Disclaimer: I don't own Pern. I do, however own many of the characters in this story.
Chapter Four: A Life's New Order
Kilatch turned and returned into the cave. But I must leave- mother has to know where I am, that I'm all right! thought Virika, trying not to panic. How can I send word if I can't return home, at least to tell her? And these dragon-people will prove very hard to get past if I try to sneak out.
Hayatch stirred on her lap, and the girl calmed. If I could leave her behind, perhaps I could do it…
You want me to go away? asked the queen shakily, staring up at her as she came instantly awake. You wish to leave me behind?
No, that wasn't what Virika wanted; not now, or ever. They had Impressed, and nothing would ever separate them. Never. Never, never, never. she told the little golden child. I just want to tell my own mother I am going to stay here.
Virika gazed off into the distance, remembering her family. She'd always been distant from her people, always avoiding her chores to go off alone, into the plains, or jungle or beach or wherever. Raised by a mother who loved her but left her alone most of the time to care for her two younger sisters and brother, she had grown independent, ranging the wilderness, often the first person to find a place.
It was startling to realize that she didn't want to leave the dragon-people in favor of her own kinds' company; she only wanted to be sure her family was not terrified for her. Virika closed her eyes, feeling tears spring up.
She didn't want to stay with them any more.
Suddenly, crazily, she smiled, and lifted her shoulders and chin. Hayatch climbed off her lap and the human stood tall, facing into the wind and she strode confidently down to the beach. With her people she had known everything, everyone and everywhere they went. Now and adventure was hers for the taking, and she meant to enjoy every second of it.
000
She lost track of her sevendays, and almost of time itself as it passed. Dragondancer had solved several problems for her. First, she would not let the dragon-people eat him, and he was of no use to them in any other way. This was solved in the same way as the second problem that she needed to get word to her people.
After securing all unneeded items to her runnerbeast, she also slipped in a note to her mother.
I am well and safe. Please do not try to find me, as I have no need to be found, and the people I am with even less need. We are quite content together, and though it will be a long time before you will see me again, I shall return in harvesting time. Everything I need is with me. Send me your love, and support, and I'll think of you often.
With love and gratitude for your requested discretion,
Virika now of the Dragon-folk.
This last bit, 'of the Dragon-folk' ought to leave them hanging, she thought, amused as she gave her faithful runnerbeast a last pat. He always returned to his remembered stall when they lost track of each other, and she was depending on this to get word to her people. Dragonracer whickered, but she gave him a sharp slap on the rump and her last connection to her own people raced off.
000
Eventually Virika became a great part of the dragon-peoples' lives. They became accustomed to her and her oddities, such as eating things other than meat and fish.
She helped the blues and greens haul kills home, and when Bakitatch laid her clutch of nine eggs the girl assisted the queen by bringing her food. Virika salted meats to preserve them and caught fish with the dragon-people, though using a branch, vine, bait and thorn-hook, to the amusement of her claw-snatching friends.
All through this Hayatch followed her around, helping wherever possible. After her first moon-phase she had grown so her head was at a level with Virika's shoulders, and her wings were large enough to carry her into flight. One moon-phase later she stood as tall as her human friend, though still shorter than the shortest adult dragon-person. As all the queens, she left fire stone alone.
It was surprising to Virika how little she missed her family in the months that they were separate. Somehow it disturbed her that she did not feel the need to return to the small hold that had been established, and was her home.
But as the days, sevendays and months went by she could not help but feel remarkably at home with the dragon-people. Virika felt that they were closer to her than her own family had ever been. They let her do as she pleased, provided she did her part of the work needed, which she did gladly.
At home she had needed to pay compliments to people who sniffed, turned their noses up into the air and ignored her, and asked how people who she had seen abuse fire lizards were. She had not been one of the more high-ranking people, being a minor daughter of a minor lady, but it would have been nice for her –for anyone, really– to be treated as an equal.
With the dragon-people she was an equal; with them the only distinct rank difference was in the separate colors' tasks. She pitched in with everything as required.
Virika grew used to the dragon-peoples' way of life, and enjoyed it fully. So that she was ready to fight the felines that sometimes attacked the small population, she was taught their style of fighting, using claws and tails, which she altered sufficiently to suit her fists and legs. One friendly brown named Daymitch was most adept at their hand-to-hand combat techniques, and after her first initial instruction she could be found some portion of five or six days a week with him, working on some skill or another. In time they became great friends.
Hayatch was more aggressive than the other queens, and was quite willing to be taught fighting moves by Daymitch, and soon surpassed Virika's altered way of fighting with the original kind. Her growth was nearly a hindrance now, for she had no time to fit in to her body and was sometimes awkward. Had she been human she might have been teased, but her kind were not cruel like some of Virika's folk. In the skies, on the other hand, she was more graceful and precise than her clutch-mates, and many of the older dragon-people.
Half a Turn passed quite happily in this new life style almost before Virika realized it.
000
Lazing in the sun, Hayatch and Virika sat companionably on the rock slabs near where the queen's egg and her sibling's eggs had lain. Stretched out on one side Hayatch was a tall, graceful, light dragon-person. Her skin was a lovely golden-peach color, her wings fading into light amber. Standing, she would now tower over her human friend by chest, shoulders and head, and even her mother by half a head or more.
Virika was just dozing when Hayatch twitched her peach-gold tail restlessly, thumping her lightly on the side; the human girl was father down on the rock than her dragon-person friend. She opened one eye sleepily, looked up at the queen for a second and then closed her eyes, shifting a little to a more comfortable position. Another brush.
This time Virika opened both eyes and rolled onto her stomach to look at her friend. Hayatch was gazing out over the ocean, a distant and troubled look in her eyes. "What's wrong?" croaked the girl, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with one hand and propping herself up with the other forearm.
"I- I do not know. There is something wrong…" The queen seemed confused, frightened and distant. "Something bad…"
"Like what? A hurricane or Thread?" Virika had seen several Threadfalls with the dragon-people. They had weathered them in the caves, storing everything that might be damaged by Thread with them in the vast underground network of tunnels that could be found at the rear of the food storage cavern. It was truly amazing to Virika how large those tunnels were. Each and every dragon-person, down to the remaining seven hatchlings of Bakitatch's clutch, now hatched for about three moon-phases, and Virika herself could fit. It was sad to realize that they would not need to find more room- two blue dragon-people and a brown had died, as had two from Bakitatch's original nine eggs.
"No. It is- bad." Hayatch seemed distressed, but could not give an answer as to what troubled her, and this was even more frightening to Virika than knowing what the subtle menace was that affected her queen so. Even more worrisome was that only Hayatch, of all the dragon-people, sensed it. Time and again the dragon-people listened, straining to get a better response, but it eluded them. They finally got an answer, of a sort, around noon.
The shriek of a terrified runnerbeast, the yell of a startled young person and the death-cries of the horse filled the air. In a second Virika was on her feet, and dashed out of the cave where she had just finished braiding her hair. Unmistakably a young voice, from the left of the direction of the new clutch of eggs Igatch had completed that very morning, rose in terrified screams. Rounding the rocks Virika tried to deny the fact that another human had found the dragon-people, but the scene that met her eyes destroyed that illusion of safety.
