Disclaimer: I don't own Pern. I do, however own most of the characters in this story.
Chapter Five: Promise
Nairyry didn't return to her weyr quickly. She flew direct, wanting some time in the high-altitude air to cool off. Everything had happened so fast, with W'lam, she reflected as they circled up, leaving the bronze rider on the beach to oil his own dragon. The little beach was a favored spot of theirs. Even now a green and her rider popped out of between and glided down to land. Thyrath wafted her wings, bringing them higher.
Silence between the queen and her rider streached. The dragon seemed to sense that Nairyry wanted to think, to remember. Thoughts drifting freely, she remembered, in strange detail, the little green patch she had dreamt of. It seemed so sharp, so real, that she nearly considered giving her dragon that image as coordinates, and telling her to take them there.
And yet, strangest of all, she felt a surety that it was. That it was a memory. It called to her as no other place had, squeezing her heart. "Does it feel that way to you, dearest?" she asked Thyrath.
It feels… old, the dragon mused. Not aged, but far away in time. But it does not call me.
"One day we'll try to go there, maybe. Just to see what its like," she told her dragon as they banked, curding away from the ocean. "There are no living things there, no dragons…"
She trailed off, then gave the image of the weyr. It was time to return.
000
That night she again dreamt of the strange buildings and then the green place. Once again it was abnormally clear and real, and she was still thinking about it when she went to breakfast.
She sat beside W'lam with a hesitant smile, and he grinned back up at her as she settled with her food and morning klah. Since she was left-handed and he right they linked the arms they used less and ate that way. After breakfast he took her hand and she followed him into a discrete passageway. He took her in his arms when they were inside bent her back slightly in a kiss that would not have been out of place in a romantic Harper's song.
When he pulled her up again, both panting slightly, he grinned at her almost self-consciously. "I- I had to be sure it wasn't just a heat-vision," he explained. She kissed him and put her arms around his neck.
"Oh!" They jumped as took their lips away from each other's. W'lam kept his arm around Nairyry's waist and she on his back, hand on the opposite shoulder. The speaker was a wide-eyes young woman, a greenrider by her shoulder knots. She had one hand on her mouth, partially concealing her embarrassed, amused grin, and carried a fire lizard with a bandaged side in the crook of her other arm. It looked as though she had just come from re-bandaging her little blue's wound.
"I'm sorry, Weyrsinger, Queenrider! Excuse me…" She hastily picked up a small pot of numbweed from the ground, and dashed around the lovers, quickly making off despite her half-asleep blue's loud, echoing protests.
W'lam sighed and watched the pair disappear around the bend. "Roencally. We'll be all over the Weyr in three days."
"A whole three days?" asked Nairyry dryly, though her eyes twinkled. "I was thinking by about noon today."
They grinned at each other and kissed again briefly. "Could we maybe go over that measure again? I want to make sure I got the timing right," the goldrider suggested, and W'lam smiled at the pun on music.
"Absolutely. And remember, hold the notes a long rime…"
They returned to the beach to swim, bringing meatrolls and thermoses of klah with them for lunch, and spent the day lazing on the sand or jumping in the water when the sun got to unbearable.
"You know, I'm really glad that I'm not a Senior Weyrwoman," commented Nairyry with a lazy yawn as she snuggled closer to W'lam on their blankeet. She absently checked the towel with one hand, reassuring herself that it was wrapped securely.
He encouraged her to go on. "Well, if I was then, point a; I would have to be buisy, and not able to be just lazing away out here with you. Point b; I would have to deal with extraordinarily important folk, which you know is not a suitable occupation for someone like me. C…" she trailed off, not wanting to share point c.
"Thyrath would be the senior queen and have flown to mate," the bronze rider finished softly, and pulled her close, kissing her forehead. "It can't truly be as bad as all that, can it? Well, perhaps it can," he amended when she started to make a reply, "but I promise– I promise, Nyr,– that I will not let a dragon besides Jurcath fly Thyrath. And with me at least I can be sure there will be only joy, not pain."
He kissed her again to seal the promise, then let her go. He knew it was going to be difficult, but he would promise that.
"Promise?" she asked, voice very small.
"I promise, Nyr. No one will abuse you. It will be wonderful, not terrible. I Promise that to you." W'lam bent his head and kissed her again.
