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Strange Pairing	By : AbstractRainbow Category: A through F > The Dragonriders of Pern Views: 4575 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Dragonriders of Pern series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Strange Pairing
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 2
- 3
- 4
“Grooming?” Lysceander asked, confused. She was going to be ‘groomed’? The woman only nodded and continued babbling off the list of things that needed to be done in an authoritative, but bubbly voice. As soon as they reached the hot pools, the woman smiled and gestured them.
“I’ll bet you never had these when you were out there holdless. The sandsoap is to the side, make sure to wash your hair with it too, and scrub a few times. At least three by the looks of it. I’ll be back soon enough.” And with that Heinley promptly disappeared down another hall. Lysceander, baffled, turned toward the waters and began to undress to bathe. The hot waters were unlike she’d ever experienced before, and she happily soaked and splashed around, scrubbing layers of dirt and grime off. She never remembered her skin feeling so fresh, and when she saw Heinley setting down a set of loose clothing and holding up a large cotton square, she moved out of the water. Unexpectedly, Heinley refused to look in her direction until she’d dried off with the cotton cloth she’d been offered, then dressed. Weyr manners she supposed. She’d have to remember that. She smiled and thanked her quietly when she was finally dressed and ready to continue, dirty clothes bundled under one arm. “Now, I do believe that the green and black of our Weyr will suit you nicely, though that won’t be your only set of course. A gray dress, or blue one, for the special occasions, I think. Do you wear dresses?”
“I… not before…” she stammered out. Dresses, she’d never worn a dress, no matter how much her mother had tried. Dragonriders didn’t need dresses anyway. “No…”
“Well, we don’t need them that often, but they’re nice once in a while, especially if you like them. We’ll only get you one.” Heinley smiled. “But of course all of your clothing will be nice. You’re a bronze rider now, or will be, and fostering to a queen’s rider. I’ve spoken with Morta, and her fosterling, Diece, will come by after we’ve finished with the clothes, to help with your grooming. We’ll even your mess of a hair out, work on those nails, and do whatever else needs doing.” Heinley nodded and opened a door finally, flipping open the glow as Lysceander followed her in. There were piles of fabric and leather everywhere, the girl was in awe. “Now… we’ll find you your nicest clothes fist, then everyday wear. Ah, here’s a fine pair of pants. Try them on.”
A pair of wherhide pants, softened only slightly and dyed black, were tossed at her. She quickly shed the thin pants she’d been provided to try them on. They weren’t too loose, but she supposed that what was there was for growing. She was only a Weyrling anyway. A dark, forest green shirt was thrown at her then, as was a wherhide vest. She tried those on with it, tucking the shirt in, then the ends of the vest thing, it’s material soft and supple, dyed black like the pants, a straight line from her shoulders and down, fastened half of the way down. The woman turned and smiled, nodding in approval. Another thing was thrown at her, a long dress, simple but elegant, in deep gray-blue. Reluctantly, she tried it on.
“Beautiful. That will do for dresses though, from the look on your face.” Heinley said with a laugh, then began to dig around some more. “The fabric pants are for the fosterlings and the like that aren’t riders or future riders. Even if you’re only a Weyrling, the only pants you have are wherhide because of the cold of Between. So, go ahead and find yourself a few more pairs of wherhide pants like the ones I gave you, make sure they’re the same size.” Lysceander nodded and began digging around as well, comparing what she found to the ones she was already holding. Another black pair, though more dulled, came up, as did light gray and brown. “Only one more should do for that. Don’t need TOO many pairs. Though, I would quite love to spoil you rotten.” She smiled in a friendly manner and held a few shirts up to Lysceander’s back. As soon as they’d collected all of the pants and shirts she was going to have to lug back, Heinley nabbed two more wherhide things, one a vest and the other a tunic, to add to the pile. “Alright then, we’ll put all of these things away, and then trimming.” She smiled, checking the markings on a small cloth bag from a pile as they left, and grabbed it as well.
Lysceander, though the oldest child in the family, had never had anything new. This was all a wonder to her. “I… thank-you so much, Heinley. I… I don’t know how to…”
“Not fussing too much while Diece works on you will be thanks enough.” Heinley said with a wink. “As I said, I’d love to spoil you. Beyrille knows that I’ve always wanted a child or a fosterling, so though you’re older than they usually come, I’m still going to spoil you as much as I can.”
“Oh, it sounds like she’s plotting already.” A girl around Lysceander’s age said with a grin, walking in with an armful of things as Heinley helped to put everything away in the chest provided for her things. “Is this the girl?”
“Lemme guess, I look more like a boy?” Lysceander asked with a raised brow. The Weyrleaders and such may have been treating her fine so far, but these were after all the people who had let her parents die, and who couldn’t seem to survive without shelter or dragons. The girl was definitely pretty, and she wouldn’t fuss too much, but she didn’t see why she had to treat her with much respect. The others had rank and authority on her, so she’d not so much as glared, but the girl was her rank or lower.
