The Dragonriders of Pern AU Meme

[cerebel]

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!

Comments

Chrome Dokuro | KHR! | OTA

[cherished_avatar]

[God knows the colour, but her dragon is totally Mukuro.]

I couldn't resist because MUKU!DRAGON; RNG says 4

[serpente]

(ooc: Tweaked his name to make it more 'canon' with the naming system in Dragonriders of Pern I really need to read those books.)

[ Mukuroth isn't amongst the biggest dragons in the weyr, but he likes to think himself big enough for his own purposes. Being as large as a Gold would be a hassle, and being as small as a Green - or a White, ugh - is just plain inconvenient. No, he's a good size: all roughly 27m of him, sleek in dark blue scales that blend into the night sky, fore and rear legs tipped with equally dark, almost black claws. He's a dragon with a very high opinion of himself, quite unlike the female who has Impressed upon him (and he's told himself repeatedly that he ought to have chosen someone more like him when he was a hatchling, despite knowing that such a relationship would never have worked; clashing personalities and all that).

When it's not night time, there's very little for him to do. His talents aren't usually required until night falls, if at all. There's no need for sneaks and spies during the day. But, even with no work to do, dragons need taking care of, no? Mukuroth kneads the ground beneath him until it is more comfortable - flicking a stone out of the way in the process - and curls up loosely, resting his head upon his forepaws. Where on earth is Chrome, he thinks impatiently. He's hungry. ]

Hee hee hee

[cherished_avatar]

[She was apologising even as she ran towards his wyer, one of the Bronze riders had pinned her down to complain, again, about how the Dark Blues just weren't useful enough during threadfall. Chrome knew that she sometimes drove her dragon crazy, but she was working very had at becoming a stronger person so that she could make him as proud of her as she was of him.]

[After all, she had the most beautiful, smartest, fastest dragon in the entire Weyr and he deserved nothing less than everything she could offer him.]

I should have said that we're the best when threadfall is at night! Or told them to go to our wing leader. He just wouldn't let me get a word in sideways!

[She was, at least, already in her riding leathers when she finally got to him, and petted his head apologetically.]

The good news is that the Weyrleader says we can go to the other continent? So you can hunt the bigger herdbeasts instead of having to make due with little ones.

[serpente]

[ His eyes glimmered with anticipation at the news, sharp, white teeth bared for a moment in parody of a human smile. For all his apparent fierceness, he nosed her gently as his way of comforting her. There was a great fondness for Chrome in him, whatever he might say in complaint. ]

Bronzes are little better than breeding cows, [ Mukuroth said contemptuously. He held great disdain for the Gold and Bronze dragons and their riders, though he followed the hierarchy as stringently as any other dragon (only to grumble about it later to her in private). ] If I wanted, I could have my teeth in his neck before he ever knew I was there.

[ A swathe of dirt was swept aside by his tail as it straightened behind him, dark wings unfurling in preparation to fly. He waited for Chrome to climb on to his back, impatience forgotten in the wake of the news she had brought. ]

[cherished_avatar]

[Honestly, Chrome preferred having to work for her dragon's affection and praise. She knew lots of riders who bragged about how their dragon loved everything about them, and in her mind...that just meant they didn't have any real reason to improve themselves! Mukuroth wouldn't accept anything less than everything she was, and that gave her a reason to keep growing.]

I know you could! Day-time riders just don't understand us.

[She rubbed at his eye ridges again, then stuck a bundle containing a bedroll, Mukuroth's brushes and polishing things, her fire-thrower (just in case), and a few day's worth of food behind the saddle before climbing up into it.]

Also, do you remember that set of cliffs over there that you wanted to check out? I got the Weryleader to agree that we're the best pair to see if it'll do for a new Weyr, so we don't have to come back for a seven-day.

[Which meant seven days of not dealing with idiot riders who under-estimated her beautiful dragon, and not dealing with having to wait until it was their turn to get food, and getting to spend time sunning and poking at interesting things.]

[serpente]

[ He hummed agreement, recalling those cliffs. Facing the sun, they had many hidden ledges and crevices that a dragon could rest upon and warm themselves, while their riders stayed to the shade. He had wanted to find one of those ledges and bask on it - preferably all day - without having to deal with the daily nuisances of pestering riders. That it was being considered a location for a new Weyr...irked him, to say the least, and Chrome could probably sense that. He would have liked a little place to call their own. ]

A full seven-day? They complain about our uselessness and then send us on a mission which we are best suited for, [ he huffs as he stands fluidly. Spreading his wings to their full span, he backs up slightly and then launches into a short run that ends in a leap. His wings catch the air at the apex of the jump and drive him further upwards, beating strongly until he's high enough that he can settle for gliding through the air. ]

...Shall we fly all the way or go Between?

