Chapter 3: In which Lucy "Lorana" Jenkins has a close encounter with her favourite Pernese critters... Enjoy!
Lucy "Lorana" Jenkins couldn't believe the cheek of those cows! A wher could, too, fly in daylight, if it wanted. And flame, and eat thread, and so what if it didn't make sense to them? Todd said it worked, and that was good enough for her. Although, there were a few things that Lorana thought Todd could have done better. Like, why did whers have to be so ugly? Or just come in the normal colours? Purple matched the colour of Master Wher Handler Luciana's eyes soooo much better, so why did all her reviewers have to be so mean about it? And, if they wanted, a queen wher could mate with Mnementh, and Luciana could be Weyrwoman! She sighed, and flicked her plait dramatically over one shoulder, wishing it was was as icy blonde and long as her character's, instead of being mousey and full of split ends. Yeah, what did they know? She took an angry bite out of her hamburger, not caring as the juices dripped onto her shirt.
A sudden beeping alerted her to the arrival of a new e-mail. Hopefully it'd be notification of another "OMG! I luv ur story rite more plEEZZZEE!" review, rather than just another bitchy rant about her spelling. Her spell checker did all that properly, so why did they keep saying things were wrung?
But no, this was something quite different. Unable to resist the temptation, "Lorana" followed the instructions in the e-mail.
"I want to be on Pern, anywhere, so long as I'm with real, live whers! For Faranth's sake, take me to Pern!" she gasped.
Suddenly, everything went black. Where was she? It couldn't be between, because she could feel herself, and the ground. Was it Pern?
"YES!" she shouted, and screamed in enthusiastic pleasure, clapping her hands as the sounds echoed back to her. She could hear something too - a sort of scratchy, scrabbly noise. It was getting closer.
"Hello? Is anyone there? Are you a Wher?"
Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dim light, and she could just about make out several dark shapes approaching. They were making angry, growling noises as well now.
Almost as if they were territorial, and annoyed at being woken up by a screaming idiot, who certainly didn't smell as if she belonged.
She smelled more like food, in fact.
Lucy "Lorana" Jenkin's screams echoed around the cavern once more, but not for very long.
Despite the fact that the whers soon discovered that denim didn't taste very good, and got stuck in one's teeth, the crunching noises went on for much, much longer...
