An Inauspicious Beginning

Writers: Estelle, Corrin
Date Posted: 8th March 2026

Characters: V'karel, K'valdran
Description: A bronzerider remembers the first time he met Dragonsfall's new Weyrleader
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr, Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 13, day 5 of Turn 12
Notes: Setting is Fort Weyr & DFW

K'valdran

"Wingleader? A letter for you, sir."

V'karel looked up from the sweepride schedules he'd been staring at blankly for the last ten minutes. Most days he could have done them in his sleep, but today distractions kept creeping in. That meeting earlier today with the Weyrleader, the way he'd casually mentioned moving those two greenriders into his wing as if V'karel couldn't possibly have any objection. Since of course, down in the lower flights he didn't really _need_ experienced riders, he could do just as well with a couple of new graduates from the weyrlings' wing, couldn't he?

**It's at times like this, I could almost wish K'valdran back,** he thought, and felt the corner of his mouth lift in wry amusement. Funny to think he'd be so nostalgic for those days, when his younger self couldn't have imagined anything worse than serving under his old classmate and rival. But even when their mutual detestation had been at its height, they'd always at least respected each other's abilities.

He shook his head and turned his attention to the messenger, a girl with Candidate's knots and an expression of youthful enthusiasm.

"It came by firelizard, just now." She handed it over with a bob of her head and hurried off to her next errand.

V'karel turned over the roll of paper and broke the seal. **Dragonsfall?** And it looked official - who'd be writing to him from there who couldn't just send a note, or a word passed between dragons? As he unrolled it and scanned the words, his brow rose. Odd how you don't think of someone for months and then, just when they'd come to mind, a letter out of the blue.

