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"So," says the weyrbrat, "you say you want to know the ins and the outs of the Weyr?" She holds out her palm and draws attention to its emptiness. "No one has a better grasp on the people, places, and politics than I do. At least, no one who'd be willing to tell you for such a very reasonable price."

Weyr, Oh, Weyr Has My Little Drag-Gone?

Fort Weyr has always been the vanilla Weyr of Pern... at least, if you go by what they'd like you to think. Whereas Ista has its beautiful beaches and secluded islands, the Fort region consists of forest, mountains, rivers, snow and seasons, arranged in such a way that the Hold, Weyr, and two Crafthalls lie within an easy day's travel, with other Holds and Halls further on as a change of pace. The Weyr includes standard facilities like a geothermal lake and hatching sands, a breathtaking view from the star stones, and spacious living quarters for weyrfolk with or without dragons.

The cornerstones of the Weyr

Most of the action takes place in the living cavern. From any angle you can catch sight of people who spend so much time there that they're practically furniture.

There's Harry, the barkeep. Harry's been serving inebriants to all takers for more than twenty turns, and since he stands duty with more devotion than a watchwher, if anything happens in the living cavern, he usually knows all about it. When he's not there, his partner in crime is Ellie, the red-haired drudge. Ellie must be edging on forty by now, and she has at least two sons by one of the more prolific riders, N'danti. She's a woman of good sense, and everyone always thought she'd amount to more.

Ellie's seniority has earned her the right to delegate chores to younger drudges, like Challah. Brown-haired and skinny, it's rumored her mother named her after a type of light Telgarian bread. Challah isn't the brightest glow in the basket, but she's always biddable.

See those riders sitting in the corner with their packs of cards? The grizzled one who could use a haircut is G'blem, lifemate to brown Wagerth. He's played most every night, some nights up, some nights down, for almost twenty-five turns. He mostly grunts if you talk to him unless, perhaps, you'd care to play a hand or two . . . ?

Upstairs in the kitchens, the queen of mean, Grizelda, rules with an iron fist. If Harry's demesne covers the potables, Grizelda's extends over the edibles. Like Harry, she's been here since time immemorial, churning out meatrolls and cookies by the gross and occasionally straying into exotic cookery best admired from a distance. Even when rations have been slim, she's managed to keep the Weyr's stomachs from rumbling too much, so maybe she deserves her self-cultivated diva status. Check out a portion of her many menus if you dare!

A whole pack of jokers

'Jokers wild,' should be a warning sign at the Weyr's entrance.

Youthful Weyrleader R'sin, has been up his neck in trouble since the day his bronze Sparneth caught Vinnie's gold Vyath and made him one of the youngest Weyrleaders on record. A fluke flight, it seemed, setting up two such young and inexperienced leaders at Pern's oldest Weyr in the aftermath of so many scandals. Yet both are weyrbred, and have grown up at Fort, Vinnie the daughter of riders and R'sin the fosterson of one. They've stayed largely out of any limelight lately, and have been so reticent with outsiders that some doubt the Weyr's leadership are actually still in charge at all.

People worry, in fact, that Weyrsecond Tarin, blue Ryuth's rider, may have run mad as she is wont to do, and stuffed the Weyrleaders into a storage room somewhere. Since Tarin's ascendancy the flow of paperwork around her office has virtually ceased, so there's no reliable way to ascertain anything much except by rumor.

Testimony from the Wingleaders seems to indicate that the Weyrleaders are still around, and even make decisions, but haven't made many public appearances of late. K'rill, rider of bronze Llynth, ably leads Sirocco wing with his second, green Naevyth's rider, Shendti. Stormriders wing looks to X'in, bronze Dobryth's rider, for leadership, and is seconded by J'bal, rider of brown Kwaith. Green Miyoth's rider, Zephre, leads the Sentinel wing with second-in-command S'naid, rider of brown Modrath.

Fort's goldriders are a varied bunch, from retired and quiet Seniors Arien with Katrineth and Fiona with Gyrfath through to the juniors, a rather rowdier crew. Gretchen rides Jespeth as junior weyrwoman at the discretion of the Leadership, having been grounded for Turns as a Weyr-imposed sentence for crimes committed against the Holds. Sharing the sense of the chaotic in the gold weyrs is Wullan with Isabeth, who Impressed at Ista Weyr and recently transferred for reasons unknown outside the leadership of those Weyrs. Youngest of the golds is Edysanth with her lifemate Dessa, another Fortian-born rider, daughter of the current headwoman, Felassa.

