"I remember you. Odd thing that I refer to you as such, but..."

Amber interrupted herself. It was a confusing train of thought and she was digressing anyways. She stood up from the tree stump she was sitting on.

The large patch of grass surrounded by a forest was not supposed to be there and would most likely dissapear when canon returned to normal. Amber considered it could perform one last service before that.
She started walking around in it.

"I remember you. I remember every Bubble you went to. I remember every Bubble your men went to. Every Bubble your race went to. You made it a point to remember them, and so I remember them."

Geographical distortions caused by Suefluences are a really interesting topic. The patch of grass was REALLY not supposed to be there, and it was of an unnaturally bright green color. The grass Amber stepped on immediately blackened and died.

"You also made it a point to remember your names, and a good thing you did, because they would have been lost. And you with them."

"I remember how you felt. Tension, knowing that each battle could be your last. Determination, knowing that whatever the result you'd see it through. Joy, knowing that Intervention wasn't necessary. A million times across a million Bubbles."

"And then the Mindwalker had the Reality Warper unmake you."

Amber stopped. She looked at the sky. The sun was setting down, casting long shadows from the trees. The forest dwellers would arrive soon, and they were not to be trifled with.

"They are now beyond reach. It's sad that you had to go, but it's worse knowing that you can't even be avenged."

She started pacing again.

"But you aren't really gone, are you? I remember you. 'Names are important. Never lose yours.' That was one of the creeds of your race. Even though you too may be beyond reach, your names are still there. Even if I am the only one that remembers them, it means that you are still there."

Amber stopped pacing again. She had drawn a full circle with the blackened grass.

"The Circle. It should be blue, but nobody ever really gets what they want. 'Earth exists whereever there is someone acting in its service. Where you go, Earth goes.' That's another creed of your race. The planet itself may be gone, but Earth is still here. It goes where I go"

"I remember you. And I will continue to do so, forever."

WARNING: Major spoilers for the Dragonriders of Pern series. If you haven't read All the Weyrs of Pern or The Dolphins of Pern, you should probably click Back right now.

Still here?

Okay then.

Season's Beginning

Project Overkill had been a triumph. Days later, its success was confirmed by the oddly anticlimactic bloom of fire on the surface of the Red Star, but E’rik and Skepnadth had nearly slept through it. The extraordinary plot to alter the path of the Red Star by detonating the great star-engines of the Yokohama, Bahrain, and Buenos Aires at carefully picked sites had required the participation of nearly every bronze and green dragon on Pern. The extreme distance and effort involved had left many of them drained.

It had been the thrill of a lifetime, a historic moment the likes of which would never come again. Despite their torpor, everyone was riding high, especially after the browns, blues, and golds got their share of the glory, pushing the empty husks of the old ships toward their final rest in the heart of Rukbat.

Later again, man and dragon had fully recovered. The deep, antique luster had returned to the bronze’s hide. They and some of their wingmates had taken a late morning jaunt east along the coast from Monaco Bay on what was ostensibly a hunt, but was really just an excuse to put the wind back in their wingsails. The hot season was months away, and although Thread would still linger for the remainder of this Pass, the promise of a future in which only rain would fall from the sky gave the air a fresh, heady vitality.

They were midair, flying low and slow for home, when it happened. Out of nowhere, Skepnadth gave a sharp cry of distress and backed air, keening.

Terror lanced E’rik’s heart. What is it? What’s wrong? He thought wildly that some delayed effect of space exposure must be afflicting his dragon and urged him to land at once, but Skepnadth shook his great head.

The Weyr needs us, he said, sorrow lading his thoughts, and pumped his wings. A keen trembled in his throat even as he flew.

Only then did E’rik realize every dragon with them was keening, crying a death-knell. A lump of dread rose in his throat. But what happened? Who . . . ? Not Amaranth, surely? Monaco’s queen was young, healthy. Could something have happened to T’gellan’s Monarth?

No, said Skepnadth. The Harper has gone.

