Story originally across 6 pages in /saxxon_of_dragonhope/weyr/riders directory, those are still up but will not be maintained; story will be altered accordingly, since she is not standing at Aneris any longer even if their records page say so. Her dragon 'earned' there has been moved to Zazil's page with added information.

"Mother." Faralona said with a sigh. Her mother Forra ignored her blissfully, still pinning and sewing on the hem of the dress that Faralona modeled. "Mother," she said a little more aggressively. Finally, with no effect there, she added a turn and put her fists upon her narrow hips. "Mo-THER!"

"Hold still dear, the dress won't make itself."

Fuming, Faralona was very tempted to just yank the skirt away and leap from the box she stood upon. Instead, she chose to glower at the back of her mother's flaxen haired head until she could take no more.

"Mother, I'm not going to wear this."

"Of course you are," Forra said with her teeth gritted around another pair of pins. "You'll look wonderful at the gather."

"But mother I won't be able to ride that runner there, and it'll be impossible to chase that dimglow colt around in this. I can't wear it to the gather!" She said, flustered. But at that notion, her mother stood up and removed the pins from her mouth.

"You will go to that gather and look nice there." Her voice told Faralona that she meant it. But that was beside the point - because Faralona did too.

"Mother, I'm going to the gather to sell that runner and her colt, not to find a husband. For the last time, I'm wearing my normal clothing." Faralona stepped down from the box, and so-so-so wanted to yank the dress off herself and throw it down. But she knew how much work Forra had put into it.

"Look," Faralona said, holding her hands up, "I - for the last time - am not interested in getting married off! I'm ... I just don't - want to!"

"What you want and what you're going to get are different things, Fara!" Her mother yelled, losing her temper at last. While she was normally quite sedate, Faralona often brought out the worst in her. In fact, Faralona brought out the worst in everyone. She was always in scuffles and fights, and not just little ones. Spats with the other drudge children and perhaps the herder folk Forra was prepared to deal with. But too often, Faralona got mixed up with some of the younger Holders - their superiors. If it went too far, Forra was worried that they'd wind up being penalized or even sent away for her behavior. They could not afford that.

"Faralona, you are going to marry eventually, and you need to find yourself a man who will put up with you. They're not going to let you wear men's clothing, nor parade about as though you were more skilled as they! They're men! They have egos - but they also have the money and the power around here!"

While some of the words that her mother spoke might have been true, Faralona understood only one thing: that she was being mocked, and being married off would kill her as surely as a dragon turned thread to ash.

She growled and spun, "mother you don't understand at all!"

"I understand that you're a young woman, and you're in a cothold that can afford a little leeway now and again... But with your father away and your brother too young to work much-"

"Marry him off," Fara hissed, "he's cute, at least he 'gets' to wear men's clothing!"

And with that, Fara stormed away into the barn. The runners there knew her moods, and reacted to them. At least they knew to remain steady and wary instead of angry or reflecting her own dark anger. She calmed herself by mucking their stalls, knowing after many, many incidents similar to this that her fury might as well be directed at something constructive instead of just having to do it later after a hard cry or stomping about.

Faralona knew that everything in her life was slightly different than her mother imagined it to be. She was not the pretty young lass that her parents expected - though she was not ugly by any means she was never said to be the good looking daughter of poor Holders servants. Their family was small, which was fortunate because their very minor lordling could hardly afford to put all his own sons into attractive gather wear, let alone pay well enough for servants to do the same. He would host the runner races, he would certainly entertain, and take in tithes good enough for the weyr. But his wife was stingy with her stipend, and prefered to spend elsewhere than at her own cothold's gathers.

The dress that Fara's mother was making for her had been something that she'd saved up for, buying material when she could, using it sparingly in the creation and mending of other ...

"Oh, shards, she'll be furious," Faralona looked down at her new, unfinished dress. It was covered from hem to knee in stall grime, the elbows were black already, and her bottom had brushed against the wooden stall frame and gotten hay on it. Even if Fara's anger was directed somewhat at the dress, she knew better than to think her mother would allow all this hard work - and hard earned cloth - to be treated this way.

"But this is how it would look once I got the runners to the gather, anyway," Faralona said, absently looking at the two mares they weren't selling, "it's an example of what hard work looks like."

And that wasn't fair, Faralona knew her mother had come from a family lower even than it was now, working hard to gain the ability to attend directly to the Lady Holder. "Some Lady," Fara muttered, getting back to sweeping, "dies with but one girl born and no male heir, while her husband's out wooing a young merchant." That merchant became his wife but a few months later, of course - and only because she knew servants work herself, did she care to keep the current staff.

By the time Faralona had mostly blown off her anger, the stable was practically spotless. One could never say it was perfectly clean of course, but everything was in its place, the mares were brushed, their stalls filled with fresh hay, oats in their buckets, fresh water and the floor was still beading with its own dousing. Her dress could be cleaned, in fact she knew she'd have to be the one to do it.

But it was the thought of that single, eldest girl that kept Faralona going most of the time. They were almost the same age, Fara was less than a year younger, and had only heard of the family history around the dinner table now and then. She knew that the girl was put upon at best, especially at gather time, when her brothers were the ones ready to marry into wealth.

Radyll, Radzat and Rodop were little terrors, half Faralona's age, and twice as feisty. One year apart almost to the day, at eight, nine and ten, they pestered their dark-haired sister Polldyn like goats baiting a watchwher. Not - Faralona chuckled as she considered that metaphor - that Poll looked anything like a wher! She sighed, Polldyn was pretty, but not beautiful and not boyish like herself. She had big dark eyes, just like her nearly-black hair. Her brothers inherited their father's pale hair and eyes, what with their own mother's blond and green oh-so-much prettier than Polly's mother had supposedly been.

Anyone who listened to the inner-hold's drudges knew what they thought of Polldyn's mother. And of her. Of course, they often said disparaging things about Faralona too, which caused those fights she was apt to get into.

Why, one time, Farlona recalled while she was sulking up to her quarters to change and wash the dress, the boys in the hold wanted to play 'rescue the Lady from Thread'. Faralona - older than they, but still only the oldest of the boys had been around for this - offered to play the bronze rider of the dragon wing!

They laughed so hard, the boys... Why, girls weren't allowed to ride bronzes. So, she countered, she'd come on a gold queen, burning thread just the same with her flame thrower!

Polldyn laughed and cheered, when Fara displayed (with sounds and motion) the act of 'slaying' all that Thread. The boys moved on. The girls remained together. So what if she couldn't ride a bronze - queens were more important. They were the heart of weyrs.

Males always came and went. Men. Dragons. It didn't matter to Faralona. Her own father had had an affair with some other traveling merchant, everyone knew. In fact there was talk of at least one other sibling out there, older than Lourn, with this other woman. And yet, Faralona knew him to be the most possessive, angry and domineering man in the cothold. He'd come home, though he'd never beat his wife, he certainly yelled. At least, he'd never beaten Forra while Faralona had seen him.

Males were the worst thing that Faralona could imagine. They were ... so... full of themselves. Of course, many of the women folk she knew had those same traits. She knew of two children that had almost been beaten to death by their own mother, she had to be locked away.

But they held no interest to her, even now. She'd been in her womanhood for four years, and though she'd developed physically she never once considered a young man to be worth looking at.

She'd rather look at runners, actually. And appraise them, keep them healthy and clean and ready to run or pull. It was an appreciation that her mother insisted was the 'same thing' that she ought to apply to pick-a-suitor. Keep them fed! Keep them clothed! Keep them happy by bending to their will!

Just as she'd insisted earlier in the day. It was the men who had 'everything'.

Sullenly she washed the gown. It really was pretty - it would look gorgeous on Polldyn. In fact... Faralona blinked, and cleaned more carefully. She should give it to her. Poll would love it, she wasn't all completely lost on things the way Fara was, she liked girly dress-ups, now and then. But she also was very, very clear that she liked Faralona as her prince, as her thread-fighter, as her ...

As her what, husband?

Perhaps. Faralona's throat developed a lump. As she cleaned and dried the dress, picking out the tiny splinters that had appeared where her rump bumped into the stall posts, she wondered. What did they call ... well, they didn't call women anything. They called loose women whores. They called good women chaste. But both of those required the use and abuse of men.

What did they call it when it was another woman that she loved?

***

"It's a travesty, that's what it is," Landry bellowed. His wife meekly cringed with every syllable. Lourn had tried to bolt from the room already but his father had slammed his fist on the table and glared, so the boy hunched in his seat glaring right back at Faralona. Fara's eyes met no one's. She stared at the center of the table, trying to keep calm. If she tried to move, even to sip her water, her father became even louder.

"I love her, I'm not sorry," Faralona said, simply.

"You will be," Landry growled, pushing away from the table. Unexpectedly, simply because he'd never done it before, he gripped his daughter's arm with his huge hand, and pulled her to her feet. "You'll marry who I tell you to, and it'll be a man and not some - some - freak woman!"

"That freak woman is the Lord Holder's daughter," Faralona growled, her eyes growing narrow and hard just like her father's. He was not a tall man, but he was hugely built, with hands used to holding tools and wood, chains and hauling lumber from the rare protected forests into holds like this. Faralona wouldn't be as big as he, she had her mother's build. But her face resembled his just now, more than ever. Her eyes were green, his were amber, neither were ready to flinch away.

Until Landry pulled back his massive hand and struck his daughter across the face. Even though it was hardly a full strength blow it sent her sprawling and into the wall. At that, Lourn did bolt from his seat, terrified. He was only seven, after all, hardly one to hold his own in a situation like this. Forra trembled, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Landry -" she whispererd, but dared not say another word.

"Even if you've got a good welt on your face, you'll go to this gather this time and you'll get it right." Landry towered over his daughter who'd crumpled on the floor more in surprise than in pain. True, it did hurt - a lot - and was going to leave a huge bruise for days. But that he'd done it, that was too much. "The runners be damned, you are going to marry before you're eighteen, and you'll marry who I tell you to! Get to your cot, little wench, and get ready for the gather tomorrow. I'll hear nothing from you about this Holder slut of yours."

Faralona saw her mother's eyes peal open, if anyone had heard him say that they might all be banished from the cothold entirely! Even if the girl wasn't popular, she was still the eldest of the family!

Faralona paused, wondering if she should push her luck and remain on the floor against her father's wishes. But the anger balled up in his fists and the power behind those thick digits told her she'd best not disobey this time. She stood and wobbled a bit, she could already feel the sting of the black mark that would be rising over the next hour under her eye. Her whole cheek burned, but her face was red with anger, not with shame.

