Only You

Elori scrambled into the weyr and hid behind the opening. Since the kindly farmer had put her down at the gates of Benden, she had hidden around corners, ducked into unused rooms, and managed to avoid meeting anyone. Footsteps clattered on the ground outside, but mercifully they passed by and the sound faded. It was dark inside the room, hewn out from the rock. One small basket of glows showed something dark, brown, infinitely large, and breathing. Until her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she was aware of the scent of something warm, leathery and oddly, sweet. You are here at last, a warm voice spoke, and it took a few minutes for Elori’s heart to stop banging in her chest before she realised that the voice had come from inside her own head, as it had done for the all the years she could remember.
“Where are you?” she said.
I am here, in front of you, the voice replied, and now she could see him. He lifted his massive head, his eyes whirling in a kaleidoscope of gold and brown. He was a rich, chestnut brown and almost as large as a bronze. A handsome beast, though scarred from many battles with thread. Elori stepped closer, under the light of the glow basket. Her feet were rooted to the spot when she saw the huge dragon, looking right at her, and yet, she did not feel afraid of him.
Of course you do not, the voice said, You know me and I know you. He added a rumble and Elori “heard” it as laughter. “What is this place?” she said, looking around at the room, with its smooth walls. What could have carved something out like that?
It is a disused weyr, the dragon said. It is quiet. “Don’t you want to be up there, where the riders live?”
It is quiet, he repeated firmly.

      Elori slowly walked up to the creature. She had watched dragons flying in the skies over the hold as they left the High Reaches Weyr, but had never encountered one so close. In her childhood, when this voice had spoken to her in her mind, it had never shown itself to her, so why now?
Because I could not. Because you needed to hear me and now it is time that you knew me, the dragon said. I am Varenth, but you have always known me as Vary, and I know that you are Elori.
“I’ve run away from my family.” Elori said flatly. She sat down beside Varenth, surprised at herself that she felt no fear of the huge beast. The endlessly long journey away from the hold near High Reaches and the horrors she had escaped, eclipsed a mere brown dragon.
I did not know why you wished to leave your home, that was not my concern. I merely aided you in your escape.
“My father wanted me to marry an old man, who had got through five wives already, and had lots of children.”
And you did not want to marry an old man? Varenth asked. Age is immaterial, my own rider is a very old man, but he still fights Thread.
“It wasn't his age that was against him. It was because he was of my father’s mind, and believed that women should be obedient and kept hidden away, and worse.” Worse than the average holder’s women endured, certainly.
So what do you want?
Elori had thought about this very subject at odd moments during her long journey to Bendon Weyr, but this dragon was the only one who had ever asked her that question. “If I have to marry anyone, and I don’t suppose I will, I’d want someone who would be kind and wouldn’t want to stop me from, from… living.”
That rumbling laughter again, and his eyes whirled. He raised his head and listened.
Quickly friend Elori, he said, hide behind me, on the other side. My rider approaches, but it is not yet the right time.
Elori scrambled to her feet and raced around Varenth to the side of him that was shielded from the glow basket. She sat down in the straw, protected by the darkness and the big dragon. Right time for what? She marvelled at how easily she had accepted that the voice that had spoken to her, guided her for most of her life, had come from a dragon.

      A man staggered into the dark weyre. From Varenth’s description, Elori had expected to see someone quite elderly. She could barely see him in the darkness, but this man could not be described as old. Middle aged perhaps, but not old, easily younger than her father.
“Where are you Var, you old bag of bones?” the brown rider said, slurring every other word. “Can’t see you hiding away in here. What y’doing? You were talking to someone.” He was carrying a plate of bread and cheese and a mug of klah, which he placed with exaggerated care on the ground, before slumping down into the straw beside Varenth. It took him a few minutes to fold his long legs comfortably and then he leaned up against the dragon. It was obvious that he was drunk. The smell of sour wine filled the space of the weyr. Elori held her breath, from the other side.
He will not harm you.
“Who do you mean?” the drunk man said, “I’d like to see anyone try, I’d punch him Between. D’you mean that stupid bronze rider I had a row with tonight? I swear, if he doesn’t shut his flapping mouth about Oldtimers, I really will punch his head.”
      Elori only just managed to stifle a laugh, and Varenth chose that moment to “huff”. Really, this tall, drunk man was no different from her brothers. Then he did something that showed how very different that he was, from her brothers. He began suddenly to weep. Ugly, sobbing, completely broken, and heart-wrenching. Elori had to fight against her own instincts not to run round and hug him. She knew that sound, she had made it herself, more than once. Grief and loss, and desperate loneliness that would never end. Her face was wet, she was crying in sympathy, but held her hands over her mouth to keep it in. She knew that he would not be pleased to know that his grief had been witnessed, even by a stranger. She leaned into Varenth and waited.
      Eventually he calmed and rinsed his face in a bowl of water, presumably that had been meant for Varenth to drink.
“Sorry Var,” he said. His voice had that ragged, beaten and exhausted tone that only comes after a violent bout of weeping. “It just got to me tonight. Too much wine, again. Don’t let me drink that much.” He sighed heavily. “We left a lot behind when we came Forward with T’Ron, didn’t we old friend. Why did we do it? We’ve done the job, Pern is saved, but none of us fit into this world now. My family’ve gone, hundreds of turns ago, and none of them knew where I went. Most of us are dead, gone Between, or exiled. Why didn’t we just go back? We could have done it, jumped back and landed a few years after we left.”
It would have killed you, Varenth said.
“Would that have been so bad?”
You would have been missed from this time. Perhaps not now, but in time yet to come.
“You’re always talking about the future, but I’ve no idea what you’re on about Var. But I’ll have to believe you I suppose. All right, I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll wait, for one turn. If nothing changes I’ll decide what to do then. Good night, you old boney creature.”
Good night R’vell. I hope that your dreams are pleasant ones.

      After R’vell had left the weyr, Elori stood up to go, but Varenth stopped her.
Wait for a few minutes, he said. You are hungry, eat the food he has left.
She got up and walked round to stand in front of the big brown’s head. Yes, she was very hungry. She all but inhaled the bread and cheese. The klah was cold, but very welcome.
You understand? Varenth said. You are needed. This was why I urged you to leave your hold. This was why I drove you on and would not allow you to rest until you were here at last.
“Me?” Elori squeaked, ignoring the dragon’s smug and frankly arrogant statement. “What could I do? I’m holdless and unless I can persuade the headwoman to let me work here, I am nothing. And he is a dragon rider. What could I do to help him?”
The headwoman will employ you, I will make sure of that.
Elori looked down at her gown; an old, much worn thing, patched and faded blue. She had stolen it from some washing line, somewhere, to replace hers when its shabbiness attracted the wrong attention. Would a headwoman want to employ someone so ragged?
      There was silence for a few minutes. Elori could not hear what was being said, but she had the impression of dragons talking round to other dragons; a heavy pressure inside her head.
It is done. Present yourself at the kitchens this evening. And in return, will you help me?
Elori tipped the bowl of water out and refilled it from a large bucket by the door.
“I’ll try,” she said, “I can’t say more than that. I don’t really understand what you want me to do, but I’ll try.”
Varenth nodded. You heard what he said? He is lonely for his lost family and friends.
“I could try to be a friend to him. Goodness knows, I could do with a friend myself, apart from you of course Vary.”
And there is this to say for you: you were not here when the Oldtimers caused trouble. You have no prejudices.
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said slowly. “All right, as I said, I’ll try.”
Elori looked at him, considering the bargain, and left the weyr.
And if you help R’vell, you will also help yourself, Varenth said, but this time he kept his thoughts to himself.

Elori decided to begin her mission right away and not wait for the morning. Strike while the hatching sands are hot, she told herself, her mother’s favourite saying. Manora had been surprisingly easy to win over, despite the late hour. The Weyr’s headwoman had looked Elori up and down, taken note of every patch and darn ion the girl’s dress.
"Well, you can obviously use a needle," she said. Manora’s tone was stern, even forbidding, but Elori refused to be cowed. She stood straight, head held high. Manora had nodded, and with Elori following her, led her to a small, unused sleeping room.
"This is yours," Manora said. "Keep it clean and swept. Are you hungry?"
Elori shook her head. R’vell’s forgotten supper had been more than enough for her.
Manora huffed. "Never knew a drudge who wasn’t hungry," she said. Elori winced; a drudge was what she was now. Wellaway, in the hold she had been born in, every woman was a drudge, even her own mother, the holder’s wife.
"The kitchens and dining hall are open all day and night. So if you are hungry, help yourself. You wouldn’t be the only one. Those riders would eat twice as much as their beasts."
Manora had left her to settle in and make what she could of the rest of the night. From experience, Elori knew she would have to waken at sunrise and be ready to work.
      The room was tiny, with a wooden bedframe, a closet covered by a faded curtain, a chair with a broken leg and a small table under the tiny window. At least there was a window. The walls were smooth, she wondered how they had been cut out of the solid rock. Vary’s weyr was rough-hwen. She undressed and washed in a bowl of cold water that had been thoughtfully left on the table. The bed was comfortable, given that she had slept on the bare ground most nights in the past month. She lay for a while, thinking about R’Vell. Despite the big dragon’s assurances, she was not sure she could do anything, though his weeping had touched her. What could she, a drudge, do to help a dragonrider? Then she remembered the times when Vary had helped her, and how he had guided her through every step of her journey. He had never let her down, and now it was up to her. Elori turned onto her side and snuggled into the pillow. Tomorrow could look after itself.

      Just as the sun was rising, there was a knock at the door of the little room. Elori wrapped a blanket around herself and cautiously opened the door. A young girl stood there, holding a pile of clothes that almost swamped her.
"Manora says you’re to have these," she said curiously, looking round Elori into the room. Elori took them. She had been wondering what to do about having only one dress and one set of underthings to her name. Elori took them and smiled her thanks, and the girl raced away.
      There were three dresses in the pile. All a little faded in places, but none of them had needed to be patched. Three sets of underwear completed Manora’s kind gift. Elori thought how nice it would be to put on clean, well-pressed clothes, instead of wearing crumpled, rough-dried things that had been rinsed in a river, and were fit for nothing but the rag bag. Well, the sun was rising higher and it time to go to work. She put on a pair of underthings and a breast band, and laughed at herself, having three dresses to chose from. She picked out a pale green dress. That one had no pattern, and she thought it would be better to be as plain as possible on her first day working in Benden’s kitchens. Stockings and shoes had been included in Manora’s gift, and Elori was ready.
      Despite having been so tired, she remembered the way from the sleeping rooms to the kitchens. The kitchen cavern was well-named, being vastly larger than the one in the hold. There, a child’s main worry was keeping out from under the feet of mother and the other women. Here, there was plenty of space. Four children were at work, peeling tubers. All boys, one or two with bruises. A female drudge nudged Elori.
"They’re weyrlings," she said. "Silly brats were caught fighting. So they have to peel tubers until Manora says. One less job for us," she laughed as she walked away.
      Elori looked around. Klah was brewing on one fire, so she wasn’t needed there. All the fires were being seen to, slices of salt meat and vast quantities of eggs were frying, and one boy was stirring a cauldron of porrige. A tap on her shoulder, made her swing round. Manora smiled at her.
"You’ll need to be quicker tomorrow morning, but you have some leeway for the your first day. You’re not really needed here for now, but you could make yourself useful serving in the weyrhall. Some hungry dragonriders have turned up already, demanding their food." She sighed. "I swear they all think they have to eat to fill their dragons’ bellies as well as their own." She gently pushed Elori in the direction of the doors into the weyrhall.
The weyrhall was as large again as the kitchens, with rows of wooden tables and benches. A large kettle of fresh klah was keeping hot on one of the hearths and three dragonriders were serving themselves. One of them grinned as Elori approached.
"At last," he crowed, "we won’t starve after all lads."
Elori smiled, they were no more intimidating than her older brothers, being around her own age, or a little older. The crowing boy was tow-headed and blonde, and towered above his friends, though he was a skinny chap. He reminded Elori of her closest brother, Jake.
"Go and sit down," she said, "I’ll bring you some klah and bread. If you’ll be a little patient, the food is almost all cooked."
They clattered to the nearest bench, acting like the silly young lads they were, just out of weyrling training and full of their own importance. Elori brought them a tray loaded with three cups of klah and plate of buttered bread slices.
"That should keep you going for a few minutes," she said, laughing, as one of them tugged at her gown like a small boy.
"Please miss," he said, affecting a lisp, "may we have some more?"
Elori laughed. "Are you putting some by for your dragons?" she said. "I’m sure they would prefer to eat wherries."
Manora come into the weyrhall, followed by several drudges, who all carried pans and pots of food. She looked at Elori and smiled approvingly, who laughed as the boys scrambled out of their seats and run to the food.
      A few more people had come into the hall, and Elori noticed that R’vell was one of them, though he sat alone at a bench at the furthest side. He kept his head down, and Elori thought that seemed like a practised move. Out of sight, out of mind. Exactly so, Vary replied to her thought. Please begin what I have asked of you.
She took a tray and put a small pot of klah, a cup, and a plate, which she loaded with fried eggs and sliced meat. Adding a slice of bread, she carried it carefully to the back of the hall. R’Vell barely looked up as she put the tray down on his table.
"I'm, not hungry," he muttered.
"You’re on patrol today," Elori said quietly, having asked a weyrling who checked the roster for her. "If you don’t eat, you’ll faint and fall off your dragon, and I don’t think he’d like that at all. So eat what you can and don’t argue." She had decided that a friendly but firm approach was best. Just as she had persuaded Jake to eat after yet another beating he had received from their father. R’vell looked up at her, puzzled, but he began to eat. She smiled and patted his hand.
"Good boy," she said, and then losing her nerve, she walked as fast as she could to the hearths. Perhaps she had gone a little too far in treating him like her brother, but when she dared to look back for a moment, he had cleared his plate and was drinking the klah.
      That was the pattern of the next few sevendays. She was aware of Varenth’s rider, in the halls, and sometimes she saw him lounging by the training grounds, watching the weyrlings. In the crowded weyrhall, while riders and cavern dwellers sat in groups, enjoying communal meals, R'vell preferred to sit alone, in shadows near the fire. Perhaps, Elori thought, he was like her, joining in the day-to-day life of the weyr, but not part of it, aware that she was generally avoided by the kitchen staff. R'vell was the only Oldtimer left in Benden Weyr. He was different enough from the crowd that he had become a touchstone to Elori. If R’vell was in the hall, then Varenth would not be far away. She had honestly tried, she told herself. Quietly placing a jug of klah within his reach, when he sat in the weyrhall. Or always wishing him a "good day" if she walked past him. Trying to engage him in conversation was a wearying battle. He barely glanced at her and replied with only the occasional grunt. There were days when she despaired of ever keeping her promise to the brown dragon. Days when R’vell preferred to hold on to a cup of wine or ale. Sinking deeper into a mire of his own making. He never seemed to notice her, while she, to her embarrassment, realised that despite him ignoring her best efforts, being painfully aware of his loneliness matching with hers, she had moved past sympathy and was falling in love with him, one tiny piece of her heart at a time. And it was all the fault of a big, manipulative, brown dragon.

