Disclaimer: This piece is written in compliance with Anne McCaffrey's published rules on fan fiction. It is posted here as a transformative work for personal use only, and will be removed if properly requested from the copyright holder. I do not and will not make any profit from this piece, though I hope you all enjoy reading it as I enjoy writing it. I also do not make any claims to rights on this series. Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey are the owners of the Dragonriders of Pern® series, and I'm grateful for the chance to play on their literary land.

Chapter 13: Interlude

V'tend looked over his boisterous weyrling charges at the end of the night while Taraline finished noting down the clutch introduction in the official record book. Everyone was over-tired and over-excited. "Grailse, you're first. Let's be lively, we all need to get to bed."

Grailse stepped up to the table where Taraline waited with writing stick poised.

"How would you like her name spelled?" Taraline asked.

Grailse read the origin line upside down.

Clutch out of Myrlyth by Vranth, 32 eggs, 14 hatched:

She considered. "Let's use a y, since Myrlyth did. Mmm. A-d-a… wait, no. A-t-a-l-y-t-h." She mouthed it back to herself, trying to decide for sure if spelling it that way matched the way it sounded in her head. Taraline waited until Grailse nodded decidedly and repeated the spelling.

Gold Atalyth, Impressed by Grailse of Telgar Weyr.

Fay roused Morika with a gentle shake before any of the other failed candidates were up. Morika opened her eyes to light that seemed too bright, and breathing that seemed too loud. Fay leaned down to whisper in Morika's ear, her auburn hair swinging down and tickling Morika's nose.

"Get up, get dressed, and go see Mebb."

Morika blearily nodded her understanding, then winced at her throbbing head.

Fay pointed at a glass of water next to Morika's bed, sitting next to a dose of what Morika recognized as hangover cure. Morika nodded a little more judiciously this time, and Fay rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder before leaving.

If Morika wasn't exactly feeling better a half candlemark later, she at least felt human enough to make her way down to the healer's cavern. She couldn't say if the bile that rose in her throat upon walking in was from her unenviable state, or from knowing that Balani had died here the previous night. Either way, her empathy was still dead to the world, so she at least didn't feel any strange echoes, or get any inkling of what was going through Mebb's and A'ton's minds as they looked her over when she shuffled in.

"Ah, the aftermath of the Hatching Feast," Mebb said in a mercifully soft voice. "I remember it well. Or at least, I remember some of them."

"You were a candidate?" Morika asked, claiming a chair.

"No, not a candidate. I know you've noticed it before, and I'm surprised you haven't asked about it before. I have the opposite of receptivity; I am a damper. I will never hear a dragon. However, I did my journeyman rounds at Fort Weyr. It's universal to hatching feasts."

"That makes sense," Morika said. After a moment of consideration, she said, "I don't think I'll do that again."

"Well now, I don't think you'll have occasion again," A'ton said, spinning a small stone between his fingers.

Morika frowned. "I guess I have to go home."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Why do you think that?" Mebb asked, passing her a plate of dry crackers, which she dutifully started nibbling on.

"Because there's something wrong with me. Everyone told me Primes Impress. Everyone agreed I should come to the Weyr because I was most useful here since my talents sparked. But I didn't Impress. I helped with Balani like I was supposed to, and now she's... gone... so I guess it's time to go home." She sighed and dropped her cracker.

Mebb opened his mouth, but A'ton beat him to it, laughing entirely too loudly. "That's the sorriest load of self-pity I've heard since R'fenrin's Tixeth fell in the mud pit right when he had that pretty holder girl out for a picnic. Look here, Morika – no, look – I know you're all weepy with hangover tears, but we've got to set this straight now."

She stared at him, then looked to Mebb as if he would intervene. Mebb didn't say a word, just reached over to take one of the crackers and thoughtfully bite into it.

"What?" Morika managed.

"Glad you asked," A'ton said, taking it as an invitation to continue. "Did you think you deserved a dragon?"

"Well no…"

"There's a good place to start, yes. You didn't deserve a dragon just because you're a Prime. You did a sharding brave thing handling Balani yesterday, and you didn't even stop to think it was brave. You just did it. You've started thinking that your empathy and telepathy are what make you valuable to the weyr, but you need to stop thinking right now that they set you apart from everyone else, do you hear me?"

She nodded, wide-eyed, and picked up her cracker again.

"Empathy and telepathy won't make you valuable to the weyr, but your actions will. We've got a handful of empaths and telepaths here, and our late Lady Weyrwoman was one, but by and large, they're not the ones that keep this weyr running. Do you not want to stay?"

"I – I don't know."

"You want to go home?"

Morika crumbled the cracker between her fingers and A'ton waited. "My parents will make me go home," she finally burst out. "I failed. They'll make me go home."

"You're well over the age of majority, Morika," Mebb said, still soft. "Your parents won't be making you do anything. You're not even an heir. In fact, I spoke to them before they left this morning, and they are well aware of the fact that you'll be deciding soon and will let them know."