As she passed into the hallway stairs, she dared a glance back at the table, where her father hadn't turned so his back was to her. "So this is what it's like to live in one of those families. Karu and Katall were right, I'd rather not have a man in my life, like they'd rather not have a mother. If a man does this." She indicated her face to her mother, glaring, and Forra looked away to see whether her husband was going to turn on their daughter.

He did not follow her, but Faralona could hear them - well, him - arguing late into the night about her behavior.

How it was so 'wrong', how it was 'against nature' and all manner of idiocy. What did it matter who you loved, when it was returned? When a man wanted a woman and she didn't like his advances, he was sad - and if Polldyn had ever refused to be around Faralona she'd surely have felt the same way. They were not just 'best friends', they were not quite lovers, but both knew that that would be where this led. They'd kissed once or twice, almost by accident the first time, but later in earnest in private.

If Landry knew that... he might have ...

Faralona drew in a deep breath, blinked away the tears of pain and anger that had developed in her big green eyes, and began to silently choose what to pack away.

***

The gather days were overcast, which was good. But still bright, still untouched by Thread and attended by what appeared to be an entire Hold full of travelers. Why would anyone even want to come through here? Faralona wondered to herself as she gazed at them from their plot of land. Their stables and farm was just under the kitchen side of the Hold, the best place for good runners, actually, with solid land and good drainage. It was a plot that grew good tubers, but little else than grass and perhaps a quick growing shade tree. Trees certainly did grow fast here.

Thread had scarred the land hundreds of years before, they all knew it. But now, there was a weyr that protected it. They had brought grubs from the South, tilling the soil until it yeilded results, and then keeping track of progress on turning the land from barren to lively by sheer physical effort.

Faralona had known the jutting hills and wide plateaus all her life, and knew them from runnerback as well as foot paths. A pair of rice fields bordered the last village, with the water drainage all ending up there it was likely nothing but rice and tall-grass would grow there anyway. The stand of fruit trees to the north belonged to the Lords, fields of grasses and oats mixed with the other grains that fed the rest of the cothold. Life here wasn't bad. It just wasn't perfect either.

It was no rich-man's Hold. There were four Lordlings with large plots of land split up, all related men whose great-grandfather was their only tie. One was usually absent entirely, and his lands were essentially taken over by the others. The hold itself was split too, but it was Polldyn's family who officially ran the place. It wouldn't be too long before the other two elderly Lords gave up their parcels - but they might not give them to Razeltar either. That kept everyone on edge. So those loyal to him threw better parties. Good gathers. The elderly men had families who had either deserted them long before, died in tragic 'accidents', or been Searched and never came back from a weyr. They were of no true consequence to the next generation of Lordlings here.

Unless they managed to sell off their portions of the Hold to someone who wished to be there.

And it just so happened that one man did. Faralona heard talk of him even before the gather had started, several sevendays before. Talk had run to worry - would he be so rich that he'd be able to oust all the lords? Or just the old man - maybe the second?

But one rumor she'd heard suddenly came back to Faralona as she started walking around. In her pretty dress (which had to be taken back from Polldyn - her step mother all but threw it at Forra to get her out of there), she didn't bother hiding her huge blackened cheek, instead she strutted around like it was a Threadscore on a bronze rider.

The rumor had it that her father had introduced the old Lord Heuro to the younger one, named Juden. Could it be that he wanted in on ... Oh, of course. Their money. He was selling her. To get this man into their Hold. So he could have a place of status.

"Hey, isn't that Landry's girl?" Someone said, she didn't know the voice right off. It was a man, and for some reason that made her angrier than ever.

"I am actually Forra's girl, Landry was so good to give me this beautiful welt last night, doesn't it go with this butter-cream dress of mine?" She mockingly yelled, twirling around like a giddy girl only with a fierce mask on her face.

The trio of young travelers who had been to this Hold before (they knew her as the girl that rode runners, primarily, and had respected her if distantly, until that moment) exchanged looks with one another, and faded quickly into the crowd. Faralona grew more angry by the moment, with the scornful looks that people were giving her.

What right did they have to even look at her? To see her like this, embarrassed and bruised by her own family? She heard them snickering, she heard them muttering as she passed. Did they not see she had ears? Did they think she was deaf?

"Come get me, Faralona the prize, offered for only ... how much gold did you say you had sir? Did I see gemstones in that bag?"

She went on like this for half an hour before her father heard her. And then, it was as though the Red Star descended upon her itself. He literally dragged her, hauling her over his shoulder as she screamed and kicked at him, up to their hut. Forra was out with Lourn thankfully, when they got there. He foisted her onto the kitchen table like a sack of grain, but held her shoulder down so she could not rise.

"Faralona, you will hear these words once from me and I swear by the Red Star if you cross me again I will bind you to your seat to make you appear calm." He was eerily not at the same angry tone he'd been the day before, this rage was tempered with something Faralona realized was desperation. "You will sit before Lord Juden and you will obey his every request. You will dance with him - or for him if he asks it of you. You will be silent and not speak a word - and you will not ever mention money."

Faralona, still pinned to the table and at a serious disadvantage should Landry decide to pummel her with his free hand, said listslessly, "but that is what this is about, is it not, father? It's all about your getting money for me to be some house-bitch for a man I've never met. Hit me if you want. Tie me up if you have to. I won't marry him."

She was only mildly surprised to find his free hand had gotten around her slender neck. He held his fingers there, hard and rough from their work, but he did not squeeze. Instead, he merely stood there for a moment, said, "you will," and then let go of her.

"Get your hair back into a bun," he asserted, "and wait by the kitchen lift near the Hold. If I see you at that gather again, like that, ..."

"You'll kill me? What, and lose your precious money?" She spat. She knew that baiting him, like the night before, could lead to a very dangerous and final confrontation. But now she felt like nothing at all mattered. Nothing. Not who she was, not who she loved, nothing.

She was empty of all feeling, when she turned to go to her room. She heard him exit the hut but since he could hardly bar the door from the outside he merely stomped away.

Breathing out slowly, Faralona picked up her step to the room she'd had all her life, and then rooted out the small pack of clothing that she had secreted away while 'getting ready' the night before. She had to go, she couldn't take this. But before she vanished entirely, she had to say good bye to Polldyn.

***

The steps to Polldyn's room were rather steep but Faralona's feet were sure on them as they had always been. They grew up together, these girls, there was no place that Fara couldn't find her ... her ...

"Fara!" Polldyn gasped, when she saw her friend at the door of her private chamber. "What happened to you?!"

"I hoped you'd be here," Faralona said, listless and flatly, "if you'd been out at the gather already I don't know what I would have done." She dropped her hands, they were empty - she'd already set up one of the mares with riding gear and snuck her out to the back end of the runner's grazing field. A fortunately fallen branch from a tree blocked whatever view a casual glance might yield, that there was a runner out there alone. "I have to go, Polly, I have to leave. My father is ..."

"Your father did this, didn't he," Polldyn said, hesitating to touch Faralona's face. "Oh Fara, I can feel it - it's so hot even from not close to touching it..." Tears brewed in the girl's black eyes, but Faralona's were still dry.

"He knows that I love you, he thinks it's a travesty against nature," Faralona said. "... I do love you, Polly. I can't not love you. That can never change. No matter what happens. He wants me to marry that man old Holder Huero is selling his plot to, I'm sure of it." She took a shaking, long breath, and added, "you know I don't want to marry ... anyone but you. I love you."

"But - But - I love you too," Polldyn said. Her slender figure was a shadow that moved to embrace the light. Faralona stood almost stiffly until they touched, and then she had to fight from breaking down entirely. She allowed the tears to come, hot on Polly's tall shoulder. But she could not afford anything more. She fiercely embraced the girl she'd loved since they met almost fifteen years before, and then pushed away. She looked to the side, anywhere but those hurt, dark eyes.

"I can't be here, I can't stay here, or he'll probably want to hurt you too. The - the things he said, Polly, I ... I can't even repeat them."

Polldyn sucked in a breath and bit her full lip. "My step mother has said such things, I think. But never to me. I think she tries turning my father against me, with them."

"Well I don't want to let that happen," Faralona snapped suddenly, "I will come back, Polly. I will come here and ... and I'll take you away on my dragon. Remember?" Now she sobbed, "Remember how we played?"

They fell into each other's arms again, the only sounds were muffled by their shoulders, neither wanted to let go. But shortly Faralona did have to let go. She had to steal away, with hot tears dropping to the stone floor and lingering - the only thing Polldyn had left of her lover.

She knew that her father would be searching for her after he'd gotten the Lord Holder into position. But fortunately for her, Juden was a fan of wines and cheeses, and there were plenty of those in the Gather grounds scattered among the many tents and lean-tos. It took a while for Landry to locate the man, and then of course quite a while longer to persuade him to go back up to Lord Holder Heuro's chambers for their meeting. He was having altogether too much fun down here.

He was throwing money around, almost literally. If Faralona had been there to spy upon them, one of the young men that she'd driven off by her mad ravings earlier in the day clucked his tongue and admitted that she was probably right: here was the guy that would have all that money to buy whoever he wanted.

But Faralona was reasonably far away by then. The sun was heading down, the sky was lit from below as the cloud cover brilliantly illuminated the land in golds and reds. Faralona left her home, the place she'd grown up and loved, and did not dare look back.

Her meager pack included small bits of food that she swiped from the kitchens in the Hold on her way out. Never let it be said that in her anger or ruffled state was she impractical! Everything could lead to something better, she reminded herself. She could take this anger and mold it into something new.

She would be doing it alone, on a stolen runner, with two shirts and three pairs of pants and very, very little else. And an angry father who would be sure to pursue her. Well one thing she knew for sure, she was going to stay one step ahead of him. If she could, she'd find a map. A proper map, not one of those little scribbled ones that the tavern keeper had tacked to his wall, but one which showed Weyrs and Holds and roads.

Faralona had been out to other holds before. She thought about where to head, it would have to be south because she knew that winter in the hills to the north would kill both her and her runner. And, she'd have to ... well, perhaps she shouldn't sell the mare. Backy was a middle aged mare, still able to bear, and was fairly distinctive in her coloration - she had dark red fur with black across her back in a large swath. The kind of marking that would be easily recognized from a height, and almost everything around here had a hill nearby it to look down from.

So that was out. She had to keep the mare, until at least she got a fair distance away. And besides, this runner had been foaled while Faralona watched, she was a responsibility as well as a good mount. With that thought, Faralona eased up on her pace and allowed Backy to slow up and rest. The road was filled with hoofprints, cart wheel runnels and the like. There would be no way to see this horse's prints among that many others. People came and went along this gravelly road every day. For the Gather, they would do so more than once a day, too, since the next cothold past their border had an inn worth staying at.

