Sister to Cassiopia and Casandra (now both green riders), and older sibling to Carnage (now a blue rider) Caitlin is considered rather plain in terms of personality.

However, her 'dumb blond' exterior is completely a fabrication. She keeps up on Dawnlight Hold's activities exactly the way that her superior Deon wishes she wouldn't. She knows things about everyone around her, mostly that they also wish she wouldn't (or don't know she does).

Caitlin is an apprentice recordskeeper, and is a very organized young woman of 17. Though some do not trust her because she is an assistant to Lord Holder Deon and his underling Spencer, others know better than to think she is entirely loyal to them.

Her own sister Carnage for instance, knows that Caitlin would have eagerly joined her romping about in the scrub with the Eden's Gate folks, if only they had decent running water.

H'lis knows, for instance, that Caitlin can be trusted by Weyr folk to give them the information they need, when they need it, without allowing interferance by the Lord Holders of the hold. Tithes come in so much more easily while she's there. Since she isn't allowing anyone to hold back their percentages.

She doesn't take any crap from anyone. She will put up with a certain amount of joking and dumb blond comments, but only up to the point where she thinks she can in fact out-do that person later. And she often does, at parties or gathers where they are too drunk to remember their embarrassment...

Caitlin is unsure what she will do if presented with a dragon. It will not be the first time that a being has entered her mind, but H'lis and his brood don't count in her opinion, and E'tan has trained her from afar to judge her 'opponents' mental states before entering a battle of wits with them.

** Some adult content implied **

The green dragon huffed at Caitlin, blowing back her platinum hair and making her squint. Serzona grinned widely at the Holder. Caitlin couldn't quite hear what he was saying, but by the way he was turning all red and blotchy he wasn't happy with the results of the search.

She'd been chosen, of course. Naturally. Her mother and father were already quite happy that their eldest daughters had bonded at Dark Moon, though they didn't know that Carnage (they still called her Carnea) had also bonded. It would follow that their other child would go to a weyr and make them proud.

Deon on the other hand... "Where will I get as talented a recordskeeper as she? She's been trained specifically for my office!"

"Then you'll obviously find someone else to do that same thing, Lord Holder," Serzona said, as they approached Caitlin's area. "Because you cannot refuse to let her come to Isla's sands. She's been searched. If she does not impress, then she can come back."

Deon looked slightly relieved. But Serzona wasn't finished and Caitlin knew what she was going to say.

"But if she desires she may stand again and again, until she impresses or is too old to do so. Then, only then, she can leave and be your ... secretary?" She glanced at Caitlin and the blond girl nodded. Deon strode up, huffy, and leaned down to Caitlin.

"You ... should remain with us. Your work is very valuable to me." He gulped, "to the Hold."

"I cannot refuse to go, sir," Caitlin said, simply. Deon was well and truly one of the most offensive men she'd ever met. While he did in fact have a wife, she had had to keep quiet the many liasons he would have with young -- mostly stolen -- boys from various holds near by. That fact churned in her gut, and she looked away from his puffy-eyed face.

How could she keep something like that silent for so long? She was paid, of course. Well paid. She was one of the few people who actually knew about details. Knew who the boys had been, knew when one or two of them had to go 'missing' and when ... Riringo had been one of them she was still a junior apprentice, not even among the ranks within the Holder's group. But she knew.

It was almost as if she could read his mind. She shuddered a bit as he turned and stormed away to his office. Doubtless, to clean things up from his little tantrum earlier when the search rider demanded Caitlin's presence in the courtyard.

She would not have to deal with that any more. Caitlin looked at Serzona and smiled broadly. "When can I pack?" She asked, brightly.

The weyr was busy this time of year, and it looked different to Caitlin -- the whole world did. She remembered that it was because they were traveling through time to get to the Hold, Isla was in the far future of her own world. Caitlin grinned widely at the thought of looking through records of their time and seeing what she could find!

When she attempted to do so, however, she found... "Nothing?" She whispered to the dank air of the records room. "How can there be 'nothing'? We're standing on the same island as the Protectorate met... Sure, it was twelve hundred years ago but we kept decent records! *I* kept decent records!" She almost shouted, and slapped the parchment pad back on the wide table. The lights were bright, but the night was dim outside, there was air but it was still and sluggish. Her mood wasn't improved by either of those things. She decided to go looking harder for the records she just knew existed.

She'd gotten as far as one of the coves, near the edge of the weyr's land, when she realized that she had no idea what she was doing. There was a memory... Something faint. Something dusty and desert-like. Hot.

"E'tan, get out of my mind." She spoke aloud to the mind who hovered near her. "On second thought, tell me where I find our records."

That would be cheating, lovely girl, E'tan's mental voice came to her from across distance and time.

"I cheat as a rule," Caitlin said. "How do you think I survived Deon's office for so long?"

She heard the distinct pop of arrival, a dragon bearing someone, up in the sky behind her. Turning, she saw a small, long bodied brown dragon, and a blond-haired rider, descending to the sands. Utainth, and E'tan.

"It's quite an honor, E'tan. I've never met you face to face." Caitlin extended her hands in greeting, and he politely took them into his own. With a dangerous smile on his face, the blue-eyed man tossed his head at the weyr side.

