Ata is a young lady of 15 years, and is an apprentice scribe with journal keeping. Her busy Senior Apprentice keeper usually allows her to do much more around their 'newspaper' job than other younger apprentices. Their Master scribe is gruff and demanding, but Ata has always managed to impress him.

She is interested in going into legal matters - everything with a judgement or a tribunal or trial that comes to her attention is of great attraction. Maybe she just likes juicy stories.

Currently little more than 5’ tall, but developing into a very pretty young woman, she will be about 5’7 at most. She has a slightly chunky build, but is also bound to be pleasantly rounded and in the right places. She usually wears greens and yellows, to offset her green eyes. She has curly strawberry blond hair that usually goes to her upper back, in large fluffy waves. She has a thin metal necklace which she is afraid will have to come off forever if she impresses and must teleport - won’t it get too cold? (that’s what she thinks anyway.)

Light hearted and sweet to most people, but always watching for deeper currents or information. She is a very practiced “spy” having come from a minor Hold but a small family. Her parents Leviss and Bisha are both information runners, and are often trusted to get information for their lord holder, she was no exception to this and likes doing it. She is NOT a gossip however, she detests wrong information and lies, and is not very gullible.

All of this, the young 'reporter' wrote down quickly in her own shorthand. She knew several of the people involved, at least knew of them - it was her job to know. After a couple well-placed questions, she found out who the main arguers were, and also that the people who started the shouting match weren't them. They were still sitting along the stone wall where the debate had turned ugly, watching the rest of the crowd be dispersed by the Guardians.

"I'd like to get a hold of that idiot..." One of them said. "Ruin a perfectly good debate and turn it into this travesty."

"I wish they understood intellectual pursuits," Said the other.

Surprisingly, both of them were 'blackbottoms' - with dyed black and color hair. But also surprisingly, one of them wore the sword of a Guardian in training. Ata stood there watching them for a while, until the silver-clad one turned to look at her.

Normally she wouldn't have blushed as deeply as she did. She was not ashamed of watching anyone - it was for her job! But this was different, because the silver-white-wearing young man with the aqua mohawk and the twist to his grin winked one of his equally aqua eyes at her.

He nudged his brother, and the one in yellow and brown turned to face Ata as well. His mohawk was a pale spring green, and somehow matched his eyes too.

"Alain and Luc Black," said the one in brown, Ata wasn't sure which was who, "if you're interested. Didn't mean to get this debate out into the streets like it went."

"I gathered that," Ata said, getting some of her traditional composure back. "But what was it about, anyway? Your debate?"

"Whether the Outcast should be allowed to re-enter the House and get their credentials back?" Luc said, his silver outfit made him higher rank than his guardian brother, but he was clearly the intellectual of the pair.

"Oh," Ata said, writing quickly, and then looking up. "Then it's no wonder that you guys started a riot. What are you, stupid? No one talks about that kind of thing out in the open. It's dangerous."

"Not when you're a Guardian," Alain smiled, patting the hilt of the sword at his side.

"I guess not," Ata breathed in and tried to guess what would happen next. The area had been cleared of people but there were still a couple hanging around. "I suppose rank has it's priveledges," she glanced at Luc, who grinned widely. Her green outfit was higher in rank than his brother's brown - but still she was only an apprentice, and obviously Alain would be making far more profit from being a Guardian when he was an adult.

She made a quick guess that they were both in their early twenties, late teens at least. At the same time, they were apparently sizing her up too. Tiny, cute, easy to fluster - that was how both of them viewed the younger girl.

She looked at them, and narrowed her eyes. "But you know I ought to just report you to the Lord Holder, for it. You did cause the riot, whether you intended to or not."

Both of the brother's eyebrows shot up, and they glanced at each other. Not certain if she was kidding or if she was one of those people who were so steadfastly associated with the Holders that they couldn't trust her...

"Now, that's a little much - we were debating, we weren't arguing, and we weren't trying to drag anyone into the argument." Alain stated, and watched as Ata wrote more in her small journal.

"The fact that people butt into conversations is at fault," Luc completed. "And anyway, it's something that we'd all like to see get addressed once in a while. The Eden's Gate people are very sad."