She swallowed. "I don't want to go back. Not even if I never Impress. My head feels… different from the other times Balani overstretched me. I don't know if I'll ever get better, but I want to stay at the weyr."

"Very good," A'ton said. "Stop crushing good food, would you?" He reached over and plucked the latest cracker away from her. "Can you make yourself useful to the weyr?"

Morika considered for a long moment. She considered for a long and painful moment what life would look like if her talents never returned, and she finally settled in the strength of her original conviction to help the weyr and actively fight Thread. "Yes. I can. I will."

"Good," A'ton approved.

"You're not burnt out, Morika, no matter what it feels like," Mebb said. "Fay assessed you before she woke you, and she agreed with Kesseth. It'll be a little bit, but you'll come back."

"And in the meantime, we can train you from the ground up, since it will be coming back slowly," A'ton said. "And Wessith will be listening to make sure you don't overextend."

"But what does an empath do in a weyr? What does a Prime do?" Morika asked. "Everything was about Balani before."

Mebb smiled. "Oh, there is plenty. I have plenty for you to do here, and we'll no doubt send you down to Dessa at Vinesprings, as well. Taraline will have uses for you – though we perhaps should review ethics before we hand you over. If all else fails, an empath is a useful one to have around the nursery, since young children tend to deal more in emotions than logic. There's a long list, Morika, and we could use a few more of you before anyone went idle, if we're being honest."

A'ton leaned forward. "But most importantly, Morika – I will have something to teach you here shortly, I've no doubt."

Morika blinked at him. "What's that?"

"How do you feel about Search?"

The candidates' quarters were a somber place the morning after the Hatching, with fully half the remaining candidates hungover, and many of them some degree of melancholy. Most of them drifted out to the common area between the two sleeping rooms, perching on too-few chairs or hovering near the doorways.

"I don't know if I want to stand again," Elivia mumbled, flopped over one of the chairs. "But I don't want to go home."

"What's wrong with home?" Belaret asked.

Elivia flopped indecisively in the other direction. "I really can't stand my family."

"Well, you have plenty more time to stand. You're not too old, and the queens will rise often entering a Pass," Kacen said, overhearing them as he walked in with his belongings bundled up in a bag.

"Where are you going?" Bryn asked. "You're surely not leaving the weyr?"

"Temporarily," he replied cheerfully. "I'm almost out of age to apprentice, and I don't think there's a dragon for me. I'm headed to the Beastcraft Hall. I'll be back to work with the weyr's animals after I've reached journeyman status."

"But how do you know?" Elivia asked, a desperate tinge in her voice. "How do you know there's not a dragon for you?"

He wiggled his eyebrows comically. "I just – knew! But no, really, I went to ask a couple of the Search dragons to reassess me. They will, you know. They seemed pretty uncertain this time. That was enough to settle it for me."

They all glanced over when Senra, an older candidate from a mountain cothold, walked in smiling.

She noticed them all watching her when she walked past towards the entrance to the girls' quarters. "What?"

"Who asked for you?" Belaret asked. Bryn and Elivia looked lost.

"Zella asked me to stay on at the nursery," she said. "Excuse me – I need to finish packing up my things."

Kacen nodded. "You'll see. V'tend, and Taraline, and Zella, and our craftmasters, will be sorting through. The oldest ones who don't have a good chance standing – if they want to keep them at the weyr, they'll offer them a place here and they'll give up candidacy."

Almost on the heels of his words, two more people walked in – Taggar, who looked morose, and the weyr tanner.

"The weyrwoman arranged a ride home for me," Taggar said, walking past them without pause.

"Has anyone seen Anfer?" the tanner asked, and they all pointed after Taggar towards the male quarters. "Right," he said, looking a little discomfited. "Thanks!"

As he walked away, Elivia got up, looking a little spooked. "Well, I'm off."

"Where are YOU going?" Bryn asked.

"To go see a Search dragon!"

"Walk with me."

Grailse fell in with Taraline as the weyrwoman left the living cavern and began a slow circuit around the outer edge of the bowl.

"Good morning, weyrwoman."

"You may as well call me Taraline."

"All right."

"How is Atalyth?"

Grailse smiled involuntarily. "She's well. She ate, and now she's napping."

"They do that a lot at this age, but she'll be full grown almost before you know," Taraline replied, glancing toward the fireheights. Grailse followed her gaze to see Kesseth, released from her duties at the Hatching Grounds, stretched indolently across the rocks, gleaming golden in the sun.

"It's hard to believe that Atalyth will ever be that big," Grailse said, but Taraline just nodded, her mind clearly already on another subject. Grailse was content to muse on Atalyth while they walked.

After a bit, Taraline sighed and glanced over at Grailse as they detoured around some weyrchildren playing a game with small round stones.

"I won't be returning to Benden."

Grailse shot her a look and waited to see what else she would say.