      Elori leaned against Varenth’s front left leg and sighed. After the rotten day she had had, it was heavenly to take her troubles to her friend in his weyr and know that he would listen, unconditionally. The night was quiet. Most of the dragon riders and the women of the caverns were celebrating someone’s birthday in the weyrhall. The big doors of the hall banged and slammed as people wandered in and out. The kitchen workers were being kept busy, and Elori knew she should have been there instead of hiding beside the big dragon in his weyr. But no one would miss her, and surely Manora would understand. No one particularly wanted to get to know her, the way she would cock her head to one side and smile, as though she listened to distant voices. Worse, she answered the voices. If asked, she could have told them that it was only one voice.

      "You haven’t told any of what I’ve said to R'vell, have you?" she asked anxiously. Elori was just a little nervous of R'vell, despite having seen him at his worst ebb. Dragon riders were notoriously possessive of their dragons, and she wondered what he would think of her if he knew that she, a lowly kitchen worker, could hear every word in Varenth’s mind.
Would it matter if I had? Varenth said, and Elori winced at his amused tone. Knowing that he was equally aware of her thoughts, she struggled to hide how she felt about R'vell. She thought of a day, last sevenday, when she had been sent near the lake on some errand or other, where the weyrlings and older riders bathed their dragonets. She had stood, transfixed, watching, while R'vell scrubbed at Varenth’s brown hide. He was beautiful; tall and slender, with greying hair, a short grey beard, muscular, and wearing only a pair of thin trews that were practically transparent. The puzzled touch of Varenth’s mind on hers made Elori had realise that she was staring, and she had turned away quickly.
      Varenth shifted and rumbled until he was sitting. He nudged her. She smiled, and lay down against him, the one place in Benden Weyr where she always felt safe. It was a cloudless and chilly night despite being summer, so Varenth gently covered his friend with a wing. Her breathing deepened and slowed as she sank into sleep. Varenth hoped her dreams would be pleasant, then he laid his giant head down and waited for his rider to obey his dragon’s summons.

      R'vell stood, hands on hips, looking at the charming scene.
"Is she your girlfriend?" he said quietly, grinning. Varenth gently rumbled. The girl sighed and shifted to her right side.
Don’t wake her up, Varenth said.
"Don’t think I’d dare," R'vell said. He hunkered down, leaning against Varenth. His dragon’s companion was a girl, not tall and not exactly a beauty, though her features were delicate. Light brown hair, nondescript, not someone who would attract a second look, or even a third, and in a moment he revised his opinion, realising he knew who she was. Called him a "good boy", didn’t she? He grinned, remembering. He hadn’t been anyone’s good anything for many turns. There had to be something intangible about the girl that made a brown dragon allow her to fall asleep next to him. He leaned forward for a closer look. The girl’s left eye was surrounded by a dark bruise, and a sleeve of her gown was torn, finger mark bruises on her arm showed through the tear.
"What happened to her," R'vell said.
A young rider just out of training who had far too much wine thought she was fair game. She hit him with a pan to show him how wrong he was, and he hit her with his fist. Varenth’s tone was disgusted and R'vell could not blame him.
"And she came to you?"
She always does. She is my friend. Her name is Elori.
How on Pern had he not known that? R'vell thought, and Varenth answered him with a snort. Dragons rarely spoke of other humans by name, so there had to be something about this girl to have befriended the oldest dragon in the Weyr.
"You’ll be telling me next that she can Hear you?" R'vell said.
She does, and I hear her.
Curiouser and curiouser.

      "She can’t stay there all night. I know I’ve slept here leaning up against you like that a time or two, but it can’t be comfortable for little girls and kitchen drudges."
She is not a little girl, Varenth said with an acerbic touch. I do not bother myself with children any more. And Elori is not a drudge. She merely works in the kitchens.
"Well all right, I won’t argue with you Var, but she still can’t stay here. Manora might be looking for her. I’d better wake her up."
Then do it gently.
So, wake up a sleeping girl; sorry, woman, without frightening her or upsetting one very large dragon who had decided to turn maternal and protective. R'vell sat down on the ground to consider the problem. Only to find it solved for him when Elori opened her eyes.
"Hello," she said, half asleep. She sat up, stretching and yawning. R'vell noticed that she seemed to avoid looking directly at him. Perhaps she just needed a little time to explain why she had gone to sleep on his dragon. Was she afraid of him? Not possible, not with big Varenth beside her. He sensed some kind of exchange going on between his dragon and the girl. She nodded, and then turned to look at R'vell.
"What hour is it?" she said.
Not too late. I do not think you have been missed, Varenth answered her.
"Do you usually go to sleep with dragons?" R'vell said.
"No, just Vary."
      Vary; so the big flitterby had a nickname. Dragons were routinely given shortened forms of their names, but only from their riders. The non-Impressed were rarely close enough to any dragon to want to give them affectionate names.
A night-bird flew into the weyr through the open door and landed on Varenth’s back. The dragon whiffled gently, but the bird was scared and flew away. Elori patted him.
"Silly boy", she said tenderly.
"So how long has this been going on?" R'vell said, just managing not to laugh.
"Since I came to Bendon, not so very long. Varenth is a good friend," Elori said. She hunched her shoulders, seeming to fold in on herself. So, a topic not to be discussed then. Especially as Varenth followed up with a mild, but warning rumble. R'vell stood up and held out his hands to her.
"Come on, it’s too cold to sit here," he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, she placed her hands in his and let him help her to stand. She stumbled, and fell against him. For a moment that seemed to go on forever, the world was still and quiet. An unexpected moment, and in that moment he found himself holding her in his arms, and she looked up at him. Her eyes were dark green with tiny flecks of gold, like sunlight shining through the forest. An amused rumble from Varenth broke the spell. R'vell gently touched her bruised eye.
"If that’s no better in the morning," he said, "go and see the healer."

      The doors of the weyrhall opened as they left Varenth’s weyr, and lights blazed, illuminating all the dark corners of the courtyard. R'vell took off his jacket and draped it around Elori’s shoulders. If anyone noticed her torn sleeve there would be too many questions to answer. But the wine must have been flowing freely, as no one took any notice of the pair passing by on the way to the kitchen caverns. R'vell towered over Elori, she was barely as high as his shoulders, and she had to skip to keep up with his long legs.
      Manora stood in the doorway into the caverns. She did not look at all happy, but that was her usual expression. She stepped forward and examined the bruise on Elori’s face.
"The nasty culprit who did that has already confessed, thanks to his friends," Manora said, with a smile. "And he’s condemned to scrubbing all the pans we used this evening, and every evening for a sevenday. His age group are banned from drinking anything stronger than klah for the same sevenday, which will not make him popular with his friends." She took another look at the bruise around Elori’s eye. "Hmm, you can see the healer tomorrow."
R'vell nudged Elori. "Told you". He felt inordinately proud to have made her smile, echoed by Varenth’s amused growl.
"Thank you brown rider, for bringing her back," Manora said firmly, which was obviously a dismissal. R'vell nodded politely and began to walk away. Elori ran after him, carrying his jacket. She gave it back to him, then gestured for him to bend down, and quickly kissed his cheek.
      R'vell watched her run back into the cavern, touching his cheek where she had kissed him.
"So what was all that about?" R'vell said, finding Varenth still in his weyr. "I had a cup of wine and a comfortable seat by the fire, then you started yelling at me to come outside". He clapped the big dragon’s hide. "You sly old bag of bones, you wanted me to find her. Why?"
You have no friends and no family in this Weyr, and you are lonely and that makes you feel sad. She has no friends or family here either, and she is lonely, and feels sad. You are my friend and she is my friend. I do not want my friends to be sad.
"I thought I’d got better at hiding it," R'vell said, moved at his dragon’s concern. "Trust a dragon to know everything."
The hall doors had been closed and the revellers had all dispersed. R'vell and Varenth were alone in the silence again, with only their thoughts for company.

(several days later)

      The weyrhall was quiet that evening, only a few people were in at scattered tables. As always, R’vell’s usual place by the hearth was not shared by anyone else. One and all instinctively avoided that corner of the hall and left it to the morose Oldtimer. He was slumped over, cradling a cup of ale and wondering if he could slip away and go to his quarters without anyone noticing and commenting, when two cups of klah was placed on the small table beside him. He looked up, to see Elori standing beside him. She wore a different gown, a blue one, without a torn sleeve, the first egg be praised, and the bruise around her eye was all but faded.
"May I join you?" she said, "Unless you’d rather be on your own."
"That would be rather ungentlemanly of me," he said formally, "especially when there’s a pretty girl nearby."
"Don’t be facetious," she said. "Vary asked me to come here, but if you’d rather I didn’t..."
"I’m sorry. I’ve been indulging in sad thoughts and even sadder memories. Nice of Var to notice, and even nicer of him to send you."
She sat down beside him. "He said something like, 'I have two friends and my friends do not know each other. They should.' He’s a funny one, and he won’t accept "no" as an answer."
"How did you get to know him?" R’vell said, abandoning the ale for the klah.
Elori hesitated, gazing into her own cup of klah. "I had been indulging in sad thoughts and even sadder memories," she said quietly, and he tapped his cup against hers.
"Comrades in sorrow," he said, and she smiled.
"That’s two things we have in common, sad thoughts and we’re both friends of a silly big brown dragon," he added. "That’s a good beginning,".
      She blushed a little, or was it just because they were sitting so close to the hearth and the fire. R’vell held out his hand.
"Hello," he said, "I am R’vell, brown Varenth’s rider, and I am one of those dreadful people known as the Oldtimers."
"As you’re Vary’s rider, you couldn’t possibly be dreadful," she said, taking his hand in hers. "He wouldn’t stand for it."
"As you’re Var’s friend, perhaps you could count me as a friend as well, and tell me why you had sad thoughts and sadder memories."
"I’ll show you mine if you show me yours," she said and dissolved into a fit of giggles.
      "It’s the usual sad old tale," R’vell said, though he smiled to take some of the sting out of it. "Lessa arrived out of the future and told us that Pern would perish without us. So here I am, 450 turns or there about, out of my own time, 500 turns since I was born. And I had another reason for leaving." He took a deep drink of the klah.
"Want some more?" Elori said softly. R’vell shook his head.
"No, if I don’t say this now, I never will."
Some instinct made Elori take hold of his hand again. Sorrow calling to sorrow, or the gentle but pressing touch of a dragon’s mind on hers.
"I left someone behind," he said flatly. "Her name was Salina. I thought I loved her, I thought she loved me. But just before Lessa arrived, Salina told me she was going to have a child, and it was not mine. He was another rider, a bronze. She had ambitions. He stayed behind, and it seemed like a good idea to put a very long stretch of time between them and me."
      Elori could not think of anything to say. She shifted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder, still holding onto his hand. She had never forgotten the terrible sound, when R’vell had sat in the straw of Varenth’s weyr and wept. Even then she had had to fight against the longing to comfort him. Sorrow calling to sorrow. She wrapped her arm around his chest and hugged him close. He looked down at her and gently kissed her forehead.
"Hey, it’s all right. It’s all past," he said, surprised, "they have all gone a very long time ago."
      Varenth’s mind touched his, showing him something. A dark weyr, Varenth’s weyr. Too much wine as usual, collapsing at Varenth’s side. Then something else, someone else. Sitting in the straw on the dark side of the brown. He looked at Elori, she had cried with him, which was oddly comforting to know.
"I knew Var was shielding someone," he said quietly. "There was a part of his mind that he wouldn’t share with me."
"You’re not angry, are you?"
"I should be, but no, oddly, I’m not. And how are you able to hear Var anyway?"
"I don’t know, I just can, ever since I was a child. Vary said it was because I needed to hear him."
"Can you hear any of them here, at Bendon? Apart from that old bag of bones."
"No, only Vary. And he isn’t old, don’t call him that."
R’vell had to laugh, she sounded fierce, defending his own dragon. A few people looked round, not used to hearing laughter from that particular quarter.
"After 500 years he should be positively dessicated, like me," R’vell said.
      Elori sat up and stared at R’vell for a moment.
"Fool," she said, in the same tender tone in which she had spoken to Varenth. "I had better go. Manora will yell at me if I’m not back in the kitchen in a minute."
She leaned forward and kissed him. A gentle, warm, and affectionate kiss, and then she had gone, leaving him alone by the hearth.
"Don’t say a word Var. Not one," he said.
He heard the rumble of laughter in his mind. I have no words, the big dragon said.

