C'val and bronze Ephemirth
The Road So Far!
It all began at the Healer Hall at Blue Shale Hold, in the protectorate of Madellon Weyr, for Coval – a young man of 18 Turns, dreaming of becoming a bronze rider.
Coval 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 Coval 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. Coval was assigned to treat the minor condition. But P'lian's Sparth – despite his colour, a budding Search-sensitive dragon – insisted that Coval was a likely sort for candidacy. And a sevenday later, Coval arrived at Madellon Weyr, joining the candidate pool for senior queen Shimpath's first clutch by her new mate Muzzanth.
As a candidate, Coval was assigned a bunkmate – Soburn, an anxious Weyrbred youth with one failed Hatching already haunting him, 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 – Rielat, a self-important apprentice Weaver – who took a firm disliking to Coval! Backed up by his crony Kestor, Rielat became the thorn in Coval's side throughout the sevendays of candidacy.
Hatching Day
The dragons' hum woke Soburn and Coval on 102.03.17. Following a brief run-in with Rielat, 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 Coval left, Soburn asked him to find out if H'nar, the young Wingleader of the Betweenless Wing, might currently be seeing someone – or not.
The one-armed green rider and the thieving queen
Immediately on leaving the candidate barracks, Coval 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 Coval to find it. The quest took Coval 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, Coval encountered R'hren, a former Weyrleader of Madellon, now peacefully retired to potter among his beloved plants. R'hren asked Coval to help him track down the ingredients for a warming salve to help his elderly bronze, Staamath, with his arthritic forepaws. Coval 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, Coval offered it to old S'rius, who was equally appreciative of the gift. And while Kisha, the blind old green rider Coval encountered in the infirmary, would have nothing to do with one of R'hren's concoctions, she too grew to approve of Coval – especially after he solved all three of her fiendish riddles!
Southern comfort
Coval 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 Coval 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 Coval some intelligence on the Southern seven, his advice was somewhat garbled! Nonetheless, Coval unravelled Archidath's confusing suggestions and got the right packages to the right dragons – without being growled at!
Kitchen diplomacy
Madellon's kitchens – the heart of the Weyr, and domain of Headwoman Crauva – provided Coval with the opportunity to show off his work ethic before the Hatching. A round of chores duly pleased Crauva. And the kitchen was also the source of the hotfruit R'hren had sent Coval to find for his warming salve.
Eggs and baskets
A visit to the Archives led to a meeting with Tarshe, Madellon's Weyrwoman Second. When Coval 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 – Coval did!
Weyrbrat by name...
A run-in with a Weyrbrat – Terzon, whom Rielat had paid to cause Coval trouble – resulted in an unfortunate public incident. All too aware of being shaken down, Coval gave the kid a shove – in front of a number of witnesses – doing nothing for his reputation!
A shining example
Coming upon Santinoth – Madellon's biggest bronze – being bathed in the lake, Coval was quick to offer assistance to his rider, T'rello. It couldn't hurt to have some close-up experience with a bronze, could it?
Friend request
Conscious of Soburn's bashfulness, Coval approached the object of his affections – H'nar, Wingleader of the Betweenless Wing – with some circumspection. Still, when questioned, H'nar insisted he had to know who was making enquiries of him. And when he learned the identity of his admirer, he told Coval that he wasn't interested in Soburn – or any other men, for that matter. But Coval's agile pivot in questioning revealed that a close friend of H'nar's – blue rider M'rany – might be a viable alternative. Thus encouraged, Soburn began to think more positively of life as a dragonrider – even if H'nar would end up being his Wingleader!
Hair today
Mindful of the Weyrlingmaster's orders to be smart for the Hatching, Coval visited Madellon's resident barber – green rider Z'fell – for a trim. Very conscious of his dignity, Coval ensured he came away with a cut he actually liked.
A slithery customer
Early in the day, Coval 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.
By a stroke of ill luck, Coval strayed into tunnel snake territory! A huge, aggressive, and potently venomous female tunnel-snake guarded the exit to the Hatching ground. Coval was bitten – badly – and immediately felt the effects of the snake's paralysing venom. But ultimately he evaded the snake, dodging past it and slipping out onto the Hatching Sands.
Recognising the severity of his condition, Coval decided not to risk approaching the clutch, and went instead directly to the infirmary to be treated with antivenin.
The Hatching
Disaster almost struck during the Hatching when Coval – following some dubious advice about attempting to force a dragonet to choose him – put him self in the path of a less than receptive green hatchling. The green, clearly objecting to being crowded, lashed out at Coval – slicing his arm. Luckily for Coval, the mauling wasn't a fatal one – though it could have been, as an irate L'stev told him when patching up the injury on the spot. Even more luckily, the incident didn't deter another dragonet – the bronze who Hatched from the large greeny-grey – from choosing Coval and naming himself Ephemirth!
Whatever happened to Rielat?
Sadly, there was at least one fly in the numbweed. Rielat Impressed an impressively proportioned indigo-blue hatchling, making them Coval and Ephemirth's new classmates. (On the bright side, at least Kestor didn't Impress!)
After the Hatching
"Ephemirth" by Chris S. Baily
The Weyrlingmaster was the first to congratulate Coval 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 Ephemirth's first meal. That was Coval's first opportunity to speak to Soburn, too, and they introduced each other, with considerable delight, to their respective dragonets, Ephemirth and Aeranth. Soburn also told Coval that his new name was to be – perhaps unsurprisingly – S'burn.
It wasn't long before Ephemirth's personality started to become evident. The pale bronze dragonet – the largest of the clutch, and the image of his father Muzzanth – proved to be a particular intelligent and perceptive character even minutes out of the egg.
With both dragonets full to bursting with fresh meat, the newly minted dragonpairs left the Hatching sands for their new home: the weyrling barracks.
Meeting the Weyrleader
As Coval and S'burn 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. Coval was proud to introduce Ephemirth to the Weyrleader. And after a brief conference with Ephemirth, Coval gave the Weyrleader his own new name: C'val, rider of bronze Ephemirth!
Following their audience with the Weyrleader, and the application of oily rags to relieve Ephemirth's and Aeranth's newborn itchiness, C'val and S'burn 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
C'val and S'burn soon went their separate ways to find family and friends. Many of the riders and Weyrfolk C'val had helped during the day greeted him with warm congratulations as he hunted through the throng – but, at last, he found his family.
C'val's father, a loud man in normal times, was positively bellowing with pleasure at C'val'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 C'val and Ephemirth – remarking, very loudly, on the parentage of Valonna's soon-to-arrive first baby!
The rest of the evening passed in a blur for C'val, 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, C'val 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 C'val'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 C'val 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 Ephemirth.
A close encounter
On his way back to the barracks (by way of the infirmary, as ordered by Tarshe), C'val 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 C'val 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, C'val decided, on balance, not to tell the Weyrlingmaster about the stranger.
Returning at last to Ephemirth – billeted between S'burn's Aeranth and a mucky-looking brown dragonet – C'val 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 bronze beside him – C'val 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?
Find out more about Coval's Impression here. C'val and Ephemirth's story will continue in Dragonchoice: Weyrling, coming soon!
C'val'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
Ephemirth 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
Ephemirth and I agreed on something very important!
Achievement Unlocked:
IN TUNE
Ephemirth and I agreed on something quite important!