Faralona had to avoid it, its allure and its friendly light. She'd stayed there once with her mother, and again with her father.

It was the owner's daughter - who he had that affair with. It was this girl who was barely over a decade older than Faralona herself, that had born another child. Her half-brother. A strange sick feeling gripped Faralona's throat. What if she did go in. What if she saw him? Was he like her? Did he have their father's nose? (What a pity, someone once said, that a girl should inherit such a nose!) Did he tend the bar while his mother and grandfather were out at the Gather nearby or getting their rooms cleaned?

No, she refused to take the small side path toward the inn. She saw the metal rooftop and the chimney smoke, and imagined she heard laughter from within even at this distance. She stared at the road ahead, and continued on in her own silent world well into night.

***

Fortunately at the first sign of daybreak, Faralona'd reached a bridge, and decided that it was time for her and Backy to quit for the day and rest. There was shelter below, this river wouldn't see water rushing below the bridge for a good two months or more, and it had been a warm, dry summer so maybe even longer. The bridge had stone surrounding two long metal beams - something she'd heard of but had never seen up close. It was marvelous to her, to see such workmanship.

Faralona wondered when it had been made. As she tethered Backy to the bottom of a tree that grew halfway under the water line, she hoped that no one would come by this far away from the gather, this soon. She would have to sleep, and so would Backy. The soft sandy bottom of the river bed was still cool from the night, but would warm up with the day and that brought a little happiness into the girl. Her cheek stung so badly though, that she had to sleep sitting up, which also wasn't a terrible thing in her mind. If someone did approach, she was already haflway on her feet.

Faralona was the kind of person that when asked 'is the glass half full or half empty' - the first thing she'd do is blurt out empty. But then she'd think about it. In fact she had thought about it. If only the glass were smaller...

She (and Backy, who munched on river grass for an hour first) drifted to sleep as the sun came up. Her dreams were chaotic, filled with faces and emotions. But they were inconclusive - she wasn't sure whether she felt so bad about leaving her mother alone with an angry Landry, or glad that she'd managed to escape. She did dwell on Polldyn's face. So much hurt, but so much love.

So what if they were both women?

They were essentially both adults, weren't they? Couldn't they love whoever they wished? In a perfect world, perhaps. Fara woke when Backy nibbled at her hair. The day had turned to mid-afternoon, and it was time for her to get moving again. She only hoped that Backy's hooves were going to be okay on this route, for she had nothing to trade for new shoes.

Faralona could see the bruise on her face was so big and swollen now, after two days, that she had to remain hidden until it went down. There would be no mistaking her identity, her father would be smart enough to ask about a girl with a bruise or a half-hidden face. All along her left cheek she could feel it, fortunately it hadn't been a high hit, otherwise her eye would be shut from it. And fortunately too, her father hadn't used his fist. This was merely a slap from him.

It was more than enough to make her realize that every bad thing she'd ever heard about men who struck their wives was true. They were horrible people - not all men were like that. But enough that everyone had heard those stories. And it always seemed those stories ended one of three ways. The woman sat and did nothing, she took it quietly and died from it. The woman up and killed him, and was jailed for her 'murder'. Or she found someone else to do that work for her. Of course, usually, that meant bedding another abusive man who would be willing to fight her husband for her - and later do the same bloody thing to her again.

"Men," Faralona spat.

Backy nickered, and Fara laughed for the first time in days.

***

Faralona considered herself lucky that she knew how to read. With trade as brisk as it was in their cothold, everyone had to be able to spot a deal, read numbers and signs, put up a placard with their name on it at an auction. She knew, then, that the better place for her to ride to when the road split, was the smaller of the two towns which she'd heard people speaking of.

But then... no. She got half a mile down that road, when she reconsidered. She doubled back, found the fork in the road, and while eating the last of her breaded meat, headed toward the big city instead.  The road was better, for one thing. There was shade in the afternoon, which was a blessing because otherwise her face would be bruised as well as burnt. She hadn't bothered to bathe or wash her clothing in three days now, and was starting to think highly of the goat back home... But she actually smelled more of horse than anything else, which any traveller did.

When she finally did reach the city, it was bigger than she'd imagined it would be. There must be a strong Weyr nearby, she thought. Overlooking this city was a snow capped mount, and true - there were small specks in the sky which meant ... dragons.

Well that was good! A large Hold this close to a Weyr could be the best thing for her!

Faralona still didn't think it was a good idea to relinquish her runner, even this place could spread rumor or point her out in a crowd quickly. She didn't know whether this was a trade port, or an insular Hold. Her home hold had perhaps three hundred, perhaps 350 people in it at most. They were spread around, but clumped into villages. Here, her eyes swam trying to count rooftops. It was a sheltered bowl shape that surrounded the whole city, with fields above it to the north, where she'd ridden. Steppes formed like a pyramid inverted, with row upon row of buildings. The way she understood it, there were roads behind the buildings, perhaps even dug into the ground, where people could be sheltered if Thread did break through.

Even so, there were places she could clearly see people and beasts walking about, out in the open. There were laundry lines between roofs, flags with the local Hold symbol on them flying frequently. The road led to the highest step, and Faralona's heart fluttered a little. There were guards, big men with long spears, at the gates.

"Excuse me, sirs," Faralona said, "is there... Do you ..."

"Spit it out girl, what do you want? Come closer, it's getting on evening, you should be coming in for the night." Said one, the other nodded.

"There is no... there's no fee, is there?" She asked, urging Backy just a few feet closer.

The guards looked at one another and then burst out laughing. "Why would there be a fee, missy? You must not be from anywhere around here!"

"I'm not, I'm..." She faltered, sighed, "I'm from Kulban," she lied, that was the little town she'd avoided earlier. "This place is so very different!"

"Aye," said the other guard, still chuckling. "A fee. Come along, girly, inside. We'll be getting more picky about who comes in after dark." He got a strange look, "you traveled here alone? And - you were safe this far - consider yourself lucky, there's bandits and dangers aplenty out there."

"Aye," Said the first guard who motioned her in with his hand, leaving his spear pointing away. "This Weyr protects the woods and us, but those woods grow thick enough to house the biggest tunnel snakes you've ever seen. It's a wonder you and your runner weren't food!"

Though she'd hardly felt that she was in danger these last few days, Faralona's hand impulsively went to her neck, and her expression betrayed concern. The same look came from the guard nearest.

"Your face miss, that's a bad bruise. I hope that's from a fall. You might want to see one of the healers, we've quite a few here. Spiral Hold has a good number of crafts here."

He was ... he was avoiding talking about the subject like he knew it too well. Faralona thanked him, honestly, and nudged Backy to walk between the gate posts. The city beckoned, but... what would she do now? She was a runaway. Or, worse, homeless wanderer. Some of those folks had come through her cothold years ago and they were run off like bandits would be. She wondered... If they'd only taken them in? It was possible they'd have become bandits just to survive.

Her heart went out to those folks, even though they were imagined, and very possibly she would have felt differently if she'd felt eyes on her while she traveled.

A pack of children ran up the ramp nearby, she noticed now there were two rows of buildings, one set into the higher wall and the other just a few feet lower. They scampered from the end of one to the start of another, pulling to the walls when they saw her.

"Where is the nearest healer?" She asked of them, and one pointed to a wall which had the edge of a sign on it. "Thank you, very much. Is there somewhere I can house my runner?"

"My dad's got a stable," one child said, "but it's full right now. We got other barns, they're down in the circle." He waved his hand, meaning apparently, farther into the city and down the spiral. The city was indeed built like a curved line, ever lower toward the center. There was a lake, down there, she was certain but hadn't seen it from her vantage outside.

She chose to head toward the healer, and hope that perhaps he'd have room for her and a runner.

Faralona dismounted, and realized with a start while she passed her own armpit that she reeked. While she was tomboyish enough to dress in trousers and wear boys' shirts, she at least knew when she smelled. But - she realized that a healer had to have smelled and seen more than their share of such things! Right?

She pulled Backy to the wall, and pulled on the little cord which led (plainly) to a bell inside. Waiting for a moment, hoping that the healer was home, Faralona brushed a few stray leaves and bits of dirt from herself, and then--

"May I help you - oh dear child what a bruise." The voice at the door was a woman's? Faralona looked up from her half-crouch, and then stood more firmly up. She loosened her pack from the runner's saddle, and uncinched that to provide some relief for Backy.

"... I know, it's pretty bad. But -" she said holding both hands up slightly, "I've ... I've got no money, I'm afraid. I'd make something up about what happened, but... I ran away, my father did this, and I've nothing but my clothes and runner. I'm willing to work for whatever might be needed." Her head swam. Why had she just said that? Why not say that she'd been beaten by bandits when she knew they were near?

The woman with the dark blue-violet robe and greying hair stuck up in a loose messy bun had an odd expression. Her curved eyebrows went up, and she blinked, and then she chuckled.

"Well don't let that stop you, come on in girl. I'm afraid your runner will have to find another place, I'll send for someone to take it." She was lean, but her face was round like the bun of hair, and she sounded like she relished company.

"I would think this close to the gates, you'd have a lot of visitors," Faralona said. "I'm sorry - I didn't mean to--"

"Oh no, no," the healer said. "I'm usually needed for birthing and the like, emergencies by the road. I moved here by choice. Most of the action is down near the circle, here it's not nearly as exciting as all that." She picked up her head, and looked around the dim room. She whistled softly twice, and said, "Pelan, Pelan where are you?"

"You don't have to send for a currier, I can--" Faralona said, but then a shape flapped into view from another room, a brown firelizard! Faralona had never seen one up close, like this! "Oh - I see!"

"Pelan, fetch Carson. Carson - you know him, with the braid." The brown flitter cheeped, flapped a few times, and then vanished in midair between.

"They really do ... that!" Faralona said, staring at the place where the flitter had been moments before. "I've never... wow."

This seemed to make the healer even more mirthful than she had been a moment before. "Flitters are fairly common here, with the weyr having sands for dragons, you can believe that they've got beaches for the flitters. Mine didn't come from here, but he's sired half a dozen nests I'm sure. Now, while he's off fetching the smith, let's have a look at you."

After half a moment of appraisal looking up and down on the grimy girl, she added, "which will be far easier once you've had a bath and get into some clean robes. It'll take Carson some time to get here, if he's able to come."

"But how will he know? I mean..." Faralona asked, as she was led into a back room. Glows lit a wide hall that split to reveal at least three private rooms and a bath at the end.

