D'ney Logs: A Theory on Death

The following is a log of roleplay on Star Stones MOO, logged by D'ney.
All references to the world and characters of Pern™ based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright© 1967 by Anne McCaffrey, all rights reserved. The Dragonriders of Pern® is registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey and used here with permission.

Feeding Grounds

Blood of the weyr's food supply --for beast and human-- spots the thirsty
ground, marks the gory passing of herdbeasts and wherries lost to the
voracity of feasting dragons. Patches of ripped greenery attest to the
struggles that rile within while the odd bone scattered about bleaches under
the hot Igen sun. The rail's smoothly worn horizontals betray turns of
tight-fisted visitors, rider and resident, their nauseous swirl of grain amid
the carnage before them stayed only by wood's timely stability and rigid
pastoralness.

Mhare is here.
The following dragons are here: Zairyth, Nhaeth, and Vishkheth
From here you can go:
Lake Southwest Bowl

Vishkheth has arrived.

Mhare slides down Vishkheth's side, using the burgandy leathers as a
stepladder.

A sensuous uncurling of rich brown shavings and dark cherry wood with a
sprinkling of ash erupts in sketchy shards of ridges, bits splintered off
here and there, rounding the end of his snout and angling his sharp, russet
features -- a swirling of ashen brown trickles just below his neck, too,
widening to a pool of underbelly. Chocolate oozes down his long, slender neck
in large drips to his strong shoulders of dark near-black, wings webbed in a
pale honey brown and flecked with more ashen dots. His sturdy body angles
again into large flanks, testament to an overzealous builder before
disappearing into a long tail that curls and arches amidst ginger slivers
with mince to the spaded tip.
Stylish, of course, and oh so suave: Vishkheth's new leathers are as sturdy as
the first, but are now dyed a flattering shade of crimson. The trim is black,
and the straps are constantly a'glisten; if Vishkheth can't get that metallic
sheen, there's no reason why his straps can't be blinding. Arr, harr.
Vishkheth is 2 Turns and 23 Days old.

Does anyone ever collect those bones? Nhaeth is hunched over a herdbeast's
spine and giving every sign of enjoying his meal, though there's a nervous
flicker to his tail whenever a fellow dragon passes overhead. His rider is
striding up and down beside the rail separating 'grounds from bowl, fingers
tapping impatiently on the division.

Mhare is sleeping. Vishkheth's hungry. The brown drops down from the sky over
the southwest bowl, pausing long enough to deposit Mhare and whuff a faint
greeting to Nhaeth before launching into the pen and tackling a rather drowsy
wherry. Mhare just arrs and tilts against a nearby post, yawning. "Bleh."

Did Mhare just drop off her brown? Or not. D'ney looks straight through the
wingrider -- she's in the way, you see -- before realizing and stopping
short. "Hey," she barks. Politesse is for others. On the other side,
Nhaeth ducks his head at Vishkheth; proffers a cordial greeting.

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth skims a pebble over the waters of your mind:
just one, nothing significant. He remains there nonetheless, observing,
waiting for it to sink.

Mhare did not drop, no she didn't. D'ney's greeting gets a slight twitch, and
then Mhare straightens up, waving a hand in response. "Howdy, D'ney. How y'
doing?" Vishkheth just dines contentedly, though the occassional crunch gets
an irked look from Mhare.

(Nhaeth) [-] Vishkheth ripples; concentric waves of buttery-gold are sent out
in response, his tone friendly. << Good morning. >>

Weed flitters in from Southwestern Bowl.

D'ney usually gets stiff formality or weird looks in return, seldom this.
"How-dy," she repeats, seeming to mull over the syllables. "Fine, thanks."
And that's her conversational allotment for today. She turns to glance at
the feeding dragons, clicks jaws shut.

Mhare's never been one for formality. "That's good." She bobs her head
slightly, gnawing on her bottom lip in a moment of awkward silent. "So ...
uh, Duneraider's drills have been going really well." Unlike Vish, Mhare
can't work with quiet.

