Gr'set and brown Evinth
The Road So Far!
It all began at the Healer Hall at Blue Shale Hold, in the protectorate of Madellon Weyr, for Garset – a young boy of 14 Turns, dreaming of becoming a brown rider.
Garset was born the son of two Master Healers at the Southern Healerhall, Blue Shale Hold. He was treating minor injuries even before he was formally apprenticed to the Craft. But frustration with the drudgery of the long apprenticeship made Garset an undistinguished crafter, lacking the focus or passion demanded by the Healerhall. And then, in early 102, brown rider P'lian came to the Healer Hall complaining of frostbitten fingers. Garset was assigned to treat the minor condition. But P'lian's Sparth – despite his colour, a budding Search-sensitive dragon – insisted that Garset was a likely sort for candidacy. And a sevenday later, Garset arrived at Madellon Weyr, joining the candidate pool for senior queen Shimpath's first clutch by her new mate Muzzanth.
As a candidate, Garset was assigned a bunkmate – Martom, a confident young Weyrbred lad, who would soon become his closest friend in the Weyr. He also got to know many of his fellow candidates, including the Weyrbred twins Leover and Leoguy; Zielaph, the nephew of a Madellon bronze rider; and Chiliam, a good-natured highborn lad from Kellad.
But he also made an enemy – Gydeton, the blustering, entitled son of Lord Meturvian of Kellad – who took a firm disliking to Garset! Backed up by his crony Varell, Gydeton became the thorn in Garset's side throughout the sevendays of candidacy.
Hatching Day
The dragons' hum woke Martom and Garset on 102.03.17. Following a brief run-in with Gydeton, the pair joined the rest of the candidates for a morning lecture. The Weyrlingmaster, L'stev, gave the whole cohort – increased by three late Searchees to a total of thirty-five – strict instructions about pre-Hatching preparations, including eating, drinking, bathing – and in some cases, getting a decent haircut – and then turned the group loose for the morning. Before Garset left, Martom – keen to prove himself by Impressing on his first attempt – asked him for help procuring some additional confidence in the form of some alcohol.
The one-armed green rider and the thieving queen
Immediately on leaving the candidate barracks, Garset was flagged down by M'shen – a green rider with one arm, a fire-lizard queen – and a problem. His queen, Squiffy, had stolen several pieces of the Weyrwoman's jewellery, and hidden it around the Weyr. M'shen recruited Garset to find it. The quest took Garset all over Madellon, from kitchens to lake to infirmary – but in the end he succeeded in reuniting the Weyrwoman's jewellery set, to general acclaim.
Respecting his elders
In the Weyr's kitchen gardens, Garset encountered R'hren, a former Weyrleader of Madellon, now peacefully retired to potter among his beloved plants. R'hren asked Garset to help him track down the ingredients for a warming salve to help his elderly bronze, Staamath, with his arthritic forepaws. Garset duly located the components of R'hren's salve, winning the old bronze rider's approval in the process.
Gifted a small pot of the salve, Garset offered it to old S'rius, who was equally appreciative of the gift. And while Kisha, the blind old green rider Garset encountered in the infirmary, would have nothing to do with one of R'hren's concoctions, she too grew to approve of Garset – especially after he solved all three of her fiendish riddles!
Southern comfort
Garset met G'kalte – a brown rider and Wingsecond, not to mention Weyrwoman Valonna's weyrmate – in the Bowl, and was quickly recruited by him to help with a diplomatic matter. G'kalte had been tasked with delivering two gifts from Valonna to her Southern counterpart Weyrwoman Karika – but he'd been summoned away to collect his own grandmother, Lady Coffleby, for the Hatching.
He asked Garset to figure out which of the seven Southern dragons visiting Madellon were the correct pair to hand over Karika's gifts. And while G'kalte's brown, Archidath, offered Garset some intelligence on the Southern seven, his advice was somewhat garbled! Nonetheless, Garset unravelled Archidath's confusing suggestions and got the right packages to the right dragons – without being growled at!
A Masterful order
In the dining hall, Garset met his fellow candidate Zielaph, who'd been tasked by his somewhat dim uncle, bronze rider Fr'ton, with delivering a complicated drinks order to a group of Master Crafters. Zielaph had information about their names, beverages, crafts, and fire-lizards – but not in any sensible order!
Luckily for him, Garset solved the puzzle of Fr'ton's confusing notes adeptly, delivering the correct drinks to the correct Masters, and earning a handsome tip in the process.