"Oh, Carson has a few students and helpers. He sends them to me when they manage to burn themselves or smack their hand with a hammer. Besides," she chuckled again, and Faralona decided she rather liked this woman. "When you're a healer your patients get to know ways to contact you whether you mean them to or not."

Faralona tiredly stripped down to her skin and kicked the clothing into a basket that the healer provided.

She heard from the other side of the privacy curtain, "dear, what's your name, I'm Emba, by the way."

"Faralona," she said, "my clothes are so dirty, I can't even believe ..."

"Are you all right?" Emba asked, poking her head into the room and seeing the girl clutching her shoulders and sobbing gently. "Oh, there there, we'll set things right. For now, let's draw you a bath and let you relax. I've plenty of spare robes to put on you when you're done." She bent over and started pumping a water handle, and to Faralona's surprise the water coming from it was already hot!

"... How in the world! We've a well where I'm from but it's chilled!"

"Well there's a big reservoir around the north arc," Emba explained while continuing to get warm water into the tub nearby. "They pull the water from the lake in the Circle, and hold it in big tanks."

"Uphill?" Faralona stood unashamed by the healer, naked and covered only in dirt, "uphill? And then warmed?"

"Well they've got some kind of oxen pulling a big..." She rolled her eyes, waved her hand, and laughed. "Shard it girl, I'm a healer, not a pipefitter! Get in there and clean up! Relax, but don't fall to sleep in here. I don't want you going under."

She left Faralona and puttered about presumably setting out robes and a towel. Fara put one foot into the bath, it was warm and inviting in the way that her family's bath basin had never been. Theirs was a round barrel cut in half, and lined with oiled skin of some kind. You had to take water from halfway across the plot to get it there, and heat it one pot at a time if you really wanted it warm. Faralona had never known this kind of luxury, even when she'd stayed overnight with Polly.

She didn't even know whether Polldyn had ever had a bath this nice. She scrubbed at her nails, neck, every place she could reach and then discovered a cloth meant to apply soaps. She readily took to that, cleaning her hair which was so badly tangled that she barely could get her fingers through it. Concentrating on her efforts to clean instead of thinking allowed her to make it almost all the way through the bath before she started sobbing again.

She heard a muffled noise outside the room, and tried to stop crying, but Emba cleared her throat to announce, "Carson's working with your runner, she'll be in good hands. Now, can I come in and see what's the matter?"

"If you want," Faralona said, staring at the water which was now filthy and slightly cooler than she'd like. If only the water could remain hot - hot - hot.

"Well now that's much better isn't it?" Emba said, holding the towel out and shaking it gently to encourage Fara to rise. The girl did so and let the healer pat her mostly dry. Emba tisked her tongue, "your hair, it's like you've never seen a brush before. I'll go get one."

"Get a scissors instead," Faralona said, flatly. "I don't want to deal with it. I don't even want to look at it."

"Now now, that's a bit hasty," Emba tried to say, but Faralona snarled.

"I want it off, I want to forget who I was. Put it behind me, except it's there ... reminding me of ... me." She gritted her teeth, and looked away.

"Well if you're serious, I have some scissors of course." The elder woman put her eyebrow up again, "how short do you think you'll want it?"

Why was this woman she'd hardly met being so kind - she was a healer, sure, but it didn't mean she had to be so.... nice. Anyone else doing something like this Faralona would have suspected of having some kind of other motive - usually to trick her or play a prank. But she got none of that from Emba, and for no real good reason she resented it.

But this time, before saying something idiotic like 'just cut it all off' she paused in thought. She remembered the fork in the road. "... Maybe short - like boys get, I always dress like a boy anyway."

"You can't pass for a boy with those," Emba nodded with a little grin at Fara's small but obvious breasts.

"Not trying to, I just want to be who I am, instead of who my family wants me to be." She said, simply. It was more of a relief than she realized, by not just saying this, but by allowing Emba to try and talk her out of it. She could get a grip on what she really wanted, now. She was calm, she splashed the last of the clean water on her face again and toweled off. Finding the robes that Emba wore to be far too long but nice and warm, she wrapped one around herself and stepped into the more well-lit hall, where Emba beckoned to a seat.

She had the scissors in one hand and a comb in the other, so she meant business. Faralona almost had a flipflop second thought - but suppressed it. Now she was really going to have to live her own life, she'd never been allowed to before, and it looked as though this woman would help.

She sat down, and Emba began snipping. When at last she could reach the shorter tangles with the comb she slowed down. During all this, though, they spoke quietly of what Faralona had done and what she expected to do next. Emba assured her that she'd be safe at least with her, and she was welcome to remain as a guest - but she would find work, there was always work. She didn't have to be here to do it, Emba explained. Just that she did something for someone.

"How did you get to be here, Emba? You're a master healer, aren't you? Why aren't you ... I don't know, teaching or up with some holder?" Faralona asked. The elderly woman sighed, and kept combing Fara's hair.

"Well once I was a weyr healer, I mainly did birthings, some Threadscore sewing. Almost twelve years, I spent in the Weyr right near here. I've seen plenty of strife. The last thing I need is more intrigue - the kind you've come to escape."

"But... why, why us, Emba? Polly and I love each other. It's like they're afraid of us. Like we've got a sickness to spread or something." Faralona slumped, and Emba prodded her to sit up straight.

"I saw plenty of sad love stories in the weyr too, you know," Emba stated, clipping a few stray hairs. "More men than women, certainly, but not all starcrossed lovers end in tragedy. Some live on, happy." She swept the last strands of Fara's pale brown hair off her shoulders, and onto the stone floor where she'd clean up later. Or more likely, one of the stray flitters that her errant brown brought in would use it for a nest...

"And most of them were dragon riders," Emba finished, "green and brown riders, blues and even a bronze. Saw a pair of women, one wound up on a brown and the other a green - after one's dragon couldn't fly Thread much any more they began fostering children for the weyr, training them for dragon duties. Clever of them. And the bronze and blue riders... now that was a pair of men any woman would want to bed. Probably even you," Emba laughed.

"Well... I doubt that," Fara chuckled back. Her eyes widened, "my neck is cold," she said. Reaching up behind her head she found that the mop of hair that she often kept in a ragged tail was gone. Instead, she tossed her fingers through the straight, short and fairly fine strands. "And light, my head isn't... heavy?"

"Silly girl. Now, let me look at that cheek properly." She turned Faralona around, but instead of being able to examine her face, Faralona threw her arms around the woman's shoulders and gave a long, half-sob half-laugh.

It wasn't long after arriving to Spiral Hold that Faralona knew what she wanted to do to earn her keep. She was quite an adept rider, after all, and with a bit of practice out in the light woods within sight of the fields, there was plenty of game to hunt. Carson the blacksmith with a stable, where Backy was being boarded, offered to lend her a hunting spear. She eagerly took him up on it, and eventually mastered a one-handed spear toss that bagged her wild wherry and feral pigs.

Backy wasn't the best mount for this task, of course. She was used to pulling a cart or being raced a little on nice, even turf. This was rougher work, in terrain that she'd never experienced. But then, Faralona kept her head and used a confident tone when addressing the mare, and over a little more time, only a few weeks, the runner learned as much as the girl about where to hunt and what to sniff for.

One afternoon, some six weeks after her escape from her father, Faralona learned of a troupe of riders sporting Hogsden's flag approaching the Hold, and she blanched. The guards at the gate had long since gotten used to her, knowing her situation (they'd managed to coax it out of her after a day of bartering and gambling over the pelt that she didn't feel like selling down at the Circle) and keeping her appraised of things. One of them had a flitter that liked to roam - and apparently the little creature had an eye for colors. The silver and red standard showing two horse shoes and a hogs head was a banner that the flitter just couldn't get out of his head.

From atop Backy, Faralona sat stiffly and guarded, near the gate house to the Hold.

"We can just say you've not come through here," said the one, bearded, man. His younger and balder companion nodded deeply. They clearly had taken a liking to Fara, she was competent and strong willed - they'd half considered asking her to join the city guard.

"... They'll find out, how did he know to look here?" She asked, more to herself than anyone present.

"It's possible he's just searching every place within riding distance, now," said the bald guard. That made Faralona's stomach sink.

"That's more likely," she said, "it's not like him to have thought to ask around first. I ... wonder how angry he's going to be when I send them home without me."

The men on the ground glanced at one another, and back at the steely glare on the girl's face. Her bruised cheek had healed weeks ago but there was a small scar under her eye from it. She'd thought about having it tattooed black, or perhaps red, just to prove it was there.

She wore it like threadscore, a badge she'd earned. In a way the men both respected her and were frightened for her. Too bold perhaps, too eager to fight. She still got into spats - but with young men and women who were of a par with her abilities. She was learning when to hold her tongue, but still apt to mess up, especially if it involved love, men, or a woman's place in the world.

The riders from Hogsden were within sight now, their standard flying high and proud. There were five riders, none of them nobles from the House though, and that made Faralona's grim face adopt a somewhat nasty grin.

"I can handle this," she said to the guards, but she turned to them and smirked. "If it looks like I'm about to do something really stupid, stop me, okay?"

They chuckled nervously, but stood by as she passed them and went onto the road.

Backy recognized her stable mates, even after two months away. But her ears went back, she sensed her rider's anger and fear. She gave a little knicker and Faralona's hand went to gently touch her neck. "It's all right, girl, they'll go away soon enough."

"There she is," called one young man in the group, and foolishly tried to urge his runner toward the girl. The man in front, who Faralona recognized as one of the House guards, held his hand out and stopped him.

"Landry's got a bounty out on you," he said. "We're to bring you back alive but if you fight he just wants your--"

"He can't have my anything, and he won't be seeing me alive any time soon," Faralona spat, "you're not going to get any money from him, he's practically destitute. You know that." She tightened her grip on the reigns.

Without even pausing, the leader of the group said, "your scalp, and barring that, we're definitely to take the runner. She's of more value than you are, girl."

Faralona's green eyes narrowed, down to slits. "I own this runner. I bred her, I foaled her, I trained her, and I keep her fit. He wouldn't know how to take care of a runner if it bit him. Especially if it bit him." She shook her head.

"I think you need to look at this rationally," said another of the guards behind his leader, "You're a horse thief, at best."

"No, I'm a horse thief at worst. You don't remember why I ran away? Or do you believe whatever that oaf told you about me?" Faralona spat on the ground, "he can rot, to the Red Star with him. Here," she said suddenly, sitting back a bit, "how much did he offer you as a bounty? How much?"

