Tharsa, female, 5’6”, 120 with a very shapely figure, aged 19 turns.

Tharsa is certainly the most unusual looking young lady of the Hold, at least those who have met her or even glimpsed her would think so. She has hair that is quite frizzy and curled a bit, in both deep brown-black and striking white around her face. She has creamy tan skin and has very long, dark nails that seem to grow rather rapidly. She is craft born in the Starcraft, and loves to be around the glasscrafters when they are assembling the distance-viewers that she keeps near her at all times. She is a bit of a geek, and socially clumsy. Physically however she is quite nimble and has never broken even a simple cup let alone one of her precious lenses. She is not remarkably intelligent but she applies all she learns quite well. Though she has not been searched, she knows that a dragon will come to her. She has occasionally had premonitions which leave her dazed and almost catatonic. It is a secret fact that in her heritage is the time-displaced Kalkin, her ancestors sired by him nearly 500 turns in the past. Perhaps this is why she has as many mental oddities?

There was so much work to be done in the glass house that Tharsa wasn't sure that the man would ever get to her project. The Master glazier had little time to devote to such odd pieces. But finally, when the rush of their first orders of the day had abated, Tharsa saw the man pick up her request.

He glanced at her, knowing who it would be from - her hand writing was so distinct and crisp and of course, it was a request that no one else would ever hand him.

"I can do this, but it'll cost you. What have you in trade, young lady?" The master crafter asked.

"I can give you these," she said, producing two small bags of what appeared to be colored beads. To anyone else, they were children's toys. To the expert eye of the glaziers, however...

"How did you find those?" He breathed, "that is a color I've been meaning to try for years, Tharsa." He tilted his head, "you didn't-"

"I don't steal, Master Emlar, I got the idea from some of your other work, and just asked around. You know the Starcraft doesn't sit in one place. I know riders, they know crafters... you know how it goes." She paused, "so, you'll do it?"

"I'll do this and half a season's worth of your other requests, for those." He said. Tharsa was not aware of the muttering of the students and journeymen around them. To her sensitive ears they were just talking and it wasn't aimed at her - so she ignored it. But had she the social sense in her head, she would have heard how little respect the workers had for their Master - he could so easily be swayed by a girl like her, and stuff that wasn't relevant to their work like that color. Who cared what color he wanted? It was a private matter, and they would be devoting work time to it?

Well, he was the Master crafter after all, so they did have to do it. Master Emlar and Tharsa arranged a bit more, what else she might be needing. He told her to just come to him when she needed something, and then as she left the glass works hall she saw him examining the color beads intensely with a grin a mile wide on his round face.

*** (this search takes place after the Kshau Protectorate shifts to Alskyr - without having told anyone about it.)***

It was only a few days later that Tharsa heard that a trio of dragons had arrived - one was from Alabaster, but the other two were foreign to their eyes. Tharsa begged out of the conversation she was in, and found herself surrounded by others excited to see the dragons.

She saw Cendar and Aaryea, but remained more with the burlier Nolan and his sister the drudge Nola.

"Have they said anything yet?" She heard Aaryea ask of her Cendar.

"Not yet - but they're going to. I think the one is from another part of the Kshau Protectorate," Cendar announced, "but I don't know who the other is."

The riders motioned for everyone to please quiet down. The brown rider from Alabaster was K'yle, the Lord Holder's son. There was a blue rider, T'shen by name, whose travels through the Protectorate were quite amazing. The third was a woman, but quite the odd one, on a gold dragoness. For some reason, it looked as though this woman had ... fur and a tail. No one quite believed it until she dropped to the ground and started talking to her companions, but sure enough there were small ears poking out over her mop of silver hair, and a long tuft-tipped tail that swished about.

People began muttering almost immediately, but K'yle shushed them with a wave of his hand. "We're here on search, yes! We're going to give an announcement that's a bit important, to your Lords!" He answered several questions quickly, and then turned to his dragon who bellowed for quiet again. "Thanks - now listen - the Protectorate is going through some drastic changes. We've found a place that's better than all this," he waved his hand but few understood what he meant by that cryptic remark.

