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That’s it, then, he thought, his heart sinking as the last of the successful candidates walked off the hatching ground, human and fragile brown dragonet escorted by a handsome brown rider whose dragon waited for them outside the entrance. I’ll have to leave.
He followed the other unsuccessful candidates out into the late-summer night over the bowl of Igen Weyr, turning one last time to look at the empty sand.
—
It wasn’t — exactly — that he was eager to leave his family and friends behind forever when he was Searched, but after seventeen Turns he was well aware that he’d never fit into the lives that were open to him in a Hold. The awareness made him, he knew, “a difficult lad” — his father’s words, loving but exasperated, overheard in a conversation with the overseer at their smallhold. He was restless, looking always south and west, wondering about other lives. Certain other lives, high in the mountains.
When the Igen riders came, then, it was a relief to be chosen by a young, handsome blue rider named S’ret, to take his hand and climb onto Ardenth’s back, to wrap his arms around S’ret as he was instructed to and hold on for dear life as Ardenth launched himself into the sky. He looked back once: his mother was waving to him still. Then everything was cold, black between.
When they burst into bright summer sunlight again above the bowl of Igen Weyr, he felt as if a weight had lifted from his chest.
“You’ll be staying with the other candidates,” S’ret told him, after helping him dismount. He nodded to a man approaching them from what looked to be the main entrance to the weyr. “That’ll be D’mat coming to introduce you to the others. But I’ll check in on you, if you want.”
Dazed, still, by S’ret’s easy smile and the reality of where he stood, he said, “Yeah, I’d like...that.”
“I’ll see you again soon, then, Corson,” he said; he put his hand, briefly, on Corson’s shoulder and gave it a gentle, encouraging squeeze. “Welcome to Igen.”
—
In the nearly three Turns he’d been at the weyr, he’d been a candidate at every hatching, and at every hatching he had left the ground still dragonless. He’d known it was a possibility — D’mat made sure they all did — but even at this last hatching he’d hoped...
He knew what came next: D’mat gathered the other failures (not the word D’mat would use, but they all knew it was true). Those more newly arrived were dismissed to change for the celebration feast; Corson and three others stayed behind.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, lads,” D’mat said, once the others had gone, and he did genuinely sound it. “It’s always a possibility, of course, but you never want it to happen to anyone.”
“What —” Corson stopped and clears his throat. “What happens now?”
“You’ll not be forced to leave the weyr,” D’mat said. He looked at each of them in turn. “If you think there’s still a place for you here.” That, at least, was a relief. “But many, ah, lads in your position find it’s preferable to leave, rather than be reminded that they...” He trailed off, embarrassed. “In any case, you’ll know what’s best for yourselves, I’m sure.”
“What kind of ‘place’?” Corson asked. He suspected D’mat meant something other than the busywork and errands candidates did — cleaning, carrying, running messages that weren’t important enough for one of the weyrlings. He was vaguely aware that there were other men at the weyr who weren’t riders, and even some who weren’t crafters, but he’d never, until now, paid them any real attention.
D’mat looked at him thoughtfully. “That depends on you. The weyr can’t afford idle hands, but there are many kinds of work that need doing. You can stay out the month, if you need time to find the right fit. Beyond that, you’ll need to talk to the Weyrleaders.”
—
S’ret kept his promise, although they only were able to talk once before the first hatching, they were both so busy. After the disappointment of that hatching, when he realized that they wouldn’t make him leave, he sought S’ret out in his weyr.
“Corson,” S’ret said when he saw who’d knocked on his door. He smiled. “Sorry about the hatching.”
“D’mat says most Searched candidates end up Impressing eventually,” Corson said, trying to sound upbeat. “If not now, then the next time.”
“That’s the spirit,” S’ret said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Come in and have some wine.”
S’ret had some very convincing ideas about how to make him feel better, mostly involving Corson’s cock in his ass, and he didn’t leave S’ret’s weyr until the following morning, at which point a wave of melancholy hit instead: What if it never happens? What if they kick me out? What if I have to go back?
To distract himself, he walked all the way around the bowl, stopping as he came almost full-circle to watch the last batch of weyrlings gliding back and forth overhead. He’d never understand how anyone could be afraid of dragons.
Neither do we, a voice in his thoughts, not his own, said.
“Who —?” He whirled around, looking for the source of the voice.
I hear you, the voice said. It sounded distant, somehow. I am Ardenth.
“Ardenth?” He jerked his head up towards the weyr entrances above him, searching for S’ret’s. “How?”
I listen, Ardenth said. When you and S’ret were together. It was good that you were together.
