Real Dragonriders

Writers: Eimi, Jane
Date Posted: 4th January 2007

Characters: M'galec, Jh'slaen
Description: M'galec tries to find out what Jh'slaen has been saying.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 1, day 15 of Turn 4

"You're the most talked about greenrider in the Weyr," F'naren muttered as he walked alongside Jh'slaen on the way out of the dining cavern.
"I'm impressed."

"You wouldn't be if it was you," the greenrider grumbled. "I wish I'd never opened my mouth." He made a point of looking ahead or at F'naren and certainly not down at his boots which was what he felt like doing.
"Not that I've changed my mind. I _haven't._"

"Stubborn and mouthy. You're doomed."

"Jh'slaen, a word please." M'galec stepped into the path of the greenrider before he could slip out the door. He certainly didn't want him to think he could just slink away without having to answer for himself.

"Certainly, sir." Jh'slaen glanced at his friend and shrugged. It seemed F'naren's prediction was coming true sooner than either of them had expected. "I'll catch up with you later, Fin."

"Sure." The young brownrider nodded at the Weyrlingmaster Second. "Sir,"
he said in brief acknowledgement and then escaped through the doors and out into the evening.

"I heard a rumor that you claimed that we who Impressed before the Pass were not real dragonriders." M'galec crossed his arms across his chest as he took the measure of the greenrider before him. Why, he was nothing but a boy. "Is that true?"

Jh'slaen wondered if there was any point in defending his point or whether it was better just to agree, because certainly he had used those very words, just not in the way people seemed to think. He could try -

"What I _said_ was that people who Stand now do so in the full understanding that they will face Thread. People like me. Riders who Stood fifteen Turns or more ago did so with _no_ concept of what they would face." He could feel the heat in his cheeks and knew it was frustration more than embarrassment, and the same emotion made his stomach tense on his recently eaten meal. Why could nobody understand what he meant?

"Well, every dimglow on Pern knows _that_." M'galec couldn't see how it could be that the Weyr was getting so excited about a boy pointing out the obvious, though. "Of course no one knew Thread was coming fifteen Turns ago. But I do not see what that has to do with being a _real_
dragonrider."

"I think I said 'pure' dragonriders, as well as 'real'. When the other riders -" 'Other' seemed wiser than 'older' in this instance. "-
Impressed there was always something else they would spend their life doing. Like you, sir. You were a healer. You were going to be a healer after you Impressed, too. You're both healer and dragonrider -" Which everybody knew. The man could be a Wingleader, riding bronze as he did, but he wasn't. "I'm pure dragonrider, like the others who Impressed in the Pass."

What a pretentious little snot! "There are many of your peers who Impressed after the Pass had begun who have had the foresight to think ahead to after the Pass is through and have taken up a craft. They are both dragonrider and crafter. Are _they_ not 'pure' dragonriders just because they know that Thread will not last forever?"

"Perhaps it's not about Thread lasting forever, but each of us lasting against Thread." Jh'slaen shrugged. Nobody had ever in their lives suggested that he or F'naren were suitable for apprenticing. Perhaps the Weyrlingmaster Second's life before Impression had been in a Hall, where apprenticeship was the norm, but the vast majority of people Jh'slaen had known before coming to the Weyr were never going to have any craft training.

It didn't seem worthwhile trying to explain the difference he could recognise so clearly but everybody else seemed oblivious to, or worse, offended by the very suggestion that there was such a difference.
Perhaps when the next generation started Impressing - those who had never known a time when Thread wasn't falling ... perhaps then people would see that there was a difference.

"And you think that by crafting one has less of a chance to survive Thread?" Was this boy even thinking in any logical fashion? Perhaps by 'pure' dragonrider what he had meant was riders like him who showed no aptitude for anything but being food for Thread.

Jh'slaen managed not to smile. "I don't think Thread discriminates, sir."

M'galec's eyes narrowed as they fixed directly on the young rider. "Do not presume to mock me, boy. The only reason you are alive is because you were eased and coddled into fighting Thread, standing on the shoulders and experiences of those who faced that first Threadfall."

"The only reason Pern itself survives is because of those riders -
presumably including you, sir - but that wasn't what I was talking about." The gulf apparently only he perceived between the pre-Pass and Pass Impressed dragonriders was about what being a dragonrider _meant_.

The bronzerider's eyebrow twitched slightly. **Presumably?** "Then just what _are_ you talking about?"

"We're the first -" he hesitated over the word, but couldn't think of anything better, "- generation of riders who Impressed knowing about Thread." Stop there, he told himself. Keep it simple. Leave out the emotive words like 'pure' and 'real'.

The boy had a talent for stating the obvious it seemed. "Yes, because my generation taught you. Just what is your point, greenrider?"

His point? He'd been leaving the dining cavern in an orderly fashion and had been accosted by an annoyed bronzerider who demanded he explain something he'd said to somebody else days ago. It was becoming a frequent occurrence and Jh'slaen wasn't sure he had a point any more.
"We're ... different?" he suggested, though he was starting to think it was a difference that only the Pass-Impressed could see.

"Yes. We are different. I do not go around insulting more than half the Weyr just to highlight my ignorance." The boy really didn't have a real thought in his head, did he. The bronzerider sighed, more annoyed at his lack of coherent thought than his definition of a 'pure' rider. No educated person could possibly take this fool seriously. He was starting to doubt the greenrider even _understood_ what was rattling about in his own brain.

Jh'slaen tried to remember when he had done such a thing but supposed it was starting to become 'fact' since everybody else imagined it had happened. He had spoken to another greenrider, voiced an opinion, and spent the next few days defending his 'attitude' to a variety of riders whose own attitudes ranged from amused to aggressive. Mostly aggressive, he corrected himself. And offended.

"Anything else, sir?" he asked finally.

"No. Just be more careful of throwing about opinions which inflate yourself as being more than the naive little boy you are. Those who know better might not take too kindly to it. Now go on and get out of my sight." Really. The youth of this generation... Were they taught nothing?

Getting out the Weyrlingmaster Second's sight had very recently become Jh'slaen's most fervent wish. "Sir," he murmured with a nod and walked past the older man and toward the doors out of the cavern.

Outside the doors F'naren loitered and he straightened up as Jh'slaen appeared. "How did that one go?"

"I'm a 'naive little boy'," the greenrider said with a wry smile.

"Ahh, well. At least you're not a naive little boy with extra sweeps to fly."

Jh'slaen sighed. "Give them time. One of them will think of it."

Last updated on the January 4th 2007

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