Chapter 3 - First Steps
Summer, 34th Turn of the Present Pass
The morning after the Hatching they were woken shortly after dawn by the hungry creeling of the dragonets. It was only a matter of minutes before the drudges appeared with mounds of fresh-killed meat, but to the young dragons and their riders, it seemed like an eternity. D'min, B'lee and S'gan (who had also impressed a green) found themselves feeding their dragons from the same platter, and grinned among themselves to see them all greedily clamouring for more.
The Assistant Weyrlingmaster and a couple of the older riders supervised the youngsters, telling them that they would soon be learning how to kill and butcher the meat for the dragonets, so as to prevent them choking or gorging. It would be many months before the dragons would be strong enough and skilled enough to hunt for themselves, and until then their riders would have to care for them.
As soon as the dragons had eaten, they were taken down to the caldera lake at the southern end of the Weyr bowl to bathe. D'min complained that the water was too cold, and had to suffer some teasing on account of his long sojourn in the south, which had obviously thinned his blood. To B'lee, the water was a little chilly - certainly not conducive to swimming - but it wasn't nearly as bad as High Reaches in winter. The dragons seemed to enjoy themselves, and splashed water in all directions as they waddled in, flapping their wings and ducking their heads under the water.
After the bath, the weyrlings were shown how to inspect a dragon's skin for dry or flaky patches. It was more than mere vanity, as dry skin would crack in the cold of between, and could endanger a dragon's life. Inspection would be a part of their everyday routine, and they were told never to go anywhere without a small pot of salve that could be applied to any suspect patch.
D'min snickered. "I can certainly vouch for the absolute necessity of always carrying a small pot of salve. One might need it in the unlikeliest of places!"
A couple of the boys around him laughed, but R'lan gave him a quelling look, and D'min suddenly acquired a renewed and fierce interest in Aurieth's skin.
Feeding, washing and oiling the dragons took up the entire morning, and B'lee was glad to reach the dining hall for the noon meal. He was exhausted already, and had a full afternoon of lessons to look forward to before he could rest.
Luckily, R'lan knew better than to overburden tired minds and bodies with too much new information. Their first task was to move their belongings to the bunks they were allocated. B'lee noted that the bronzes and browns were concentrated along the north wall, where the spaces were larger, while the blues and greens occupied the southern walls. To B'lee's delight he still had D'min on his right side. S'gan was on D'min's right, and R'vil, a quiet boy who had impressed a blue, on B'lee's left.
Once chests were placed at the bottom of their new bunks and sheets had been changed, R'lan started them on one of the first duty ballads, one which named all the senior riders of the six Weyrs and emphasised the duty that dragon riders owed their leaders. After they had sung through that a few times, he taught them how to make their shoulder knots. The knots were to be worn every day that they weren't fighting Thread (when they would be covered by wherhide jackets anyway), ostensibly as a way of making sure that duty owed was duly given. There was a more relevant practical value too - as long as they were properly identified, weyrlings couldn't be tasked by anyone except the Weyrleader, Weyrwoman or the weyrlingmasters, and any transgressions made by themselves or their dragons would be dealt with by the weyrlingmaster.
They were each handed two lengths of thick cord, in black and dark brown, to denote, respectively, that they belonged to a Weyr and to Fort Weyr in particular. Then they were given a thin cord of the same length in the colour of their dragon. B'lee and R'vil received a light blue, while D'min and S'gan received a light green.
The weyrling's knot was a fairly simple plait with a single loop and a short "tail" that hung either in front or to the side. It was so similar to the apprentice knot that B'lee finished his own in short order, and was able to help R'vil, who had never made one before. R'lan inspected the work and gave B'lee an approving nod before moving on to the next boy.
D'min scuttled over to see what had attracted R'lan's attention, and gave B'lee an admiring look when he saw the neat interweaving of the cords and the precise way that B'lee had tied them off at the loose end. "Nice work," he said.
"You've done well yourself," he replied. The cords were twisted evenly, but D'min's finishing wasn't as neat as his own, and he felt a secret delight that the Weyr-bred boy wasn't going to best him at everything.
D'min grinned and stayed with them to gossip until R'lan had ensured that all the class had finished their knots. They were then dismissed until the following morning, with instructions to wear the knots on their right shoulder from the evening meal onwards.
"I'd better go and show my mother," said D'min, in a long-suffering tone. "Come with me, B'lee, she liked you."
