Disclaimer: I don't own Pern. I do, however own many of the characters in this story.

Chapter Three: Truce

Virika looked around at the adult dragon-people, grinning irrationally in her excitement at finding out the name of the little queen first. "She's Hayatch! Her name's Hayatch!" the girl told them gleefully. I know my name, Virika, and yours. And my belly is empty. The dragon-child looked up at her new friend, and glared at her, demanding more food. One of the brown dragon-people brought her a small, already cooked wherry, and she gave it to Hayatch.

When the newly hatched queen was full, she curled up on Virika's lap and went to sleep. The girl smiled down at her little friend. "What are you doing, human?" spat the bronze, Satch, and Virika jumped, turning quickly to face him.

"Hayatch trusts me. I think that's grounds enough for you all to trust me. A dragon in the Weyr trusts the humans in his or her Weyr: fighting dragons trust their riders to give them fire stone to chew and Weyrling dragons trust their riders to keep them oiled. Even the queen dragons have to rely on their riders –humans– to keep them from overeating in a mating flight so they fly far and long!" Finished with her angry speech, Virika glared at Satch, hands on hips, and waited.

"Wait- you said that the queens are kept from overeating in mating flights by their riders?" The startled question was from Kilatch, for Satch only glared back at the human.

"Yes…" the girl affirmed slowly, looking over at the wide-eyed queen.

"They fly far and long?" asked Satch, catching on to Kilatch's train of thoughts. "How do the humans keep them from gorging?"

"Well," began Virika, startled by their interest, "first the queen Impresses a human." She looked down at her sleeping Hayatch, realizing for the first time that she had actually Impressed the small dragon-person, not just befriended her. Virika kept that to herself. "When the queen rises to mate, her rider holds her, with her mind my mother told me, and makes her only drink the blood." Virika shuddered. "And then the queen flies longer and farther than she would otherwise."

"Satch, that is what we queens need- not just our help, but a –what id you say? Impressed?– human, to keep us from overeating!" Kilatch grabbed her mate's arm in her excitement, then looked at Virika. She bit her lip, but before another dragon-person could deny her plan, she spoke. "Could you do this for us? Could you join thoughts with us and keep us from overeating?"

All the dragon-people began to protest at once, but Kilatch silenced them. "It is not what we would like, to be forced to rely on these creatures to survive, but our situation is desperate!"

Caught totally off guard, Virika's jaw dropped, and she but her lip as the queen had. "I- I cannot, for you. Maybe, with Hayatch, I could. I think that I have Impressed her. Mother described this as the feeling one gets from Impression." Her last two lines were more to herself, and she smiled tenderly down at the small gold hatchling, so human and draconic at the same time.

The females seemed to accept it reasonably quickly, though some greens and the males were less ready to depend on so (to their thinking) inferior a race.

"Yes," Virika said, raising her face to the adults. "I could do it with Hayatch. But only if you promise not to rip me to shreds, which is obviously what some of you still want to do." She glanced at Calamitch, and smiled wryly.

The bronze dragon-person glared down at her sullenly, though not actively hostile anymore.

000

I am most hungry. With a muffled "Mph! Go 'way…" Virika turned over, but was poked in her ribs. She sat up, frowning, and looked at Hatatch. Her little queen was sitting next to her, one claw out to prod her again. For a second she was confused, and then she recalled her accidental Impression of the small dragon-person, only the day before.

"Oh!" she cried. "I'm sorry, I didn't remember. Let's get you some food." She shifted her furs, which Dragondancer had carried until she could recapture her runnerbeast, and crawled out, no longer sleepy. Virika stood and ran one hand through her hair to contain it somewhat.

"There is food for the hatchlings in the cave." With a squeak the girl spun, coming face-to-face with a large queen head and shoulders taller than herself. "Calmly, if you please." It was Kilatch. Nodding, Virika followed the low-skimming queen as she showed the girl the caverns where cooked and dried meat was stored in clefts in the rocks. Even Kilatch would have had to raise herself up on a crack in the wall to reach the ceiling, but she shuffled her large brown-gold wings and gestured with the tip of one to a still-warm, cooked leg of heardbeast.

