Comfort Food (Open)

What did I do wrong? I was just about to tell Aliseth how she was so regal, so full of grace and power. How courageous and beautiful she was, like a black opal in moonlight. I...just wanted a chance. Thortoth moaned. He walked alongside another of the drained carcasses and opened his cyan jaws. He crunched the desiccated meat and bones, sitting back on his haunches with his head hung in misery. T'kals heart ached for his dragon, who had see this one chance to fly a queen and sire a clutch of his own. Thortoth knew it had never been attempted; no blue could catch a Gold or a Titanium. A young shadow however...it was a long shot but still a shot.

'J'ril must have done something to cause Aliseth to reject Treyath and then the rest of the Old Guard.' T'kal growled to himself. He had a right mind to lay the impudent J'ril out on his ass and damned it all if he was a brown rider!

'This blue rider is still Weyrsinger!" T'kal thought with passion.

It took Sh'lor some time to calm himself down from rage and lust filled thoughts. This was exactly what would happen with a freak Queen's flight. No doubt the cobalt and smoke riders were more than happy to know that the real competition was out. Imioth was fairly dejected at the moment, moping about on his ledge. There weren't even really many greens left for him to find consolation in.

Taking a deep breath, Let's get out of here.

Wanting more than anything to cheer his brown up, even just a little. This would all work to their advantage later. He didn't need to say much at all now. The Eastern riders had been spurned after all their talk about working together, the truth was out. He could almost revel in it, but he knew better.

Sh'lor's ambitions were always at the forefront of his thoughts. If he wanted to be Wingsecond, now was an opportunity to show how he behaved in politically charged situations.

Imioth flew toward the feeding grounds, finding he wasn't the only male dragon who felt left out. Sh'lor dismounted the brown quickly, waving to T'kal. "If we're disturbing you Weyrsinger, we can leave." Sh'lor indicated the bulky brown and himself.

"My sister, Kalabria, did say the Shadows were different." He hadn't realized just HOW different. This was unprecedented territory, she couldn't even have known what would happen but in a way he hadn't gone into the flight thinking he really wanted to win. Imioth always wanted to win. Sh'lor didn't want more than what he felt should go to a brownrider. He didn't need to be leader of the Weyr in any capacity really. He just wanted a desirable position that he earned fair and square. One that none of the mutants could take from him.

T'kal looked up at Sh'lor and shook his head. "No, Sh'lor. You and Imioth are welcome here as are all others. Thortoth is doing a little comfort eating, as it were. I know he would give way to Imioth, if your brown has a hunger about him."

Thortoth looked up slowly at Imioth and Sh'lor, then back down at the ground. He was a little grey with sadness and dejection. It broke the Weyrsinger's heart to see his normally joyful blue dragon in such a miserable state. Grown man that he was, T'kal walked over and held his arms up to Thortoth. The blue lowered his head and T'kal stroked his eyeridges with all the tender affection of a newly Impressed lad.

"My poor blue boy. He feels awful." T'kal explained. "I was a fool to allow him to chase. It got his hopes up."

D'caen was still muttering under his breath as he approached the other two riders on the edge of the feeding grounds. "You guys, too, huh?" he asked in his typically informal manner. "Basilath is so mad, I figured I'd better let him rip something apart. Wish I could join him in that, when it comes down to it. What a stupid move."

He idly rubbed the knuckles of the hand he'd used to throw his parting punch when he left the mess of a mating flight in the dining hall. If they should look, the other riders would see that his hand was reddened, mute evidence of D'caen's own discontent with the situation.

Finding that the bluerider was as much surprised and injured by this Shadow's actions as he was, Sh'lor loosened up a bit. Well, since they were all feeling a bit dejected. "Imioth never holds back from a good chase. A large well made brown, shouldn't be made to feel like he isn't worth including in a chase. Your blue has just as much right as any cobalt dragon to fly a Queen, even if he has less of a chance at winning, showing off for the Queens is expected."

Sh'lor was frowning now, "It's not anyone here who is to blame."

His arms now crossed in front of his chest as he watched Imioth take down a plump looking beast and tear into it. He wasn't at all bothered by the blue or the brown who were there. Any dragon was welcome...except maybe a Cobalt or Smoke. Even if Sh'lor wanted to, he didn't think he could keep his dragon from being rude to them.

"Yes. You would think they'd have that boy trained in ettiquete by now, if not strategy. It is the job of a Queenrider to represent the Weyr in matters of diplomacy. This does not bode well for the future of White Lightning to have a loose canon like E'zen and Aliseth as second." He was only stating the truth. If the others didn't like it, well, he was sure to hear of it. But from where he was standing, that boy was going to get the Weyr into trouble with Holders or worse.

"Br'son's solid," D'caen said staunchly. He'd never been one to rail against the inclusion of the new colors. In his mind, more dragons were always a good thing, regardless of the colors of their hide. "I'd lay marks that the issue is with E'zen. He's had a shite attitude from the beginning, or so I'm told. I don't know what happened to piss him off, but he's blasted unpleasant at best. And he really seems to hate Br'son. After a stunt like this... well... I wouldn't be surprised if Br'son named Teagan as his 'second."

