Gaylen

[B'kay]

It was kind of M'kel to give out these scrolls. Goodness knows, when I have lucid thoughts, I really should write them down ... for retrieving them might not be so easy later on.

I can't help wondering, a hundred turns from now, if some unsuspecting explorer might run across these hides and be fascinated ... or perhaps horrified ... by the meandering minds of the historical heros of Pern. Will there be Thread then? Will there be dragons? There were no dragons in this time, till the renegades of Artemis came forward ... the renegades, that is, and the hopelessly lost. Pern without dragons. The thought makes me weep.

I'm having a good day. The problem with good days, of course, is that they make very clear just how bad the bad days are. The good days come more frequently now, and last longer, thanks to C'lyn and his medicines. Dear, dear C'lyn, I worry about him so. I adore him with all my soul, but alas, I feel that I've burdened him so heavily sometimes. On days like this, when my thoughts flow freely without running into dams and backlogs like they so often do, I wonder if I should suggest to him that he throw Greylith's next flight open. There are several young, attractive blue riders ... of both genders ... and brown riders as well, who would make far more -- desirable weyrmates than I.

But I think I know what his answer will be, for his affection is genuine, I've no doubt of that. In fact, I have to confess that I even love him. After R'gel's death so long ... so, so very long ... ago, I did not think I'd ever be able to say that again.

So different, those two. R'gel so taciturn, C'lyn so gentle. R'gel the warrior, C'lyn the healer. And yet, in many ways, alike.

And on good days, I wonder where my daughter is ... or was ... or how she died, for she certainly passed into the great Between hundreds of turns ago. And I remember my son, a bronzerider no less, who was taken, like his father, by the Plague. My shy boy, hiding behind his nurse mother's skirts, who impressed one of the boldest dragons ever hatched from an egg. And my grands ... my R'val and Derra, riders both.

Where did they go after their gram vanished from the Weyr? What did they do? Did they go on to great things, or, like so many at Artemis, did they wither in spirit with nothing to fight for?

Good days?

Perhaps I prefer the bad.

[B'kay]

I've just found this bound hide-book and it has a single entry in it, in my own hand. It appears to have been a long scroll, which I've since cut and bound together with strips of hide into pages with a thick polished hide cover. It's quite a nice binding job ... and yet I have no memory of doing this. Alabanth sends me images, my own hands working on this task, so I know I must have created the little book. It was tucked down into the bottom of my personal possessions trunk, amongst bits of broken harness, some torn clothing, old riding gloves that are cracked from too many trips Between, and several old candle stumps.

The first entry talks about good days. Apparently I didn't have too many more of those between writing that, and the day Thread fell.

Since that day, I wake each morning lucid, and fearing that I'll lose my faculties again. It hasn't happened, though. Fate has been kind ... as has the weather, for the cold and oddly out of place squalls of snow and chilling rain have prevented Thread from falling on or around the Weyr again. I do hope this kindness continues until our wounded riders are back on their dragons again.

I say that fate has been kind in light of my mental clarity, but that is not always true. With the clear-mindedness comes awareness, comes memory, comes grief for all that was lost, and for all of those fates I do not know.

Forgetting can be so much kinder.

And there is C'lyn, my dear heart, who cares so deeply for me, and so tenderly. I look at myself in the reflecting glass, and with new cognizance, realize how much I aged in those long turns in the past ... or was it the future? I do not know, and Memory does not say, for she cringes when recalling her many forays Between times trying to find dragons. I will not force her to remember. The age difference between us had been enough before I made that strange, unknowing jump. But now.... I have no idea how many turns have widened the distance between us, or even if it's not age, but illness, that has caused my hair to silver almost as much as Memory's belly, or etched the deep lines around my eyes and mouth.

And there are other memories. Strong ones, glimpses that began as dreams intruding upon dreams, and now have begun to separate out with more clarity. I still do not know what is real, and what is a dream, or if even either are real at all. But the dreams come nightly.

They began with dream-memories, of a gold rider lost in time, her dragon disemboweled by thread, and she sacrificed everything to save her rider, landing in a snowy terrain. The snow was not enough to heal the gold's burned and oozing belly, and she died, leaving her rider wandering, alone and grief-mad, in the snow....

But another recurring vision has intruded upon that dream, that golden snow-death dream which I know I have dreamt a hundred times before. Now I dream of a young woman, riding for healers, riding for medicines, riding to try and save the remnants of a disease-stricken village in the far-north reaches of the world. Her companions dropped, one by one. Finally, the shaggy mountain runner mare she rode, a golden palomino with white face and eyes of blue, burst her heart with loyalty and effort and she died ... leaving her rider wandering, alone and grief-mad, in the snow....

And then there was Alabanth.

Alabanth, who is real, and solid, and who has been my partner and my heart for as long as I can remember.

For perhaps those memories truly are naught but dreams.

I must stop writing now, for my candle is burning to a puddle of wax on my desk, and I cannot see the hide. Surely, it's just the dim light, and these are not tears in my eyes.