bakerstreet | The Dragonriders of Pern AU Meme

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The Dragonriders of Pern AU Meme

THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN AU MEME

WARNING: Contains situations of dubious consent, violence, and triggers. Click with caution.

Pern is a planet with an unusual problem. Every 250 years or so, orbits in the system bring the planet into a fifty-year shower of a substance they call Thread. Thread consumes every organic substance it comes into contact with, dissolving plastics, plants and people alike. It is stopped only by metal and stone. In order to combat this menace, the early colonists on Pern created dragons.

Now, thousands of years later, dragons are an ordinary institution. They carry passengers and transport messages, since they are able to go Between, a teleporting ability that produces several seconds of cold sensory deprivation every time it is done. They live in weyrs, places reserved solely for dragons, riders and support staff, usually in caves, often in volcanic areas in order to create warm grounds for egg-laying and hatching.

The dragons themselves bond with, or Impress, humans immediately upon hatching, creating a deep, psychic and very intimate connection. Dragons and humans are a pair, and they tend to bond based on personality, gender and sexual orientation. This comes into play during mating flights, when female dragons go into heat and fly away, requiring a male to catch her and mate mid-air. Often, sex between the riders of the mated dragons is not optional, no matter who the riders are or what they feel about one another. This creates a general atmosphere of sexual openness in the weyr.

That's a dragonrider's life. Skipping out to fight the latest shower of Thread, taking care of their dragon, hopping Between, and dealing with the occasional unwanted desires from a mating flight.

For more info, feel free to check out Wikipedia!

HOW IT WORKS:
1) Post with your character and canon. Feel free to take this opportunity to make a note about which sort of dragon your character would have, and any roleplaying preferences.
2) Tag around, and dragon this shit up.
3) Stick to canon, if you like; disregard it, if you like.
4) Have some goddamn fun with some goddamn dragons.

TYPE OF DRAGON
CANON:
Gold - the largest of the dragons and most rare, queens and egg-layers. Those who Impress a dragon like this generally end up in a weyr's leadership. These dragons canonically always have women as their riders.
Bronze - second largest, male; the gold's mating pool tends to draw from these. These dragons canonically always have men as their riders.
Brown - slightly smaller than bronze, male, steady and strong with a lot of endurance. These dragons canonically always have men as their riders.
Blue - the smallest male, and a somewhat awkward compromise between strength and small size/agility. These dragons canonically nearly always have men as their riders.
Green - quick, agile and flighty, without much endurance, making up about 50% of all canon dragon population. Female. Greens almost never lay any eggs, and lack much of a maternal instinct. These dragons may take riders of either gender.

NON-CANON/SLIGHTLY MODIFIED CANON:
(In case you'd like a few more options to play with.)
White - A mutation, but a surprisingly common one. White dragons have little to no sex drive, and are very small, but unusually intelligent and sometimes have strange and unique abilities.
Black/Dark Blue - Another rare mutation. These dragons can be of either gender, but are incapable of chewing firestone and producing flame. They tend to take dragonriders who are deceptive, sneaky, clever. They are often used as messengers or as night-riding spies.
Red - Female and medium-size, this dragon is a fighting dragon that does clutch, if not as numerously or as productively as the golds. They tend towards passion and strength, deep emotions that make them fervent fighters.
Yellow - Male, on the small side, jumpy and often somewhat thick-headed, yellows take longer to mature and are more difficult to train to work in groups, but once you do, the result is worth it. They are impulsive and brave and vicious.
Purple - Another dragon type that can be male or female. Small-bodied and huge-winged, this type is somewhat rare but ideal for long patrols. Their eyesight is famous and keen, so they're good spotters as well.
Other - If you have a particular idea, feel free to make up your own!

HIJINKS
1 - Threadfall. Time to get out there and burn this stuff before it manages to hit the ground. Hopefully you won't find yourself or your dragon in the path of this stuff. Otherwise, you might be out of commission for a while, and the scars never heal.
2 - Gather Day. It's a festival today! Get out there and spend some money, hear some music, and have some lovely food.
3 - Hatching. The candidates are ready, and those eggs look hard enough to break. Hatching could happen at any time. Are you ready for Impression?
4 - Feeding/Bathing. Dragons need a lot of taking care of. Whether it's feeding a hatchling an enormous basket of meat, taking a full-grown dragon out to hunt, or having a bath in the lake outside the weyr, keeping your dragon happy is a full-time job.
5 - Mating Flights. It's time. Your dragon is feeding on the blood of their kill, and they're about to take off. Who's going to catch them this time?
6 - Other. Wild card, if there's any other situation you'd like to explore!

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Lee's eyes narrowed but he didn't turn. Just kept his arms crossed and watched Rengeth take down another wherry.

