Something Lost, Something Gained (E'ret/Any)

Itzelbith, are you alright?

E'ret reached out to touch the opal washed shoulder of his Quartz dragon who was starting out over the rushing river. Droplets of water trickled down the dragon's sides and he shone bright white under a glaze of periwinkle blue, rose and ghostly violet. As handsome as the gemstone he resembled but his eyes whirling a bright citrine of anxiety.

I miss Trushath, Ortimith and Kodiseth. Thortoth and I used to have races around the fire heights. I never chased Linuath but she was good to sun with on warm days. Brikatath was a good Wingleader and Kosepeth was my clutch sibling. His egg was near mine, I remember.

E'ret closed his eyes for a moment. He remember them all, every friend the pair had before Eastern Weyr had exiled him. Even that friendship wasn't strong enough to turn the tide of opinion when the Leadership made their order.

"I remember your races with blue Thortoth. T'kal used to go on about it at length. I miss Marlena more than I can say; I'm sorry you had to loose green Linuath. Brikatath was an amazing bronze and J'mat is still a great man. I know he was sad to see us go. Kosepeth was a solid brown, giving every bronze and cobalt a run for their marks. R'vayn was the best friend I will ever have, I think. Trushath was a good teacher and good Search dragon. N'val was more than a green rider, he was a good mentor. Ortimith and Kodiseth were both good dragons, great examples of how blues are some of the most versatile of dragons. " E'ret said, rubbing his face.

Itzelbith rumbled and dipped his slim head to lap at the cold water. The light bouncing off the water made his hide glimmer. Friends, mentors, and one amazing woman...all now so far away they might as well be on the other side of the world.

They did not want us.  Why worry what they think?

Alannah attempted to kick another rock along the shore, this one harder than the previous ones.  But her luck, she missed it completely.  Frustrated, she stopped, picked up the offending stone, and flung it out into the water.  Its weak plunk was hardly a satisfying sound, and she sighed heavily in response.

They tossed us out like garbage, Fia.  But we're dragonriders, too.  The color of your hide shouldn't matter.

It had been a constant argument since they'd been… exiled.  Allie was absolutely not happy with the change, despite whatever excitement she could muster for exploring their new surroundings.  It wasn't fair that they'd been kicked out as if they'd done something wrong, when it wasn't like the dragons had asked to hatch with hides of different colors from what Eastern Weyr considered 'normal.'

I just wish we could have convinced them to let us stay.

Shuffling her feet in the dirt, Allie wasn't really expecting a response from her scarlet.  But when one came, it made her let out a short bark of laughter.

You just need a new mate, then you will be happy here.

As if that would solve all the problems in the world!

Still wondering at Fiammath's response, Alannah finally realized this particular part of the riverbank wasn't completely unoccupied.  Recognizing one of the other young men who'd impressed at the same time as she had, she gave tiny little wave.  "Hey, E'ret.  Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to who else was around.  How're you and Itzelbith holding up?"

His expression didn't exactly say he was happy at the moment, either, so she assumed he was lamenting the same thing she was.  What else was there to be unhappy about at the moment, after all?

E'ret looked up with dark teal eyes through thick, dark lashes. He recognized Alannah immediately and raised his head to give her his attention. A woman of a ranking dragon, a fighting dragon three times bigger than his, merited his respect.

"Alannah, rider of Fiammath. You are welcome to this spot and no, you are no bother to either Itzelbith or myself." he said in formal tones. He had always been a proper young man, according himself with honor as his father had taught him.

"Itzelbith misses a number of his dragon companions. I feel the loss of good men who were friends." he said, raising his gaze to her own. He did not mention Marlena; what had they had really? Not much if she hadn't even bothered to see him off.

"We worked hard on our Wing. They had no reason to send us off." E'ret said and rubbed his face. His beard was coming back in and he made a note to himself he must shave soon.

"And you?" he asked.

Allie gave a small, if not friendly, smile in response to the quartzrider's welcome.  She nodded to Itzelbith, too, just to make sure the dragon knew she wasn't ignoring him or anything.

"Yeah, us, too," she agreed with E'ret's mentioning of missing people back at Eastern.  But her lips thinned as she listened to her former classmate vocalize some of what she'd been fighting with, herself.  "They kicked us out, though.  I know they said it was to help start this new Weyr, but it was all of us," and there was no mistaking who 'us' meant.  Those who'd Impressed the mutants, the dragons who'd Hatched not of the normal colors, but had no other deformities or problems.  "Why was it only us?"

Kicking a new rock and crossing her arms over her chest, she shook her head, still unable to understand just why it had happened.  "They just… wanted us gone."  And if those they'd considered friends… and lovers… hadn't stood up for them, hadn't fought for them, hadn't… come with them… then what did that say for their relationships?

"To purify their dragon's blood line." E'ret said, flinging a stone into the water.

How often had his family culled a calf because it was fundamentally different from its parents or siblings? Often, to keep the blood line pure. It was that way with all live stock but how surprised E'ret was still to find himself in exile with his dragon who was also considered outside of tradition.

"Had Fiammath and Itzelbith been born runner or herdbeast instead of dragon, they would have been culled from the herd rather than risk breeding their nontraditional characteristics back into the populace. It is a common practice among the beastcrafters. My family and I practiced such with our animals." E'ret explained.

"They erred." he said coldly. "They kept bronzes and browns born alongside cobalts, scarlets and quartz dragons. Those males can breed new guard colors back into the breeding pool. It does not matter if they breed with only golds, the blood is there. "

Being Weyrbred and unaware that such things happened, Allie stopped and stared at E'ret for a moment.  They cut out perfectly good animals… just because they were different?  "That's just…"  Cruel, she wanted to say.  But she couldn't force the word out, not when she realized he was hinting that Eastern had done the same with their dragons.

The next clutch should be all scarlets.  They will send them to us and we can laugh at them-- our Weyr will grow stronger in numbers, while theirs grows weaker.

Fiammath's amusement made her rider shake her head and give a funny little laugh.  Running a hand through her hair, Allie turned her gaze out over the river again, not really seeing the moving water.  "So it was useless to send us away."  In the end… it had all been for nought?

"Just the way things are." E'ret finished. "It is the same in every Hold or cot, in all the Craft halls that work with animals. The weak and aberrant are culled from the herd and only the best animals are allowed to breed. It is harsh practice but one the ensures Pern has strong runners to plow a field or big, rich herdbeasts to feel the populace and our dragonss. You would not feed your scarlet sick meat, nor would I my Quartz."

He picked up another stone and skipped it across the surface of the water. It skipped four times before sinking into the water.

"So yes, those fools pushed us out for nothing. They will not stop the flow of new blood and if they keep exiling New Guard to White Lightning, soon our Weyr will rival their own." E'ret said, a note of contempt in his voice. Any beast craft apprentice could have told them it was not that simple.

"Only the great love Pern has for its dragons kept ours from being butchered like cull stock." he said, looking at her with hard, dark blue-green eyes.

"For that, I wash my hands of Eastern. " he said with a hard nod of his head.