Calcifera and green Nolanth
The Road So Far!
It all began at Madellon Weyr for Calcifera – a young girl of 13 Turns, dreaming of becoming a blue rider.
Calcifera was born the daughter of Wingleader R'yeno and green rider Evie of Madellon Weyr. While she didn't have to be Searched, she was 'given the nod' as a likely dragonrider by the Weyr's most senior retired Search pair – S'rius and his elderly blue Padseth. As a first-time candidate, Calcifera looked forward to the Hatching with both excitement and trepidation – half convinced that she would be meeting her own dragon at last; half terrified of failing to meet the standards expected of a Wingleader's daughter!
As a candidate, Calcifera was assigned a bunkmate – Jopha, a mischievous young Weyrbred girl prone to getting herself into trouble, who would soon become her closest friend in the Weyr. She also got to know many of her fellow candidates, including the Weyrbred twins Leover and Leoguy; Zielaph, the nephew of a Madellon bronze rider; and Arina, a level-headed young woman from Jessaf who'd stood at the previous Hatching.
But she also made an enemy – Thippia, a foul-mouthed girl from the Seacraft – who took a firm disliking to Calcifera! Backed up by her crony Berrin, Thippia became the thorn in Calcifera's side throughout the sevendays of candidacy.
Hatching Day
The dragons' hum woke Jopha and Calcifera on 102.03.17. Following a brief run-in with Thippia, 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 Calcifera left, Jopha – whose Impression robe was sadly overlarge for her petite frame – recruited Calcifera's help in getting it adjusted by her nemesis Shookana in the mending room.
The one-armed green rider and the thieving queen
Immediately on leaving the candidate barracks, Calcifera 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 Calcifera to find it. The quest took Calcifera all over Madellon, from kitchens to lake to infirmary – but in the end she succeeded in reuniting the Weyrwoman's jewellery set, to general acclaim.
Respecting her elders
In the Weyr's kitchen gardens, Calcifera encountered R'hren, a former Weyrleader of Madellon, now peacefully retired to potter among his beloved plants. R'hren asked Calcifera to help him track down the ingredients for a warming salve to help his elderly bronze, Staamath, with his arthritic forepaws. Calcifera 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, Calcifera offered it to old S'rius, who was equally appreciative of the gift. And while Kisha, the blind old green rider Calcifera encountered in the infirmary, would have nothing to do with one of R'hren's concoctions, she too grew to approve of Calcifera – especially after she solved all three of her fiendish riddles!
Southern comfort
Calcifera 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 Calcifera 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 Calcifera some intelligence on the Southern seven, his advice was somewhat garbled! Nonetheless, Calcifera 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, Calcifera met her 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, Calcifera 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
Calcifera 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 Calcifera 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 – she 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 Calcifera with the opportunity to show off her 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 Calcifera to find for his warming salve.
A blue lady
Coming across T'gala, Pern's only female blue rider, bathing her Heppeth in the lake, Calcifera offered her assistance – which T'gala gladly accepted. Getting some first-hand advice about what it took for T'gala to Impress a blue dragon was an opportunity Calcifera didn't want to pass up.
Hair today
Mindful of the Weyrlingmaster's orders to be smart for the Hatching, Calcifera visited Madellon's resident barber, Z'fell, for a trim. But she 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 her expense!
A slithery customer
Early in the day, Calcifera found out about a secret way into the Hatching Ground via storeroom that might allow her 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, she crawled into a confusing maze of passages.
By a stroke of ill luck, Calcifera strayed into tunnel snake territory! A brush with a small male tunnel-snake, guarding his nest, netted Calcifera some marks – and a painful, if not serious, bite. But that was only the beginning of her snaky problems. A huge, aggressive, and potently venomous female tunnel-snake guarded the exit to the Hatching ground. Calcifera was lucky to avoid being bitten. But ultimately she evaded the snake, dodging past it and slipping out onto the Hatching Sands.
Having survived her encounter with the tunnel-snake, Calcifera approached the clutch – but not stealthily enough! Her presence woke Shimpath from her doze, and she and Muzzanth chased Calcifera off the sands!
The Hatching
When it came to the Hatching, Calcifera had to wait for every other dragonet to Hatch and choose a rider before the rough-textured cloudy white egg Hatched to reveal the vivid grassy-green hatchling who would choose her, naming herself Nolanth.