"More'n you've got ye' li'l--" an older man sputtered, but Faralona pulled a small pouch from her saddle pack.

"Fifteen Marks? More?" Faralona said. "That's enough for three full Marks each, that's more than my father ever had in his lock box."

Angrily, the leader of the group urged his runner a few feet closer. "Where'd you steal that from, now? You're digging yourself deeper and --"

"I earned it, you foul pig," Faralona growled, "Do you think this spear is just for decoration?" She nodded at it, resting in its sling at her right side. "I'm hunting for pelts and meat, it's a better living than I could ever have at Hogsden."

The head of the group glanced at the guards past Faralona, and yelled toward them, "what're you looking at? We're here to take this fugitive thief back for trial."

"I don't think so," yelled the bearded guard, "she's one of the best hunters we've got, I think you should take her money and go. She'll make more." Faralona heard the groan of his leather armor as he stood straighter and away from the gate's wall. "Shards, I'll give you two more Marks, if it'll make you leave all the quicker."

He flicked one of them into the air, Faralona caught it, then the second he tossed, and put them into her purse. Then she absently tossed it at the leader of the Hogsden guard.

"Don't come back. Don't look for me. Don't bother telling him I'm here, either. I'll find out about that."

"He knows you're here, he'll come looking himself." Said the man, glancing at the pouch he'd stretched to catch. His fingers felt around the cloth, yes - there were many Marks, heavy and solid, in there.

"Let him. I'll send his scalp home to my mother." Faralona turned Backy around, and headed into the city gate. When the party of Hogsden men were making small talk and shifting their own runners around to head back the way they came, Faralona dismounted and stood by the guards.

"You didn't have to do that, now I owe you two Marks," she said.

"Hardly," he replied. "You owe me a wherry dinner is all. The look on his face was worth half a Mark itself."

When the group had gotten over the slight rise that led away to the north, and were about to head back into the light woodland bordering Spiral Hold's land, Faralona lept back onto her runner.

"Where you going?" Asked the bald guard.

"Into the woods. I'll be right back." Faralona kicked her heels gently into Backy's sides, and sped off into the turf and the rougher terrain of the forest. She knew the area well enough by now to know just what she was looking for.

Well, she knew approximately, but not exactly. When she found the drooping rock formation and the half-covered signs of a fort, she pulled up short and gave a whistle. "Heyo!" She called, half-hoarse and eagerly. Not at full volume, she knew how close the road was.

Eventually three men and one woman crept out of their hiding places among the stones and plants. Without even letting them get angry with her for intruding on their territory, she said, "there's a group of men from another Hold, red and silver banner, they've got some Marks on them. I'd suggest going quickly and getting them. Their runners have just come quite a ways and will be tired. Don't harm the men, don't hurt the runners. Take the Marks and clear them out to the north - only the north. Don't let them come back this way."

Stunned, the woman with a scar from Thread along her forehead said, "why, what'll you give us for getting your Marks back?"

"No, no, you keep them. I just don't want them having it. And I want them to know that they're not welcome here. This is your woods, right?" She winked. "There's at least seventeen marks in one pouch, whatever else they have as well. Just don't hurt them or their runners - and stay out of my trapping area."

"Aha," one of the men laughed, "you're the hunter that keeps taking our dinner!"

"Well you are bandits, someone's got to keep you from getting fat." Faralona laughed. "Go quickly, they're on the road already."

She then turned and sped around back to the road and the Hold gate.

With the bandits taking care of her father's troublemaking team, but Hogsden Hold now high on her mind, she wondered. Had the old man died yet? It'd been time enough for the Holders to bicker about the dividing up of things... What had happened with Polldyn? Had she been forced into a marrige? Perhaps even with the man that Landry had tried to sell Fara off to?

It was possible. It was even likely, knowing that now the menfolk as well as Polly's stepmother would be talking about it. It seemed to Faralona that the world was cursed to have unpleasant people making far too many decisions for those below them. And, that those people were cruel, hard, undeserving of such an honor.

She stalked around Spiral Hold from top to center, having put Backy up carefully as ever in her rented stall with Carson's runners. Even when she was distracted and angry, Faralona never quite lost her ability to focus on a task. It simply got done: she cleaned the stall, fed and watered and briefly cleaned Backy, got herself a bit spruced up... All on automatic, while she thought of her home Hold.

Fortunately, the locals had gotten used to her by now, and the scowl on her face told even the worst of the bunch that they should stay clear of her today.

Now, truth be told, even though she would consistantly swear that she despised men and everything they stood for, she also had grown to like many of them. The gate guards, Carson, some of the younger kids, even one of the Harpers that came drifting through and wound up remaining - drunk as he usually was - at the nearby inn. It was there that she too wound up, and it was to that Harper that she came to sit beside.

"The looks of you say you're in need of more than advice," he said gently, his voice was probably what Fara liked most about him. It was kind, soft, and he could sing so much better than other Harpers she'd heard. "Though I'm not sure what to offer you besides an open ear and a strong shoulder to lean on."

Fara gave off a pfff-noise, "your shoulders are so round and soft it's a wonder you're not in use as a pillow for some Lady or other."

"Been there, have to say it wasn't as great as anyone might make it out to be," Journeyman Kebev swished his ale around in its mug, "It's a lady you're thinking of, I would put a Mark on."

"You'd win that bet," Fara admitted, accepting a drink even though she knew she wouldn't be in a good mood later from it. "How could I just leave her like that... with those people. Hogsden Hold is a miserable place."

"You could send her word, or -"

"Anyone from here would be questioned if they rode with Spiral colors," Faralona said.

"I was going to say," Kebev restated, "or you could find a flitter and get that to her with a private letter."

"Well I..." Fara started to say, and then tilted her head. "A flitter... well they didn't have many, or maybe even any when I was there, it'd be a bit strange, but if it could get in without being seen I might think..."

Kebev patted her shoulder, "now we need to find you one."

***

That wasn't all that hard, really, because there was always someone breezing through Spiral Hold on their way to or from another location. While flit eggs weren't common inland, there were some number of them being used as trade. A few sevendays after determining herself to find a flit, there would be a good sized gather, it would be the first time in many weeks she actually wanted to attend one. The last two - held around once a month - she'd avoided, by going out hunting and bringing back her meats, sharing it with the local folk before the gather got rolling. Even if her father was still looking for her now, and might even be doing so actively, this time, she hazarded the gather. She needed that flitter.

Fara had plenty of Marks to spend on them, she wanted to make sure to get one that could be trained to head where it was needed. She briefly considered finding two, but again could not figure out a way to get one to Polly. There were at least four stalls, all from traveling traders, that had an assortment of flitter eggs and 'demonstration' pairs. The burly man with the long-necked gold showed off his flit's talents, while another who had both a gold and a bronze upon her shoulders had smaller, but seemingly smarter offspring. It was hers that Faralona decided to buy.

"There's no guarantee what rank you'll find, remember," the woman said, scratchy voice made smoother by a long breath from a pipe. "We only guarantee that the flitter will be live, and likely train well."

Fara nodded and handed over her mark, hearing the scoffing from some passer-by about how much they cost. She wondered whether they worked for another booth. Besides, the little pot that the egg was nested in right now would be nice to use for something else later on. Faralona wondered where the sand had come from - warm and brighter yellow than the dirt or sand found near Spiral's lake.

Eventually Fara headed back to her cothouse, paying for her way now that she did have a reasonably regular hunting job. The fire place would be best for the little jar filled with foreign sand. She wondered how long it would take to hatch. The woman had indicated that they generally didn't start to sell them until shortly before they hatched.

It was only a day later, when the egg began shaking. The gather was still going, but Faralona had no interest in heading back to it unless she really needed to. Here before her was a little life just starting, she was needed right here! The egg was hard, brittle, she'd felt it and some others - the ones sold by the burly man were slightly soft, and... truth be told, a bit cold. This one was nearly hot, the warmth of the fire had aided it for certain. The little egg bulged and swayed, she helped dig it out a bit so that the flitter within didn't get trapped under the sand. A splay of cracks suddenly webbed across it, and a little goo wetted the edges.

Just enough of a little blue nose came peeking out of its shell to make Fara laugh.

His eyes ... they swirled with colors, just like the Harpers said they would! Not that she had reason to doubt their songs, but she'd just never experienced such a thing right up close! Emba's flitter rarely stuck around while she was helping a visitor unless she called for him, and uniformly other flits were mostly seen from below as they swept over the Spiral on their way... wherever.

The little blue yawned, gave a gurgling cry. She offered him food to come all the way out of his shell, holding it higher and higher until he moved, he had quite the long neck even if his parents were sturdy. Overall though, he was hardly the length of her longest finger, and when he crept up that finger and nibbled at it, she got such a wonderful sensation of adoration in her mind that she wondered how she'd lived without it.

"Nibble, you're called." He seemed to like that - maybe just the sound of her voice. The flit ate a goodly amount of scraps from her dinner, and didn't seem too bothered by what it was he stuffed into his mouth - meat, fat, lettuce, peas, breadcrumbs, no matter at all. He didn't gobble, either, Nibble was aptly named, he took delicate little bites even of a small piece of food. Their first night together, Faralona was careful that he remain near her but not crushed by her. She put the pot, cleaned of the shell shards, back beside her bed, and he crept into it happily.

"Like your own little weyr!" Faralona giggled. She had an exhausting day, slept hard, and woke happy.

Her life centered around that little flitter for quite some time. He was sleepy, and hungry, and quite clingy. So Faralona kept a packet of scraps on her person at all times, and the blue nested in her collar as she went out to hunt. He'd be small, so said anyone else that had a flitter, but she was fine with that. As long as he could do what she needed him to do, that was the key.

Fara had asked for advice on how to best train the blue, at the next Gather. She found the traders who'd bred him, and they were reasonably happy to oblige - while he was still quite young, it was clear that Nibble would be a dedicated little flitter. Reward good behaviors, but don't scold too much on the bad. Always offer food, because even if he's a little 'delicate' in his eating habits, he was still a flitter and they always loved it.

Faralona spent the next few sevendays intensely training the little flitter. As promised, Nibble was receptive to her commands and hardly ever forgot what he was doing. Faralona was very focused, that helped. After he'd grown as big as he was going to get (she'd asked around - this was no helpless kitten or pup, flitters were reasonably self-sufficient out of the shell but it would be nearly a turn before he was fully mature), it was time, she felt, to put him to the test. He had been able to fly after only a few sevendays, his wings were sturdy though he'd never be a hefty flitter like some around the Hold. But it would be his skills going between that would be the key point. He could do that, in theory, since hatching. He hardly had, though, sometimes when startled, but little else could tear him away from his beloved keeper.

