Disclaimer: Dragonriders of Pern is copyright to the McCcaffreys. I own my own plot and characters.

Chapter 4

Kelly was groggy the next day at school. She had a troubled dream last night, but she couldn't exactly remember what it was about, and it kept her from getting a good night's rest. She put her head on her desk and closed her eyes, hoping to get at least a few minutes of rest before her first period math class started, but her mind kept reeling about yesterday's events. She thought about what she saw happen to G'ten, and found herself hoping he was okay. Then she snorted derisively at that thought, thinking how absurd and gullible she was being. Dragons don't exist. That man is just sick and deranged, and he is there because he needs help. That's all there is to it. But even as the thought formed, she had a hard time convincing herself of that fact. Perhaps because his story of Pern and dragons was fascinating, and he sounded so convincing; she wasn't too sure, but something like that would make for good storytelling, and a plot for some science fiction novel.

Just as she had resolved to concede to that notion, she felt a light tap on her shoulder, and her eyes snapped open. She looked up at Jessi, who was looking at her with an amused grin.

"Class is starting," she said, as she moved to sit behind Kelly. "Better wake up, before Ms. Blackwood sees you."

Kelly sat up and rubbed at her eyes, wondering how long she had been sleeping. Not very long, from the time on her watch, but it felt longer. She stretched as the rest of the class came in and took their seats, followed by Ms. Blackwood. Ms. Blackwood had one of those prim faces that looked as if she always smelled something bad, and her mouth was in a perpetual frown. This caused her to be the tail end of many jokes among the students when she wasn't around. Whether she knew of the jokes or not, no one knew.

"Hurry up and take your seats so we can get started," Ms. Blackwood said in a sour tone. "I hope you all remembered to do your homework over the weekend." She leveled a sweeping glare over the class, who returned her gaze with a blank stare. "Well?"

A student slowly raised his hand. "Um, Ms. Blackwood?" he asked, tentatively.

"What?!" she said sharply, turning her head in his direction.

"We didn't have any homework from you over the weekend."

A few students stifled giggles at the blank expression on her face. She was often forgetful with things, not entirely credited to her age since she was in her early fifties; it was just her personality. Despite her sour demeanor, the students had a bit of sympathy for her because of that.

"What's today?" she asked.

"The 14th," someone said.

"Oh, that's right," she said, suddenly remembering. "You were supposed to study for the test this morning."

The class groaned loudly as they, too, remembered that they had a test that morning. Ms. Blackwood grinned at their complaints and murmurings, told everyone to settle down, and began passing out the test packets.

This is going to be a long day, Kelly thought to herself, as the 20-page test was promptly dropped onto her desk.

Kelly met up with Jessi and a few other classmates from Mr. Malvo's class at lunch to talk about their assignment, and how it was going so far. Derrick did indeed share a story from the officer he interviewed about a police chase, but it was only for a misdemeanor and the perpetrator was forced to pay for the donut he stole. Jessi talked about a shoulder operation her interviewee participated in; from the way she kept rubbing at her shoulder, it must have been a painful operation to describe. Andrew Pham, a tall, Asian kid with spikey black hair, had the luck of interviewing a WWII veteran, and gave an elaborate story of his participation in the war.

Kelly was content with listening to everyone else's interview stories. She felt as if theirs were far better than her interview, even the boring police chase. At least their interviews dealt with real world issues, and not some blasted child's imagination of dragons and alien planets. It would be her luck to get something like that. She was glad when the bell rang to go back to class before her turn came around. She could just imagine how they would have reacted to what she told them and the ridicule she would have to subsequently endure.

She was surprised to find the apartment empty when she got home, but then remembered that Brian had practice today, and Mom took Missy to the Veterinarian office for her monthly checkup, and of course, Dad didn't get off until later because of his schedule change. So she had the whole house to herself. Taking in a deep breath, and smiling at such comforting circumstances, she kicked off her shoes and flopped on the couch, setting her book bag on the ground. She grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned the TV on to Nickelodeon, where Alvin and the Chipmunks were just coming on. She watched it for a few minutes before fumbling around in her book bag for her recorder and her Science homework. She looked at the tape and noticed that it had recorded more than she had intended.

"Must have forgotten to turn it off," she muttered to herself. "Probably hit stopped when I dropped it in my bag." She decided to see what all was recorded.

She was half listening to the recording as she did her homework when it came across the point where G'ten started getting agitated. She again felt sorry for what happened to him, not meaning to upset him like that. It just seemed so absurd to her that someone his age would have these kinds of imaginations. Most normal sixty-three year old people were beyond such notions; of course, defining the word "normal", in many cases, is rather relative. She didn't really count herself as normal in some things, but she did consider herself rather sane enough to not believe in dragons.

