Tandri, son of Etan and Triia, originally written around 2001; updated 10.16.2025
"He's a beautiful boy," Bayat announced, with her grin almost as wide as the man's beside her. Not the father, she reminded herself, he's not the father. But Triia was doing well enough that Shard's presence instead of ... whoever the daddy of this big boy was, was all she needed. The weyrhealer Bayat handed the boy over to Triia, whose thin arms reached up trembling.
It had been a very hard birth. Triia was not really healthy enough to be birthing children, yet this one was her very first. And it was probably going to be her last, if what Bayat knew was true. Triia was a gold rider, and though she was a proud Protectorate woman, she'd never been in a flight for even a junior weyr.
"He'll be a strong rider," Shard said, whispering over the baby's loud gurgling protests. "Like you, and like his father."
"Oh, don't bring him up," Triia spat, annoyed but not serious. "He's never around anyway."
They both admired the lungs on the child, as he wailed again.
"I'm... I'm going to need a wet nurse, Bayat," Triia admitted. "He's all mine, but... I've nothing to give him." The reed-slender woman held tears in her brown eyes, but Shard wiped them away when they fell.
"He'll be fine, we'll find a nurse easily," he reminded her. "This is Blackstone anyway, if we don't find a woman within half a minute, there'll be another at Dawnlight for you."
--
Gender: Male, straight
Age: currently 28, searched as a child
Origin: Eden, Kshau Protectorate
Family: Mother Triia, father E'tan
Other Relations: unknown, but he and Atuara will be bringing their 'future kids' into the past, to stand; also of note is that there is an extremely similar version of him on Zekira, from the same parents, and like this one, may in fact be 'the same' as to be indistinguishable from one world to the next
Height: 6'1"
Build: Skinny, muscular enough to be a rider but not really as shredded as most his size
Hair: strawberry blond, extremely frizzy and curly so he keeps it quite short otherwise it'd be a literal mop top
Eyes: dark and strong blue, large even as an adult (kinda Elija Wood-ish only not as creepy)
Appearance: Light skin which tends to burn and peel, but only when he's not on Pern or Alskyr (Earth for instance, he has to cover up). A long, straight, narrow nose, and small but expressive lips. He is not necessarily 'of Dawnlight' so his outfits have always been more traditionally leather and wool, rough cloth, and added fur and feather bits, in whatever color is right there in the shop or at the tailor.
It was not a dragon speaking, and Tandri knew it. It was a sand-tinted voice, it always had that way of feeling like he was out in the scrub desert when ever he spoke. Tandri spoke back.
Thank you father, but I must do my work...
A distant chuckle filled Tandri's mind then, and the sand and wind faded away. Triia looked at her six turn old son, with wonder. She hadn't been contacted by E'tan, but she knew that he'd been near. Why he would leave her cold like that... She shook her head and busied herself in the weyr.
"Mother, when will I be allowed to see him?" Tandri asked, his pale blue eyes looking through her as if she were a window. The strawberry blond hair that had grown wildly over the last two turns was ready to be cut again, and Triia thought to pat it down before answering her son.
"It will be whenever he decides to show himself, Tandri, I cannot make him come. He's very busy."
"But he's not out fighting Thread, like Shard! Or even like you!" Tandri looked about ready to weep, but he did not. He was old enough to know that crying for his father wouldn't make him come any sooner. "He promises, and then doesn't come."
"He has," Triia said, "he's been here and you should remember that he'll come a long way to see you. Some riders never see their children again," she added.
"I'll never do that to any son of mine," Tandri muttered, pouting. Triia hugged him fiercely and close.
***
Tandri worked on his studies later, poring over texts and scrolls and maps. He was certainly the only six turn old who could read with such proficiency, and absolutely the only one that Triia had met. Her son eternally surprised her. He was bad at math, and she had this feeling that he'd never be able to gamble like the others in the Weyr, but... Wasn't that a very small price to pay for a child who could blurt out answers to adults questions about history before the Master Harper could?