“No, I was going to ask why they were making such a big deal about grooming you properly. You don’t look too bad, other than a few shorn pieces of hair, and that’s hard enough to do on your own without a mirror anyway.” Diece shrugged and smiled kindly, surprising Lysceander. “I’m Diece.”
“Lys.” She answered slowly, suspiciously, Dreake waking enough to raise his head and look to see what was going on. Interesting.
“Oh, you’re the one that impressed that unique little bronze!” Diece squealed in surprise, then looked at her curiously. “I didn’t know that a female could impress a bronze.”
“Diece impressed the queen from this clutch.” Heinley provided, sitting back and looking at them both, deciding what to do with Lysceander’s hair. “And as far as the fuss goes, you didn’t see her before she bathed. She probably ran out of sandsoap out there by herself.”
“Oh, after the hot pools here, I don’t know if I could ever stand to wash in a cold stream.” Diece complained, shivering, then sat the girl down in another chair and circled her. “Well, I suggest that we just even out the shorn parts. It’s not TOO bad, but with the waves in it we shouldn’t layer it or anything… or make it shorter than it already is. Oh dear, what happened here?”
Lysceander pulled away from Diece as the girl lifted her hair to test its weight, and saw the scar. Slender and in the curved shape of a crescent moon, from the back of her neck down. Usually she was pretty good at hiding it. “Nothing.”
“Well, nothing sure does leave a nasty mark.” Diece said, but left it at that. “Well, what do you think about to do with your hair. You don’t want it shorter do you? It’ll poof out.”
“I… I suppose whatever you do is fine. I don’t really care.” She shrugged, but saw the question in Heinley’s eyes before she asked.
“What mark? What happened?”
Lysceander closed her eyes, feeling the concern radiating from Dreake as well, and as the memory replayed itself in her memory, she felt her dragon react with anger, rage even. “I… about three years ago I got in a knife fight. I got cut kind of badly, but it’s alright. I won. Anyway… I’m fine. Why are you making such a big deal about my appearance anyway?”
“Dragonriders have a duty to uphold a proper appearance to go along with their station and the respect it needs. As a future dragonrider, of a bronze no less, that will be undoubtedly known if not for the dragon itself for your story, you must uphold an appearance.” Heinley said proudly, taking a mental note of the scar. She’d gotten information from her queen, conveyed from Beyrille’s queen, that Lysceander’s parents had been killed by threadfall, as had her siblings, and that she often blamed dragonriders for it. She was determined to raise the girl’s respect of them, even without the order to do so. “Besides, it’ll make it easier on you. The less you look like someone holdless, the less you’ll have to deal with from your fellow Weyrlings.”
“Well, I think she’ll look marvelous with this sorted out and all cleaned up.” Diece said with a broad grin, patting some water into the girl’s hair with a cloth. As soon as it was damp enough, she struggled a comb through it until it was mostly combed out and ready. Dampening it just a little more, she carefully trimmed Lysceander’s hair to a semblance of domestication. She thought that she’d done quite well really. “Well, aren’t you just a beauty…” she commented with a wide grin after they’d waited in the hall for Lysceander to change into new clothes, the little sack Heinley having grabbed being underthings. She was wearing her dulled black leggings and a green shirt, a vest similar to her formal one, untucked and buttoned, and tied in back so that it was tighter and slightly feminine. “Now I do have one question for you. Why did you think I would say you look like a boy?”
“Because everyone seems to think I look like one…” Lysceander said with a small shrug. She’d left Dreake back in the room to nap, and was concerned for her little dragon. Sighing, she tugged a little at her belt and scuffed a boot on the cave ground as they walked out toward the landing bowl. “They didn’t even know I was a girl until after Dreakenolianth was Impressed and the Weyrwoman walked over to talk to me with N’kell. That’s one of the reasons why they wanted me cleaned up.”
“Well Diece, you’ll see Lys again soon. Perhaps she should sit with you at dinner. We must be off to collect some things.” Heinley said with a small smile. “Off with you.”
“Going Between?” Diece asked, and Lysceander nodded, watching as the girl removed her jacket. “Here. You didn’t bring one. I’ll get it back later. If she doesn’t have one, ma’am, I suggest finding her one.”
“Oh dear, I’d forgotten!” Heinley shrieked to herself, but saw Groith landing and waiting with his rider. They couldn’t keep them waiting. Lys thanked the girl with a wave and continued walking forward with her. “We’ll simply have to get it for you when we come back.”
Lysceander simply nodded with a small shrug, tugging on the wherhide jacket and noting how it was just a little too short for her. Diece couldn’t quite reach her height. She looked up and smiled at the man that was in the middle of checking Groith’s flying straps, then dropped down next to Heinley and she. “Well, who’s this? She looks familiar.”
“Don’t you recognize Lys, T’nes? She’s the ‘lad’ you picked up yesterday afternoon.” Heinley chuckled, and watched as T’nes looked Lysceander over again, squinting, trying to decide if he’d insulted the kid just now by saying she, or before by assuming she was a lad. “I’m sure she remembers you without the same inspection.”
“I’m sorry about calling you that before then.” He said, taking the safe rout out.