Out in the field, Basilath tore into a large wherry, and D'caen felt some of his own rage abate in the violence.

"I would have liked him to have a chance, even if the prospect of him catching was unlikely. I know that if he had the opportunity to sire a clutch...well you can understand how that might flatter a blue dragon and his rider. Alas, all dreams and nonsense."

Maybe breeding rights should be left to browns, bronzes, smokes and cobalts. Greens and scarlets never caused half the amount of heartbreak. T'kal sighed again and rubbed the eyeridges of Thortoth.

"Some of that behavior thought might have had to do with his queen being proddy and no one realizing it. Queenriders can have quite a temper. In any event, I am sure the Weyrleadership will have words with the young man. No one can afford to be alienated right now, with Pern growing more empty by the day." T'kal said seriously. He took a deep breath, for what he was about to ask would graze a few nerves without doubt.

"How fares Treyath?" T'kal said, his voice low.

"Truth be told, I don't know," D'caen said. "I didn't see her attack, only felt Basilath's horror. It can't have been good, though, based on the strength of his reaction." He kicked at the dirt again. "Blast this bloody plague! Why can't things be normal again?"

'Normal...' T'kal thought. What in the great world did that word mean? Normal...the time before there was a dragon plague. Most definitely; that made T'kal long for his weyrlinghood. In his mind a sweet faced, dark haired lad romped in the lake shallows with a wet dragonet, shimmering from water and bright as an aquamarine gleaming in the sun. A young blue and his rider, with no more cares than getting to lessons in time and completing chores.

"I don't know." T'kal moaned suddenly, putting his face in his hands. He didn't weep but he shook his head back in forth in a way that spoke of great sorrow.


"We wasted our good days! We wasted the opportunities to make Pern a better, safer, more JUST world. Now the gold queens are all gone and we have made enemies out of those who could be our consorts!"

T'kal cared not who heard him and his voice rose as his heart wrenched. His hands dropped from his face and he stood up straight, looking at all of them. For a moment, T'kal seemed to forget himself.  

"We should all be ashamed. We had the power to change today if only be had grace the day before. We had the chance and we did nothing." he hissed the last word.

D'caen shook his head, his expression one of half-amusement, half-sympathy. Harpers were so dramatic. "T'kal. Come on, man. We didn't do nothing. Every man here was in that chase to win it, you know that. Maybe we should have spoken out louder against the exile, but how were we to know? Preserving the bloodline's the queens' business, and they said it was best. No one could have predicted the blasted plague. But today... Today was just another queen's caprice. Here's hoping that Br'son gets E'zen in shape, and that gets Aliseth on board, because one thing's sure. There's few enough of us left that we don't have a jungle's chance in Threadfall of surviving if we can't be united."

At that, the brown rider gave Sh'lor a challenging look. He probably shouldn't have bothered, but the flight had him edgy.

"Easier for you to say, D'caen. You ride brown. Your beast has a chance at mighty Yllaveth. Not my Thortoth. I don't fancy being Weyrleader. Who ever has heard of a blue riding Weyrleader?! Nonsense! Such prestige of rank belongs to brown, smoke, cobalt and bronze. " T'kal sighed and his voice dropped again. He was quiet for a long moment, looking only at the blue who leaned his head into his rider's chest to still his anger. T'kals blue eyes were far away as he comforted his blue.

He came back to himself after a moment.

"You are likely right, D'caen. I am sorry for the harsh words." T'kal said.

D'caen shrugged and threw a grin in the bluerider's direction. "It's all right, man," he said. "We're all frustrated. Vent away. I can understand Thortoth's disappointment. I can't think that this is a permanent situation, though. Even if Aliseth is a bitch, she can't very well bar half the males from following her every time. Not with as many hatchlings as we're going to need..."

Of course, it occured to D'caen as he spoke that a blue-sired clutch wasn't likely to result in many hatchlings at all... But he decided not to point that out. Not right then, anyway.

He reached over and clapped T'kal on the back companionably. "What do you say we find some more liquor and get roaringly drunk?" He said. "I bet today's events won't look nearly so grim tomorrow through an aching head and a hangover."

He was listening and watching the other men with pointed interest. His attention did not waiver. They all knew his family and their reputation even if his own was less known to them. Quiet though he might be for the moment, he wasn't without his own thoughts and opinions. The challenging look that was sent him was largely ignored. D'caen could say what he wanted.

"Who knows, it might still be for the best? He shrugged, knowing they were all about to disagree. "Sending them here meant they didn't have to watch as hundreds died. As we did." He wasn't implying they hadn't lost but that those who remained had to see the deaths. Watching your family die was terrible. Seeing people go mad as their dragons died. What did the mutated riders know of true suffering when they had not witnessed it?

Shaking his head with a sigh, "I doubt Aliseth is the sort to change her mind. Nor is E'zan from what I can see. And Eniseth is bonded to a girl-child." Certainly as young as Kalabria and he would be horrified if any of the men here were trying to get to her.

"At least we have Br'son and Yllaveth. The Weyrleadership will be different." Perhaps not better, but different. At least he trusted Br'son to have some control over his titanium. Although to be honest, he didn't have much faith in any of them. He missed the solid hierarchy of Gold dragons.