"Don't you want to show her on your own?" asked B'lee, though he started following D'min out of the barracks.
"No - she'll make too much of a fuss about it. If you're there she'll only make a little fuss."
B'lee laughed, and they walked out arm in arm. They were halfway across the bowl when they were overtaken by a group of youngsters who were on their way back from the lake. One of the boys yelled out "Domin! Domin!" and ran straight for him.
"Dokkerin!" D'min picked up the boy and swung him around a couple of times, before hugging him and setting him, laughing, back on his feet. D'min squatted down so that they were on the same level. "And what mischief are you up to today?"
"Not mischief! We were learning to swim!" giggled Dokkerin, and reached for D'min's knots. "You impressed! Mama told me. You impressed a green."
D'min took hold of Dokkerin's dirty hands and kept them away from his precious new knots, but smiled warmly. "They're not to play with, kid. And yes, I did impress. My dragon's called Aurieth, and she's beautiful. Do you want to meet her?"
"Yes, yes!" cried the boy, but he was overruled by the fair-haired woman who had stopped near them.
"Another day, perhaps," she said. "I have to keep them all together or they'll be all over the Weyr before I know it."
"That's all right, Henna. Another day, then, Dokkerin. Actually, she's asleep at the moment, so I couldn't really introduce you."
"Couldn't you wake her up?"
"Dokkerin!" he chided. "You know better than that. You don't wake a sleeping dragon. Especially not a hatchling."
"But I want to meet her!"
"Next time. For today you can meet B'lee. He impressed as well." D'min turned to B'lee and gave a half-apologetic smile. "B'lee, this scruffy little urchin is my brother Dokkerin. He's usually out of sight - and sound - in the nursery. Dokkerin, this is B'lee, who came here from the Harperhall and his dragon is blue Margroth." D'min indicated B'lee's knots. "See? He has a blue cord where I have a green cord."
"I can see," Dokkerin nodded, solemnly.
B'lee squatted down so that he was also at the same level. "Hello, Dokkerin," he said with a smile.
"Hello," Dokkerin repeated, a little more uncertainly, then turned back to D'min. "Father has a brown cord."
"That's right. Father has a brown cord because he rides a brown dragon."
"Come on, Dokkerin," Henna held out her hand. "We have to get back if you want your tea."
"Go on," D'min gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then pushed him gently in Henna's direction. "I'll see you again soon, I promise."
Dokkerin ran past Henna towards the caverns entrance, his blond curls bouncing with each step. Henna gave a quick smile and hurried after him.
"Sorry about that," began D'min.
B'lee laughed. "Don't be. He's just a normal boy. How old is he?"
"Four? Five? No, wait, he was born in 28, so he must be ... he was six Turns last month." He shook his head, ruefully. "I'm getting old."
B'lee laughed out loud at that, and D'min joined in. Then he linked their arms and pulled B'lee towards the caverns again. "Come on, let's see Tamina, and then we can go to dinner."
* * *
That evening B'lee wrapped his apprentice harper knot in a handkerchief and placed it on top of his Candidate's robe at the bottom of his chest. He would never wear it again, and it gave him a strange sense of loss. It wasn't that he regretted impressing Margroth - far from it - but it meant that he had effectively turned his back on his home. He felt a vague sense of disloyalty that he had ended up at Fort instead of High Reaches Weyr, but when he mentioned as much to D'min, he was told not to be so silly.
"We belong to Pern," said D'min, bluntly. "I know we wear Fort colours, but a dragonrider's first loyalty is to Pern. The Weyr comes second. There'll be times when we fly with other Weyrs, you know, if they're under strength, or if the Fall crosses Weyr boundaries. And there's a wing rotation program that happens over the summer. We have the third Telgar wing flying with us at the moment, and they have our third wing. Ista swaps with us later in the summer. Next year is Igen and then Benden, and then High Reaches and Telgar the year after, so you may end up back home for a few months anyway."
"Telgar has a wing here?"
"They're the ones with the white cords in their knots. Haven't you noticed them?"
"Not really."
"Honestly, B'lee, for a harper you can be pretty inattentive sometimes."
"I'm too tired to notice things." He was, too. He was exhausted, both from the long day and the unaccustomed activity. His muscles were starting to stiffen up, and he tried to reach around to massage a particularly annoying place near his right shoulder blade.
