Post by Ignus on Aug 18, 2008 19:58:17 GMT -5
The Beginning
After Aivas helped prevent the Red Star from making its Passes by Pern, Queen dragons once again began to Clutch smaller and smaller amounts of eggs. One hundred turns into the interval, there was an average of only one hundred dragons in each Weyr, and only one Queen. The dragonriders were still adjusting to not fighting thread, which some had been doing all of their life. Then disaster struck Pern.
A meteor twice the size of the Two-faced Mountain crash-landed on the Southern Continent, leaving a crater that was about 100 miles in diameter, along with the meteor remnants in the middle of it all. The moment it hit, shock waves spread from the point of contact, triggering tidal waves, earthquakes, and most dramatically, volcanic eruptions. All of the Weyrs except Igen and Telgar were destroyed, along with the Harper and Healer Halls, the whole island of Ista were destroyed, along with any Holds or Cots that existed near volcanoes. Ship Meadow and Plateau Hold were once again buried in ash.
When the Weyrs were destroyed, one Queen went between and didn’t return, and another suicided with her rider after losing her Weyrmate upon arriving at Igen. Thus Pern’s seven Queens whittled down to five, and Pern’s dragon population suffered similarly. By this time, there were only six hundred dragons left in Pern.
There was one more repercussion of the meteor crash; one that would not become apparent for another hundred turns. Pern had been knocked back into the path of the Red Star’s dragging Oort matter. Pern would once again be under threat from the dreaded menace of Thread, and this time, it would seem there was no way to escape from even longer, and more deadly Falls.
Five turns before the beginning of the tenth Pass, Pern was in a state of chaos. The original inhabitants had abandoned the South, ravaged by the afteraffects of the eruptions twenty turns after the ones in Pern stopped. Its only visitors were traders collecting its still-superior plant life. They never ventured very far inland on these trips. It had now reclaimed most of the land that that had been settled.
In the North, each of the two remaining Weyrs supported barely two hundred dragons, and each had only two Queens, one Clutching the other near the end of its life. After what came to be known as the Great Destruction, the riders had become lazy and returned to the attitude of the Oldtimers of the ninth pass. The few “idealists” or just plain paranoid riders kept riding sweeps. They were ridiculed by the other riders, but otherwise weren’t bothered.
Then, things went from bad to worse. Two dragonriders, one from the High Reaches and one from Igen, began to argue. The dragonriders began to take sides with their own riders. One side threw a punch, and a full-blown fight broke out. To the Holders, the Weyrs had been tolerable until then, but now, when they were preparing for an all-out war, they were becoming obnoxious. They were recruiting teenagers to be candidates for their growing clutches, and experimenting with the eggs in an effort to have larger, more agile dragons for fighting with. They were not above using underhanded tactics against the other, either. Dragon had yet to fight dragon, but it seemed that this was what it was coming to.
Then, one day, a brownrider of High Reaches came across a clutch of fire lizard eggs. He Impressed the queen. He discovered that when he thought about the South, the Queen would project an image of an immense crater, one that looked like it would make a good Weyr. The picture was clear enough for him to go between and see the place for himself. He brought this experience and a fire lizard egg to the Weyrling Queenrider. When the lizard she Impressed showed her the same image, and after the brutal and disenchanting maiden flight of her Queen, she made the decision to help. It was under her leadership and the help of the fire lizards, she contacted fifty riders to come between and join her at this new Weyr, christened Crater Weyr.
The only person who knew the location of these “rogue” dragonriders was a girl who heard all dragons and who had overheard the draconic conversations about Crater. She was their outside “link” and helped feel out people who were tired of being jerked around by the other riders to come to Crater and the Hold established around the mines that were unearthed. She was also set to the task to recruit new Candidates, for as unpleasant for dragon and rider as the mating was, the Queen was now egg-heavy. The chosen Hatching grounds, the remnants of the meteorite, may have more of an effect on the eggs than anyone could have expected.
The First of a New Generation
Though Crater was small, it managed to gather to its sands a healthy candidate population, and when the day came hot and dry one Summer's evening, twenty-six young dragons entered the world amidst a shocked inhale. The very first egg to hatched emitted a most vivid and gigantic green, who to everyone's surprise, turned out to be male. After a normal green, one of the two largest eggs, a black orb protected by Cymryth as much as the golden egg it rested against, expelled an equally black dragonet that, for all purposes, seemed to be a black queen. More surprises came. Blues that were female, startling purple hatchlings, and even an albino. It would seem the meteor did have some effect on the hatchlings, but as all seemed healthy (if a little unusual), few worried.
The young weyrlings proved an arduous bunch, full of high spirits and clashing temperaments, and an especially keen rivalry between the young gold and black, who both seemed flip flop between being the leader of the clutch - even if it was the black who frayed the most nerves of them all. The morning of their first Betweening lesson, it was the black, Jasmiith, who stepped up to the plate and demanded she be allowed to lead the others into the darkness for the first time. If only to mollify the fiery dragon, the Weyrlingmaster agreed, and the first clutch of Crater rose into the air and as one dissapeared Between.
Harbingers of the Future
The almost immediate, keening shriek from Cymryth alerted the Weyr something had gone wrong, but efforts to discover what were met with mixed signals.
They are here, but they are not here. They are gone, but they live. Most live. I cannot bring them back.
No one knew what to make of the apparently gone, but seemingly alive, weyrlings until, close to fifteen minutes later, an eruption of dragons occured in the sky above Crater. While many were missing, many returned, and leading the army of dragons were two gigantic queens - one of gold, and one of black. The weyrlings had returned, but they had grown. In fifteen minutes of blackness, the survivors of the clutch seemed to have aged by years - both physically and mentally, the group seeming haunted by a secret none would share. Even Cymryth tried to pry the secrets from her own offspring, but protected by their gold and black sisters, the secret remained firmly locked away.
And as the Weyr struggled to come to terms with what happened to the clutch and their riders, another event prepared to unfold. Only a few months after the hatching, and but weeks after the return of the weyrlings, the senior queen began to glow once more. Surely, she couldn't rise so soon? And what would the reaction be from her daughters, both apparently grown and healthy?
The Weyr found out, and the outcome of their fears was cold, hard reality. Though Astisaryth was safely sent from the Weyr, Jasmiith could not be moved, and when Cymryth took to the skies so did the black. As Astisaryth fought her way and returned to the Weyr in tormoil, the senior queen and her raging daughter battled in the skies, and in a lighting fast and brutal clash, Jasmiith threw down the old queen, and as Cymryth blinked Between forever, an old and canny bronze named Colseth captured her, making his startled and mourning rider, K'tor, Weyrleader at a rather uncomfortable time and age. Since then, the previously-ready-to-retire rider hasn't been seen except during the few meetings of the wings, leaving a shocked and young Sari in charge of the Weyr. Can she succeed with a Weyrleader who'd rather be on watch duty? And what will happen to the odd and eclectic bunch of eggs on the sand, when the Weyr regards their mother as both a raving beast and a freak?