127Disclaimer: Everything to do with Pern and the dragons of Pern belongs to Anne McCaffrey. Only the characters and plot presented here are my own.
AN: I got slightly bored and decided to cut straight to the action… well, slightly past most of the action in fact… so watch out for the time gap between this and the previous chapter. If it's confusing then I need to know! Please R&R, and I'd especially welcome feedback on whether the time jumps works or not and whether this chapter seems to fit in with everything you've heard so far. Personally, I think it's a bit too abrupt and jagged, but it was unbelievably hard to write and you've been waiting a long time so in the end I just posted the thing. Please give me any advice you can! Enjoy it if you can; hopefully the next one will be better.
Lystar woke up slowly. Her side was burning, and for a confused moment she thought that she was back on the Hatching Ground. Then she shifted and the pain lancing through her left side woke her completely, and she remembered.
Cal? Are you there?
I'm here.
Are you alright?
I've been better. I am surviving. So are you.
Mm-hmm. Cal, what happened? One moment we were flying with the rest of the wing, then…
'Lystar, are you awake?' The voice belonged to Gilda, the tiny, withered headwoman. She'd looked after Lystar for as long as the girl could remember.
'Uh…' Lystar grunted, then cleared her throat and tried again, forcing the words out. 'Yes. I think.'
'Well, you shouldn't be.' Gilda said, briskly. 'Go back to sleep. Is your side hurting?' Without waiting for an answer, she flipped back the light blanket covering Lystar and the girl felt the cool, soothing touch of numbweed on her wounds. She could feel herself beginning to slip away. Gilda was right, she was very tired…
The last thing she heard was Gilda's approving grunt. 'It's healing just as it should, there's one blessing. I'll say this for you and that great bony monster of yours, Lystar, you're tough.'
When she woke R'lan's face was hanging over her. 'Huh?' she asked, vaguely.
'Shards, Lystar!' the Weyrleader exclaimed. 'Can't you even look after yourself? Why didn't you see that thing coming?'
'It was on – ' Lystar began to explain, dutifully, then broke off in confusion, remembering who she was talking to. 'I don't know.' It was on my blind side, she wanted to explain. I couldn't spot it with my bad eye, and by the time Cal noticed it we couldn't dodge out of the way.
'It was what?' asked R'lan, ominously quiet. 'You don't know. This can't go on, Lystar! Three times you've flown thread, and three times you've returned scored! As of now, I'm relieving you of your flying duties.'
'WHAT?' Lystar shrieked, jerking upright. 'Father, you can't do that! All dragonriders fly thread!'
'Well, you don't, not any more. Faranth's egg, girl, you're a danger to yourself and the rest of the wing!' He stopped, and when he spoke again she could hear the crack in his voice, now rougher and gentler than she'd ever heard him. 'It's for the best. You look after yourself, Lystar, and that great bony monster of yours. Reia and I couldn't do without you.'
Lystar said nothing, silently turning her head away to hide the welling tears. She reached desperately for Caliath, but her dragon was deeply asleep and she could find no comfort there. Now I'm not even a real dragonrider, she thought sadly, as her thoughts whirled away into blackness. What have I got left?
Gilda settled back down in her chair beside Lystar's bed as the girl drifted back to sleep, wiping the remains of the numbweed off her hands before pulling out the lists of stores she was keeping up to date. You would imagine, she thought, slightly acidly, that with two and a half Weyrwomen, somebody would be able to keep up with their traditional role as keeper of the records, but no. She had to do it.
She checked through another row of details before relenting slightly. She had to acknowledge that Reia did her fair share of the work, she thought, with a little glow of pride in her daughter's rise to Senior Weyrwoman. And little Marti was smart enough, if rather preoccupied by her growing dragon at present. Thinking of the other junior Weyrwoman, though, Gilda pursed her lips together. It was certainly not for the likes of her to comment if she felt that Bessa was far too flighty and feather-headed to fill her present post. It was certainly no surprise to the old headwoman that Halith had lain no queen egg in the six years since her first mating flight.
A slight frown deepening all the lines that ran across her brown, weathered face like cracks through sun-dried ground, Gilda worked vigorously through her figures. The noise and bustle of a busy Weyr drifted to her through the thick door, and absently she listened to the noises of people moving up and down the corridor, checking people off in her head against their daily chores. Lystar was sleeping downstairs, in an empty room often used for visitors to the Weyr; it would have been far too much trouble for the women who sat with her to continuously have to find a dragonrider willing to take them up to Lystar and Caliath's weyr.
