Lexir had always resented Thread as if she hadn't known it all her life. She had complained the loudest when she was bolted away inside the hold during a fall. Once, Lexir had trapped Luru and herself outside of the hold as Thread was due to fall. Luru had screamed and yelled for her family to heed her from the inside, although it was futile. The seal on the entrance was proofed against both sound and light. Lexir said she had done it to prove that the risk of actually being scored on the ground was minimal. That was why they had dragon riders wasn't it? They could all just get on with life and let the dragonriders deal with Thread.
Luru had fled to the shore where her father kept a stone bunker for his tackle and equipment. Lexir hadn't followed her and Luru found that she could hardly care what her sister did with herself in that time. She endured five hours of Threadfall from that small cave. The distant sky glowed like sunrise in the middle of the day as dragons did their duty. As the artificial dawn approached, Luru could hear the hiss as stray Threads met a watery end in the sea. The surface boiled with the ravening throng of fish that thrived on Pern's celestial scourge during a Pass. Some landed on the beach and burrowed to no avail. They would starve before they needed to be dealt with by a groundcrew. Luru's family didn't maintain groundcrew equipment; they kept their small hold stripped bare of greenery with little difficulty. There was little danger on the salty rocks of the threads gaining purchase on their land.
What if one had found its way into Luru's refuge? What if Thread had seen her and slithered across the barren sand to where she was cowering? Luru could imagine Lexir rolling her eyes as their parents screamed at her for her recklessness as Thread rained down as she secured herself away in the hold after all.
Luru couldn't remember forgiving Lexir. Concern for her elder sister's wellbeing was a dim memory from a time well before that incident. Their mother had called for peace between them and for the family to pull together through the fishing season. Nothing had happened after all and Lexir had probably learned her lesson. As she surely had about leaving the cold storage room open when Lexir and Luru were assigned to pack away the day's catch. Lexir would not wish hard times on her entire family. These were just unfortunate incidents. If Luru could get along better with Lexir, perhaps the catastrophes could be averted by better communication.
*
As she followed Lemba along the dark service corridors of Ista Weyr, towards wherever Lexir was being kept, Luru found she could not muster the resentment she was so used to feeling towards Lexir. It was a thing of the past. She was concerned for Irith's rider. Frustrated, annoyed even, but the sympathy she felt was like an extension of the feelings she had towards her own dragon. She felt for her sister something like the sisterly bond they had never really shared.
Light was conserved in the service passageways. Lemba had to turn the glowbaskets as they went, having forgotten to carry one with him. It was not like the weyrling barracks, which were kept well-lit throughout the day and close to the open air at all times. Luru compared the inert, stale atmosphere of these tunnels with the cool airstream in the infirmary, with plenty of glows around every bed. It seemed odd that Lexir was being nursed or whatever in such bleak conditions.
"Lemba, why are we so far inside the Weyr? Surely Lexir ought to be in the infirmary or in the barracks?"
Lemba had stopped to turn a glow and he fiddled with the basket nervously, turning it back to only a half-way point. The shadows thickened. He motioned that they should continue to walk. Luru fell into step beside him.
"Lexir insisted on it. She says that it is understandably upsetting to be around her sister who has stolen the queen who was rightfully hers. She wanted to be nowhere near any of the dragons. She has said that she will remain apart until your father comes to collect her by ship." He glanced sideways at Luru.
Luru was no less than aghast. So that was what Lemba had meant when he told her that Lexir had rejected her dragon. Typical of Lexir to cast aspersion on her sister, but to actually deny that she herself had even Impressed at all was truly incredible.
"Has my father been sent for?" she said, quickening her pace just a little.
"A message will be dispatched later today, when all the casualties of today's Fall have been accounted for and dealt with. However…" Lemba grabbed Luru's arm and tugged her toward the left tunnel in a fork where she would have wandered to the right, oblivious in her urgency.
"However, no one is prepared to allow Lexir to abandon her dragon. No such thing has ever happened before. It would be devastating to the Weyr. Along here." He pointed towards a glow-lit passageway ahead.
There were no doors in the Weyr. The passage grew brighter and wider as it expanded into a small cavern. There was a bed and a small bathing pool to one side. Lexir sat stonily on the bed, glaring at the two weyrwomen who attended her. She wasn't hiding away or anything that Luru might have expected, given the pain that Daruwinth assured her that Irith was feeling.
Lemba ushered her in and then quietly retreated. Luru could see his shadow from around the corner and was reassured that he was there.
I'm here as well. You mustn't forget me. I'm always here.
Luru still wasn't used to her dragon's presence. It was like having a spare limb that she forgot to use. It was immensely reassuring, and somewhat distracting. For a moment she wanted to just forget about her old tormentor sulking on the bed and go to a place of warmth and love and caress her dragon's soft hide.