There was no doubt who he meant—everyone on two legs and four knew of Masterharper Robinton. Further, Skepnadth knew him from E’rik’s memories of his first five years in the Harper Hall, before the Masterharper’s heart attack had forced him into retirement. To E’rik, as to many harpers of his generation, Robinton was an awesome figure, someone he admired and strove to emulate, who despite his great importance had always been as a beloved father to his hall full of sons and daughters. His heir Sebell was a worthy master of the crafthall, but Robinton would always be the Harper.

E’rik couldn’t believe what he was hearing. That’s not possible. Someone’s telling you tales.

He felt more than heard the sad, apologetic rumble in Skepnadth’s chest. Tiroth’s man sees. Ruth’s man sees. They know. The little cousin has gone, too, he added, meaning Robinton’s bronze fire-lizard, Zair. Admiration for draconic devotion on the part of a mere fire-lizard colored his tone.

But . . . Though dragons couldn’t lie, E’rik’s heart still denied what his mind knew. He was rescued. He recovered from the abduction. We just saved Pern! How could he die now?

Skepnadth took a moment to reply. No doubt the air was thick with telepathic messages flying back and forth in a jumble of confusion and grief. They say he was with Aivas. It is as though they simply went to sleep—the Harper, the little cousin, and Aivas. There is a message: ‘And a time to every purpose under heaven.’ I don’t know what that means, he answered before E’rik could ask.

He shook his head. It was too much, too impossible to process. Let’s get home.

The news was confirmed back in Monaco Bay Weyr, many times over, yet it still refused to sink in, though the tears of others loosed his own. E’rik found himself cossetted and fussed over along with the official Weyrharper and anyone else who had ever served in the Harper Hall. He lost track of how many times he said thank you, or that’s kind of you, or I’m sorry, I really didn’t know him well, he left when I was just an apprentice. He took it all in a daze until finally someone was kind enough to settle him down in his weyr with a dose of fellis to stop his mind’s turning and spare his dragon a sleepless night.

He finally wept in earnest the day of the burial at sea, which he and Skepnadth overflew along with what seemed like every dragon and fire-lizard on Pern. The air was so thick with wingbeats that the sound was a physical force, but somehow the voices of Menolly and Sebell cut through, raising up in tribute the songs that were not the least part of the legacy the Masterharper of Pern left behind him. The cruelty of it, that those who had been closest to Robinton must hold their tears in check to do their duty by him, that struck home. He cried for them first, and all the others who felt the Harper’s loss most keenly. Then for himself, that he had taken the man for granted as a child, hadn’t had the privilege of knowing him as an adult, and now never would.

The mystery of Aivas’ final words rankled in his mind. All he could get anyone to tell him about them was that they were a reference to a passage from an ancient’s ancient book of myths about some invisible lord and his laws, which seemed harsh and changed arbitrarily from tale to tale. How was that a fitting epitaph for his Master, who was known for being just and forgiving at all times, even to people who didn’t deserve it?

E’rik finally got so fed up with second- and third-hand nonsense that he reserved a time for himself with one of the all-knowing Aivas consoles to see if he could find a more satisfactory explanation. He didn’t like the Ancients’ computer system—its visual language of alien symbols and the mixed-up letters of the keyboard made him feel slow and clumsy, which he wasn’t, even with one eye blinded by his near-fatal Threadscarring three Turns ago. It was agonizing to hunt through text files all relating to this “Bible” of Old Terra, but finally, he came across an audio file. His eye had glazed over to the point that he nearly missed it and had to scroll back up.

“The Byrds?” he muttered aloud. “‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season).’ Three Turns; that’s many seasons.” It was a bad joke, just to wake himself up. He knew well enough that the Terrans had used a different term for a world’s orbital period.

He felt Skepnadth rouse and listen with him as he played the file. The words as sung were nearly unintelligible, but he knew their meaning by now, and the mellow voices of the singers and their guitars touched him bittersweetly. So did the six new words at the end. “A time for war, and a time for peace—I swear it’s not too late.” Six simple words changed the message from one of passively accepting the inevitability of change to one of embracing hope.

