Let us know, please, if there are errors in the post. Or if you don’t want to be included. Or if there’s someone who you think should be included, which includes you. We can use more content. Or if you are finally coming to the end of drafting your assignments and have a little breathing space. Or for any other reason, really.
Last time, Fiona got gaslit by the Weyrleaders and T’mar into thinking her problem with T’mar’s cavalier attitude toward safety and life was really her own hangups about being in a role where she might have to let people die to save others or to keep the dragonriders as a whole going. Those two things are not actually related to each other, but Fiona went and apologized to T’mar for giving him a public dressing-down about the safety of his passengers because the Weyrleaders insisted she do so.
Dragonheart, Chapter 11: Content Notes:
Right after Fiona apologizes to T’mar, Nuella and Nuellask (who has added letters to her name, probably signifying the very tight bonds the two have at this point) arrive and have a conference with the Weyrleaders, a conference Fiona is eventually invited in to. Fiona knows how to greet Nuellask and where to scritch because of some time spent with Forsk. Nuella is amused about this for reasons not fully related to the watch-wher.
“But sometimes, when I was lonely, I’d go into her [Forsk] lair and curl up with her when I was tired.”
“From catching tunnel snakes, no doubt,” the woman, whom Fiona realized must be Nuella, guessed with amusement in her voice. “Kindan complained of it to me on several occasions.”
“Complained?” Fiona repeated, feeling irked with Kindan. “I got a quarter mark for each head!”
“And never got bitten, except the once,” Nuella added approvingly.
Fiona looked at her in surprise. “How did you–how did Kindan know about that?”
Nuella laughed. “No one keeps secrets from harpers for long.”
“But I treated myself and kept the cut hidden!”
“You still needed stores and you had to ask someone, even if hypothetically, about treating snakebites,” Nuella replied, her voice full of humor. She held out a hand, which Fiona took and shook eagerly. “I’m Nuella, as you’ve no doubt guessed.” She continued. “And rest assured, no one would have known except that Kindan was keeping such a careful watch over you.”
Fiona was too embarrassed to reply. I thought it was a particularly good idea to ask Kelsa if there’d ever been songs written about treating snakebites,” Nuella confided approvingly.
“She wrote one just afterward,” Fiona remembered, then groaned, glancing over to the older woman in horror, “and she consulted Father on it! You don’t suppose she told him…?”
Nuella laughed and shook her head. “I have no idea,” she replied. “All I know is that after the song was written, Kindan showed up at my camp very agitated and tried to slyly teach the song to me.”
“He was afraid you were going to go after tunnel snakes?”
Nuella shook her head, her grin slipping. “I’d already done that,” she confessed. “I think he was just trying to be certain that I knew how to handle the bites if I ever did again.”
With a shock of horror, Fiona realized that Nuella was referring to her first watch-wher, the green Nuelsk, who had died of snakebite.
Oh, so that’s what happened to Kisk-Nuelsk. Is this the first time anyone has mentioned the change between the green and the gold? If it happened before, I would have thought I mentioned it. *rummage through notes* Nope. Got nothing. So we learn of the fate of Nuelsk through Fiona’s memory, which doesn’t then explain Nuellask’s existence at all, since, last I checked, the only known gold watch-wher was Aleesk.
I’m a lot dubious about “Kelsa wrote a song about snakebite,” but that’s mostly because I can’t imagine how terrible the Archives really are at the Harper Hall if every solution to “how do we remember this stuff?” really is “Write a song about it!” I know there’s the Teaching Songs, and presumably, there’s a standard Harper repertoire, occasionally influenced by those who have the gift of music, like Menolly, Petiron, and Kelsa, but it seems like everything having a song is just too much of everything. Maybe Verilan is slightly pleased that Kindan and Vaxoram burnt some amount of the materials on the Archive, because they can’t have all been winners.
Also, I’d like to take a moment to give a shout-out to both Fiona and Nuella for hunting tunnel snakes, especially to Fiona for making some very good wages killing them (and only suffering the one bite.) This is effective storytelling in that it tells us, the reader, that Fiona has always been a fireball who was going to chafe hard at the restrictions society was imposing on her, and it lets us know that Nuella might be one of the few characters who understands Fiona and the two should probably become fast friends, if not confidantes.
Nuellask meets Talenth, who wants to play, but regrettably, everyone has to finish up their war council meeting, and H’nez gets his nose tweaked twice in swift succession.
“I still think it’s a bad idea,” H’nez grumbled. “The Records say nothing of watch-whers fighting Thread–”
“Actually,” Cisca interrupted smoothly, “they do.”
“When?” H’nez asked abruptly.
“As of last night, when I wrote the report,” the Weyrwoman told him.
H’nez was not amused. “If they’re so useful, why was there no mention before?”
“I doubt anyone ever thought to mention it because it was obvious,” K’lior told him. “Watch-whers watch at night and guard holds–we all know that. Probably no one thought it worth mentioning that at night they also guard the holds from Thread.”
“We haven’t trained for this,” H’nez protested.
“I accept responsibility for that,” K’lior said.
“If all goes well, we won’t need you,” Nuella assured H’nez.
“Not need…?” H’nez repeated, his tone full of disbelief.
“If the weather holds, the Thread will all be dead,” Nuella said, “and then neither dragon nor watch-wher will have to fight.”
K’lior, that’s a fantastic explanation. Too bad that it’s completely wrong, since we saw at the end of the last book that Wind Blossom insisted this knowledge stay secret for still unfathomable reasons. Because plot, I suppose. And that mention Cisca makes of watch-whers fighting Thread will also be forgotten through time, even though it should be repeated with every generation to make sure it doesn’t get lost again.
Nuella’s jab at H’nez is pretty good, too, in terms of popping someone’s ego appropriately. Of course, I still believe H’nez shouldn’t be anywhere but Telgar.
The new day dawns promisingly, with snow, and Fiona and Tintoval wonder if just asking dragons and riders how they feel might give a good bead on figuring out how sick the dragons are, but Cisca points out the mental bond can bleed from dragon to rider and spoil any results. Tintoval asks for Xhinna’s help in preparing for the injured, and Xhinna’s sense of duty wins out over her desire to “beat the weyrlings at sacking firestone,” as Fiona puts it. Fiona seems to be accreting a nexus of strong women to herself, which I approve greatly of, and hope they all break off and start their own Weyr and throw all the social conventions to the wind. (It won’t happen, but I wish, okay?) There’s a short scene that’s basically “we’re so glad we have the right firestone now,” and another that’s “K’lior is worried things are going to go pear-shaped because his dragonriders aren’t running on high alert,” before we get to Zenor and Nuella (now happily married) having a fight about whether or not Nuella needs to go out with Nuellask to fight the Thread. Zenor says she needs to think about her children and family and staying alive to raise them. Nuella says it’s her duty to be out there leading the charge, even if Nuellask knows how to run the operation herself. Two of her children, Zelar and Nalla, overhear, and Nalla tips the scales in Nuella’s favor by quoting the statement about how dragonriders must fly when Thread is in the sky, even though Zelar says it’s not the same thing.