"Talking about your Hold only upsets you. I was hoping to avoid doing that." Obviously his attempt had failed. "Does it even matter? It is all in your past, is it not?"

"By talking to the Head of my Hold behind my back," he said with incredulity. "Asking about personal details you could've simply asked me. Maybe I wouldn't have told you, but I'd expect you were able to respect my decisions enough to keep from prying."

"But what if I wanted to know?" The frustration had finally bubbled up and overflowed, aching through Lee's voice. He reached up and scrubbed at his face with his hands. He loved his weyrmate, but that didn't mean he couldn't find him utterly impossible at times.

"I know you would not have told me anything had I asked. I am merely trying to understand you better, because sometimes it seems that no matter how much we try and talk about things..." Some things just did not click between them, and that was the most frustrating thing of all.

"Then you would have waited until I was comfortable with telling you," he said simply, arms folding over his chest. "I'm not surprised by Lord Hiashi's willingness to interfere despite my objections, but I trusted you to leave them well enough alone. I know enough about their system of values that I'm content with being an empty existence in their eyes."

And how long would Lee have waited? He sighed, pressing his hand against his eyes until he saw stars bursting against his eyelids. With Neji, it was like he was always waiting. Lee wasn't patient and he understood that flaw in himself. But still, he always felt stretched to the limit over his weyrmate's stubbornness.

"I think you are too quick in your judgements against the Lord Holder," Lee said calmly before returning to the subject at hand. "Is it so wrong for me to know more about you and your Hold, Neji? If that is truly such a horrible thing, then I will sleep with Rengeth on his couch until you are willing to talk with me about these things."

Neji's eyes flashed and he longed to reach over and yank Lee down by a strap of his riding gear. He settled for furling and unfurling his fingers.

"Don't play games with me, Lee. I can promise to consider it, but I'll sooner leave this Weyr than let anyone manipulate me."

Lee's head turned sharply and his eyes latched onto Neji, taking in his rigid stance and barely concealed anger threatening to turn violent. For a moment, Lee could only stare. Then the full weight of everything crashed down on him and made his own stubbornness seem so utterly foolish. What was he trying to prove, pushing his weyrmate into a corner like this when he probably already felt scoured raw from finding the hidden letters? All of this, it was all Lee's fault.

The Brownrider swallowed, suddenly full of nerves as a frightening though wormed into his mind. What if they were ill-suited to remain as weyrmates? Even if Shizune said they were following a typical route that most relationships did, he still felt unsure. After all, if he had such little faith in his weyrmate... and surely after this Neji would have very little in him.

"I... I am sorry, Neji," Lee stuttered. "I really did not mean to hurt you or distress you! But I wound up doing both and now I am only making it worse... Is there anything I can do to fix this? I... do not know how."

Neji breathed, steadily working to calm himself. He wanted to be angry, to lay into Lee with every vestige of bitterness his past memories brought to light over again. But he had Jyuuketh breathing beside him, eyes red, claws tearing into the earth. His anger wasn't worth the risk to any dragon.

Closing his eyes, he focused on the fact that Lee seemed to come to his senses, realizing his mistakes. Too late, he thought before he could stop it, then shook his head against it.

"You can start by explaining yourself in the weyr," he said, turning to mount up on Jyuuketh and intent on flying back to give them both a brief reprieve before the conversation. "Take this time to think before you speak."

Lee swallowed back the dryness that threatened to suffocate him. Neji was so angry and Jyuuketh was in a similar state. He suddenly was aware of Rengeth's presence behind him, having bounded over just moments ago, his brown wings unfurling partly as if he wished to shield Lee from any possible attack from the other rider or dragon. Despite Rengeth's affection for the Purple, he was Lee's dragon first and foremost.

'It will be fine,' Lee spoke inwardly to his dragon, attempting to soothe. Rengeth settled and about the same time Neji seemed to have come to a conclusion. Lee nodded contritely, then moved to mount up on Rengeth.

What is the matter? Why are you two arguing? Rengeth seemed genuinely concerned as they took to the air. Lee rubbed a hand against his dragon's neck, his own worry redoubling from the addition of his dragon's emotions.

'It is difficult to explain, but I have crossed a line and now I must see if I can fix it. I hope I can...' Unfortunately, Lee didn't have the confidence to even play it off as a little thing to his dragon this time. For the very first time as weyrmates, even more so than their fall-out that happened early in their first year, Lee was honestly worried that he had pushed Neji beyond the point of no return.

He had to be honest and up-front, Lee knew. He gathered all his courage in the short flight back to their weyr. By the Rengeth had alighted upon the landing, Lee was as ready as he would ever be to face Neji with this. He jumped from Rengeth's shoulder to the stone floor and moved into the living space, dropping his riding jacket onto a chair before turning to Neji. His heart felt heavy. This was not how things were supposed to go.