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that.
I am glad you do not fear us, Ardenth said. I wouldn’t like it if you were afraid to visit my weyr. I like it when you visit my weyr.
“I like to visit, too.”
Good. Come again soon, Ardenth said, his voice fading even more. I am going to nap.
Amused — and confused — he stood there for a while longer, then made his way back to the candidate barracks to get ready for supper.
—
There are many kinds of work that need doing.
Once he started paying attention, he saw that it was true. There were men everywhere — the tanner, the harper, the assistant healer (now joined by one of the other failed candidates, who’d been apprenticed to the healer in his home Hold; the other candidates went home to Igen Hold and Southern Telgar), yes, but others, too, moving among the weyrfolk with the ease of dragonriders, which was why he hadn’t noticed them at first; his social life had mainly been among the other candidates, and S’ret and a few of his friends.
Word that he was looking for work seemed to have traveled, because people kept asking him to do things. He spent several days in and out of the kitchens, where he found he wasn’t the only man chopping meat and vegetables, turning spits, kneading bread (under the watchful eyes of one or another of the more experienced bakers). For the first day he kept getting interrupted by dragonriders showing up to ask him to carry messages for them, but Erona, the headwoman, finally told them to leave him alone — it wasn’t as if they actually needed him to run all over the weyr, anyway.
The work was pleasant, companionable: the kitchen staff chatted idly about weyr gossip, about politics (which he was beginning to realize how little he understood), about the results of the hatching. He was subject to some good-natured teasing about how often he was seen entering S’ret’s weyr, though at first it made him blush.
After the first sevenday, a man he didn’t know — Kaldrus, he introduced himself as — caught him as he was making his way to the kitchen cavern and said, “You’re with us today.”
“With who?”
“Who do you think keeps the herdbeasts?” Kaldrus said, and grinned as understanding dawned on Corson’s face. “Not those lazy bronze riders, I can tell you.” This he said loudly enough that M’rill, one of the wingseconds, heard him in passing and stopped to glower for a moment, before both he and Kaldrus, to Corson’s shock, burst out laughing.
“He thinks he’s a funny one,” M’rill said conspiratorially to Corson. “But what he won’t tell you is he’s the one who wouldn’t get his lazy ass out of bed this morning till I practically dragged him out of the furs.”
“Alright, alright!” Kaldrus said, throwing up his hands. “You win.”
Corson gaped at them as the two men kissed — once chastely, once decidedly not — in the corridor; M’rill laughed again at his expression. “Surprised?”
“It’s just...” Corson searched for the right words.
“You’re not used to seeing a bronze rider with another man outside a flight, eh?” Kaldrus suggested. Corson nodded.
“Oh, there are a few of us,” M’rill said vaguely. “More than would admit it, maybe. I still wonder if it wasn’t a mistake to bring in holders as candidates...”
Kaldrus gave him a look, and Corson realized this must be an old argument.
“I’m teasing, my love,” M’rill said, giving Kaldrus’s arm a light, friendly punch. “I’ll see you tonight.” He kissed him on the cheek, smiled at Corson, and continued down the hall to wherever he’d been headed.
Kaldrus shook his head, but he was smiling. “Well, come on, lad,” he said, gesturing for Corson to follow him. “I’ll get you introduced and we’ll show you the ropes.”
He spent a mostly pleasant, if tiring, day with the herdsmen — and two women, though they seemed to prefer each other’s company; the gentle ribbing they got from Kaldrus and the others when they disappeared for a while in the middle of the morning and came back flushed, shirts untucked, was another of many moments in an eye-opening day. Even the pouring rain that turned the middle of the afternoon uncomfortably cold and wet didn’t dampen the herders’ spirits, as — once they’d tethered the runners they used for rounding up herdbeasts — they spent most of it telling stories by the fire in the dry, metal-roofed cabin at the edge of the fields.
“You’ll come back tomorrow,” Kaldrus said as they sent him back to the weyr for supper — telling him, not asking, but Corson nodded agreement anyway. Then he hurried to catch up to Timsan, one of the younger men, who’d caught his eye several times over the course of the day and even winked at him once.
He settled, over the next two sevendays, into a routine, interrupted periodically by the grim demands of the weyr during Threadfall: two days in the kitchens, three or four with the herds. His nights he spent sometimes with S’ret, sometimes with Timsan — “Call me Tim, please” — and sometimes alone. The work was demanding, but enjoyable.
“The beasts are easier to handle with an extra pair of hands,” Kaldrus observed.