“No flying upside down,” he chided her.
“It musses up my hair,” Nuella responded, not–Zenor noted–necessarily ceding to his request.
“Bring her back,” Zenor said to Nuellask. “She and I have more babies to make.”
“Gladly!” Nuella responded with a laugh. “I want six, at least.”
“Excellent,” Zenor agreed, his eyes dancing.
“And Nuellask wants a few us clutches herself, I’m sure.”
“Which is a good thing,” Zenor said, “as it seems your babies start with hers.”
I am glad Nuella and Zenor are agreed about the relationship they have with each other, and they seem to be doing well in parenting. It might be the healthiest relationship I’ve seen on screen out of all of these books, and a large part of it is because Zenor seems willing to let Nuella be who she is, rather than expecting her to be wife and mother solely.
So K’lior’s bad feeling is right, as the weather is too warm and the corresponding Thread count too high for the watch-whers to consume themselves, so a quick makeshift team, including Cisca and an already hurt Nuella, rallies the whers and has them direct the flamethrowers where they need to go and shoot. Which gets them through the night, but not without some burrows slipping through, which turn out to be well-established in the wrong places, necessitating the destruction of a forty year-old forest. K’lior is pretty pissed about the necessary destruction, and apologizes to Lord Egremer about it. Egremer asks for the loan of some weyrlings to help ease some things and save some time in the rebuilding. Which sparks an idea in K’lior, who thanks Egremer for his inspiration and then hightails it back to Fort Weyr to explain to Cisca that if they throw the weyrlings back in time, they’ll have enough time to mature fully and then pop back as full dragonriders ready to kick Thread and take names. Cisca thinks it’s brilliant. The rest of the war council, sans H’nez, is on board. H’nez, however, has landed on K’lior’s shit list, finally.
“No one knows if this is going to work, anyway,” H’nez said. K’lior glanced sourly in his direction–H’nez had been late in joining the fight the night before.
We’ve finally found out what it is that gets you on the Weyrleader’s bad side, and…well, of course it has to do with fighting Thread instead of being an asshole. Which, we note, H’nez continues to be.
K’lior turned to T’mar. “When can you be ready?”
“In two hours,” T’mar replied. “When do you need us back?”
“Excuse me,” H’nez said, “but I think I should be the one to go.”
K’lior turned to him with a raised brow.
“I’ve had the most experience leading flights of dragons; I’ll be the best at training them and handling their injuries,” H’nez explained.
“T’mar is handling the weyrlings now,” K’lior said. “and the decision as to who goes is mine.”
H’nez flashed angrily. “Then pick me.”
K’lior eyed him with distate for a moment, then turned his attention back to T’mar. “The healer will need to stay here.”
T’mar nodded in agreement.
“Weyrleader!” H’nez snapped through gritted teeth. All eyes turned to him. “If you will not let me lead the Flight back to Igen, then I demand that you send me to another Weyr.”
“H’nez!” M’valer gasped.
K’lior merely nodded. “I can not send you until this illness has been cured,” he told H’nez. “at that time, however, you may go to any Weyr that will have you. In the meantime, as we have more wingleaders than wings, you are to fly in M’kury’s wing.”
H’nez nodded stiffly, rose from his chair, and rushed out of the room, ignoring K’rall’s and M’valer’s outraged expressions.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, finally. I still think it a terrible thing that K’lior waited until H’nez did himself in by his own words and actions, instead of sending him off or demoting him to a flyer as soon as it became apparent he was unsuited to leadership, but there’s probably some unwritten rule somewhere that I’m not aware of, being just a reader of the book and not fully immersed in dragonrider culture and how bronze riders work. Anyway. H’nez has been neutralized for the moment, although I’m not counting him out to try something when he thinks nobody is looking, because guys like him don’t just slink off or merely wait their time out.
Fiona offers to go back in time, but she’s nixed because she’s the heir and there’s no way they’re risking the juvenile queen on this mission. As Fiona explains it to Xhinna, the riders are going to use the position of the Red Star, and then calculate what it should look like Ten Turns ago to get their picture, which should sound rather familiar to us, given that the position of the Red Star was what was used for the giant time hops that Jaxom and Ruth led, and several other intentional-or-otherwise time hops that have been done before. Given that dragonriders keep time by the Red Star, which is apparently the most regular object in their orbit, it makes sense that it keeps getting used for time-point fixation. So T’mar and the weyrlings pop back in time to do their thing, which resolves a certain number of the paradoxes involved and will hopefully bring those weyrlings back to full alertness when they stop crossing their timelines. Xhinna and Fiona and F’jian all talk about the lack of riders in the Weyr, and how they would much rather be in the past, growing up, even though their dragons can’t actually carry them, much less send them back in time.
When Fiona yawns, Talenth tells her to go to bed, and says she’ll be in shortly, but she has to think first. Which is the latest in a few signs that Talenth might not be like other dragons, but it’s been small things like Fiona can tell Talenth to listen for other riders, and that works perfectly well, but is actually somewhat unusual for dragons when noted. Fiona is awoken in the middle of the night by the same mysterious queen rider she saw before, who has an imperative for Fiona and Talenth: come back with her to Igen Weyr, so that the other weyrlings will see them go and do the same thing themselves. Because this rider, whomever she is, is from the future and now has to make sure that her own past happens as she remembers it. So Talenth, Fiona, and Terin make the hop with the queen rider. Xhinna is left behind at the insistence of the queen rider, which I’m sure will sour whatever relationship Fiona and Xhinna had. And the chapter closes with Fiona puzzling out who this mysterious rider might be from the future.
Who was this person? Fiona wondered. Who rode a gold and could bring them back in time?
A growing sense of wonder overcame her as she considered the most obvious answer: Could this be Fiona herself, come back from the future?
Well, if it is, we have the Lessa Paradox all over again. Although, I suppose, given the chronologies involved, it would first be called the Wind Blossom Paradox, or the Lorana Paradox, long before it became the Lessa Paradox. In any case, we keep having these situations that are extremely vulnerable to the Bootstrap Paradox happening with greater frequency as the new author settles in, and that’s not a trend that I want to see continue. Aside from my annoyance at how directly Pernese time travel interferes with itself and the grumble I have about the bootstrap paradox, the reliance on time travel as the solution to all problems and the construction of narratives that require time travel to solve makes it sound like the new author doesn’t feel confident in their ability to tell the story they want. There’s so many more things on the table to pick up and run with, like the terrible similarity between Lady Holder and Weyrwoman that Fiona is experiencing. Or how all the people that Fiona keeps putting in positions of usefulness see the world. There’s Thread and heretofore unseen illness and a lack of knowledge that is punishing everyone and a race against the clock to find a solution. That’s good enough without having to bring time travel into it. There’s so much going on that things that could be explored more get rushed past. Maybe not all of it makes it into the final work, but Fiona is more of a plot device than a character at this point.
