Well! I certainly didn't see that ending coming! My notes were off in a completely different direction! But you can't argue when your characters take charge of the story. There might be a sequel to this one, though.
My thanks to Anne McCaffrey for giving me the framework to play on.
B'lar and the other three made their way up to the Weyrleader's quarters in silence. D'mion had had to change his shirt and the other three had waited for him. They trod in single file, not touching, not making eye contact, and entered G'narish's quarters to find the Weyrleader already there, with a stylus and parchment to make notes.
"Sit over there, all of you. D'mion - all right?"
"I'll be fine for tomorrow, Weyrleader."
"You'll be carting sacks, not flying a pattern," G'narish replied. "Cereneth will be too lethargic for anything else, and I don't want to risk either of you."
D'mion nodded his acceptance of that, and G'narish looked at the other two green riders.
"You performed well in exercises with B'lar. Can you replicate that tomorrow, or do I split you up?"
"In Threadfall, Weyrleader, all else is put aside," J'vion said.
"Good. Now then. What was all that about at dinner? B'lar?"
"D'mion said L'dor warned all the green riders off me."
G'narish frowned at him.
"Warned them off you? What did he mean by that?"
"I don't know. They obviously do, because D'mion said he'd hoped Derenth would rise and mate with Cereneth."
"Would you have objected to that?"
B'lar frowned at him.
"Objected to it? It's the green's choice in the end, Weyrleader, who catches her in her flight. The riders - go along with it."
G'narish studied him, and then looked at the other three.
"I want to go back to the beginning, to the time all of you Impressed."
"K'lar and me were both brought up in the Weyr," J'vion said. "My father was a dragon rider, he was a fosterling."
"I was born here too, but my mother was only a drudge, my father must have been a rider, but she was always vague about him," D'mion said. "All three of us Impressed in the same clutch as B'lar."
"I came from Ista Weyr," B'lar said. "I was Searched from my home hold to there when I was 12, and I stood at four Impressions but nothing came of it. I was sent here to Igen, and I Impressed Derenth straight away, at my first standing."
His face reflected the wonder of that, and it was echoed in the gaze of the other riders. B'lar cleared his throat, thinking back.
"L'dor had Impressed in the previous clutch," he said at last. "The Queen was still laying pretty regularly, although it was coming to the end of the Pass."
G'narish made a note on his pad. "Igen only supports about three to four hundred dragons at any one time."
"Yes. As soon as Derenth came out of the shell, L'dor offered to help me."
"So you were what - 16 Turns?"
"About that, yes."
"And it took two Turns before Derenth rose to mate? He mated Narath?"
"Yes. He rose to a couple of other greens over the Turns, but usually - it was always Narath."
G'narish looked at the notes he had been making.
"And on those occasions, L'dor and you came together?"
B'lar nodded.
"And at other times? You were thought of - if not as a couple - then certainly as a pair who had an inclination to each other."
"He'd search me out occasionally," B'lar said reluctantly. "Usually - if the dragons weren't involved - it wasn't often - "
He faltered to a stop, looking away from them, and G'narish cleared his throat.
"B'lar - a blue dragonrider knows his dragon only rises to a green. You know that, and you know the way a Weyr is set up?"
"Yes, I know. I didn't at first, before I went to Ista, but the Weyrling Master explained it to me - to all of us - and that it wasn't like it was outside. He told us that outside - didn't count any more. He told us we had to forget how we had lived, how our family structure was. That - that - our dragons would be all-in-all to us. Well - I know that! I knew it from the instant of Impression, and I've never wanted anything else but Derenth, and his well-being."
"An unnecessary and unusually cruel way of putting it, but the truth, I suppose," G'narish said, making another note. "So you came from a hold. L'dor was a Search candidate as well, so I find from the records. He was a few Turns older than you, and like you he stood a few times before Impressing. But - and this is the vital difference - by the time he was twenty Turns - he was already sexually active. He'd be around and available at any dragon mating flight. And between times as well."
Silence fell, and B'lar stared at his hands, where he had clenched his fists on his thighs. Eventually he looked up again.
"I'm sorry, D'mion, I shouldn't have attacked you. But Derenth must have known Cereneth was about to rise, and he didn't object to being away from the Weyr."
"I think he picked up on your unease," G'narish said thoughtfully. "I think he realised your ambivalent attitude to green riders, and reined himself in. Hence the reputation both of you have acquired of being lazy. I don't think that myself, and it's a reputation you might shed over the years, B'lar, or you might cultivate it to get out of extra duties."
B'lar stared indignantly at him.
"I'm always willing to go the extra in any duties I'm assigned, Weyrleader!"
"And M'dill speaks highly of you and would like you to help him out as his assistant, perhaps taking his place in due course."
"There's others who speak highly of you as well," D'mion said. "You're known to be one to help with the injured, and with the elderly. L'dor - and that Weyrling Master - they masked you, B'lar, masked and manacled you."
B'lar looked around at the green riders.
"Derenth might not rise to any of you."
K'lar shrugged. "That's his choice, just as it's your choice to have a different kind of relationship that we would have, one with a woman. If there was someone you could explain the duality to, the way a blue dragonrider operates, and if she's willing, then - you need never - again - with any of us - "
B'lar knew he was blushing again, as the others nodded their agreement.
"Um - that's uncommon generous of you - K'lar - all of you. I'm sorry L'dor died, and Narath too, but I think - I grieved over them both - without realising why I felt so guilty at being relieved he had gone."
"And we can make a new start from now," G'narish said briskly. "This is a new Pass, and most of us will see more of fighting Thread than we'd bargained for when we Impressed! I give thanks to the Benden Weyr which was the only Weyr left to carry on after we came forward. I commend them for it. I think it must have been horribly difficult for them, but I think all of us have come out the stronger for it."
They stood up and saluted each other as equals, and B'lar trod down the stairs from the weyr and went in search of Derenth and an opportunity to begin a courtship of a woman he was sure would be able to understand him and the role he played in the guardianship of Pern.
