The dragons all sat upon the Rim, waiting for the signal to fly and meet the deadly Thread. Lelandra peeked from behind a protective iron shutter to watch her mother, Alandra, on he beautiful golden Melinanth. How proud of her mother she was! The weyrleader then raised his hand and the five wings of fighting dragons leapt to the sky and winked between. Lelandra sighed in awe of the flying beauties....and longed for one of her own. "There you are, I've been looking for you everywhere!" Lelandra turned to her father, who was holding a large pot of numbweed. "Come on girl, we have to prepare for the dragonriders return." He offered her a hand and guided her off the chair she had to use to look out the high windows. "Oh Papa, I was just watching mother leave." she sighed. "I know Lela, but watching dragons won't help you get through your apprenticeship, will it?" Avalon smiled and led her to the weyrbowl.
"Since this is your first Fall, You'll need to stick to bringing me things." he said absently as he made sure they had ample bandages and numbweed for injured dragons. Avalon was the resident MasterDragonhealer, and therefore had to see each case before he could dismiss the dragon and rider. Lelandra sat on the ground to wait for the end of the Fall.
Two hours later, the first dragons began reappearing over the weyr and the organized chaos that was the aftermath of Thread began. So far there had been mostly minor scorings of both dragon and rider...two major injuries which were both dragons. Their riders were gotten sufficiently drunk and sent to bed while the dragons were lifted to their weyrs. Since she was limited to fetching this or that, Lelandra could only stand and watch as a brown pinned a terrified blue down so his wing could be properly set and repaired. This was the worst of the injured, a wingbone seared right through, only hanging on by a thin piece of wing membrane, and a bad scoring across the back and neck. "He'll heal in a month or so." Avalon assured the distraught rider.
Suddenly, a draconic scream came from high above, the dragon who had bellowed just a tiny mote in the sky. "Who could it be? Everyone's supposed to be back by now..." Lelandra wondered as the plummeting dragon came into view. "NO!" she shouted. It was Melinanth and her mother! The gold's right wing was shredded and she seemed to have lost an eye. The half blind and wounded gold frantically flapped her uninjured wing but the massive wing was only capable of pitiful spirals. The three other queens instantly were aloft, straining to reach their fallen comrade, but Lelandra saw with utter dismay that they would never make it. "Mother!" she wailed and ran forward. The queen shrieked as she fell, still trying to break her own fall with flailing wing beats. "They'll never make it!" someone shouted. Melinanth was too close to the ground. The only thing Lelandra could to was clamp her eyes shut and wait.
Another shout came as the queen seemed to briefly gain some altitude, but her fall soon resumed and she hit the ground with a sickening thud. All the dragons keened, long and loud for the lost queen, drowning out Lelandra's own sobs as she slumped to her knees and buried her face in her hands. "No....no...."