Author's Note

I do not own the Dragonriders of Pern.

It was five days before they were finally released from their confinement in the empty Queen's Weyr. It was probably a good thing it happened then. Mia was pretty sure some of the girls were going stir crazy and about to kill each other.

Apparently they had missed a lot while they were in there. J'kon had been bringing them updates of what was happening, and those with firelizards had been receiving messages and information, but they still felt very isolated. Four new girls had arrived while they were in there, but they weren't allowed to meet for fear of a repeat of what happened with Daisuke. Naeressa still hadn't turned up after that debacle, so maybe that fear was warranted. All the girls (yes, even Jakeiria and Kuyaran) were beginning to worry about what had happened to her. J'kon had gone out to fetch supplies on the third day and never returned. According to Sinna, who brought their food at lunchtime, he had been pulled in to some fool's errand by R'ton and one of the new girls, Desiree Aimah Flameheart.

Ridiculous name she had.

The next they heard Desiree Aimah Flameheart had been removed from candidacy and the man (who was indeed this Lord Laff of Indigo's) had been caught and was being dealt with.

Also Dorasa was back in the infirmary.

Still, it was nice to no longer be confined within that weyr. Most of the girls headed out to the Weyrbowl to get some air, but Mia made her way down to the infirmary, where Yariel (and another boy) were sat with Dorasa. Yariel looked like he hadn't slept in days, his skin ash white and large bags under his eyes, while Dorasa seemed to be bruised… everywhere. Every part of her skin that Mia could see was a mottled pattern of black and blue.

"Mia!" she called. Mia hurried over to the bed.

"Faranth's egg Dorasa! You look terrible!"

"Thanks."

"I- Sorry. What happened?"

Dorasa and Yariel proceeded to tell her some long story about how the new girl that had left was a deemorn who tried to steal Yariel away, and how Dorasa had drawn Yariel into hitting her to snap him out of it.

"That was deliberate?" exclaimed the other boy, a thin, waifish creature with – for some reason – purple hair.

"I told you a good shock could snap him out of it; I gave him one."

"I thought he was going to kill you!"

Dorasa waved her hand lazily.

"You could have warned me!"

She shrugged. Mia sighed. That was so much like the two of them!

"So this… deemorn, this Desiree, she's gone?"

"She's gone," agreed Dorasa. "I still say I should have put my blade through her heart though."

Demek got to his feet. "I better get back to the barracks."

"Don't you want to-" started Dorasa, only for him to shake his head.

"No thank you. I came here for a new life, not whatever insanity this is."

Dorasa laughed as the boy slipped out. Mia shook her head. "I thought you two came here to get away from all this hero-ing stuff."

"We're not looking for the heroing, it just finds us," replied Yariel. Mia laughed nervously and shook her head.

"Tell it no! There are more important things – friendship and bravery-"

"You mean qualities for a dragonrider Mia?" asked Dorasa with a spark in her emerald eyes.

"I- I- I-"

"Someone had to do something about Desiree. It ended up being us. Tell you what, you can do the next one."

Mia groaned.

Here we go again.

With the presence of the new girls there had to be some rearranging in the sleeping chambers, with Princess Lilyen Adalicia Midnight graciously moving into Naeressa's (who had yet to return or be found) chamber and the three sisters taking her room. Kuyaran muttered and grumbled and moved in with Sirena and Revina, with Lily and Luna taking her chambers while lucky Brizala got to share with Jakeiria.

J'kon never returned as candidate master (Mia suspected the Weyrwoman had something to do with that) and the girls were to join R'ton's lessons with the boys (again) until a replacement could be found (again). Dorasa was released from the infirmary the following day, her bruising already mottling yellow as though it had happened weeks ago instead of days. Mia knew better than to ask. She had seen those two shrug off beatings in a matter of hours, knife and sword wounds in a matter of a sevenday and concussions in a matter of days. As beaten and bruised as Dorasa had been, she was sure the injuries meant nothing to her. Yariel slept on the floor of their chambers the night she was released, and the following night too. No one said anything about it.

The days had passed in a far too quiet and peaceful manner, which is why when the screaming started, it made her jump but wasn't a surprise. Yariel and Dorasa drew their swords.

"We don't have to-" Mia started, but they had already started moving towards the sound. At the other side of the Weyrbowl, where Sirena had been helping a greenrider oil his dragon, she and the rider were doing the same. Mia sighed, checked her knife, and followed after her friends.

The screaming was coming from one of the youngest male candidates, a trader boy of twelve called Lendeer with a mass of orange curls, who was down on the beach and pointing at a heap of fabric and colour tangled in the rocks.