Jyuuketh backwinged smartly on their landing to let Neji dismount, draconian head swiveling to Rengeth and Lee, yellow eyed but no longer violent. She threw herself back into the air, and Neji watched her go before he met Lee's set gaze, looking like a man facing death. Instead of tearing into him however, Neji kept a reign on his temper and forced his voice to resemble something a little more neutral.

"You said Lord Holder Hiashi initiated contact."

Lee heard rather than watched Jyuuketh take off again. He sensed Rengeth watching after her, though his dragon was clearly concerned with Lee right now, enough that he would stay despite his obvious curiosity surrounding the Purple. Lee was distraught enough by his own problems to let the matter go by without notice.

"He did," Lee said evenly, hoping his tone was just as neutral as Neji's and less defeated as he felt inside. "He wanted to contact the weyr because he was interested, I would even say he was concerned, about his daughter, Hinata." Lee knew Neji might not believe him, given his mate's bitterness towards the man and the Hold he lorded over. Lee didn't let that distract him from the tale, continuing on at an even pace.

"However, he was hesitant to contact Hinata or you directly, so he contacted me. I believe it was because I am perhaps the only other dragonrider in the weyr that he knows by name and is not the Weyrleaders themselves..." And those two were definitely not an option for contact. Lee bit his bottom lip. "I originally planned on just giving him a very short reply to let him know that Hinata was in good health and likely to Impress should the next clutch yield a Gold egg, but I... I remember how things fell apart during our small exchange at the weyr together and I could not fight my curiosity."

Lee looked down, feeling the full weight of his betrayal snaking through him. Although he felt like he should not have to apologize, telling the story now felt like admitting to a heinous crime. "I only thought I would ask why the Hyuuga Hold held such a bad taste for the weyr. I did not realize it would go so far..."

Neji frowned, doubting Hiashi's sincerity, but didn't interject. It was true enough that he would've burned any letter addressed to him from the hold, but for Lee to keep the contact from him and carry on behind his back..

It was Neji's turn to glance away, fists curling as he looked back toward the landing Jyuuketh had taken off from. The words turned hard on his tongue. "I should've been born here, Lee. Hyuuga's only bond with the Weyr is the tithe, and that more offering and warning than necessity. Dragons don't fly over Hyuuga Hold."

Lee's own tone softened, as well as the light in his eyes, shining gently for his love. "I know. You should have."

There wasn't anything to do to change the past, however. "Timing it" was a forbidden way of changing things, and Lee didn't dare explain that possibility to Neji. It could inevitably destroy a lot of what had built up already, and as hurt as his mate was about the issue, he would not have put it past him to try it.

"But nothing will change if no one tries to mend the break between the Weyr and the Hold." Not that Lee thought he had that kind of power. He certainly wasn't that strong on his own. Rubbing his arm, he glanced back up at his weyrmate. "You are here now, just like--" he swallowed back 'your father would have wanted' "--you dreamed of, and you are the rider of a healthy, beautiful dragon. Is it not time that you tried to address your Hold and search for ways to bring them to understand?"

If Neji didn't try, then no amount of help Lee had tried to provide would take. In fact, Lee though they could do much together, along with the help of Hinata. If her younger sister turned out to be open-minded like the two of them, then the future of the Hold would surely not be as bleak as Neji seemed to believe it was.

Neji heard the unspoken words in the simple truth of his father's death, unable to even watch his son break free- one of many things robbed of Hyuuga Hizashi. Breathing deep in an attempt to sooth the deep ache in his chest that surfaced whenever he thought long on his father, he shook his head.

"Hyuuga Hold won't change until that old crone dies," he said callously. "Too many have turned to her way of thinking during the years she saw to its affairs. When Hanabi inherits, I'll be willing to re-establish communication. I'm worth nothing in the eyes of the rest of the Hold."

"That may be so..." Though Lee disagreed. From what he had gleaned, Hiashi needed only support from a few key people to take charge of his own Hold. He needed to know his daughter had not rejected him even if she had come to Konoha Weyr. And he needed to know the son of his bother was also on his side.

Though Lee could have been reading the situation wrong, but he believed it to be true.

"Neji?" Lee moved a little closer, wanting to bridge the gap that had formed between them but afraid to do more than just that. His mate still seemed highly agitated. As passionate as he knew Neji to be, something seemed off. "Are you alright?"

Neji rubbed his forehead.

"I'm fine, Lee," he snapped uncharitably when the contrary was evident. "I just found out that-"

The Purplerider stopped, frowning as Jyuuketh's own emotions roiled through him, aggravated, thirsty, body thrumming with the desire to shoot into the sky and soar- almost like..

