An Unexpected Turn (2/2)

Writers: Devin, Estelle
Date Posted: 26th September 2026

Characters: T'lin, Seorla, I'lek, Bergaris
Description: Seorla agrees to the Search and travels to the Weyr with T'lin and I'lek
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 3, day 9 of Turn 13

T'lin

There was a chorus of delight from the children as they watched the second dragon landing in the spot where Calaroth had first touched down, also keeping a respectful distance from the traders' beasts. She warbled a friendly greeting to the blue as her rider dismounted and helped his passenger down.

"T'lin!" The enthusiasm in that voice could only belong to one greenrider. I'lek came bounding over with the healer hurrying in his wake. "I was on standby and as soon as Lirioth heard your call I rushed straight to the infirmary to offer our services as transport. Is the poor sick lady all right? We brought a stretcher. And herbs. Oh, hello!" He was distracted for a moment by waving at Seorla and the children around Calaroth.

T'lin gave I'lek a bright smile before turning more serious. "Calaroth Searched the woman's daughter. I've agreed to take them both to the Weyr, if the healer thinks it's safe to transport her." He nodded to the older woman with healer's knots.

"We'll see," Bergaris said as she headed over to the wagon with a small satchel of supplies. A few minutes passed as she examined the woman, then she returned to the dragonriders with a slight frown. "I don't like the look of it, and I think it's best we take her to the Weyr anyway. Your Lirioth will need to manage the stretcher."

"Yes, ma'am! This _is_ exciting. We've always wanted to try that." I'lek bounced on his toes, then caught Seorla's unnerved expression. "Don't worry, we've done it lots of times in training. Lirioth will carry your mama very carefully, I promise, she'll hardly know she was flying at all. And you're going to love it at the Weyr!"

Seorla watched the young rider jog back to his green with a dizzy sense of near-panic, as if events had slipped her control and she was being swept away into the unknown. She turned to T'lin. "Will they... she will be safe?"

"I'lek and Lirioth won't let anything bad happen to your mom, I promise." T'lin smiled at her reassuringly. "Is is all right if you go with me? Calaroth will pout if I let another dragon take his Candidate."

The girl glanced at the dragon again, uncertain. His eyes and the tilt of his head seemed encouraging, and though she was nervous about the separation from her mother, there was something trustworthy about his presence that she'd never have felt about a human stranger. "I've never flown on a dragon before," she confessed.

Calaroth turned his attention to her again and crooned encouragingly. "I'll help you get mounted and strapped in. Flying and especially /between/ might seem scary, but you're perfectly safe with us," T'lin assured her.

"Okay." Seorla exhaled, gathering her courage. Straps sounded good. Safer than a runnerbeast...if a runnerbeast ascended to dizzying heights from which a fall would be fatal. She watched as the young greenrider I'lek returned with the stretcher under his arm, and set about charming some of the traders into assisting him with carrying the patient and the women's few possessions. Deciding she'd have to trust that her mother was in good hands, she turned back to look up at Calaroth. "Right, I'm doing this. How do I get up? He's...really big."

Calaroth flattened himself. "First you get up on his foreleg here, and we'll both help you get up to his neck."

The girl put out a tentative hand to touch the dragon's leg. "Oh, he's soft!" She'd been expecting hard, dry scales somehow, and glanced down uncertainly at her boots. "I won't hurt him, will I? Or get dust on him?"

"Dragon hide is tough, and he doesn't mind a bit of dust. And if he _does_ mind, he'll just make me give him a bath." T'lin laughed and Calaroth rumbled in agreement.

"You - give him - a bath?" For an instant, the bizarre image came to Seorla's mind of a dragon squeezed into an enormous tub, his rider scrubbing his back with a long-handled brush. It would have to be a lake, or at least a pond... "Do all dragonriders do that?"

"Yeah, and so will you, as a Candidate. It'll be part of your responsibilities to help riders wash their dragons. Cal would love you to help wash him." He patted the blue.

"I'd like that too." It certainly sounded better than washing dirty pots and pans all day in the scullery of their last hold, though she kept that to herself in case they didn't want drudges. "All right. Here goes..." She reached and pulled herself awkwardly up to the dragon's foreleg.

