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

Chapter Seven: Brother

Frantically Virika looked around for some way to hide her friend, but Hayatch was too big and all too visible with the moonlight glinting over her gold skin. It was too late. Glitter took off of Darrinel's arm and flew at the dragon-person.

"That is enough!" To Virika's surprise, the green squeaked and landed on the dragon-person's arm when Hayatch spoke crossly to her.

Biting her lip, Virika turned slowly to her elder brother, waiting to see his reaction. He just stood and stared at Hayatch.

Finally, when Hayatch looked up from her calming of Glitter, he blinked, then shot an indecipherable look at his sister. "I can't wait to hear this explained," he said calmly. "But first- just what is that thing?"

"I am Hayatch, a queen of the dragon-folk," she told him, drawing herself up proudly.

"She's a friend, Darrinel. Just think of her as a human-thinking dragon. A very… small queen dragon," added Virika, looking up at the seven and a half foot tall queen who towered over her.

Darrinel managed a weak smile, still staring at the dragon-person in that strange way.

"So talk." He settled down on the log that Virika had previously been using as a seat. His sister looked at him, about to refuse. "Either you tell me what's goin' on or I tell father what I think is goin' on.

"No! You can't tell!" Virika stepped forward and grabbed her older brother's arm. "No one- you can't let them be killed, and they will be if anyone finds them!"

Darrinel raised one eyebrow and settled back on the log, patting the weather-blackened wood beside him. Reluctantly she sat, and began the true story that had begun half a Turn ago.

000

"How many of you are left?" Darrinel had listened patiently to their joint relation of the last six months, asking a few questions, and then sat silent for a while, thinking. Now he raised his head.

Hayatch's wings, folded over her shoulders and locked by her 'thumbs' over her chest, drooped as she closed her eyes. "Less than fifty. And I am the newest queen; there are five others, including my mother." Both humans could see that the queen felt the weight of her responsibility to continue her species' scarce hold on the world.

"It is my job to help her eat little before her mating flight," offered Virika, placing a comforting hand on Hayatch's arm, "so that she will fly far and long; like dragons, that will mean a larger clutch and maybe more queens. More queens- that girls could help, as I will Hayatch, if they can Impress-"

"Impress?" interrupted her brother swiftly, straightening from his limp seat. "Your people can Impress like dragons or fire lizards?" The question was directed at Hayatch as he suddenly put a hand to Glitter.

"I have Impressed Virika," answered the queen evenly, "or she has Impressed me. Either way, yes: we are together."

"Impressed…" mused the young man, thinking to himself.

"But don't you see?" asked Virika excitedly, reverting back to her subject about the Impression of queens. "If other girls can Impress other queens then they can also help their queens in mating flights! The clutches will be bigger, and there will be more queens- to Impress, and- and so on. They can survive."

All of them stood there, digesting this information in their own way.

Finally Darrinel stood and brushed off the seat of his sleeping clothes. "You need sleep, as do I," he told his younger sister. "Prob'ly you too." This was directed to Hayatch. "Let's turn in; in the morning we can decide how best to get whoever we think should Impress the new queen out there to Impress her."

Virika knew he was right, and she nodded, yawning. Bidding her friend and her brother goodnight she returned to her room, silently so as not to wake her sisters, and fell into bed, half asleep already. Hayatch retraced her steps back down the beach when she felt her human friend fall asleep and then took off from the small cliff she had landed on. Darrinel remained on the log, thinking long after they had both left, staring at his hands. As the moon lit his face the grin from which plots are born spread across his face. He got up and returned to his own room, still forming plans.

000

It was little Kurit who woke her with her grumblings in her dreams. The sun streaming in was from just after dawn. Virika stretched her arms, remembering everything that had happened in the past day, and especially the last night. Darrinel could be devious and sly, but he was a true friend. And it was good that he seemed to count her as a friend now, rather than an annoying sibling.

Virika made her bed, something she had not done in six months, and padded out of the room. Her older brother was making klah, and she nodded to him.

"Hayatch shouldn't have come last night, or at all," he told her, passing her the mug of klah and settling next to her at the kitchen table with his own.

"I know." She sighed, and sipped the warm liquid; it was the best she had tasted in the last six months. "She's the most stubborn person I ever met. It would do no good to yell at her."

"How did you Impress her?" he asked.

"Same as you did Glitter." Virika took a sip of klah, indicating the green fire lizard, who was curled around her Darrinel's neck, asleep.

"Food, talking, love-thoughts?"

"Yep. And sheer dumb luck to get stuck with her egg in my hands when it cracked. Like I said last night; I got tossed off Dragondancer and he landed me in the middle of the clutch."

"Dragon-people. Their like something out of a dream." Darrinel stared in to his mug of klah, then shook his head as if trying to get a thought out of it and took a sip of his drink. "Do you think- well, if a queen can be Impressed… maybe…" Virika saw what he meant; he wanted to Impress one. Knowing him, she knew he was thinking of a bronze for himself. He'd always been the possessive type, and seemed to hold the rest of the world in the category of either minions, servants or those he must behoove to.

"It depends on what the dragon-people say, but I think they'd give you a chance to Impress one of their hatchlings. Then again they might think that only the queens should be Impressionable, because they don't want too much association with us, as humans. It was only their need that led them to take such desperate measures as having a human practically hold the fate of their race in her hands when Hayatch rises to mate."

"But we can ask them when we see them?"

"Absolutely," Virika assured him.

"Ask who what?" Kurit, yawning as she came into the kitchen.

"We- we wanted to ask Eleneir and his family if they could led us runnerbeasts again so we could go find… eggs. Fire lizard eggs."

When Darrinel raised one eyebrow at her she added so that he understood, "And maybe we'll be gone for a few days, finding just the perfect clutch."