[cherished_avatar]

That's up to you! We'll have more time there if we go Between, but I know you like to stretch your wings as well. So I suppose it depends on how hungry you are.

[Chrome could understand wanting a place to themselves...sometimes she had the urge to see if her dragon wanted to defect and simply make due between the two of them out away from Weyr and riders entirely. Her not-so private hope was that they'd be able to find (or make!) some flaw in the cliffs that would prevent it from being used as a Weyr.]

Well, it's mostly the Bronzes...I think that they're just worried you might decide to fly the next mating flight. Their kind always get so fussy if anyone but Bronzes do. I think, if we can't figure out a way to keep them from the cliffs, we should try to convince them that it's really only good for dark blues like you. There are only, what? Six like you in all the Weyrs? The chances that two of us have time off at the same time is so vanishingly small...

[serpente]

[ They would fly, he decided, flapping his wings once more almost lazily. Hungry as he was, it wasn't often they had a chance to really enjoy soaring through the sky.

At Chrome's next words his teeth flashed again and there was a rumble in his chest that indicated he was laughing. Maybe he should join the next mating flight! If he caught even one of the lesser Golds, that would certainly rattle a few scales. And make them rethink his abilities. ]

We can say the rock is too soft to be safely excavated. A few caves would not harm the integrity of the stone, and those caves could house us, the Dark Blue dragons. Only we can safely navigate them in the dark.

[cherished_avatar]

That's what we'll say, then! A nice, cozy little place for us to spend time.

[For all that she only had one eye, she'd adapted to working in the darkness with her partner rapidly. She was used to finding her way without even the stars to guide her, and had made herself a thin stick that folded up that she could use to check for danger in caves too small for Mukuroth to fit in with her if for some reason she didn't have a shaded lantern to use.

She certainly didn't mind the trade-off of more primitive, dark caverns over having lots of people around!]

So now we just need to decide...do you want one near the cliff for easy flight, or near the ground so you can sprawl in the hot sand?

[It was a small, tender joke; all dragons preferred the higher caves. Still, she liked to tease him about being different.]

[serpente]

[ His growl complements the mock indignant response he gives her. What dragon doesn't love heights? ]

Near the cliff, of course!

[ Green and brown fields give way to deep ocean. The warm updrafts from the land are replaced by cooler sea breezes that aren't entirely unpleasant, especially given how the sun shines on his back as he flies. Dipping gently and careful not to let himself lose the momentum of his flight, he descends until he is almost skimming the waves and dips the tips of his claws into the water. He can swim, but ocean water is far too cold for his liking. ]

But first, I am going to lay in the sand. There is hardly any sand in the Weyr and it keeps the sun's heat much better than earth.

Gaius | Fire Emblem: Awakening

[pieceofcake]

Blue dragon all the way.

Lon'qu | Fire Emblem: Awakening | OTA

[thefirstslice]

Bronze!

Darius || The Hunger Games || OTA

[peacekeeperavox]

[Darius flies a blue! And I'm cool with any of the prompts, OR, or extra IC angst, with the aftermath of him losing his dragon. Which of course, strikes him mute.

I'm okay with M/M, F/M, whatever.]

in ur thead, mixing up ur canons

[dragon_trainer]

Keeping a dragon happy is a full-time job - feeding, bathing, scratching itches, oiling the hide, tending injuries, and always training, drilling, practicing for the next threadfall. As soon as one battle is fought, it's time to start preparing for the next dangerous encounter.

But sometimes, as H'cup quickly learned, you have to make time for play. Intelligent creatures learn through play, and dragons are no exception. H'cup is out in a grassy field with his dark blue dragon Toothleth, and they're playing fetch with a thin wooden disc the size of a pie pan. It may be undignified for a dragon to play fetch like a common canine, but they are playing a three-dimensional version of the game in which Toothleth must stay aloft and catch the disc in midair, blinking in and out of Between to put himself in just the correct place to make the catch with claws or teeth.

But these flying disc toys have a mind of their own sometimes, and a throw goes awry. It sharply turns and skims near the ground, too low for Toothleth to risk grabbing without crashing. In fact it's heading right for the other bluerider.

"Oh no, uhh...Incoming!"

Hahah.

[peacekeeperavox]

At the shout, Dar's lunged to the side, not to avoid the disc, but to avoid the dragon flapping madly to try to keep from hitting the ground. He wound up sprawled on the grass, staring up the the dark blue with a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Good stop."