      Elori’s day began early, to the sound of the klaxon; thread had been spotted. She scrambled out of bed, washing and dressing quickly. There was not a thing she could do about thread, that was down to the dragonriders and ground crews, but she would be needed in the kitchens. As she ran into the kitchen cavern, Manora’s second-in-command Felena, grabbed her arm.
"Thank goodness," she panted, "one drudge who isn’t scared witless by the alarm. Can you take over making the klah? Jimminy ran away in terror, crackskull boy."
Elori nodded and rushed to the three large kettles that were gently heating on the hearth. Felena raced away muttering, to corral two other drudges who came in, still adjusting their clothing.
Elori tasted a spoonful of the mixture; it needed more ground klah bark, she decided. The milder mix was all very well for everyday, but thread day needed something with more punch. She grabbed a small boy as he walked by.
"Fetch me the ground klah," she said, adding "please" and a smile. The boy nodded and came back in a few seconds with a large pot of the stuff.
"Jimminy doesn’t like it but weak as water," he said, looking critically into the kettle. "So’s he makes it that way."
"Well, Jimminy isn’t here," Elori said with a wink. She ladled in several large, heaping spoonfuls, the boy handed her a whisk and in a moment the extra klah was mixed in. She dipped a spoon in and gave it to the boy. He drank it and grinned.
"Just right," he said. "That’ll put hairs on a weyrling’s chest." He ran off, heeding the call of another drudge.
      Elori was kept very busy, chopping mountains of vegetables for a herdbeast stew. But in the back of her mind, she thought of R’Vell and Varenth, and hoped they would both be safe and well.
We are, she heard Varenth. We are careful.
The day passed. At mid day she had to be reminded to eat something, even just a plate of bread and butter. Felena gave her a thoughtful look as she passed the plate to her. As far as she knew, the new drudge did not have a man riding against thread. Though there were rumours. Manora said, if you’re looking for Elori, look for the Oldtimer, and she won’t be far away. And there was that other rumour about how she could hear dragons talking. Or was it just one dragon in particular?

      The second klaxon sounded, followed by a weyrling who ran, shouting, into the kitchens.
"Ground crew’s coming," he called. "Riders are coming in now."
Manora clapped her hands for attention. "All right, everyone," she said briskly, "numbweed for the scored, klah for everyone. Direct the ravenous to the weyrehall and we’ll serve up the stew."
Elori stood absolutely still. Felena grabbed her arm, but the girl pulled back.
"Wait," she whispered. Then, "Shells be praised, he’s injured, but not badly. None of them are." She picked up a pot of numbweed and some rags and ran outside. There was a table laid with pots of redwort and she grabbed one of those. Then down they came, wing after wing of dragons and their riders, filling the space with dust. There were only a few badly scored men, and even fewer dragons, who were made to go the lake to bath, acconpanied by weyrlings and would-bes. Elori only had eyes and ears for one dragon, and there he was, the massive brown landing as close to her as he could.
How bad? she said.
He has a score on his back, but not deep, Varenth replied. We are good at dodging.
Elori looked up at R’vell. "Come on, get down," she called, "I’m not going up there to slap the numbweed on you."
"There’s worse than me," he said grimly, as he climbed down from his dragon. Elori pushed him to sit on Varenth’s foreleg.
"Maybe so," she said, "but I don’t see them arguing. Take your jacket off."
R’vell reluctantly pulled his jacket off.
"And your shirt," Elori said. He gave her a long look, but did as he was told.
She leaned down and whispered right by his ear. "Good boy."
He grinned and then gasped as she slathered some redwort onto the score across his left shoulder blade. But her hands were gentle, and he relaxed as she covered the red-stained patch with numbweed. She quickly washed the numbweed off her hands before it numbed her, and gave him back his shirt.
"Want some klah?" she said.
"I’d rather have wine, but all right, klah will do."
"You drink too much of that stuff," Elori said primly, as she handed him a mug, "it will rot your brain."
"Not sure I have a brain left," he said, grinning.
Elori huffed. "Just sit for a while," she said, "when you’re ready, go to the weyrhall. We’ve made a huge herdbeast stew."
He grabbed her hand. "And where are you going?" he said.
"Manora needs me," she said, "I have to get back to work."
"And what if I said I need you?"
He was surprised when her hand in his began trembling. She leaned her cheek against his face.
"You don’t," she said quietly, "not yet. But when you do, tell me." She sat up, "or tell Vary," she said with a smile, "his voice is louder than thunder."
She quickly kissed his cheek and ran towards the kitchens.
R’vell looked up at his dragon. "Var, is there something you’re not telling me?" he said. The big brown dragon merely chuckled.

      "Are you busy?" R’vell said, leaning against the door jamb of the kitchen caverns.
"No R’vell," Elori said, "I love to scrub plates for fun. I could scrub them all day."
R’vell grinned. "Manora," he called, spotting the weyr’s headwoman at the far side of the kitchen, "do you mind if I borrow Elori for an hour or two?"
"I do not mind." Manora said. "Go on girl, you’ve worked hard today, you’ve earned some time, more than these lazy good-for-nothings." she added, glaring at the four drudges who were watching.
R’vell grabbed Elori’s hand and half pulled her into the courtyard.
"Slow down," she laughed, "where are we going?"
"We’re on dragon washing duty, Var’s orders."
"And if Vary says so, we all obey of course!"
"That’s the idea!"

      Varenth was waiting by the weyr lake, but, Elori noticed, he was harnessed for flight. R’vell considered her.
"Hmm, we’re not going between, but you might be cold." He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her. She put her arms in through the sleeves, which hung down past her hands. R’vell laughed.
"You’re just a tiny thing."
He picked her up and deposited her on Varenth’s back, then climbed up in front of her.
"Hold on tight," he said, turning back to her. She promptly wrapped her arms around his waist. Which made him laugh again, echoed by Varenth.
"Not that tight. I like to breath occasionally." He felt her laughing behind him as she loosened her hold.
"Well you’ve flown dozens of times, I never have."
      Varenth took off suddenly, leaping into the air from the ground in a moment. Elori tightened her hold.
"Sorry," R’vell called, "I forgot how nerve-wracking that is."
"Not so much nerve-wracking as bone shaking," Elori said, breathlessly. R’vell laughed again. Three times in just a few minutes.
      Elori thought of the dragonrider who had taken hold of her arm and spoken to her in the weyrhall the day after that threadfall.
"Try and cheer him up, can you?" he had said, with a nod in R’vell’s direction. "We’re getting a bit tired of seeing his gloomy old face every evening."
She snatched her arm away from his grip. "Maybe if you tried to talk to him, get to know him, I don’t know, maybe include him now and then. Then he wouldn’t be so gloomy and might even smile a time or two."
The rider had looked at her, astonished. "But he’s an Oldtimer," he stammered.
"And what does that matter? He’s still a dragonrider and fights thread with you. It doesn’t matter when he came from, he’s worth your respect and friendship." She swatted him. "And don’t call him old, I won’t allow it."
      Nevertheless, she had joined R’vell in the weyrhall every evening, to drink klah with him and talk of old sad things. Gradully, she had led the conversation to the present. He was not as ready to talk about what was and could be, only of what had been. But she believed she was having an effect on him, when whole evenings went by and he did not so much as touch the winesacks.
      She smiled, thinking of how astonished that dragonrider would have been to see "Gloomy" R’vell laughing. He patted her hand, and she leaned her head against his back. And that was the moment when she realised that she loved him, completely. She remembered his words in his dragon’s weyr, that if nothing changed in a turn, he would probably try to jump back between to his own time. What would he say if she tried to persuade him to take her with him? Perhaps she could convince him to stay.
That is the idea, the voice of the dragon sounded in her mind. She had a moment of panic, that R’vell could hear her too.
Do not worry, Varenth said, I can talk to two people at the same time.
"Is this a private conversation, or can I join in?" R’vell said.
"We might be talking about you," Elori said, laughing. She kissed the back of his neck. How could it be possible to feel so happy, so light-hearted? Or was that light headed?
      It felt as though they had been flying for hours instead of just five minutes, when Varenth landed at the edge of a small lake. Far from the Weyr, it was quiet, no one around. It was a lonely place and yet, with the afternoon sun shining on the water and the meadow around the lake, it was peaceful and tranquil.
"We often come here," R’vell said, "when we don’t want to compete with the crowds at the weyr lake."
"Too many dragonets and weyrlings," Elori agreed. It was nice without the young ones, splashing about and making as much mess, mischief, and noise as they could. A raptor circled lazily overhead in the cloudless sky. The air was warm, soft, and full of the scent of meadow flowers.
R’vell took a leather bag down from where it hung from the saddle.
"Here you are," he said, "sweetsand and a couple of scrubbing brushes."
"So I’m back to scrubbing," Elori said with a wry smile.
"More fun than scrubbing plates though it’s messier." He looked her up and down. "I know that’s not your best gather dress, but you might want to take it off if you want to go back halfway dry."
Before she could say anything, R’vell was busy stripping off his clothes, down to thin cotton trews he wore under his wherhide trousers. Elori did not know quite where to look. While she was considering it, he took the harness and saddle off Varenth, who looked back at her with a quizzical expression. She sighed, well all right, in for a 32nd mark, in for a quarter mark. She pulled off her dress and laid it on the grass.
"That as well," R’vell called, as he led Varenth into the water. ‘That’ being her shift, which left her in only a breast band and underwear, and feeling very exposed. Perhaps, she thought, it wouldn’t be so awkward if she was in the water. So she scrambled down the shallow bank and ducked under, coming up at the opposite side of Varenth to R’vell. He threw a scrubbing brush over Varenth’s back and she caught it.
"Here," R’vell said, suddenly and alarmingly standing beside her, "rub some of this sweetsand on him."
She took a handful and leaned forward against Varenth, bracing her feet in the mud of the lake bed.
"Stop a minute," R’vell said, and by his tone, Elori knew he had a view of her back. Shells, how could she have forgotten? She felt his hands on her back, tracing the weals, some old and fading, some not so old, long dark red stripes against her pale skin.
"What fardling deadglow did that?" he said quietly.
"My father," Elori said, flatly. "He had a particularly hard leather belt to teach us how to live the right way, according to him."
"Girls as well as boys?"
"Girls especially. I got some of those for asking too many questions. He half killed one of my brothers for teaching me to read."
"This is what you didn’t want to talk about before. But have you shown Manora? She would have some ointment or other that would make these fade."
Elori turned round quickly. "No!" she said, "I am not letting anyone else see. I wouldn’t have let you see, but I forgot." She ended, listlessly.
He pulled her close to his chest and hugged her. That was nice, that was rather lovely she thought, nestling into him. His bare skin was warm against hers though she could feel herself trembling.
"Are you cold?" he said gently.
She smiled. "Not now," she said.
      He bent his head and softly touched his lips to her cheek. A gentle, affectionate kiss, meant to be nothing more than gratitude that she had once shared his grief and had allowed him to share a little of hers. He told himself that it was nothing more than that, could be nothing more, considering the 450 or so turns he had lived before she was born. So it was a surprise but not an unwelcome one, when she responded by kissing him in return, her mouth on his, her arms around his neck. Under the inexorable pressure of her mouth, his opened enough to let her in, kissing him with longing and desire. A thousand years went by, and the kiss was over in the blink of an eye.
"You know, I really do like to breath," he laughed. She hid her face on his chest in embarrassment, appalled at the fierceness of her own response.
      To cover her confusion, she turned to Varenth and began scrubbing the big beast’s hide.
Not so hard, he said, you’ll scrub my hide off.
R’vell laughed. "I nearly did that when I first impressed," he said. "Like this. Not too hard and scrub in circles." He put his hand over hers, and they scrubbed Varenth together. They fell into a rhythm, R’vell scrubbing higher and Elori scrubbing low, walking around the dragon, as the sun rose higher in the sky.