She raised her head instantly when she heard Lystar stirring. Gilda picked up her pot of numbweed and moved to the bed, wondering if the girl's injuries had woken her again.
'Lystar?'
There was no audible response, but Lystar shifted again, more violently and made a small breathless noise, like a cry of pain. Alarmed by the terror on the girl's face, Gilda reached out sharply to place a hand on Lystar's good shoulder and shake her. Lystar jerked a little; then she screamed.
All around them were dragons and riders, soaring and diving through the heat of the battle, elegantly breathing fire to sear their ancient enemy from the sky and prevent the thread from landing on the fertile farmland. But Lystar had no sense of the fight as a whole; it was noisy and hot, and far too much was happening at once. Wherever they looked or turned there was a dragon, and only the drills they'd practised and practised over again had kept them from colliding with someone so far. They'd had to jump into between twice; not to avoid threads, just other dragons. Lystar was almost weeping with frustration, only Caliath's reassuring presence in her mind letting her hang on to her self-control. She'd promised herself that it would be different today, that finally she and Caliath would be a useful and effective member of the fighting force, but they hadn't flamed a single thread. She glared fiercely into space, knowing that her eyes were suspiciously red and bright. The best she could hope for would be to return home with no major injuries…
The thread came from behind her, to the left, and that was her undoing. Caliath was busy dodging another dragon as they entered a thick patch of thread, and he didn't see it. That was her job; but she didn't see it, and the thread sliced through her flying clothes like a knife through melted butter and through Caliath's hide and it was burning, burning and sharp and in her head Caliath was screaming as it tore through the membrane of his left wing and he lost height, spiralling down towards the goldriders below as he desperately attempted to use his shredded wing, and she was screaming, and then the cold hit her as Caliath made a desperate jump between and she knew she hadn't visualised the Weyr or any other destination and the utter nothingness of between swallowed her terrified voice…
Lystar woke with a jerk, drenched in sweat, her throat still ripped raw by her scream. Caliath!
I'm here.
Are you alright? I thought…
You thought things that scared you. You dreamt things that scared you, and they scared me because you were scared.
Lystar sat up suddenly, ignoring the pain in her side as all the horror and terror of her nightmare came back to her. You went between! You were hurt and screaming and you jumped between and I thought you would never come back!
I brought you home. Caliath's voice in her mind sounded vaguely puzzled.
I know. With a sigh, Lystar released tense muscles, smiling unseeingly at Gilda as the head woman slid an arm around her to support her as she lifted a cup of water to the girl's lips. She could feel her racing heart slowing back to its normal rate. I wasn't thinking very clearly, that's all. It was just something that came into my head. Even her mental voice betrayed a tremor she couldn't disguise as she asked anxiously. You are all right, aren't you? You're healing fine?
Without answering her question, Caliath jumped straight to the heart of her anxiety. I will not leave you.
Ever?
Ever.
Lystar sighed again, an expression of intense relief. Love you, Cal. But, oh, Caliath!
What?
R'lan has stopped us flying.
Caliath sounded only puzzled. He cannot. I am a dragon. You are my rider. We fly.
But not against thread, not any more. We're too clumsy –and with this eye of mine we don't see things in time to react. What are we going to do, Cal? After all this time, all this training and the heartbreak, and we're not even allowed to do what normal dragons and riders do!
Caliath took a long time to answer. He was distressed by Lystar's despair, but he couldn't understand her misery.
Aneth's rider is worried for you, he said at last. But you are my rider and we will fly.
For the first time in her life Lystar found herself thinking, Caliath just doesn't understand!
'Alright?' asked Gilda, softly, watching the girl's face as she finished talking to her dragon. The old woman put down the cup on a nearby table, supporting her Lystar in both arms.
Lystar's lips quivered. 'No,' she sobbed, and burst into tears, burying her head in the rough cloth of her grandmother's shoulder. 'Caliath and I aren't allowed to fly and things may never be alright again.'
AN: There you go… hardly top standard writing, but it gives you the info you need. If anyone has any suggestion for making Lystar's emotions more vivid and real, please let me know asap. Thanks very much to everyone who has reviewed me, especially Kitsuneko and Rimmersworld who did it twice – now everyone is going to comment again, aren't you…