“Well, a lot of people seemed to think I was a boy, so I don’t particularly mind.” Lysceander said, looking skeptically at T’nes. Obviously her dislike of some dragonriders encompassed this blue rider. Heinley decided to dismiss that, though he’d done nothing other than assume she was a lad out of hold, due to the fact that many of the youngest bronze riders scorned anything below a brown. “We were going to pick the rest of my things up?”
“Oh yes, you impressed that bronze before…” he seemed to give pause then. She’d confirmed that she was a girl, but a bronze. “Wait a minute…”
“N’kell and Beyrille have already assessed the situation and made a decision, T’nes. Dragon’s choice cannot be swayed. She had to have been picked for a reason.” Heinley quickly intercepted. He looked at the gold rider, then simply nodded. “Well, let’s get going. She’ll be tired enough soon. It’s been a trying day and night.”
“Yes ma’am.” He quickly acquiesced, practically flying up the straps, then waiting with a hand down for Lysceander. “She’ll sit behind you for support, Lys. Come on up then.”
Lysceander grabbed the strap after a look up at the dragon, seeing Groith watching over the proceedings carefully. Hauling herself up, placing most of the strain on her arms, she half walked, half scrambled up the big blue shoulder. T’nes helped to drag her over the ridges as soon as she reached the top, Heinley only a step or two behind her and prodding to position her properly. “Alright, hold tightly to his belt, and remember, Between doesn’t last forever.”
“It’s not too bad.” Lys said bravely, though she did take a firm grip of the belt in front of her. Heinley laughed lightly, adjusting her own seat, then they all jolted slightly as Groith took off. Lysceander only had to suppress shivering as they came out of the cold of Between into the bright morning sky of the familiar scenery around her caves. She didn’t really want to look down as Groith circled lazily, then went in for a bit of a faster landing, a speeding drop, then stop, then drop again, over and over. She’d watched the fire lizards before, and decided that though the technique was similar to theirs, they were much more elegant about it. The movement made her stomach lurch. When they finally thumped to a landing, she was grateful to get off.
“Don’t worry, you get more used to the lack of feeling after a while.” T’nes offered as they followed her toward the cave she’d claimed as her own.
“It’s not Between, it’s the landing.” Lysceander said, waving her hand at him disrespectfully as she went immediately for a small pile of possessions by a tattered roll that seemed to have been a bed sack of rushes at some point, and a few sheets and pillows. Kicking that aside, she dug around the bundle that had been hiding behind it, revealing a tightly sheathed, good quality knife. Tying in a bundle her clothes and what not, she tossed it into the waiting hands of Heinley, who promptly went through every scrap of clothing to see if it was useful. Two of the shirts weren’t too bad, and surprisingly there was a fair looking skirt in the lot, but none of the pants were wherhide and the rest of the shirts too tattered to look at as more than rags. Lys didn’t really have much, just what she needed and a few items that had to have been memorabilia, so they weren’t there long. The knife had been her father’s apparently, and he’d accidentally left it in the caves when the thread had fallen. There were a few items of jewelry that had been her mothers, which she quickly stuffed in the pouch at her side, and both dragonriders decided to pretend they hadn’t seen. There was nothing else, which they thought meant she had no other family to have mementos from, though it was just that her brothers had been too young to have anything of their own, really.
“So everything she’s not keeping goes in this bag to be sent to Morta, to be inspected to see if they’re usable for the drudges?” T’nes asked as he threw the clothes she wouldn’t be keeping in a bag, then the old sleeping things. Heinley nodded, and Lysceander watched as just about everything she’d once owned was consolidated in a bag to be assessed for worth for drudges. “Lys, did you want these?”
She looked at what he was doing, scruffing up the ground to reveal the top of a pouch. It had been her father’s belt and money pouch, and she jumped over to dig it up. She’d buried it in memory, but suspected that she’d want to keep it to remember him. “Thanks, T’nes.”
“No problem…” he said in a distracted tone, not having expected her to thank him. She quickly pulled a dirt-smudged belt, pouch, and sheathed knife out of the ground. The knife wasn’t ornate or very decorated, but it was very fine craftsmanship, as was the belt. He watched in confusion as she drew the knife and looked it over fondly, as if afraid the dirt might have done it damage. “That’s a fine piece…”
“Master Gingrelle gave it to my father for his exemplary service as envoy.” She said softly, still staring at it. “He took his other belt when…” her voice abruptly cut off and she acted as if she hadn’t been saying anything, bundling it with the things she was keeping. The man frowned and looked as if he was about to reprimand her from cutting off so rudely, but Heinley waved him off of it. “Are we done?”
“I would suppose. Let’s be back. Dinner will be on soon enough, and we’ve to get you a few more things.” The gold rider quickly nodded and they headed back towards Groith. Before long they were back at the Weyr and setting things again. “So… to your wherhide jacket…”
“Please, not new this time. I don’t deserve it… even if you think I do because I’m your fosterling now… I… I am only a Weyrling, and formerly holdless… A used one maybe?” Lysceander said, frowning slightly as she stroked Dreake in his sleep.

TBC
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Strange Pairing