Let us know, please, if there are errors in the post. Or if you don’t want to be included. Or if there’s someone who you think should be included, which includes you. We can use more content. Or if you are finally coming to the end of drafting your assignments and have a little breathing space. Or for any other reason, really.
Last time, Fiona learned a lot more about what it means to be a weyrling and what sort of responsibilities she’s going to have to take on a a Weyrwoman supervising them.
I reached out
And you were gone.
I cried out
But you had flown.
(Fort Weyr, Morning, AL 508.1.19)
Cisca and Fiona debrief about the incident in the morning, and Fiona mentions her mysterious voice told her things were going to be fine despite this setback. (It was there, but the mysterious voice isn’t doing much but being reassuring, so it’s not always important.) The two of them then try their hardest to convince everyone else that everything is going to be fine as well, despite no actual evidence of progress. Fiona gets to go drill the weyrlings today. Tajen and T’mar are going to try Fiona’s suggestion of trailing firestone sacks behind the dragon. Fiona ships J’gerd off to drill the older weyrlings, and Xhinna gives Fiona advice about drilling the younglings – all things are tests, especially anything that looks like a mistake or a missed command. Fiona does well, especially when Talenth gets involved and when Fiona rotates who is giving commands.
Xhinna proved as adept at drill as Fiona had expected, giving her orders in a well-timed cadence that actually made the drills work better.
“That was amazing!” Xhinna told Fiona when they finally called halt, he eyes shining with joy. “I could almost feel how they’d be in the air and–” She cut herself off abruptly and dropped her eyes to the ground.
Fiona could guess what the other girl was thinking: that it was something she’d never experience. She wanted to say something to reassure her, to give her hope, but she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound false or silly.
Talenth ends up promising Xhinna an egg from her clutch, when the time comes. And this is another one of those times where I really have to boggle at the hoarding of knowledge and material by everybody on Pern. Like, the fife and drum corps is not a new concept in any sort of way, and yet it seems like Fiona notices Xhinna’s natural cadence and this is some sort of novel idea and improvement to the previous drill idea. We already have Harpers for the Weyr, so how hard would it be for an apprentice drummer to be put on loan to a Weyr to practice their rudiments in such a way that gives the weyrlings a beat and cadence to practice their drill to? And since it’s not like the dragonriders need any sort of secrecy to fight Thread, why not have a drummer on hand when fighting a Fall to keep time and tempo so that the dragons fight Thread as efficiently and rhythmically as possible? Maybe the Songmaster can compose a song for the weyrlings to memorize that contains their drill in it, so all they have to do is hear the right command and the tempo and they can do it. There’s always the possibility that a weyrling will be without rhythm at all, of course, but it’s always interesting to see how many things are being rediscovered that should never have been forgotten in the first place.
Drill goes well, T’mar and Tajen say the trailing firestone idea works, but they don’t particularly like it compared to having weyrlings do resupply. Even though having six sacks floating seems to make this idea work fairly well. The return of the rest of the fighting groups means a leader meeting where everyone’s numbers are basically terrible, and that’s worse because High Reaches won’t help (because of the time plot) and Telgar won’t help (because there’s an asshole in charge). Fort currently has about a wing’s worth of reserves over the minimum needed to fight a Fall properly. Fiona suggests that wing could be the firestone reserves, using the same technique of floating sacks behind, and then the reserve wing could join the fray and patch holes that might have appeared through casualties, a suggestion swiftly adopted and then assigned out to be put into practice with the next day’s drill.
Fiona is getting a lot of mileage out of the outsider perspective trait, since Cisca and company seem to be actively encouraging Fiona to examine all of their issues and practices to see if there are improvements to be had, and Fiona seems to be coming up with solutions on the regular.
The more the book gets into the details, though, it continues to leave out a lot of things. Like, is firestone mined to a certain size and weight so that there’s a standard-within-tolerance expectation of how long a flame a dragon can sustain per rock? (Does it change depending on the dragon’s color? If so, is every dragon wing composed solely of one color?) Does an attacking wedge of dragons sustain their flame for a set amount of time before peeling off and letting the next wedge smoothly take their place while they float back to the back of the queue to reload? How does a wing or wedge or flight accomplish resupply without Thread advancing some amount of ground, given that the point is to make sure no Thread touches down?
These things don’t have to be explicitly said in painstaking detail, but they should be known, so that when characters speak or act, they’re doing so in a way that shows the author has thought of it and plotted it out. You need a series book of research, even if the research itself doesn’t need to go into the narrative.
As it turns out, the next day, Xhinna and Terin present Fiona with a new problem – the next scheduled Threadfall will go through sundown and dragons do not see well on the dark. Fiona runs the problem past the other Weyrleaders, and everyone goes “…shit.” Some of the Thread might freeze, but there’s going to be space for Thread to burrow that the ground crews aren’t going to be able to cover. The Weyrleaders are appreciative, even if it means having to do more things.
“You have a habit of finding difficult friends, don’t you?”
Fiona looked up and saw that he was smiling at her.
“Don’t stop,” Cisca told her heatedly. “We need these sorts of friends; they keep us from making terrible mistakes.”
“Indeed,” K’lior said, his expression thoughtful. He raised an eyebrow toward Cisca in some secret communication that seemed to Fiona that they were dragons communicating telepathically.
“Yes,” K’lior said after a moment. “I think we shouuld encourage this Terin to stand on the Hatching Grounds.”
“Nothing short of a full revolution for you, is there?” Cisca wondered, her eyes dancing at Fiona.
” ‘Need drives when Thread arrives,’ ” K’lior quoted in reply.
And so, at least at Fort, we seem to be headed in the direction of getting plenty of eligible candidates from places unexpected to sit for dragons. Which is excellent, and it’s nice having Weyrleaders who think this is a good idea, rather than trying to obstruct it for any sort of TRADITION reasons or otherwise. Cisca and K’lior seem to be both practical and pragmatic, except when it comes to getting rid of people that needed to step down or be dismissed, I guess. Which can be a big flaw in the wrong conditions.
Fiona continues to do the thing she does best, in providing outside perspective to the dragonriders that sorely need it.
“What about the watch-whers?” Fiona asked. “I know my father’s Forsk will be eager.”
“Watch-whers?” K’lior repeated, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. “What could they do?”
“They can see at night,” Fiona replied, undaunted. “And I know that father has been training with Forsk, getting guidance from Kindan, M’tal, and Nuella.”
K’lior groaned. Cisca looked at him worriedly. “The watch-whers,” he explained. “When M’tal was here at the Hatching, he wanted us to train with the watch-whers.”
“And you said no,” Cisca guessed.
And I said no,” K’lior agreed disconsolately. “Could you imagine H’nez…?”
“He would have been apoplectic,” Cisca agreed.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” K’lior said with a heavy sigh. “We’ll fight the Thread tonight and see if perhaps we can train with the watch-whers before the next Fall.”