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth is quick to ripple in sympathy, and
transmutes colours into bass notes: << Morning! The herdbeast is good today,
try some. >> He even picks out one, highlighted in red against the pool's
azure clarity.

A snapping of herdbeast backbones fills the silence, as a young bronze
bellyflops upon his prey.

(Nhaeth) [-] Vishkheth contemplates this: the faded tan of wherry-hide is
stained with darker red, and, after a moment, fades into a background of
russet. <> A suspicious pause; Uesjneth's
bright blue is regarded warily. <>

D'ney gets a wee portion of that awkwardness -- she isn't dense for all that
slowness -- but doesn't do anything with it, until Mhare does, when she nods,
twice. The beady brown eyes even whiz back to eye the other in a moment of
tense scrutiny. "They should," she says of the drills, "We expect that of
each pair. Wouldn't be able to tackle 'Fall otherwise. Haven't you been
tapped into a wing?" It comes out flat, the question.

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth says, philosophically, << They are not
/nicely/ fat, though. Not like the porcines. You should try one-- >> And
then amusement kindles in him, sudden and brief. For the red returns,
borrowed from you and yours, to tint the scene. His tone is thoughtful. <<
Why would he lie to you? He doesn't lie to me. I think. >>

Mhare squirms, at the belly-flopping bronze. Vishkheth is regarded with amused
interest, however, as he sneaks towards a herdbeast and pounces on it,
feline-esque. D'ney's response gets a slight twitch. "Of course, of course,
and Duneraider always does well in Fall. R'yh was always pleased, at least."
She wavers slightly, at that, unsure of how R'yh's opinion would coincide
with D'ney's -- or anyone else's, for that matter. "No, I haven't been tapped
yet. Z'i either, though, and he was wingleader, so ... I guess they just
haven't made up their minds about the rest of us. I wouldn' know how it
works."

Nhaeth did shudder at that crack, and swings his head towards it, but resumes
his savouring of the innards soon enough. D'ney is more decisive. She's
looking at Mhare and continues to do so, twitch or none. "R'yh /always/ says
that," comes the retort, first at all, as if it's a commonly used phrase,
"but we're all right, I s'pose. Dragons die. Happens all the time. It's
only to be expected, and we don't do worse than any other." On that morbid
note, she adds, "Won't be long before you work like the rest of us."

(Nhaeth) [-] Vishkheth is silent, for a moment, a rope of burgandy twisted and
coiled as he thinks. <> is his eventual response. <> Another pause, and the rope expands and
twists into what might be a fuzzy egg. << Or perhaps it was his rider. The
eggboy. I can't remember. >>

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth follows the rope's coils along its length; or
starts to -- a tangent attracts. << Dallan says I get fat when I eat too
much. And my tail gets thick. Could it be the same thing, with the
herdbeasts? >> He's good at these hypotheticals, and visuals file madly past
each other now. << Uesjneth might be right. But the rider-- he is good. >>
Liking wars with Doubt, and seems to win the first battle.

Mhare snorts faintly. "I figured. But it's usually /true/, I hope." The
thought of death gets a brief shudder, and she focuses her eyes on Vishkheth
as he eats. "Not /too/ many die," she counters. "Not too many. We didn't even
have too many in the storm Fall -- that one we flew with Telgar a few months
back." Morbid notes aside, the thought of work brings a faint smirk to her
face. "I hope so. Only reason /I'm/ not dead is probably because I'm not
/doing/ anything. It's a bad reason not to be dead, I think."

How much is too many? One might be, or two, if you're picky? D'ney, however,
states her agreement, faint pride straddling her voice: "Not too many. Must
maintain the Flights after all, and the Weyr." Those terms, great and
abstract they are. But the pride, it fades, and the monotone returns.
"Well. You'll get your chance. And we have to die one day anyway."

