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Post by Lynn on Aug 23, 2014 22:19:43 GMT
It was quiet now, a week after everything had happened, and the Aries sat in its self made crater, surrounded by soil, by bits of debris and wiring. Nearby were 21 crosses, each one carved with a name of one who had been lost. In front of some of them were the graves for those they had managed to recover after things had stopped, but there painfully few, only 7. Standing in front of the Aries, Kaira was silent, tears flowing freely down her cheeks, mourning those lost, lives ended before their time, due to a truly ODD fluke of nature. Since coming here, she feared she was going mad, was hearing things, conversations that made no sense to her, and were usually one sided. In desperation, more to make sure she'd not received a concussion herself, she'd gone to Weirek, the MasterHealer in charge of those who had responded. After she'd explained what was going on, he'd advised her to seek out Gerith's rider, Hyra, to get an answer to her question.
That alone told her he probably knew what was going on, but it also told her he felt it was a Dragonrider thing, and not his place. She had yet to go to the Pearlrider and ask for help, and so, even as she stood there mourning, she could hear quiet, one-sided conversations. Shaking her head, she sighed, trying to block out the noise and only partially succeeding. Especially as one conversation grew MUCH louder, two voices she recognized and had come to associate with Gerith and Aketh for some reason.
NO! I will not let you take them! They live, I tell you!
Aketh, really. You know better. I know it is your first, but they should have Hatched MONTHS ago.
Gerith. Mother. PLEASE. Just a little more time. I swear to you they live!
A soft, mental sigh shimmered through Kaira's consciousness, and she heard Gerith agree to one month more for whatever these mysterious items that should have Hatched were. She could only wonder. Again, she shook her head and looked to the Aries, just standing and praying for the souls of those lost.
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Post by summerrain on Aug 23, 2014 22:58:10 GMT
Eternity was kneeling in front of one of the crosses, a small bouquet of flowers on the ground in front of her. The little puppy that she'd found mere days ago was already starting to look better. Her body was starting to fill out again, and her fur was free of matting. The shine in little Lucy's eyes had returned too. Lucy was certainly helping Eternity overcome the depression that had filled her heart upon finding her sister's body.
"Siren, you would've loved this place," Eternity muttered softly, using the nickname she'd made for her older sister when she'd been a little girl. "Those books you told me about, they're not completely true... These dragons, they're not the same colors as the books say. The green ones are called Emerald, and though they're the lowest ranking dragon, the Emeralds are really nice. There are so many colors, they're all so pretty..." Her voice shook, and she wiped tears from her cheeks.
She knew Kaira was there, but she didn't really care too much. Until she heard what sounded like a loud roar. She winced and stood, making sure to be careful of her wounded leg. She walked over to the instructor. "I wonder what they're arguing about?" she wondered aloud. Lucy whined and pawed at Eternity's leg, so she bent down and picked the little puppy up. "Oh, hush now you," she said quietly. She looked back up at the instructor. "You know, there's one more thing in the books that hasn't made itself known up to now... With as many people on Earth as we have, I'm surprised that no one in our group has mentioned being able to hear the voices of the dragons. It was a rare thing in the books, I think only a few characters were ever able to do it..." She went quiet, a thoughtful look on her face as she rubbed Lucy's head. Her face was still red from the tears she shed for her sister, but her eyes were dry. For the moment at least.
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Post by Lynn on Aug 23, 2014 23:08:32 GMT
Kaira winced as she heard the roar, knowing it was associated with the Queens' argument. The Queens... That was what they were known as, the Pearls, the mothers of their species and leaders of their homes. When she'd asked who the King was, Hyra had smiled and told her that, for now, it was Norieth's rider. That had made Kaira blink, and Lin-who'd been standing behind Hyra-had explained that there was no one King. The male who could Fly the Seniormost Queen was the Leading male until she Flew again. Kaira had taken them at their word, accepting it as their lifestyle. Not one she'd want for herself, maybe, but who was she to argue with their accepted way?
"Gerith wants to take something of Aketh's, and our little blue Pearl is begging her not to, swearing that whatever IT is, it lives." She said it without really considering what it could mean, at least not until Eternity's next words. Blinking, she froze, her brain finally catching up, putting what she'd been hearing together with what the girl had just said. Looking down at Eternity, she cocked her head slightly. "The voices of the dragons?" she asked, her voice uncertain. "ALL of them?"