“Especially such a handsome one,” Tim said, and the herdsfolk variously groaned and laughed as Corson flushed.
Kaldrus caught him by the arm later, as the others were setting off to repair one of the metal fences that had rusted through.
“You know Tim was just teasing, right?” he asked.
“What?” Corson was confused.
“It’s not about your looks,” Kaldrus said. “You’re too young for me, anyway. The beasts are easier to handle with an extra pair of hands — I’ve been telling Erona we needed someone, and she said she’d ‘look into it.’ You may not have experience with beastcraft, but you're quick to learn, and you’re not afraid of manual labor like some of the weyr-bred are.”
“Oh.” Corson wasn’t sure what to say.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew that,” Kaldrus said. “There’d be a place for you here.”
“...thank you,” Corson said.
Kaldrus nodded curtly, and then the conversation was over. Kaldrus strolled after the others, but Corson stayed where he was for a moment, looking after them — Tim had apparently told another joke, because they were laughing — and then turning to survey the whole of Igen. A few dragons circled up or down from weyr entrances, and one of the wings — he couldn’t tell at this distance which — was drilling over the bowl, high enough that the air down here was still clear of the smell of phosphene and firestone. The early autumn sun shone, and a breeze from the east, off the Igen plain, was crisp and cool against his skin. Soon enough it would be winter again, and even this far south there would be snow in the mountains.
“You know,” S’ret said that evening, as he listened to Corson complain — sincerely but not unhappily — of sore muscles after an afternoon spent chasing wayward beasts that had escaped through the broken fence, up and down the slopes of the pastures, “you don’t have to work with the herdsmen, if you don’t want to. I could petition the weyrleaders — Nadira likes me; if I asked I’m sure she’d let you stay. Then you wouldn’t be sore...”
“I like the work,” Corson said. “Besides, I don’t want to be here just on your charity. I need to find my own place.”
“If you say so,” S’ret said. “It just would be nice to, you know, see you more consistently. If you lived here, with me.”
“Is someone getting jealous?” Corson teased, rolling onto his side to run his hand along S’ret’s arm.
“Oh, never mind,” S’ret said, but he smiled, and Corson kissed him again.
—
The candidates were supposed to be focused on preparing for the hatching, but of course they weren’t isolated from the rest of the weyr, not least because half the candidates were themselves the children of dragonriders. D’mat said this was important, because if they were going to be dragonriders, they had to get used to talking to dragonriders.
“Yes, even the weyrldeaders,” he said, in response to a particularly timid young man’s question.
“It’s easy,” one of the weyr-bred candidates interjected. “They’re still people.”
“Important people,” the shy candidate mumbled.
“As you may well be someday,” D’mat said. “Let that be this afternoon’s lesson: have a conversation with a dragonrider other than myself, or the rider who Searched you. I’ll have word put around — people will be expecting you.”
So, when it came time for the midday meal, instead of settling mostly together at a few tables at the edge of the kitchen cavern, they dispersed, some alone, some in pairs — mostly weyr-bred candidates promising to introduce holder or crafter friends to riders they knew and liked.
Corson found himself alone. Gathering up his courage, he stepped out into the main dining cavern, where a dizzying array of weyrfolk — he was still adjusting to the crowded weyr, compared to the smallhold he’d grown up in — ate, talked, and moved. He wandered awkwardly between tables until a voice caught him: “You must be one of the candidates.”
He turned: the voice came from a man at one of the tables he’d just passed, stocky, with a friendly face and an easy smile.
“Y-yes,” he said.
“Join me for a meal,” the man said, gesturing for him to sit down. “A conversation with me should satisfy D’mat.”
Meekly — and cursing his own meekness — Corson sat, and, to his embarrassment, the man — a dragonrider — served him a full plate of spiced meat and tubers.
“Where are you from, lad? And what’s your name?” he asked Corson as he passed him the plate.
“Corson,” he said, “from Rivercross Hold, in Lemos.”
The man was easy to talk to, and Corson found himself relaxing as he did so, telling the man more about his family, his life at Rivercross, and even — daringly, he thought — asking the man about his life in the weyr.
“Oh, in some ways I don’t think it was much different from a Hold, even in the Oldtime. Less field work, maybe, and more play, but I’d imagine a bright lad like yourself got into just as much trouble as any of us did,” the man said, and laughed at Corson’s expression.
Just as Corson was finishing his second helping of meat, another man — S’ret’s wingleader, Corson knew, a man named V’rem — joined them.
“G’narish,” he said, nodding at the man by way of greeting, and then looked at Corson. “And you’re the one S’ret brought in, right?”