Hayatch tucked in, with somewhat more manners than she had before and nearing human-standard table etiquette. Virika watched for a second, then turned away, looking to the second entrance of the cavern, which led to the beach; she had come in by way of a clearing in the jungle. The sun was high, as usual in the Southern Continent, and beating down on the beach mercilessly.

Vaguely Virika wondered if the dragon-folk, who seemed so much more intelligent and advanced than even a queen dragon, still liked to laze in the sun as fire lizards and dragons both did. Then again, she couldn't see why not, for humans also enjoyed sunning themselves on beaches.

"Are you also hungry, human child?" asked Kilatch, coming to stand next to Virika. "I do not know how often your people eat, or if the young eat more than adults as ours do; you are but a hatchling yourself."

Once again Virika was startled by just how differently the queen treated her than from when she had first fallen in the eggs. Last night they had talked long after Timor and Belior had risen, and they found they could learn much from each other.

"Yes," Virika admitted, "I am rather hungry. But Dragonracer still has some of my food, and I can find fruits and other kinds of food in the jungle. You seem to need all the meat you can get for the hatchlings," she added as a little green dragon-person began her breakfast beside Hayatch, who got up, having finished, and came over to her-

Just what did she call Virika? Watch-wher's human partners called them wher-handlers, and dragons called them riders, but just what did one call the dragon-child's Impressed human? Rider and handler seemed to be more for more animal-like creatures. These dragon-folk were too human-like to have handlers.

Friend. Just friend. Hayatch still only mind-spoke, being uneducated in audible speech. The three-foot-tall queen pulled on Virika's breeches, and the girl took a few paces outside of the cave to sit, and took her little friend onto her lap, smiling as the golden person curled up like a large fire lizard in her lap. Then Virika stared out over the ocean, lost in thought, absently stroking Hayatch's soft amber wings.

She looked up as Kilatch came and sat beside her, with her legs crossed tailor-style. Finally the girl looked over at Kilatch. "You have told me that your people were all those assembled around us for the hatching, and that this was why you needed longer mating flights for you queens. But I never learned just how long it will be until I am able to assist you. How long until Hayatch grows up? How long until she can fly, can mate? How long until she can be considered an adult? In short, what is the culture of your people like?"

Kilatch appeared to consider her questions. "I think it is easiest to tell of a dragon-person's life-cycle first. It will answer many of your questions."

Virika asked her to clarify some details, and to describe some things better, but finally she could grasp a limited understanding of the political structure of the dragon-people.

As in any even vaguely draconic society, the golden queens were put before all other colors. The only reason bronzes were the only ones who flew them was that the blues and browns had less powerful wings; each color specialized in something. Queens mated, guarded their eggs and protected hatchlings. Bronzes flew queens, helped them with the eggs and hatchlings and also protected their golden mates. The browns' main job was to find firestone, while blues and greens mostly hunted farther than the other colors and brought back their kills for cooking or preservation. If an enemy attacked, like the felines, it was the responsibility of all colors to defend their home, food and young ones.

Until a queen flew, around one year after hatching, she would be considered a child. The term 'hatchling' was given only to the dragon-children younger than two full phase-changes of the moons. For unknown reasons, the dragon-folk matured very fast and then aged quite slowly once they had attained their full growth. This was even apparent in the eggs; when a queen mated she had about half a moon-phase before laying her eggs. Once laid, they hardened, like dragon and fire lizard eggs, over the course of about three moon-phases.

"I had no idea your system was so complicated- or so different from the dragons'. It seems so soon for a mating flight- a year?"

Kilatch nodded. "But we only rise perhaps once every two full years. And, why you are here, we rarely have more golden daughters, and rarely more than seven or eight in a clutch. My eleven was cause for excitement, even more than a normal clutch."

"You've told me that it'll be a year or so before Hayatch rises to mate. Long will I have to stay here? I do need to return to my own family sometime, if only so I can tell them I'm all right and not to worry while I'm away."

Virika looked over at Kilatch with a frown when the queen did not answer, and saw that the dragon-person was staring at the sand, sketching loops and designs in the small grains. Finally she stood, and looked out over the ocean.

"I understood that you could not leave once you had –Impressed, correct?–,so how can you leave us? Hayatch? And she cannot come with you. You cannot leave without her, but you also cannot leave with her. I see only that you cannot leave until she has grown wiser and older. You cannot leave."