Or, perhaps, the consequences of not being able to throw H’nez out on his ear when needed will come back and bite the Weyrleaders in the ass more directly. Also, watch-whers are an important part of things, and the fact that they can see in the dark and eat Thread should not have become part of lost knowledge, but again, Pern.
As it is, the first night-time raid is a disaster for K’lior, because the dragons can’t see, but it turns out the watch-whers and Nuella turn up to help them out anyway and remind everyone that they’re the night crew for Thread, because the watch-whers will eat the stuff up. There’s some concern about how there aren’t enough watch-whers to fight a full onslaught if all the Thread is live (since, remember, they work on heat-vision, they can tell what’s live and what’s dead in terms of Thread), and Cisca is put out that she missed out, but mostly it’s “Nuella was flying upside-down and said hello. Since she’s blind, I’m not sure she noticed,” from K’lior, to which Cisca says, “Yeah, no, she noticed. I’ll bet her mate will be unhappy about that stunt. And also, don’t get any ideas.”
H’nez is grounded for the next Fall, due to injured dragon, and T’mar has Fiona accompany him to the Harper Hall. Once Fiona gets under the archways, she’s lifted off her feet by an unknown person, who nearly gets kicked in sensitive areas for assaulting her like that, before Fiona identifies it as Verilan, and the two have a conversation about how much Fiona’s grown before heading in to Zist’s office, where Bemin, Kelsa, Zist, and a few others are seated. Kelsa tells Fiona that she’s pregnant, which nets an “About time” from Fiona. (Exact quote.) Fiona rattles through the reasons why there might be so many dignitaries present, but those reasons have been covered, it’s mostly to be sure that Fiona’s okay with it. Which she is, and thinks that both her mother and Koriana would have wanted it. Koriana gets named, Lady Sannora does not, but such is the way with siblings, I suppose.
Then they get to the real reason they called for the meeting – Fort Weyr is getting a healer again, a newly-promoted master by the name of Tintoval. She will hopefully have a better tenure than the last healer did, perhaps by virtue of being someone H’nez is less likely to get into duel fights with, even if H’nez will have to be told, repeatedly, that he has to listen to her. T’mar also wants to relay the news about the watch-whers fighting Thread, but Forsk was apparently in the thick of it, so everyone already knows.
When it’s time to leave, Fiona notes there aren’t enough straps to make sure everyone’s secure in. T’mar brushes off her concern, so Fiona gets a grip on one strap with one hand and holds on to Tintoval with the other. There’s a little turbulence on the way back, and Fiona hurts herself holding everyone down, which provokes T’mar into a fit that Fiona could have been lost. Fiona is pretty pissed that they endangered the new Healer and doesn’t understand why T’mar, and then Cisca and K’lior, are pissed at her in return. I follow Fiona’s confusion, even as the whole thing is supposedly explained by K’lior and Cisca.
“But T’mar was–”
“–wrong,” K’lior finished for her. “He should have used the straps.”
“He said he didn’t have any,” Fiona protested.
“He could have borrowed some from the Harper Hall,” K’lior replied. “Master Zist is used to dealing with dragonriders and is smart enough to keep some on hand.”
“As, no doubt, does your father,” Cisca added.
“Then you agree–”
“I do not agree with your public humiliation of a wingleader,” K’lior interjected harshly. “T’mar’s a good man; he would have learned his lesson without your childish outburst.”
“Childish!”
“Childish,” Cisca agreed, but her tone was softer than K’lior’s and she shot the Weyrleader a look that Fiona couldn’t fathom. K’lior shrugged in response, leaving Cisca to continue, “An adult would have realized that T’mar would punish himself harshly for his error and–”
“–an adult would accept the realities of being a queen rider,” K’lior finished.
Cocowhat by depizan
Yes, T’mar should have made better choices. Also, Fiona’s a Weyrwoman, it’s within her remit to remark that T’mar made poor choices. Fiona is not in the wrong, here, which makes it even more aggravating that Cisca and K’lior are acting like she is, even after having acknowledged that Fiona isn’t wrong.
“And let someone else die?” Fiona demanded in anguish and fury, her eyes filling with tears.
“If need be,” Cisca answered softly. She gestured to herslef and Fiona. “Without us, there would be no queens. And without the queens, there will be no Pern.”
“So our queens are nothing more than brood mothers?” Fiona demanded sourly. “And you and I are–” She found she couldn’t finish the sentence and so said instead, “But what about Tannaz? Why did you let her go between?”
“It wasn’t my choice,” Cisca told her. She shook her head sadly. “You know that it wasn’t really Tannaz’s choice, either. Kelsanth was dying; there was no cure.”
Fiona finally comes to the terrible conclusion herself, that being a queen rider and a Weyrwoman isn’t any more free than being a Lady Holder would have been, especially in this situation where queens are precious and need to be protected. Which is the sort of thing that’s been more obvious or less obvious as the previous series have gone on. Fiona exchanged one cage for another, but at no point was she ever going to be free.
Cisca and Fiona have a heated exchange about whether Fiona’s going to give up in despair because there’s still no cure for the dragons, or whether she’s going to fight it all the way through, and then when Fiona resolutely says she’s not giving up, Cisca asks her
“Will you be a leader and an inspiration, or will you be a whiner and an embarrassment? Will you bear your responsibilities, or bow under them?”
“But–to let her fall!” Fiona wailed. A torrent of emotions broke over her and she began to cry.
Realization dawned on K’lior’s face. “You aren’t angry at T’mar–you’re angry because you would have let her go!”
“I held on!” Fiona declared, holding up her aching arm as proof.
“Of course you did,” Cisca replied proudly. “You’re a Weyrwoman.” She glanced to K’lior. “We’ve never questioned that.”
“But,” K’lior persisted, “if it had come to letting her go or falling with her–”
“I would have let her go!” Fiona cried, dropping her head into her hands and shaking it in shame and sorrow. “I would have let her go.”
Strong arms wrapped around her and she was pulled tight against Cisca’s tall body. “Of course you would,” Cisca agreed with her, “because that’s what you would have had to do to protect Pern. You would have hated yourself for it, probably never have forgiven yourself, but you would have done it.” Cisca pushed her away and put a finger under Fiona’s chin, gently raising it so she could see the girl’s eyes. “And that’s what makes a great Weyrwoman: doing what has to be done even when she hates it.”
“That’s why you let Tannaz go,” Fiona said with sudden understanding.
“Yes,” Cisca replied, the words torn out of her, and again she crushed Fiona in a tight embrace, the sort of embrace a mother gives her daughter; the sort of embrace Fiona had always longed for. A short moment later, however, Fiona pushed herself away and glanced toward K’lior. “And that’s why you called me in here.”
The Weyrleader nodded, a corner of his lips turned up in a bitter smile. “Better to know your mettle now than when we are in worse straits.”
Fiona nodded. She stood as tall as she could and said to K’lior, “Weyrleader, I apologize for my outburst at Wingleader T’mar. I was distressed and took my temper out on him. I regret it.”