It took Mia a moment to work out what she was looking at, and then she had to resist the urge to scream herself. It wasn't the first time she had seen death of course, but when she saw it at Garange Hold the dead would look peaceful and human, not… not that mashed up mangled lump of flesh with rainbow coloured hair still tangled around it.

Mia wrapped an arm around Lendeer and guided him tactfully away towards the path back to the island as more riders and curious onlooked began to arrive.

And Yariel and Dorasa still hadn't sheathed their weapons.

She took Lendeer through to the kitchens and made him a steaming mug of klah, settling with him in front of the fire. They sat there and sipped at the klah until he at last broke the silence.

"She were dead, that woman."

"Yes."

"She were already dead when I seed her."

"Yes." And long before that, Mia suspected.

"Why'd her die?"

"I don't know," Mia replied, but that was a lie. She remembered the way Daisuke hurled Naeressa over the ledge in the weyr, how she vanished from their sight, how soon they all settled and forgot about her when she was gone. They should have done more to look for her, to look out for her, but they were all too busy thinking about themselves and sulking locked up in the empty Queen's weyr. Even after they were let out they had done nothing to look for or help her.

"D'you thinkit hurt?"

"Probably."

"Will I be in trouble?"

"Why would you?"

"Cos I made such a fuss."

"I don't think you're going to be in any trouble." Mia took another sip of her klah. "And if they try to make you, blame it all on me."

Lendeer giggled. "Do you think they'll shut you all up again?"

"Shards, I hope not!"

She'd had quite enough of that.

They were eventually called in by the Weyrleaders to give their side of the story, what little of it there was. Lendeer explained he had seen the colour while paddling in the sea and gone to see what it was, while Mia told them she had simply seen what was going on and taken Lendeer to calm him down.

"When was the last time you saw that girl, ah, Naeressa was it?" asked K'res.

"Yes. I haven't seen her since the day Daisuke blasted her off the weyrledge."

"I see. Very well, thank you for your help and cooperation."

"What'll happen to her now?" asked Lendeer. The Weyrwoman frowned.

"We'll try and find out if she had any family to return her body to. If not, she will be taken between as is the tradition."

Lendeer nodded and wiped a hand across his eyes. Mia took his wrist. "Come on."

Naeressa's death was the talk of the candidates, and, like her, they had many regrets that they never tried to find out what happened to her or look for her after they were released from the weyr. Diazaikko-Lovea's eyes turned to grey and she wept softly.

"Poor Naeressa," murmured Annaliessa, quiet and solemn for once.

"We should have done more to help her," murmured Indigo, a sentiment shared by all of them.

"She was probably killed when Daisuke hit her," Dorasa said rather tactlessly. Sirena frowned at her.

"We don't know that."

"No, but Naeressa was tough. If she'd survived it, she'd have come back."

"She does have a point," muttered Kuyaran.

By the following day the topic of conversation had turned to something they had all almost forgotten about amongst all the chaos: the first egg touching. Sirena, Kuyaran, and Revina were being attacked with questions about what it was like. Sirena gave warnings about being careful around the eggs and to show proper respect to Nareth, the mother of the clutch, while Revina was much more… poetic, giving vivid descriptions of how wonderful the eggs were.

R'ton explained the procedures to them in class. "The girls standing for gold will be taken onto the sands first, to view the gold eggs. Since there is currently no candidate master for the girls, Weyrwoman Jalenna will be the one to guide you onto the sands. Once you have seen the gold eggs, those of you willing to stand for green as well may view the rest of the eggs and I will bring the boys and those girls only standing for green onto the sands."

It sounded very well organised. Mia hoped that it actually worked out that way. She lay asleep for a long time that night, whether due to excitement or nerves, unable to rest.

"Mia, please go to sleep," muttered Yariel. Dorasa was already asleep, still healing from her ordeal.

"Sorry. I'm just… excited and worried."

"What is there to be worried about?"

"What isn't there? Since I've got here one thing after another has gone wrong. What if something happens tomorrow, like- like one of us breaks an egg, or Thread starts falling, or- or-"

"Mia. No one is going to break an egg, and if something goes wrong Dorasa and I will be there. Please go to sleep."

Mia did, but she slept fitfully and was still tired in the morning when she woke. Still, the buzzing excitement of the other candidates was contagious and she tried to stop her worry as she ate breakfast.

Finally the time came and the girls standing for gold followed the Weyrwoman out onto the sands.

Author's Note

It was always the plan to kill Naeressa off, though she wasn't originally meant to go like this. However, it made no sense to me character or plot wise to have her survive one life threatening event only to be killed off by another.