At least this seemed more auspicious than the first time they'd met...

~~~ Flashback - 35 Turns ago ~~~

Valkarel clung to the branch of a sturdy redfruit tree, his fingers digging into the bark and the leaf-dappled sunlight warm on his back. He screwed up his eyes and gazed at the hold building across the meadow. He thought he could make out a shape beside it, basking in the sun. Was that the glittering of a bronze hide?

He wasn't really supposed to be here. Not because he ought to have been helping his father, or waiting around for his uncles and aunties to find something for him to do - though he probably should have - but because he'd heard his parents talking about this hold. Dragonsrest. Stuck in the myths and glories of the past. Too good to do a proper day's work, looking down on honest farm folk. Valkarel was nine Turns old now, old enough to run errands to their other neighbors, but he'd never once been sent to Dragonsrest and that only made him all the more curious.

He wondered if he dared go closer. It was wrong to sneak onto someone else's land uninvited, but he really wanted to see the bronze, if there was one. If they never knew he'd been there... Valkarel swung down from his branch and was considering the best way to approach unseen when he heard footsteps approaching and his heart skipped a beat. Too late to scamper back up the tree, so he quickly assumed his most innocent expression, and was relieved to see it wasn't an angry bronzerider, but only another boy his age.

"Hi!" He waved, cheerfully, as if there was nothing in the least unusual about his being there.

“Hullo?” said the other boy, Korvaldran, strolling up the path into the grove. He had a large wicker basket hooked over one arm. Empty and light, it bounced against his side as he walked.

“You're not one of ours…” he said, slowing as he approached. He had curly black hair and a voice that, like Valk’s, had yet to crack. The silence stretched for just a beat, and then his lips twitched. A grin. “Are you here on a dare? Come to see a dragon up close?”

"I've seen a dragon before," Valkarel said quickly. He wasn't a complete backwoods cotholder, and it was true, his mother and her green were often at their hold. As soon as he'd spoken, though, he felt an instinctive guilt, remembering how angry his father had been when he'd caught him boasting about being a dragonrider's son. He'd been sent to bed without any supper, which had never happened before. Not even when he'd broken the barn gate by swinging on it, or put the crawlers in his sister's best shoes. There had been the time he'd got into the pantry and eaten all of his aunt Orella's redfruit pies, but that didn't count since he'd been too sick to eat another bite, anyway.

Besides, it wasn't a green they were supposed to have over there.

"I've never seen a bronze, though. I heard there was one. Is it true?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. "Do you live there?"

“It's true. Bronze Kapaxith is my father’s lifemate.” Korvaldran hadn’t had the same lessons in humility as Valkarel. There was a clear swell of pride in his voice as he breezily claimed what few in this age could. “I’m only out here in the warmer months. We winter at the Weyrhold. Father says it's important to stay close to our roots.”

"You leave your hold all winter?" A faint line creased Valkarel's forehead. It was true there was much less outdoor work to be done in the colder months, but there were always chores: fixing tools, mending fences, inspecting the vines, checking the barns and buildings were in good repair... His father never left for more than a few days to visit his Hall. "Aren't you afraid that holdless people will break in? And who feeds your animals? You surely don't take them with you?" He imagined his mother's green, laden down with the milk bovine in her claws and the canines perched on her neck.

It did sound like it would be fun to spend the winter at the Weyrhold, though, that mysterious place where the queen dragon guarded her eggs and the caves and tunnels concealed secrets from the old times. Valkarel wouldn't be allowed to go until he was old enough to Stand, and he couldn't help being a tiny bit envious.

“No holdless would dare break into Dragonsrest,” Kor laughed at the absurdity of it. “And it’s not like we leave it _empty_. It’s a big holding. We have half a dozen cotholds and Margander - our steward. He came with the place. He keeps it running in the winter with the rest of the holdfolk. Only the family--my family--goes back to Dragonsfall. It’s our right, as having dragonrider blood.”

"Oh, I see!" Understanding dawned. "You're like those Lord Holders, who travel about going to Gathers and visiting their relatives, and leave the staff to do the work." There wasn't any disapproval in Valkarel's voice, he was simply repeating what he'd heard his elders saying, and anyway there was something more important he wanted to ask. "But do you really have a right to go to the Weyrhold, if you have a dragonrider in your family?"

Korvaldran had no objection to the comparison. It was accurate enough, though he and his siblings did do _some_ labor. He wasn't going to bother to point that out though. Not when he could talk about dragons instead. “There are some rules about how close the relation must be,” Kor said, pleased to be an authority on something. “But yes. And once I'm old enough, I can Stand for clutches too, without being Searched. Which is good, because they hardly do that these days… so holdboys like you are out of luck.”

A hot spike of anger burned up in Valk. He longed to say that he'd just as much right to go to the Weyrhold as the other boy did, and wipe that superior expression off his face. But... he remembered the disappointment in his father's eyes, how he'd wanted his son to be equally proud of his holder heritage. Why should he let some stuck-up bronzerider's son dismiss him as a mere holdboy, as if that was something to be ashamed of?

Instead, he shrugged. "I didn't want to Stand anyway. Sure, riding a dragon sounds fun, but all they really do is move goods around. You might just as well buy a runnerbeast and cart. At least they'd eat less."

“That’s not all they do!” Korvaldran protested hotly, but the other boy wasn’t exactly wrong. “It’s-- it’s not all they _should_ do!”

“A runnerbeast won’t save you if Thread ever returns. As long as the Red Star is in the sky, Pern needs dragons, and riders that keep up the old ways!”

Valkarel stared, his lips twitched, and then he couldn't help it - he burst into peals of laughter. "You believe in Thread! That's just an old harper tale. Even my little sister doesn't think it's real."

Kor’s face heated and his ears turned red. “It was real! It _is_ real! Dragons are meant for more than just hauling things. They have to be!”

"Deadly sky monsters that eat people?" Valkarel scoffed. "Only babies would believe a story like that." He glanced up at the sky and pulled a mock-horrified face. "Watch out, dragonboy, Thread's coming to--”

“Take that back!” Flinging his basket aside, Korvaldran lunged to tackle the other boy into the dirt. There was no finesse, just white hot rage and--beneath it--fear. Because if Thread was only a tale, if dragons were only beasts to ferry goods… then what was he?

They scuffled in the dirt, in the leaf-dappled sunlight, on that beautiful summer day-- sure they were enemies for life.

~~~ End Flashback ~~~

V'karel absently touched the left side of his jaw, the faded scar lines where tendrils of Thread had lashed him, burning their mark into his skin. He thought of the other wounds that didn't show, the mentors and wingriders and friends from his weyrling days, now lost. If he'd known what fate had in store for him when he'd taunted K'valdran all those turns ago...

**I'd probably still have made fun of him.** He smiled, remembering those endless summers, running wild around the borders of their holds, plotting ambushes and laying traps, waiting to grow old enough to go to the Weyrhold to Stand and show the other who was worthier of a dragon. **He was an insufferable brat. We both were.**

And now he was Weyrleader of Dragonsfall.

V'karel tapped the letter with the end of his pen. He didn't know why his old classmate wanted to see him, but if nothing else, he owed him his congratulations. Pushing the unfinished schedules aside, he reached for a clean sheet of paper and began to compose his reply.

Last updated on the April 1st 2026

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An Inauspicious Beginning