Felassa heads up the Lower Caverns staff with admirable skill, while a vacancy looms in the Steward's office. Having put the well-meaning but senile Basil into retirement at last, the Weyr has gone through a series of Acting Stewards, none of them terrible effective and none of them lasting too long. The search for a permanent replacement goes on.

Getting historical

All that snow and hundreds of eccentric personalities--it could be the Cecil B. DeMille remake of the Shining. The only thing that keeps them from each other's throats is gossip, politics, intrigue, and romance, and that Weyr-wide preoccupation means current events and a sense of history are key to social survival.

Kyrie of Ista managed to lose her green Moiraith in a game of dragon poker to T'lon, the Fortian rider of green Gaelth. Witnesses claim Kyrie threw the game. Despite the supposedly inviolable relationship between lifemates, T'lon claimed to actually feel the insidious and sinister influence of Moiraith until he managed to compel Kyrie by unknown means to reclaim her dragon. Note that this is the same Moiraith that N'ran's Rilaeth had the ill luck (for N'ran) to chase when N'ran's buckles got, er, stuck. When he was in them.
Bronze Varianth's rider, Ch'rron, managed to acquire a full-sized wooden sculpture of Lady Constanze of Tillek, a woman famous for her outstanding, abundant, overflowing, palpable . . . er, beauties. It was the pride of his weyr for turns, but in a fit of pique, K'lora, lifemate to green Dorianth, dropped the sculpture in the lake where it remains to this day. K'lora's lack of appreciation for great . . . er, art . . . thwarted Ch'rron's plans to install spigots in the statue, so Lady Constanze could be as refreshing to the palate as she was to the eye.
A freak accident took much beloved J'dano when his bronze Zhanth collided with another dragon and vanished between. Determined not to suffer like his half-brother, who had impressed and then lost his lifemate while on the sands, he asked gold Katrineth's Arien to take him between within minutes of Zhanth's departure. He's survived by three children still at Fort: daughter Vindanea, son Janthro, and daughter Ardano.
Recently, the rumor of human flesh being dished up at Ista Hold motivated Tarin, lifemate to blue Ryuth, to begin supplying Ista with foodstuffs at black market prices. Some time after the rumors were debunked--the supposed victim turned up alive and well--Tarin and her partner in crime, Gretchen, were exposed. Gr'ym, as her wingleader, disciplined her by confining her to her weyr, and it's speculated that he must have assumed some of the responsibility for her actions. At the time, Gr'ym's inefficiencies meant Sirocco lacked discipline, and Tarin took full advantage...
Reine's retired due to health problems linked to her mother's illness -- and, one might guess, by riding herd on the lot of these Fortians, not to mention seeing Ch'rron, who's busy enough for anyone.
Gr'ym's left Sirocco wing in the mild hands of Am'yas (all right, wing talk got slipped in there somewhere) in favor of a move to Southern and a really, really good tan. His weyrmate, Adia, recently gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, and if his prolific parents are any indication, that first son won't be the last. Seconding Gr'ym were Kh'rys and green Ysaleth. Kh'rys led Starstrike for turns and turns before advancing to the Weyrsecond position, so wingseconding is perhaps a step back for her. Still, outsiders speculate that her experience kept Gr'ym in the saddle when his apathy let the wingriders run wild... but even that didn't last forever.
Th'ea and B'nal are two others to look out for: Th'ea lives a hectic life between wingriding and raising Janthro, her son by the late J'dano. Despite all, she manages to carry it off with such panache. B'nal is a living oxymoron, a gentleman bronzerider, and while he's currently single, he's still on the rebound from a broken heart. Speculative females would do well to proceed with caution.
Minnea, Minnea, Minnea: she and green Maijath recently appeared with a crunch over Fort's territory -- well, the crunch was acquired when they fell -- with some good ol' fashioned Threadscore burns. Unusual for this time of Interval, no? /She/ thinks, at least, she's from back in time; the dragonhealers are still clucking over Maijath, and it's an even bet as to whether she'll ever fly, much less ::between::. We'll see...
Online, read *Gossip and *FW for more details. :)

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This page was last modified 08-Oct-2001 9:17 PM (thanks go to Galatea for most of the original text) by zephre: zeph@paintedhippo.com