Chapter 35 – Beginning and ending of an era

Hello again everyone. This is it, the final chapter. It's been a lot of fun writing this, but this is kind of where I wanted this story to go and I wanted to move on to new ideas. Thank you to each and every one of you who has visited, read, and reviewed this story.

Now, to all my regular readers, please excuse me while I address an idiot reviewer.

BEGIN RANT...

Matt, if you are reading this, then YOU are the one who's an imbecile! If you bothered to read further than chapter two, you would have seen that I brought Toothless back to life. Not only are you an imbecile, you are also a coward in that you have disabled messaging. Typical, take a cheap shot at an author in the reviews and then run away. COWARD!

RANT OVER.

Ahhh, I feel so much better now.

All characters (not including my own) are property of Dreamworks Animation and Anne McCaffrey.

Nine turns later...

H'cup sat in his seat looking out over the sands and the thirty eight eggs that were rocking gently. His eyes turned to where Chrysolth was watching the proceedings from her perch with Vailira standing next to her head rubbing her eye ridges and talking to her. The queen's eyes were yellow and the colors weren't whirling, which meant that she was relaxed but concerned and alert. "Her attitude right now is very different from when she laid her first clutch, thank Faranth" H'cup thought with some amusement.

Thinking about Chrysolth's changed attitude, H'cup's thoughts flashed back to her first clutch and how different those dragons really were compared to other dragons of Pern. When the young dragons started growing and shedding their first protective scales, he was there to offer advice to the weyrling trainees. He showed up to help with the classes so often that M'dar officially appointed him Assistant Weyrlingmaster. Both he and M'dar found that these dragons were a good bit stronger and quite a bit smarter than "normal" dragons, so they were able to accelerate the learning curve a bit more. They were flying earlier than other classes and learned how to go between without any mishaps.

The thing that everyone wanted to know was if the new dragons could use blastrock when flying against Thread. All the new dragons could breathe flame with firestone, but only the bronze and brown dragons could use the blastrock. When a blue dragon tried chewing some blastrock, he almost died from the gasses overextending his second stomach. It took the efforts of several dragonhealers to save his life and after that incident, no blue or green dragon ever tried it again. Even though the bronze and brown dragons had the ability to safely use blastrock, the resulting explosions were about half the power and not as impressive as Tannluth's.

The other Weyrs had heard rumors about dragons that could use blastrock against Thread, first about Tannluth and now about these new hybrids. Representatives from all of Pern's major Weyrs except Southern started visiting Telgar during Threadfall to observe the dragons using their unique abilities first hand. Needless to say, they were VERY impressed. So impressed in fact, they pulled out all the stops in trying to get the bronze and brown riders to transfer to their Weyrs as soon as possible. Fortunately, the riders knew ahead of time that they might be getting transferred sometime in their future. Vailira, H'cup, and even Tannluth told each of them shortly after they Impressed that it would be in Pern's best interests to try and improve the next generation of dragons. They even included the brown riders because there was a good chance that their dragons were strong enough to catch a queen during her flight. No one knew exactly how many generations the improvements would last, but they wanted to spread it out as much as they could and for as long as possible. The riders resisted at first, saying that they didn't want to leave their families behind, but when it was pointed out to them that they had a DRAGON and could be anywhere on Pern in eight heartbeats, almost all of them acquiesced. That set a pattern for Chrysolth's future clutches, most of the bronze and brown dragons would be transferred to other Weyrs on Pern with a few remaining in Telgar. These dragons would be the foundation of a new type of Thread-fighting wing, the Pathfinders. The enhanced dragons would fly ahead of the formations, burning away huge chunks of Thread with their exploding fireballs and blaze a path for the other dragons to fly in and take care of the remnants. Having more dragons that could blast away huge holes in the curtains of falling Thread greatly reduced the danger involved in fighting it and with more and more riders asking for protective armor, injuries were reduced and fatalities became rare.

H'cup's thoughts then turned toward the Armorcraft and decided that leaving Jencis in charge was a very good decision. A few turns after he took over running the Armorcrafthall, he was experimenting with natural materials and woven mats of fibers set in resin. It took quite a few tries and failures, but he finally found a formula that worked. When soaked into the fiber mats and left to harden, it would solidify into something strong, lightweight, and slightly flexible. The beauty of the new material was that it was also resistant to Thread and could be formed into any shape at all. When they finished testing it and every test successfully repelled Thread, orders for the new armor came in from all over Pern. The invention of the new resin-based armor was worthy enough to confirm Jencis as an Armormaster. H'cup still held the same rank, but turned over the running of the Armorcrafthall completely over to Jencis. His other duties at the Weyr kept him much too busy.

Not everything that happened during that time was all good. Tragedy struck the Weyr five turns ago when an epidemic of flu ran rampant through the Weyr. Many people were sick for a while and there were even a few deaths, but the one that hurt and grieved the Weyr the most was when Bedella succumbed to the illness. The dragons were miserable for days when Solth went between forever, but the person who was affected more than anyone else by her death was R'mart. Even though he didn't see eye-to-eye with her on a number of occasions and had more than a number of fights, he actually loved her. He was inconsolable and after nearly a month of mourning, announced that he was stepping down as Weyrleader.