T'lin climbed up beside her. Once she had steadied, Calaroth carefully lifted her so she could easily reach the riding straps. "Just pull yourself up, and I'll give you a boost if you need it." One hand was partially outstretched, ready to catch her if she slipped.

Seorla gripped the leather straps tightly. She could see where they crossed on the dragon's neck, where the rider must sit. That was her goal. She took a deep breath, silently apologized to Calaroth, and pulled, managing to scramble up enough to reach for his neck ridge and swing her leg over to sit astride. Clinging on, she looked down to see the trader children gazing up at her in awe and longing. Her head was spinning a little with dizziness and the height, but she felt a moment's giddy thrill at having made it up safely. Though she didn't know how she'd get down...

"Good job." He smiled up at her. Hopefully her first dragon ride would be more fun than frightening. T'lin pulled himself up easily and buckled her in with a few quick moves. "When he takes off, you'll feel a jolt, but the straps will keep you nice and secure. You can put your arms around my waist to feel more stable." He shifted and fastened his own riding straps.

"Right... Oh!" Seorla felt Calaroth's back sway under her as he rose to a crouch, ready for flight, and she hastily wrapped her arms tightly around T'lin. If only she was rich or high-born and rode runners all the time, perhaps she'd have been better at this, but right now she'd rather give herself away as lowly and have someone to hang on to than the reverse.

The greenrider, I'lek, waved cheerfully from the ground as the children reluctantly backed up to make room for them to depart. "You go on ahead and get settled in," he called. "Meet you back at the infirmary?"

"Drinks tonight?" T'lin called back cheefully.

"I wouldn't miss it." I'lek winked at Seorla. "You want to watch out for this one. He's planning on getting me tipsy. And when I'm tipsy, I lose _all_ my inhibitions."

Seorla blushed hotly, but in an odd way, it was comforting. The rider wouldn't be so light-hearted, she thought, if he was seriously worried about her mother.

"You don't _have_ any inhibitions!" T'lin laughed and blew him a kiss. Then he half-turned and said to Seorla. "Ok, here we go!"

Calaroth's launch was smooth, but the motion still made both rider and passenger sway in the straps.

The girl gasped as the ground fell away below them, pushing her back in her straps, which to her relief, held firm. She felt the peculiar sensation of having left her insides behind as every powerful wingbeat pushed them higher, and a little dizzy as the children, the trader wagons, even the green dragon fell away below them, reduced in moments to the size of toys. It was _so_ strange and exhilarating that she completely forgot to be afraid of the height, though it didn't stop her clinging on to T'lin for dear life.

"This is..." She couldn't think how to describe it, raising her voice above the wind that whipped her curls into a tangle. "Incredible!"

T'lin smiled, glad she was enjoying it. "There's nothing like riding on a dragon." He told Calaroth to circle. It would give Seorla a little more time in the air, it would entertain the kids, and it would give time for I'lek and the healer to get Seorla's mom secured. He didn't want to get back to the Weyr too far ahead of them and have the poor girl worry about her mom.

When he saw Lirioth stretch her wings, he told Seorla. "Okay, we're about to go /between/. Just count to three slowly, and then we'll be at Dolphin Cove."

Seorla nodded, distracted, as they passed over the trader wagons. /Between/, she knew from the oldest teaching ballads, was where the dragons went to get from place to place, and it was dark and cold. She could handle dark and cold. It wouldn't be the first time.

Then the world winked out and it was darker than a nightmare and _cold_ like nothing she'd ever felt before, and that frozen cold was all she could feel, she was stranded alone in the soundless blackness, and she would have screamed but she didn't have a _throat_...and in the back of her mind was a calm voice, counting down. Three - two - one...

Light burst in, a confused blur of colors and a gust of strange-tasting, blessedly warm air. Seorla gasped in a ragged breath. She was here, she could feel her arms gripping the dragonrider tightly and her heart pounding in her chest, but they were also somewhere else. Ahead of them and below, the land fell away in a wide half-circle of steep cliffs, scattered with the dark shadows of caves, and beyond, an immense sparkling blue expanse, not seen since her earliest memories. The sea. The Weyr!

T'lin laid a hand over hers, turning slightly to be heard over the winds. "You okay?" Calaroth called a cheerful greeting to the watchdragon and started bragging about finding a Candidate.