At that, Ata stopped writing, and lowered her head, looking at them through serious eyes. "What do you know of Eden's Gate?" She said, quietly.

They both clammed up. It became apparent that with that question, they suddenly didn't trust her as far as they could throw her.

Ata's heart raced. "No," she glanced away, looking up and down the nicely crafted cobbled street and didn't see anyone important remaining. "No... one of my relatives was sent there. I just... didn't think that other people really knew about it. That's all... I don't even know where it is now."

She gazed at the sky. This strange planet they'd moved to - it was when she was but an infant now, but she somehow still remembered the sky being quite different where the Protectorate had originated. "I mean, according to a couple old hand-drawn maps I've seen, it was supposed to be near the deserts... but there aren't any deserts here, just an island and water all around."

Sensing that the girl was honest, the pair of young men changed their opinion quickly. "It's still pretty far away. But if they were sent off you'd still be able to visit them. I mean, with an escort and all." Alain puffed up, and held his hand over his sword hilt again. Luc's eyebrow was still way up.

"You'd want to run around Paniya looking for it?" He said, with half a grin. Ata lost her eager held breath.

"You don't know where it is, then..." She sighed. "No one does. I don't even know if it made it to this place. Sometimes I worry that people I love might not be here because someone forgot to bring them along."

"You know, for a little squirt," Alain said, "you sure seem to know a lot about the transfer."

Ata gave a little grin. "I have read a little more than average, yes."

"And humble too," Luc added. "Look, if you can arrange some time off from your busy work schedule, we could get you over to the Isle and ask at Blackstone. They'd know."

Ata's heart skipped a beat, "I've never been there... I've only seen it from here," She turned and they could all see the tall semi-volcanic peak of the Kshau Isle, which held most of the protectorate's transfered riders and folk. Only the Dawnlight people were set onto the main Paniyan isle, because the trades and merchantry accepted them quickly. Those with dragons seemed less likely to be welcome even though they were important enough at the old world. All of this came tumbling back to Ata's mind, she'd read someone's private journal entries in the secret records storage once - a crime. Certainly.

"I'll try to get some time off." Ata said, at last. "You really think you can get there?"

"It's not all that hard, you just have to get on a boat and there it is..." Luc said, like he'd done it a million times.

"But ... won't the ... never mind." Ata said. She was obviously going to suggest that Dawnlight's guardians would stop them - but with one of their own on board she could hardly be said to be doing anything wrong! She had a Guardian escort!

The boat ride was exhilirating to the girl who had never been farther away from House Dawnlight than the fringe farms and one trip to Tsan Nu. It didn't even make her ill, like it was doing to several others on the ride over. Her head held up, eyes bright, she watched as the passage between Paniya and Kshau Isle went quickly.

Almost too quickly. With her heart racing, the pair of young men escorted her to the caravans where rides could be arranged up to Blackstone.

"Where is it, then?" Ata asked, looking up at the top of the mountain. "I mean, I can't see -- oh! I see dragons, it's way up there?"

"All the way up, and halfway in, too," said Luc. "It's quite an achievement. More of it is on the other side, though, facing west. That's why we need to ride. Can you ride yourself?"

"I can," Ata said, "Not really well, but I think I'll manage. Skirr are pretty easy to --" she slid off the skirr's sloping back, "mount..."

Laughing, the brothers helped her onto the skirr's back, and they urged them up to the road to Blackstone.

"Now, what have you learned so far today, Ata of Dawnlight?" Luc asked.

"That you're an annoying journeyman instructor, who knows too much for his own good, and that skirr have really itchy fur..." Ata said. "Not that I'm complaining!" She laughed, "my work would have brought me here some day, but... you know how they try to keep us all in Dawnlight all our lives."

"I know," Alain said, "but our parents lived in Blackstone all their lives. They wanted me to train with the sword - even though both of them could teach me anyway..." He muttered, "but they wanted to keep riding, I guess."

"Your parents are riders?" Ata gasped. "How cool!"

