Image Credits: Lethe

Name: Norris Kilohar, "N'ris" in another era
Gender: Male
Age: currently in early 40s
Origin: Dawnlight Hold, but apparently Blackstone...
Rank: Purple / Admin Grey / ext4 -5, 1986
Family: Father brown rider Naran, mother journeyman Harper Resara; (Dawnlight records only: Brother Airon (brown ranked security), Sister silver ranked dancer Fandra; Mother silver ranked outlaw Aletta)
Other Relations: (probably want to hook up at some point)
Height: 5'11" Build: very strong, much stronger than any given recordskeeper should be
Hair: mixed black with strong brown, kept mostly natural in a fro as shown
Eyes: pale brown, almost yellow, almond shaped
Appearance: as below and seen <-
Genetic Oddities: he is very smart and good with memory retention

Standing At: White River Weyr
Dragon: Brown Miniocith
Creation Date/Updated: originally 2001? maybe 2003? Updated 3.1.26 because I don't have any record of Miniocith

also note that my own actual saved files did not include the full page, so I'm relying on Archive's saves... T_T; some info should have been different names, but I wasn't going by my dawnlight chronicles info

History and Events (original story on dawnlight_creator / candidate Norris)

Raised among Harpers at Blackstone Weyr, Norris is the son of brown riding N'ran (formerly Naran) and Journeywoman Harper Resara. Though he is obviously strong like his father -- and inherited his father's odd two-colored hair -- Norris prefers intellectual pursuits since his mother began reading to him at a very early age.

He can recite history verses well, and sings in a beautiful baritone (which came upon him at his 14th turn, four turns ago), yet Norris writes with greater proficiency than either. His ability to transcribe documents is far above average, and he has usually been called upon to archive works for Blackstone.

But life in the weyr isn't all just books and songs. Norris also has a strong appreciation for his father's work. His parents remained together to raise him, so he was expected to fulfill certain duties around their weyr. Helping to wash and oil N'ran's dragon being one of his favorites. Always in awe of the great brown Ashwanath, Norris considers himself honored to be spoken to by any dragon.

Norris is fond of showing off, especially around women of the Weyr, be they common drudges, crafters, or riders. His rich voice makes most harpers swoon, while his muscles and knowledge of dragons pleases most rider-folk.

The dark side of Norris? Yes, there is one. Since his early days in his Harper classes, he has always known there was more to the Blackstone/Alabaster grouping than met the eye. He intends to find details, dirt, and whatever he can, to aid Lord Holder Spencer at Dawnlight. In secret, of course, always in secret.

**

"I've finished the last of that batch of records, Master," Norris said to the harper residing at Blackstone. "Is there anything else?"

"No no," the elderly man said, waving his hand, "go take your meal and rest. I'm sure there will be something new for you in the morning..."

Norris bowed, and rubbed his eyes on the way out of the well-lit records room. In all his experience, at least the rooms containing valuable scrolls, hides and even books, Blackstone's records were kept in a fine, bright place where you didn't have to strain too much to see your work in front of your face. There were glows simply everywhere, and they were changed often by the youngest of the Harper's apprentices.

Norris had done that job once upon a time. Now, at eighteen turns -- almost nineteen -- he had progressed and was ready to walk the tables as a Journeyman Recordskeeper.

That was, if he could find something among those records which would distinguish him. Some way of doing something that worked better than all the ways before his.

Deciding to sleep on it, and to put that work off until necessary, Norris headed down to the kitchens and enjoyed flirting with the baker's daughter as much as he enjoyed the food she brought him. "Eat up, Norris," she giggled. "I hear there's a search on, tomorrow. You will want to have your strength up," she said, emphasizing 'strength'. Norris grinned.

"You don't think I'll have a chance at being Searched, do you?" He asked, digging in to the bowl-shaped bread with heavy creamed stew. "I mean, my father is a rider, but that doesn't mean much."

"It could mean everything," she said, and went back to her chores in the kitchen. Norris watched her sway away, and smiled to himself. Perhaps she was right. He did need his strength anyway. He'd be helping his father wash down brown Ashwanath in the morning, since they were due to have thread late this evening.

When the Threadfall alert spread through the weyr, everyone did their part. Norris had already finished his shift, however, so he dragged himself up to their weyr to wait his father's return. His mother was nervous.

"What is it, mother?" Norris asked, and the harper woman looked up from her concerned stare out their weyr ledge. The three-room weyr was enough for a family to live in, and the dragon to reside besides. Resara grimaced.

"It's ... I just worry, that's all. Your father was in fine spirits leaving the weyr, yet..."

"Mother, you always worry and he always comes back. He will be fine. He's a good rider." Norris put his large hand on his mother's dark shoulder, and she looked at him with a plastered-on smile.

