaving.

"Wait here," the girl was saying, as she bustled across the deck. Robinton bit his lip, wishing she'd stay with him so that if he really did fall over the side, she could catch him. "At the very least," he muttered, "if I die in the midst of this noble exploration, I can't think of anyone who I would rather have mourn my passing."

"Stop that." Menolly hurried back, clutching a beaker of some thick, white liquid in her hand. "You're not going to die, and you're not going to go overboard, and you sound like an overgrown child. Drink this." She thrust the drink at him, and he eyed it dubiously.

"If I don't die from the rocking of the ship, you'll kill me with your tender ministrations." He tried to push her hands away as she all but forced the drink on him. Menolly took his hands in both of hers, and forced his fingers around the edges of the beaker. With a stern, and yet beseeching look, she nodded at it, watching him, waiting for him to down it. He sighed, closed his eyes, and made a very big deal out of screwing up his face in a semblance of great displeasure as he forced himself to drink the liquid. Menolly wasn't impressed.

"You can't possibly have gone all these turns as the Masterharper and never taken a ship before," the girl was saying. "Why, without a dragon, it's the more effective form of long-distance travel, and you've been just everywhere."

"You forget," he replied, hesitantly turning his back on the sea, "My position comes with many perks…prestige, honor, and an unending tide of willing dragonriders to take me where and when I please." His tone was droll. Menolly knew better than many that many times, he had trouble finding a Fort rider who was at liberty to take him anywhere. Everyone was so busy lately, what with Wansor's star charts, the erratic fall of thread, and everything going on with the internal drama the Hall. If there was one thing Robinton particularly disliked, it was Harper drama. Harpers were supposed to be the peacemakers of Pern, the reasoners, the comforters, the purveyors of understanding and comprehension. They were not supposed to be petty, catty, and agitated. Sometimes, he felt that the stereotype did them more harm than good. Harpers were people, just as dragonriders, not always noble and bold, were people.

"You should sit down," Menolly was saying, as she laid the empty beaker on the table. "I'll get you some water. It'll ease the burn of the medicine."

"Good girl," murmured Robinton. Menolly went off to find some fresh water, and Robinton forced himself to sit down, his back up against the railing. The boat wasn't rocking quite so violently now, and he was relieved to feel some of his equilibrium coming back. Idly, he thanked the egg that Menolly knew the tricks of the trade, even if her eagerness and vivacity made him feel older than he was.

There was nothing to be seen but ocean, for a tremendously long ways. It made Robinton feel small, and he closed his eyes to shut out the view. What he needed was firm, dry land, something solid and steady, that wouldn't rock under him. He tried to imagine the seashore, a beach, anything that would make the images in his head stop swaying back and forth. Surely, they couldn't be far from land now. How long had it been? He couldn't remember…

When he opened his eyes again, Robinton was pleased with his ability to imagine away the swaying of the craft. Altogether, he felt like a new man. Seeing Menolly coming down the deck, he hailed her cheerfully, pulling himself to his feet in one lithe movement that gave the lie to his silvering hair. "Your remedy has done the trick," he grinned, bowing to his apprentice with a flourish. "You're a ministering angel of the sea."

Menolly giggled, waving his protestations away with one hand. "I'm glad you're awake," she said. "I was afraid to shake you, since you've had enough of that already."

Asleep? Robinton blinked, and then looked out over the ocean. To his chagrin, the sun had gone down, and the sky was much darker than it had been. How long had he been asleep? He grimaced with disgust, reaching down to smooth out the sleep-creases in his pants and tunic. Menolly stifled her chuckle with one hand, and laid the other one on his shoulder.

"It's all right," she said, "it's the best way, you know. Sleeping off seasickness. I've done it myself. You should have seen Harper Elgion after he started to sail on his own…back at Half Circle, I mean. Alemi told me all about it." She shook her head, smiling indulgently, and then grinned at him, her eyes dancing with suppressed excitement. "Besides, now we've touched land, there's no reason to keep you from sleep."

"Touched land?" Robinton blinked, and then whirled around, feeling stupid that he hadn't noticed. Then, seeing the land that Menolly was so proud to have discovered, he caught his breath.