Yet he was still just a child. Still loved to run, jump and get into things like all the other weyrbrats. His favorite game was hide and seek, and of course he'd usually win... That ability that his father had to sense people was carried strongly in their son, after all. It was only a matter of time before the other children caught on to him, and stopped him from playing with them.
Tandri could wait for that day, and enjoy what he had, when he had it, though.
The sands at Blackstone were busy, and Tandri watched with intensity. His mother stood near the current weyrwoman, who hemmed and hawed and wrung her hands together. So worried... But for no reason. Tandri walked to the pair of women and tugged on the other gold rider's sleeve.
"Ma'm, you don't need to worry. All the dragons are fine. There are enough candidates. They'll make their choices." Tandri said, just before the hatching got underway. It was true: the dragons inside their many eggs were healthy. The brown-sired clutch had neither a bronze nor a queen egg in it, but many sturdy blues and greens, with one huge brown.
Triia had hoped that her young son might impress. But he was still a bit too young, wasn't he? Only nine turns soon, and yet he was tall, slender like... Like his father.
Where was E'tan? He said he'd be here, before Tandri's turn-day, and it was only a sevenday away. Her distress was lightened when she caught Shard's eye from up in the gallery. After the hatching, and the candidates who had not impressed were being consoled by the sire's rider and the queen's mistress, Triia and Shard watched Tandri go from young boy to teenaged girl. When he arrived near them, they stopped their sad spouting of tears or cursing, and accepted their fate. Tandri had a touch to him, something so unlike his father -- something subtle and kind, where E'tan's was a touch to remove the hurt but also to remove the memory, never able to find it again and share the joy OR the pain.
"He's gifted with healing," Shard said, "the mind kind. Emotionally."
"He's beyond that," Triia said, softly. "He can heal with a word, he doesn't even need to think about it. Or use any strange powers..."
Her tall companion looked up briefly, and narrowed his brilliant blue eyes. "He's on his way, finally. Don't let him go without seeing me first."
"He's not even going to come to me before seeing you, Shard, he's always gone to you first." Triia sighed, she'd always love both men, but why couldn't she ever have either of them? When she really needed them?
"Not for everything," Shard smirked and laughed, walking away. He found Tandri and together the Protectorate leader and young brilliant boy greeted the newest weyrlings.
"You're going to love it, I promise!" Shard said, and behind him on the ground, Rue laughed. She and Triia stood near each other, Triia looking a bit tired.
When Jeremoth lifted into the sky, Tandri had his eyes tightly closed. It wasn't enough that he'd been on dragons before, bigger and smaller ones over the turns. And that he knew he'd be on a dragon soon anyway, one of his own. It was that Shard still refused to use a riding harness on Jere, and that scared even Blackstone's weyrling master! It certainly shook Tandri when he learned that they'd be headed between on a dragon without a harness!
"If you cling on with your legs, you'll know every move they will make!" Shard yelled over the wind.
"If I had a harness to put on, I'd put it on and ride right!" Tandri shot back, then laughed. "It's SO beautiful up here!"
Finally more at ease with riding with his mother's oldest and best friend (well, male friend anyway) Shard -- he'd been trained by him in all other things, at least the things that Triia allowed, Tandri leaned with the dragon's flight and began to memorize the lay of the land. He would need that information, he'd be needing a lot of dragon information.
Shard was so excited. It was Tandri's thirteenth turn day, and there was a magical clutch on the sands at the Healing Den. Not just any clutch, either. Just about the same time that Tandri was born, this clutch was actually laid... And now it was coming to life. Turns later, and hundreds of miles away from its starting point. And, best of all, Jeremoth was the sire of it!
And Jeremoth knew best, didn't he? What sort of riders his offspring would be best suited for? He'd snuffled at Tandri several times when he was but a boy, and now he was positive he was ready to Impress. And it was only sort of fitting that he'd stand with these particular eggs on the sands, and not some other dragon.
Tandri felt he'd known the skies for ever, when his father bespoke from decades and miles away, You will do well, come see me when you're ready...
"I will," he breathed, hidden by the wind.
***
Baeris watched the youth with his huge blue eyes and his soft voice. Some of the other candidates for this most unusual clutch had already arrived, and so they had, well, they would have something in common in the fact they were all candidates. They were already so divergant that this youngest of them was an oddity.
And he knew it, too. That unnerved Baeris enough for her to comment on it, privately, to Shard. While the boy was off toward the sands, white Trymmeth allowing them to watch the eggs but not touch them, Baeris stood with some discomfort beside the Protectorate's leader.
"I know he'll make a great rider, I just..." Baeris changed her stance and rested her hands on her swollen belly. "I just think that he as a child is so... different."
"That he is," Shard said. "But then you can blame his father for it."
"Did he even help get these eggs back here?" The master healer asked, and Shard shook his head.
"I don't think so. I wasn't able to do it myself, I don't think I could."
Tandri appeared at their elbows, clearing his throat and speaking quietly if clearly, "Father had things to do," and then turned to head off to their weyrling classes.
Rolling her eyes, Baeris chuckled and winced. "Soon, yes, stop oggling."
"I've just never seen a woman so pregnant, Baeris, and you weren't even half this size when we announced the clutch."
"Yes," she said through gritted teeth, "It's marvelous, amazing, isn't it..."
"What is this one?" Shard asked, unconsciously and innocently putting his long hand over Baeris' belly.
"My third, sweet, and if you don't mind, I believe I need to find my journeywoman... He's more than kicking now..."
The hatching of the Lost clutch had just ended, or so everyone thought, when Tandri and his beautiful blue Khaavreth heard a mental bellow announcing that there was indeed another egg hidden below the sands.
Grinning to himself, Tandri smoothed oil on Khaavreth's skin, and watched as the dragon chewed his meat carefully. No other hatchling seemed to do that, just his.
Well, perhaps Tesene's green Tariath did, because she was actually much older than the others. In spirit if not flesh.
"So you've impressed, I said you would do well," E'tan said, leaning against the lower cavern wall, where the hatchlings were being served and the party preparations were done. The tall pale-skinned man looked his son over, with new respect in his azure eyes. "But I cheated, you know."
"I am certain you did, father," Tandri said, not wanting to sully his glee at having impressed at all. He was still just a thirteen turn old boy -- JUST thirteen, at that. He aimed a mental you looked into your history books, didn't you? And you found the records of the hatching.
"I did just that." E'tan let a rare smile break across his thin lips. "Rue's recordkeeping leaves nothing at all to be desired, she covered everything very well."
"She and Shard will be happy together," Tandri said, as Khaavreth lowered his head onto the boy's lap. You arranged that, didn't you?
I did, I will admit it. Normally I do not admit those things, but to you...
"You'd better." Tandri said, serious. "Because I don't expect to be left out or lied to any longer."
The way he said it perked ears up, but they remained in silent, mental communication afterwards. Not even their dragons knew what they said then.
They grow so fast... Yet, Tandri never changed his name, never took a "dragonrider's" name. He knew it wasn't necessary. Not for what he would be doing.
In less than two turns, Khaavreth and Tandri had learned everything the Weyrling master at Buenos Weyr could teach, and had long moved past Alabaster and even Blackstone's training. There was very little that the two of them didn't already know about.
So when Tandri made ready to bid his mother a temporary good-bye, she nearly didn't let him go when she hugged him.
She will need to see us again, and soon, bespoke Khaavreth.
I know. And I will need her, too. Well... We must go...
"We have to go, mother. I will be back. Unlike some people..."
Triia rolled her eyes and dabbed at the tears in them. "I know. I trust your word over his any day."
"He still loves you," Tandri reminded his mother.
"Then tell him to prove it to me some day..."
Look at this, he thought to Khaavreth.
I would, only dragons do not fit in those rooms below, Khaavreth reminded his rider.
Tandri laughed to himself, and then relayed what he was seeing to his pale icy blue dragon.
A flight frenzy, similar to that which Baeris would run in the Den, was happening in a Danachian cathair. "Utopian, I wonder where that is..."
We shall find it with ease. You know I can locate it. I just hope there will be a fine female or two who will want me. Or some girls for you, Tandri. I worry you get lonely...
"You worry about me too much. Worry about catching a good little queen and making little baby dragons," Tandri smirked, and left the Records chamber laughing.