Clearing her own mind, she imagined the gate guard Roynan, the big bearded man, and told Nibble, "to Roy, now - bring him this." She tucked a little moss flower into Nibble's waiting hands. He didn't try eating it, which was good. Then, he flapped up, and vanished between.

A few minutes later, Faralona went up the path toward the city gate. Perplexed words, and a bit of silly coo-ing, were coming from Roynan, until he saw Faralona striding up the path.

"Is this yours?" He said, bursting out laughing, and holding up the tiny (only slightly chewed) flower along with the proud blue flit.

***

Faralona's experiences in Spiral Hold were generally positive ones, and she relished the chance to learn interesting skills from those around her. Emba helped a bit to train Nibble. They found that he was quite adept at accepting multiple instructions, and that was something that Fara knew would be key to all her worries. He could be relied upon to serve up to three fairly difficult tasks, before his little flitter brain could handle no more. But he was richly rewarded whenever he succeeded, Nibble was definitely a flitter worth his weight in treats!

After a few experiments here and there to prove his worth, Faralona at last decided to send him with a letter to her beloved Polly. It was bland - meant to merely prove that she'd gotten it. An instruction to greet the girl in a way that only she could know who it was from. To scribble a note of her own and then send the blue flitter back to her owner's side.

While she was quite nervous about all of this, Fara pulled in a deep breath and gave Nibble a clear mental image composed of several important parts. He was first to try the room where Polldyn spent most of her time. If she was there, that was that, deliver and wait to be sent home. If not - the difficult part of the blue's training would have to be called upon - he was to find her but not deliver the message until she was alone. Fara repeated this and gave him a little sweet-pea as a treat, and watched as the flitter vanished between.

Her stomach grew tighter as the minutes went by. Minutes that Emba could tell were bothering the girl. The Healer brewed some tea, handed it to Fara, who barely even acknowledged its warmth. "Oh my you are the distracted one," the older woman muttered. But thankfully, nearly two painful candlemarks later, Nibble arrived with the message in his eager little paws. Faralona could hardly manipulate her own hands, they were shaking - Emba's drink not withstanding, it would have been much worse!

Fara lavished treats upon the blue, rewarding him for a job well done. She was able to finally unroll the parchment and searched for the words she longed to see. It was much harder because of the tears in her eyes, which she managed to not get dripping all over the ink. "She was there, she was there..." Fara whispered mostly to herself. Emba couldn't help but peer over the girl's narrow shoulders, to see a simple statement. Fara's shoulders began to shake, she was a bit of a slower reader than the Healer.

stubborn lady needs a bronze rider to save her from threadfall

"That's her," Faralona whispered, half a sob. "She needs me, I have to... do... something."

Emba collected herself and picked up the half-full teacup that Faralona ignored. "If you do anything, it'll be after a good night's sleep, Fara."

Everything in her gut screamed now, but Faralona knew that the Healer was right. If she went off - or went back - to Hogsden in this mental state, she would do something stupid and probably get herself killed.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep," Fara stated flatly. "Now that I know she's still there..."

"Dream of her, then," Emba pushed a small packet of herbs into the girl's hands. "Go to your cot, put some food in your stomach, and drink that down as a tea along with it. Go. Shoo."

Faralona did as she was instructed, numbly reaching her own cot which was only barely closer to the edge of the Hold than Emba's healing chambers. As a hunter she'd enjoyed a fair amount of money coming in, and could bed down near anywhere she'd liked, but... She liked the freedom of the forest and farmsteads nearby, more than the slightly confined center of Spiral Hold. A bit of a walk to collect Backy on regular days didn't hurt her health, kept her in better spirits than she was now.

Now, Faralona picked at a small loaf of bread and finally determined herself to make a nice meal. Bread, thin sliced meat, and a good layer of cheese, on a pan to melt and get crisp. Her tea brewed while that was cooking as well, and it smelled... sweet, already enticing. Though her gut still churned with darker worries, her mind let up a bit as she ate and fed Nibble ample crumbs. She didn't start the tea until she was nearly done with her meal, which was good because it knocked her out almost with the first sip.

Fara dreamed, deeply sleeping off a day's fretting, of the skies and of dragons, and seeing the Hold from above. She'd never actually been above it, but... It felt so real. So real.

***

She was groggy and had a tremendous kink in her shoulder; when Fara woke it was to a strange noise that she'd only rarely heard before. Dragons? Trumpeting? What were they saying - and what a strange thing to think. Not everyone considered dragons to be 'talkative', so she'd heard just by wandering both her childhood Hold and this one. But surely they were chatting up there, were they flying, or landing or...?

As Faralona woke a bit more, she noticed that Nibble was excited, flying around her room and pulling at her shaggy hair. It had grown quickly, since she'd insisted Emba cut it more than half a year ago, but it wasn't as long as it once had been, and she'd kept the top of it shorter, allowing the back to grow out more because Nibble seemed to like it. (That, and he would scratch her neck a little - it was padding!)

She brushed last night's crumbs off of her clothing (she'd just... passed out like that? What was in that tea?!) and emerged carefully from her room to see the common room was filling up with groggy folk as well, so it wasn't just her! Their shared area had half a dozen rooms directly off of it, and another half dozen down the hall, with their bathing area beween. One young farm hand came out from the bath with just a towel and wet hair - and even Faralona appreciated his fine form for just a moment.

"What's going on out there?" Faralona asked, more curious than disgruntled.

"All the noise in the world, apparently," one other farmer grunted, "too early for this, going back to sleep."

Was it that early? Apparently it had barely started getting bright in the sky - when she clung near the doors and someone pulled the bar to open them, it was hardly brighter outside than in! Nibble as well as two other nearby flitters (a green and another blue) flew outside as though they'd forgotten they could between. She and a fair few others - all uniformly young - exited their cothouse and looked around. Outside there were more flitters than they'd seen in a while, all flocking together - they weren't normally apt to do that, since many were from traded eggs and hardly any of them the same localized breed. But now, they flew as though someone was commanding them, gracefully.

Faralona had listened to the Harper's stories of how their kind had inspired those who created the dragons - and now she knew without a doubt why they'd done so. But then she heard another sound, above the excited chirping of those flits. Deeper, rumbling, the tones of dragons. Since there wasn't room for them down in the Spiral itself, the dragons that visited Spiral Hold had a landing spot between two of the farms, not exactly near the exit that Faralona had been living by. So she and the others headed to the Flats, joined by a goodly number of those below as they filtered upwards out of their own cothouses. A procession of sorts; some folks were pointing upwards at the flitter faire, doubtless many of those were their owners wondering what had gotten into their flitters.

But what had gotten into these dragons was another thing entirely. There were at least three dragons, with two of those being very similar in looks - a light-colored brown and a smaller bright green. The green seemed to be nosing at the air, the way a person would sniff if they smelled a good dinner being prepared! Her brown companion seemed ever-so-faintly familiar, and when Faralona saw a few of the Holder's men approaching his rider, she understood why - he was a tithe collector, he'd probably flown past this Hold on numerous occasions.

So now he was joined by that excitable green and a long-winged long-bodied... long looking mottled brown that was clearly not from the same Weyr as the others. The bunch of flitters still apt ot sweep around the place seemed to gather over that brown, or more specifically around his rider. While the one brown rider was involved in collecting the records and goods, the green's rider was laughing her head off at their companion.

Faralona had to admit, even in this early part of the morning and after a very tense day before, that the guy covered in flits - her own included - looked to be about the silliest thing she'd seen in her whole life. She began to laugh, as others had, and didn't stop for quite some time. She wasn't alone, a lot of giggling went on behind polite hands as well as outright guffawing. Every time the rider tried to move, the bunch of flits squalled into the air and made noise, but settled almost immediately back to wherever they could find spots on his head, shoulders, even his pant legs.

His dusty-brown dragon would have none of it, shaking his elegant head and causing yet another ripple of laughter. The green though, kept sniffing the air. Someone crassly commented that there were unwashed farm hands and a butcher nearby, obviously she was smelling those folks!

But it wasn't that at all. For some reason, Faralona realized it as the others were chuckling and hoping that the crates were counted correctly. Nibble came flying back when Fara gave her distinct whistle; and though others tried, theirs remained by the platinum-haired brown rider. Fara cooed at her little blue, scratching him on the shoulder and hoping that her flip-floppy stomach was just a remnant from the prior night's worries.

She'd contacted Polldyn and Polly had replied... and now, this. This.

"This is Eryth," the dark-haired and very tall green rider said, "she's a search dragon." Though she'd said it at large, since there were numerous voices asking the same questions, it felt to Faralona like she'd spoken directly to her.

I am Eryth, the dragon's mind blundered into Faralona's, startling the young woman but only for a moment. You would make a good rider. You will come with us won't you!? Her eyes whirled a sort of green and blue, sparked with a brilliant yellow of expectation. Nibble's eyes did that on occasion - usually right before he was given a treat for doing something properly.

If for no other reason than to please the extremely eager and somewhat simplistic minded dragon, Faralona blurted out, "of course I will!" That jolted several of the nearby Hold men, including one of the young hunters that she had enjoyed competing with. He seemed to be the next to understand what had just happened, and his expression was precious.

"So this means I won't have to compete with you to get those boar, eh Fara?" He nudged her, seemingly quite pleased with this turn.

"Well that will mean you'll have to work extra hard for them. After all, I'm much better at it than you," she jibed back with a huge grin.

She didn't have to ask anyone permission to leave, she didn't need to verify with any family, or Holder, or Master. Faralona was free to do as she would - the only things holding her back for even a moment were what to do with her beloved Backy, and how to properly get this information to Polly.

Faralona was more formally Searched when the green's rider, the woman named Desumi, pulled out a tablet (of ... real paper? paper?) and took down her information. Age, location. She did ask - and was told the situation - about the family she'd abandoned. But what she wrote on that paper Faralona didn't quite see. She knew though, that there was no chance that the green rider would bolt off to talk to her father or family, or even the Lord Holders. They weren't here to bother with such things, they were on Search.

Search for riders trumped every single family issue - Faralona had keenly listened for those ballads, and been rewarded with a number of stories about Holders, Lords, errant servants and many more. All of them successfully relinquishing their terrible situations and heading into the Weyrs where they belonged. Truth be told, Faralona knew better than to think any one of those stories were actually wholly true, but still. What she wanted out of them, and what their composers wished to convey, was the hope they carried. After last night's revelation, the note still tucked into her shirt and close to her heart, Faralona knew she needed hope more than almost anything in the world. And she wanted to send that hope to Polly as well.