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Post by summerrain on Aug 23, 2014 23:20:36 GMT
"Yeah," Eternity said. "The fandom calls them HADs, Hear All Dragons," she explained. "It's not a normal thing, most people can only hear a dragon's voice when the dragon wills itself to talk to them. A dragon's Rider is the only one that knows all of a dragon's thoughts." She didn't pick up on the tone of the woman's voice. "Hm... Something of Aketh's, that she's insisting still lives..." She gazed off into the distance, then blinked and looked down at the ground.
"You know what... We might've just... But, no, that's absurd..." She was talking more to herself now than anyone else, and she let out a wordless cry of surprise when Lucy jumped from her arms. The puppy ran to a spot a few metres away and started digging. "Lucy, stop it!" Eternity said sternly. The puppy looked up, startled, and the girl scooped her up. "I guess that's as good a confirmation as any... Hm... Actually, now that I think about it, the ones in the books ended up becoming Weyrwomen eventually..." She walked back to Kaira's side. "You know, I think we just happened upon something really extraordinary... And, we're going to be in trouble if we get too much closer... Especially if I'm right..."
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Post by Lynn on Aug 24, 2014 0:47:21 GMT
HADs? Kaira turned her gaze towards the sea cliffs, visible through the path of destruction the Aries had wreaked on the forest at the top of them. Did they know? she wondered. The dragons? She recalled the Sapphire's words the day of the crash, when he'd looked at her rather intently and told his rider she has what it takes. His words had obviously surprised his rider, who had then proceeded to watch Kaira more closely, making her uncomfortable. She didn't think the dragon knew she could hear him, nor did any of the others, but it made sense now. All the one sided conversations, the voices in her mind. Dragons, speaking to others and to their riders...
"These... Hear-All Dragons. Were they a problem, in the books?" she asked uneasily, not really paying attention to Eternity's mutterings, more concerned with whether she would be seen as an issue to this people or not.
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Post by summerrain on Aug 24, 2014 0:55:21 GMT
"Hm? Oh, not really," Eternity said. "In fact, it was usually quite the opposite. In Dragonflight, Lessa figured out how to between through time and bring five Weyrs a over a hundred years into the future. Because of the one girl who could hear the minds of each and every dragon within range, Pern was saved from a disastrous Threadfall Pass. One girl single-handedly saved an entire planet. Though, there's quite a bit of debate within the fandom as to whether Lessa was a good character, or if she was too perfect. Personally, I believe her biggest weakness was her lust for revenge. But that's beside the point."
She walked over to the cliffs, getting down to her knees and looking down over the edge, at the rocks below. Had her mind been completely focused on the words of her instructor, she might have noticed the woman's nervousness. But, she had other things on her mind, and she wanted to figure out if she was right.
"If I'm right... And I could be off quite a bit, just as easily as I could be spot on... We might've just stumbled upon something incredible," she said, standing up and walking back to Kaira. "Miss Kaira, you're sure it was about something that hadn't Hatched yet, right?" she asked, making sure. "Can you tell me what was said? I'm pretty sure I know what it's about..."
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Post by Lynn on Aug 24, 2014 1:14:26 GMT
She listened to her intently, her gaze concerned, although that emotion faded as Eternity continued to speak. Okay, so not a BAD thing, then. Just kind of annoying, she thought. "Are the dragons aware when these... HADs are around?" she asked, more curious now than worried.
As the girl questioned her, she blinked. "Uh... Aketh was asking for more time, swearing that whatever it was, it was alive. Gerith told her it should have hatched months ago, but agreed to give it a month more after Aketh begged her to..." she said, her tone VERY confused, but willing to try and follow Eternity's lead and learn from the girl. She'd never read the books that several of the children kept referring to, so had no idea what they were going on about when they mentioned something not being the same.
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Post by summerrain on Aug 24, 2014 1:29:02 GMT
"Well, it's not like HADs give off any special aura," Eternity said, waving her hand dismissively and holding onto the makeshift leash for the puppy that jumped to the ground again. "The only real difference is that an HAD can talk mentally to any dragon, not just their own." Kaira told her what she'd overheard, and a huge grin broke out over Eternity's face. One of the few she'd shown since the death of her sister.