It is a well-established tradition on Pern that when a dragon catches the senior queen on a mating flight, that dragon's rider becomes Weyrleader. However, if something happens to the queen and no senior is available, the queen that rises first will be senior and the rider of the dragon that catches her will be Weyrleader. Currently, there were two queens close to rising, Rennsith and Chrysolth. Rennsith's rider Falina and her weyrmate B'zon had been in Telgar longer than H'cup and although B'zon would have been an excellent Weyrleader, the majority of the dragons and riders of the Weyr wanted H'cup in that position. The desires of the Weyr caused Chrysolth to go into her mating cycle first, so two sevendays after R'mart announced he was stepping down, she roared her challenge to the gathered bronzes and single black and took off. The other bronzes of the Weyr took off after her, but theirs was only a token effort. In all the turns after her first flight, no other dragon other than Tannluth had ever come close to catching her. After a long and satisfying chase, Tannluth locked talons with his mate which made H'cup Telgar Weyr's newest...

"Weyrleader? Um, excuse me, Weyrleader H'cup? Is everything all right?"

"Hm?" H'cup blinked to clear his mind of the memories then focused on what was happening around him. Mastersmith Fandarel was sitting on his left with a concerned look on his face "Yes, everything is all right, Mastersmith. I was just reminiscing."

The big smith laughed. "Well, nothing wrong with that, but you may want to pay attention because the eggs are really moving around now and some may be cracking soon."

H'cup felt a small hand gripping his tightly and looked down at the red-haired boy at his right side. When Vailira became pregnant with Hogun, they both decided to go against convention and raise him themselves. That was six turns ago and they have never regretted it. However, they felt that hatchings were fairly intense events and waited until he was a bit older before attending one. Since this was his first, he was a little bit scared.

"Dad, is it usually like this? I've heard the dragons humming before, but it was never this loud!"

"That's because you've never been inside the hatching cavern before, Hogun. The dragons are humming because they're welcoming the young ones into the world. It may seem a little scary when the dragons come out of their shells because they are clumsy and could hurt someone by accident, but the candidates know what to do. Now be a good boy and watch quietly. If you're scared, just squeeze my hand. I'm not going anywhere." He then smiled at his nervous son who brightened considerably and smiled back.

H'cup turned his attention to the sands and to the eggs that were really moving around. Heimdall, who previously was sitting still on his shoulder and humming like the rest of the dragons, was now running from one shoulder to another chirping excitedly. H'cup rubbed his head to calm the hyperactive lizard when suddenly there were multiple snapping sounds as several eggs cracked at once. Only one dragon emerged from the cracked eggs, a brown one, who walked unsteadily toward the candidates and bumped into the legs of a blond haired round-faced boy.

"He said his name is Seechinth!"

A section of the audience behind H'cup whooped and hollered for the newly Impressed pair as they were led off the sands. Everyone's attention returned to the other cracked eggs as their occupants regained their strength and struggled free of their remnants. They then looked around at the candidates and found their lifemates. Other eggs were cracking, but everyone's attention turned to an egg perched on a raised area of the sands when it cracked and opened as well. The baby queen shook free of the remaining shell fragments and looked around. She walked by several girls not seeing what she was looking for and then suddenly lunged forward with a cry of joy. A young woman with blond hair ran forward and fell on her knees in front of the dragon. Holding her head, she looked into her eyes and was bonded forever with the new queen.

"Yes, Aelinth. I am yours and you are mine, forever. Now let's take care of that empty place you call a stomach!"

As the entire crowd went to its feet cheering for the new queenrider, H'cup flicked his eyes up to the ledge where Tannluth was sitting. The black dragon hummed contentedly and winked a blue eye at his rider. His record so far as a search dragon has been impeccable. Every candidate he has searched had Impressed exclusively either bronze or brown, but this was the first time he searched for a queen candidate. He picked only one, Cesilee, the girl he rescued from the gorge all those turns ago. H'cup didn't think she stood a chance at the queen, but it turned out that Tannluth was right in saying that she was the one. The crowed oohed and ahhed at the queen, whose hide was colored a light gold but had scales that looked like bits of the polished metal. H'cup knew that the scales wouldn't retain their luster when they hardened, but it sure made Aelinth look really beautiful right now.

When the last dragon hatched and the newly Impressed pair were led off the sands, the other candidates were led back to their barracks and the audience left to attend the hatching feast. H'cup started to lift Hogun to his hip, but Hogun insisted that he "was a big boy now" and wanted to walk. Taking his small hand in his own, he led him down the stands to meet Vailira at the opening of the cavern. Greeting his weyrmate with a quick kiss on the lips, he looked into her eyes for a moment and smiled when she smiled back at him. He then put his arm around her shoulders and walked with her and their son to the hatching feast with the sound of bugling dragons reverberating off the walls of the Weyr.

He could definitely get used to this.

o0o0o0o

This is Pern.

It's a lovely little planet located about 200 light years from Earth. It orbits a star named Rubkat and is smack dab in the middle of the Saggitarius sector.

We've got farming, fishing, and lots of wide open spaces.

The only problem is the pests.

You see, there's an organism that falls from the sky called Thread that eats up anything organic.

It almost wiped out the first colonists, but did they leave? Nope, they had stubbornness issues.

They were pretty resourceful. Using what technology they brought with them, they modified a local lifeform into something that could meet the threat in the sky.

Now, instead of crawling into a hole or just leaving, we have something to fight back. We now have...

DRAGONS!

Well, there it is, my inspiration for this story. The beginning of HTTYD starts out with Hiccup saying "This is Berk". My premise for this story has him starting out saying the same thing, but has him ending it with "This is Pern". Everything else kind of evolved from there.

This is the last chapter of this story and right now I have no plans for a sequel or an offshoot. I won't say that it will never happen because I might be inspired by something in the future.

I would like to thank each and every one of you that has read and reviewed this story. I also want to thank those who have given me inspiration and guidance as this story progressed. Again, thank you everyone.

As always, thanks for reading and please leave a review. Reviews make Tannluth, Heimdall, H'cup, Chrysolth, Vailira, (and me) very happy!