She bid Emba a proper thanks and fare-well - she'd long since paid back any healing debts or cothousing dues, and promised that she'd relay as much as possible about her situation whenever she could. Then she steeled herself - she'd housed Backy with Carson for quite a while, and parting with the runner would be difficult. Of course, she assumed she'd have to - bringing a runner up to a cold place like Dragonhope? Though they weren't particularly close to that Weyr, protected as they were by the more local one, Fara had heard of the place from a variety of wanderers and traders.

"Of course she'll have a fine home here," Carson assured Fara, "I won't sell her off to anyone, and I know she'll need a good young rider to train up to riding her proper-like."

"She's really good at hunting, if Raris ever needs her, he'd be the first I'd suggest." Raris being the boar-hunter, of course, whose own runner was a little skittish, a bit weak - Backy had both the temperment and the sturdy build to hold those boar when they were slung over her back.

Faralona gave Carson a longer hug than he'd expected from her, she seemed... pretty different just in that moment. He'd find out later what went on, from Emba naturally.

It was just like that, from hardly dawn to perhaps mid-afternoon, that Fara's life changed once more. She gathered her gear, she was given leave to keep her leather hunting gear and spears, and took what few things she'd gained over the months. Blankets and clothing mostly, Nibble's little pot which was now in use as a candle holder; but also a clever little arm strap which Nibble could stand on - and which housed small scrolls for sending messages, and a little pouch of treats. She'd wanted everything in one place, and the leather-worker in Spiral Hold had been making these things for the flitter owners - he'd make a pile of Marks on them some day!

"Ready?" The green rider Desumi said. "K'lieu's brown will be taking you, since B'art's will be holding on to those supplies we've got."

Eryth did look a bit on the small side, though Faralona was sure that she would have been able to ride behind the black-haired woman, they wanted to make sure there was room for another younger hold-brat that had been Searched as well. He'd be sitting in that spot behind the rider on her green, while Fara got up with the other man.

K'lieu was... very pretty. Prettier in fact than most women Fara had met, and it looked like he knew that. He was so pale, his hair was like spun sunlight. The thing was, he looked at Faralona's hunting gear and brightened right up. "I wonder if you'll be on my wing," he said - he was that sure that she'd Impress? That he was already thinking they'd share a wing?!

"Um..."

"Oh - I ... I mean, more, that you're a hunter." They approached the Flats and his strangely long dragon. "I've been able to hunt for the Weyr myself, even though I've got more than enough education in Minecraft work. We're all from different backgrounds, you know? At Dragonhope I mean." He shook off the flitters, and Faralona noticed that a couple of them did stick around, a strangely white one and one which was almost black in its slate-blue color. They didn't look a thing like her own flitter. They were as different from Nibble, in fact, as the dragon was from his two companions.

But apparently, Faralona tucked away that information, there were plentiful crafters at Dragonhope. That would be good, though she wasn't a crafter and certainly would look forward to ... "Hunting from dragonback?" She said, "wouldn't that usually scare off the prey?"

"Sometimes," K'lieu admitted, while helping her to stow her satchel and second bag onto the dragon's harness. "But you'll see. At least Khalth here is quiet in the air. My only problem," he swiped at the still clingy flitters, "are these flits that seem to congregate... Yours is really well behaved. That's pretty unusual too."

Too?

Well, she didn't much get a reply about that, when she looked at him with a question in her eyes. He boosted her up to the harness, and rather than relegate her to tucking behind him, he asserted, "you should start learning this as soon as- oh, you've already done that, okay..."

The harness seemed so easy to understand. "Well... It's not like I don't ride for a living, just not a dragon!" She said. It was clear that the strap went that way, though his riding jacket had a loop on it and her own leather gear lacked one just yet. With this long, slender dragon, she felt they might indeed be very good hunters! And even though they were still just standing on the ground in the Hold's flats, she could see much farther than when on a runner. The dragon himself seemed coolly accepting of her as his 'rider', though obviously he'd respond to K'lieu instantly. He could feel her knees gripping, she was not used to such a large beast under her.

"So, go on," K'lieu suggested. Faralona let her instincts take over - what would she do with Backy? A well-trained runner like that, all she really needed to do was slide her hips a tiny bit and they were on the move. A dragon's back was a little different, she had to use her legs more fully. But that was all: Khalth sensed this was the right thing to do, crouched and waited a tiny bit for his rider and their passenger to get ready. Then he pushed hard into the air, with those long wings of his he easily grasped enough air to continue upwards.

Faralona's mouth opened in an eager, surprised shout - everyone down below was cheering too. She felt K'lieu's strong arm gripping her waist, and instead of turning to slap him - which was her first instinct (since she'd been accosted more than once in any given drunken tavern fight) - she relished it. He was holding on because she had the reins so to speak.

She wanted so dearly for that arm to belong to Polldyn.

***

Dragonhope was quite the place. Faralona first had to get used to the chill in the air, and the strange smells. Her nose got cold and red almost immediately, but it was to a crowd of similar faces, hardly out of place. The halls themselves though... "It's ... rather warm in here, now that we're out of the landing places?"

The locals chuckled and tossed heads - some of them seemed to blow her off but then she realized they weren't really doing that - they were indicating the odd vents that rested along the bottom of the hallways. Where there were bright lights (she'd never seen such brightness - of course, she'd never heard of electricity before either) on the ceilings, there was warm air coming through these vents. This place truly was a marvel of engineering.

But the sea hold below, that too was beautiful. She'd never seen the ocean, not even a bigger inlet than some of the lakes that other Holds were built upon. This? She got tears in her eyes just looking at it, she suddenly loved the smell and the breeze. Polly would love this too, she knew it.

Once the tour of the Weyr was given, she was put up in the collected Candidate dorm. Much used to being in cramped quarters or even her small but still private cothouse, Faralona chuckled at herself. She'd get used to this, and then she'd be off to another Weyr - Dragonhope had a lot of golds, and had had plenty of hatchings, but tended to rely on other hatchings at distant Weyrs for their own riders' dragons.

And she'd be among them now. She would be a rider, well she hoped anyway. The group of younger weyrlings in training strode by with their gangly and somewhat half-clumsy dragons, heading down to the training flat. Experienced, elegant and older riders came down from the brilliant white sky, saluting each other and greeting people as they headed down to the kitchens.

This place. This would be home and she would love it. She already did! Nibble was excited when they were shown the candidates school chambers. There were maps like she'd never seen before, Threadfall and land maps, political lines and what had to be tithing spots. Star charts, she knew those would be something to concentrate on because didn't dragons navigate that way?

They'd flown overland to reach Dragonhope, it hadn't been all that far away from Spiral Hold, along increasingly lumpy terrain. It was hard to believe that her warm Hold's location was hardly half a day's flight away from this chilly sea! But then, how far did Dragonhope's riders go to Search?

She learned a little later that sometimes they would go quite far indeed. But for the time being, she and the others were encouraged to record their thoughts in journals provided by the Weyr. Paper journals, that was not even a novelty, that was just outright bizarre! She'd seen such things, but almost never up close.

She chose to write about her prior few days, before dedicating a page to her newfound life. And on that whim too, she wrote a simple note and sent it off to Polly - with the same concentrated 'if she's not alone, don't stick around' urgency to Nibble's command. Faralona wasn't nearly as worried that time, as half a candlemark went by and finally the blue came back to her with a new note tucked into the slender canister she'd bought.

He seemed clingy and a little chilled, and she realized: it was that he probably first headed 'home' to their cothouse in Spiral. "Silly little blue, you can always come to me, remember?" He chirped, she felt his relief when she cuddled closer to him and warmed him, plus joy when he got a sweet-pea treat.

lords fighting over the lady, none worthy, all too simple for her
she waits to see her noble rider arrive

Well then, that settled it. Faralona had to Impress, there was nothing else for it.

It wasn't just for Polly, it was for the good of all. She'd be able to hunt? She'd surely enjoy that! Dragonhope's riders were not just encouraged to learn skills outside of their riding and tactics, but expected to do so if they were already part of a guild or hall. There were miners, gemcutters, leather workers, glass shapers... All along side their healers, dragon-healers, cooks, woodworkers.

Faralona did miss the Harpers though - this place, oh how there was some bad blood among the Harpers and Scribes. But she could read, and enjoyed the fact that they had an actual printed newspaper here! She could get her information from a Harper's ballad just as easily as scanning down the lists of words on the paper, but truth be told, Faralona was used to listening and paying attention.

It was a good thing, too, because that one candidate in training who almost fell asleep? He was nearly run out of the Weyr! The Weyrling master explained in some amount of detail, empassioned, that if you couldn't keep track of things right in front of you in a safe classroom, how in the world would you be able to in Thread?!

That made sense to Fara. She raised her hand and the Weyrling master, R'vfen by name, nodded to her.

"Sir, when I'm out hunting on runner-back, it's essential to know the area, and to know the sounds, as well as all the other things - the looks of burrows or pits, scrapes from tunnel snakes on the branches or rocks. Thread is... silent, isn't it? It's something you have to look for?"

"Silent, yes," the one-eyed man replied. "You can hear it, when it's almost too close; a sort of... hissing. It almost whistles in the air."

"Like a ribbon?" Asked one girl, "they sort of make sounds if you snap them through the air?"

This went on - he was sure that of the remaining students, he had a few good potential riders in the room. Good observations from a few, and wide-eyed learning from others. Faralona was pleased that she'd made a good statement, he congratulated her after class at any rate.

***

A few days later, Faralona was brought before the Weyrleaders. As disparate a pair as she'd ever seen, Kira the Weyrwoman was small, quite short particularly compared to her husband Weyrleader S'xon. Of course she'd done a bit of reading about this pair. They seemed to have been the leadership of this Weyr for... quite a while. They didn't look in their sixties. Not even a little bit.

"She's a quick one," Kira said, abruptly, and turned with a smile back to her paperwork.

"Oh so you're - well thanks." S'xon said, rolling his eyes and giving off a brilliant smile to Fara. "You'll be going to Aneris Weyr, there are a small number of others already waiting there. It's our grand-daughter's gold's clutch there, you see. So we're being... somewhat picky about who is sent."

"I cannot even imagine you're old enough to have grandchildren, sir, let alone those old enough to have a queen dragon on sands." Faralona blurted out, "but... okay..."

To that, Kira in the other corner of the room let out a delighted and barely-concealed snorting laugh.

"Well, I mean..." Faralona realized that she might have offended them. "I -"

"It's a rather unusual clutch, and given your situation," S'xon stated while examining his long, perfect nails (they had to be perfect, if he was going to look at them like that...), "you probably will be interested in the results."

