R'dis and green Desqueth
The Road So Far!
It all began at the Healer Hall at Blue Shale Hold, in the protectorate of Madellon Weyr, for Rudis – a young boy of 14 Turns, dreaming of becoming a blue rider.
Rudis 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 Rudis 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. Rudis was assigned to treat the minor condition. But P'lian's Sparth – despite his colour, a budding Search-sensitive dragon – insisted that Rudis was a likely sort for candidacy. And a sevenday later, Rudis arrived at Madellon Weyr, joining the candidate pool for senior queen Shimpath's first clutch by her new mate Muzzanth.
As a candidate, Rudis 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 Rudis! Backed up by his crony Varell, Gydeton became the thorn in Rudis's side throughout the sevendays of candidacy.
Hatching Day
The dragons' hum woke Martom and Rudis 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 Rudis 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, Rudis 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 Rudis to find it. The quest took Rudis 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 infirmary, Rudis encountered Kisha – a blind old green rider giving the Weyr's Healers a difficult time about taking her medicine. Kisha challenged Rudis to answer three riddles before she would consent to behave. And Rudis rose to that challenge – answering all three correctly, and winning Kisha's grudging respect!
Southern comfort
Rudis 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 Rudis 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 Rudis some intelligence on the Southern seven, his advice was somewhat garbled! Nonetheless, Rudis 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, Rudis 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, Rudis 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. Rudis even shared the largesse with Zielaph, who then introduced him to Fr'ton – who, having Impressed a bronze in spite of his less than boundless promise, gave Rudis a certain confidence in his own prospects!
Kitchen diplomacy
Madellon's kitchens – the heart of the Weyr, and domain of Headwoman Crauva – provided Rudis with the opportunity to show off his work ethic before the Hatching. A round of chores duly pleased Crauva.
Eggs and baskets
A visit to the Archives led to a meeting with Tarshe, Madellon's Weyrwoman Second. When Rudis 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 – Rudis did!
A blue lady
Coming across T'gala, Pern's only female blue rider, bathing her Heppeth in the lake, Rudis offered his assistance – which T'gala gladly accepted.
Hair today
Mindful of the Weyrlingmaster's orders to be smart for the Hatching, Rudis visited Madellon's resident barber – green rider Z'fell – for a trim. Very conscious of his dignity, Rudis ensured he came away with a cut he actually liked.
A breath of foul air
Early in the day, Rudis 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 Rudis soon found himself struggling for breath. And then he came across Gydeton – having apparently followed Rudis 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, Rudis 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.
Rudis woke in the infirmary, and while the Weyrleader and Weyrlingmaster questioned him sternly about his adventures, the fact that Rudis 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, Rudis didn't have to wait at all for his date with destiny. The grey-splashed beige egg that Hatched first produced a dark teal-green hatchling who spared no time in choosing Rudis, naming herself Desqueth.
A friend bereft
But to Rudis's dismay, Martom wasn't as fortunate. No dragonet showed an interest in him, and he was left among the candidates remaining unmatched at the end of the Hatching.
After the Hatching
"Desqueth" by Chris S. Baily
The Weyrlingmaster was the first to congratulate Rudis 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 Desqueth's first meal. That was the first moment Rudis had truly grasped that Martom wasn't going to be a weyrling alongside him – a truth that hit hard. In Martom's absence, Chiliam – the highborn lad from Kellad, who'd Impressed a dusty-brown dragonet, Destrath, and who now styled himself Ch'liam – was a welcome friendly face.
It wasn't long before Desqueth's personality started to become evident. The teal-green dragonet, inquisitive about everything from the instant of her hatching, also proved to be an especially sweet-natured and kind character.
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 Rudis made along the way – a young Holdbred candidate, Nichen, whom Rudis had encountered in a hopelessly dishevelled state directly before the Hatching – hailed Rudis at the barracks – crediting him with his successful Impression of a moon-blue dragonet, Yooth!
Meeting the Weyrleader
As Rudis and Ch'liam 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. Rudis was proud to introduce Desqueth to the Weyrleader. And after a brief conference with Desqueth, Rudis gave the Weyrleader his own new name: R'dis, rider of green Desqueth!
Following their audience with the Weyrleader, and the application of oily rags to relieve Desqueth's and Destrath's newborn itchiness, R'dis and Ch'liam 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
R'dis and Ch'liam soon went their separate ways to find family and friends. Many of the riders and Weyrfolk R'dis had helped during the day greeted him with warm congratulations as he hunted through the throng – but, at last, he found his family.
R'dis's father, a loud man in normal times, was positively bellowing with pleasure at R'dis'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 R'dis and Desqueth – remarking, very loudly, on the parentage of Valonna's soon-to-arrive first baby!
The rest of the evening passed in a blur for R'dis, 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, R'dis 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 R'dis's background with him – including much of what he had got up to on the morning of the Hatching – for good and ill. She offered R'dis 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 Desqueth.
A close encounter
On his way back to the barracks (by way of the infirmary, as ordered by Tarshe), R'dis 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 R'dis 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, R'dis decided, on balance, not to tell the Weyrlingmaster about the stranger.
Returning at last to Desqueth – billeted between Ch'liam's Destrath and a bright bronze dragonet – R'dis 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 green beside him – R'dis was struck with a deep sense of foreboding. Who was the mysterious dragonrider in the hooded cloak? And what was the significance of the strange wooden box?
R'dis and Desqueth's story will continue in Dragonchoice: Weyrling, coming soon!
R'dis'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:
A HORSE WITH A NAME
I have a name and it's a good name and I don't need to fix my name. Probably.
Achievement Unlocked:
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Desqueth and I make a very strong match!
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
Desqueth and I agreed on something very important!
Achievement Unlocked:
IN TUNE
Desqueth and I agreed on something quite important!
Achievement Unlocked:
BFFs
Desqueth and Sespanath made friends!