Did you hear all that? he asked Skepnadth.

Yes. I like it. You feel better now, and that’s good.

E’rik chuckled. High praise. And you’re right. You know, everyone has been talking about things ending. The end of Thread, the end of tradition, the end of Aivas . . . the end of Master Robinton. But that’s only one face of the mark.

When one season ends, a new one begins.

You really were listening!

Of course. The bronze sounded almost offended. This is important to you. If I didn’t listen when it was important, what sort of dragon would I be?

You’re the best dragon on Pern, said every rider to his beast, and E’rik meant it now as much as all of them. And you’re right again. It’s a new season—a new Turn—a new era. It’s ours, and now it’s up to us to make it a good one. That’s the message he’d want us to remember.

E’rik shut down the console and left the building. His fingers were already shaping the chords he and Skepnadth hummed.

---

Aivas' Bible reference bugs me in a way I can't fully articulate. No argument that it's an important enough facet of humanity's history that it should be preserved for study, but making an artificial intelligence in an otherwise completely agnostic SF series talk about it like it's our greatest achievement is so jarring. The Pernese deliberately eschewed religious superstition in favor of ennobling real-life, down-to-earth heroism. It's just a weird move on McCaffrey's part.

~Neshomeh

So... I may of got slightly carried away with one of my Halloween prompts (One of your characters meets a monster to be exact) and well... this happened.

There's a little disclaimer in the doc itself so all I'll say is it involves the characters of, and is based on a Skyrim fanfic I am thinking of writing at some point. Enjoy!

Novastorme

The clock told the time, again and again and again. Tick followed tock followed tick. Cass stood in front of it and stared.

"... I thought you'd like it."

Cass stood.

"It's just, your collection... gurl, you love it. Got more clocks on the walls than books, and that's saying a lot. Like, a lot a lot."

Cass stared.

"So when I saw-"

"You did."

Em looked at her partner, eyebrows rising up a little. "Uh, yeah, I said I-"

"You mistake my meaning." The words were flat and spat and dark. "You saw, and then you did. You didn't ask. You didn't check. You didn't discuss. You. Just. Did. Just like always."

Em stepped back, eyes wide, face slowly losing colour and leaving bone white. "Cass, I'm sorry, how, how do I make this-"

Cass turned to look at Em, and the girl took another step back. "You want to make it right? Here's what you do. You go shopping."

Em couldn't think of any words that made sense. Cass just continued, her voice short and sharp as thorns. "Oh, am
I not making myself clear? Let me spell it out for you, then. You go to New Caledonia and you go shopping. You take the money I make selling trinkets as fandom props on World One's Etsy, and you go shopping. You buy yourself some clothes or shoes or makeup. You buy an expensive coffee that's mostly whipped cream and sprinkles and pumpkin spice flavouring syrup. You buy whatever gimcracks and bits of tourist tat that catches your eye and satisfies your magpie instinct-"

Tears rolled down Em's face. "Cassie, please, you're shouting."

"-because that's what gets you through the day, isn't it, Emily Perilled? Having things. Preferably things that are sparkly and gaudy and ostentatiously expensive. You're a hoarder and you justify it with some vague garbage about retail therapy because you think that if you have no things then you're nothing. Well, guess what? You are nothing. And all the knock-off designer clothing in the world won't get rid of the emptiness in whatever shrivelled, battered little shred inside you's passing for a soul. So go. Enjoy yourself on someone else's dime, you leech. Have fun."

The clock ticked and tocked and landed on the floor when it slipped from Cass's flimsy grip. Em didn't see it thud into the thick blue Axminster carpet, kept safe from breakage by the Cushioning Charms where the driver's seat would once have been.

She was already gone.

---

The clock ticked on.

The RC door hissed open. Feet came through, wiped themselves off on the ugly tie-dyed blanket thing pressed into service as a doormat. They were loud, and only got louder.