      When they had scrubbed as much of the dragon hide as they could, they walked out of the water and sat on the grassy bank. Elori sat beside R’vell, leaning against his shoulder.
"When did you impress Vary?" she said.
"I was 15, no, nearly 15" he said. "Terribly pleased with myself, especially as I was only at the hatching to see my foster brother impress. He didn’t, but I did." R’vell laughed. "Var cut me down to size though. By the time we were past the weyrling stage, I was not quite as swollen-headed. It’s a lot of work, taking care of a big lump like him."
"I thought that when you impressed a dragon, well, they were all you needed."
"That’s true. "R’vell’s face brightened with a smile full of joy. "And he was. Even when I had the strangest feeling that sometimes he was talking to someone else."
Elori blushed. Perhaps it was not the best time to tell him that Varenth had been talking to her, across the turns.
"And yes, he was all I needed," R’vell continued. "Except that I still had family then, parents, a brother, fosterlings. And I wasn’t part of a disgraced and dishonoured group of riders."
      Elori kissed his neck. Her fingers traced the marks of threadscore on his back. He shivered.
"Are you cold?" she whispered.
"Not now," he said. He pulled her onto his lap. He kissed her face, her neck, her shoulders, with the same hunger and passion as hers. Elori had the strangest feeling that she wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. All she wore was her underwear, but it was too much, too many clothes. His hands were on her, stroking her and all she could think, incoherently was "please don’t stop". She almost said it out aloud, when suddenly she was cold, sitting on the ground and he had moved away.
"This is wrong," he said raggedly. "You’re too young. I’m far too old. It’s too late, and I can’t."
He got up and slapped Varenth.
"Come on out of it," he said, "we’re going back."
Elori lay in the grass, hugging her knees to her chest. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t feel, it was too much. Slowly she managed to get the trembling under control. No tears, she was not going to let him see her cry. Her hands were shaking as she pulled on her shift and gown, and managed somehow to get her shoes back onto the right feet.
      The sun was still shining. It was still a lovely and peaceful lake. But there was a cold spiteful wind blowing over the surface of the water. Elori stood watching it, dry eyes. She felt that she would never be able to cry ever again. She was cold, and dead inside. It was too much to bear, this terrible loneliness that swept over her.
She climbed up onto Varenth behind R’vell.
"If you don’t hold on, you’ll fall off," he said quietly. Would that have mattered, she wondered. She held him around the waist as lightly as she dared.

      When they reached Benden, the sun was already sinking and the heat of the day had all but gone, vanished along with Elori’s hopes and dreams. She mentally shook herself for her stupidity in giving her heart to a man who had forgotten what love was. He had left his own heart behind, over 400 turns ago, he had none to give.
Just before they landed, R’vell turned to her.
"Don’t waste your time with me," he said. "For the first egg’s sake, find someone your own age, I’m too old."
      Once Varenth’s feet touched the ground, R’vell slid down and raced towards the weyrhall, leaving Elori to climb down as best she could.
"Gone to get drunk again," Elori said bleakly.
It is not right. It was not meant to be this way, Varenth said. I looked ahead and it was not this way.
He lumbered across the sands of the Bowl towards his weyr, Elori following for want of anything better to do. She still felt a cold, heavy weight inside her. Somehow, she did not know how, she managed to reach Varenth’s weyr, sank into the straw, and fell deeply and mercifully asleep.

      When she woke up, it was night. Sounds of laughter came from the weyrhall as people were leaving, streaming out into the Bowl. She wondered if R’vell had been there, sitting alone by the hearth and trying to drown himself in wine.
He is not there, Varenth said. He has gone to his quarters. He has gone to his bed but he is not asleep. He cannot sleep, his mind is troubled and disturbed.
There was an odd comfort in knowing that she had that effect on him. She got up and shook the straw from her skirt. She had had enough. Enough of trying to jolly a morose old dimglow along. Banging her head against a wall in Vary’s weyr would be more productive. She left the weyr without another word. When Varenth would try to project his words into her head, she deliberately muffled it by mentally running through every scrap of songs she could remember. Eventually he gave up, his voice fading until there was nothing.

      The bathing pool in the lower caverns was quiet as it was so late. A couple were splashing about at the far side of the pool, laughing and scrubbing sweetsand on each other. Elori stayed at the shallower end and scrubbed hard at her skin. Twice she was almost overwhelmed with sadness and had to fight to damp down the tears. After a while, she took a handful of finer scented sweetsand and washed her body more gently and carefully. After drying, she picked up her underthings and shift, and put them back on the bench. What was the point? Her gown was worn and patched but at least it was reasonably clean. As she slipped it on, it caught on some of the recent weals that she reopened by scrubbing so hard.
"Nearly scrubbed my hide off," she said with a wry smile, then was doubled over with the sudden and overwhelming weight of grief. She sat on the bench, desperately fighting against giving in to it. While the couple at the other end of the pool continued to laugh and splash about.

      After leaving the pool, she should have gone to her little room in the living quarters behind the kitchen caverns, but her feet took her out into the Bowl, and back into Varenth’s weyr. He opened one large golden eye and stared at her.
"This night is not over yet Vary", Elori said. "If he thinks I am going to leave this here and try to forget him, then he is very much mistaken."
A rumble of approval sounded in her mind. What she was planning to do shocked her hold-bred instincts, but, she told herself, if she was going to prevent R’vell from doing something completely stupid, she would have to put those instincts to one side.

      She crept out of the weyr. It would not do to wake anyone. The Bowl was empty now, and most were asleep in their own beds, or someone else’s. She had the ridiculous urge to laugh hysterically but dampened down inside herself.
"Vary," she said, projecting her thoughts again. "I’ve suddenly realised I don’t know where he is, you are going to have to guide me."
I will do better than that, I will take you there. Wait for me.
      It was a relief to know that she would not be running around the rider weyrs after all. Of course, R’vell’s quarters would be high up above the Bowl, with a ledge outside for a dragon to lie on. Varenth arrived and she climbed up onto his back, holding on tightly to his neck ridges. Again, he jumped straight up, and flew a little to the right. The pounding of his wings echoed the pounding of her heart, beating together. She was amazed that no one else could hear it. He landed on a ledge on the second tier from the top of the rim of the dead volcano and Elori slipped down. Before she could breath and change her mind, Varenth jumped away from the ledge and flew away. She suddenly felt terribly small and alone. What was wrong with her? What on Pern made her think she could seduce a man nearly 15 times her age, when her father would have been beaten her for even looking at such a creature? Maybe she should just call Varenth back and forgot the whole misbegotten venture. But then maybes seldom were.
"Well," she muttered, "in for a half mark, in for the whole mark. For the first egg’s sake, don’t anybody laugh or I might just cry."

      It was dark in the room with no glow basket to lighten it. She stood still for a minute to let her eyes get used to the gloom. Then she saw him, lying face down on his bed with a sleeping fur covering him to the waist. She slowly walked towards him. No movement, he was completely still. Asleep? But Varenth had said not. He could not have failed to hear the big dragon landing on the outside ledge, and taking off again. She kicked off her shoes and sat down, gracefully and gently on the edge of the bed.
"I don’t how you can call yourself an old man," she said, boldly, "when you behaved more like a silly weyrling after his first kiss." Nothing, but his shoulders seemed to relax a little. She tentatively touched him on the back of his neck. Still nothing, he was not going to make this easier for her. She gently trailed her fingertips across his naked back.
"I’ve waited a long time for you. At least 500 turns. I’ve been very lonely, waiting for you to catch up. Don’t you think it’s time you did?"
      Still nothing. She stifled the sob that was threatening to erupt from her throat. She bent down and kissed him where her fingertips had been. He still did not move. Completely drunk? She didn’t think so.
"Vary," she said, "has he died of old age or just ignoring me?" He turned a little to one side. Obviously he had heard her, and his dragon had also conveyed her words to him, hopefully with an added sharp remark. She stood up and pulled her gown off, folded it neatly and put it on a chair. Sliding under the sleeping furs, she snuggled up behind his back.
"All right weyrling," she said, stroking his back, "I have a confession, so listen carefully."
Ah, a tiny movement that she almost missed showed that he was listening.
"I love you, you silly clunch, and I don’t want anyone my age. I don’t know why, you’re such a grumpy old uncle, sitting by the fire, mumbling your gruel. Maybe it’s me and I just like grumpy old men who’re really silly weyrlings. But if you push me away again, I swear I will shove you off your dragon from a great height. And Vary wouldn’t blame me at all."

      R’vell leaned up on one elbow, grinning down at her.
"He’d probably help you," he said. He turned over and slipped an arm under her, and pulled her close. "I’m sorry. All I can say is my head must have been addled on the long jump forward. All those times when you always said hello or good day when you walked past me. And I was a complete dimglow and didn’t see you." He kissed her. "I did see you, I just didn’t want to. Wallowing in between, I was and I didn’t want anyone to jolly me out of it."
While he talked, Elori stroked his chest, letting her fingers trail lazily down his stomach. She felt the muscles twitch and shiver, and he seemed to be finding it difficult to keep his mind on what he was trying to say. Her hand fondled his hip, his breath was ragged. She smiled, feeling him tense under her wandering hand, as she slipped it gently over his hip and across his buttocks, so lightly she was almost tickling him.
      While she was considering where else to explore, he turned to face her, and she wrapped her arms around him. They lay still like that for longer than she thought possible. Every inch of her touched him, his skin was deliciously warm. Surely he could hear her heart pounding in her chest. She felt faint with wanting him.
"I’m too old," he said quietly, stroking her face. "You are lovely, but I’m too old." Shards, how was she going to persuade him otherwise?
‘Vary,’ she called mentally, ‘can I have a little help here?’
      Whatever was being said, Varenth kept from Elori, only R’vell heard him. Before the dragon had finished saying whatever it was he had to say, Elori took advantage of R’vell’s distraction to kiss him, long and deep. She put everything into it, her love and longing for him, loneliness calling to loneliness, all of it. He seemed to have no objection to being kissed, that was good, she could do that all night. But the hours were passing, and everyone would be waking up, and Manora would need her in the kitchens to work, and…
Stop thinking, Varenth said, your mind is spiralling. Stop worrying, it achieves nothing.

      "Stop thinking," she said, unconsciously echoing Varenth, "We’re in the meadow by the lake and the sun is shining. Take no notice of the moon outside, it’s pretending it’s not the sun. Now, where were we?"
      He stroked her back, tracing the weals with gentle fingers. She snuggled into his chest and kissed his neck.
"We could just go to sleep, if you want to," she said diffidently, suddenly shy and unsure.
"Might not be a silly idea," he sighed. "I do feel a bit wiped out. I’m an old man y’know, not used to all this enthusiasm. That’s the privilege of the young."
"If you don’t stop calling yourself old, I am going to be really cross." R’vell chuckled. "Sweetheart, you look about as cross as a dragonet just a day out of the egg." He sat up, pulling Elori upright with him. She tucked her head under his chin.
"We have to face it. I was born 50 years before Lessa turned up from the future. Which makes me older than you, even if I'd come from this time. What is it, 20 turns between us if you only count now? Even in this time that’s not usual, is it?"
He felt a tiny trickle of tears running onto his chest.
"You made me cry again." she said, muffled against him. "Can’t think why I love you so much when you keep making me cry."
"That’s why I said you should find someone your own age."
"Will you open your glow basket? Waggle your ears if it helps you to listen. But get this into your head, I will not find someone my own age. I don’t want anyone my own age. I love you. I know I said I’ve been waiting for you to tell me that you need me. But did it ever occur to you that I might need you." She spoke slowly and carefully. She felt utterly weary, worn out with fighting his fears.
      Fears, she thought. Afraid of what?
He is afraid of loving you and then losing you. He could not stand one more loss, he has lost so many, so it is easier not to let himself love you. Yet, he does love you, though he will not admit it to himself. You must have patience friend Elori. And I have not told him that, this is for you and I.

      "I’m not giving up," she said, "but I’m too tired to think now. So sit up all night and worry about what it is you want, I’m going to sleep. Let me know when you’ve made up your mind." She cuddled into him with her head on his chest.
No more worrying now Elori, I will talk to him. As she drifted away she felt R’vell gently stroking her back. A conversation was going between him and his dragon, but she had nothing to do with it. There was nothing to do but sleep.