"Here," D'min slipped behind him. His hands found the troublesome spots immediately and started to knead out the knots and tension.
"That's good," he murmured.
"I'm always good."
"And so modest."
"No use being modest when I know I'm good."
B'lee couldn't help chuckling, even when D'min told him to keep still. It was at times like this that he remembered how young D'min really was.
* * *
The next few days were filled from morning until night with the lessons in the care of their dragons. At this early stage the dragonets had to be fed every day, and after each feed they needed cleaning and grooming. They were already growing at an astonishing pace - B'lee had paced Margroth's length every morning and there was visible change every two or three days. Skin so rapidly stretched became thin and patchy in a few hours, and it was a constant struggle to keep up with the oiling. Luckily each dragonet managed to acquire a crew of youngsters - weyrbrats and fosterlings - to help groom them, and the mornings were filled with the sounds of crooning dragonets basking in all the attention.
In the afternoons, while the dragonets slept, they had lessons on the history of the Weyrs and fighting Thread. For some of the boys these lessons were repetition, but to many of the Hold-bred they were new and interesting. R'lan made use of the greater experience of the Weyr-bred boys to help reinforce the lessons. He brought in the Weyr's harper, Willan, to teach them some of the lesser-known but important ballads concerning dragons and their riders, and Healer Berchar to help with lessons on the anatomy and physiology of the dragon.
B'lee was surprised to learn that there was a lot more to dragons and fighting Thread than the basic Teaching Ballads had told him, and a lot to remember. His harper training stood him in good stead when it came to rote-learning, and he was soon viewed as one of the best students. D'min, surprisingly, was also good, though as he pointed out, he was Weyr-bred and so had grown up with most of this.
The evenings, as F'neldril had promised, were free. In the height of summer it wasn't fully dark until almost eight in the evening, and the weyrlings had about an hour of light to play games, do their personal chores or revise their lessons. They were expected to be in bed by glow-dim at nine, which B'lee thought was quite reasonable, given that most of the boys were only fourteen or fifteen Turns old. Since the dragonets woke at dawn every day and required so much care, even the older ones were usually tired enough to fall into bed without protest at glow-dim.
B'lee often lay awake in the darkness, listening to the other boys and dragonets around him. He was used to sleeping in a dormitory, but not one that had so many echoes and strange harmonics that drew his attention. His harper training had taught him to analyse noise and rhythm, and so it was that he identified the soft footfall of D'min slipping out of the cavern on the third night. He wondered where the boy was going, but fell asleep before his return.
* * *
The weyrlings had many duties. As well as caring for their dragons, they had to keep their part of the Weyrling Barracks clean and tidy, and their own clothes clean and in good repair. They were rostered for more onerous duties such as laundry and helping in the dining hall, and there were other, less savoury chores reserved for those on punishment detail.
D'min complained about the extra duties, but B'lee took it all more philosophically. He'd had a spell in the drum heights at the Harperhall, and nothing could match that for sheer exhaustion, not even scrubbing a dragonet. His present duties took up barely an hour a day, on average, and he had plenty of time for personal chores and for talking with his friends.
The only thing he didn't have much time for was his gitar. It was difficult to play, even softly, in the barracks, and there were rarely opportunities when he could get away to a place that was quiet enough for serious work - everywhere he went, he had people following the sound of his music and then begging him for a tune or two. He longed for time to practise his exercises, or to work out the tunes that he had in his head. Sadly, he realised that he would have to wait until he got his own weyr, and that was at least a Turn away.
Instead, he spent many hours just chatting with his new friends, and with D'min in particular. D'min and S'gan taught him to play dragon poker, a card game of simple rules and fiendish complexity. D'min said he'd been playing it since he was ten, but it didn't take B'lee long to realise that D'min was exceedingly bad at it, forgetting half the rules and ignoring the others, not to mention the fact that the other players only had to glance at his face to know what sort of a hand he had. S'gan was much better, and kept explaining things patiently to B'lee until he had grasped the concepts. He became reasonably good at it himself, aided by his ability to screen his emotions, but in his mind it was merely something to do until he got a weyr of his own.
* * *
It was odd how the riders seemed to separate into two groups. As D'min had predicted, they'd been allocated spaces according to the colour and size of their dragons, but even in other activities the bronze and brown riders tended to keep to themselves. They rarely joined the blues and greens for cards or games, or any sort of rough-housing, and they even tried to bathe at different times. One night, B'lee asked D'min about it, and received an odd look in response.
