Bayat Albani

Bayat Albani, Master Healer, Brown caste rank 8

Female, age 25

5'9", 155lbs

Dark red hair, brown eyes, fair skin

No pets

Dragon bond: Taedamhadath, Gold/Red/Copper male, name means "bold"

Dragon parentage: White-White-Bronze Jaluth and Silver-Gold Desarath (below)

Dragon from: Nidus Ryslen

Bayat had always maintained that she was not a dragon-type person. She was a medic, a good one: trained at the Weyr, treating those dragonriders who had been injured, or just anyone who came along in need.

But dragons had never spoken to her, before, and she didn't expect them to do so now. Until one of her friends came around.

Shard stood well over a foot taller than Bayat, but she met his cobalt eyes and didn't flinch at his sky colored skin. He was friendly, sexy, he smelled of nutmeg. He was the Weyrleader, in such a different way from Hollis and his big bronze...

"What can I do for you, Shard?" She asked, head gently tilted back to see him smiling down at her.

"It isn't what you can do for me," Shard replied. "One of the bronzes has gone off to Ryslen, found himself... well, some mates."

"... Some?" Bayat chuckled, "isn't that kind of not-normal?"

"Well, for Jaluth, it's pretty much par for the course," Shard muttered, scratching the back of his head, and hemming and hawing for a bit. "But there are dragons. Plenty of them. Spotted, sort of," he trailed off again, leaving Bayat's eyebrows to flutter around one another.

She bit her lip.

"Wait, wait, you're searching me?" She said, leaning on her desk, suddenly the room was twirling.

"Sure, Bayat," Shard said, "I'm surprised it wasn't earlier, but maybe Jeremoth was waiting for the right clutch to introduce you to. You know how he is."

"Yeah... sure," Bayat said, looking around. Her life was centered here in the infirmary: she knew every cranny and every surface. She could rattle off every herb and tonic they had, how much to give what weight of a person, and how to set a bone, and that's just before lunch. She'd never once even imagined what it might be like to be a candidate, though she'd attended plenty of hatchings here at the Weyrhold. Once they had moved from the Old World to Alskyr, and away from the mainland of Paniya, that is.

***

Bayat had grown up in Dawnlight, the daughter of a humble Herbalist. But humble didn't go very far, for her. For Bayat, always as bright and bouncy as her naturally-curly hair, she knew there was more out there. Thankfully she was smart, caught on quickly, and realized that her father's profession would aid her own.

She begged to be allowed to attend the Healer's selection process in town, and since her father had business with the Hall as well, she was brought along. With wide nut-brown eyes she observed everything she could and finally walked up to one of the Healers nearby.

"Would you teach me to do that?" She asked, of the process he'd just finished, that of setting a broken bone on a servant. "And next time you might want to use some numbweed so he doesn't wince and mess up your binding so much."

It wasn't the Senior Apprentice that was particularly impressed with this, it was his superior, and almost at once, Bayat was brought to the local Healer Hall for evaluation. At the age of ten, she came on as an Apprentice, by the time she was thirteen she was almost ready for Journeymanship.

She had grown in the ranks but still kept her Caste, gaining deeper reds and oranges available in her clothing options - Dawnlight still used a rigid color-caste system.

And then, Shard and the others moved the Protectorate. All at once, she realized that there was something quite different about the world. No giant Red Star to dominate the skies, pure dirt to grow plants in, and dragons... of all colors and descriptions!

She slipped away from Dawnlight when she could, and was brought on at Kshau Isle properly, studying with Eden's Gate's finest medical professionals. Mark and Woodie and the rest. Some of them were riders, and some ... well, some of them just weren't really from here, so she couldn't say what was up with them.

But Bayat spent half her life here, in the tall mountain hollowed out for the purpose of dragon housing, watching the politics go by. She despised how Dawnlight handled many things, but knew that there were worse options.

The fact that she knew that, of course, was one of the things they would have kicked her out for, anyway.

***

Bayat felt Shard's fingers in front of her face before she really saw them, and she blinked rapidly to clear her eyes and mind.

"Okay, well, yeah, what... do I have to do?" She asked, "and do I have to pack heavy or light? I've heard Ryslen is pretty cold in the Winter."

"Pack light," Shard recommended. "And meet me up at the high Aerie when you're ready. You've been there, right?"

"Oh yes," Bayat chuckled again, "yes I have, that's where those lunatics with their flying machines take off, right?"

"Oh you've heard of them, eh?" Shard laughed, knowing that she was talking about Valerin and his 'helicopter' thing, along with several hang-glider freaks. But then, who was he to call anyone a freak, he'd ridden without a harness since Jeremoth was only a few months old...

***

Ryslen was as colorful as the dragons that came from it, and plenty of the Protectorate's dragons were born here. Though she'd never really been introduced properly, she could tell which dragon was the proud sire of these nests. He was Old World, she'd seen him flying around occasionally - a brilliant white-on-bronze patchwork of color and light.

The young coming from their eggs were... bright. And, apparently, neglected to stick with the standard few colors of the Old World as well: there were greys and purples, orange and things that just didn't belong together to an old Dawnlight inhabitant.

When a fire-colored dragonet wobbled up to Bayat, something clicked in her mind. Well, clicked wasn't the right word at all. It all but shouted.

Mine! The mind burbled with happiness, found you - mine!

The dragon was mostly a sunlit yellow-gold, but had dapplings of a pale copper as well as a vivid red all over. And, though she knew it was highly unlikely, the dragon's mind Bayat felt was male.

Boy! Of course I'm boy! Taedamhadath!

"That's a mouthfull!" Bayat laughed, her hands were still sure as ever but in her mind they trembled. She had... impressed? She had impressed!

Taedamhadath shoved his narrow snout into her hands, and bugled as well as he could, which pretty much led to mucus covering the Healer's hands, but she was hardly shy about things like that. Laughing still, Bayat led the colorful hatchling to their first meal together.

***

It didn't take long for Taedamhadath to grow into a long, surprisingly large adult. But what was best of all, was that Bayat took to riding him as though she'd never done anything but. Now, she would be of far more use in the field, able to fly or teleport directly to injured riders.

Father's pedigree: sire unknown, dam special green Rith of Sapphire (Glass Island)