Torrential Rescues (1/6)
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyrhold
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Elsewhere on Pern
NPC Weyr (NPC)
River Bluff Weyr
Seacraft Hall
Writers: Halyonix, Heather, Yvonne
Date Posted: 15th April 2025
Series: The Perfect Storm
Characters: Yasmeane, X'eri, Rathandra, Harki, Jeld, Endra
Description: The rescues and losses at the Holdless caves begin. Rathandra oversees holdless women and children. X'eri and Yasmeane provide clothing and transportation, while Harki tries to help Jeld and Endra.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 5, day 5 of Turn 12
Rathandra’s boots were filled with water. Her toes felt like they were
swimming inside the sodden pieces of leather. Since she had been the
one to raise the flag, requesting dragonrider assistance, she felt
obligated to remain at the flooded caves and help ease tensions as
holdless women and children were carted into tents that the
dragonriders had brought.
She had gone into one of the tents earlier where dry clothing and
towels were being provided. Then other dragons had begun arriving, of
all colors, some were ridden by men and others by women. It had taken
some coaxing, but the first groups of women and children had been
loaded onto the dragons and taken /between/. Their faces had all
looked pale and frightened. Many, if not all, had never ridden a
dragon before, much less faced the fabled darkness of /between/.
“Are you here for dry clothes?”
Rathandra turned at the voice to find one of the female dragonriders
talking to her. The dragonrider’s face was tight, without the hint of
a smile, but she had just finished helping one of the holdless
children into a pair of warm clothes before wrapping them in a rain
slicker.
“No, I’m not leaving yet,” Rathandra answered.
Yasmeane shrugged. “Suit yourself. When you’re ready, come back and
I’ll help you get some dry things.” The woman lifted the flap of the
tent to reveal a man standing in the rain, the collar of his coat
turned up to provide some protection against the rain.
Rathandra watched as the woman began gesturing rapidly with her hands.
The man, a dragonrider, used similar hand gestures back.
Yasmeane squatted beside the child. “This is X’eri, he is a
dragonrider. That’s his dragon over there. See the bronze? Yes. He’s
going to take you back to the Weyr. You and your mother can ride
together,” she looked up at the woman standing behind the boy. The
holdless woman, Leaphani, had been protesting earlier about going to
the Weyr.
X’eri did his best to look unoffending, but it was really hard when he
could feel rain running down between his shoulder blades. Even though
Yasmeane’s back was to him while she was talking to the woman, he
could tell by the holdless woman’s face that she was hesitant to go
with him. The boy, on the other hand, was looking at Kohath with
wonder. The boy’s eyes slid to X’eri and X’eri gave him a wink.
[She’ll go with you. Her and the boy. I should have some more ready to
go when you get back.] Yasmeane told him, having finally convinced the
woman.
Seeing that Leaphani was going to go with the dragonrider, Rathandra
turned and left to see how progress was going with the rescues….
--
“Jeld, we need to _go_!” Endra wailed. “Please, it’s just stuff. We…we
can get it again. Make more of it. Something!”
Jeld was wading in waist-deep cold water, searching for something
frantically. “It’s all I have from my father, you know that!” He kept
searching while his mate Endra wrung her hands from the safety of a
nearby ledge. She could feel the water rumbling through the stone, as
constant as the rain outside. Would it ever be quiet again?
“Jeld, _please_, we--” she started to say. Was the water rumbling
harder? She placed her hand flat on the stone. The vibrations
felt…louder. How was that possible? “Jeld? Jeld, I think…I think you
should get up here.”
“In a _minute_, Endra,” he snapped without looking up.
Worriedly, Endra looked towards one of the tunnels where the water had
been constantly flowing. The sound was coming from there, growing
louder. She didn’t like it. “Jeld…” she whined.
“Endra, I said--” Jeld replied, looking up. He paused when he caught
his mate’s worried look and followed it down the tunnel. Was that…why
was the water suddenly white? And rushing his way! Hampered by the
depth, Jeld flailed to get to safety but missed the ledge. The water
swept him down towards the other tunnel and just before it pulled him
under, he managed to grab a rock, wedging himself against the wall so
that he couldn’t be dragged away.
“Jeld!” Endra screamed. “Help! Oh, someone help us! Help!”
Back near the entrance, Harki cocked her head and listened" the rumble
of water had gotten louder. “I’ll be back,” she said to the
dragonrider closest, and following an uneasy feeling in her gut she
slung a rope over her shoulders and started in.
The place was a warren. **Kind of like a Weyr,** she thought absently
as she waded into the knee-deep water that was ebbing in from further
down the cave system. It was dark and the glow she’d brought to light
the path glimmered uneasily off the wavelets as she passed worried
looking dragonmen and Holdless with hooded, desperate eyes.
She paused at a crossroads, then decided to head in the direction
where the water looked deepest and the cavern roof sank toward the
ground. Straw and half-burnt wood bumped against her knees and her
head echoed with the sound of water. And"
“Help!”
**Shards. Cerillith, let someone know that I’m going in after
someone,** Harki thought, then tried to follow the voice as it bounced
off the cavern walls. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
“I can! Oh, help! Please help us! My mate -- he’s stuck on the other
side!” a woman’s voice cried fearfully.
Harki frowned, then sloshed her way down the cavern in hopes she’d
taken the right direction. There" another glimmer of light. She
started running, the water slowly getting shallower until she rounded
the corner and was standing on dry land. A woman stood there on a
ledge overlooking a dark swirl of water.
“Here! Here! Over here!” the woman shouted, waving her arms wildly.
“Are you…are you a dragonrider? Can you helps us?”
“My name is Harki.” The greenrider offered her name as something to
distract the woman as she tied a noose in the end of the rope. The
man’s head was barely visible in the dark water, frothing water.
**Maybe a dragonlength,** Harki thought as she handed her glowbasket
to the woman. “I’m going to throw the rope to you,” she shouted to the
man, then let it fly. He tried to catch it but missed.
“Don’t let go, Jeld! Oh, please don’t let go,” Endra wailed.
“Try again,” Jeld managed to shout over the rumbling water.
The dragonrider hauled the rope in and it dripped across her palms and
up her arms. She loosened the noose at the end of the rope and threw
it again, her heart in her throat. The water was fast and dark, and
she wasn’t sure where it was going. If Jeld was swept downstream she
didn’t know what she could do.
This time he caught it. He wrapped the noose around his arms tightly.
“Okay, on three?” he called over, indicating that he would let go of
the rock when she was ready to pull. Endra quickly went over to grab
the rope behind Harki to assist.
The greenrider put the rope behind her waist so that she could lean
back into it, instead of relying on the strength of her hands. The
water was strong. “One, two… three!” Trusting that the women would be
enough to combat the flow of water, Jeld let go of his rock. A mangled
cry could be heard from him as the water tried its best to sweep him
away.
Harki heaved. Something twinged in her thigh as she took a step back,
then another. The Holdless man’s head was covered by a muddy wave but
the tension on the rope didn’t waver. Together she and the woman kept
walking until they’d dragged the man up toward the shelf they stood
on. “Go drag him up,” she told the woman, bracing herself against the
incessant weight of the raging water.
Last updated on the April 15th 2025
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