"Get used to it," said D'min with a shrug. "It always happens. I guess they don't want to be contaminated."
"What do you mean?"
D'min shrugged again and made a vague hand gesture. "Everyone knows what they say about blues and greens. I guess they don't feel all that comfortable about being around us for long periods."
B'lee didn't understand, and said so.
D'min looked at him in amazement. "Shards! Where have you been living all your life?"
"High Reaches Hold," said B'lee bluntly, and saw D'min relax and laugh.
"I guess you might not know at that," he conceded, and drew B'lee aside. "The thing is," he started, then hesitated. "It's just that ... well, normally ..." he paused again, and B'lee swore he was going red. "Oh, Faranth's mighty clutch! It's just that green riders almost always look to other men, and so do most blues. Bronze and brown riders look to women."
"Look to?"
"Sleep with, mate with, shag, fuck, do the horizontal gather dance ... what do Hold people call it?"
B'lee's mouth had gone dry. He could barely comprehend what D'min had just said. "You mean that you ... umm ... sleep with ... other men?"
"Every chance I get. Haven't you ever been with a man?
"Of course not!" B'lee almost shouted, if you could shout in a whisper. "Men sleep with women!"
D'min gave him a condescending look. "You Holders are all so narrow-minded. You think there's nothing outside your own experiences."
"It's got nothing to do with that. It's just ... it's not natural."
"It's uncommon, not unnatural."
"How can it be natural?"
D'min sighed. "Look, do you think it's wrong if a bronzerider lies with a queenrider when their dragons mate?"
"Well, no, of course not."
"Even if they hate each other normally?"
"Well ..."
"Even if they both have other weyrmates?"
"It's not their fault if their dragons are mating."
"Exactly! So why is there a problem when a green mates with another dragon and their riders do too?"
B'lee bit his lip and shrugged. He felt uncomfortable, but he had to admit that there was logic in D'min's argument. "I suppose there isn't, as long as they're both willing."
"Believe me, when dragonlust has you, you're willing."
"But what about afterwards?"
"What about it?"
"Do they have to ... well, stay together?"
"No. Some do - J'kin and T'manal for instance. And plenty of riders form pairings for a few months or Turns. But a lot of the time riders just come together in the flight. Weyrmates understand. Weyr-bred weyrmates, at any rate. Even the gold and bronze riders don't necessarily stay together. It's just what's good for the weyr."
B'lee thought about the gold and bronze riders. "So the Weyrleader and Weyrwoman aren't necessarily in love?"
D'min snorted. "Of course they aren't. I mean, some are - Leri and L'mal have been together for years - but sometimes it's just Weyr business that brings them together. The Telgar leaders don't even see each other outside Threadfall and mating flights."
"But that’s - How can they live like that?'
"Because M'tani is a good Threadfighter and Mellor runs a tight Weyr. The Weyr needs both of them to succeed. They each have their own weyrmates, but Hogarth flies Dalgeth consistently."
"That's ... very strange," said B'lee, finally. "I don't think I could do that."
"Wait until Margroth starts sniffing around a proddy green, then you'll understand."
He thought about that - about having lustful thoughts about another man - and shook his head. He still had difficulty understanding it, even after D'min's explanation. It certainly made sense of various comments he'd heard in the last month, though, and some of the things he'd seen.
"Your father," he started.
"What about him?"
"After the Hatching. Is that what he meant, when he said that Impressing a bronze wasn't an option for you?"
D'min's expression became bleak, but he answered in a firm voice. "Basically, yes."
B'lee bit his lip. Now that he knew the meaning, it seemed like a particularly cruel comment. "I'm sorry," he said.
D'min tried to laugh it off. "Hey, don't worry. It's by no means the worst thing he's ever said to me. And at least I impressed, even if it was on the third go. Some people never impress at all."
"I thought you said the Weyr folk were more accepting of it."
"Most of them are." He shrugged, then went on, "He was Hold-bred himself. I don't think he's ever got used to the greens, not really. Luckily my mother was a lot more relaxed about things. She didn't bat an eyelid when I started sampling the talent, except to tell me to tone it down a little. Well, I was a bit young for it, I guess."