Cocowhat by depizan
Cocowhat by depizan
Cocowhat by depizan
I don’t even understand this sequence. Fiona’s really mad at herself that she would have engaged in self-preservation when the chips were down, and that’s somehow emblematic that Fiona will be able to make the hard decisions when it’s time, and that’s what they want in a Weyrwoman, so now Fiona understands their position, accepts it as correct, and apologizes for it?
I don’t know if that’s gaslighting, but if it isn’t, it sure as hell is in the same family. T’mar’s still wrong, Fiona’s still justified in taking it out on him, his feelings be damned, and Cisca and K’lior should be supporting her rather than telling her she was wrong to do it and convincing her that she’s really mad at herself instead of at T’mar. He might very well beat himself up about it in private, and that’s well and dandy, but everybody, including Fiona now, is trying to make the greater sin in that Fiona said something and was harsh with him, rather than that he endangered lives.
“Seriously,” Cisca said, turning again to Fiona, “it is often hard for a young Weyrwoman to accept the realities of her position.”
“To let healers die that I might live,” Fiona said by way of example.
“If that is what is needed to protect your queen and the future of Pern,” Cisca responded emphatically.
“It just doesn’t seem fair,” Fiona said softly.
“It isn’t fair,” Cisca agreed. “It’s up to us–Weyrwomen and Weyrleaders–to make it as fair as we can.”
“And when we can’t,” K’lior added, “it’s our responsibility to make certain that no sacrifice is in vain.”
Cisca also says she expects Fiona to deal with T’mar on her own before the Weyrleaders go out to formally meet Tintoval.
But we’re still talking about different things here. T’mar didn’t follow safety regulations and endangered lives through his carelessness. Fiona told him there were problems, but he blew her off. Consequently, Fiona injured herself trying to make sure that T’mar’s carelessness didn’t cost the life of the Healer the Weyr desperately needs. Everyone is yelling at Fiona that she can’t endanger herself for other people, because she’s too precious. If that were the case, really, then Fiona shouldn’t be let out of the Weyr for any reason at all. Like she wouldn’t be let out of her Hold ever, either as someone to be married away or when she was properly married, because she would need to produce at least an heir and a spare to ensure succession.
This does not tie into “sometimes, as a leader, you have to make choices that will kill people,” unless everyone is tacitly admitting here that T’mar’s carelessness was instead a deliberate test to see if Fiona would let Tintoval go and only care about herself. Which is an extremely shitty thing to do to Fiona and Tintoval, even if T’mar was confident there wouldn’t be any real danger and they could catch Tintoval if she were jostled out of her seat. There are way many more ways of doing a test like this, and in reality, with Threadfall already underway, there won’t be any need to test this idea, as Fiona, should she ever become Senior, will have to send riders out to die, or at least be okay with the Weyrleader doing so.
This entire sequence seems to be here for the purpose of gaslighting Fiona, inflicting trauma on her, and making it very clear to the reader just how little has changed for Fiona because of her Impression. And, just, ugh. It’s fucking terrible, because it’s all about prioritizing the feelings of a dude over the very real problems that Fiona is absolutely right to point out.
The narrative goes on with Fiona showing Tintoval around, answering questions, and coming to see one of the sick dragons, where I am reminded that names ending in consonants are men’s names, not women’s names, and therefore there’s the possibility of confusion if someone hasn’t seen Tintoval before hearing her name. “A new healer,” the voice inside began hopefully. “Does he–”
He broke off as they entered. S’ban was dressed elegantly in wherhide breeches and a thick blue sweater accented with a gold chain around his neck. For a moment his face showed his surprise at Tintoval, and then it darkened. “I’m not sure that Serth will tolerate a woman’s touch,” he warned them. When Fiona opened her mouth to argue, the blue rider amended quickly, “I mean, a woman who is not a queen rider.”
And, along with name confusion, we get slapped with the casual sexism of Pern. (Yay.) Because there’s no reason to believe that the dragon gives a damn about what gender the person is that’s trying to heal them. Instead, it’s the rider assuming that Tintoval can’t be capable, because she’s a woman, never mind that she’s just recently been promoted to her Mastery and so is exactly the person that can fill the great big gaping hole in Fort Weyr’s ability to keep the people and the dragons healthy.
Tintoval explains she was named because her father, also a blue rider, expected her to be a son so much that he had her named before they knew. This would be the perfect place for a trans narrative, where Tintoval says, “And he was right about having a son, even though I look like this.” and we get representation and someone doing important work. But that’s not going to happen. Instead, we get more of Tintoval being competent, some teasing of Fiona from Tintoval about her crush on Kindan, which leads into wanting to think about the problem of catching riders too injured to fly their dragon well, a few bits of reaction to the Weyr seeing Tintoval for the first time, and Fiona being deliberately snubbed from the Weyrleader’s table (there’s no place for her) because she hasn’t apologized to T’mar yet. So Fiona goes to do it, and we get more of Fiona gaslighting herself and others joining in.
“She didn’t,” he [Bemin] would probably have said, “and you weren’t angry with the bronze rider because of that.” She could imagine him sighing and drawing her close. “Lying does not become a Lady Holder, particularly if she lies to herself.”
[…Fiona sees T’mar and makes her way over…]
“Wingleader T’mar,” Fiona began, “I wish to apologize t you for my outburst this morning. I should not have been angry with you.” She bit her lip and forced herself to continue. “The truth you spoke was not one I was prepared to hear. I regret my harsh words.”
[…T’mar accepts it and makes a place for her at his table…]
T’mar waited until she was seated, then leaned in close to her. “You are not weyrbred; you learned something to day that our children know as soon as they can talk.”
Cocowhat by depizan
Then why the fuck is everyone coming down on Fiona like a ton of bricks? Unless nobody actually stopped and thought for half a second about how Fiona doesn’t understand this truism of their life and perhaps someone should explain it to her.
“I am holdbred,” Fiona agreed, “but my father is a Lord Holder and many of the same truths apply to Lady Holders as [they do] to Weyrwomen.” She frowned. “It’s just hard to accept.”
“Harder as a Weyrwoman, I believe,” T’mar told her. “As a Lady Holder you could renounce your claim, but as a Weyrwoman…” He shook his head.
“Is it always this hard?” Fiona asked him frankly. “Am I the only one…?”
“No,” T’mar assured her. “I think every Weyrwoman battles with this issue.” He waved a hand toward Cisca. “I know that she did, before Melirth rose.”
No, you’re not the only one. Every Lady Holder being trained up to be a nice marriage token and then household-runner, every Weyrwoman, basically every woman on Pern has the same issues that you’re running into, Fiona. Those that choose to strike out on their own, like Thella or Kylara, or even Brekke, had she been given half a chance, are almost invariably painted as villains by both society and the narrative (who wants to make sure that there are no women that want something different and that might be sympathetic to the reader in their wanting). So your options are to conform to the society that insists your value is only in how well you play a narrowly constricted role for men or to strike out and risk the wrath of that society and the narrative itself.