"I knew it! Aketh's that Queen dragon that called the others to us, right? And Gerith is that one Amethyst that called for the healers..." Her blue eyes were alight with excitement. "There's only one explanation for this! Aketh's got a Clutch of eggs, and they're late Hatching." Her face darkened again, but with confusion this time. "But... For a Queen's whole Clutch to be full of dud eggs... It's so strange... Just like that damned black hole that brought us here... No, wyrmhole, not black hole. But still. Strange... I wonder if it's related somehow?" She looked back over at the cliffs. "That would explain why she was so quick to react when we crashed here... She's probably hiding her eggs in one of the caves in the cliff-face because the time for them to Hatch came and went... It's debated as to what happens to dud eggs, but most people believe that they get dropped between and are lost forever. But if it's her entire Clutch, it's no wonder why she's protesting so much..."
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Post by Lynn on Aug 24, 2014 1:41:54 GMT
"Gerith's the black Pearl, actually. She's apparently Aketh's mother too." She listened to the rest of her spiel and frowned slightly. "But, wouldn't having her entire clutch out here, by the sea, with the dangers of the tides and those blasted tunnel snake things, be a bad idea?" she asked, her tone retaining its confusion. She'd also heard about this thing called Thread, but wasn't sure how fabric strings could be so deadly that an entire species had had to be up-sized to counter it. She'd been assured that it wouldn't be around for awhile yet anyways by several of the riders, so had put it from her mind.
Looking over the sea, quiet and sparkling mildly in the light coming down off the sun-no, off Rukbat, she reminded herself-she frowned. How could a single Queen, even one as resourceful as Aketh had shown herself to be, protect her babies out here, without assistance from her fellows?
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Post by summerrain on Aug 24, 2014 2:03:26 GMT
"Ah, whoops. I haven't gotten all their names yet, there's just so many of them," the girl admitted. "And, well, I'm sure she's got help from her Rider, and it seems that every Rider has at least one firelizard they're bonded to. And I know a few of them have normal pets too," she added, looking down at Lucy for emphasis. "Tunnel snakes aren't really the smartest of beasts, and none of them get big enough to take even the smallest of real dragon eggs alone. At least, not that I know of. They're... A lot like moles, but more serpentine. And no one likes to dig through solid rock, which is basically what those caves are made out of." She thought for a moment about the tide.
"If the cavern she chose is as high as I think it is, I doubt the tides will reach it unless a really bad storm hits. A storm of that magnitude would probably force the evacuation of the entire Weyr and the Seahold nearby." She looked out at the horizon. "And, well, Queens are pretty resourceful when they need to be. I'm sure Aketh and her rider have thought about all the issues that might come up. After all, a Queen running away with an entire Clutch of eggs is practically unheard of. Just like an entire Clutch of dud eggs from a Queen. Now, a low ranked dragon like the Greens in the books, or the Emeralds in this world, I could understand. That's actually a suspected part of why they're sterilized with Firestone. Too many dud eggs. And, well, there's so many that a Weyr could quickly get overrun with baby dragons." She blinked.
"Ah, jeez, I'm rambling..." she muttered, blushing slightly. "I don't usually talk like this... But..." Her eyes darkened again. "Maybe it's because I'm not used to being alone... Siren was always there..." She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. The puppy helped distract her, but she still felt the pain. She took a breath and opened her eyes. "It's going to take a long time for this to just be a memory... Isn't it...?" she asked quietly, her voice almost begging for the pain in her heart to go away. She was still trying to get used to the fact that her sister wasn't going to be there anymore. She went to her room just after finding the puppy and spoke her sister's name, only to be hit with the cold truth... Her sister would never smile at her again. "Do... Do you think we're ever going to be able to go back to Earth...?"
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Post by Lynn on Aug 24, 2014 2:15:51 GMT
She was perfectly content to listen to her, learn from what she was being told, and when the girl blushed and apologized for rambling, she gave her a soothing smile. "It's alright. I'm not the instructor here anymmore. You know far more about this place than I do, for sure. I'm more than content to learn from you," she reassured her. When she continued, speaking of her sister, she gently put her arm around her shoulders and hugged her briefly, not wishing to make her uncomfortable. She waited as she continued, and when questioned her, hazel gaze darkened, and she looked over the ocean once more.