That feeling didn't go away. As she walked towards Lexir, who didn't acknowledge Luru even as she came into full view, Luru thought how upset she was with Lexir for leaving her dragon alone for someone else to care for. This girl was her sister but she was also some kind of abomination. What kind of mind could overcome that kind of pure love between dragon and rider?
Luru stood not three feet from Lexir, looking her directly in the eyes. The weyrwomen breathed sighs of relief behind her, apparently glad that Luru obscured them from Lexir's fierce scrutiny. They didn't see how Lexir looked straight through their most junior Weyrwoman as if she didn't exist. Luru frowned.
She turned around and spoke to both of them.
"Come here and help me. She's not staying in here."
The two women exchanged perplexed glances but they obeyed. Lexir ignored her. They stood nervously awaiting further instruction. Luru took a deep breath. What she had planned was not going to be pleasant. Certainly she was not going to do it. The loss of facial features or hair was a significant possibility in that scenario. Best if she was merely the bait. She spoke to Daruwinth.
I need your help. There are two women in the room with me, and Lexir. Can you see?
The young dragon attested that she could. Luru wasn't sure if this would work. She half-hoped that she would encounter some resistance from Daruwinth; some jealousy at least. She told her the plan.
I'm not speaking to them!
Luru smiled but insisted.
The women were obviously used to the abstracted expression of a rider in conversation with her dragon. Perhaps they had personal experience of a dragon's voice in their heads because there was the merest flicker of their eyebrows as they received their instructions from the littlest gold in the Weyr. Luru eyed them to make sure they were on board with the plan and they nodded.
Now Daruwinth.
The two weyrwomen strode forward in concert as Luru stepped back. They grasped Lexir under each arm and hauled her up.
The explosion of limbs and hair and fingers as Lexir suddenly raged towards her younger sister caught everyone except Luru off guard. Her handlers struggled to restrain her until Lemba stepped in and pinned both Lexir's arms behind her.
"What's going on?" He hadn't been included in the telepathic strategising.
Luru motioned to the corridor they had entered by.
"Out. Into the Bowl.
"YOU PIECE OF COARSE!"
Everyone in the room besides Luru flinched as Lexir's shriek became a threat to the work of glass-smiths everywhere. Lemba's muscles visibly flexed as he held on to her. Luru moved towards the entrance, and Lemba followed with Lexir as forward seemed to be the direction she wanted to take as well. This continued until they came to the end of the corridor and Lexir seemed to realise that she was being removed from her inner sanctum and not just being facilitated on her murderous path towards her sister. She kicked her feet against the stone wall and tried to wriggle up and out of Lemba's grasp. The weyrwomen assisted Lemba then and helped to direct the explosive force of hair, limbs and teeth in the right direction.
Luru ignored every drop of venom that shot between Lexir's angry, gnashing teeth.
"THIEF! WRETCH! SHE STOLE MY DRAGON, THE LITTLE WHORE! Let me GO! YOU'RE A DRUDGE. YOU DELUSIONAL THIEF. YOU HEAR? SHE STOLE THE GOLD. SHE'S A FRAUD."
The screams echoed throughout the Weyr. They could be heard in the kitchens, the dining cavern, the private weyrs, the living chambers of the weyrfolk. The dragons were murmuring to each other as they heard it first through their riders' ears and then their own as the blaspheming green rider was dragged snarling and raving out into the Bowl.
Luru took stock of the situation in the Bowl. Most of the injured dragons and riders had cleared the area. Only Yalith and a few greens and browns remained, with their crews and attendants. All the weyrlings had departed except Leila, who continued to tend the stricken bronze's tail. The only authority figure was the Weyrling Master, and he was coming towards her with disciplinary intent written all over his grizzled face.
Daruwinth. I need to know where Irith is.
The reply was swift.
Irith is in the dragon's infirmary.
Daruwinth sent a visualisation of the place to her rider. It was a cave directly across the width of Bowl from where they had emerged from the service chambers. The cave's interior had a sandy floor and had two dragons incumbent. The vision must have come from another dragon, as she could not have been there herself. It was all Luru needed to keep going.
She strove forward, brushing past H'nas as he bore down on them. People were gathering around the periphery of the Bowl, whom she likewise ignored, powering forward towards the infirmary.
Lexir suddenly stopped yelling. The silence rippled across the Weyr. The senior queen was descending into the Bowl with Maeli on her neck. Luru came to a respectful halt. She knew that she would need to explain herself. But certainly she was not going to be given what for by the Weyrling Master. She still smarted from his vague dismissal before.
Maeli on her great queen Stayth landed directly in front of Luru. The Weyrwoman dropped down from her seat and walked meaningfully over to Luru. She didn't beat about the bush.
