Our History

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History of the Silver Weyr

All Pernese people remember Lessa and her heroic bringing forward of the five Weyrs and the Oldtimers. There is no doubt at all that this world-saving event happened, but events afterward did not go quite as documented. AIVAS was never discovered. The end of the Ninth Pass came about, and on stretched a new Interval. Pern thrived as it had before in this time of peace. The dragon population grew, the Weyrs prospered, and all was well.

And then, just eight turns before Thread was due, things began to pick up again. The Queens of the Weyrs began to fly more often as they were supposed to, and clutched more eggs. Dozens of candidates bonded across the world. The six Weyrs filled rapidly, practically overflowing with dragons. All of them were normal as could be.

One turn later, golden Tarikath's clutch hatched on the sands of Benden Weyr. Sixty-three candidates stood for her forty-five eggs. First to hatch was a group of greens - ten of them, all of whom chose candidates. Next came two bronzes, strong and healthy. They, too, selected likely partners, as did the four browns who also hatched. More greens appeared, followed by blues and three odd new dragons: pink, they were, and clearly female fighters. All three of them bonded quickly, and it was later found that firelizard eggs had begun hatching pink babies as well.

And then the golden Queen egg began to rock. All present watched, holding their breaths in tense anticipation. The egg exploded within seconds, and the dragonet within screamed, her thin, wailing voice echoing from the walls of the cavern. Covered in sand and egg membrane so that she was nearly invisible, the new Queen prowled around the ring of female candidates, looking for something or someone. Finding nothing, she shook off what remained of her egg, and the Weyr released a collective gasp. The new dragonet was silver - bright, shining silver, the very shade of burnished metal. She was most definitely not a gold, though she was nearly as large as one.

And she was vicious. The new dragon tore into the one candidate who tried to approach her, nearly severing an arm and leaving great gashes across the girl's belly. She was unstoppable. Screaming in rage, the silver Queen stalked away from the candidates, and then placed herself in the middle of the sands, tail lashing as she spread her damp wings and screamed a challenge to the entire Weyr: I am Awirasyth, and I will not choose!

So was the law laid down: Awirasyth would not choose a human. Indeed, she didn't: not one human interested her, but she didn't between as she was logically supposed to. Instead, the silver Queen remained unImpressed, taught by Tarikath and the other proper queens about life in a Weyr.

All of Pern was outraged. Dragons did not survive without riders; they betweened immediately. So what had gone wrong with this dragon? Had she chosen a human and just not indicated whom it was? Soon enough, of course, this theory was destroyed by the silver's interest in all humans, not just one. This caused all of Benden Weyr to want the freak dragon out. The Queens wanted this too - they had seen and experienced enough of Awirasyth to want her away from them. At weyrling graduation, when the young silver was only slightly smaller than any gold, it was decided that there should be a new Weyr started, only in order to get rid of the freak dragonet. It was not, however, entirely the idea of the other Weyrs: Awirasyth too supported the change, almost purely because she couldn't stand the confusion.

So it was that the young silver, soon after weyrling graduation, one day declared her departure from Benden Weyr. I leave for the Southern Continent,

[/color] she'd announced, so come with me if that is what you desire! With that, she projected the image of her destination into the heads of all the dragons of Pern, and betweened to the Southern Continent. There she flew south, and more south, and eventually reached the Western Barrier Range. Pleased by the location, the unbonded dragon soon discovered a large valley on the northern edge of the mountains, surrounded by many other mountains that were beautifully pockmarked with caves. This, she announced, was the new Weyr. Those who had come with her chose their weyrs, and then returned to their Weyrs to garner staff and resources for the new Weyr. It worked well; they soon had a few people to maintain the place, herdbeasts to eat for the dragons, and other people who would establish Mountain Hold nearby. The new Weyr - the Silver Weyr, the riders chose to call it, in honour of their peculiar Senior Queen - was established, and well on its way to becoming another major defending force for Pern. It had taken nearly a turn to set up the Weyr, and Thread was only five turns away.

In late spring of the 195th Turn, during the 10th Interval, silver Awirasyth flew and chose bronze Jeseth as her mate. The silver queen laid an impressive clutch of twenty-two eggs on the sands, proving her worth as a clutching dragon, and it was expected that these eggs would hatch some new colours. Indeed, they didn't disappoint: along with the normal array of colours, three new ones appeared: the tiny black females, a yellow male fighter, and the first under queen, amethyst Lissyth. Although there was no queen, the clutch contained a bronze, the amethyst, and three browns, as well as a healthy number of fighters, making the clutch a worthwhile one, although one of the blues of the clutch betweened. Ark'os of brown Bjornth was appointed weyrlingmaster by Awirasyth, for the Weyr's first class.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote]