The little green did hurt herself, slipping off the first step and banging her muzzle so sharply on the stone that she let out a cry of pain, echoed by a fierce bugle from Ramoth who began to move across the sands.

“Now, listen here, you silly thing, the boys you want are out there on the Ground. Turn yourself around and go back to them,” Mirrim was saying as she made her way down the steps to the little green. Her fire lizards, calling out in wildly ecstatic buglings, halted her. She stared for a long moment at the antics of her friends, and then, her expression incredulous, she looked down at the green hatchling determinedly attacking the obstacle of steps. “I can’t!” Mirrim cried, so panic-stricken that she slipped on the steps herself and slid down three before her flailing hands found support. “I can’t!” Mirrim glanced about her for confirmation. “I’m not supposed to Impress. I’m not a candidate. She can’t want me!” Awe washed over the consternation on her face and in her voice.

“If it’s you she wants, Mirrim, get down there before she hurts herself!” said F’lar, who had by now reached the scene, Lessa beside him.

“But I’m not—”

“It would seem that you are, Mirrim,” said Lessa, her face reflecting amusement and resignation. “The dragon’s never wrong! Come! Be quick about it, girl. She’s scraping her chin raw to get to you!”

With one final startled look at her Weyrleaders, Mirrim half-slid the remaining steps, cushioning the little green’s chin from yet another harsh contact with the stone of the step.

“Oh, you silly darling! Whatever made you choose me?” Mirrim said in a loving voice as she gathered the green into her arms and began to soothe the hatchling’s distressed cries. “She says her name is Path!” The glory on Mirrim’s face caused Piemur to look away in embarrassment and envy.

For one brief moment, Piemur had entertained the bizarre notion that maybe the little green dragon had been looking for him. A deep sigh fluttered through his lips, and a hand was laid gently on his shoulder. Schooling his expression, he turned to see Menolly watching him, a deep pity and understanding in her eyes.

“I promised you Turns ago that you’d have a fire lizard, Piemur. I haven’t forgotten. I will keep that promise!”

As one they turned their heads back to watch Mirrim fussing over her Path, her fire lizards hopping on the sands, chattering away as if welcoming the little green in their own fashion.

“Come on, you two,” said Sebell, as Mirrim began to encourage Path to walk out of the Hatching Ground. “We’d better see Master Robinton. This is going to cause problems.” The last he said in a low voice.

“Why?” asked Piemur, making sure they weren’t overheard. But everyone was filing out of the tiers now, eager to congratulate or condole. “She’s weyrbred.”

“Greens are fighting dragons,” began Sebell.

“In that case, Mirrim’s well paired, isn’t she?” asked Piemur with droll amusement.

“Piemur!”—

At Menolly’s shocked remonstrance, Piemur turned to Sebell and saw an answering gleam, though the journeyman turned quickly and started down the steps.

“Sebell’s right, though,” Menolly said thoughtfully as they started across the hot sands, quickening their pace as the heat penetrated the soles of their flying boots.

“Why?” asked Piemur again. “Just because she’s a girl?”

“There won’t be as much shock as there might be,” Sebell went on. “Jaxom’s Impression of Ruth set a precedent.”

“It’s not quite the same thing, Sebell,” Menolly replied. “Jaxom is a Lord Holder and has to remain so. And then the weyrmen did think the little white dragon mightn’t live. And now he has, it’s obvious he’s never going to be a full-sized dragon. Not that he’s needed in the Weyrs, but Mirrim is!”

“Exactly! And not in the capacity of green rider.”

“I think she’d make a good fighting rider,” said Piemur, keeping the comment carefully under his breath. When they located Master Robinton, he was already earnestly discussing the matter with Oharan.

“Completely unexpected! Mirrim swears that she hadn’t been in the Hatching Ground at all when the candidates were familiarizing themselves with the Eggs,” Master Robinton told his craftsmen. Then he smiled. “Fortunately, with F’lessan Impressing a bronze, Lessa and F’lar are in great spirits.” Now he shrugged, his grin broadening. “It was simply a case of the dragon finding her own partnership where she wanted it!”

“As Ruth did with Jaxom!”

“Precisely.”

“And that is the Harper message?” asked Sebell, glancing about the Bowl where knots of people surrounded weyrlings and dragonets.

“There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation. So let us drink and be merry. It’s a good day for Pern! And I’m terribly dry,” said the Masterharper as the Weyr Harper solemnly proffered a cup of wine. “Oh thanks, Oharan. Must be the heat of the Hatching Ground or the excitement. I’m parched. Ahhhh.” The Harper’s sigh was of relief and pleasure. “A good Benden vintage…ah, an old one, the wine has a mellowness, a smoothness…” He glanced about him as his audience waited expectantly. Oharan’s hand casually covered the seal of the wineskin. The Harper took another judicious sip. “Yes, indeed. I have it now. The pressing of ten Turns back, and furthermore…” he held up a finger, “…it’s from the north-western slopes of upper Benden.”

Oharan slowly uncovered the seal, and the others saw that the Harper had been absolutely correct. “I don’t know how you do it, Master Robinton,” said Oharan, having hoped to confound his master.

“He’s had a lot of practice,” said Menolly at her driest, and they all laughed as Master Robinton, started to protest.

They had time for a quiet glass before the admiring guests had exhausted all the possible things one could say to a newly impressed pair. Then the Weyrlingmaster took his charges off to the lake where the newly hatched would be fed, bathed and oiled, and the guests began to drift toward the tables, seating themselves for the feasting that would follow.

Master Robinton led his craftsmen in a rousing ballad of praise to dragons and their riders before he joined the Weyrleaders and their visiting Lord Holders. Oharan, Sebell, Menolly and Piemur did the courtesy round to the tables where the parents of new dragonriders were seated, singing requests. Menolly’s fire lizards sang several songs with her before she excused them, explaining that they were far more interested in the new dragons than singing for mere people. Then she got involved with a group from the crafthall at Bitra, and the other three harpers left her explaining how to teach fire lizards to sing as they continued the rounds.

The tradition was that a harper’s song deserved a cup of wine. Chatting as they drank, Sebell and Oharan took turns directing conversation where they wished it: Mirrim’s unexpected Impression.

There was, to be sure, considerable surprise that Mirrim had done so, but most of those queried found it to be no large affair. After all, they said, Mirrim was weyrbred, a fosterling of Brekke’s, had Impressed three of the first fire lizards to be found at Southern, so her unexpected rise to dragonrider was at least consistent. Now Jaxom, who had to remain Lord of Ruatha, was a different case entirely. Piemur noticed that everyone was a good deal interested in the health of the little white dragon and, while they wished him the best, were just as pleased that he’d never make a full-sized beast. Evidently that made it easier for people to accept the fact that Ruth was being raised in a Hold instead of a Weyr.

Holdlessness was a topic to which conversations returned time and again that evening. Many lads, growing up in land crafts, would not find holdings of their own when they were old enough. There simply weren’t any old places left. Could not more of the mountainous regions of the far north be made habitable? Or the remote slopes of High Reaches or Crom? Piemur noted that Nabol, which actually had tenable land uncultivated, was never cited. What about the marshlands of lower Benden? Surely with such a competent Weyr, more holds could be protected. Occasionally Piemur, standing or sitting at the edges of groups, would overhear fascinating snatches and try to make sense out of them. Mostly he discarded them as gossip, but one stuck in his tired mind. Lord Oterel had been the speaker. He didn’t know the other man, though his lighter clothes suggested he came from the southern part of Pern. “Meron gets more than his share; we go without. Girls impress fighting dragons, and our lad stands on the Ground. Ridiculous!”