Corson was too distracted to respond right away, staring open-mouthed at the man across from him — G’narish, the Igen weyrleader — until he realized what he was doing and quickly closed his mouth.
G’narish laughed and elbowed V’rem. “You’ve ruined the surprise, V’rem — I guessed he didn’t know who I was, but I wasn’t going to tell him until we finished talking.”
“Sorry,” V’rem said, rolling his eyes (at the weyrleader). To Corson, he said, “What’s your name?”
Corson managed, somehow, to pull himself together, and once he got past the shock he found it was still easy enough to talk to G’narish, and even to V’rem. When G’narish and V’rem — responding, he suspected, to a call from Baylith and Iriorth — finally stood up to go, Corson hastily jumped to his feet, but the weyrleader gestured for him to sit back down. “Relax, Corson. It was nice to get to know you.”
“Y-you, too,” Corson stammered, and G’narish put his hand on his shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze.
“You’ll be a fine rider,” G’narish said.
“And,” V’rem added, “a fine addition to the weyr, dragon or not.” G’narish nodded his agreement.
“Thank you,” Corson said, his face hot. Both men laughed, not unkindly.
“Enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” G’narish said. “I’ll tell D’mat we spoke.”
Corson just nodded.
By evening, word had spread to all the candidates that Corson had had lunch with the weyrleader; at supper he found himself bombarded with questions.
When he lay down that night to sleep, he smiled, remembering the warmth of G’narish’s voice, the weight of his hand.
—
S’ret sat down across from him at supper and, without further prompting, said, “I talked to Nadira this afternoon, about you — she said it was ‘already taken care of.’”
“What?” Corson stared at him.
“Apparently the herdsman, Kaldrus, already put in a word on your behalf.” S’ret sounded almost annoyed by this. “And Erona.”
“And you’re mad that I have other friends?”
“What?” S’ret looked almost offended. “No, of course not! I’m not mad at all — I just wanted...” He trailed off.
“Wanted what?”
“I wanted to be able to do this for you,” S’ret grumbled. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“I told you,” Corson said, “I don’t want to be here on your charity.”
“That’s not what I — oh, never mind,” S’ret said. “Anyway, I just thought you’d like to know. You can stay. Nadira said she’d have Erona talk to you tomorrow about finding you a room.”
It hit him, then: he really didn’t have to go back to Rivercross. He could stay in the weyr, for as long as he was useful. He could stay here, where he belonged. He heard Kaldrus’s words again in his mind: There’d be a place for you here. He could stay with —
“S’ret,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful,” he said. “I appreciate what you were trying to do.” He put his hand out on the table and S’ret took it; he gave S’ret’s hand a squeeze. “I just needed to...figure things out for myself.” He grinned. He felt giddy. “And now I can stay.”
S’ret smiled, but he pulled his hand away; Corson frowned.
“What?”
“I’m happy for you,” S’ret said. “I’m really, really happy for you. It’s just...” He sighed; then, after a moment, he said: “My offer still stands, you know. Even if someone else got there first.”
“What offer?” Corson asked, part of his mind still wrapping itself around the truth that he could stay at the weyr.
“To be my weyrmate,” S’ret said, and now he had Corson’s full attention again. “I like you a lot. It doesn’t have to be a permanent arrangement, if you don’t want it to be, but I like sharing a bed with you, and we do get along, mostly.”
Corson just stared at him. S’ret shifted in his seat, looking embarrassed.
“You don’t have to make up your mind now,” he said. “Just...think on it.”
"S’ret,” Corson said, and reached across the table to catch S’ret’s cheek and make him look at him. “Of course I want to, you idiot. If you’d just asked me instead of dancing around it —”
S’ret cut him off by leaning across the table and kissing him, hard.
—
They all looked up as the shadow passed over them: a blue dragon, circling lazily down to land at the edge of the field.
“Search,” his cousin — only a year older — said, sagely. “Must be.” Corson nodded agreement.
The rider slid down from his dragon, pausing to pat the dragon’s foreleg affectionately, then walked over to the foreman to introduce himself. The foreman looked, Corson thought, momentarily annoyed — probably because the entire field had stopped to watch — but he nodded at whatever the dragonrider said and gestured at the field.
“We’d better get back to work,” his cousin said, and they did.
The dragonrider spent the next while wandering among the field workers, until, finally, he reached Corson and his cousin. He smiled at them, and Corson’s heart skipped a beat. He smiled back.
“My name is S’ret, Ardenth’s rider,” the dragonrider said, extending his hand to Corson. “What’s yours?”