"I suppose you're right. Come, you've had dinner. Will you sing for me, my son?"

"Of course." Norris sang for his mother, soothing her nerves. He chose to sing not a ballad nor a history verse, but something he'd dug through before, transliterating through notes that he took from another song. The lyrics were hopeful, not depressing like most learning ballads.

Resara sighed, and smiled.

Then a healer ran, blustering into their doorway. "Harper-- Norris-- it's N'ran--"

"No!" Cried Resara, leaping to her feet though she was tired. Norris couldn't stop her from bolting through the door, nearly bowling over the poor apprentice healer on her way out. He stopped the young man, and with a serious look, asked what was wrong.

"He's... he's alive," that was all he could say. Norris followed more slowly, pondering what he'd said earlier. He always assumed... his father was nearly fourty turns, and had been a dragon rider for more than half his life! How could he be injured like...

Like this? When he got to the infirmary, Norris could see how much of a pain his mother was making of herself to the Healers. "Let me see him! You must!"

"Resara," said one of the Journeywomen, "please! You're distressing the other patients!"

"Let her through," said Woodrow, the master Healer of Blackstone. His tone was dire, and his normally cheery face was solemn. Resara shrieked and ran past him. The curtain separating N'ran's cot from the others waved with her passing. But no curtain, not even a stone wall nor Weyr could stop anyone from hearing her anguished shriek.

Norris pushed past Woodrow and into the darkened area. N'ran, his father and friend and rider of the most perfect brown, lay unmoving on the cot. Not a breath, and no lifebeat from his chest. The wounds from Threadfall looked dreadful, crossing the rider's chest in a huge X shaped clump.

"There was no way, I'm surprised that his dragon even made it back here, with him." Woodrow said to Norris. "The dragons... will want to take him."

"I will handle Ashwanath, mother," he said, and exited to the darkness beyond the infirmary's ledge.

There, Ashwanath stood, or rather lay. He was gravely injured as well, his neck and back were simply wrought with burnt Thread marks. Some so deep... that he almost could see bone. There was no saving either of them, now, Norris realized.

Closing his eyes, as if shutting them could keep this sight away, Norris thought clear and hard toward Ashwanath. You keep him, he belongs between, with you, where there is no pain.

There will be only chill, Ashwanath responded, his eyes whirling slowly and with obvious pain. Two apprentices carried N'ran's body out to the ledge. Other dragons and their riders stood, silently, as this occured.

Norris hugged his mother to his side, though she was still screaming hoarsely. Scarcely a word passed her lips without a sob between them. Norris smoothed her hair down, and let himself cry for once in his life about something that he could neither control nor stop.

Ashwanath barely rose off the ledge. It looked as though the weight of the body and harness across him was almost too much. The other dragons nearby steadied him before he went between forever. Never coming out, bringing the dead to the realm beyond.

**

Norris was exhausted, yet unable to sleep all night. So he looked fairly poor when the search rider from White River Weyr arrived. A blue, ridden by a woman named Theya, stood before a large assembly of young people.

The weyr was oddly quiet, and Theya learned about the passing of not just N'ran and his dragon, but one other pair the night before. She decided to remain silent about it, unless it became obvious to talk about it.

The blue, Berialth, sniffed over many of the young drudges, hesitating here and there at children whose heritage included dragon riders. Then, he came to Norris. He paused, and Theya walked toward him.

"Berialth says that you are a strong young man, worthy of attention." she said.

"I am a harper, searchrider. And the son of a --" he blinked, and sighed, "the son of a very fine dragon rider." He held himself proudly.

"Then you shall be the one I take to the weyr. Do you know where White River is?"

"I shall learn," Norris said.

Then, came his mother. She had hardly stopped sobbing the entire night, and certainly the sight of her son -- her only son -- being Searched made her all but snap.

"You can't take him! You must not take him! My baby -- my son --" she gasped. Woodrow followed her out of the weyr, took her gently by the arm, and attempted to get her to drink something. She threw the cup at the dragon.

"I am sorry, search rider," Norris said, "but my father was one of those fatalities last night... My mother hasn't gotten to grips with it yet."

"Do you... Still want to come?" Theya asked, unsure. The woman had to be dragged bodily away before she started scratching at the dragon with her hands.

"I will go, and Impress, and I will be a dragon rider like my father if I do. And perhaps I'll find a weyrmate or wife to grieve as my mother has for him."

** (page 2)

Taking the loss of his father in stride was difficult for Norris. He had loved his father and respected his mother... And now even that latter was getting difficult. In the few sevendays which passed as he was transferred to White River Weyr, reports of his mother's descent into madness grew less and less encouraging. She would never recover, that much was obvious.

He would be needed to take care of her, eventually. Since she was not allowed to go between with her husband, when he died, there was little recourse but for her to ... simply put, she went mad. Blackstone's healers could do nothing but sedate her, and no one else really had anything to add.