      Elori woke up as the sun was rising over the top of the volcano. The weyr was filled with the sweet, rich scent of wildflowers. On every available space, there were vases of flowers.
"Someone got up before dawn," she said quietly.
"Actually it was still dark outside," R'vell said. He was sitting on the ledge. "Var told me where the flowers were. His eyes are sharper than mine. I also went round to your room behind the kitchens. It’s tiny, good thing you’re tiny too, I’d never fit into it."
"Why did you go there?" she said, snuggling under the furs. Her excuse to herself was that it was still a little chilly, so early in the morning, and the sun had not yet warmed the weyrs on their side of the cliff face.
"I picked up your things. You don’t have much, do you? We’ll have to do something about that. Can’t have my weyrmate going about in worn patched things."
Elori sat up, clutching the fur around her. "Your what?!"
"Weyrmate. Oh, I didn’t actually get around to asking you if you’d like to be my weyrmate. Var thought it was a good idea and so did I. Was it a good idea?" His broad smile faltered a little, not quite so sure after all. Elori noticed a gown lying on the bed, one she didn’t recognise. There were no patches or darns. Obviously it had come from Manora’s stock of newly made clothes that she sold for marks. She put it on, feeling uncountably shy. She walked across the room and sat down on R'vell's lap. Snuggling under his chin, she sighed.
"I don’t know," she said, "I really don’t know. I know how I feel about you. I’ve told you so many times, it’s embarrassing. But you’ve not said one word about how you feel about me. Vary has told me, but not you. Am I annoying, would you rather I stopped telling you that I love you?"
"Please understand sweetheart," he said quietly. "The last time I said, that, to someone, she betrayed me."
"I never would. In case you’ve forgotten, my name is Elori, not Salina. I have no ambitions and I could never prefer a stupid bronze rider with rocks in his head to you. And no bronze dragon comes close to Vary anyway. So put that in your glow basket. If you truly believe me, then ask me again."
"I do believe you, and I do love you. So, would you be my weyrmate?"
"Yes please," she said. He stroked her hair.
"You do look funny, with your hair standing on end. Is that what I have to expect?"
"Oh much worse," she said, laughing. "I wriggle around a lot when I’m asleep. I’ll probably shove you out onto the floor at least once a sevenday." She felt him kiss the top of her head. "Well, if you do, I probably deserve it." He gave her a quick hug. "Come on, up you get. The bathing pool is out the door and to the right. It won’t be busy right now, lazy folks weren’t up before dawn picking flowers for their weyrmates."
Elori clambered off his lap.
"Don’t worry, I’ve squared it with Manora," he said. "She knows anyway. She caught me raiding your room. I thought she’d hit me on the head with a skillet! And speaking of our beloved headwoman, she asked me to go back and see her about something or other."

      After he had gone, Elori went in search of the bathing pool. She knew that all the riders and their mates who lived on the same level, shared the pool. It was something she had had to get used to very quickly when she first began living in the Weyr. Her family had very strict rules: segregated bathing at all times. Men and boys first, then the women and girls, if there was any time left over from cooking, cleaning and taking care of the men and boys. But at that early in the morning, there were only two other people in the pool, and they were too busy washing to bother with more than a "good morning".
      There was no sadness to scrub out of her skin this time, and she used the finely ground sweetsand to wash her hair. It was so silky soft that it tended to tangle in the mornings. She grinned, thinking of R'vell trying to smooth her hair down. A few more people drifted in, and some of them were obviously curious about her. Which was understandable as she had never been near the rider weyrs before. She nodded nervously at those who noticed her. Just as she was getting comfortable with the number of people now in the pool, R'vell skidded into the bathing room.
"There you are!" he said cheerfully. "Come on, Manora gave me some of that stuff for your back."
Elori climbed out of the pool, wishing that everyone would not stare so much. R'vell wrapped her up in a towel, then, to her embarrassment, picked her up and carried her to the doorway to his weyr. No, Elori thought, our weyr. He put her down, then ran back to the bathing pool.
"Yes," he called out, "the grumpy Oldtimer has a weyrmate. What a shock! Discuss it amongst yourselves."

      Elori pulled back the heavy curtain in front of the open doorway and went into their weyr, giggling. She dried herself and started to dress, putting on her underthings, but R'vell came back before she could put on her breast band.
"Not yet, not yet, "he said, "sit down and I’ll put this goop on."
      She sat down on the bed, squealing at the first handful he slathered on to her back.
"Ooh, that’s freezing! What did you do, put it in the cold room first? And anyway, what’s with all this enthusiasm. Isn’t that the privilege of the young?"
He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled the back of her neck.
"Shush, I’m practising," he said quietly. "My weyrmate is dreadfully bossy and she won’t allow me the dignity owed to my great age."
Elori turned round in his arms, and cupped his face. "Then perhaps we should get on with practising. Then your weyrmate won’t boss you around so much."
R'vell smiled, and there was something in his eyes that made Elori feel fluttery inside. He kissed her, delicately, softly. Kissing her mouth, her face, her ears, which made her giggle. His light touch was heavenly and soothed her wounded feelings. He stroked her face with long, gentle fingers. She felt her whole body relax. Expecting to be rejected again, despite his change of heart, she had been tense, her head beginning to ache. Without her saying a word, he seemed to know. His hands were cool on her forehead, smoothing the pain away.
"Not that I’m complaining," she said, "but weren’t you supposed to be going out on patrol this morning?"
"F’nor let me off. And Manora said that so long as you go back this afternoon, I can devote the whole morning to you and only you."
Elori was helpless with laughter. "Oh I wish I’d been there when you asked them. That must have been the funniest conversation, you silly weyrling." "Thankfully Manora helped. I didn’t think I could ask F’nor for some time off duty so I could bed my weyrmate." "Oh that’s what you’re doing is it? Just one problem young’un, you’re wearing far too many clothes. Take them all off."
      R'vell stood up. "Yes ma’am," he said, "anything you say ma’am," as he pulled his boots off, followed by his jacket.
Elori took off the only garment she was wearing and leaned on one elbow to watch. He started to unfasten his trousers, but Elori stopped him.
"No, shirt first," she said.
"Your wish is my command," he said with a cheeky grin. Elori giggled. This was more fun than worrying and fretting about how old someone was and how young someone else was. Laughing was much better than crying.
R'vell untied the laces at the neck of his linen shirt and drew it off.
"Shells," Elori breathed. R'vell was slender with well defined muscles. Very well defined muscles. Even for a man of 500 turns, he was beautiful.
      She lay back with her arms behind her head. Slowly she raised her left knee and flattened her foot against the bed.
"Those can go now," she said, waving a hand in the general direction of his trousers.
"What, what?" he stammered. She smiled, as casually as she could manage. It was nice to know that he was not as insouciant as he was trying to appear.
"Trousers," she said. "Off."
Another cheeky grin. "Yes ma’am," he said, slowly untying the laces that fastened the placket at the front of his wherry hide trousers. Unfastened, he dropped them to the ground and stood, hands on hips, in his thin linen trews. He let her look for a moment, then he removed them. She was delighted to see that he was just as carried away by their game as she was.
Elori giggled. "Weyrling, I didn’t tell you to take them off. But now that you have, come here."

      R'vell lay down on the bed next to her, and kissed her, deeply distracting enough that it took her a few moments to realise that he had began to stroke her, gently at first, barely touching her with his fingertips. Her skin was warm, glowing from inside, everywhere his fingers touched. When his hands reached her hips, she tried to wriggle away from him, twitching and laughing between gasps.
"Am I tickling you?" R'vell said, as she tried to pull his hands away.
"You wait, little boy", she squeaked, "I'll find your ticklish places and I'll get you".
"Little boy?" he said, taking her hand and placing it on his erect cock. "I think you're mistaken ma'am." She ducked her head into his neck and giggled.
His mouth followed his hands, kissing her face, her neck, her breasts. His tongue circled her small nipples and he gently drew each one in turn into his mouth. Shame and joy warred inside her, equally intense, each attempting to overwhelm her. A caressing touch in her mind - Varenth? - gentled her confused mind.

      The sun streamed in through the side that was open to the cliff face. Elori realised that she had heard the sound of footsteps clad in boots passing by the curtain of their weyr, but the corridor was silent now. The whole world had disappeared, condensed to the dimensions of that room and that bed, and his hands.
      R'vell turned her around and stroked her back. His hands felt wonderfully warm after the cold goo he’d spread there. His hands caressed her buttocks and slipped between her legs, teasing her soft skin. Turning her again, his hands were at her neck. She tilted her head back and he nibbled her neck, moving down to her breasts. She was glowing from the inside, emotions overwhelmed her, as though her body no longer belonged to her, but to R'vell and only him. She felt languid and peaceful, nothing to do but lie on the furs and let R'vell turn her and touch her wherever he wished. When she reached out to him, he gently put her hands down.
"No sweetheart," he said, "I have a lot of apologising to do."
      He kissed a trail down her body. His short beard was deliciously rough on her skin. Somewhere deep inside she was trembling, as his knee gently nudged her thighs apart. She shivered as his hand slipped between her legs.
"I think you ought to know..." she whispered.
"I know," he said.
He slid his forefinger and middle finger inside her, slowly and gently, looking into her eyes to make sure that he had not hurt her. All her senses seemed to focus on that one part of her body. Heat radiated out from that one place. He slipped his fingers out of her, soaked and slippery, and tenderly rubbed her clit. At the same time he kissed her again, his tongue inside her mouth. Her body was already so sensitive, skin twitching, that it only took a moment and the slightest touch from him to make her fly apart. He held her close until she stopped shaking. Once she had got her breath back, she slipped her hand down his body and gently stroked his cock.
"I want you inside me," she whispered, kissing his face.
"Sure?" he said.
"Yes, shells, yes."
      Slowly, carefully, anxious not to hurt her, he slid his cock inside her. Exasperated by his hesitation, she wrapped her arms around him and pushed herself further onto him, ignoring the slight moment of pain. Well, she reasoned, she would not have wanted to bruise his fragile feelings for all the world. The momentary pain merged with the warmth inside her. She rested her head on his shoulder, turned away so he would not see the few tears she shed. When he held still she kissed his face and neck.
"I’m not made of egg shells," she said between kisses.
"I’m beginning to find that out," he said, breathlessly.
      She wrapped her legs around his waist.
"Oh, lovely girl," he gasped as she moved against his body, her skin sliding against his, and against the sleeping furs underneath her. As his movements speeded up, Elori was aware of a third mind gently touching hers.
"Vary’s with us."
"I know, he always is."
She moaned R'vell's name against his neck and he moved faster. She laughed, a little, breathy song of joy as her orgasm gathered at her toes and swept over her in waves of heat, overwhelming her with the intensity, and at the last moment she heard Varenth roar inside her mind.

      Elori woke with her head cradled on R’vell’s chest. While she slept he had gathered up the flowers he had picked at dawn and scattered them all over the bed. She lazily trailed a golden flower over the muscles on his stomach.
"So, I’m your weyrmate," she said, and kissed his neck.
"Mm."
"Well if that’s true," Elori said, "you have to stop thinking you’re old. You’re just a youngster. A very good boy."
R'vell burst into laughter. "Anything you say ma’am," he said. He turned onto his side and Elori nestled in under his arm.
"I was a crackskull," he said softly, as he traced the lines of her face.
"You won’t get any argument from me," she smiled.
"And a numbwit, a flitterby, and a dimglow."
"Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. You were a silly clunch as well, but I decided you were my silly clunch."
"You decided?"
"Well, Vary decided, but I just went along with him."
      R’vell lay still for a while, thinking.
"A mark for them, love," Elori said.
"Hmm? Oh, it was just something Var said, when Salina ditched me."
Elori grinned. She decided she was no way troubled that he was thinking of his old love while lying in bed beside his new love.
"And what did Vary say?" she said, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. R’vell must have guessed; or Varenth told tales, as he smiled and kissed her, and left her in doubt about his feelings for her.
"When I was trying to drown my sorrows in Benden wine, he told me that there was someone else for me, who was as far above Salina as the Dawn Sisters are above Pern. And that she, meaning you, would love me all her life. Will you, love me all your life?"
"Of course, and longer. Now, are you hungry?"
R’vell laughed at the matter-of-fact change of direction. "Starving. Is it midday?"
"Judging by the sun, and the sound of boots clattering along the corridor, yes."
      R’vell scrambled out of bed and started looking for his clothes. Elori followed, more slowly, dressing and tidying as she went. Varenth arrived on the weyr ledge and waited for them. He dropped them in the bowl near the weyrhall. A steady stream of hungry people were flowing through the big doors and finding places at the tressle tables. R’vell would have headed to his usual place, at the back near the hearths, but Elori hung onto his hand and led him to a table occupied by a few people she recognised, from the bathing pool that morning. R’vell brazened it out, smiling at the people who heard his declaration. Elori left him alone to face them, while she went to forage for food for them both.
"So," a rider said after several long minutes, waving his mug of klah in R’vell’s direction, "your weyrmate, is she?"
"Yes," R’vell said, ignoring the raised eyebrows and significant looks they exchanged. Happily, Elori returned with a tray of plates of sliced meat and salad vegetables, and mugs of klah. Manora was with her. When Elori sat down, Manora slipped into the chair next to her.
"Oof," she said ruefully, "my feet are protesting."
"I’ll be back in the kitchens this afternoon," Elori said anxiously.
Manora smiled. "No rush dear. And how are you, brown rider?" she said, nodding at R’vell.
"Fine, thank you," he said, clearing his plate.
"Good, because I’ve just spotted F’nor and I do believe he’s on his way over here."
      He was. "So, are you ready to join the evening patrol?" F’nor asked, still rather puzzled about what had been so much of an urgent problem that R'vell had asked for a morning’s grace. "Everything all right now?"
R'vell gulped down the last of his klah. "Fine now sir, thank you. It was just something small."
"I wouldn’t have said it was small," Elori said pensively, chuckling as R'vell had a sudden attack of coughing.
"Er yes sir, I’ll just…" R’vell stammered, running towards the door. "Varenth!" he called.
F’nor stared at Elori, who was laughing so much she was nearly sliding off her chair. He walked away, shaking his head.
"Well done girl," Manora said quietly, "he’s a sensitive soul, that Oldtimer. I wish we’d worked that out sooner. It wasn’t right, hiding away the way he was. So," she added, "not a small trouble?"
"Not small at all," Elori laughed, as she got up from the table and the two women walked to the kitchen entrance.

