M'tan and green Ommerath
The Road So Far!
It all began at Madellon Weyr for Minton – a young man of 16 Turns, dreaming of becoming a green rider.
Minton was born the son of Wingleader R'yeno and green rider Evie of Madellon Weyr. While he didn't have to be Searched, he was 'given the nod' as a likely dragonrider by the Weyr's most senior retired Search pair – S'rius and his elderly blue Padseth. Having been left standing at a Hatching once before, Minton wrestled with the fear that he wouldn't live up to his rider parents' expectations a second time.
As a candidate, Minton 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 Minton! Backed up by his crony Kestor, Rielat became the thorn in Minton's side throughout the sevendays of candidacy.
Hatching Day
The dragons' hum woke Soburn and Minton 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 Minton 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, Minton 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 Minton to find it. The quest took Minton 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, Minton encountered R'hren, a former Weyrleader of Madellon, now peacefully retired to potter among his beloved plants. R'hren asked Minton to help him track down the ingredients for a warming salve to help his elderly bronze, Staamath, with his arthritic forepaws. Minton 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, Minton offered it to old S'rius, who was equally appreciative of the gift. And while Kisha, the blind old green rider Minton encountered in the infirmary, would have nothing to do with one of R'hren's concoctions, she too grew to approve of Minton – especially after he solved all three of her fiendish riddles!
Southern comfort
Minton 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 Minton 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 Minton some intelligence on the Southern seven, his advice was somewhat garbled! Nonetheless, Minton unravelled Archidath's confusing suggestions and got the right packages to the right dragons – without being growled at!
A rising problem
Minton 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. And while Minton did manage to get G'tron excluded from the flight – not to mention another blue rider, G'pellas, who was needed in the Harper ensemble – he still ultimately failed to reconcile the star-crossed green riding lovers!
Kitchen diplomacy
Madellon's kitchens – the heart of the Weyr, and domain of Headwoman Crauva – provided Minton 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 Minton 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 Minton 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. But with one thing and another, Minton didn't bring it back – earning the Weyrwoman Second's ire!
Weyrbrat by name...
A run-in with a Weyrbrat – Terzon, whom Rielat had paid to cause Minton trouble – resulted in an unfortunate public incident. All too aware of being shaken down, Minton gave the kid a shove – in front of a number of witnesses – doing nothing for his reputation!
A blue lady
Coming across T'gala, Pern's only female blue rider, bathing her Heppeth in the lake, Minton offered his assistance – which T'gala gladly accepted.
Friend request
Conscious of Soburn's bashfulness, Minton 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 Minton that he wasn't interested in Soburn – or any other men, for that matter. But Minton'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, Minton visited Madellon's resident barber – green rider Z'fell – for a trim. Very conscious of his dignity, Minton ensured he came away with a cut he actually liked.
A slithery customer
Early in the day, Minton 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, Minton strayed into tunnel snake territory! A huge, aggressive, and potently venomous female tunnel-snake guarded the exit to the Hatching ground. Minton was lucky to avoid being bitten. But ultimately he evaded the snake, dodging past it and slipping out onto the Hatching Sands.
Having survived his encounter with the tunnel-snake, Minton approached the clutch – but not stealthily enough! His presence woke Shimpath from her doze, and she and Muzzanth chased Minton off the sands!
The Hatching
When it came to the Hatching, Minton didn't have to wait at all for his date with destiny. The white-swirled grey-beige egg that Hatched first produced a dark emerald-green hatchling who spared no time in choosing Minton, naming herself Ommerath.
A friend in me
And Minton wasn't the only lucky one. To his delight, Soburn also Impressed, becoming the rider of a slender olive-green hatchling, Aeranth.
Whatever happened to Rielat?
It turned out that making an enemy of Minton was a very poor choice on Rielat's part. For the low, low price of just three marks, Minton had Grimes, the shady fellow loitering near the Gather stalls, spread a series of nasty rumours about Rielat. By the time the Weyrlingmaster mustered the candidate cohort immediately before the Hatching, the damage to Rielat's reputation was done – and he was ejected from the candidate pool without ever setting foot on the Sands!
After the Hatching
"Ommerath" by Chris S. Baily
The Weyrlingmaster was the first to congratulate Minton on his Impression, but it was old S'rius, delighted to have found yet another weyrling, who stepped in to help with the immediate matter of Ommerath's first meal. That was Minton's first opportunity to speak to Soburn, too, and they introduced each other, with considerable delight, to their respective dragonets, Ommerath and Aeranth. Soburn also told Minton that his new name was to be – perhaps unsurprisingly – S'burn.
It wasn't long before Ommerath's personality started to become evident. The emerald-green dragonet – the largest of her colour – immediately showed her devious and irreverent character, looking for mischief before she'd even left the Sands.
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 Minton 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. Minton was proud to introduce Ommerath to the Weyrleader. And after a brief conference with Ommerath, Minton gave the Weyrleader his own new name: M'tan, rider of green Ommerath!
Following their audience with the Weyrleader, and the application of oily rags to relieve Ommerath's and Aeranth's newborn itchiness, M'tan 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
M'tan and S'burn soon went their separate ways to find family and friends. Many of the riders and Weyrfolk M'tan had helped during the day greeted him with warm congratulations as he hunted through the throng – but, at last, he found his family.
R'yeno and Evie couldn't have been happier to greet their son as a green rider for the first time . And when the Weyrleaders came to drink a toast to M'tan and Ommerath, R'yeno was delighted to embarrass his son by insinuating that Gryth would be stiffer competition to Muzzanth in Shimpath's next flight.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur for M'tan, 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, M'tan 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 M'tan'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 M'tan some advice about paying attention to his new classmates and surroundings, lest he fall foul of the Weyrlingmaster's penchant for snap quizzes, and made some observations on Ommerath.
A close encounter
On his way back to the barracks , M'tan 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 M'tan 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, M'tan decided, on balance, not to tell the Weyrlingmaster about the stranger.
Returning at last to Ommerath – billeted between S'burn's Aeranth and a mucky-looking brown dragonet – M'tan 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 – M'tan 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?
M'tan and Ommerath's story will continue in Dragonchoice: Weyrling, coming soon!
M'tan'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:
ONE STEVE LIMIT
I avoided duplicating a Dragonchoice character's name!
Achievement Unlocked:
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Ommerath and I make a very strong match!
Achievement Unlocked:
SUGAR AND SPICE
I've been a very nice person (so far)!
Achievement Unlocked:
EBONY AND IVORY
Ommerath and I agreed on something very important!
Achievement Unlocked:
IN TUNE
Ommerath and I agreed on something quite important!