His eyes clouded a little. "That's one of the reasons I was sent to Southern Boll Hold for a couple of years. Father - D'ran - thought I'd make a dragonrider but he really wanted me to impress a brown or, better yet, a bronze, like D'col."
"Who's D'col?" asked B'lee. "you've mentioned him before."
D'min's expression turned sad. "He was my half-brother - my other half-brother. He was five years older than me. He impressed a bronze on his first time on the Hatching Grounds - father was so proud of him he nearly burst. He went into 3 Wing when he was 16 and did really well - everyone was saying he was going to be a wingleader some day, when he was more experienced. Then one day he dived into a lake, only it was too shallow and he broke his neck. He died within minutes, and Valith went between."
"I'm sorry." B'lee reached over and touched D'min's arm.
"It's all right. It was a few Turns ago now, and these things happen. I got over it - at least, I thought I got over it. It was about the same time I realised I liked boys more than girls, and I went a bit wild. Father was furious. When he caught me in bed with - well, with a green rider who's still here so I won't mention his name - he had words with my mother and got me fostered out a couple of weeks later. He knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything indiscreet in a Hold." He sighed. "It was just me and my right hand for the entire time I was there. No talent to speak of, and no one who'd even think of giving me a decent fuck."
He chuckled and leaned forward. "I did try to seduce a blue rider who came with Master Capiam once - but he told me he already had a weyrmate. Pity, really. He had a great arse."
"How long were you at Southern Boll?"
"Almost two years."
"And you're 16 now."
"That's right," said D'min with a sly grin, watching keenly as B'lee worked it out.
"So you were sleeping with men when you were fourteen."
"And the occasional girl. But girls have to be careful, and they're not nearly as keen on it as guys are. Plus, why would they waste their time with a weyrling brat when there are so many unattached riders and craftsmen around? No, it's actually much easier to get essential experience with men, especially if you know your way around a Weyr ... and I learned my way around very young." He paused and tapped his fingers on his knees, the rhythm jarring and insistent. "It's funny, though. Whenever I thought about Impression, I always pictured a bronze. That’s what my father wanted, another bronzerider in the family, so it's what I wanted."
"Do you regret impressing a green?"
D'min shook his head and gave the classic dragonrider smile. "No, not now. Aurieth is so wonderful, I can't imagine being with any other dragon. And, let's face it," he added with a self-knowing grin, "I like men a lot more than I like women, at least in bed, so I guess she made the right choice after all."
"Is that why you've been slipping out every night? To see someone?"
"Shards! I didn't know you'd heard me."
"You're very quiet. It's just that it takes me a while to get to sleep sometimes, and I hear you get out of bed. But I don't think anyone else hears."
"That's good. We're not supposed to leave the barracks after glow-dim, but it's hard, with our days being so busy."
"So who are you seeing?"
D'min shook his head. "I don't kiss and tell."
"Just be careful. You don't want to get into trouble."
D'min grinned at him. "Don't worry, I won't."
There was silence for a few minutes. D'min started to get up, but B'lee had something else on his mind. "Margroth's a blue," he said flatly.
"Have you only just noticed?" asked D'min, teasingly.
"No. I mean, yes, of course I've noticed, it's just that ... does that mean that I have to like men?"
"No. Not all the blue riders are homo. Some are bi, some are het. Which are you?"
"I - I don't know," said B'lee, feeling that every time he learned something new it left him even more confused than before. "I've never thought about being anything else but girls. I never even knew it was possible for men to like other men."
D'min grinned. "Well, dear B'lee, anytime you want to know what homo loving is all about, you just let me know. I'll show you everything I know - and that's a very impressive total, I can tell you."
B'lee managed a wry smile and a derisive tone. "Thanks, dear D'min, but I don't think that will be necessary."
"Well, you never know. Keep your options open, that's what I always say." He got up and grinned down at B'lee. "If you do decide to experiment ... you should know that I'm not the only green rider who's after your arse."
"What!?" B'lee looked stunned. "Who?"
D'min shook his head. "No names, no ground drill. You'll just have to figure it out for yourself." He winked lasciviously and strolled off, whistling the tune of a very bawdy song that had B'lee blushing even to think of it. But there was just one more thing he had to ask ...
"D'min?"
"What?"
"What if Margroth flies Aurieth?
D'min laughed out loud. "Just be thankful Aurieth's the green!"
B'lee went white. He hadn't even thought of that.