(Nhaeth) [-] Vishkheth is amused by tangents, or else can't find the focus to
ignore them. << Perhaps. I have never seen how much a herdbeasts eats, though
-- we must find a skinny one, and watch it. Maybe it will get fat. >> He
contemplates this, and eventually the image of Mhare leading a herbeast is
conjured. <> Thoughts of
R'yh are regarded grudgingly. << Mharikka likes him. Eggs, too. I suppose he
is alright. >>

"That's right." Mhare's response is quick, as though she'd prefer not to give
too much thought to it. "Everyone dies, eventually." There's a thoughtful
pause, now, as she actually takes the time to contemplate it. "It might get a
little boring, if no one did, anyway. The same thing, day after day ... but
for now, I'm excited about it, kinda. Vishkheth, too. I think he misses being
a weyrling."

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth is /focused/ on tangents. And this one is
infinitely interesting. << Yes, like this one over here. >> They will sit
on this spot, just here, he sketches out in the mental map mentioned before.
<< Or put one in your weyr. >> Mhare-with-herdbeast seems an attractive
idea; Dallan with one in their weyr much, much less so. Even R'yh is
forgotten in the heat of his fascination.

Weed dozes off...

D'ney blinks. Steps back, shaken from her narrow observation. /Boring?/
"Deaths don't make anything /not/-boring." Having failed to seek out an
inverse of the word, she tries, even louder than before, "Death isn't a
game." It's just something that happens and is unpleasant, but she's adamant
about that, so the words come out clipped and harsh.

Mhare wakes up with a start. Erk.

Mhare stiffens, shoving her glasses against the bridge of her nose nervously.
"I didn't say it was. I didn't -- I didn't /mean/ to say it was, if I did."
She proceeds carefully, after that, her words slow and deliberate, for once.
"I mean ... I don't think I /want/ to die, because being dead's rather final,
but if you live forever, then what happens after you finish everything?
Vishkheth and I can't fly Thread forever, but I can't go back to being a
Handygirl when I feel like it, because what would Vish do? When you die,
you're done, and you get to ... rest, or something. I don't know. But if you
don't /die/, then ... you just sit there and rot or go crazy because you just
can't take living anymore." Pause. "If that makes sense. But I'm /not/ trying
to say it's a game, because it isn't."

D'ney does listen. She even nods. "You have a point," the brownrider
concedes, and gives one swift glance towards Nhaeth, her eyes betraying some
unheard speeches. Then the compulsion for argument, for retort, seems to
return, and she says, "But no one lives forever. It won't happen. So no one
gets bored. And it's not a game." Are they on the same track so far?

Such an inspiring speech. Did D'ney even get it? Nhaeth lifts his gaze;
fastens it on the scene, nudging the threadbare bone towards Vishkheth in
wordless communication.

Mhare nods, relaxing just a bit. "That's right. You die, and then you don't
have to worry about going crazy because you're dead, and you can't go insane
when you're dead." So she hopes, as that would negate her argument quite
nicely. "And I know it isn't a game -- I mean, when you're dead, you're ...
you're dead. It isn't a /good/ thing, and I don't think it's a good thing at
all, but ... you have to die, because if you didn't, you'd eventually just
kind of burn-out, and you'd be alive, but you wouldn't really be living.
You'd just kind of be ... following a routine, after so long, that you do
without really caring why you do it."

Vishkheth nudges it back, after a few moments, his eyes focused squarely on
Mhare and D'ney; he stills, and watches with interest.

D'ney allows Mhare her distance, shuffling back a respectful step. Indeed,
there's something new in her gaze now, something that approaches puzzlement
but shys away from awe. "Yeah, you can't go crazy when you're dead.
That's--crazy." One hand flaps disdainful negation, but she's still paying
attention. "Yeah," says D'ney yet again, after Mhare speaks about the living
dead. So obedient is she. Her eyes show signs of glazing over. "Um. -- So
you're dead, but you're alive and moving around, and you don't die, and what?"

Nhaeth has forgotten all about fattening beasts, it seems. He reorients to
face the pair of humans, streaks of yellow speckling his bright blues orbs.

