Comments: 11
DanaPhantom [2017-05-17 19:59:00 +0000 UTC]
Thank you thank you thank you.
I only recently ready Beyond Between and was unimpressed. I just didn't empathize with Moreta. A friend and I were discussing how it would have been so much better with Lytol and Larth and I teared up just thinking about it.
This is really great.
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AMCAlmaron In reply to DanaPhantom [2017-05-18 06:01:01 +0000 UTC]
Aww, thank you very much!
You know, at one point I was toying with the idea of a sequel to this, but I couldn't think of enough to write a full story out of it...basically, in the morning, Lytol woke to found Larth becoming less visible in the daylight, but still faintly audible, and so since Lytol couldn't prove he was there, D'ram would drag him back to Cove Hold, but he'd tell Larth to follow the coasts until he found him, and at home, he'd break free, and so the two would eventually run into each other on the shores of Kahrain...at which point D'ram would find them, see Larth, and then...well, I wrote that part;
Untitled"Wait...are there others at Paradise River?"
Recognition dawned. Lytol turned to face his dragon. "Larth, were there other dragons with you at the river?"
Yes, he said. Duluth's rider looked after us.
"Whose rider?" D'ram said.
"Duluth..." Lytol began. "Something's familiar about that name."
"Wait...Duluth?" Jaxom interrupted. "AIVAS mentioned him! He was the first dragon to be lost...Between."
"The first?" Lytol said. "Surely it can't be..."
The three stood there in silence; struggling to comprehend what this meant. After a while, D'ram spoke. "But what connects Between with Paradise River?" he said; confused.
"Perhaps the ancients named the place "Paradise" for a reason." Jaxom mused. "Did they know more about the river than us?"
"I'm not sure," Lytol said. "AIVAS never mentioned anything like it in any of the archival sessions I attended."
Jaxom frowned. "Perhaps he thought it too risky to reveal? AIVAS did have his secrets."
Before Lytol could enquire what Jaxom meant by this, D'ra...there was going to be one last part afterwards; Marco at Paradise River seeing dragonriders approaching with a dragonless rider, who'd see his dragon and they'd reunite, and Marco would happily note he's found a way to contact the living at last...
Hehe, I'm half tempted to ask you to share this with your friend...see whether he thinks I pulled it off!
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AMCAlmaron In reply to GoogyNoober [2013-10-19 10:32:21 +0000 UTC]
It's complicated; a dragon that's gone between is dead, but the short story Beyond Between (which vaguely inspired me to write this) more or less stated that dead dragons whose riders were still alive would end up at the ruins of Paradise River Stake (guided there by Marco Galliani and his dragon Duluth; the first pair to go Between by mistake) in a sort of ghostly limbo, and although it doesn't confirm it, it's logical to assume they move on to the afterlife once their riders die (otherwise there'd be thousands of dragon ghosts in the area during the short story!). The confusing thing is that the story shows that the dragons are visible to the living to a certain degree, and can vaguely interact with their surroundings...not sure how that works exactly, but I tried to play with that here; hence why Larth's semi-visible, and why Lytol can touch him, but not bandage his wounds. I wrote up an article about this for the Pern Wiki; it explains it better than I have here; pern.wikia.com/wiki/Between#Go…
I was planning on writing some sequels to this, but I never got around to it...you can see my notes above; Lytol was going to wake in the morning and find Larth disappearing in the sunlight, but he'd still hear his voice, so he'd decide to travel back to his home overland by night so that he could be sure that Larth was still following him. Eventually they'd get there, and it would turn out that Wirenth had followed Larth, so Lytol would come up with a plan to get Wirenth's rider Brekke to come and visit, and then he'd reveal Wirenth to her.
Which Pern books have you read (or read about, rather)? Some are better than others...I was saying to Kooskia on another thread that the dragons don't have much to say in the first books, but in the later books they become more prominent? There's a list of the books I'd recommend on the page for his comic with Temeraire, Saphira and Ramoth talking.
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GoogyNoober In reply to AMCAlmaron [2013-10-19 12:01:23 +0000 UTC]
I read some fan-fiction stories pretty long time ago, mostly Pern/Star trek crossovers and one of MacAffrey's short stories about Lessa. I wasn't impressed by that short story, it's too boring to me, maybe I should reread it and I will but later.