It’s hard to accept because Pern requires doublethink on par with the United States’ constant talk about Freedom, Liberty, Equality, and the bootstraps illusion, when even cursory research or examination of a perspective other than a privileged white man shows that all the talk being talked has basically no walk being walked behind it. Fiona thought that she could get out of the cage of being a Proper Lady Holder by ascending to a position that theoretically is above just about everyone, only to discover that she doesn’t have any of the actual power that comes with it, and by the time that actual power comes around, she won’t be able to use it except in approved ways anyway, because she’ll have to have a minder/husband/Weyrleader by her side instead of ruling the place by herself. Or at least being able to do what she wants to do, instead of what everyone that’s putting her on a pedestal expects her to do.
We haven’t seen Fiona have that realization and the mental breakdown that’s likely going to follow from it. There’s hints of it, because Fiona continues to be super-anxious about what will happen when Talenth rises to mate. (I don’t think it’s solely about the sex part, even if that’s what the conscious worry is about. I think Fiona is worried that when Talenth rises to mate, that will slam shut the last door Fiona has to get out of the situation before she no longer can. Fiona is facing an existential crisis at thirteen. The same one she would be facing as a Lady Holder, to be sure, but the stakes are, somehow, much higher than she would have expected to have as a Lady Holder. I kind of want to see what happens when a dragon goes to live with the watch-whers or something similar, where the dragon and rider simply close themselves off completely to being found by anybody else and go find a community of similar renunciants and lives out a life without having to become a Thread fighter, or leader, or Weyrwoman. Not that someone could hide dragons easily in the inhabited lands, but maybe some raids and a few other things to get a space for themselves and their dragons established and they could just opt-out as much as possible from the life and destiny set in front of them. That would be nice to have as an option.
There’s still nearly half of this chapter to cover, and this post is long enough already, so we’re going to stop here. I keep thinking back to the beginning piece, where the author mentioned rising tensions between dragonriders and holders, and have to wonder how much of this conflict between what’s expected in dragonrider culture and what’s expected in holder culture is really all that different, at least for the women allowed to participate in either realm, and how much of the conflict is really between the world as it is described to us and our own sense of ethics and morals about the treatment of others. But maybe that’s because I’m looking at this series with a lens toward showing where things don’t make sense, rather than being swayed by the presence of neat dragons and potential world-ending threats and engaging in some reader self-insertion (which is really easy to do in all of these novels) that might make me want to be more apologetic for Pern than I might otherwise be. Because it’s still got a decent concept, even if the executions leave a lot to be desired.
Let us know, please, if there are errors in the post. Or if you don’t want to be included. Or if there’s someone who you think should be included, which includes you. We can use more content. Or if you are getting ready for an election that has a high probability of being a trash fire. Or for any other reason, really.
Last time, Fiona had to deal with a significant amount of death of dragons and riders, as several of her mentors took the one-way trip to hyperspace. The Weyrlingmaster stayed behind when his dragon died in his sleep, and was officially de-contracted in the ritual expression of grief. Fiona and the weyrlings and weyrgirls (specifically mentioned) ran through the first aid exercises meant to make them competent and instinctual about how to triage and treat dragons coming back with Thread injuries. About the only thing it seems to be helping with is making sure Fiona is too run ragged to think existential crisis thoughts.
Furthermore, rather than finding having a dragon to be freeing from obligations and social structures that insist she repress her emotions and always act like a proper lady, it’s become radically apparent that being a Weyrwoman is all of the things that would have been expected of her as a Lady Holder, with the extra terrible of knowing her emotions are contagious to the people around her.
Dragonheart: Chapter 10: Content Notes: Joke about underage boys being seen sexually
When you have to repeat the poetic lines from earlier, and furthermore, you’re repeating the less good stuff, that’s probably a sign of something. Like someone needed to hire a poet.
Chapter Ten starts with Fiona unnaturally perky about the possibility of Threadfall. Apparently, everyone at Fort is keyed-up about being able to hurt the visible menace, rather than suffering from the invisible one, and they’re chomping at the bit to get a Fall under their belts, since everyone else has already done one. Fiona and Cisca are both very nervous about who might not come back, although Cisca asks Fiona and Xhinna not to let her nervousness be known widely, because Senior Weyrwoman Who Sets The Example and all that.
Fiona doesn’t get to put her drill practice to work because when she tries to catch the first injured dragonrider, T’mar, she misjudges the distance, so she’s knocked out and concussed by the weight of the rider falling fully on her. After Kentai runs the concussion protocol on her, and grudgingly gives her the casualty report, Fiona checks in with Talenth, who apparently wasn’t worried because the mysterious dragonrider from before assured her that Fiona would be okay. The same voice tells Fiona she’s going to be fine and (presumably uses an Imperius on Fiona to) gets her to go to sleep.
When she wakes up, Kentai is summoned and more of the concussion protocol is put into place, which forbids Fiona from any klah, much to her and T’mar’s protestations. Kentai tests to make sure her pupils are reacting equally, but asks Fiona if she knows what he’s testing for and she tells him correctly. So Fiona is down for another day, although with Kentai learning that H’nez basically fought every other bronze rider weyrling in his class (and again, reasons why H’nez should never have been put on the leadership track at all) and Fiona promising she won’t leave Xhinna behind if she and Talenth decide they’re going one-way to hyperspace after hearing that Lorana was at Fort, looking through the records, but then had to leave abruptly.
And then, somehow, despite the fact that Fiona has been concussed and asleep, she wants to go see T’mar under the guise of seeing the injured riders, and Xhinna apparently can tell immediately that she’s at least in infatuation with T’mar (Xhinna refers to T’mar as Fiona’s boyfriend) and I’m paging back through the book trying to figure out where this sudden connection happened, because I can’t find any sort of indication where Fiona has suddenly seen T’mar in a new light, other than the crash-into-hello. Fiona is equally abrupt with T’mar when in his gratefulness that Fiona caught him and saved him from breaking his legs, he mentions that she should not risk her neck for him and Fiona comes to the conclusion that T’mar really only cared about her dragon.
Where have we seen mood swings like that before? Oh, right, with Tullea, but since we’re inhabiting Fiona’s head, the narrative lets her realize what she did and then apologize to T’mar for it, who waves it off and they talk about what Lorana found in the records before the topic comes to making promises.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to make such a promise,” T’mar warned her. Xhinna gave him a stubborn look and he went on. “No one ever says words with the thought that they might one day have to eat them.”
“I won’t!”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” T’mar observed mildly. “I’ve had to eat my own words countless times; that’s why I give you such advice.”
“How did they taste?” Fiona asked, surprised to see her humor returning.
“Awful,” T’mar replied with a grimace. “But I was always grateful after I’d eaten them.”
” ‘Be careful what you wish for, you might get it,’ ” Fiona repeated the old saying.
Later on, they’ll also quote “Don’t count your eggs before they’re hatched,” but at least that one makes plausible sense, given dragons and eggs and such. I’m less certain about wishes fulfilled, but I can see it being said to children that dream of being dragonriders, or Lords, or Crafters, as a discouragement or a a way of getting them to ask questions about how people higher on the social strata treat the people underneath them.
