Disclaimer: I don't own Pern. I do, however own many of the characters in this story. (Only Ted Tubberman and his wife, Wind Blossom and Kitty Ping were created by Anne McCaffery, and as they don't show up much I'll just say this on this chapter)

Chapter One: Prologue Chapter

When the first colonists came to Pern, they found the little native creatures called fire lizards. Later, they were altered slightly, creating a slightly larger, slightly smarter version with five fingered 'hands'. After the first Threadfall from the Red Star, they were altered still more to create the first clutch of dragons by Kit Ping Yung, Kitty Ping. Wind Blossom created another type of dragon; the ugly watch-whers. But what if one other person had created a third kind of dragon, one that would survive in secret in the jungles of the Southern Continent?

Ted Tubberman was experimenting with bioengineering creatures; he made the felines of Southern. But, unknown to anyone else, even his wife, he used Kitty Ping's techniques to create a dragon-human race.

These people were small, but very similar to both dragon and human from which they had been made. When they hatched, they appeared to be nearly like dragons. As soon as his one successful clutch stood, the difference was apparent to Ted. They had human-like bodies though with only a dragon's organs, a dragon's six limbs, arms, legs, wings and long tails like the dragons. His tampering had given them feet like a dragon's; they stood forward on their toes. They had hair, a variation on their color. Because of their human characteristics they were unable to transfer between.

They kept the traditional colors of the fire lizards, gold, bronze, brown, blue and green, but this was only a pale replica- blues never went darker than a dark turquoise, browns were only the lightest chocolate colors or paler, and greens rarely strayed deeper than the green of earths' palm tree leaves.

Unlike the dragons, they never took to the program of getting progressively larger as the generations went on. Neither did they range so dramatically in size; a green's human-like, clawed hand was no smaller than a queen's. Even so, only the bronzes still flew queens, while all males flew the greens. Unlike other variations on the species of fire lizard, they were altered to have a speech of their own as well as telepathy.

Ted Tubberman had tried to alter them so they would only Impress to him, giving him total control over them. Instead, they were far too dragon-like to be Impressed by him once they felt his greed, though had he presented others they likely would have imprinted.

He gave them great intelligence, as of humans, though with draconic instincts. When he tried to use the dragon-humans as work animals, they rebelled. It was they, not the felines, who broke out, but as they inadvertently unleashed the felines when they escaped, the felines left their marks in the wreckage.

He had then in captivity two queens, two bronzes and a blue. These five escaped and hid in the jungles, growing in numbers as the years passed.

No one besides Ted Tubberman, not even his wife, ever knew of the dragon-people. When the colonists left for the Northern Continent, the dragon-people stayed. As the years went by, they remained undiscovered.

000

The hot Southern sun beat down on a clutch of eggs hardening on the sands of a cove. Smiling, the queen lay next to the eleven tan, sand-covered ovals on a large rock slab, warm in the sun. A pale bronze gazed down at them proudly from his seat on a higher portion of the rock. He extended one wing and covered his mate protectively.

"Eleven, Kilatch. And a golden daughter." A human from Earth may have had some slight difficulty understanding the accented speech of the dragon people, but Kilatch had none.

"Our kind needs more golden daughters, not just sons," she fretted, looking up into the bronze's eyes. "Satch, we cannot long continue. There are so few of us, and we queens are not laying as many eggs." Satch bowed his head, and his wings fell limply at his sides.

Both knew that from the original two queens and two bronzes their race had come, had its glorious years and faded. Now there were five queens, guarded carefully by their mates and the two as-yet bachelor bronzes. The thirteen greens, dozen blues and nine browns did their best to help those who would continue their race, but it was just not enough. There was no way, without other dragon folk, to broaden the gene pool, and renew the species. The breeding dragons did their share, by trying to stay away from those they had already had a clutch with, but still it was not enough.

Suddenly Kilatch sat up, staring at the eggs. "Satch, we queens need to be agile in the air. If we ate less, perhaps we could fly farther. There would be more eggs, maybe more golden daughter!"

Satch stared at his mate. "Yes… there would be…" His words trailed off. "But how could you keep from gorging just before a flight? You know what it's like." He smiled at her.

"You bronzes would have to assist us. If we only drank, not ate, it would be much easier to maneuver, and fly farther and faster. The longer the flight, the larger the clutch!" She was so excited that she stood up and leapt sky ward, beating her large wings as she darted in circles over her clutch and mate. "We must try," she pleaded, though Satch still looked doubtful.

"All right. The next mating flight, we'll test your theory; I'll tell the other bronzes." Satch sighed. His Kilatch had such wild ideas, but that was one of the reasons he loved her. Standing, Satch closed his eyes and gave each bronze the conversation he had just had with his queen.

"Both Cameratch and Igatch should rise soon," said Kilatch hopefully, before settling down and taking her watch over her clutch again. Satch looked on, a worried expression on his face.

000

In fact, it was Bakitatch who rose first, four sevendays later. It seemed likely that more than half the queens would rise that year, for Camoratch and Igatch were close to rising also.

Kilatch woke to hear a scream, and twisted to look where it had come from. With sudden vigor Balitatch straightened up to her full height and lifted her wings. Balitatch screeched and flung herself skyward.

A golden blur was all the eight bronze dragon people saw as she dove on the small herd of runnerbeasts nearby. Savagely, the normally gentle queen tore into her food. "Try to only let her drink the blood?" cried one of the golds, and dove at the other queen.

Locking minds with her sister she was joined by the other queens and the bronzes. Together they forced the lustful dragon-lady to drink only the blood of the runnerbeast, though it took every bit of their combined strength. With a cry Balitatch flung herself with animal like greed on a fleeing runner, and was again made to drink only the blood. Her golden sisters fought to keep her in control over the third. Finally Vamitch grabbed her arms.

Balitatch screamed and flung herself on her aunt, clawing her viciously once, and leapt skyward. The other queens rushed to their wounded comrade's side, and attempted to stop the green ichors' flow. Caught up in the queen's flight the bronzes only chased after Balitatch.

Varnitch would survive, though, to never make the mistake of holding on to another queen in the heat of flight.

After the flight the only good to come of it immediately was a far, long, active and high flight.