Drake's Lake Area - Shortly after leaving Fort, and stepping down as Senior.


The first day is the worst. Zuvaleyuth won’t speak to her, though she was clear in her resolve to leave. Despite the begging of her mate, she left. But now? The pale gold does not budge, does not move, and wallows in her sorrow. Dtirae’s heart is broken, and breaks more at the sight of her lifemate. It takes all of her willpower to keep from fleeing back. To apologize to Th’ero, to say they were behaving irrationally — and they were. But, she couldn’t stay.

I was an awful Weyrwoman.

« You were not. »

The first words spoken since they left. They are not elegant, flowing… So unlike her lifemate. Her sorrow is clear in those few words. She does not even share images of comfort, the glaciers she came to knew are solid, hard, black ice in a black ocean. All is dead. There is no life.

She feels selfish. So selfish.

She left them all behind. But what good was a Weyrwoman who was afraid of opening to her people? What good was a Weyrwoman who preferred to hide away and work more than she interacted? It would have only gotten worse. Fear would have consumed her. And fear kept her from sharing her fears. A vicious cycle. Her own downfall since the beginning. Because she wanted so badly to do well that she neglected herself, her needs, her need to speak to others to state her fears and be comforted in knowing what she felt was valid.

« You need this. And besides, I will hold you to your word… Only until they do not need us. Then we return to the walls in which we were born, Fortian blood and bred. As old as time, this blood that courses through us. To return to where we originate… It shall be glorious. »

Dtirae’s smile is bitter, and sorrowful. “Of course.”

But when that time comes, will they be welcome?


'The World of Pern(tm)' and 'The Dragonriders of Pern(r)' are copyright to Anne McCaffrey (c) l967, 2000. This is a recorded online session, by permission of the author but generated on PernWorld MUSH for the benefit of people unable to attend.