"Yeah, so far everything you've done has been good. Go ahead."

This one and that one: put. Gently gently but he's so much - livelier - that she does need to worry a little more about him knocking something loose than she had been. Not a lot, he probably won't do it today, but.

"So when you pick things to put together, what do you know about them before you do it?"

"Not that much. I'm copying structure from someone else I had a look at and I'm making sure it looks plausible, like - topologically, though that's not really - there aren't great words for a lot of telepath stuff. And I can make some guesses. But I've never seen, like, a textbook, about this kind of damage, so it's not as obvious as it would be if you had damage to the part of your mind that lets you tell colors apart. That I'd recognize."

"Do you think any of that will end up doing anything about the - about how it's - about why I don't like to think?"

"Maybe. I think it will at least get - easier, less aversive - to think."

"You know, if you want me for anything, you can make me whatever you want. I was - there was a threat to Pern and - I could be available in case the people who were going to deal with that threat needed anything, so they'd be ready and healthy and - alive - but I'm done now, there are definitely enough of them alive and ready and they're protecting Pern just fine. I still don't actually have better plans for tomorrow than dying and if you want my plans to be cooking you dinner or cleaning your bathing pool, they can be. I don't know what you know how to do but you have my permission to do most things."

"- no! I'm in training to be a therapist to help people, not to turn them into my personal servants."

He shrugs. "Suit yourself. You might want to ask Headwoman Manora what to do with me, then. Or the Weyrwoman, if she cares - she's the one who wants to talk to you later."

"I will listen to what she has to say, certainly, but first I want to get all these bits joined up. Are you ready for the next one?"

"I am."

Scootch scootch and safety-pin. He can see what she's doing, he seems to find it - grounding or something.

This one's another one that leaves him a mess at first, and then has significant ripple effects that still haven't settled by the time he comes up with something to say.

"Can I tell you something pointless and awful?"

"If you want to, yes."

"Dragons won't live alone. They hatch and they look around for someone to love and if they can't find anyone they disappear. And if they do find someone and that person dies, they disappear. They don't wait to do one more thing. They don't stay long enough to stab themselves or down themselves. They're gone, immediately."

Verlan has his head in his hands and is speaking very calmly.

"They're the ones who protect Pern. Men don't really do anything irreplaceable - we can - they can help. But it's the dragons who keep us safe from the Threads. We would all die without them, too, just slower and more painfully."

Deep breath. Sigh.

"I was born to keep a dragon alive. I wasn't searched out from a hold somewhere and I wasn't raised in a craft. I only exist to be a dragonrider. I stood at a hatching when I was ten and that was the day we knew my being born hadn't been a waste. And then he died, and I did whatever menial chores anyone wanted done, for the sake of the dragons and their riders. And that's - everything I am, everything I've ever been."

He shakes his head and makes an almost wry expression, still half hidden in his hands.

"And two hatchings after mine, the new Weyrleader - he was nine when his Mnementh hatched and I think he's acquainted with his brother, who was the youngest dragonrider in living memory - he decided the candidates should be older. Fifteen, maybe as old as twenty sometimes. Brought in boys from elsewhere with other plans if the dragons - didn't want them - but none of them as young as we were. So they'd be - people - already. They all made their Impressions and it's - fine - and they didn't have to be ten. And they won't be ten in the future. Two hatchings too late for me."

He makes a quiet sound that isn't quite a laugh.

"And Pern is going to be fine without us."

"I'm sorry."

He drops his hands, raises his head. "He didn't even live long enough to fly." Sigh. Headshake. "I don't - how impossible would it be, if I said I wanted to be the person I would have been if I'd been a harper or a smith?"

"I don't think I'm likely to get results that precise."

"Does that mean I could be a harper, just not the specific one I would have been, or what?"

"If we are very fortunate you will be able to go learn to play the harp."

"So there's no actual... fixing the fact that I'm not fit for anything but drudgework. I still won't know how to do anything else. The first twenty three turns of my life will still have been a waste. And there's certainly no giving Reith another chance."

"I can't resurrect people and I can't implant skills whole, I'm sorry."

"And you're sure you don't want personal servants."

"I don't think I'm even allowed to have a servant on campus to say nothing of whether I could afford to, like, feed you, before I graduate."

"I think I'm still marginally useful - I'm not very useful but I'm better than nothing - but I'm not really happy carrying on like this and I think I still won't be just from being less broken inside. Can you just... make me happier?"