==== May 28, 2013
==== Erei
==== Erei gets a personal blow after finding her caravan.

Who Erei
What Visiting her home clan, she thinks she'll come back with at least some.
When During the wave of comets.
Where Fort territory

Khetanaxeroth’s wing beats and Erei’s pulse kept time once eastern Ruatha’s trees expanded underneath them. They saved time by slipping between then flew straight through a yellow-bruised sky. They were looking for signs of ruin: smoke, pale shattered heartwood, signs of impact. A dragon’s senses were cut out for this but the green acknowledged nothing. Based on annual patterns Erei thought the Noomra would, should, be in this area but nothing, for better or worse, was obvious.

Ultimately, after about an hour of low altitude flight, it was a boon of firelizards who found them. At Erei’s urging turns ago and with due gratitude for Alsuroor‘s fecundity, the clan was equipped with firelizards bringing the population from two to twenty-six. Harkening to the dragon’s mental drag net their swarm against a gray sky were aerial prisms of color.

The usual thrill of welcome to rider and dragon at once converted to pained questions. Urgency rattled in the bangled arms who hugged her, some two at a time. As liaison to the outside world Erei explained the damage to Crom and the troubled spots she only just knew about. Khetanaxeroth, tolerant of these nomads because of her life-mate’s familial status with them, submissively lowered herself to the ground so the young could feel her skin, gently poke her rosette spots and find sanctum sanctorum from the unease of the adults.

The clan was unscathed except a hunting/scouting party hadn’t returned as planned. Through their firelizards they learned in advance the four men were investigating a boat which had capsized and washed onto a river bank. Eventually, allured by food and the gifts their aunt or cousin brought, the children crept back to camp and took turns sitting on the dragonrider’s lap.

After the youngest were bedded down for the night, revelation packed into comments as nuances were bared as truths. They weren’t going. Not one. Already with a precursor plan for evacuation Erei tried reaching their heads using reason. She tried coaxing their hearts. She fanned the Noomra’s resilient spirit. And finally she went for their throats and raged.

But they couldn’t be convinced, even the women who were largely silent had taut mouths and the stares of stoics; as preservers of family they were the last to be convinced by their husbands and fathers but they believed in the decision to stay. Rahes took his sister from behind with a rib-wringing hug, turning her seethes into wretched sobs that bled the green dye from his shirt.

He told her Hamoud, one of Pern’s first colonists and their forebear, was bound to have descendants four-hundred turns in the future and her task was to find them. She would have her family back (a very extended one) and they would have instant history, living memory of their past. She would be held in high esteem and have first place at all bonfires. When she wasn’t at the Weyr of course.

Erei looked at the faces around her and asked if any wanted to give messages to their predecessors if she found them. A few even passed along items: a ring, a whistle, an heirloom shawl. The remainder of the night was spent transferring messages onto hide and she memorized wrinkles, the shapes of ear lobes, her nephews’ cowlicks, a grandmother’s sixth finger.

When they left, Khetanaxeroth turned broadside to the semicircular camp, flanks tucked, and bugled final tribute to the doughty hillfolk. The green then kited between, her call outlasting her presence.

Add a New Comment