      R'vell and Elori walked across the bowl that evening, to the rider weyrs with their arms around each other’s waist. As they passed by Varenth’s weyr, they heard the "harrumph" of his breath.
"I don’t like to think of him being alone in there," Elori said.
"No, I don’t either," R'vell said. Without a word, they both walked to the door of the dragon’s weyr.
"Hey, old bag of bones," R'vell called softly, "come and join us. There’s room for you on the ledge."
"Please come with us," Elori said, as gently and persuasively as she could. "Honestly, Vary, we want you with us."
I looked ahead, the brown dragon said sadly, i>so many turns, but it was not as it should have been. I may have been wrong, I do not know.
"But you weren’t wrong," R'vell said. "We’re together now."
"You just forgot that we’re only humans, we’re not as smart as dragons," Elori said. "We get tied up in knots over the silliest things, so it took us longer."
"Tied up in knots?" R'vell whispered, "now there’s a thought."
Elori giggled. "Quiet weyrling," she said.
You are happy?
"Very happy," Elori said, looking up at her tall, handsome, 500 turns old weyrmate.
Very well then, I will.

      Varenth stood up and they backed out of the weyr as he lumbered after them. They climbed up onto his back and then he leaped upwards and landed with a "whump" onto the ledge outside their room.
"Now this is a real weyr," Elori said, stroking the big dragon’s face. She kissed the end of his nose, and his eyes whirled in a kaleidoscope of purple and gold.

      When they returned from the bathing pool, R'vell brought a couple of sleeping furs and wrapped one around Elori. It was a warm night, so the furs were all they needed. They sat down on the ledge next to Varenth; Elori in front of R'vell with his arms around her.
"Var," R'vell said,"We’ve been talking, and we’ve decided it’s time to ask you, what on earth has been going on? Why was it so important that Elori came to Benden Weyr and that we were together?"
Varenth sighed. I looked ahead.
"You’ve said that before, but what do you mean?"
This, I looked ahead, across turns and turns and turns, and I saw this. I saw you, my rider, sitting here with this woman, and you were both happy. I looked ahead across more turns yet, and I saw others and they lived because you lived and were together, both of you. They will be important to the future of Pern.
"I still don’t understand," R'vell said.
"I don’t either," Elori agreed. She looked up at him.
"Sweetheart," she said, "you’ve got a faraway look. What are you thinking about?"
"I was remembering the day I impressed Var. Crowds of people, so much noise, my parents in the stands watching, so proud. This one egg was cracking, right in front of me. The egg shell fell away in bits, and there he was, a brown dragonet. But he wasn’t screeching for food the way all the others were. He was looking at a little girl, about 5 turns old I’d say, standing next to him."
"I was 6," Elori whispered.
"She put her hand on his head, but she wasn’t touching him, it looked like her hand went into his skin. Like she was there, but not there. I said, his name is Varenth."
"And at the same moment, I said, his name is Varenth. I remember you."
"I heard him say 'friend Elori and friend R'vell'. How could I have forgotten your name? I remember, she had light brown hair and green eyes. There was a bruise on her face."
It was not important then that you remember, until now.
"Well I remember all of it now," R’vell said, sitting up. "There were times when I had the strangest feeling that Var was talking to someone else. And when I asked, he’d say it was another friend. But none of the other weyrlings’ dragons talked to anyone else."
R’vell was quiet for a while, Elori looked at him, worried. He looked sad, she slipped her hand into his and gently squeezed. He looked at her and smiled.
"For a long time," he said, quietly, "I thought it was because I wasn’t good enough. I used to lie awake at night worrying that Var would be taken away from me and given to some other boy."
I did not know you were so worried, the big dragon said. The tone of his voice was remorseful. I forgot sometimes that you were a child and would not understand.
Elori turned round and wrapped her arms around R’vell.
"I needed him," she said. "When times were really bad, he kept me safe."
R’vell held her chin. "I wish I’d known about you," he said. "It would have helped to know that there was another little ‘un like me. Even one that hadn’t been born yet, not for hundreds of turns."
"You were a very cute little boy," Elori said.
"And you were an adorable little girl. Even with the bruises." His eyes widened. "I remember," he said. "There was one afternoon, when I saw you. You had bruises on your face and long cuts on your hands, and I could see lines of blood seeping through your shirt. You were sitting on the wall, shaking like a tree in the wind. I sat beside you. I felt so bad for you, I wanted to hug you, but my arms went right through you."
Elori smiled. "I remember now."
"I asked my mother why someone’s parent would beat them so badly. You were just a little kid. My mother didn’t know about any little girl who’d been beaten. My father thought I was lying, but my mother believed me. She told me not to talk about things, or people, I had seen. So I kept quiet."
"Did you see me again, after that?" Elori said.
"A few times. You were growing up. And I got to the age where I wished I could meet you for real."
Elori looked up at him. "Why? I was just a scrawny, plain kid."
"I’m not going to answer that," R’vell said. "You were never plain."
Elori grinned. "Shells, I wish I’d met you. Would have been fun."
But you would not have met here, now, Varenth said, and that would not be right.
      Elori looked up into the dark sky. "It’s getting late, I can see Belior," she said. "Time we went to bed, I think."
R’vell stretched. "If I know F’nor, he’ll put me on early patrol in the morning. He was muttering threats about getting me to teach the young weyrlings." He stood up and gathered Elori into his arms. "Thank goodness you’re tiny," he said.
Elori laughed helplessly. "I’m not that small, you silly clunch."
      He carried her to the bed and dropped her onto the sleeping furs. She scrambled under the furs and snuggled into R’vell, and they were asleep in minutes. Varenth stayed awake, watching over them, and thinking about the fragility of human feelings. Such delicate sensibilities and yet, so important. In the past, the present, and the future. And without these two, frail, emotional humans, there would be no future. Varenth listened; all was well. He cradled his massive head on his forearms, and was soon fast asleep.

(3 months later)

      Elori held up the new gown she had finished making. The material was fine and well woven, and lovelier than anything she had ever had before. It had been dyed a rich, deep green and she had embroidered yellow flowers around the neck and sleeves. But when would she wear it? It was far too nice for the kitchens. She still worked there of course, and was in demand for her skill at baking cakes and cookies. At least that was one useful talent she had brought with her from the hold. She joined the other women in the kitchen caverns on Threadfall days to help mix the revoltingly pungent numbweed. Most of the women still looked at her askance, but they were glad enough that Varenth told her when the riders were about to return, and who needed the numbweed most. He always told her first that R’vell was unharmed. It was rumoured that she heard Varenth before Lessa heard Mnementh, or even before the watchweyr.

      She folded the lovely dress carefully and placed it in the press. She inspected the contents of the press gloatingly. Her few old gowns had gone. Manora had torn them up for rags, which was all they were fit for. Well made skirts and tunics, and gowns replaced them. Every time the weaverhalls sent new bolts of material, R’vell would spend his marks on new things for her, no matter how often she protested. All of her underthings were also newly made and far finer than anything she had ever worn, before R’vell; a time that was so far distant, it was if it had happened to someone else and not to her. Thanks to the weyrhealer’s potions, the weals on her back were almost faded. She smiled, thinking of how R’vell liked to keep the task of rubbing the ointment into her back for himself.
      There were moments when she missed her mother and her siblings, especially her brother who had risked his life to try to teach her to read, against their father’s wishes. The day that R’vell realised that she could not write, and struggled to read the simplest teaching scrolls, he insisted on teaching her himself. She could not have had a more considerate or gentle teacher, especially when he rewarded every correct sentence, read, or written, with a kiss. If she wanted to write a letter to send to her family (father excluded) he would help her. But would she really want them to know where she was? She would not put it past her father to try to snatch her back, to a life of misery and suffering.

      As she stood up, she was aware that strange thoughts, confused, muddled impressions, had been pressing in on her mind for some time. She had ignored them, but now they were louder and more insistant. She shook her head, trying to dislodge them. The muffled voices were jumbled, but in amongst them, she could hear Varenth. R’vell staggered into the room, there was a strange excitement in his eyes.
"Sweetheart," he said, clutching her shoulders, "whatever happens, don’t forget that I love you, and only you."
She smiled. "I don’t mind hearing it again," she said, "but what is it? Is there something wrong?" She shook her head again, the voices were back, shriller than before and over all of them, she heard Varenth, but only the sound of his voice, not his words.
"Var, the fardling idiot," R’vell said, pacing up and down the room in a frantic circle. "Some crackskull green is rising and Var has decided to chase her. Why now? He’s never shown any interest in the others before." R’vell hugged Elori close for a brief moment. "He’s big and fast enough to catch her too. Please forgive me precious girl. And don’t forget, I love you."

      Elori was suddenly aware that most of the voices had faded and she felt oddly suspended in the air, the warm sunshine and wind rushing under and over her wings. Wings? She looked down at herself; they were arms, but they did not feel like hers. They were too small, too weak. What were these? The reach of her wings was infinite. She closed her eyes, swaying as the wind buffeted against her. Two men came into the room and she slipped behind the press. She was burning up inside and her ears were ringing, her eyes kept going in and out of focus. The heat was unbearable, the sun had caught fire. She vaguely recognised the men as green and blue riders, S’kan and V’nat. S’kan moved swiftly to R’vell’s side and V’nat snarled, his face twisted and ugly with jealousy. Her heart was pounding so fast she thought she would faint.
      Varenth easily outflew them all, being larger and faster than any blue or green. As he wound his neck around the smaller green dragon and pinned her wings under his, her rider embraced R’vell. V’nat grabbed S’kan, pulling him away. He had a dagger in one hand, she saw the light of it flashing. In thrall to Varenth, R’vell was helpless to defend himself, and S’kan was weaving on his feet.
      Elori ran forward and stood between R’vell and the hostile, threatening blade. She snarled, hands curled claw-like, shaking with rage, and ready to tear this dolt to pieces. She made a grab at the enthralled blue rider as a sudden searing wave of lust flooded her. The dagger dropped to the ground, and the riders staggered out of the room, V’nat half dragging his struggling weyrmate. She turned to R’vell. More closely bonded to Varenth than she, she realised that it was up to her to bring him back. She led him to the bed, peeling off his clothes as they staggered there, somehow, on feet that would insist they were somewhere way above the ground. He tried to do the same for her, his hands shaking and fumbling with the laces at the back of her gown. She pushed him and he fell, naked, onto the bed. She undressed quickly and none too carefully, hearing at least one seam tear in her gown as she drew it off in one swift movement.
      There was nothing of the usual gentleness and tenderness she had come to expect. Overwhelmed by the impossible rush of desire, she clung to R’vell, clawing at his back to draw him closer and ever closer inside her body. Varenth shared his mating lust with them both, she could not feel which was her own body and which was R’vell’s, or Varenth’s. The sensation of all three orgasming at the same time was intensely shattering. Slowly she became aware of who she was, heart pounding and her body aching and bruised. She barely felt it when R’vell, recovering first, pulled her into his arms and wrapped her in the sleeping fur. He stroked her hair and kissed her face. She heard him murmuring her name. She opened her eyes and managed a tiny smile to reassure him.
"I’m still here, I’m still me," she whispered. "Shells, is it always like that?"
R’vell laughed. "No, not really. Both, aha, combatants, usually have their own dragons."
She noticed a bitemark on his shoulder. "Did I do that?" she said. She kissed the bruise her teeth had made on him.
"I’m glad V’nat had the sense to get out, or I think you would have torn him to pieces."
Elori smiled weakily. "If he’d hurt you, no one could have stopped me."

      "So is that, usual?" R’vell said. A day later, walking by the training grounds, he had told all of it to F’nor, trying to disguise who he was talking about. But rumours had been flying around the Weyr like wherry feathers. Everyone had noticed that S’kan and V’nat were barely speaking to each other.
"For a rider’s weyrmate to be caught up in the mating flight as well?" F’nor said. "No, not usual at all. Not unless both of their dragons are in the flight. But as you said, Elori has not impressed a dragon."
R’vell grinned. "You wouldn’t say that if you heard her and Varenth talking to each other."
"She hears him?"
"Loud and clear! Sometimes they talk to each other, and Varenth blocks it from me. I’ll bet they’re talking about me."
F’nor stopped and stared at the Oldtimer in horror.
"Your own dragon blocks his thoughts from you while he talks to someone else? I’m sorry R’vell, I know you said you wanted to speak to me in confidence. But this has to go to Lessa and F’lar. What you’re talking about is nothing short of, well, impression…."