A rising problem
Garset encountered both Soleigh, whose green Bristath was preparing to rise near the lake, and her weyrmate Maris, who was getting very drunk in the dining hall on account of her fears that Soleigh was having an affair with a blue rider, G'tron. Garset's intervention successfully got rid of G'tron, whose Imdoth was very sweet indeed on Bristath, from the mating flight – not to mention G'pellas, another blue rider, needed in the Harper ensemble – and reconciled the two green riders. Even if Garset did annoy Soleigh, who wasn't impressed with him for prolonging Maris' binge by bringing her more wine!
Harping on
Garset perhaps overestimated his own competence when it came to a disastrous spell on the Harper dais in the dining hall. Accompanying Weyr Singer Carleah – badly – on the tambourine, he was lucky not to be booed off the stage!
Kitchen diplomacy
Madellon's kitchens – the heart of the Weyr, and domain of Headwoman Crauva – provided Garset with the opportunity to show off his work ethic before the Hatching. A round of chores duly pleased Crauva, and earned him a selection of goodies warm from the oven.. And the kitchen was also the source of the hotfruit R'hren had sent Garset to find for his warming salve.
Pie-more
Garset certainly indulged his sweet tooth before the Hatching – laying claim to not one, not two, but three different types of bubbly pie .
Eggs and baskets
A visit to the Archives led to a meeting with Tarshe, Madellon's Weyrwoman Second. When Garset expressed an interested in looking up some Weyr records, Tarshe offered him the loan of a glowbasket – on the proviso that he return it afterwards. Which – mindful of not offending such an important personage of the Weyr – Garset did!
A blue lady
Coming across T'gala, Pern's only female blue rider, bathing her Heppeth in the lake, Garset offered his assistance – which T'gala gladly accepted.
Friend request
Given Garset's age, finding some wine for Martom proved difficult – the Weyr Vintner, Master Saxton, refused to sell it to an underage candidate. His only other alternative was an illicit purchase from the shady figure of Grimes. And L'stev's warning about getting drunk before the Hatching held weight. The Vintner's offering of alcohol-free grape juice gave Garset an idea – and offering it to Martom, none the wiser for the substitution, still had the desired effect of boosting his confidence before the Hatching – without any unwanted side-effects!
Hair today
Mindful of the Weyrlingmaster's orders to be smart for the Hatching, Garset visited Madellon's resident barber, Z'fell, for a trim. But he fell foul of the green rider's perverse sense of humour, and came away with a curious cut – short on top, long at the back – that prompted quite a number of odd looks and laughs at his expense!
A breath of foul air
Early in the day, Garset found out about a secret way into the Hatching Ground via storeroom that might allow him a sneaky peek at the eggs before the Hatching. Successfully entering the combination to the lock on the storeroom door, and suitably equipped with a glowbasket, he crawled into a confusing maze of passages. The route he chose turned out to be thick with choking toxic fumes from Madellon's volcanic foundation, and Garset soon found himself struggling for breath. And then he came across Gydeton – having apparently followed Garset into the passageways – lying unconscious and insensible in the fume-filled tunnel.
Setting aside his petty rivalry with Gydeton in the face of a genuine emergency, Garset set about making Gydeton stable – glad for the Healer kit he always carried with him. And on crawling out onto the Hatching Ground, half suffocated himself, he raised the alarm with the Weyrleader before being overcome by the ordeal, and fainting there on the sand.
Garset woke in the infirmary, and while the Weyrleader and Weyrlingmaster questioned him sternly about his adventures, the fact that Garset had certainly saved Gydeton's life counted in his favour, despite having disobeyed the order not to go meddling in the tunnels.
The Hatching
When it came to the Hatching, Garset had to wait a little while before the grey-mottled tan egg Hatched to reveal the cool dusty-brown dragonet who would choose him, naming himself Evinth.
A friend in me
And Garset wasn't the only lucky one. To his delight, Martom also Impressed, becoming the rider of a bright golden-bronze hatchling, Kauth.
After the Hatching
"Evinth" by Chris S. Baily
The Weyrlingmaster was the first to congratulate Garset on his Impression, but it was P'lian, ecstatic that Sparth's very first Search had yielded an Impression, who stepped in to help with the immediate matter of Evinth's first meal. That was Garset's first opportunity to speak to Martom, too, and they introduced each other, with considerable delight, to their respective dragonets, Evinth and Kauth. Martom also told Garset that his new name was to be – perhaps unsurprisingly – M'tom.
It wasn't long before Evinth's personality started to become evident. The dusty-brown dragonet, while neither the largest nor the most handsome of his colour, proved to make up for both with his calm and helpful character immediately endearing him to all around.
With both dragonets full to bursting with fresh meat, the newly minted dragonpairs left the Hatching sands for their new home: the weyrling barracks.