They continued to answer typical questions, but avoided mentioning this odd event, and then began allowing people near the dragons so they might be searched.

While Tharsa remained quiet, Cendar snuffed, "there's Caledrua herself," at the sharp-tongued woman who was the eldest daughter of the Lord Holder of Caledrus. "Does she really think she'll get Searched?" It was true, there she was in all her glory. Tharsa wasn't an attractive woman like her, at least she didn't think she was.

"I think she just was," Aaryea sighed, blue eyes showing not concern, but not glee either. They wound their way around to the golden dragoness, who passed over three others before sniffing intently at this pair. Tharsa on the other hand was checking out the brown dragon nearby.

"Hi," K'yl said, cheerily. "I like your hair."

Suddenly taken aback, Tharsa pawed at her two colored hair. "Really? It's ... yeah I guess it's okay," she shrugged. "Your dragon is wonderful."

"He thinks he is anyway,

*** (from the group's search page)***

The large group of gathered Caledruans milled about, surprised at how many there were, and how many of them knew one another - or at least knew someone else in the group. Each had an attachment to the next, they almost could form a chain of familiarity.

When another rider showed up, a day after the trio had Searched, several of the Seached recognized him as a man who had formerly lived there! One of the girls, Janice, bolted to his side when he got off the back of his proud bronze dragon.

"H'ndar!" She cried, laughing and relieved to see him. Every time he would visit, there would be another scar on his skin, and every time, she was eager to locate it.

"It's just Hendar, if you want," the rider said, with an odd smile. "I'm not so fond of people saying it that way any more." He smirked at Janice's odd reaction (she furrowed her eyebrows and went to apologize, but then stopped and swatted him instead).

"But why?" Janice asked. "Why suddenly this odd change? What has really been happening out there?"

Just then, two more riders and dragons arrived, yet more old Caledrus inhabitants who had long since vanished to their own devices. One was riding a dragon whose color shocked a number of the Searched - and a good portion of the onlookers who couldn't be forced to leave. The dragon was a bright shade of red, with paler white markings on it. The rider was a girl who had been well known by the higher status Lordlings - Ezhar the dancer. Her partner, T'nor (who had no such problems with his name being shortened, he still thought it quite an honor) rode a two-toned blue dragon, both clearly from one Weyr by their appearance.

"We will be needing the different dragons to take you all to your destinations," K'yle announced loudly, in his half-squeaky voice. He could sound very serious, when he put his mind to it, but he'd never have the command over people that his father did. "We're going to show you some places that are in need of candidates, and if you think one or another is to your liking, we'll see if you can bond there."

Someone called out, "don't you mean Impress?" But K'yle glared at them.

"No, I mean bond. It's a more broad term. We've found places that aren't all ... well, you'll see. You all will understand best after you get there. And the rest of you," he gazed at the assembled inhabitants who hadn't been Searched, "don't worry. We're all going to explain it soon enough - but you will have to be patient and you will have to trust us."

Another trio of dragons and riders came through the nexus, Betweening was such an old-world term, one of whom had lived at Caledrus as a first-class records keeper, before he was searched. Waadier, now fondly known as D'ier, and his pretty green (what a surprise for people who knew him, huh? NOT!). D'ier and Elkinorith joined the search team on occasion, and he apologized to K'yle for not being there earlier.

"It's all right. It's these two I'm worried about," the Lord Holder's son glanced at his half-sibling Pasha, and Pasha's brother Haze. "Didn't you think there would be enough good candidates here?" He asked them, and both men waved him off with a grin - the same grin that he often had on his face.

They had ridden in on a pair of large dragons, Haze's large bronze Alkalmith, and Pasha's brown Surketh. The dragons moved from their landing spots to an area with bumpy ground that suited them to rest upon, with the others.

Gold, Bronze, two Browns, two Blues, Green, and Red... They lined up like a spectrum of possibilities. Resting and chatting, the dragons seemed to largely ignore the people around them, until K'yle whistled for their attention.

The little booklets that D'ier handed out to the group of Searched folks had shiny pictures on them, of dragons and different weyrs - they could tell that these images were real pictures, not paintings. There was something very surreal about this. Very few people of Caledrus knew about photographs, and most of the ones who did, only knew in theory. They did know that Alabaster had some strange machines that could almost seem to think for themselves. Perhaps these pictures came from them?