A curious sound emanating from the recording caught her attention. It was right after G'ten began yelling out of the window. Setting her pencil down, Kelly stopped the recording and rewound it back to that point, pushed play, and listened more intently.

"I will not stand for this insult! Such a blasphemous statement will not be tolerated! Klarth! Klarth! Come here this instant! We are going home now!"-rrrrrr-"Unhand me, you-"

Kelly stopped the recorder again. What was that low rumbling? And why didn't she hear it the first time when she was there? She played it back again, trying to determine the nature of the sound. It kind of sounded like a chair scraping across the floor, but she couldn't be sure. It sounded almost animal in nature. She listened to the rest of the recording, but didn't hear anything else that sounded like that curious rumble.

The recording did indeed stop at the point she dropped it into the bag. Kelly leaned back on the cushions of the couch, now more than ever curious about G'ten. There were just so many things that did not make sense, yet she had the sensation that the impossible could perhaps be…possible. Could there really be a dragon roaming around the streets of New York, somehow unseen by anyone? And is she actually interviewing a human from another planet? If any of it were indeed true, she would definitely have a story on her hands. The problem lies in proving it to be true. To be sure, most people don't actually believe there is life on other planets, and those that do are ridiculed into a corner of silence. And as it would go, Kelly leaned more towards the latter. Admittedly, she's never actually truly believed in life on other planets, but she's always wondered if there were. But a planet of humans, living with dragons? Seems almost like some parallel universe theme, where fantasy books are a reality. It just seemed too good to be true.

Brian came through the door then, his basketball under his arm. He looked at Kelly as she leaned back on the couch and sighed tiredly. He was hoping to flop there as soon as he got home.

"Practice was heavy on you?" Kelly asked, as Brian ambled to his room.

"Yeah, Sam twisted his ankle going for a layup, so we had to take up the slack for him," Brian said as he came back into the living room after setting his stuff down. He headed towards the kitchen to raid the fridge, his foot catching on one of the two steps leading into the kitchen, causing him to stumble in. Kelly got up and followed him.

"Did you ask your friend about the Red Star?" she asked, taking the juice he offered her.

"He's never heard of that before. Nowhere in the Fist of the North Star series does it mention anything about a Red Star. What did that crazy old man say about it?"

Kelly felt herself bristle again at G'ten being called "crazy". It both confused and irritated her that she would get apprehensive over G'ten being called such a name. She carefully hid her displeasure, and explained to Brian about G'ten's explanation of the dangers the star presented.

"Apparently, there is this stuff he calls Thread falling from this star. According to him, it looks like silver pieces of thread falling through the sky, and it eats anything or anyone in its path, except for rocks, metal, and water. Fire burns it easily enough, and they use it to fend them off." She declined to mention anything about dragons, knowing how her brother might react to it; like herself, when she heard it the first time, his reaction was bound to be less than favorable.

"'They'?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. "Who are 'they'?"

"The people on the planet he says he's from," Kelly explained. She really wanted to say "where he's from", but she didn't want to seem as if she actually believed he was from another planet.

"Oh, so he's from another planet, huh?" Brian said roundly, giving way to impudence. "Prot? Is that you? Are you going to take me to K-PAX with you?" He gave a derisive laugh to accompany his joke. Kelly didn't actually find it funny, but she laughed uneasily so he wouldn't ask any questions.

"You don't actually believe he's from another planet, do you?" Brian asked, skeptically. "I mean, you're weird enough to actually fall for it, but seriously?"

"No, you dork!" she said tersely, jumping at him. In truth, she wasn't sure what to make of the whole ordeal. It was all too much for her to take in, and for the life of her, she couldn't shake the feeling that G'ten was telling the truth.

"Sor-ry!" Brian said mockingly, backing away from her with his hands up. He still had the grin on his face. "I didn't know you would get that way about some old guy. Perhaps I should tell Hiroki you have a new alien boyfriend?"

He ran from the kitchen, laughing, as Kelly tried to catch him. She stopped pursuing him when they got to the living room, and he ran to his bedroom, laughing the whole way. Kelly walked back into the living room to finish her homework. She felt rather disconcerted at that moment, not entirely sure of herself then. Why was she getting defensive over some old guy that she just met over the weekend? It's not like she had any plans to stay at that institution to keep him company after this assignment was over with.

Just two more weekends, she thought to herself as she got back to doing her homework. Then my life can get back to some semblance of normal.