Cass looked up into Em's frightened face.

"Cassie, have you moved?"

The witch said nothing.

"It, it's been two days. I'm worried about you."

In the smallest voice Em had ever heard, Cass said "Why?"

Em just wrapped Cass up in her arms and didn't let go.

The clock ticked on.

---

"It wasn't a clock, you know."

"Hm?"

The clock ticked on, as it had for some time. It was three in the morning and the both of them were tired. Their eyes were red and sore and their noses chapped from blowing. Crying's ugly when it means something.

"It wasn't a clock," Cass continued. "It was an old fob watch in a carriage clock mounting. The pattern was me, I did all the transfiguring myself. Took me ages to get the petals right. That's why there were all bits chipped off from the side. But the mechanism, the heart of it... the truth of the clock was a watch.

"You get one when you're seventeen. It's a wizard thing. The one in there was, well. See, that's the thing. I don't know whose it was. Found it in a junk shop in Muggle London and fell in love. It didn't work, never would again without a shedload of repairing charms, but that didn't matter. I didn't want it to work. It didn't feel right. It wasn't my watch, you see, I was just... I dunno, looking after it, I suppose. But I was going to be given one of my own, when I was seventeen, and I promised myself I'd fix it then.

"The guy in the shop told me it was old, and I could see it. There was an inscription I found in the case, and I couldn't make it out. It tore the name off, you see, but I could see a date. 1913. He wouldn't have been more than twenty-two when he died. Probably more like twenty. Off to war and home by Christmas and instead he died in a bombed-out ditch or hung up on barbed wire or stabbed in the gut. His watch stopped at eleven.

"And then came my war. My friends lying dead on the roads and stairs and grounds. People I'd grown up around killing and fighting. The, the death of it all. Lights in the sky and worlds on fire and then it all... stopped. Faded, like a bad dream. And I knew then, if I didn't get out, that I'd fade too. And it's the stupidest things you think of when you know you're going to die, because all I could think in my stupid fat head was 'Nobody's going to give me a watch'.

"So I tried to, to Apparate. Nobody taught me that either, I just knew you could do it if you tried. Everyone else was drifting away. I ran out of the grounds and into Hogsmeade as it turned greyer and greyer and I flung every bit of strength I had into this one spell to stay alive and... well, here I am. Left bits of myself behind on the trip too. Loads of hair and a couple of back teeth and my left kneecap and everyone I'd ever loved. But not this... this knackered old watch in a knackered old clock carriage covered in poppies.

"So I painted them, after I got out of the bacta tank. I painted them red at first, to honour the dead, but then I painted them white, to remember why they died. A callous and evil war prosecuted by a madman and his pet murderers. I kept the watch broken, too, even though it wouldn't even be hard to fix. It wasn't mine. It wasn't my right. I was just... looking after it, for now. You know, sometimes, when I looked at the watch face and those cheap, bent hands, I could hear the guns. They tear up the earth, you know. Pull down trees and hills and make a wasteland of everything around them. Wars, I mean. But the guns help with that."

Everything was quiet for a bit.

"They shall not grow old," Em said softly, "as we that are left grow old."

Cass looked up again. "What's that from?"

"It's from a poem. British, actually. I'm kinda surprised you don't know it."

"Hogwarts doesn't teach anything other than magic, and Muggle Studies is a bad joke anyway. Frankly, I'm amazed any of us learned how to bloody read."

"Huh."

The clock ticked on.

"They will not grow old, as we that are left grow old," Em said. "Age shall not wither them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them."

Cass said nothing for a while.

"Yes," she whispered, voice hoarse and crusted with salt. "We will."

The clock ticked on from its place face-up on the floor, hands turning little by little, moving forward.

"Tom," said Thoth. "Where are you going?"

The Astartes had just gotten back to the RC after a hard day of training. Thoth liked to say that he'd never been so inactive as he was at the PPC, but between keeping himself fit and psychically developed, keeping his psychic abilities developed, canon research, and Derik, he'd done a fine job keeping himself busy.

