Post by Milanthia on Mar 27, 2012 4:55:30 GMT -5
Home x Rules x Colours x History
“If you’d like to listen to the poem I’ll read,
Spun out of ancient stories, set down by honest men
With bold words
And faithful pens.”
No one knows where the Freeze began, whether it was with A.V.I.A.S or the technology it brought, what we do know is that Pern fell quickly beneath the ice and the Great Freeze began.
About a hundred turns into the Freeze, a single white hatchling born among the other colors. Unlike the old known Ruth, this dragon - Tamarienth - was not only decidedly female but as a healthy and capable as her green clutch siblings. After a sevenday, the soft white hide began to change, growing hard scales of an icy blue rather than the delicate white of before. Afterwards, she quickly began outstripping her green sisters in size, easily rivaling a gold in her build and size. When she flew, she flew as high as any gold might, caught by bronze Kalerith. In a clutch of thirty there were two more white dragons, and a single that glistened like silver when his scales came in.
--
Numbers dwindled on Pern, as life fought to survive. In history, the Freeze is recorded as lasting three Passes, over fifteen hundred turns. It is certain that to those who lived through it, it felt like longer.
For the first time in my life, I can see the sun. Not a weak glimmer in the distant clouds, but the sun! I want to stare until my eyes have been branded with the vision. Heat! Warmth! T'lore be praised, I think we may be seeing the end of this... To all those that come after us, remember the words of those that came before you. We survived, so can you.
T'lore... Thank you. In the Weyr that was once Fort and is now Wyntryl, may you be remembered as the hero you were --- Records of Weyrwoman Myana of Ice Yeatinyth, 1st Turn of the 1st Pass, After the Freeze, month unknown.
Summer returned, bringing a warm balm of heat for half of the turn before returning to the deadly winters for the rest of it. With the welcome return of summer, came something else -- Thread. Thread fell like a deadly silver rain from the sky, and dragons rose to fight it once more with only dusty records to guide them. A full third of Pern's population was decimated by the threat, even as dragonriders were once again renowned as hero's for their abilities.
Summers brought Thread, and Winters brought frozen danger.
In the 235th turn of the 2nd Pass [A.t.F], life for Wyntryl settled into a brutal and deadly normalcy that breeds the tough and strong. It is a land of survivors in which all know what it is to feel the pinch of hunger in the stomach. Three turns ago (Turn 232, Pass 2 [A.t.F]), the last Weyrwoman of Pern disappeared into the snows, never to be found. The dragons never keened and Ice Vurlith's body was never found - nor was her riders, though a Clutch was left on the Sands, a Clutch that contained a snow who would eventually harden her scales and saved the weyr from the possibility of losing their protection by cystallising into an Ice.
--
Two turns passed and Garlaeth too disappeared as his mate had done before him. Faces turned to the new, untried Weyrwoman, waiting for Feyth to rise. Another turn passed, and the people began to grow concerned. Would their final hope take to the skies, or would the search for leadership fall upon someone else?
Can new life peek through the thick winter snows, or is it a final stand against extinction?
★ || After the Freeze || ☆ {non-canon, semi-lit+}
