The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [39]
Lessa swung the head around so that the many-faceted eyes were forced to look at her . . . and found herself lost in that rainbow regard.
A feeling of joy suffused Lessa; a feeling of warmth, tenderness, unalloyed affection, and instant respect and admiration flooded mind and heart and soul. Never again would Lessa lack an advocate, a defender, an intimate, aware instantly of the temper of her mind and heart, of her desires. How wonderful was Lessa, the thought intruded into Lessa’s reflections, how pretty, how kind, how thoughtful, how brave and clever!
Mechanically Lessa reached out to scratch the exact spot on the soft eye ridge.
The dragon blinked at her wistfully, extremely sad that she had distressed Lessa. Lessa reassuringly patted the slightly damp, soft neck that curved trustingly toward her. The dragon reeled to one side and one wing fouled on the hind claw. It hurt. Carefully Lessa lifted the erring foot, freed the wing, folding it back across the dorsal ridge with a pat.
The dragon began to croon in her throat, her eyes following Lessa’s every move. She nudged at Lessa, and Lessa obediently attended the other eye ridge.
The dragon let it be known she was hungry.
“We’ll get you something to eat directly,” Lessa assured her briskly and blinked back at the dragon in amazement. How could she be so callous? It was a fact that this little menace had just seriously injured, if not killed, two women.
She couldn’t believe her sympathies could swing so alarmingly toward the beast. Yet it was the most natural thing in the world for her to wish to protect this fledgling.
The dragon arched her neck to look Lessa squarely in the eyes. Ramoth repeated wistfully how exceedingly hungry she was, so long confined in that shell without nourishment.
Lessa wondered how she knew the golden dragon’s name, and Ramoth replied: Why shouldn’t she know her own name since it was hers and no one else’s? And then Lessa was lost in the wonder of those magnificently expressive eyes.
Oblivious to the descending bronze dragons, oblivious to the presence of their riders, Lessa stood caressing the head of the most wonderful creature of all Pern, fully prescient of troubles and glories, but most immediately aware that Lessa of Pern was Weyrwoman to Ramoth the Golden for now and forever.
PART II
Dragonflight
Seas boil and mountains move,
Sands heat, dragons prove
Red Star passes.
Stones pile and fires burn,
Green withers, arm Pern.
Guard all passes.
Star Stone watch, scan sky.
Ready the Weyrs, all riders fly;
Red Star passes.
“If a queen isn’t meant to fly, why does she have wings?” asked Lessa. She was genuinely trying to maintain a tone of sweet reason.
She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly. Unlike the average Pernese, dragonriders were apt to perceive strong emotional auras.
R’gul’s heavy eyebrows drew together in a startled frown. He snapped his jaws together with exasperation. Lessa knew his answer before he uttered it.
“Queens don’t fly,” he said flatly.
“Except to mate,” S’lel amended. He had been dozing, a state he achieved effortlessly and frequently, although he was younger than the vigorous R’gul.
They are going to quarrel again, Lessa thought with an inward groan. She could stand about half an hour of that, and then her stomach would begin to churn. Their notion of instructing the new Weyrwoman in “Duties to Dragon, Weyr, and Pern” too often deteriorated into extended arguments over minor details in the lessons she had to memorize and recite word-perfect. Sometimes, as now, she entertained the fragile hope that she might wind them up so tightly in their own inconsistencies that they would inadvertently reveal a truth or two.
“A queen flies only to mate,” R’gul allowed the correction.
“Surely,” Lessa said with persistent patience, “if she can fly to mate, she can fly at other times.”
“Queens don’t fly,