Norris was displeased. He would have to take care of her, of course. But he couldn't do that at the weyr, and he surely couldn't do it if he Impressed.

The responsibility turned out to be more his unspoken superior, Lord Holder Spencer. In an eloquently worded message sent to Norris on the day that he was to Impress, Spencer told Norris that his mother would be well taken care of, in his hands. And Norris did not doubt the man's word. Since he had supplied records in tiny copy of Blackstone's hatchings and such, Spencer had wanted to reward him somehow.

Now, standing upon the hot sands of White River, Norris thanked Spencer silently. His mother would never have been able to forgive him for this.

The first six eggs were spectacular. A bronze, of course, was excellent for a start! Any weyr could do far worse-- in fact, the only better portent for a weyr's first hatching could be a gold! Blue, then brown, then a mess of three -- blue, green and white -- hatched. The seventh egg...

Norris attended it closely, because it was a large sized egg. Surely a bronze or some such would hatch from it! A brown head emerged, and Norris let out a held breath. But... When the rest of this hatchling emerged it turned a deep blue, how amazing! How ... How in the world would Norris explain this?

Instead of trying to explain, the dragon pounced upon Norris playfully and said it all in one mental breath: Here I am Norris! I am Miniocith!

Laughing, suddenly happy for the first time in several weeks, N'ris embraced his odd new lifemate warmly. "Miniocith... Brown and blue... Yes, I think I can live with that!"

He led the dragon away, noticing that he was at least as large as a brown hatchling, and not stunted in the least with his strange coloration. Not like the white, not like others which may hatch that day... N'ris was proud, and he knew that this dragon was the ONLY dragon for him!

With long days of weyrling training under their belts, the White River class marched out to the flight field, and got the riding straps onto their weyrling dragons.

Miniocith was particularly helpful, lowering his graceful head down so N'ris could apply the soft oiled leather to his neck. Snugly then, he put his foot up into the holding stirrup and climbed into the slight depression of a saddle.

It was not entirely different than riding a runnerbeast, N'ris thought at first. Admittedly, a very WIDE runnerbeast... But now the weyrling master insisted the dragons spread their wings and begin trying to actually fly. Their first hops and trials ended poorly for one or two of the blues and greens, but the larger dragons who had been growing into their adolescence well -- such as Miniocith -- spread their huge wings and --

"We're flying! Miniocith! You're doing it!"

Of course I am doing it, my friend! I could do no less for you!

Miniocith leaned over the ledge and looked down at the people on the floor of the weyrbowl. They were a couple of the lucky ones, at Blackstone, who had been requested to remain on the inner side, since he was still considered an expert recordskeeper.

It is beautiful in there. I like the bathing chambers! I like everything about this place!

Someone cleared their throat behind the dragon pair, and Miniocith raised his head, while N'ris turned quickly. "Ah, weyrleader?" N'ris said to the white-haired H'lis who stood with a couple other people at the edge of their new weyr.

"I wanted to welcome you to the fold, N'ris, Miniocith," the odd young man said, "and I wanted to warn you."

Furrowing his brows, N'ris got concerned. "What about?" He asked, wary.

"That Spencer is planning to bring your poor mother back to the weyr, introduce her to the dragon. He says to me that she is doing better." H'lis blinked his grey eyes, "I don't believe him, though. I think," he said turning, "that it's another clever ploy for him to gain you back. Make sure that you're still sending him reports and such."

N'ris sputtered. "I --" but then he slumped a bit. He didn't have to ask how the man knew, he was just as sneaky as any Lord Holder, and twice as perceptive about it. "I understand. Don't you think you could stop him? I mean... I love my mother, and I've lost my father, do *you* think that she's better?"

H'lis looked at the dragon, and at N'ris. "No. I doubt it. But you'd have to confront him yourself, since you *are* his pet. You may do what you like, Blackstone doesn't have the kind of secrets that I must worry about sending to him. But I *do* worry that you'll be distracted in your duties and your work. You settle this, N'ris." On that, H'lis exited the weyr, leaving his dark and light book ends of Spring and Ebony to stare accusingly at the new wing rider for the recordskeepers.

What am I going to do about this? N'ris thought halfway to his dragon.

I would like to meet her if she is coming. I know that shocks you, but she is part of you! And I love you. Perhaps you could turn it away from this Spencer man and to good instead.

N'ris looked up at his big brown-blue dragon. With an appreciative nod, he smiled and said, "you just may be right!"

Miniocith and N'ris have participated in a mating Frenzy at the Healing Den; They are also participating in the hidden bicolor flight at Tripaldi weyr!

Dragon

Lineage

Mates and Descendants

original page images on a site that is highly unlikely to exist any longer