T’mar chooses not to say anything to Fiona and Xhinna about mating flights and his experience of them, and the next scene picks up with the casualty numbers from Ista and the council of leaders trying to figure out what to do with their own injured and dead, given that they now know some dragons are sick without the sign of the cough and so some dragons were lost without knowing it would happen. And, props for consistent characterization, I suppose, but H’nez continues to be an asshole.
“J’lantir,” H’nez snorted derisively. “The man lost his whole wing!”
“But we found out why, didn’t we?” M’kury retorted quickly. “And without them, we would have had even more holders die in the Plague.”
“Holders!” H’nez snorted once more. “Who needs–”
“I was a holder, H’nez, in case you’ve forgotten,” Fiona snapped angrily, her hands balled into fists under the table. “And without J’lantir, I wouldn’t be here. Think on that.”
“Actually,” Cisca added drolly, “perhaps it’d be best if you just think, H’nez.”
H’nez’s eyes flashed and he tensed in his chair, his anger obvious to everyone. Outside a dragon bugled loudly, answered by another higher-pitched dragon: Melirth and Talenth. The sounds seemed to recall him to his senses, and with some effort, he relaxed in his chair.
H’nez does apologize after having been put in his place, yet again, and really, I don’t care how good of a leader he is during Threadfall, he’s a fucking toxic liability and should be expelled. I realize that the book is published a decade before there’s any sort of widespread public discourse about toxic masculinity and people in positions of power behaving badly and needing to be truly called to account for it, but H’nez has done more than enough to get bounced in the here and now, even if you don’t take into account his past. So yes, reading through the lens of the now, rather than of the then, but it’s also objectively, fractally, terrible.
As Fort’s people try to work through the issues of flying light, Tajen suggests riding along with T’mar so that T’mar’s arm can continue to heal and Tajen can catch firestone sacks and otherwise do the heavy lifting. This makes Cisca suggest the possibility of having healthy riders work with healthy dragons, even if it’s not the Impressed pair. M’valer dismisses the idea immediately, with the same reaction as if someone had suggested M’valer willingly sunder his Impression bond. The suggestion isn’t shelved or adopted, mostly waiting to see how Tajen and T’mar do as a partnership.
Fiona ends up assigned to helping Weyrlings with their drilling requirements. Since she’s small, young, and inexperienced, she’s very nervous about it. Tajen and T’mar offer their counsel to Fiona, Cisca introduces the two seniormost weyrlings that generally run the rest of them, J’keran and J’gerd, and then basically leaves Fiona to sink or swim. Fiona manages to get the two of them to work in harmony by suggesting that those who speak too quickly need to think more and those who don’t talk at all need to speak up. She introduces them to K’lior, collects her key to the firestone shed, and then has to divide up the work for everyone, knowing they’re going to be hauling around full sacks of firestone. Xhinna arrives and relays another key piece of information – Fiona has to have someone count how much firestone is leaving their stores. Fiona nominally asks Xhinna to do the count, but Xhinna wants something more challenging – to join in filling the sacks of firestone.
“We’ve what–twelve weyrlings to fly firestone?” Fiona asked out loud.
“Eleven,” someone else called out. “V’lex was injured in the last Fall.”
“Thirty-three weyrlings to bag–”
“Thirty-four,” Xhinna put in stoutly.
“You’re not a weyrling!” one of the younger bys complained. “You’re a girl!”
“I’m a girl,” Fiona said warningly.
“Were you addled in your shell, D’lanor? She’s offering to help,” another weyrling put in, eyeing Xhinna with a combination of surprise and awe.
“And what will happen when you’re all in fighting wings?” Fiona asked.
“Well, there’ll be more weyrlings,” J’keran suggested cautiously.
Fiona realizes that figuring out who’s replacing them is her problem, not theirs, and while someone suggests V’lex as proper counter, a new young girl, named Terin, pipes up and says she’ll count. While the boys are skeptical about her (and her claim that her father was a dragonrider), Terin demonstrates aptitude with numbers quickly, by being able to calculate in rapid succession, having been told that the start point is 164 sacks to start with (one sack per active dragon) and each weyrling will have to have two more, the weyrlings will need 328 sacks additionally, which works out to about five sacks for each of the fillers to cover the starting requirement and then about ten sacks each for the weyrling reserves. Which then means they’ll have to be carrying about thirty sacks per weyrling. Given that each sack is two stone (28 pounds), (Also, imagine me giving the book the side-eye about how a weight measure that’s archaic by 21st century Terran standards somehow manages to make it all the way to far-future Pern, despite the fact that science had already standardized on kilograms for units of mass and weight for several decades when the book was written), thirty sacks is sixty stone (840 pounds), and that’s way too much weight for any one weyrling to carry by themselves in one trip. Given that, between a snatch and a clean-and-jerk, the Terran world record holder lifted 1067 pounds in September 02019, that’s not even a “maybe,” that’s a “no fucking way”. Fiona says they’ll have to do it in halfsies, which is still “no fucking way!” because that’s asking weyrlings, each and individually, to carry 420 pounds each individually, in the worst-case scenario.
On second glance, however, it seems like my initial impressions are completely wrong, because the narrative suggests that the weyrlings are running a relay where they fill their firestone sack, then run it out to the waiting wing of dragonriders, before running back and filling another. Transporting the weight one sack at a time is a much more doable operation.
“It’d be quicker if the younger ones just did the bagging and the older ones distributed,” Terin said, her tone reminding Fiona somewhat of Xhinna.
“Excellent suggestion, Terin,” Fiona replied, gesturing to J’gerd to implement it.
“Are you hoping to be Weyrwoman yourself, then?” J’gerd asked the young girl teasingly before hoisting a firestone sack and trotting off toward H’nez’s waiting wing.
“Don’t listen to him,” Fiona said to Terin. “He’s just annoyed he didn’t think of it himself.” The younger girl’s expression brightened.
If Terin continues in this manner, she’ll make an excellent headwoman when Fiona becomes Senior.
Fiona also watches the last sack of the initial thirty go from storehouse to waiting wings, and since it takes “several minutes” for a runner to get there “at a trot,” Fiona has Talenth ask the next wing to be loaded to locate themselves closer to the storehouse so things move faster. Which apparently ruffles the feathers of some of the bronze riders, according to Cisca, but Fionoa points out it’s better this way and Cisca agrees with her.