"We've heard from Daruwinth. Now explain yourself."
The protective stance that Stayth had adopted, shielding the infirmary from intrusion, was not coincidental. Maeli meant what was Luru planning on doing next. Daruwinth would have told them everything that had happened, but not even Daruwinth could have told the Weyrleaders what Luru planned to do with Lexir. Luru knew that because she didn't really know herself.
"She needs to be with her dragon," Luru all but whispered. The queen was very intimidating. She was aware of Daruwinth rising in the barracks, anxious for her rider and still quivering from her own late interrogation by the older queen.
There was a loud silence as multiple conversations were relayed between riders and dragons. Maeli's face was temporarily vacant as she assimilated the information she was hearing from many different sides.
Luru tensed as Maeli's eyes refocused and turned hard. She winced as the Weyrwoman began to dress her down.
"You are out of order. Believe me when I tell you that we are more experienced in handling wayward riders than you are." Maeli stopped, indicating that a meek acknowledgement from Luru was in order.
Luru hesitated. Green Irith was in distress and pined for her absent rider. Said rider was about as removed from any experience the Weyrwoman cared to share as any that Luru could imagine. Lexir could not be encouraged. She needed to be forced to do what was best. She had to be made to admit she was wrong. That was what she was trying to do.
Luru hesitated because that's what she wanted to say. What had been said in those silent conveyances between dragons and riders? She might be at risk of cheeking the Weyrwoman unforgivably if she said what she thought. Perhaps the Weyrwoman was merely precluding Luru's argument.
"I believe that you are experienced Weyrwoman." Luru did not take up her earlier invitation to engage with her on a first name basis.
"You have disgraced yourself Luru. This is inappropriate, unfitting behaviour for a young Weyrwoman. You have neglected your own dragon and abused the bond between you. You have abused the rank you hold, a rank that I assure you is entirely incidental."
Luru was badly stung. Aspersions about the validity of her Impression could be shaken off by virtue of the fact that they could be so easily refuted by the truth. Daruwinth had chosen her. But the truth of the matter here was that she had abused her position. She had forced her dragon to do something against her will. She had placed another dragon's needs over her own. It wasn't an interpretation. Those were the basic facts. Luru struggled to see if it were possible that anyone could interpret her intentions as good.
This was the second time.
"Weyrwoman." It was Lemba who spoke up. He still held Lexir tightly.
Maeli turned on the healer sharply.
"Release that rider Lemba and explain yourself."
Lemba obeyed, although not without the quickest glance at Luru. Luru nodded. Lexir slumped and didn't go anywhere. She would be as awkward about her removal from the Bowl as she was about her arrival, Luru was certain.
"I'm waiting Lemba."
The look hadn't been lost on the Weyrwoman. She saw everything. Lemba took a deep breath before beginning.
"Weyrwoman, I have never seen anything like this green rider. She is utterly without feeling for her dragon. By all rights she ought to be at her dragon's side and disconsolate at what is likely to be an imminent period of distress. I feared for her safety. I did what I thought was right for my patient."
There was a pause as the Weyrwoman took in what the healer had said. The pause lengthened as she received further information from dragonkind.
"Yet you neglected your other patient in the infirmary, did you not?"
Lemba took the accusation like a blow to the chest. He actually stepped backward.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Did you not leave a critically injured bronze rider in the infirmary to," the Weyrwoman took a moment to coat her next words with considerable scorn. "To 'attend' to a patient whose condition could hardly be described as critical?"
Lemba was thoroughly taken aback as his actions were thus described. He looked at Luru in panic. The Weyrwoman wasn't finished either.
"In the same breath that you express concern for your patient's welfare I am also stunned to hear your accusation that she is 'utterly without feeling for her dragon' and that you have never seen anything like her." Maeli's shocked expression might have been hyperbole, for dramatic effect, but Luru had to admit that it was difficult to get away from the fact that those words had come from a healer's mouth.
"And to manhandle a patient in the way that half the Weyr has just witnessed in one way or another is something that I struggle to reconcile with my idea of what a healer in Ista Weyr ought to be." Maeli's tone was as cold as the High Reaches.
Lemba began to splutter.
"Weyrwoman, I appeal to you. Please…"
"The Fall is almost over Healer," Maeli said. "I don't believe the Weyr will be able to provide work for a full complement of healers within a Turn. It would be best for you to return to your hall and to your Masters." She eyed his journeyman's knots before turning away from him in dismissal.
"As for you," she said, returning her focus to Luru, who was in shock over what had just taken place. Might she be sent from the Weyr as well?
The keen of the Istan dragons prevented that possibility becoming reality for the time being. Their number had diminished by one.