"I hoped Morika would stabilize Balani, and I could leave the new weyrwoman – you – in her care, but I see now that even if things had gone well, it was a vain hope. While I could leave you here now that the weyr has a new queen, it would be tremendously irresponsible, and it would only hurt us all when Thread falls."

"I see," Grailse said, her mind racing.

"Are you wondering about seniorship?"

"I wasn't."

"Everyone else has been," Taraline replied, breathing out in exasperation. "I expect that Kesseth will feel the pressure of an understrength weyr and rise in the near future. I don't wish it to be a leadership flight. I propose that we count the first flight after your Atalyth has reached her full growth."

Grailse considered. "You didn't want to stay here. Why?"

"What has that to do with seniorship?"

"A senior weyrwoman who wants to leave the first chance she gets won't do the weyr any good."

Taraline shot her a hard look. "I'm not leaving New Telgar. But if you must know, I left a weyrmate behind at Benden – a weyrmate who has now also clearly decided that I'm not coming back. And I had no desire to be in Balani's Weyr. That's all you need to know."

Grailse raised an eyebrow but didn't challenge her. They continued walking for a moment.

"Yes. All right. It's fair – waiting for Atalyth to mature, I mean. The wingleaders will continue taking weyrleadership responsibilities in the meantime?"

"You're not naïve to weyr politics. You know that we can't head into Threadfall without a weyrleader. We'll have to have a temporary weyrleader based on the results of Kesseth's flight, with leadership up for grabs again for the following flight. I can't imagine what we were thinking would happen without a mature queen or a weyrleader at the first fall. Then again, sometimes I think that we weren't thinking much at all with Balani around."

Something clicked for Grailse. "She kept influencing the dragons…"

"What?"

They were stopped near the waterfall now, and Grailse had to raise her voice to be heard over the crashing water.

"She was influencing the weyr against you." Having to shout it made it sound more confident than she felt, but she knew the words were true when she heard them hang in the air, impossible to take back.

Taraline's nostrils flared, and she stared at the water. "Well."

That was all she said, then she kept walking. She was leading Grailse down towards the candidates' quarters now.

When she spoke again, it was on a completely different subject. "You'll be helping me with your first duties this morning."

"What are they?"

"Every weyr does it differently, and New Telgar's circumstances were not conducive to pickiness, but it's time to sort through the candidate pool. I've already spoken to a few of the failed candidates based on V'tend's and Zella's recommendations."

"I see," Grailse said. She was hardly new to the weyr, and knew that some candidates were always either asked to leave or placed elsewhere after a hatching. "So what's left to do?"

Taraline stopped walking, halting them far enough from the entrance to the cavern that no one would overhear them. "Convince the best ones to stay. It doesn't all have to be done today, but we must secure the best candidates before any of them decide to go home or seek futures elsewhere. There will be large clutches, and we need the best riders now more than ever."

Grailse nodded, already mentally running through the candidates and weighing strengths and weaknesses.

"The hatchlings may decide, but they're just babies, easily swayed. You have to remember, Grailse – and if you forget everything else I tell you today, remember this – that anyone you put to egg may end up being a rider in your weyr – a wingsecond, a wingleader, a fellow queen rider. So be sure of your candidates."

"Sometimes there are surprises?" Grailse suggested wryly.

Taraline gave her the first genuine smile she'd seen on the weyrwoman's face all morning. "Sometimes there are surprises."

"Pay up, boys!"

Zella looked entirely too smug and entirely too chipper, standing in front of B'lor's and H'ralen's table in the living cavern the morning after Hatching.

H'ralen looked at her blankly and took another long drink of water. "You must be kidding. It's just the morning after Hatching."

"Yes it is, and my niece is riding gold!"

B'lor sighed. "Fine, fine. You won the bet."

"Don't go along with this madness, B'lor!" H'ralen protested. "It's entirely too early for this nonsense!"

"Grailse did Impress," B'lor said, taking a last bite of his breakfast and standing.

"And I'm too hungover for this!"

"We lost, H'ralen."

H'ralen groaned, then shoved his seat back and stood as well. They both glanced at each other.

"I'm never drinking again," B'lor said.

"I'm never betting again!" H'ralen replied.

When they wavered, Zella made a small noise and gestured towards the kitchen.

"Fine, fine, we lost. This time."

Zella smiled. "And I'll be betting on your girl next time, but this time… I won. Come on, gentlemen. There are a lot of dishes to get done the morning after a Hatching Feast!"

Author's Note: We start Part II next time! Thank you very much, as always, for reading. Please consider leaving me a review! Huge thank yous and virtual cookies to my reviewers from last chapter: renaid, constantlearner, BindyKit, and a Guest. Guest, extra thank you for finding my error from when I changed the clutch size, which I have corrected. Thank you everyone for reading, and I hope to hear from you!

Edited author's note to add: Someone please tell me if somewhere in canon, it explains how dragons get the spellings for their names. I don't remember ever seeing any explanation, and there's no way Mnementh hatched out of his egg and said, "Oh no, there's a silent M there."

Also - not one person said anything about Balani dying! You all shock me. :)