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AMCAlmaron In reply to GoogyNoober [2013-10-19 20:57:31 +0000 UTC]
You mean Dragonflight, or one of the short stories that made it up (Weyr Search or Dragonrider)? Yeah, not much dragon screen time in either of those. I didn't properly get into the series until I read "The White Dragon", because the titular dragon Ruth is a major character and gets a lot of dialogue. You could always skip the first two and go straight to The White Dragon, because there's a summary of the first two books in the prologue (I did that myself, mainly because the library didn't have Dragonflight or Dragonquest available when I started reading them). I originally recommended these books to Kooskia for their focus on dragon dialogue;
*Red Star Rising (or Dragonseye if you're in the US) - Baby green dragon Morath = win. Her first real scene always makes me laugh...she wakes her rider by leaning over her bed with lots of apologetic thoughts about being hungry, only to startle her awake and make their heads collide. A standalone, although it's got nods to other books in the series, so you might want to read them first.
*Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern - Generally considered to be the best book in the entire series among the people on the main Pern message board I know. Another standalone (more or less), but this one you should be able to read without any problems. Orlith and Moreta are much nicer characters than Lessa and Ramoth.
*The White Dragon - Introduces Ruth, the fan-favourite when it comes to dragons (although people are torn on whether his rider Jaxom is a Mary-Sue or not). Although it's a bit marred by an odd relationship** between Jaxom and a hold girl that kind of gets dismissed halfway through the book...technically the third book in the original series, but it starts with summaries of the first two if you want to start from there.
*A Gift of Dragons - Actually a book of short stories, but the first and last (The Smallest Dragonboy and Ever The Twain) both have cute baby dragons.
These books also contain vocal dragon characters;
*Dragonquest - Canth, as mentioned, although oddly other important dragons like Queen dragon Wirenth don't get a single line of dialogue!
*The Impression - Golanth...this is a short story included in the "Dragonlover's Guide To Pern" that depicts what Impression's like (the chaos at Ramoth's hatching and Impression was kind of a one-off...call it Early Installment Weirdness).
*All The Weyrs Of Pern - Ruth again, largely because his rider's one of the main characters in this, and also Golanth.
*The Dolphins of Pern - Gadareth...he's not in the book that much, but his scenes are still memorable.
*The Skies of Pern - Lots of dragon characters; but mainly Golanth and Zaranth, who spend several parts of the book chatting with one another!
*Dragonsdawn - Caranth, in later chapters.
Several of Todd's books focus on dragon characters, but I don't think they're as memorable as these ones (certainly, Talenth seems a bit dim...probably cause she's quite young...) and the events of Dragonsblood will just make you sad (death after death...).
**On that note, I should mention that some of the earlier books have...interesting character relationships, considering the first book was written in 1968, back when healthy romantic relationships in literature involved the man generally being abusive to the woman...urgh. Thankfully this is largely gone by the later books.
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AMCAlmaron [2011-12-02 21:17:15 +0000 UTC]
Hmm...I'm actually thinking about writing more to this - there's several short ideas for scenes that I'd like to see finished. I'd write a sequel, but since that would probably just be walking to Cove Hold, I doubt there'd be many interesting scenes to write, so it'd be far better to write a series of drabbles.
So far I can imagine a few potential ideas, some are more fleshed out than the others. Maybe I'll write these when I next have a few hours to spare.
*At Paradise River, D'ram talks with Jayge about the meeting earlier in the day. Jayge mentions that the herdbeasts became fearful, something that used to happen all the time when they first arrived. Jayge thinks nothing of this but D'ram wonders if there might be truth in Lytol's words.
Tiroth then calls D'ram over, and D'ram makes excuses to rush outside. When D'ram reaches him, Tiroth tells him that Lytol isn't hurt, but that he can hear another voice. D'ram and Tiroth fly towards the coast, and see Lytol with the spiritual Larth. They decide not to disturb them.
*Lytol wakes early in the rising sunlight at Paradise River, only to find Larth becoming fainter in the light. Larth does not understand his rider's panic, as he does not notice the difference. Larth disappears to the point where Lytol (either cannot or can barely) see him, but he is still able to hear his voice in his head faintly. After mulling things over for a while, and remembering the events of the previous day, Lytol concludes that Larth has not and will not vanish completely, he is just harder to see in the daylight. Lytol then starts making plans for how they'll make their way back to Cove Hold, imagining that he'll ensure he doesn't lose Larth on the journey by getting him to signal him every few moments.
*A short summary of the events of the journey from Paradise River to Cove Hold - Lytol, D'ram, Larth, and possibly Piemur travelling along the coast until reaching the large valley in North Kahrain, and going through it and overland to Cove (As described in the Atlas, and by extension, my map!). Ends with Larth and Lytol announcing their pleasure to be home. D'ram could also plan to suggest to the Weyrleaders that they track down the ex-riders and send them to the "revitalising shores of Paradise River" (Also wondering if Wirenth should "follow" Larth to Cove Hold, with D'ram and Lytol later deciding to casually "invite" F'nor and Brekke to visit).