      "...which is impossible," F’lar said angrily, glaring at the four; three riders and one non-rider, sitting in the council room, in various degrees of shame, guilt, confusion, and amusement. "You did right in bringing this to me F’nor." "And to me," Lessa stalked into the council room and everyone, including F’lar, sat up a little straighter. She glared at Elori, who stared candidly back at her. Her frown increased when she noticed that the brown rider was holding his weyrmate’s hand. He would have moved his hand, but Elori held him more tightly. The glance she gave Lessa was icily defiant.
      The two blue young riders sat as far away from the other two as possible. S’kan was obviously shamed by his weyrmate’s actions. V’nat tried to echo Elori’s nonchalance, but failed under Lessa’s baleful glare. The dagger he had used to threaten R’vell, lay on the table, a reminder of the tragedy that could have befallen, had Elori not intervened.
      Lessa picked the dagger up and toyed with it. F’lar banged the table, making them all jump, except, Lessa noted, the hold-bred woman. Interesting.
"I will not be in charge of disciplining you, or by the first egg I’d send you both to separate Weyrs," he growled. "Your wingleader has said he will assign you to midden cave duty, and be thankful it isn’t something worse. What you did was completely against weyr protocol, of any Weyr, let alone threatening another rider’s life during a mating flight. Get out, I’m sick of you both!" The two riders left as quickly as they could, shepherded by F’nor. V’nat would have stayed to argue, but S’kan pulled him away.
      "You’re in no way to blame, R’vell," F’lar said wearily. "Nor is S’kan really. What got into V’nat? They’ve both taken part in mating flights before."
"But Varenth has not for a long time," R’vell said quietly. "I always assumed he was too old,"
"Weyrling boy," Elori whispered. R’vell let out a laugh, and turned it into a cough.
"Then why now?" Lessa said.
"Who knows why Vary does anything?" Elori said quietly. "He’s a law unto himself, that one." She cocked her head to one side and smiled. "Oh, he agrees with that," she said.
"You heard him?" Lessa snapped.
"I hear him," Elori said. "I have always heard him. Long before I knew he was a dragon."
      Lessa perched on the edge of the table. "Explain," she said.
"To begin with," Elori said, "I come from High Reaches, and a nameless hold, scarcely bigger than three families. My father," she stopped and took a breath and gathered her courage. R’vell kissed the back of her hand.
"It’s all right sweetheart," he said.
F’lar looked confused, but Lessa nodded soberly. Manora and the weyrhealer had reported the vicious weals on the back of the new kitchen worker.
      "My father," Elori continued, "was a bronze rider, even before I was born. My mother’s sister was a gold rider, a junior queen, and when her dragon rose to mate, my father encouraged his to fly her. The dragon was younger than the other bronzes and he tried, but he tired too soon. He crashed into the ground at speed and was killed. After that, father became mean and vicious. There were six of us children, four boys and two girls. He moved us to an abandoned hold and we had to live as best we could. It was a hard life, and he made it harder. Two other families joined us, who were of the same mind as him."
      R’vell got up and poured a glass of water for her from the jug on the table. Elori was white, and he felt her hand tremble in his. Talking about her former life was costing her a great deal. She drank the water and gave him the cup. F’lar fidgeted impatiently, but stopped at a look from Lessa. She understood the horror of living with the constant threat of violence and opression.
      "It was even more difficult after a High Reaches bronze rider came on Search and wanted me for the Hatching. There was a gold egg. Father was furious. If my brother had not stopped him, he would have beaten me to death. But it wasn’t just because of him. I didn’t want to go either." She turned to R’vell, smiling. "It was Varenth. I was just a child, 14 turns old, but Varenth told me the gold was not for me and I must not go. That was before you brought the Oldtimers Forward, Lessa. I’d been hearing Vary all my life, though I didn’t know it was a dragon talking to me. I called him Vary and I thought of him as an older brother. I learned very quickly not to let anyone else know I could hear him or I’d be locked away forever. I’d heard him for so many years that I didn’t think twice when he told me not to go to High Reaches.
      And that’s how I came here. Vary guided me all the way. If I wanted to stay somewhere, maybe settle down, he’d say it was not the right place and I had to keep walking."
"Yes it’s no use arguing with that old bag of bones when he gets an idea into his head," R’vell laughed. "He’s the most manipulative, bullying, stubborn…"
"...adorable dragon," Elori said, "and we both love him anyway."

      "I would like to speak with Elori, if you two don’t mind," Lessa said. Elori nodded to R’vell. He kissed her hand again, and left. F’lar exchanged a long look with his weyrmate, before he too left the council chamber. Lessa pulled up two chairs and called down the service shaft for klah. While they waited, Lessa decided to talk of less contentious topics.
"I must say, "she said pleasently, "it is nice to see R’vell smile now and then. We were beginning to think he was not able to."
"Then it’s a pity that no one thought to talk to him, instead of ignoring him." Elori snapped. "He is an Oldtimer, but that’s no excuse for everyone trying to pretend he didn’t exist. He had nothing to do with that business with T’kul. Do you know Lessa, he was planning to take Varenth and jump between, back to the time he came from?"
Lessa paled. "That would have killed him," she said, utterly shocked.
"Yes, and that is why Vary spoke to me. He talked to me, from over 400 turns ago, so that R’vell and I would find each other and he wouldn’t die trying to get back home." Tears prickled her eyes, she brushed them away with an unsteady hand. Lessa handed her a handkerchief.
"I am sorry," Lessa said, "I don’t think any of us tried to think of it from his point of view. We called him an Oldtimer, and left him alone. We were at fault. F’lar did suggest that he move to one of the other Weyrs. Fort, High Reaches, Igen, Ista or Telgar. Any of them would have welcomed him and he would have been with others of his own kind. But putting that aside, does that mean that Varenth could see that far ahead, and knew that R’vell would try to take his own life?"
Elori nodded. "He never says so, but I think he did. He found where I was, when I was, and manipulated my life to end with me coming here. And I’m glad he did."
      The platform from the kitchens had arrived. Lessa took the cups and jug of hot klah to the table. She deftly served them both.
"F’nor is right, it does seem that you have impressed Varenth. Which is impossible. Two people cannot impress the same dragon. Novertheless, a number of impossible things have been happening on Pern lately. You have a fair amount of dragonrider blood," she said, conversationally. "Have you ever thought that you could be a rider yourself, a queen rider?"
"No thank you," Elori said, "and not only because Vary did not want me to impress the gold at High Reaches." She placed the cup carefully on the table, after taking a long drink. "If I impressed a gold, and there is nothing to say I would, I would not be allowed to stay with a brown rider. You know it, I’d be moved on to some other Weyr. Even as a junior queen rider I’d have no say. And I will not leave R’vell. I don’t care who says it or orders it. I belong to R’vell and he belongs to me. I am his weyrmate and I don’t wish to be anything else."
      Lessa drank her klah, feeling unusually humble. It was rare that she encountered a relationship as deeply and emotionally binding as hers with F’lar, and F’nor with Brekke. Weyr relationships were notoriously fleeting and impermanent.
"At least we won’t be losing either of you," Lessa said. "An Oldtimer rider and a woman who can hear a dragon, and comes from dragon stock. Your children would be rather special."
Elori blushed. "I think it’s a little early to think….." She stopped, staring at the cup of cooling klah.
"What is it?" Lessa said.
"It just occurred to me. If Vary had wanted to, he could have blocked the mating flight from me. But I got all of it. I do believe that R’vell was not as overwhelmed as I was. I would not have put it past Vary to have engineered that, for his own reasons. Lessa, how soon do you know? You know if you’re... Well."
"If you’re pregnant? Not as soon as this!" Lessa laughed. She took a long look at Elori. "You really think it might have happened," she said.
"Let’s just say I would not be at all surprised. I won’t say anything to R’vell yet. Time enough when I’m sure."
"Let me know if anything, aha, develops," Lessa said. She nodded abruptly, which Elori took as a dismissal. She left the council room and headed for the dining hall, sure she would find R’vell there.

      Elori looked over at the corner by the hearth, but R’vell was not there. Instead, and this amazed her so that she could not move for a moment, he sat at a table in the company of F’nor and two other riders. By the broad grins on their faces, it was obvious that rumours had truly been flying around. She sat down beside R’vell and took up a cup of klah.
"Yes, all right," she said crisply. "So I’m the only non rider to get caught up in a mating flight. Take your silly faces somewhere else please."
The two riders, and F’nor, took the hint and walked over to another table. Where the sudden burst of laughter mortified Elori.
"Does every one know?" she said quietly. "The weyrlings as well, I don’t doubt."
R’vell smiled and hugged her. "Just ignore them. It’ll be someone else in a sevenday. Have you heard from Var lately?"
"Not since last night. What do you think he’s plotting now?"
"I have my suspicions. But I’m not about to ask him. We’ll find out when he thinks it’s a good time."
"Yes, and get hit between the eyes by something even more…. I can’t think of a word. There isn’t a word that can describe his machinations."
"Have you forgiven him yet?"
Elori smiled. "I think so, I would have appreciated some warning though."
"I think I should warn you," R’vell said, with a grin. "Manora gave me some ointment for that bite you gave me and said it should fade in a sevenday."
Elori hid her face in her hands and groaned. "I am never going to live this down."

      "I don’t think I will either," a very contrite S’kan said, standing in front of them, looking so much like a chastened weyrling that R’vell and Elori were both hard pressed not to laugh. R’vell pushed a chair forward, and S’kan sat down, fiddling with his belt buckle.
"I can’t apologise enough," he said. "V’nat would have killed you. And now his dragon won’t even speak to him, he’s so disgusted."
"Haven’t your dragons risen before?"
"Only once," S’kan said. "And his caught mine that time."
"Shards!" R’vell said, "my turn to apologise. I didn’t know my blasted dragon was going to pull a trick like that. All I can say S’kan, is that you were caught in one of Varenth’s plots. And I will have him come and apologise to both your dragons and to you, before this day is over." He looked at Elori.
"It’s one thing for him to have plans for us, and do everything possible to make them come true, but I won’t have him harming others."
      S’kan’s face went bright red. "It was my fault. I said something stupid a sevenday ago, and V’nat took it the wrong
way." R’vell and Elori exchanged a puzzled look. S’kan sighed, they were not going to make this easy.
"About, y’know, your beard."
R’vell stroked his chin. "My beard? What about it?" he said.
Suddenly Elori burst out laughing. The puzzled expression on R’vell’s face only made her laugh harder, tears running down her face. S’kan started to laugh in sympathy.
"Come here," she said. S’kan followed her a few paces away from the table. She began whispering in his ear. He looked startled for a moment, then he was giggling, looking back at V’nat whose morose expression made him laugh even more. Finally, whatever was going on was over, and S’kan went back to his unhappy weyrmate.
Elori sat beside R’vell again.
"What was all that about?" he said.
"Hmmm, I don’t know if you’re old enough," she said. "You’re just a young’un you know."
"Well, perhaps we should go somewhere quieter and you can tell me there." He took hold of her hand and they walked through the dining hall, swerving past tables as the room was crowded now. And Elori took no notice of the whistles and laughter that followed them.

(6 sevendays later)

      Thread was falling again, as inexorably as always. Every able bodied rider was out fighting, and every able bodied woman without a dragon of their own was preparing the pots of numbweed, redwort, and bandages, and making klah. Elori stood, anxiously scanning the skies.
“Any word?” Manora said.
“Nothing yet,” Elori replied. “They’re not far off, but Varenth is too busy to speak to me and I wouldn’t want him to be distracted.”
“Of course,” Manora said, and patted Elori’s shoulder.
“Wait!” Elori called after her, “they’re coming back. Not many casualties. They flew well today.” She was grinning broadly without being aware of it. Varenth had told her that R’vell was injured, but only slightly. The whole fighting force of dragons landed in the bowl, thick dust choking the air. Ramoth sat protectively over her latest clutch. Hatching day was expected for the next day, so this was the big gold’s last chance to shelter her young from the battle with thread. But Elori was busy watching out for Varenth.
      R’vell found her before she saw him, as he ran across the bowl to the caverns. He was holding his left shoulder a little hunched.
“Just caught a bit,” he said.
“Vary said it wasn’t bad.” She quickly stripped him of his wherry hide jacket and shirt. There was a threadscore, not too deep to heal, the first shell be praised. “You should learn to duck, clumsy boy, that’s the second time you’ve done this since I met you,” she said. But her hands were gentle as she spread numbweed on the score, which was a little deeper than the time before.
R’vell picked up her other hand and kissed it. “I wouldn’t take silly risks,” he said, “not now.” When she had finished slathering his injury in redwort and numbweed, and wiped her hand on a rag, he pressed a cheek to her stomach.
“How are you both doing?” he said.
Elori stroked his hair. “We are both very well,” she said. “I was sick only once today. It’s a good thing we weren’t making numbweed though. Oof, that stuff stinks.”
One of the other women walked around the riders, carrying a tray of mugs full of hot klah. Elori took one and handed it to R’vell. She shuddered.
“That stuff doesn’t seem to agree with me any more,” she said sadly.
“It’s hatching day tomorrow,” R’vell said. “Thread isn’t expected and it’s a rest day, so there should be a good turn out. I was told that if you’re still of the same mind, I won’t be needed to help with ferrying guests. So if you’d like, we could go to our lake and get away from the crowd for the day.”
“I’d love that!” Elori hugged him. “Still of the same mind? I detect a message from Lessa in there.”
R’vell put on his shirt and jacket and went away to see to Varenth, while Elori joined the women in the kitchens. With a hatching coming, they would need extra cakes and cookies to feed everyone.