Saturday came all too quickly for Kelly. She stirred in her covers, not really wanting to get out of them just yet, especially since she knew she had to face G'ten that morning. After last weekend's fiasco, she wasn't sure how he would be now. Would he still be pleased to see her? Would he be different? Would he forgiver her for accusing him of lying? She sighed in frustration. Her whole week had been filled with her concerns of G'ten's well-being. Even Hiroki began to question her about the assignment out of concern for her. She tacitly assured him that everything was fine, and the assignment would be over soon. Of course, she knew that she was far from fine with all that was happening, but she couldn't let on to how she really felt.

Begrudgingly, she rolled out of bed and began to get ready to face the day. After washing and getting dressed, she walked into the kitchen, immediately noticing her dad sitting at the table in the dining corner of the kitchen, drinking coffee.

"Look who decided to wake up," he said as she came in and gave him a peck on his cheek.

"Dad, it's Saturday. I'm supposed to be sleeping in. And I would, too, if I didn't have this dumb assignment to do." She opened the refrigerator and got out the orange juice. "Why are you up so early?"

"I have to finish a few things at the office this morning. Then we are going to the park for our picnic this afternoon after you finish your assignment for today. Unless you forgot?" He quirked his eyebrow quizzically at her.

Kelly slapped her forehead in exasperation. "D'oh! That's right. I completely forgot about that. I have to call Hiroki and see if he is still coming." She set her orange juice down and dashed from the kitchen.

"He should be; I invited him!" her dad called. She gave him a quick smirk before rushing to her room.

Mrs. Ladu wasn't at the front of the building as Kelly pulled up. She was half expecting the old woman to be there, and was actually slightly disappointed in not seeing her. Not that she was looking forward to the woman's baleful stare, to say the least; she still felt somewhat chilled by that event from last Sunday. She parked her bike on the bike rack and walked inside, again feeling that bit of apprehension towards seeing G'ten. She really hoped he was okay.

Alex was already up front talking to the receptionist as she came through the doors, and he turned to smile at her when he was alerted to her presence. Kelly could only grin.

"Back to see what kind of trouble you can cause today?" he asked jokingly. Kelly made a disgruntled sound in her throat.

"How is he?" she asked, ready to get on with the assignment.

"Well, he's back to his normal routine of staring out the window, so…" He gave a bit of a shrug. "I'm sure he's gotten over the whole thing by now. It's been a week, of course. Just…try not to say anything about his dragon being imaginary, okay?"

Kelly sighed as they walked down the corridor towards the day room, not at all buoyed by Alex's reassurance.

"What happened to Mrs. Ladu?" she asked at length. "Usually she's out front when I pull up."

"She's at the hospital right now. She had a whooping cough that exhausted her right out, so the paramedics came and took her to the emergency room to make sure she is okay." He punched in the code for the day room and they walked in. Sure enough, G'ten was there staring out the window again, his usual peaceful expression on his face. Kelly hung back a little, not sure how he would react to seeing her, but a quizzical look from Alex spurted her forward. G'ten turned towards them then, a light smile on his face. He, too, seemed to be apprehensive in meeting Kelly again.

"Good morning, Kelly," he said with his usual pleasantries.

"Good morning, G'ten," she said, slightly hesitant. She looked towards Alex, who had already moved off out of earshot. Blast it all. She was hoping to have him help her apologize.

"Um, G'ten, I want to apologize about last Sunday. I didn't mean to insult you or anything like that. It's just that-"

"I understand, Kelly Simms," G'ten said, cutting her off with a gentle smile. "And I, too, would like to apologize for my outburst. As a dragon man I am to have a sense of honor about me, and I let my pride get in the way of my judgment. I was not aware that Earth had little knowledge of the existence of dragonkind, and I felt that by calling them nothing more than sun dreams were an insult to them. I understand that never having actually seen a dragon has caused you to think in such a way, so I have no excuse for my actions. I ask for your forgiveness in this." He finished his apologies with a bow.

"No worries, all is forgiven," Kelly said quickly, to spare the both of them any embarrassments from his actions. She was quite relieved that he was not angry at her anymore. "Shall we continue our interview?"

G'ten nodded and they moved towards the table their usual table, Kelly once again setting up for the interview. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alex position himself closer to them so he could be ready in case something goes wrong.

"You said you grew up as a …farm boy, correct?" she asked G'ten. He nodded. "What was that like for you?"

"Well, like any of the other holds and crafts of Pern, there were always good and bad times. I've often cherished the good times, when we were not hold bound during Threadfall, or when bad crops arose because of oncoming Winter. I'll tell you about my life on the farm, okay?"

"That sounds great," Kelly said, eager to hear his story. She got ready to write as he began his tale.

Another chapter up. Glad I got back into writing again. I'm going to finish this one out before I get back on to writing Dragon Dance. This one seems to be getting better as I go. Thank you for your support, and I will get started on the next chapter right away.