But while he'd seen a lot of strange things in his time at the PPC, and heard many an odd tale, he'd never seen his partner look so sad. Nor had he ever seen him wearing anything more formal than a clean T-shirt, much less something like a black button-up and a tie.

"I'm headed to the funeral, Thoth," Tom said solemnly. There was not an ounce of his usual humor in his voice. "A hero has died. No, a hero of heroes. And I am joining so many others in commemorating him."

Thoth was silent for a moment. If his partner was truly this serious... "I would be honored, then, if I could join you."

Tom looked up in shock. "Really?"

"Of course. It is important to remember the dead, Tom. Especially the heroes."

"...Thank you."

--

And so Tom and Thoth stood, Tom in his shirt and tie and Thoth in his robe, their heads bowed solemnly, only two points in a throng of agents, big and small, young and old, of every canon, continuum, age, race, and creed. Some stood bowed, some suppressed tears, some tried to stay strong. They were dressed in black, white, red, and orange. They wore robes, cloaks, jackets, suits, a thousand different ceremonial outfits, tuxedos, and cosplay outfits.

They stood united, hearing the words that echoed through the silent room.

"We are gathered here today in memory of Stan Lee..."

Emiranlanoamar sat at the weapons bench, looking down at the staser carbine in front of him. Tools were neatly arranged by his left hand, a set of cleaning rags by his right, and various gardening supplies in front of him, behind his work mat.

“Let’s begin, shall we.”

The Time Lord began by checking the carbine’s magazine well, then the residual charge dampener. Wouldn’t be a good start if he were to blow a hole in the table with a chambered energy bolt. Satisfied that the weapon was safe to disassemble, he pushed out a few holding pins and pulled apart the carbine’s exterior casing.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to do this, Yannogarsil. It’s all your fault.” Emiran set aside the casing, turning his attention to the carbine’s internal dimensional compressors. “I’m sorry it took so long, old friend.” He took his laser screwdriver and unscrewed the barrel/condenser assembly, removed it from the carbine’s main body, then disabled the compressors. The assembly grew four times as large without the dimension-suppressing fields. The staser’s barrel was easily unscrewed from the condenser arrays; Emiran put it on a cleaning rag to keep it from rolling away. He opened the condenser box and found what he was looking for: the complex set of lenses used to generate, focus, and collimate the staser bolt.

“I remember. A long time ago, you asked me if weapons kept you safe. I said of course they didn’t: a weapon only brings death. A technically correct answer,” said Emiran, delicately withdrawing the lenses one at the time with a gloved hand. “My favourite kind of correct. But I digress. No, I said a weapon can only kill-- and I remember you disagreed. Hah, you even challenged me back then: after the whole War blows over, we find a way to use weapons to give life. Well...” He looked at the disassembled carbine. “I admit I cheated. I’m using its spare parts. But then again, isn’t that the whole point?” The lenses all removed, he set them aside and grabbed a plasma cutter. “We are at peace now, and we have rebuilt. From death, life. And so there is no need for weapons any more.”

He cut away large, circular cylinders from the carbine’s barrel with the cutter. Emiran then closed one end of the cylinders by bending the metal with a welda-clamp and added steel wires all around the pot slowly taking shape. Over the course of several hours he fashioned loops at the end of the wires and added the carbine’s focusing lenses in them, occasionally using a matter pen to add or remove layers of the lenses. He sighted down the new lens assembly, then used his laser screwdriver to shine light through the lenses. The focused beam was now a diffuse, gentle spot on the bottom of the pot. From the remainders of the carbine, he pulled the power transformer and mounted it on a pole made from the remains of the weapon’s barrel.

“You studied botany, as I remember,” continued Emiran. “Your entire graduation thesis was on the life cycles of plants only found megaflora worlds near high-radiation stars. That was a good talk, by the way. Brilliant thesis defence-- learned a lot. Enough to know that there exist rare flowers that grow on the forest floor who live off the patches of intense light that filter down from the tree crowns.” Emiran lined up the power source down his new series of focusing lenses. “Or should I say, light shooting down from above...?”

