Random fiction thing

[chess]

l_the_fangirl asked for something about Coming of Age. So I wrote a bunch of vignettes from the Dragonriders of Pern setting because my head happened to be there today. They're all in the slightly disconnected, sparse style I seem to have adopted at the moment which people don't seem to like very much, so apologies for the lack of mass appeal :).

I'm also meant to ask for something in return - so write me something about you as a Bliss Stage Authority Figure, l_the_fangirl :p. If anyone else wants to do that and then make a request of me, please feel free too :).


He looked into the hatchling's faceted eyes and said, "His name is Serrath!"

Unconsciously, the words just springing from him.

His parents might care about the colour of Serrath's hide. He might be injured in Fall.

He might find himself waking up next to women and men who he would rather not even have made the acquaintence of.

In this moment, none of it mattered. Serrath made him complete.

Also, Serrath was hungry.

----

She walked out of the Hatching Cavern.

It was her birthingday tomorrow. Her twentieth.

Her mother had been a dragonrider, and her mother before that.

As for fathers - who could tell, in a Weyr? But probably. Probably them, too.

Today exposed the comforting lies they had told her, every Hatching since she was twelve...

There wasn't a dragon for her, and there never would be.

Time to get on with her life, then.

----

He paused outside the schoolroom, momentarily too afraid to open the door.

It was nothing he hadn't done before.

He had performed to more demanding crowds.

He had faced down wild felines in the hills to get here.

He had walked the tables through the cheering upturned faces of friends and rivals.

This was just a simple first teaching assignment.

He opened the door, greeted the cotholders,

smiled, and started to sing.

-----

The family clustered around the bed.

"She's not moving," chorused the tousle-headed young boy.

I know she's not moving, thought the healer. And the baby...

She'd been woken at the crack of dawn that morning by her fire-lizard with their message.

She'd saddled up and rode hard through the night to get to the cothold.

She'd applied all the right treatments to mother and child.

She'd done everything she could for them.

"I..."

She covered them with a sheet.

The family understood.

-----

He held her hand while the healers came and went.

There was a curtain around the infirmary cot, to preserve her privacy, but it was still very strange.

The healers, the anxious faces, and her lying there so vulnerable; and nothing he could do to help but hold her hand and wait.

One day, that child that was causing so much fuss could come to be Lord Holder of all he surveyed, or Lady Holder of some far hold, married into another bloodline to keep them strong.

If the father-to-be was smart. If he played his cards right. If his brothers didn't outshine him, and leave him in the dust.

Somehow it didn't seem so important as... this. This life emerging from her now, whatever its fate.

"Congratulations! It's a boy."

Comments

[toothycat]

Well, I liked them :)

[chess]

You are on the London Underground. Suddenly, the lights go out! There is the sound of breaking glass and _something_ jumps through the window onto the seat next to where you were sitting. What happens next?

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

Very nice. Thank you.

And it's up - named "Only What Is Freely Given." :D

[cesy.livejournal.com]

I liked these.