"How busy, how not-quite-there-when-you-need-them..." Luc sighed. "But it's all right. We were brought up around dragons, and that is what counts. Look, we're much closer now."

Indeed they were, the top of the mountain was still quite a ways off, but they had spiraled and switched back several times, and were now on the north-west side of the peak. They could see Blackstone's lowest landing flats not too far away, but it was something else that caught Ata's eye.

"What's that?" She asked, pulling the reigns of the skirr and making it stamp the ground as it stopped. "Look, do you see that?" She pointed to a strange flap, it looked like a painted leather sheet, but it was painted to look like the surrounding rocks.

"I see it," Alain said, followed by his brother's confirmation. They weren't just seeing things.

"Should we investigate--" started Luc, but Ata was already off her skirr and into the darkness beyond the little leather hiding-flap.

Inside, she found it was dark - but far from lifeless. She almost expected there to be a dead body or something hidden here, but what she found was... "Computers?" She breathed. "I've heard of these..." Their humming made it easier to find one nearby, and the screen came to life when Ata sat down.

"What is this doing here?" Luc asked, but then his brother nudged him.

"Remember, mom and dad said there was something like this. They forgot it, though. I wonder if we'll forget it too?"

"I'm not forgetting," Ata wrote down the location of this odd little nook. Then she looked at the screen. "Look, it says, 'search destination'. Wonder what that means?"

"Well, press the button and find out," encouraged Alain. "We can't wait to find out either..."

What DO they find out? Read about it on Alain and Luc's page!

"I just can't believe this..." Ata continued to sob with joy, as the dragons were fed and getting sleepy. "A gold? And I didn't even bring along a change of clothing..."

Luc laughed a bit, hardly able to contain his own joy. His small bronze nuzzled up to Ata's gold, and was joined by his brother's bigger bronze and the trio fell asleep in a big belly-full pile.

"We can worry about that stuff later," Alain said, still beaming proudly. "I'm glad you spotted that little nook in the mountainside, girl," he tussled Ata's sunset-caramel hair. "If not, we'd have wandered around and just gotten the information we were *looking* for instead..."

She giggled a bit. Her ever-present journal had seen a lot of use in just the day or so they had been at Starburst. She had been writing down names, dragons, and everything. But it was easier now. She didn't have to rely upon asking some stranger in the weyr for directions - she knew that she could now ask a dragon through her wonderful baby gold. In fact, she'd be able to find out all kinds of things through the mind of her dragon.

It was such a wonderful feeling, this bond. She understood deeply now what went through the minds of everyone who'd been written about on the sands. Crying and sobbing and laughing and being all giddy all at once: that was all one could do. It would hardly be proper to act stoic or angry or anything else, for she'd just been opened to a whole new world worth of feelings!

Feelings which she knew that her parents would be eager to understand. But they probably would never be able to truly feel them. As the dragons snoozed, and the weyr came more alive (since the hatching had been practically before dawn, everyone else in the weyr now had their own duties to tend to!) Ata wrote in her journal an entry which she'd want to send to her parents. Somehow. Some day.

She grew entirely too fast! With the strong wings and smallish size of a miniature queen, Quinreth cut a strong figure even if she wasn't the biggest gold anyone had seen.

Ata of course had eventually gotten herself some new clothing. Rider's gear, which she traded her old dress for in a moment. "We'll soar, and fight, and we're going to find everything worth knowing, aren't we Quin!"

The gold gave off a croon of delight.

Of course we are. I will be with you forever, and I will not disappoint you!

"You could hardly do that, my love," Ata said. "Now, let's collect those boys and see if they're ready to head back home. I ... Can't even imagine what my parents are going to say about this..."

They will tell you they love you, because I do too!

Ata giggled, still so young to be a gold rider...

**

It was only a few years after returning home to Blackstone to reside with the riders, that Ata's lovely gold rose with a short flight with - a male green? She had three eggs... And Ata later had triplets with that green's ... sibling's, rider?! A male green ridden by a woman, and her brother on a more normal female green, and that brother was very interesting to Ata. Their children would grow up to be riders, some day. Aji, Baata, and Jet, they were so different and so alike - and so much like their folks.