"Now, look over everything. There is information about each location's needs and desires," K'yle said, as D'ier finished handing them out. "But I want you all to keep in mind one very important thing. We are *not* going to be fighting Thread any longer."

There was a pause, when everyone put down their pamphlets and stared at him like he was insane.

"There are other things on our minds now, as riders. There are threats to our home, but Thread is not among them. However we have learned that those people who were born on our old home," (that elicited a lot of muttering about what in the world he could mean) "tend to bond best to old-world dragons. Dragons who would be best familiar with you. Dragons of the older colors," he tossed his head at the fivesome plus one oddity. "and not ones with the newer breed types. When you get back to Alabaster, you'll see what I mean."

"How much has our home changed?" Demanded someone, "where are we if we aren't on our old home?"

"The world is called Alskyr," said Kaytcha, her gold dragoness tossing her head and reminding people that even though the girl had fur and a tail now - was not human as far as they were concerned - she had still impressed a grand golden dragon like herself. "And it's a very nice place. You will all benefit," she turned to the onlookers who had started to mill about nervously, "because this world is rich in plant life, and our isle has some wonderful people on it that accepted us on it."

"The arrangement was made," K'yle said, "by my father, by T'shen, and by some other people high-up. We knew that if there was an announcement there would be panic, and we wouldn't be able to bring everyone along properly."

Pasha and Haze, standing together with their shoulders bumped, nodded. "And you never noticed, did you?" Pasha asked. He was the stronger telepath of the two, and his lineage (K'yle's side especially) were ones which had helped the most.

"It's not important how long we've been here," said Haze, having heard someone ask that among the Searched, "what is important is that we integrate everyone into our new ways, sooner or later."

"That brings us to the dragons," T'shen said, sweeping past the brothers. The Searched group were apt to stare at him anyway, tall and handsome as he was. Even D'ier (perhaps especially D'ier) gazed at him in wonder. "The dragons who pair off with Caledrus inhabitants will be living with you, here." He swept his hand and suddenly - because they had been inclined to ignore it and nudged telepathically to do so by Engell and his troupe - people noticed that the mountains that had greenery about them, also had ledges, caverns, terraces... Big enough for dragons to roost if they so wished.

"... So you're saying," one of the Searched girls said, "that we will be coming back here, to live, with our dragons."

"That's it in a nutshell."

"Then let's go!" She said, laughing, looking through the pamphlet. Aaryea was grinning like mad, as she looked through her own.

***

Tharsa wound up in an odd place, to her eyes it almost didn't even exist beyond what she could see - and she felt as though it would vanish if she blinked. White River Weyr would not be there much longer, there was a sense of desperation among the people she walked near.

There was an equal amount of nervousness when she happened upon the sands. It was not organized, but it was busy. Some folks were picking up shells that had been broken earlier, others helped a girl who had cut her foot, and eggs by the dozen sat shaking or cracked. Tharsa moved closer to one egg in particular. She had a strange tightness in her throat: if she didn't do this now, it might never...

Thank you, oh thank you my one... The voice in her mind was as clear as her glass - tinted with a masculine depth to it. A dragon... her dragon, her dragon's mind. She spoke in a whisper, "Itawith," and the bond was made. The softly blue muzzle that greeted her as she tore away pieces of the hard white shell glimmered, almost like stars on a night sky - but it was sticky! Egg goo was shiny for only a moment, before it turned dull and attracted sand!

As Tharsa helped the hatchling (hadn't there been some talk of not doing that? Why in the world would anyone ever not help a dragon?) out of his shell, she noticed something important. It wasn't merely a blue that had Impressed to her, for his wingsails and hind end were white!

"What a unique dragon you are, Itawith," Tharsa said, dazed, as she led the wobbly hatchling to his first meal.

