On Gilded Wings
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Halyonix, Heather
Date Posted: 23rd September 2025
Characters: By'ler, Oriene
Description: By'ler sees Oriene again for the first time since she didn't Impress
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 10, day 15 of Turn 12
Notes:
~*~
Oriene slipped away from the rest of the Dolphin Hall crew to make her rounds saying hello to her Weyr friends when she spotted By’ler across the Dining Hall, chatting it up with someone. “By’ler!” she said sunnily as she approached. It still stung that he was a weyrling and she wasn’t but she hoped he remembered her fondly enough. He should, right?
“Oriene,” By’ler said with pleasant surprise. He wrapped the dolphineer up in a hug. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell you goodbye before you ran away to the Dolphin Hall!”
She shifted awkwardly in his embrace. “I…um…I’m sorry about that,” she said. “It just really hurt not to Impress _again_, especially since you and Ryvankal -- oops, R’vkal -- did. I just…needed to get away.”
There was sympathy in the new bronzerider’s eyes. “Yeah, I can imagine, well… sort of. I’ve been left Standing before, but I didn’t have any back-up options. Are you done Standing, for good?”
Oriene looked away. “I’m…not sure,” she answered. “I’ve still got some Turns, if I want, but I think…” She trailed off, some of her sunny disposition fading as clouds gathered in her expression. “It’s not easy, trying to figure out what you want to do in life when one of those things is dependent on something else. I thought maybe spending a few months working on my knots at the Hall would give me a boost in confidence.”
“Could me and Reviath visit you at the Hall sometime?” By’ler asked. He would take any excuse to fly with Reviath somewhere, but the chance of seeing Oriene was also a nice thought.
“I’d love that,” Oriene replied with a broken but genuine smile. “But that’s still months away! You’ll have forgotten me by then I’m sure.” Her tone had lifted into a teasing one by the end of her sentence.
By’ler made a face. “Forget _you_? I don’t think so.” He had not yet forgotten their night under the stars. He glanced over his shoulder at the dance floor as the harpers struck up another tune. “You want to dance?”
She immediately brightened. “Yes!”
Taking her hand, By’ler swept Oriene out onto the floor into the midst of the lively jig that was currently being played. The young bronzerider wasn’t in danger of winning any awards for dancing, but he did know the steps and mostly kept up and on rhythm. The times when he made a misstep merely made him toss his head back and laugh.
“It would seem my jig is rusty,” he said to Oriene.
She laughed. “It’s fine. You’ve only stopped on my foot once, which is a big improvement from that one time I danced with Alitel. He was all elbows and no grace. He bounced around so much that I think he almost _broke_ one of my toes.” She was exaggerating and giggled. “It is nice to dance though. They don’t do as much dancing at the Hall. I bet the dolphins would, if they could.”
“You found any new star constellations?” he asked as the music changed to something slower. He swept her into another dance, not yet ready to part.
“None nearly as interesting as the ones you know,” Oriene answered with a blush and a wink. “Tib showed me one that looked like a fish. But everything looks like a fish when you’re a dolphin.”
“I’d never thought about that,” By’ler said, “the perspective a dolphin might have on the stars.. I’d like to meet Tib sometime, if you think that would be okay. I’ve never talked to a dolphin before.”
“Tib’s great. He’d love to meet you. He’s Pershal’s partner, else I’m pretty sure he’d ask to be mine but that’s okay. They’re good together. You should drop by once training is done and I’ll introduce you to the pod!”
“How does it work? Getting a dolphin partner?” By’ler asked, wondering if it was similar to Impression.
“They just pick one. Interviews and stuff. Dolphins don’t really care about interviews but they’re quick to let you know if they particularly like someone. We humans are the ones who focus more on the details of what it takes to be a good pair,” Oriene said.
“Sounds like an honor, then, for one of the dolphins to want to partner with you. They’re not mindless eating machines latching onto idiot Candidates for unknown reasons,” By’ler said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“Don’t you call Reviath that!” Oriene scolded him lightly with a push on his shoulder for emphasis. “Or yourself! You’ll be Weyrleader one day, I bet. Watch.”
A Weyrleader someday? Even though he had clearly impressed a bronze, By’ler had never even let the thought enter his mind. Of course, he knew bronzes became Weyrleaders, but only the rare few, and supposedly, only the best. **Although, that certainly seems questionable with some of the current Weyrleaders of Pern.**
“Maybe, if Reviath feels up to it. Right now, he’s most concerned with a good eyeridge scratch. Would you like to go see him? He’s grown a lot.”
She brightened. “Absolutely!”
Reviath was waiting patiently outside when the pair arrived. His hide was glossy from earlier oiling, his color that of copper left too long in the forge, maybe even described as a burnt orange in hue.
By’ler hadn’t been underselling Reviath’s growth. The bronze dragonet, not yet full-grown, already fit the bill of ‘huge’.
“Reviath, this is Oriene.” The dragon sniffed at the girl curiously, his eyelids unshuttering to reveal his whirling, iridescently blue eyes.
“Oh, aren’t you _adorable_,” Oriene cooed as she stretched out her hands for Reviath to inspect. “Look at his color! Oh, I bet he gleams in the sunlight.”
“He does,” By’ler confirmed proudly.
The bronze lapped up Oriene’s praise like a feline to its milk.
“Would you like to go for a little flight around the Weyr?”
Oriene’s lit up in surprise. “He…he’s big enough for that already?” she asked. She tried to do some math on where By’ler would be in his training but she couldn’t remember it all exactly. She had been learning so much stuff at Dolphin Hall that some of her Weyr information had been dropped to make mental room.
“That’s right.” Again, that sense of pride in the young bronzerider’s voice. “We serve Elevator Duty quite often. It’s actually pretty fun ferrying people around the Weyr.”
Her expression turned flirtatious. “Well, let’s go. Let’s see how you two fly.”
By’ler was all business as he helped Oriene to Reviath’s neckridge and then adjusted the straps for them both. “Here we go,” he told her while giving the burnt bronze dragon a thump.
Reviath leaped into the air smoothly. He could sense how much his rider wanted to impress _this_ passenger. He unfurled his wings as they caught an upward current that sent them coasting over the Weyr toward the sea.
It just didn’t get old, as many times as Oriene rode a dragon. There was a certain amount of wistfulness that came since it wasn’t _her_ dragon but at least the view was lovely and Reviath flew with a growing certainty. “I bet the sunsets are beautiful aloft!” she shouted back at By’ler.
“I’ll show you one sometime,” he promised, speaking directly into her ear so she could hear him over the roar of the wind. The sun was glinting over the pristine waters of the cove like a gold-infused gemstone as they flew toward the horizon.
Last updated on the October 12th 2025