The strange, cold, black area of nothingness dragons go through when they teleport.

The dragons of Pern teleport for a variety of reasons. This teleportation is not instantaneous and the time taken is spent between. Dragons can also carry riders when they teleport and the riders find going between an unpleasant experience. Rarely a dragon will go between and not come back.

Between (or Poem 989)
by The Prophet, December 8, 1999

Cry to the larks to scream daybreak
Shout to the nightingales to sing nightfall,
Between twilight and starlight lies but a few hours
Between dawn and dusk is the suspension of stillness,
O beg the sun to not rise above the mountains
And pray to the unfaithful moon to remain in its hour.
The yielding heart is always too kind,
The greed of our Fathers is always blind.
Why sit to think when there is something to do?
Why become restless on an earth subdued?

KANJI: KAN KEN aida (between, space, gap, interval)

ASCII Art Representation:

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Character Etymology:

The radical representing door/gate surrounding the radical for sun showing through, indicating between/gap/space.

In olden times, the radical for moon could replace sun without changing the meaning.

A Listing of All On-Yomi and Kun-Yomi Readings:

on-yomi: KAN KEN
kun-yomi: aida ma ai

English Definitions:

1. KAN: interval; space; between; among; discord; favorable oppertunity.
2. KEN: six feet.
3. ai: interval; between, medium; crossbred.
4. aida, awai: space, interval, gap; between, among; midway; on the way; distance; time, period; relationship.
5. ma: space, room; interval; pause; rest (in music); time; a while; leisure; luck; timing, harmony.
6. ma(monaku): soon.

Character Index Numbers:

New Nelson: 6391
Henshall: 92

Unicode Encoded Version:

間

Unicode Encoded Compound Examples:

時間 (jikan): hour, time.
人間 (ningen): human being.
間食 (kanshoku): eating between meals.
間諜 (kanchou): spy, secret agent.

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Be*tween" (?), prep. [OE. bytwene, bitweonen, AS. betweonan, betweonum; prefix be- by + a form fr. AS. twa two, akin to Goth. tweihnai two apiece. See Twain, and cf. Atween, Betwixt.]

1.

In the space which separates; betwixt; as, New York is between Boston and Philadelphia.

2.

Used in expressing motion from one body or place to another; from one to another of two.

If things should go so between them. Bacon.

3.

Belonging in common to two; shared by both.

Castor and Pollux with only one soul between them. Locke.

4.

Belonging to, or participated in by, two, and involving reciprocal action or affecting their mutual relation; as, opposition between science and religion.

An intestine struggle, open or secret, between authority and liberty. Hume.

5.

With relation to two, as involved in an act or attribute of which another is the agent or subject; as, to judge between or to choose between courses; to distinguish between you and me; to mediate between nations.

6.

In intermediate relation to, in respect to time, quantity, or degree; as, between nine and ten o'clock.

Between decks, the space, or in the space, between the decks of a vessel. -- Between ourselves, Between you and me, Between themselves, in confidence; with the understanding that the matter is not to be communicated to others.

Syn. -- Between, Among. Between etymologically indicates only two; as, a quarrel between two men or two nations; to be between two fires, etc. It is however extended to more than two in expressing a certain relation.

I . . . hope that between public business, improving studies, and domestic pleasures, neither melancholy nor caprice will find any place for entrance. Johnson.

Among implies a mass or collection of things or persons, and always supposes more than two; as, the prize money was equally divided among the ship's crew.

© Webster 1913.

Be*tween", n.

Intermediate time or space; interval.

Shak.

© Webster 1913.