      As she took out a vast bowl used for mixing cakes, she noticed that fewer people stayed aloof from her now. Two women smiled when they gave her a big bowl of eggs, and commented on how well the dragon riders had fought thread.
“Your man got a bit scored,” one of them said.
Elori nodded. “He’s all right though,” she said, “nothing serious.”
An older woman sidled up, carrying a large jar of flour. “Yeah, but these old ones,” she said, with a mocking grin, “they don’t have much energy about them.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Elori said, smiling, “he seemed to have plenty of energy last night. He just about wore me out with all his energy.”
The older woman banged the jar on the table and stalked away, while Elori and the other women laughed.
“Take no notice of Retha,” one of the women said. “A month before you came here, she made a pass at your man. A very obvious pass, she was a bit tipsy on the ale, and everybody saw. He didn’t even say a word, just moved to another table. So she feels she has a bit of a grudge.”
      Fifteen cakes were made and were baking in the ovens. Elori and the other two women cleaned and swept the table and put everything away. There was nothing left to do now until the cakes were done. A small boy came to them, carrying a tray that was almost as big as him.
“Manora says, take the weight off your feet,” he said, “and here’s some klah.”
The two women took the mugs of klah. Manora had thoughtfully included a mug of herb leaf tea for Elori.
“Off the klah, eh?” one of the women said. “I was the same when I was expecting my second.”
      They sat on a bench outside the kitchens. The respite from the searing heat of the ovens was a relief. One of the women nodded to Elori.
“I’m Cleo,” she said, “and this is my friend, Marlia. We should have introduced ourselves before, but you know how it is.” Cleo and Marlia shared a look.
“Don’t take this badly,” Marlia said, “but you came from nowhere and weren’t too keen to be friendly.”
Elori sighed. “I know. All I can say is I grew up not having friends, or being allowed to have friends. And then there was, well….”
Marlia drained her mug. “You know how rumours fly around this place, faster than a firelizard. There was a rumour that you could hear a dragon talking to you, and we didn’t know what to say to that. I mean there’s Lessa.”
“There’s always Lessa,” Cleo said ruefully, and Elori laughed. “Talks to all the dragons, gets a gold dragon, and the Weyr.”
“I only hear one dragon,” Elori said, with a smile.
“Well, when you’re working here,” Marlia said, “come and find us. We’re pretty nice when you get to know us, and we don’t bite.”
Cleo nudged Elori. “Her oldest boy impressed last hatching day. A green rider, isn’t he Marlia. Still just a weyrling, but he makes us laugh, telling us about what he’s been learning. Proud he is, of his little dragonet. You’d think no one had ever impressed before, bless him.”
“R’vell’s been teaching the weyrlings lately,” Elori said, “I think he quite enjoys it.”
“Oh yes,” Marlia said, draining her cup. “My S’liam said. Your man’s a good teacher.”
“You coming to the hatching tomorrow?” Cleo said.
“No, not this time,” Elori said, gathering up the mugs. “We’re going off for the day.”
Marlia sighed. “Perhaps there’s something to be said for being with an Oldtimer. My man would never think to take me somewhere nice on his dragon. But, we can’t sit round here gossiping all day, those cakes are ready to come out now. Elori, see if you can find that fribbile, Jimminy. He ran off scared when the dragons landed and hasn’t come back yet. Manora will skin him alive if she finds out. Honestly, I don’t know what we keep him for. Scared of his own shadow.”
      Elori ran the errant Jimminy to ground, hiding in a supply cupboard and coaxed him with a handful of sugar cookies to help Cleo and Marlia. Taking all in all, it was a good day, and all the better for her getting to know other people. Perhaps, she thought, she was putting down some more roots and Benden Weyr was turning out to be her home. She thought about what Marlia had said about R’vell’s teaching. Perhaps he was putting down some roots as well. Inside her mind, she “heard” Varenth chuckle.

      Hatching day dawned bright and sunny. Elori had a moment of regret. Her new gown would have been perfect for such an occasion. But the opportunity to spend the day alone with R’vell, Varenth excepted, was too good to miss. In the casual nature of most weyr pairings, pregnant women were usually dispatched to the lower caverns. She did not need Varenth or R’vell to assure her that that would not be her fate.
“We’re here to stay, baby mine,” she whispered, placing her hands over where a tiny scrap of life was growing.

      The lake was as still and quiet as always. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, and another raptor sailed high on the breeze. Varenth stomped into the water, swooshing it from side to side with his large head.
“I swear this place never changes,” Elori said. “It must just wait here for us and can’t move until we’ve arrived.”
R’vell stood behind her, his arms around her. “I noticed you packed enough food for several days,” he said. “Are you that hungry, or….”
“Oh definitely or,” she laughed.
      They undressed quickly and lay down on the sleeping fur that R’vell had thoughtfully packed. He kissed her stomach.
“Now then son of mine,” he said, “you just go to sleep while your mother and I are busy.”
“Son?” Elori laughed, “what if we have a daughter?”
“Then daughter of mine should go to sleep as well.”

      Elori woke up, covered in another sleeping fur. R’vell was dozing beside her. So what had woken her up?
You should both wake up, Varenth said, something wonderful is happening. His voice was thrumming with excitement. They sat up slowly, to see a golden queen fire lizard fluttering over a pit in the sand of the lake beach near Varenth. The tiny queen was humming.
“A hatching? Didn’t notice that pit before,” R’vell said. He quickly drew on his linen trews and handed Elori her shift. They quietly and slowly stood up and walked towards where the sand had been uncovered, revealing a pile of broken egg shells and the pathetic remains of several fire lizard bodies. The queen squawked at them, but did not seem to object to their presence. Once or twice, she flew to Varenth and hovered at the level of his eyes.
Elori dropped to her knees. “Oh those poor things,” she said. “Tunnel snakes must have got them.”
“Wait, there’s one that hasn’t been harmed,” R’vell said. He leaned down and picked up the egg.
“Its very warm, I think its on the verge of hatching.” He gave it to Elori, who carried it carefully back to the furs and sat down.
“What do we do if it hatches?” Elori said quietly.
“Feed it, just like a dragon hatchling. It’ll be starving.” He look at the full satchel. “Just as well you did put in enough food for a whole wing,” he laughed.

      At that moment, cracks began to appear on the egg. In a matter of seconds a tiny golden dragonet, impossibly miniature, fell into Elori’s hands. It wound its tail around Elori’s arm, creeling with hunger. Elori tipped the satchel out onto the fur.
“Easier this way,” she said, stuffing a meatroll into the queen’s mouth. In the middle of feeding another to the ravenous queen, she looked round.
“Vary, doesn’t the mother want to feed? We’ve got plenty to spare.” she said.
She has gone. She is content that you will care for the little one. I told her so.
      By now, the baby fire lizard was replete and settling down to sleep, still wrapped around Elori’s arms.
“Your eyes are shining,” R’vell laughed. Elori was absorbed in her little queen, cradling the tiny creature tenderly.
“I’m getting the most incredible thoughts from her,” Elori said. “She thinks I’m wonderful.”
“I think you’re wonderful too, but we should eat,” R’vell said. “Come on, expectant mothers have to keep their strength up.”
Elori started to laugh, trying to keep as quiet as possible.
“There was Lessa, trying to persuade me to impress a queen,” she said, “and I have!”
R’vell chuckled in sympathy. “Just not the one she wanted.”
Elori sobered. “She doesn’t like fire lizards at all, does she?”
“Well, if she makes a fuss, we could always move to High Reaches. I came from there too.”
Elori stared at him. “Why did you not go there when T’kul and his band left?”
R’vell stroked the tiny sleeping golden. “I had no mind to see my parents’ graves.” he said. “Nor Salina’s. I didn’t want to see the Weyr as it is now, remembering it as it was. Comparisons are odious, as my mother would say.”
      Elori leaned across the fur and kissed R’vell on the forehead. “How are we going to carry this one home?” she said.
“And I think we’d better put on a few more clothes before we go.”
If I may suggest, Varenth said mildly, you do not necessarily need to wear a shift under your gown, Elori. You could fold it and make a sling in which to carry the little one.
“He’s clever, isn’t he, that old bag of bones?” R’vell said, nodding his head in Varenth’s direction.
Elori giggled. She had taken off her shift and was trying, with difficulty, to put on her underthings. She picked up her breast band and looked at it, ruefully. “I don’t know how I’m going to get this round me,” she said. “I usually have two hands free.”
“Well,” R’vell drawled, “I’m better at taking them off. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to put one back on. Var, do you think this little one will wake up if we put her down for a moment?”
Wrap her in the fur, then she will be warm enough.
      Elori gently laid the fire lizard on the sleeping fur. The tiny creature merely snuffled and curled into a ball.
“One of these days,” Elori muttered as she wrapped her breast band around her body, “I’ll have to teach you how to put one of these on.”
“Oh no, it’s much more fun taking them off,” He tried to unfasten hers and she slapped his hands.
“Stop it weyrling,” she giggled.

      Once dressed, Elori folded her shift and tied it around herself, reflecting that it was a good thing she did not have to rely on the patched and well-worn shifts. While she was busy, R’vell repacked the food in the satchel. Varenth moved as close to them as he could, and crouched to make it easier for Elori to climb onto his back.
“When I get bigger,” she said, “you’ll have to lie practically flat so I can climb up here.”
Varenth chuckled. I am looking forward to meeting your child, he said. It is a pity human babies take so long to hatch.
      R’vell handed the still sleeping little queen up to her and she settled it carefully.
“Var,” he said, “it might be a good idea to take us straight to our weyr instead of landing. The crowd won’t have gone yet, and I don’t want this little one to be scared by the attention.”
“He’s clever, isn’t he, that old man?” Elori said, laughing as Varenth rose into the air, considerably slower and more gentle than usual.

      R’vell’s idea turned out to be a good one. Although it was evening, the bowl was still crowded with holders, riders, and proud families, and screeches sounded from the weyrling barracks. Varenth took them to their weyr. Once they were deposited on the ledge, he took off again.
I’m hungry too, he called back to them.
Their timing was perfect as the fire lizard began to wake up, her cries of hunger rivalling the dragonets, until her open mouth was filled with more meatrolls.
“How did Brekke cope with hers, and F’nor?” Elori said, wincing as sharp little claws dug into her arm, though she had wrapped a thick towel around.
“Hmm, perhaps I should ask them,” R’vell said. “Have you decided what to call her?”
“Oh goodness, I forgot I can name her. I think I’ll call her Zephyr, after the winds. And there’s a lot to think about. I’ll have to sort out food for her, for one thing.”
“Make interest with Manora?”
“She was sympathetic to Berd and Grall, and there was that harper girl’s fair. I think Manora will help, if I ask her the right way,” Elori said, planning to put in a few more extra hours in the kitchens to “pay” for Zephyr’s feeding.
“We can’t leave her on her own while she’s so young, can we? Then there’s oiling her, bathing her. I presume they’re like dragons that way.”
Elori laughed. “Vary could give me some pointers there.”
“And to think I thought I was past all this,” R'vell said.
“All this?”
“New beginnings, life. I thought mine was all but over. But Var wouldn’t let me go.”
Elori slipped the sleeping queen onto the bed and hugged R’vell. “He wouldn’t let me go either,” she said quietly.
      Something she had decided was best kept to herself; a memory of a day when there had been one beating too many for her to stand. The first time she had run away from the hold, to the edge of the sea, intending to walk out into the oblivion of the water and never look back. But Vary’s voice held her, and she had crept back into the hold before anyone realised she had gone. How old had she been? It was just after the bronze rider came on Search. And she never knew that Vary had called from 450 turns away to keep her alive and living.
R’vell felt the tears on her face. “Hey, what’s this?” he said.
Elori smiled. “Sad thoughts and even sadder memories,” she said. “All gone Between. None of them matter any more. Now, how are we going to look after this little one?”

      R’vell and Elori lived for 20 very happy and contented years together. Their son, R’lorin, became a bronze rider and lived with his wyremate, a golden rider. R’lorin’s daughter, Ceris, grew up to be a significant part of guiding Pern into a new era, after the information given to the population from AVIS changed everything. Indeed, without her knowledge and contribution, Pern would have had a more difficult transition, setting the planet back a hundred turns. Ceris was the reason why Varenth was so insistant on keeping R’vell alive and leading Elori to him.

      When R’vell was 75 his health suffered, and there came a time when it was obvious that he was not going to live for the length of a sevenday. With R’lorin’s help, R’vell was placed on Varenth’s back, dressed in riding leathers, as though about to ride to fight Thread. Elori sat behind him with her arms tightly wrapped around his chest. If anyone had been near to hear, they would have heard R’vell protest that really, he did like to breath.

      Varenth was now a very old dragon and his muzzle was white. But as he gathered one last burst of energy and leapt into the air, the other dragons sounded a farewell that was heard all over the region. They flew to their lake out of sight of the Weyr, and then they went Between, and were never seen again. They were born 500 turns apart, and had found each other, thanks to a manipulative dragon, and would never be parted.