Emiran sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking up at the clock mounted over his bench. That late already? He glanced back at his project. “Sorry, Yan. Gonna have to leave you for tonight. Sleep, then work calls. But that’s how it goes.” He yawned and stood up, stretching as he did so. “It takes time to rebuild, you know. But it’s all worth it in the end. Life prevails.” As an afterthought, he reached towards the gardening supplies and tipped a bit of soil into the pot. He delicately smoothed out the surface with a finger, then placed a single bean-sized seed on the soil.

The Time Lord smiled to himself as he slowly walked out of the room, casting one last glance back at his plant incubator before making his way towards the RC's kitchenette for a midnight snack.

((Though, really, what did you expect, posting something like this when I'm around?))


"Hey, guys."

The Aviator sat on the ground in front of her crew's gravestones. The courtyard was full of red and gold leaves, and the wind was beginning to get a bit nippy. She pulled her dog tags over her head, running her thumb over each of the names in turn.

"I'm doing a lot better now than last time," she continued. "Finally got help for my drinking problem. Been going to therapy." The tags clinked between her fingers as she turned them over. "Elanor's going to be two in
just eleven days," she added. "She's growing up into such an awesome kid. You guys would love her. Gavin... you'd have been proud of her. Dee's proud of her, too. Even if he doesn't really say it."

The Aviator swallowed away the lump in her throat and smiled. "I think it's safe to say I'm... happy again. Or getting there. I did promise I wouldn't wallow anymore, didn't I?" She put the chain over her head, tucking the tags back down her shirt. "How long has it been since I came to visit, anyway? Three months? Let me think... Oh! Elanor's got almost all her teeth now. I'm starting to teach her addition and subtraction—I know, I really should have started nearly a month ago. Zeb's been excited to help out, he makes up little counting songs for her...."

These prompts don't really fit Tiger's character and I couldn't think of a way to make either of them work with him. So you get something else!

Please don't ask me for context, because there isn't any.

Katie sat in the second row, hand in hand with Matthew, struggling not to cry.

They’d been a team, the five of them. Katie, Matthew, Lauren, Jimmy and Sarah, the best the Monster-Hunters had got.

Until one particularly nasty monster had killed Sarah.

It was Lauren who was reading the eulogy, voice trembling. Katie had been asked to do it, but refused. It was too painful.

“Sarah was one of the most talented members of the taskforce,” said Lauren, speaking quickly to avoid crying. “She was always analytical and thorough and knew exactly how to tackle each monster. One of my favourite memories of her was when we were training.”

Katie remembered that time too. It brought a lump to her throat just thinking about it.

Lauren, Katie and Jimmy had been trying to work through a complicated puzzle, but none of them could figure it out. Sarah had walked up and spent five minutes staring at the puzzle and working out what they were meant to do. Then she’d talked them all through the solution without making them seem like idiots.

“She brought a lot to the team, but she never asked for anything back. She always tried to help everyone else, however hard she was finding it herself. We all liked and respected her for it, and we were very close to her.”

Lauren hesitated. “She was killed by a Black Snake. It was attacking us, and we knew one of us had to stop it.”

Katie began to breathe shakily, hoping to keep the tears away. Lauren was struggling too.

“She got her knife and she just stepped in front of it and cut its tongue out. Without its tongue the monster couldn’t live, but in its dying throes it…” Lauren couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, and nor could Katie.

“It’s all right,” Matthew whispered.

“Thank you,” said Katie quickly, in a flat voice.

Lauren couldn’t keep going. She stumbled back to her seat, blinded by the tears streaming down her face.

Everyone applauded politely and Mr Crow, who was conducting the service, got to his feet.

“Thank you to Miss Watson for that moving eulogy. Next we have a song that was very special to the deceased…”