After seeing Cisca off, Fiona sends out for water. When it arrives, after making sure that the runner is assured that it’s new firestone, not old firestone, Fiona says it’s on her orders that everyone get a drink. And then, when they’ve brought enough to get all their full riders supplied, Fiona calls a rest break, makes sure everyone has food and gets fresh air, and then sets them back to filling the rest of the sacks so that the weyrlings can resupply the riders. After that round, Fiona wants one more round of resupply, and realizes there’s no way in hell that the weyrlings are going to be able to keep up the pace and requirements for an actual Fall, when they have to resupply the riders up to eight potential times. They’re starting on resupply three when Fiona puts F’jian in charge and goes to tell Cisca they’re going to need a lot more bodies if they’re going to keep up this pace. Fiona suggests more of the weyrfolk youngsters get detailed to firestone resupply, which Cisca accepts and suggests that by putting it more firmly in the weyrfolks’ hands, that will free Fiona up to do other things. Like accompany Cisca on Melirth to see if the weyrlings and riders are performing the firestone exchange maneuver correctly.
The maneuver was quite tricky, Fiona decided as she watched one of the fighting dragons catch up with a weyrling, come alongside, get the weyrling’s attention and then, with a heart-stopping flip of the wings, dive into a spiral to a position directly underneath the weyrling, near the firestone sack.
The load was transferred neatly from weyrling to dragonrider, and then the two veered away from each other, the wyrling’s dragon lurching slightly from the sudden weight reduction.
“Well done,” Cisca murmured in Fiona’s ear. Fiona nodded in agreement. “Watch carefully: the trick’s the same for the flamethrowers we’ll be using.
It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that the sacks are tied on to the weyrling dragon’s riding harnesses when they first leave the station. I’m guessing it’s something like saddlebags are on a horse, but that doesn’t really explain why there’s this spiral flip to get into the correct position. Presumably, it could be much more like a mid-air refueling of an aircraft, where getting in the right position is a matter of careful positioning. I’m also assuming that the dragons don’t get refueled while they’re in the middle of the Threadfighting fray, which would presumably make it easier to get a good approach for a resupply run and have both dragons maneuver to make it easy to release and transfer firestone. Perhaps in a pinch, a weyrling with good depth perception could drop the sack so that it could be grabbed in passing by the flying wing. There’s a lot of wasted and potentially dangerous motion involved in the resupply as it is described and observed, and even then, I can’t really picture what the maneuver looks like well enough to suggest improvements. Later on, as Cisca, Fiona, and K’lior are describing possible new ways of resupply, the firestone sacks are instead described as “trailing”, suggesting that the weyrling is actually letting the firestone sacks float behind them so that the fighting dragon can approach at a lower altitude and snag the goods for themselves. Which makes sense, then to get the attention of the weyrling, since the fighting dragon is about to imbalance them suddenly, and having warning makes that an easier thing to react to. It still seems like a lot of dangerous motion, though.
After seeing the weyrlings at work, Fiona gets to go home and collapse into bed, exhausted. Not half as much as Xhinna, whom Fiona insists should bathe first and then get some muscle salve worked in as well. (Fiona orders Xhinna not to put on her nightgown after she’s done bathing.) Fiona snuggles up after salving Xhinna and bathing herself, thinking it’s like they’re sisters and Xhinna’s warmth is just right to curl up to.
The next day, Fiona’s conclusions are repeated back to her, and she’s given the assignment to train with the weyrlings. The results of the experiment with Tejan and T’mar are encouraging, but not conclusive, because nobody really wants to test whether another dragon will let someone else’s rider drive them. There are more sick dragons, with deaths soon to follow. There’s hope that a cure will be found, now that the rooms at Benden have been. And Fiona suggests that perhaps one of the fighting wing’s dragons could carry the wing’s entire firestone resupply load when needed. K’lior thinks it will cause some loss of unit cohesion, but Fiona points out there’s always the possibility of injury or fatality punching holes in wings anyway. K’lior is willing to give it a shot. I think he should be more enthusiastic about trying it, given that they’re going to be using cobbled-together wings anyway, and so being able to fight when you’re one short somewhere seems like a thing that should have taken on some extra significance this time around.
Fiona reports to the younger weyrlings to learn the drill of flying in formation. Which is something that’s been skipped over pretty heavily in earlier books, so it’s nice to see a little bit of it getting put to use here. What the drill is, essentially, is the weyrlings assembling in the correct formation on the ground, without their dragons, and then being drilled on moving in the formation, including the arm motions and other parts that go along with the movements. They generally do it slowly, by themselves, until they have enough mastery that T’mar allows the weyrlings to do it by leading their dragons through the same exercises on the ground. At the break, Tajen looks at Talenth’s musculature, lets her fly and glide a little bit, and checks again, telling Fiona, and then Cisca and K’lior, that perhaps letting the current crop of dragonets do a gliding exercise once a day will help with their muscle development, so that when it comes time to fly, they’ll make the transition easier. Which seems like the sort of thing that someone who has expertise in dragons would already know through long practice and experimentation with it, but lost knowledge and Pern.
K’lior and Cisca both make an inappropriate joke.
“I suppose,” Cisca said carefully, “that if they [the weyrlings and dragons] drilled no more than once a day [on flying and gliding], it wouldn’t be too great an inconvenience.”
“And you could watch all the pretty youngsters,” K’lior teased her.
“K’lior!” Cisca growled back warningly. “They’re far too young for me, you know that!” She cast a sidelong glance at Fiona, “Though maybe for our junior Weyrwoman…”
Fiona blushed furiously, shaking her head in denial. Cisca’s eyes danced as she enjoyed Fiona’s discomfort, but then she took pity on the youngster and turned back to Tajen, asking, “Have you discussed this with T’mar?”
Because even if the whole thing is a setup to get Fiona to blush and stammer about the potentially cute weyrlings, they’re not very old, any of them, and it’s really not a good look on K’lior or Cisca to be sexualizing them in any way. Even if they’re going to be expected to take on more adult responsibilities, that doesn’t mean they’ve become adults. And not a few chapters ago, everyone was insistent that Fiona be allowed to enjoy a childhood of some sort, over Fiona’s objections. That’s apparently disappeared by this point.
Cisca and Fiona suggest that a single dragon, like a queen, could trail enough firestone to resupply an entire wing by him or herself, which K’lior is intrigued by, but is definitely not risking the senior dragon or any Weyrwomen on an experiment like that in a Threadfall condition. Cisca gives Fiona credit for the idea and for suggesting Xhinna as a second to help Cisca deploy the firestone.
The rest of the chapter is a time marker, as Lorana cries out and loses Arith because she didn’t know what she was doing with the potential genetic cures. Fiona hears it and has similar amounts of anguish from the event. But like all the other events that happen where dragons die, eventually the exhaustion of the body takes over and there is sleep.
So we’ve done a lot of drill and Fiona is slowly collecting people and power to herself, in slow but steady measures of making her into a Weyrwoman that will be able to smoothly step in and take over when the time is right.
And with Arith having gone, there’s still plenty of time before we make it to the solution that will eventually involve Tullea and new generations of immunity coming for the dragons. So we’ll keep slogging on until we get through this particular work. More next week.
Let us know, please, if there are errors in the post. Or if you don’t want to be included. Or if there’s someone who you think should be included, which includes you. We can use more content. Or if you are getting ready for an election that has a high probability of being a trash fire. Or for any other reason, really.
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