Just ignore the dragon's pupils. XD

[dragon_trainer]

Toothleth swerved and missed the other young man by a couple finger-lengths, but still managed to catch the disc in his teeth. Hitting the ground running, he executes a quick turn and looms over the stumbled human before dropping the disc and peering down hopefully, eyes swirling green and purple. The disc has many teeth and claw marks, and may have once been painted with orange and blue concentric circles, though it's pretty hard to tell, now.

Look, H'cup, I found another dragon rider human! Will he play with us? He looks nice, though not as nice as you, of course. You're the best, but this one is alright too. Do you think he can throw? Do you think he has treats in his pockets? I wonder if he can fish. He looks like he should be pretty good at it. I mean, not as good as you, but...

H'cup, shaking his head at his dragon's mental chatter, simply sends his dragon a few waves of adoration as he hurries over to the fallen rider.

"Sorry, sorry, these things have a mind of their own...are you okay?"

Toothleth taps the ground impatiently with his forepaws. Can his game continue, now?

[peacekeeperavox]

"Just fine. Lath's a good arm longer and twice as clumsy as your friend here."

Dar's picked up the sturdy disc, turning it over in his hands, and looked up at the blue. With a chuckle, he gave it a hard toss, as far as he could towards clear space.

[dragon_trainer]

Toothleth leapt into the sky after the disc, disappeared with a poof, and appeared in the path of the flying object. He neatly caught it in his foreclaws, but quickly let it go, apparently on purpose. And then poof and poof, he disappeared and appeared not a second later right below the disc, and let it fall into his snapping jaws.

Showoff, H'cup looked bemused.

I am simply showing off my skills, as you say, but why not? I have been practicing. I'm not afraid to goBetween.

Toothleth made a couple of sweeping circles around Dar's before he dropped the disc on the ground at his feet, nicely covered in dragon spit.

"We've...we've been working on our Between skills quite a bit...Toothleth has been taking cues from the fire-lizards who seem to blink in and out of existence ten times a minute..." H'cup had walked over to Dar's as Toothleth was fetching - Dar's may have noticed that the young bluerider walks with a serious limp - in place of his left foot, he had a wood and metal peg with something vaguely foot-shaped on the end.

Rolled a 2!

[ka_mai]

Ah, but there was nothing like a Gather day! Especially when the skies were clear and the air was warm and good spirits were abounding. Not surprising, after a nasty spat of weather.

Brownrider Cth'bert, more than eager to be out from the dim stone walls of the Weyr, moved through the gather grounds with a spring in his step and a pouch full of marks for spending. It had been a pleasant trip, one both he and Bananth were more than happy to make, but it was good to stretch his legs. The brown was off sunning himself somewhere already, and likely pestering the greens.

Well, a Gather was a time and place for catching up with old friends, for dragon and man alike! He only hoped he wasn't wanting for company for very long...

Going for the cheery option.

[peacekeeperavox]

Lath was out enjoying the sun, too, flying above with a half dozen other blues. And down on the Gather grounds, Dar's was seeking out just the right way to begin a nice afternoon. He, himself, wasn't actively looking for company, but when he saw the brown rider, he picked up his pace to catch up.

"Cth'bert!"

[ka_mai]

Speaking of good company...

"Hail and hello, my friend!" Cth'bert turned, grinning, and lifted a hand in greeting to the approaching blue rider. It looked as though he wouldn't be wandering about on his own for long at all.

"And how is this fine Gather day finding you?"

[peacekeeperavox]

He caught up, a little out of breath. "It's good! My first in a while, I've been on courier duty. And you?"

Nat Bruenner :: Highlander/Immortal OC :: f/m

[jurisimmortalis]

[green dragon]

Jo Raven ~ OC ~ Gold Dragon

[loquacious_raven]

Jo took the stone steps two at a time, the keening in the halls growing louder as she ran. Karanth was dying, and with her the eldest generation would pass. The elder weyrwoman had been their leader since the apex of the Red Star's pass...

...and no one at Telgar Weyr had hoped to hear that sound. "Make way!" A voice called from behind her; ah, the other Gold riders. She had to rescind her earlier thought. Some had wished for this.

She stepped to the side when she entered the weyrwoman's chambers, letting the older riders swarm past her while she observed the room. T'bur, the Weyrleader, was haggard and strained. He wouldn't last long past his love...

...and the failing woman was going to hold his hand to the last. She nodded to herself; leadership was going to be up in the air after this evening. Let them squabble, someone had to warn the lower caverns about the chaos to come. And more the older wingleaders would have to be prepared to act. Thread came in two days.

Naminé | Kingdom Hearts

[knowbyheart]

[white dragon]