A beautiful misty set of high-reaching mountains lay as the backdrop to the incredibly beautiful scene. The outcropping of land was circled entirely with water, and the sand glistened, even though the sun had started to go down behind the clouds. They were big, puffy, purple clouds, almost like children's sketchings, set against the deepest of blue skies. Robinton thought of a song, one that he and Menolly had been composing together. It was a song about the beauty of nature, and ultimately about the valiance of the people of Pern, to be presented to Lessa at the next hatching. Yet this incredible scene was far more exquisite than any image he could evoke with a pretty tune.

"Well?" Menolly was standing right behind him, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. Robinton turned, and gave her a long, searching look.

"Did you know," he started, "where you were going when we started this voyage of ours?"

Menolly smiled, shaking her head. "No, sir," she said, with no less pleasure in her voice. "I stumbled upon it by the merest accident while you were sleeping. Isn't it lovely?" Her smile faded a bit, and she clasped her hands behind her back, much as she'd done when she was an apprentice, looking for approval. "Do you like it?"

"My dear girl," Robinton murmured, shaking his head, "words cannot express."

That amused Menolly. "That's saying a lot, coming from you." She glanced over his shoulder at the landscape, and then, in an excess of eagerness, grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the other side of the ship. "Let's get off this thing and take a look."

Robinton was all too happy to do so. He followed his journeyman over the side, and down on to the sands, relieved to feel the coarse grains of solid sandy earth beneath his feet. Menolly herself almost danced across the beach, flinging off her own sandals and tracing a squiggly pattern in the sand with her big toe.

"Where's Beauty?" Robinton asked, suddenly feeling the absence of the girl's firelizard queen. "She'd have enjoyed the view, I think."

"She'll come," replied Menolly. "She's sunning with the others at the harper hall, but she'll find me soon enough. She usually does." She laughed. "Don't ask me how she does it, I really couldn't say, seing as she's got no one to give her the image. And what an image this is…" She glanced at the mountain range in the distance with unveiled admiration. "I'll bring her the next time, if she doesn't make it herself. Where's Zair?"

"He's with Sebell," the Harper replied. "I didn't want him to get in the way, or get distracted by a Southern green as he's been prone to do. I thought he'd probably be less of a nuisance at the Hall." He smiled as he said it, thinking about how delightful a little "nuisance" his bronze really was. Still, he'd have been no help to their exploration, as he was easily distracted, and liked nothing better than to creel for attention at the most inopportune moments.

"Oh…with Sebell," Menolly echoed, and Robinton shot her a sharp look. There had been a strange tone in her voice hat he couldn't quite place. Longing, perhaps? Regret that she hadn't taken him along? He smiled ruefully. His two most faithful journeymen may have thought that they could hide their intrigue form him, but he had yet to be that old. He was hardly decrepit, and he was still the Masterharper of Pern. Nothing escaped his notice that easily.

Menolly gave a little cough, and drew a hand through her cropped brown hair. "It's a good place to rest, at any rate," she was saying, turning away from Robinton to continue up the beach. "We can stay the night there and keep exploring in the morning."

"We'd best do so," agreed Robinton. "I can't return to Benden with nothing to report but the seasick nap I took. That will hardly go over well with F'lar, amusing as it might be to you. And by the way," and he gave her a good-natured glare, "I'd prefer it if you didn't mention my seamanship to anyone else at the Hall. I may not be the greatest of sailors, but-!"
"But you're still the greatest of Harpers," finished Menolly, "and I don't think there's anyone to cast doubt on that."

Menolly dropped to her knees on the sand, and Robinton joined her, settling himself next to her with their backs to the mountains. Those same big, purple clouds concerned him, and seemed to be growing in size on the horizon. He'd seen clouds like those before, much more innocent looking than the silver masses that represented imminent thread, but no less dangerous to crafts like theirs. "What do you think about those?" he asked the girl, gesturing towards the sky. "No threat, I suppose, to an expert like yourself, but..."

Menolly followed his gesture, and then bit her lip as she, too, saw the clouds. "Shards and shells," she hissed, looking from the clouds, to the mountains, to the wind that had begun to sway the groves of nearby fruit trees. "That isn't good."

"I had so hoped," sighed Robinton, "that you'd say something more encouraging."

Author's Note: A short chapter because my brother is being bar mitzvah'd in a few hours, and I need to sleep so that I can do an aliyah. I haven't read Hebrew in years, wish me luck.

Next chapter will be longer, and will conclude this scene at the cove. Review if you read! Whether you like or no, I would be ever so grateful and I WILL read yours.