As the sun sank lower in the evening sky they packed and prepared to leave. They unloaded their gear and met on prearranged terms at their dinner table. The riders they sat close to looked at hem, then either winked, grinned openly or lsecretly or, in the case of one or two bronze riders, frowned.
"What did I tell you?" teased Nairyry, seeing a blue rider barely managing to turn a laugh into a couch on his soup. "We're not together two days and already we're getting publicity."
W'lam grinned and nodded to a disgruntled bronze rider. He made a little bit of a show, of assisting Nairyry, who played along, to her feet, then gave her an obvious, romantic, backward bent kiss. Several riders at their table chuckled or clapped, someone whistled and another let out an amused whoop.
They laughed, then grinned and nodded good naturedly at them and quickly ditched their trays and raced out of the cavern, hand in hand.
000
W'lam came by the next morning, just after she had woken and dressed, and brought music. Nairyry noted the third instrument needed and grinned at him after a hiss. "Who's playing with us this time? Lessa herself?"
"Moreta," he responded with a smile. "Actually, the second harp is optional. You can be flute this time, and I'll be the first harp. I'm going to try to find someone who'll play the second harp, but for now we'll just do a duet."
"You really like harps," she noted, taking the music from him. He grinned and strummed his small instrument. She took out her flute from its small case on her shelf, a lovely one crafted from hard wood and carved lightly, not very deep in the wood, with flowers and trailing vines. The cuts were lighter against the dark brown finish of the surface. It may have been apprentice-made, but that made no difference to her.
She carefully blew a soft low scale and turned to the music. By now she was nearly as good as W''lam and they simply started right into the music. A note intruded on their song halfway through the first measure. They stopped, frowning, and it came again. It was the sound of a dragon growling.
Two bronze riders burst into the room, eyes feverish, and stood close to Nairyry, who backed away, frowning, clutching her flute. "My Skirath is blooding his kill!" cried one rider, hardly recognizable as M'ler in the roused rider.
"Plooth too," the other said. Nairyry failed to grasp the significance of that for a moment, until F'gap burst into the room, unlacing his shirt to declare that his bronze Dumpith was also blooding.
"No!" she cried suddenly, and raced for her dragon's weyr as fast as lightning, W'lam right behind her and, stumbled to a halt just in time to see the queen launch herself to the Feeding Grounds. A half-strangled sob tore from the rider's throat and she dashed to where she had last seen her dragon. As the glowing, golden dragon fell on her meal the bronze riders closed in a circle around the queenrider.
W'lam shoved two of them aside to hold Nairyry's hands. "Go with her Nairyry, lady rider of Thyrath!" he told her. "Go with her. It is safe."
She looked at him in confusion, half in rider-trance. "How can I keep from doing that?" she gasped, and her eyes filled with tears.
"I made you a promise, Queenrider," he said, voice quiet but intensely fierce. "And I will keep it.
She shuddered, taking a deep breath, and stood tall looking around at the circle of bronze riders. "You may as well all leave. Only Jurcath will catch Thyrath. No other, if I have to rider hierbetween this flight!" They didn't hear, but it was enough for her to say it.
Nairyry stepped in W'lam's arms and they both closed their eyes, seeking their dragons.
"I promised, Nyr."
000
Thyrath roared, challenging the puny bronze ones. She leapt into the sky and the sixteen bronzes followed her within seconds. First one fell, then another. She delighted at seeing them panting, struggling to keep up. As she soared and flipped throught the air she somehow felt lighter than ever before without the restraint of bearing people on her back she had to be wary of.
Later she climbed as high as possible then looked down, seeing the remaining four bronze ones, Thyrath dove right on to them, and cried out again as one dropped, and a second faltered far enough behind never to make up for his time. Then the other two were beside her. They were large and strong, perhaps worthy of her. Jurcath, the one who had fallen behind, suddenly appeared under her and tangled their claws. He dragged her down, and then heaved with his wings.
Thyrath cried out as he twined his neck with hers.
000
Gently W'lam kissed Nairyry. She was with Thyrath now, and he was with Jurcath, though he retained enough human thought to know not to allow himself to become Jurcath to the point of loosing how gentle he needed to be with this queenrider.
Slowly, carefully, he brought her to the sleeping room and gently they sank to the bed as the other bronze riders stumbled dazedly from the room. He held her in his arms, waiting…
She cried out and clung to him, and then they were together, dragon to dragon, body to body.