Mhare waggles a finger. "We're not dead, so we don't know. We'll only know
when we're dead -- which is kind of a scam, if you think about it, because
then you can't tell anyone." Death is out to get them all. "Anyway ... you're
not physically dead, but you're just ... reliving a routine, day after day,
but not /feeling/ anything, so ... you can't really call it living." She eyes
D'ney, for a moment, expression slightly confused. "Did that make sense?"

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth breathes a whisper of the scene here; here,
where there is more quiet and the shade reassures -- a fog of perceptions
enacting a tussle, thoughts striving to steady other thoughts.

Now who's the lecturer? Certainly not D'ney, who is all wide-eyed student,
sitting in the back row yet being caught up in the flood of facts being
presented to her. She gasps out after a stark, shiny moment: "You mean we're
/dead/, but we think we're not dead?"

(Nhaeth) [-] Vishkheth locks on to any steadying forces; he's thoughtful, in a
way, registering the conversation for later questioning. He's quite the
enraptured pupil, himself.

(Nhaeth) Vishkheth sees: Nhaeth would wave his hands and shout if he were
human. As it is, his mental gesticulations flicker across the tenuous link,
furious and fevered. He ducks an apology to you, then returns to the dynamic.

Mhare nods, assuming she's at least partially coherent. "Some people are. If
you get into a routine, and you /never/ change it, you're not really living
-- living's all about /learning/ stuff, and ... and meeting people, and
/experiencing/ stuff." She pauses briefly, looking astounded by her own
revelations. "It's kind of easier, for riders -- we live for our dragons, and
to protect people. But even then, you can't let your /only/ purpose in life
be to fight Thread; then it isn't /your/ life, because /you're/ never
experiencing anything new. It's just the /same/ thing, /all/ the time."

(Nhaeth) [-] Vishkheth is unconcerned; the apology is acknowledge and accepted
with a brief flicker, and the brown also retreats back into his observations
-- this new one from his rider is regarded with intense interest.

D'ney catches, arranges, files, blurts out, even before Mhare has quite
finished -- "Some people are dead? Really dead, not-breathing dead? But
that's /impossible/, see. They couldn't walk around if they're dead. Dead
people don't move. The herdbeasts Nhaeth killed, they're dead, and they
don't move. I have a routine, and I'm most definitely not dead." And the
rest of it, the philosophy, the metaphysics, the whole problem of modern
existence slips past her grasp like oil on water. How tragic. She appears,
and sounds indignant, arms hitching higher on her sides.

Mhare shakes her head, gnawing on her bottom lip and wringing her hands; she
falls silent, attempting to find a better way to explain it. "They're not
/dead/, like ... y'know, bury-them-at-sea or something dead. They're ...
asleep, I guess. Have you ever woke up in the morning and still been sleepy,
but you automatically get dressed or take a bath just because you're used to
doing it? They're not dead like herdbeasts, they're ... they're
/sleepwalking./" Mhare imitates, extending her arms and taking a few steps
with her eyes closed. "Sleepwalking."

Nhaeth, on the inside, rustles his wings, raising spars to slice into the
crisp Igen air. He lowers himself into a crouch as if to leap, but remains
pinned to the ground, a spring restless in its dark coils.

D'ney can recognize frustration when she sees it. She admits freely, "I'm not
clever like some of you are. I know dead people when I see 'em. Dead
things, even. Wherries, herdbeasts. Asleep is different from being dead.
Think I've done that before, woken up and got dressed, but it's ... different
from dead. Never sleepwalked in my life. Don't think it's dead, though, if
you're still moving." Wariness enters her stance. "You're not kiddin' me,
are you? Or being silly--"

"Nooo," Mhare says, voice edging on a whine. "No, no -- I'm not kidding,
really. This is what I think! It's /different/ from dead. I'm not saying that
you've /died/, just that you're not /living./ You're not ... experiencing
things, you're not feeling anything. You're just doing it because it's there,
not because you have a /real/ reason." Her hands wave, for emphasis, and at
the end, she taps one foot lightly. "I /swear/ I'm not trying to play a joke.
I'm just saying that ... it's not your body that's dead, it's your feelings;
does that help?"