"I... That was..." But the fear was already ebbing away as the blazing heat of the sun chased the deep chill from her bones, and the vivid green and gold and blue of the landscape below made it hard to remember that lightless void. She'd made it, and she hadn't panicked, which made her feel a swell of pride. "That was the weirdest place I've ever been. Where _is_ it?"

"Nowhere. That's why we call it /between/. It's just an endless void that dragons can use to go between one place and another." He restrained himself from going into the various theories of what /between/ was and how it worked. Now wasn't the time.

Another dragon greeted the watchdragon and T'lin turned to look. "There's Lirioth! See, they brought your mom just fine."

Seorla followed his gaze to where the green had appeared over the cliffs. She was just able to make out the small figure of I'lek waving from her back, and the stretcher she supported with her forelimbs, and she felt a wash of relief and a pang of guilt. She'd been so distracted by the experience of dragonflight and the unnerving jump /between/ that she'd hardly thought about her mother. What must it have been like in that eerie non-place for her? As much as she was enjoying circling above the Weyr, she was glad when they began to descend, and as soon as they'd landed and T'lin had helped her dismount, she hurried over to Lirioth, who'd just settled down nearby.

"Mama! Are you all right?"

Her mother looked pale, but she'd been wrapped up warmly and the stretcher secured firmly to the dragon with straps, and she managed a wan smile. "I'm fine. Lirioth carried me very carefully, and she bugled to warn me about going /between/."

"That was considerate. Thank you," Seorla added, looking up at the green. She wasn't sure if she could hear, but she'd turned her head to look at them, her eyes whirling blue-green. Then she remembered to her dismay that she hadn't even thanked T'lin and Calaroth, and hastily got to her feet. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I just... I had to see... Thank you!"

T'lin waved a hand. "You were worried about your mother. Let's get her settled in the infirmary and then I can take you to the Headwoman."

}:You carried her so well. Such strong and careful forelimbs,:{ Calaroth told Lirioth.

T'lin covered a laugh.

}:I did, didn't I?:{ Lirioth lifted one of her front legs and examined it, admiring her elegant claws without so much as a hint of modesty. }:I took extra care with the mother of your Candidate.:{

Seorla watched her antics in bemusement while the dragonriders unstrapped the stretcher and the healer gave her mother a quick examination. The young greenrider had taken off his riding jacket in the heat, which was much stronger down here in the baking Weyrbowl, and she saw now that the lower part of one arm was missing, replaced by a prosthetic made from metal rods and leather straps. Had he lost it fighting Thread? It was a sobering thought, or would have been if she had any idea of actually Impressing.

"I can help carry," she offered, unsure if he'd be able to manage the stretcher.

T'lin opened his mouth to say they could handle it, but Seorla might feel better if she could do something active. "Sure, if you'd like to. We're all going that way anyway, right?" He glanced over at I'lek, hoping he'd understand.

"Good idea! We can take one handle each," I'lek proposed, "and this fine, strapping young dragonrider can lift the other end." He batted his eyelashes enticingly at T'lin, though whether he'd caught his fellow rider's look or this was his accustomed manner was anyone's guess. "We'll have your mama with the healers in no time. If that's alright, ma'am?" He looked to Bergaris for permission.

The healer nodded and then looked down at her patient. "We'll soon have you in a bed much more comfortable than this stretcher." Or a makeshift bed in the back of a wagon.

T'lin stripped off his riding jacket and flexed an arm, winking at I'lek.

The woman in the stretcher managed a faint smile. "Thank you, though I hope I'm not so heavy as that."

Seorla had been watching the two dragonriders, astonished. She'd seen enough similar behavior in her time working at holds, between the other drudges and the fieldhands, to know flirting when she saw it, but never between two men. They seemed so open and relaxed, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. She did remember overhearing the talk, that this was what the Weyr was supposed to be notorious for.

Hastily, she took her place by the stretcher and lifted on I'lek's count. It felt soberingly light, as if her mother hardly weighed anything at all, and that focused her mind. She was here for healing, not to judge the weyrfolk, and they were helping her when no one else had. In the meantime, she could be a Candidate...as soon as she worked out what exactly one of those did.

Last updated on the October 28th 2026

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An Unexpected Turn (2/2)