A friend bereft
But to Calcifera's dismay, Jopha wasn't as fortunate. No dragonet showed an interest in her, and she was left among the candidates remaining unmatched at the end of the Hatching.
Whatever happened to Thippia?
It turned out that making an enemy of Calcifera was a very poor choice on Thippia's part. For the low, low price of just three marks, Calcifera had Grimes, the shady fellow loitering near the Gather stalls, spread a series of nasty rumours about Thippia. By the time the Weyrlingmaster mustered the candidate cohort immediately before the Hatching, the damage to Thippia's reputation was done – and she was ejected from the candidate pool without ever setting foot on the Sands!
After the Hatching
"Nolanth" by Emily Holland
The Weyrlingmaster was the first to congratulate Calcifera on her Impression, but it was old S'rius, delighted to have found yet another weyrling, who stepped in to help with the immediate matter of Nolanth's first meal. That was the first moment Calcifera had truly grasped that Jopha wasn't going to be a weyrling alongside her – a truth that hit hard. In Jopha's absence, Arina, who'd Impressed a cloudy-green dragonet, Chanth – was a welcome friendly face.
It wasn't long before Nolanth's personality started to become evident. The little grass-green dragonet, small for her colour, made up for her size with a fierce, aggressive personality – and very evident teeth!
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 sister
Another friend Calcifera made along the way – a young Weyrbred candidate, Brithie, whom Calcifera had encountered in a sudden crisis of confidence directly before the Hatching – hailed Calcifera at the barracks – crediting her with her successful Impression of a tiny bottle-green dragonet, Epatanth!
Meeting the Weyrleader
As Calcifera and Arina wiped the worst of the blood and sand from their tired new dragonets, the Weyrleader, T'gat, came to inspect both girls' dragonets and to ask after their names. Calcifera was proud to introduce Nolanth to the Weyrleader – and to give him her full new name: Calcifera, rider of green Nolanth!
Following their audience with the Weyrleader, and the application of oily rags to relieve Nolanth's and Chanth's newborn itchiness, Calcifera and Arina headed into the girls' 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
Calcifera and Arina soon went their separate ways to find family and friends. Many of the riders and Weyrfolk Calcifera had helped during the day greeted her with warm congratulations as she hunted through the throng – but, at last, she found her family.
R'yeno and Evie couldn't have been happier to greet their daughter as a green rider for the first time . And when the Weyrleaders came to drink a toast to Calcifera and Nolanth, R'yeno was delighted to embarrass his daughter 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 Calcifera, 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, Calcifera was flagged down by a Weyrbrat, Emry, bringing the message that Weyrwoman Second Tarshe wanted to see her in the Archives.
Setting the record straight
Tarshe, tasked by the Weyrwoman with converting candidate documentation into weyrling records, went through Calcifera's background with her – including much of what she had got up to on the morning of the Hatching – for good and ill. She offered Calcifera some advice about paying attention to her new classmates and surroundings, lest she fall foul of the Weyrlingmaster's penchant for snap quizzes, and made some observations on Nolanth.
A close encounter
On her way back to the barracks , Calcifera 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 Calcifera would later realise was firestone, who called her by name – and gave her a curious wooden box.
"The Watchful Queen" by Chris S. Baily
Back at the barracks, Calcifera decided, on balance, not to tell the Weyrlingmaster about the stranger.
Returning at last to Nolanth – billeted between Arina's Chanth and a pretty blue-green dragonet – Calcifera was too tired to examine the strange wooden box very closely, and put it in her clothes' chest for later examination. But even as she went to sleep – a dragonrider at last, her green beside her – Calcifera 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 Calcifera's Impression here. Calcifera and Nolanth's story will continue in Dragonchoice: Weyrling, coming soon!
Calcifera'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:
THE YIN TO YOUR YANG
Nolanth and I complement each other!
Achievement Unlocked:
SUGAR AND SPICE
I've been a very nice person (so far)!
Achievement Unlocked:
EBONY AND IVORY
Nolanth and I agreed on something very important!
Achievement Unlocked:
BUM NOTE
Nolanth and I disagreed on something quite important!