"You aren't kidding," D'ney repeats, for confirmation's sake. "You /said/ dead,
didn't you? But you mean not living. Experiencing." And she trails away on
those words, those big words that really mean nothing to her, judging from
the young rider's tone. She is trying, though, and the effort is darkening
her already dusky complexion. The line of reasoning pours out in a
methodical manner, "People are not living because their feelings are dead?
And that means they're dead because they're not living?" Poor Mhare.

Mhare's brows furrow thoughtfully, and she contemplates D'ney's interpretation
of her ramblings. After a moment, she nods, and lets out a cheery, "Yeah!"
Rider beams, and claps her hands together, pleased that she may be making
sense. "That's about right, I think -- when you don't feel or experience,
you're not really living, and when you're not really living, you're dead. But
your body still works ... so you're in-between. Moving without feeling."

They were just that, repetitions, without a glint of sense in them. So when
Mhare develops on her theory further, D'ney is driven to appeal, suddenly,
hopefully, "It doesn't exist, this living business, does it? We're not dead
and it's silly to even think about it. Doesn't /do/ anything, because we're
living and if we just keep on living we'll be okay--" she flounders out, the
light of a revelation budding behind the frown she bears. "Look. Mhare.
You're living, aren't you? You don't die yet. I promise. We're not dead
yet, so don't go talking about the dead as if they're alive." Then she
watches Mhare, blank-faced, steeled for a reaction.

"I'd like to think I'm alive," Mhare says, weighing her response carefully. "I
still have experiences to experience, and all that junk ..." She frowns,
briefly disappointed in the looming end of this thread of conversation, but
nods regardless. "And I'm not /talking/ about dead people, because they're
dead. They'd look pretty scary now, if they weren't ... but if you don't
wanna talk about it, that's okay. We can talk about other stuff."

D'ney, labouring among a sea of unknowables, nods dumbly. "Good, then," she
manages to say after drawing in a breath -- relief, perhaps, for avoiding
utter destruction of her unwritten philosophy -- and nods at Mhare. "Other
stuff is good." She proceeds to drop into another pause, a sinkhole that has
her resuming the restless tap-tapping of fingers on rail.

Nhaeth relaxes; slumps into a heap of leftover bones.

Tyr wakes up from his nap.

Mhare twiddles her fingers, for a moment, and peers back out at Vishkheth --
who has, by now, found another herdbeast on which to munch. "So ... what else
should we talk about?" Fingers twiddle once more, and she looks around,
dredging up conversational topics. "The winter's been nice, so far, hasn't
it?" And when in doubt, one can resort to weather.

The topic hasn't dissolved from D'ney's mind completely, as her statements
shows. "Winter's nice, yes. Comes and goes, doesn't change much. That's
safe -- I know about that. Not your," fingers ring out a particularly
strident note, while Nhaeth winces, "your talk about living and dying. Not
good at that. But weather, that's okay."

Mhare rolls her eyes, rubbing her temples. "I'm /sorry/, okay? I didn't mean
to make you /mad/ or anything ... /I/ thought it made sense. I guess I should
... figure it out some more." A moment of faint, nervous laughter, and then
she looks around. "I wish it'd snow, though." Back to weatherchat. "It looked
like fun, when I saw it at Crom. Pretty."

"No," D'ney says, softly. "Nhaeth says it's my fault and I think this time
he's right. So I'm sorry. Maybe you're right, but," she ends on a helpless
shrug, shoulders lifting high and head sinking low. "Oh, whatever." She
grins, all at once. "Wait for snow /here/ and you'll grow old 'fore you know
it."

"S'okay," Mhare says with a shrug. "We're both sorry -- either way, it all
works out." A slight nod, and then she snickers. "Yeah, I guess so. But it'd
be pretty nifty to have snowstorms instead of sandstorms. I mean, you can't
make snowballs out of sand, or eat it, and it's not even any fun when it's
mud. Snow, though, you can do /all/ sorts of things with that ..." Having
created another opportunity, Mhare takes a moment to launch into a rather
lengthy speech about the benefits of snow and its byproducts.

D'ney glazes over. And on and on they go.

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