Big brother
Another friend Garset made along the way – a young Holdbred candidate, Nichen, whom Garset had encountered in a hopelessly dishevelled state directly before the Hatching – hailed Garset at the barracks – crediting him with his successful Impression of a moon-blue dragonet, Yooth!
Meeting the Weyrleader
As Garset and M'tom wiped the worst of the blood and sand from their tired new dragonets, the Weyrleader, T'gat, came to inspect both boys' dragonets, to ask after their names – and to ask the two new weyrlings how they should now be called. Garset was proud to introduce Evinth to the Weyrleader. And after a brief conference with Evinth, Garset gave the Weyrleader his own new name: Gr'set, rider of brown Evinth!
Following their audience with the Weyrleader, and the application of oily rags to relieve Evinth's and Kauth's newborn itchiness, Gr'set and M'tom headed into the boys' barracks to claim the billets that would be theirs for the next Turn. Choosing adjacent cots, the two new weyrlings got their dragonets settled on the couches that they would take months to grow into. But there was no time for them to sit and admire their new dragons. The Weyrlingmaster soon came along to give them their new weyrling shoulder-knots, before chivvying them off to the Hatching feast!
The Hatching feast
Gr'set and M'tom soon went their separate ways to find family and friends. Many of the riders and Weyrfolk Gr'set had helped during the day greeted him with warm congratulations as he hunted through the throng – but, at last, he found his family.
Gr'set's father, a loud man in normal times, was positively bellowing with pleasure at Gr'set's Impression – albeit with a certain disappointment that his son wouldn't be continuing in the Healercraft. And he embarrassed both his son, and his long-suffering wife, still further when the Weyrleaders came to drink a toast to Gr'set and Evinth – remarking, very loudly, on the parentage of Valonna's soon-to-arrive first baby!
The rest of the evening passed in a blur for Gr'set, and it came as a relief when the Weyrlingmaster ordered all the new weyrlings back to the barracks for a good night's sleep. But en route to bed, Gr'set was flagged down by a Weyrbrat, Emry, bringing the message that Weyrwoman Second Tarshe wanted to see him in the Archives.
Setting the record straight
Tarshe, tasked by the Weyrwoman with converting candidate documentation into weyrling records, went through Gr'set's background with him – including much of what he had got up to on the morning of the Hatching – for good and ill. She cleared up an anomaly with his new name, too. She offered Gr'set some advice about paying attention to his new classmates and surroundings, lest he fall foul of the Weyrlingmaster's penchant for snap quizzes, advised him to report to Master Isnan before returning to the barracks to get his injuries checked again, and made some observations on Evinth.
A close encounter
On his way back to the barracks (by way of the infirmary, as ordered by Tarshe), Gr'set had two peculiar encounters – first, with Tarshe's queen, Berzunth, who seemed quite agitated by one of the visiting dragons on the Rim; and then with a mysterious hooded figure, smelling strongly of what Gr'set would later realise was firestone, who called him by name – and gave him a curious wooden box.
"The Watchful Queen" by Chris S. Baily
Back at the barracks, Gr'set decided, on balance, not to tell the Weyrlingmaster about the stranger – though he did give L'stev his new name.
Returning at last to Evinth – billeted between M'tom's Kauth and a slender green dragonet – Gr'set was too tired to examine the strange wooden box very closely, and put it in his clothes' chest for later examination. But even as he went to sleep – a dragonrider at last, his brown beside him – Gr'set was struck with a deep sense of foreboding. Who was the mysterious dragonrider in the hooded cloak? What was the significance of the strange wooden box? And how had the stranger known Gr'set's new name?
Find out more about Garset's Impression here. Gr'set and Evinth's story will continue in Dragonchoice: Weyrling, coming soon!
Gr'set's achievements
Achievement Unlocked:
CARRY ON WAYWARD SON
I travelled The Road So Far!
Achievement Unlocked:
OUR ROB, OR ROSS
I received a mysterious box!
Achievement Unlocked:
DEED POLL
I changed my name by choice!
Achievement Unlocked:
THE YIN TO YOUR YANG
Evinth and I complement each other!
Achievement Unlocked:
SUGAR AND SPICE
I've been a very nice person (so far)!
Achievement Unlocked:
PLEASE STATE THE NATURE OF THE MEDICAL EMERGENCY
I returned to the infirmary!
Achievement Unlocked:
EBONY AND IVORY
Evinth and I agreed on something very important!
Achievement Unlocked:
IN TUNE
Evinth and I agreed on something quite important!
Achievement Unlocked:
ENEMY MINE
Evinth and Corienth took against each other!