Mnementh is Ramoth’s, Prideth told her rider as she entered the clearing which served as the gold queen’s Weyr in Southern. The dragon had rubbed the dirt off the bedrock just beneath the surface. The southern sun baked the slab so that it gave off comfortable heat right through the coolest night. All around, the great fellis trees drooped, the pink clustered blossoms scenting the air.

“Mnementh could be yours, silly one,” she told her beast, scrubbing the itchy spot with the long-handled brush.

No. I do not contend with Ramoth.

“You would quick enough if you were in mating heat,” Kylara replied, wishing she had the nerve to attempt such a coup. “It’s not as if there was anything immoral about mating with your father or clutching your mother…”

Kylara thought of her own mother, a woman too early used and cast aside by Lord Telgar, for younger, more vital bedmates. Why, if she hadn’t been found on Search, she might have had to marry that dolt whatever-his-name-had-been. She’d never have been a Weyrwoman and had Prideth to love her. She scrubbed fiercely at the spot until Prideth, sighing in an excess of relief, blew three clusters of blooms off their twigs.

You are my mother, Prideth said, turning great opalescent eyes on her rider, her tone suffused with love, admiration, affection, awe and joy.

Despite her annoying reflections, Kylara smiled tenderly at her dragon. She couldn’t stay angry with the beast, not when Prideth gazed at her that way. Not when Prideth loved her, Kylara, to the exclusion of all other considerations. Gratefully the Weyrwoman rubbed the sensitive ridge of Prideth’s right eye socket until the protecting lids closed one by one in contentment. The girl leaned against the wedge-shaped head, at peace momentarily with herself, with the world, the balm of Prideth’s love assuaging her discontent.

Then she heard T’bor’s voice in the distance, ordering the weyrlings about, and she pushed away from Prideth. Why did it have to be T’bor? He was so ineffectual. He never came near making her feel the way Meron did, except of course when Orth was flying Prideth and then, then it was bearable. But Meron, without a dragon, was almost enough. Meron was just ruthless and ambitious enough so that together they could probably control all Pern…

“Good day, Kylara.”

Kylara ignored the greeting. T’bor’s forcedly cheerful tone told her that he was determined not to quarrel with her over whatever it was he had on his mind this time. She wondered what attraction he had ever held for her, though he was tall and not ill-favored; few dragonriders were. The thin lines of Thread scars more often gave them a rakish rather than repulsive appearance. T’bor was not scarred but a frown of apprehension and a nervous darting of his eyes marred the effect of his good looks.

“Good day, Prideth,” he added.