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WyldeWyndWalker [2011-11-12 03:32:13 +0000 UTC]
I rather liked this. It is nice to think that a rider who has lost his (or her) dragon might yet be able to be with them. Very nice work. I shall have to pass this on to a friend.
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AMCAlmaron [2011-07-15 02:57:59 +0000 UTC]
Since I have friends that haven't read any of the Pern books, but who might like to give this a read, here's a short primer to fill you in on what you need to know to understand the story:
PERN
Pern was set up as an isolated earth colony at its founding some twenty-five thousand years prior to the events of this story. It was only after it was too late to leave that the inhabitants discovered that their planet was dangerous; every two hundred years, a rogue planet in their solar system would draw near to Pern, dragging deadly organisms along with it.
These organisms; “Thread”, fell from the skies like acid, devouring all that was not sheltered by metal or stone. In a last ditch effort to survive, the team’s geneticists modified the genome of a native Pernese creature; the fire-lizard - a miniature creature resembling a western dragon - effectively creating sentient dragons.
Before long, the colonists were forced to abandon their settlements in the southern continent and flee to the north, where they began carving new “holds” out of rock. The dragons and the people who rode them did the same, founding “weyrs” - usually the expanded caves of a dormant volcano, but occasionally a beach settlement in recent years. The colony thus became a largely feudal society, with Lord Holders being responsible for the well-being of different areas of Pern.
DRAGONS
The dragons are sentient creatures, and become bonded to a human when they hatch - this is known as “Impression”. A male rider will abbreviate his name to make it not only easier to remember - dragons having feeble memories at times - but so he can be directed quickly when fighting Thread. They come in five colours - the females are Gold (also called Queen Dragons) and Green, and the males are Bronze, Brown and Blue. Golds command the other dragons, with the males below them, and Greens at the bottom of the pecking order.
The dragons communicate telepathically, and thus they share the thoughts and emotions with their rider - if one hurts, the other feels it, and so on. A dragon’s eyes are like a mood ring - they change colour depending on the emotion it feels.
The dragons have the ability to breathe flame, they use this to burn the Thread organism when it falls. They also have the ability to teleport to any location, by “moving” through an empty dark dimension - Between. If a dragon does not envision their destination properly, they will not emerge from Between, and perish as a result.
When a rider dies, their dragon will go Between in grief, either unwilling or unable to live without their rider’s presence. When a dragon dies, a rider can sometimes recover enough to continue on with their lives, although they are often changed forever. Many choose death.
BETWEEN/BEYOND
Upon perishing Between, the spirit of the dragon will find themselves alone in the darkness, until they are retrieved by Marco Galliani and Duluth; an early dragon/rider pair who went Between by accident and have not crossed over. They guide these lost dragons back to “Paradise River”, the settlement they vanished at, where they remain until their rider dies, at which point the dragon crosses over to the afterlife, along with their rider.
RECENT HISTORY
By this point in time, the Pernese inhabitants have moved back to the southern continent and have rediscovered their past, and are implementing many technological advances. Many of the old stakes; Paradise River included, have been resettled.
IMPORTANT CHARACTERS IN MY STORY
Lytol and Larth - Born Lytonal, Lytol became bonded with the brown dragon Larth and took the name L’tol in his youth. An accident during training for Threadfall resulted in Larth obtaining fatal injuries, and he went between. Now taking the name Lytol, he returned home and started a family, trying to replace what he had lost, but his family were killed under the rule of the greedy Lord Holder Fax.
Following Fax’s death, Lytol was appointed “Lord Warder” of one of the Holds that had suffered under Fax, until the designated heir was of age. Following this, he retired to a house built in the southern continent known as Cove Hold.
Wirenth - A queen dragon bonded with Brekke, a major character in an earlier book. When Wirenth’s time to mate came - an action that takes place in midair, and has a…um...powerful empathetic impact on their rider’s actions, as their dragons become primal and savage - another Queen dragon, Prideth - aroused by the actions of her rider Kylara (a power-hungry bimbo) - battled her to court. In the chaos both were driven Between. Kylara was driven insane as a result, and Brekke became temporarily catatonic, but she later recovered and settled down with the man she loved.
I think that’s everything, the others are just random characters and places, and you shouldn’t need to know about them to understand the story. Oh, save for something about the native flora - three major plants are often mentioned in the series
Klah - a coffee/chocolate substitute, made from tree bark.
Numbweed - a plant which, when brewed, produces a powerful painkiller that works upon touch.
Fellis - a plant whose juice is greatly narcotic.
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