"My situation, sir...?" Faralona looked away, "I... yeah, I do have a situation, don't I..." She just hoped that it wasn't going to be printed up in tomorrow's newspaper.

He gave a bit of a smile. "You do, it's not unheard of. But you do need to remember that your duties will primarily be to our Weyr, to Pern, and then to anything or any one else, after."

Faralona straightened, and saluted as she'd been shown. "Yes, sir. I don't want you to think that I'm just going to be distracted. Even if I don't Impress, I hope that I'll be able to serve the Weyr in any way I can."

"That's the attitude I want to see," S'xon asserted. "Now, pack up again, we'll be sending you to Aneris and hopefully the two of us will be on hand to see the hatching."

"No pressure at all, huh?" Kira muttered, and Faralona couldn't help but chuckle at that. She liked that woman, and her husband. Weyrleaders or no, intimidatingly tall and dangerous or not, Faralona ... felt like she belonged here. That they acknowledged and accepted her situation, that too was both impressive and reassuring. She didn't have much time to read up on Aneris, though, or this clutch that the Weyrleader's granddaughter was hosting there. That would come when she arrived.

***

It was certainly an... interesting clutch. She'd never heard of such dragons before - though her short sevenday stay at Dragonhope showed her that there were colors beyond the five they were always taught, and that... Sometimes... Those colors didn't even ring true to their genders.

The brilliant, sun-lit-yellow gold queen had been paired to a strong, burnished gold male! He was definitely not bronze, so... There was a new sensation in Faralona's much-conflicted gut now. She felt that this must be the best place, the exact right time, for her to become that rider that Polldyn needed.

Could she wait - though? She knew from the brief training with R'vfen that it would be at least a year before the dragons hatched in this clutch would be strong enough to fly anywhere, let alone go between. She hadn't asked, and could never have imagined that R'vfen and S'xon had many ways of avoiding that wait, but... she'd have to learn that in time.

It would be a year that could be a disaster for Polly. It had already been hard on her, Fara just knew. Polly would only be able to taunt and keep them at bay for so long, before her own parents would put their collective foot down and force her to decide. Deciding between the lesser awful of a group of sodden, lusty, or dangerous men...?

Faralona sent one more note, there will be shards before smooth sands, knowing that Polly would understand. They'd be together.

They would.

They would have to wait, just... a little longer. Something so very strange happened after reaching Aneris. While she felt confident, it... took much longer than she expected before something changed. It was like waking from a fever-induced dream, seeing the day clearly again but as if for the first time. Or one of those dreams you cannot wake from, over and over, but it wasn't sinister, it didn't feel bad, just. Not 'right'.

There was a face, right up close to hers, on waking. Faralona nearly exclaimed but then a mind reached into hers, almost like the dragon's had on her Search! Shhh!

When had that Search been? ... It seemed like a lifetime for some strange reason. But the woman's green eyes, darker than her own by a bit, were narrow against her dark skin. That skin, those eyes, her black hair with a white streak, all looked oddly familiar. Had Faralona been around Dragonhope Weyr a little longer, she might have run into this woman in the halls by the Healers' area. Patina, a gold rider.

The gold rider. The rider of the gold on the sands. But she looked somehow just a bit different. Older? From the very brief glimpse that she'd had on the sands when the candidates were sent around to view the eggs, Patina next to her seemed a little more ... more.

She held her dark finger over Faralona's lips, before anything else. The room was quiet, dim, but not dark with night. More half-lit by the reflected lighting from outside? Not quite morning? But something else was stirring, noises happening. Large noises. The kind that involved dragon lungs filling with air and singing with joy.

The hatching was going to happen today?

Yes, but we .... cannot be here for it. Patina's mind was insistent, clear, and very, very guarded. The way the word 'we' meant 'you' struck Faralona somehow, the implications were making her worry. And the gold-rider clamped down on Fara's mouth fully when the young woman started protesting.

She gathered Faralona's hands, dragged her very quietly out of her cot, and insisted that she bring her gear into her travel bag. It'd hardly been opened? But?

It had been unpacked for weeks, Faralona's mind insisted that she'd been there the entire time the eggs had been hardening on the sands! But maybe this woman had already nudged things together. Maybe it was something else entirely. It was very clear that the eggs were hard enough to start hatching, right?

She snuck a look out the dorm's door, up and down the hall, and encouraged Fara to scurry with her away from it. Faralona's mind fought, hard, against Patina's control. To her credit, she got the feeling that Patina didn't want to be 'doing it this way'. What did that even mean? So put upon so many times in her life, Faralona managed once more to keep to her task and let her mind wander only when she was 'safe'.

That safety was... In the lowland far below Aneris, rushed off at such a pace that she didn't even know how they'd done it without tumbling down the hillside. And also: it was where Breaundath sat.

Finally, finally with the sun coming up and the dragons in the Weyr beginning to sing their brilliant joyful trumpeting... Faralona put her fists at her side and refused to move, a stone post in a river. "What. Is. Happening?" She demanded. Her hands weren't remaining balled up long, they were shaking too hard from emotion. Her pack slipped down to the ground, and only then did she realize that Nibble was sitting on it - quietly. Normally he'd be chittering a little, chirping or at least trying to dig around for treats. Did Patina have something to do with that too?

"Why isn't she up in the sands? Her eggs are hatching!"

"Her eggs hatched," Patina said, gathering her own breath and sorting out her hair and sleeves after such a rush down hill. The great golden dragon was hunkered low to the ground, but still looked as noble and elegant as a queen could. A little strangely dusty-looking though. Patina brought attention back to herself, with the words, "sixteen years ago, they hatched." Faralona straightened again, but this time with interest and confusion, rather than anger and fear.

"W...what?"

"This is she, now," Patina stroked the golden nose that was - rather big - beside her elbow. The dragon's long muzzle was likely big enough to have a human lay completely nose to eye without trouble. Patina took in a long, slow breath, and looked up to the Weyr above. "And that was she, years ago. Things have been... strange around this place. I have had to do something about it."

"But - I was Searched and placed here! By your own grandparents!" Fara shot back, though not loudly. "And they said they were going to be at the hatching, too!"

"Yes, and I ... have seen things that make me wonder, it would have been ... fine. But it wasn't going to be what you needed." Her leaf-green eyes moved across the sky, then back to her companion. "And things have also gone differently for someone else."

Faralona looked where the woman was carefully and pointedly staring: and saw a trio moving up the hill themselves, but she couldn't make out who they were at this distance.

"My cousins and... a rider whose dragon was lost to him recently." That word, 'recently', didn't seem like the right one, did it? "The kids were meant to be here, but ... he needed something to prevent more loss. And you," Patina gazed softly and with concern, "you will still ride one of my dragon's young. Just... Not the ones from here."

The songs of the dragon voices up in the Weyr sands grew, and if Faralona had ever heard such a thing before from them, she might have spotted those Weyrleaders' dragons among them. Everyone was here, everyone but her, apparently. Faralona said nothing, but she did cry on the way through the darkness and cold of between.

It would be another few days, back at Dragonhope Weyr, before Faralona really 'got it'. Even then, she had to pull aside Patina again and again, but the queen rider indulged this behavior - more than that, encouraged it.

"But back and forth through time," Faralona said, somewhat confounded. People she had met before here seemed strangely ... older. It did finally click, "we're in my future?"

And on getting that little facet right, Patina smiled and nodded. It was actually from the 'other' peak, one that hadn't even been halfway hollowed out when Faralona had been brought there before. And 'before' was now a decade and a half later? Before she got panicky again, Patina's steady and confident gaze stabilized Fara's mood.

"Soooo," she finally relented, "so I'm to stand here and now. Here. To your dragon's ... second clutch?"

"Indeed, though I suspect there should have been more between then and now, she's grown mature enough to have a worthy flight. And a worthy nest. And," she held her long fingers around Faralona's chin, "worthy candidates. You were worthy then. It was just not the right nest. Not the right ... outcome."

Faralona was never anything but quick-witted. She was smart, bold, confident, sure. All of these traits and more made her a very good candidate. Sometimes words failed her, but not this time. "Is that why I have had those ... dreams?" They'd been going at least since she was brought here, to this era. But she also felt like they'd been happening the entire time she was at Aneris.

The hair on the back of her neck and on her arms stood up, but not necessarily because of Patina's nod. It was more that Patina's grandfather was standing behind Fara now. When had he even gotten there?

"Dreams of what had been but is no longer," he said, his voice deep, quiet, terrifying. Not angry - no, not angry at all. Not at her, and not at Patina. "It can become muddled. History is and will be and might have changed. It's when those changes occur that things get ... weird. Like that." He sighed, and Faralona realized where Patina had gotten that habit. "It's best to just let them remain dreams. You won't need to worry about them soon enough."

For such a tall, impressive, and imposing man, when he was confident in a thing, a person, an event, Faralona realized he was the most calming and protective person she could ever imagine by her side. She... almost... remembered him being at a hatching she had been part of - whisked away from - long ago or just a few days prior.

"It will settle," he added when he noticed the lines of confusion and worry crossing Faralona's brow.

Finally, Faralona said, "I am going to trust that you both have enough experience at it all that I should take that as the truth," and she was smirking, because so were they.

The eggs looked almost the same, she decided, when Patina instructed the current batch of candidates at Dragonhope to walk among them. Breaundath seemed quite calm, indeed, even happy about this. Not just because Faralona was there, but also quite a good number of others. They had been in training, learning about biology and care, tactics, and strength or endurance or agility tests.

Thread was Falling, that was the thing that Faralona realized was actually different. Not just that there was an entire second peak to the Weyr that was fully functional and inhabited, not just that there was a more bustling port below that had grown in a decade. Not, also, just because there were maps all over the place that showed the range of coverage for their services against Thread, and those very clearly covered areas where... She and Polldyn had grown up.

That gave her both pause, and a very, very warm feeling in her gut. But she tucked that away, because for the moment they were busy with the eggs!

***

Eventually, though, the time came - once more - for her to wake early with the sound of many dragons trumpeting and humming. The entire Weyr, nay, the entire harbor rang with the song.

------- she'll be getting that male bronze she was meant to have, here, though that clutch has yet to be done-------

Name:
Species: Dragonhope Pernese / Talor Version 3
Gender: Male
Color: Bronze
Size: large s/l/ws
Parents:
Abilities:
Personality:
Sociability:
Intelligence:
Mating:
Threadfighting:
Other:
Bond:

Lineage

Mates and Descendants