"I'm not sure, Eternity," she said quietly. "But it might be best to go with the assumption we will not. The only way we could, to my understanding, would be with a ship, and we have no idea how far Earth is from here, or if we're even in the same timeline anymore. Several of the others have stated we have to have time skipped, since Pern is supposed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the future..."
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Post by summerrain on Aug 24, 2014 2:31:39 GMT
Eternity nodded and looked at the ground. Lucy looked up and began to whine quietly. Then Eternity perked up slightly. "Wait... I know this isn't the most practical of solutions, but... In the books the dragons could between through time and space... A teleportation type deal. Maybe, if we wait a few years, we can get our dragons to take us back to Earth! But... Would we want to leave when the time came...?" she wondered, muttering under her breath. She sighed and shook her head. "There'd still be the problem of if the dragons would be able to survive in Earth's atmosphere... I don't know about you, but I can feel it. There's just that much of a difference between the atmosphere on Earth and this world. If humans are affected, the dragons definitely will be..." She groaned. "Jeez, thinking about this is just making my head hurt," she muttered.
"Honestly, if there is a Clutch of eggs, then that'll at least give us a reason to stay here, beyond having no way of getting back to Earth," Eternity said, changing the topic on purpose. "We'll have something that ties us to the people who were born here. And, maybe, eventually, there won't be a difference... If... If we really are stuck here, then I'd like to get to know the people here." She smiled. "After all, life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not."
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Post by Lynn on Aug 24, 2014 2:44:41 GMT
One dark brow-more brown than red-quirked as Eternity spoke of the teleportation ability of the dragons, and she opened her mouth to speak, but the girl essentially answered herself, so she closed it again. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as Eternity worked out her own thought process without guidance, and she decided to just wait until the girl was done.
Once it became clear she was, she cocked her head slightly, toying with the end of her braid. "Well, the very first thing, of course, is how would we know if one of those dragons is meant for us?" She chose to start with that due to Eternity doing exactly that. "As I understand it, there's a special process that needs to be followed, a... Pattern, of sorts. Starting with us being chosen to... What was it... Stand? For these hatchlings." She shrugged. "Now, I don't know about you, but I have no idea how this choice is made."
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Post by summerrain on Aug 24, 2014 3:13:11 GMT
"If the dragon is yours? Oh, that's the easy part," Eternity said with a laugh. "There's a mental connection, and I've read that it's almost like there's suddenly a part of yourself there that you didn't know was missing. It's supposed to be a really personal thing, getting chosen by your dragon... And, I've heard it's never the same for anyone because each dragon is different. But it might be a while before some of us can Stand. That boy with the punctured lung will probably be restricted from Standing for a few years at least. Oh, I guess the word here is Turns... But it's the same idea." She stopped talking for a moment, thinking.
"You know, we should have a meeting with all the survivors of the crash... It's dangerous enough just Standing for a Hatching. Candidates can easily die by being mauled by a Hatchling that panics before it finds its Mine... And then there's the two Turns of training. You never know what will happen, especially on the first flight... It's really dangerous, the path of becoming a Rider," she told Kaira. "Not everyone's fit for it. There's other stuff for the people who don't want to risk their lives. But, a dragon can't survive without a Rider..." She looked down at the ground again.
"Dragons can't survive without their Rider, but Riders are physically able of surviving the death of their dragon... A few have done it before... But it's rare for them to want to live without their dragon. Living without EVER knowing that bond is one thing, but trying to go on once that bond has been permanently severed is entirely another..."
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Post by Lynn on Aug 24, 2014 4:08:48 GMT
A part of herself that was missing and she didn't know it? Kaira found this hard to believe, but she didn't naysay the girl. She knew what she was talking about after all, whereas Kaira had no idea. When she mentioned having a meeting, the doctor nodded and rose to her feet, so she could see further over the ocean. There was no trace of anything, though she recalled seeing an island that hadn't appeared too far from land when she was looking at it through the window of the Aries. Granted she'd been looking at a window wreathed in flames, but still.
As Eternity finished what she was saying, Kaira looked down at her, a frown touching her lips. She was right, of course. Little Jason likely wouldn't be able to take any kind of trauma for quite some time without risk to that lung and rib, and she cringed as she thought of ANY of these children having to suffer even more, just to be one of these riders. "I'm sure they have their own teachers," she said quietly. "Those who can instruct our people about this sort of thing..."
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