Neji's breath caught in his throat, a multitude of things clicking together at once.

"She's rising.."

Lee flinched at the sudden harshness in Neji's tone. He stepped back, fully prepared to walk away if Neji was going to launch into attack mode, but he didn't.

Lee blinked. Then suddenly he gasped and stepped closer, his hands moving to Neji's shoulders to try and keep him focused. He was suddenly aware of Rengeth's rise in interest and his intent gaze on Jyuuketh before was making more sense by the second.

"It is so early..." Much, much earlier than her previous matings had been. Lee wondered at her sudden spike in sexual interest, but he fought that thought down and kept in the present. He swallowed, feeling his own desire mounting as Rengeth rose to join the other interested dragons on the feeding ground. "You know what to do, Neji. Do not let her gorge herself."

Neji floundered a moment, blindsided by the sudden shift in tension from his short-tempered emotions to her carnal desires. The matter unresolved between them, a discussion set aside for a later time in the wake of his dragon's abrupt mating flight.

Turning his focus inward, he was only half-aware of Lee's hands on him, the rest on his blood-thirsty dragon to assert his will over hers, much as it bothered him. She wasn't a clutching dragon, but she still couldn't afford to gorge herself.

He watched the dragons circle her through her eyes, uncertain whether or not he should feel some measure of honor that browns and bronzes made up most of her suitors. Blues had yet to demonstrate any capacity to keep up with her- small-bodied, yet graced with her impressive wingspan. She was born for long flights, and once again, she'd prove the superiority of her color to those assembled..

The takeoff was sudden; an arrow of purple shot into the sky, the snapping of massive wings shadowing the ground for a moment, then the stirring whirlwinds against the ground below as she rowed for height.

Lee wanted to stay by Neji's side and help him through this, the sudden change between them and the rush of mating lust that was surely overriding his will. But he couldn't. Even as weyrmates, there were rules to dragon mating that he couldn't breach. Reluctantly, Lee dropped his hands to his sides and took a few steps back.

He hated the idea of another man possibly taking Neji in their bed, but considering the circumstances...

I will catch her! Rengeth's determination was nearly a tangible presence in the weyr. Lee focused on that, letting himself lose his mind to the sea of desire welling up within him. Yes, he would catch his mate, become one with him, with her, and no one, no one else, was going to supplant him. Not this time.

Lee felt a growl rising in his throat (or was it Rengeths?) as the weyr and the bowl were flooded with possible suitors. Neji and Jyuuketh, they were his! Lee's. Rengeth's.

Rengeth was the second off the ground, having caught on to the typical flow of his mate. He took to the sky, flying high and seemingly leisurely even as he kept up with the dazzling Purple. Other Browns and Bronzes tailed them, but it looked like this time no others would quite make their speed. Not as they were moving now, almost winging as one through the air a good dozen dragonlengths beyond the rest.

Jyuuketh spiralled through the air, wings curled into her body and fanning out in turns to drop, change direction, or claw for height. It was a thrilling chase even as they others dropped further behind, unaccustomed to keeping up with such complex acrobatics, falling for her tricks that even fewer had hope of accounting for. Bronzes pushed on with strength alone, but sheer stamina would only catch her in a prolonged mating chase and Rengeth was too close, too used to her flight patterns.

Turning under and retracing her path in a manuever that rarely failed to bring about a wave of nausea in her rider, Jyuuketh wove beneath Rengeth and dared him to plunge down.

Neji's skin prickled with the awareness of his dragon's chosen mate, knowing Lee was a length in front of him even in his preoccupation.

Her choice was clear before too long, and Lee felt pride and lust mix together in a heady cocktail from the knowledge that his dragon was the one she had chosen. Rengeth's ability impressed her. He may not have been the strongest or the smartest, but he was fast and certainly the most determined.

Her seductive and graceful movements were the envy of any female, drawing the attention of so many suitors. But only one would have her.

When Rengeth dove it almost seemed as though she moved along with him, their bodies catching one another seemingly effortlessly despite the high speeds at which they flew. Together they wheeled, necks twining, working to stabilize their movements...

Then Lee was suddenly aware of the frenzied pace at which he was attempting to rip off their clothes, wanting nothing more than to be one with his mate once again. They needed one another with an insatiable intensity. Preparation would not take long, Lee thought blearily as he pushed his mate toward their bed. For a moment he thought he saw blinding sunlight and blue skies, but his awareness was easily reestablished. He was getting better at this, he decided as he sucked fingers into his mouth, not even taking the time to reach for the lubricating salve.

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The Dragonriders of Pern AU Meme

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