***

She'd had to get a ride back to Caledrus from one of the 'important' riders, and it was K'yle that came to help her. "You know, we could probably use your expertise over at Alabaster," he mentioned, as they set back down on Alskyran soil. His brown dragon was strong and healthy but even then showed the signs of stress that moving between Nexus worlds brought. Itawith, still small but growing quickly, remained near him more out of fear than companionship: they were not where they were, how did they get there, and why?

"But from what you've said," Tharsa claimed, "my skills would also be useful at Caledrus. Those... those ant things? Surely I could detect their arrival along the beaches long before they could do any damage."

K'yle put some thought to that, and nodded. "You're right - and with a dragon anyway," he smiled, lopsided grin making Tharsa giggle, "you can always be the first to tell the fighting forces where to go!"

Tharsa was excited now, this all had potential! She'd always enjoyed her work, but now there was more meaning to it.

She embraced her blue-white Itawith and said, "we're going to be the best early warning system ever!"

***

As the year drew to a close, it was clear that Itawith was indeed a good warning dragon. There were others, surely, bigger or bolder. But with his naturally-skittish personality, anything that did something out of the ordinary was bound to catch his eye. Be it Ants burrowing up from the eastern dunes, or a trade ship that got tangled among the serpentine kelp mire out at sea, he alerted his bond to the issue and she responded in kind.

Also as time went on, this system was aided by the addition of a new batch of structures on the hillside: the Caledrus Spires. A series of five towers - each fit for several dragons to roost in, so they were quite wide. At their tops, fearless riders and crafters such as Tharsa were set to watch for danger and communicate with the Hold as well as Alabaster nearby.

There was always activity on these towers, be it the morning watch coming in to land and being relieved by the dayguard, or a gathering celebrating a new arrival to the Dragon Flats. Itawith generally avoided big gatherings, preferring the solitude in the clouds, the evening skies that his rider adored.

But there was one arrival which set the blue-white not on edge, but with his senses tingling.

"What is it, Itawith?" Tharsa asked him, he peered with his long neck craned around the opening to their loft. He looked toward the Dragon Flats, and Tharsa tried to see what it was that had caught his interest. She pulled up a spyglass and shortly discovered what it was.

"Oho, a female shining like a star..." She chuckled. Tharsa knew that her dragon would want to mate, she'd even been scouting out for an appropriate female, but now with his keen senses tripping all her mind's warning signs, she knew she had to act soon. "We will find the right place, the right flight for you, love."

I want to see her up close, I ...

"There are already too many others," Tharsa reminded him, and he took a more objective look at the gathering. It was true, there were already more than a dozen males clustering around the smallish Alskyr-born female (she was an old-world breed like him, a large green probably from Blackstone if her snakey-long figure was an indication). More than half the males were browns, and there was even a bronze watching with keen interest. Almost all of them were years and years older than Itawith as well. He knew the odds there, he also knew he had a job to do that day, and he couldn't afford to be exhausted or injured!

"That's my boy," Tharsa said. After their evening of scouting the coastline and reporting little to no changes in the landscape, Tharsa commanded him to take a trip up to Alabaster in order to arrange something. Though she'd heard that Blackstone had a records room to die for, with computers and strange technology, there were more than enough such things at the much closer Alabaster towers, to do what she needed. To find a rising female, satisfy her beloved dragon... Maybe even find a weyrmate? Perhaps not, she checked the list of available flights - a gold and a ... white? Obviously the gold would be too much of a challenge for a small dragon like Itawith, but...

"I will sign you up for this," Tharsa said, tapping a piece of paper with the image of their destination on it, and beaming a vision of this white dragon that was available at Aneris. "Imagine the potential for unusual dragons? If you sired a clutch with a white? Your lovely offspring might enjoy the night as much as we do!"

Excited, Itawith sought out the memories from his rider's mind. They had to wait until the next day, of course, because Tharsa needed to arrange for others to take their place as scouts for the duration, and she needed to pack her gear. Though young and reasonably fresh to such things, Tharsa felt that he might stand a chance if he trusted his instincts and was quick in the air. Other males might compete, but he was well known to be agile and as skittish as ever! The first indication of a move by a female, she was sure it would trigger him in unexpected ways!

White River Weyr (giveaway)

Name: Itawith
Colour: Blue-White
Gender: Male
Length: 26'