Name: Khaavreth
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium 13' s/h bipedal (due to Jere's huge size he will not be smol like many in his clutch) / 40' l / 65' ws
Colors: Ice Blue, body mottled pale blue through light blue with heavy icy white markings; wingsails brilliant crispy ice white; crest blue-violet tinted ice-white
Breed: Pernese Variant
Features: Bipedal due to parent originally not having forelimbs until... well, later; clawed feet, very manipulative fingers on forepaws; two large leather wings with only shoulder and top finger visible, has two fingers internally; head has fleshy jaw tines, no knobs; neck has tall jaunty crest; tail is bare; note that he may throw highly unusual offspring if paired with a mutated female, so who knows what's possible in his line? His clutch had conjoined twins, ones with or without limbs, and a variety of unusual temporal or dimensional quirks
Powers: Winged Flight, strong like his sire, swift, but likes to take his time getting to know the features of an area from far above. Unlike sire, does not only allow but encourage his rider to use a harness or at least a strap to ride. He does have the ability to fly in complex moves and using teleportation mid-flap, but wouldn't do that with Tandri on his back! When needed he can easily carry up to four adult humans or more if he's given the right harness to hold on his chest rather than back, and will carefully deliver goods, supplies, people, and even eggs with precision
Teleportation, Local, Temporal, Nexus, ???; Khaavreth is also his mother's son - he has more white than anything else on him and knows time, distance, relative space, and dimensions equally with just a few bips here and there between. He doesn't need to concentrate nor to rest up when he's going full bore down the rabbit hole of different Earths and times, and is as sure of himself landing on a completely new dimension's planet as he is his home ledge at Eden. He can carry with him or transport without flying, he doesn't need to be in flight to teleport at all, which is a bit concerning to some but he's very good at it. He has the wingspan to support mantling an entire train car worth of goods or people, and gets them wherever they need to be - usually 'to safety' - instantly
Telepathy, his rider's mind is as strong as any human's can get, and it's likely that Khaavreth's matches it perfectly for a reason. He has a very strong range of senses, empathic and mental, that he can use on humanoids of any type, dragons of every style or origin, and other intelligent life forms within 5 miles. His precision in identifying moods or ideas, including background thoughts or motivations, is best at under 50 meters, but if he knows who he's looking for, he can spot and discern those things at up to 2 miles. His mind is not often open for sensing, itself, however, and even E'tan cannot pry into his thoughts. It's likely that any offspring will also inherit this strength of mind, see below
Search Sniffing? Not particularly a search-dragon or pair, but Khaavreth does have a good eye for being in the right place at the right time, with the right person or dragonet in tow
Group Command and Organization, Khaavreth is capable of doing what 'only queens' might have been thought to - dominating a single dragon mind, or pulling the best performance from a full wing of 15, he can make everyone in a team benefit from each others strengths while diminishing the effects of any weak points. While he doesn't do this lightly, and has had to ask that his rider aid him in 'making them forget about it later', a few people and dragons do know of this feature and may tap him for their own needs at some point
Telekinesis, Though he doesn't have access to a full ability, he can help other dragons that do have command over it, aiding their ability by a good margin, though this might be due to his command coaxing out every ounce even in himself
Firebreath, unused, technically 'assisted' but has no intention of actually using it. It will inherit to offspring in the forum of Unassisted
Parentage: Below
Origin: Healing Den Lost Clutch, originally set to occur at Seascape Weyr, using Hydee's original images (no forelimbs) but since Seascape went away early on, I hosted it meself
Art By: Shard
Other Info: Turning up the power level 2025. He's got work to do.
Lineage
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Mates and Descendants
| Location / Date | Partner | Offspring | Notes |
| Cathair Utopian | Rainbow Spiffy, Kingdom Dragon | Grey Blue Confondreth (Magika) Silver White Luttaith (?) Silver Blue Plath (Enoi) Pastel Rainbow Univoqueruseth (Prax) |
took place 2003 |
| Dawnlight/Bkstone | Night Rose-Gold Varriath, Alt Benden | ?? | Tandri and Atuara hook up |