"You're looking in the wrong direction. This weyr was built upon the ruins of our Mesa. But the Mesa is still intact inside. Come." E'tan's voice was warm, but his manner was chillier than she expected.

"Why don't you want me finding things?" She asked. "What has happened in those years? I don't expect to have details, but surely something!"

When they got through the exterior walls of the mesa which bordered Isla, Caitlin realized the whole inside of the mountain was hollow. Just like the Weyr, of course. But here and there were small path markers glowing in phosphorescent plant-life. E'tan led her to a cavern, which had a swinging stone as a door.

"Here. You're not going to like what you find, I am afraid. But when you're done, I could take you back, if you wish." With that mysterious statement, E'tan exited and while he did so flipped a small device on the edge of the wall, which lit up the interior of the room quite well. It was a records room, but with metal walls and finely made furnishings -- which had kept their finish over the centuries by the climate inside the mountain.

Caitlin began to look.

"What am I seeing?" Caitlin muttered. She filtered through the notes, the tomes, the scrolls and even a couple microfiche files before she sat heavily down on one of the large softly padded chairs in the room.

Her blood ran cold with what she read. What she *thought* she read. It couldn't be true.

The Protectorate took itself off the planet? Only a few years after Caitlin's time?

Leaving her, exactly where? If she were to impress, what would happen? Would she be forced to stay at Isla -- which admittedly was a very very fine establishment and they could always use another rider like any weyr -- or would she return to Dawnlight, Blackstone actually, and simply ride off into...

"Where? Where did they go?" She breathed. It took her the better part of the day to locate any written material on the subject but Caitlin spotted a picture -- an actual photograph -- of a group of very odd looking people. Some of them were cats. One was very tall and blue and handsome --

"That's Shard? The protectorate leader?" She whispered to the air. "Oh my."

"Yes, oh my," echoed E'tan, causing Caitlin to jump out of her skin. "The place didn't need us any more."

"So this has all happened to you, already?" Caitlin asked, trying to place things in her own mind. E'tan nodded.

"But common belief says that I am not to be trusted about anything regarding the future or past..." He added a moment later, with a sad, kind of hollow smile.

"E'tan, I will remain here, and Impress if I can." She said.

"Good girl," E'tan said. "Brave girl. You'll have a place anywhere - or when - that you go. Understand?"

She nodded. "I know. I'm already working in the Records room here at Isla. It's a nicely run place."

"They need you."

"But I need my family. And things that are familiar to me. Even you. And you can't be bothered to come here all that often, now can you?" She chided him, and E'tan had to remind himself that he was well over eight hundred years old and she was not even into her second score of years... He smirked.

"You know your home," he said, "you must memorize it. Carefully. If you wish, I can take you to a place above, which will allow you to memorize the stars and patterns of coastline which are distinct to your time and place."

She glanced at him, back at the papers, and then more eagerly back to the man. "You mean ride Utainth?" She said with a bright glaze on her eyes.

"Yes." The dragon outside bellowed cheerfully, and loud enough to be heard within.

"Then let's go!" She said, "but let me put these things away first. I don't want them all to rot in the air."

E'tan looked at her with a carefully guarded eye. Attractive, brilliant and attentive. It was too bad he'd committed himself to other ... people, in the meantime. He was certain her mental abilities would aid his 'cause' but -- would she?

When she was finished with the papers, storing them all back the way they had been arranged, she followed the thin man down outside, to the beach again where the sun was starting to angle into afternoon. E'tan put his riding jacket over Caitlin's shoulders, and said, "snug that on, you're about the same size as me."

"Shorter," she laughed, the jacket was to her thighs and the sleeves covered her hands entirely. But it was fur lined, and nicely cut. "What will you wear?"

"I don't need that any more," he said, and helped her onto the narrow back of the dragon. Utainth was a strange looking dragon. She wondered where he was impressed, but Caitlin said nothing that would offend. E'tan gave her instructions about going between times, and she vividly remembered the chill of heading to the future of Isla weyr.

When they arrived back to her own time and place, it was warmer, but night time. "Look to the skies," E'tan said, then added the same thing mentally if she hadn't caught the words as they were ripped from his mouth in the wind above the lands. Up in the dark velvet of night, there were the moons, and the Red Star, smaller than she thought she remembered it. The stars around each were bright, and E'tan showed her the Dawn Sisters -- and as he did so he asked Utainth to sweep around over the Hold below.

Dawnlight was an echo of those three static-stars, with three points brightly glimmering in the evening. Caitlin could recite just exactly where those points were on the city scape, and then looked back to the sky.

"I understand," she said. She put it into her memory that this time, and this place, were where she was to return some day. When -- not if -- she bonded at Isla.

That way, she could go with the rest of the protectorate as they left this world and went into another.

The trip back to Isla was less chilled, but longer. Caitlin thanked her strange and wonderful benefactor for the ride and the deep knowledge of the past -- her own future -- and snagged his elbow as he was going to leave. She planted a warm kiss on his high cheek, and actually got quite a smile and half a blush from him. Weren't brown riders more outgoing than him?

Well, she'd learn eventually which riders would be best to charm and which would be left alone. And, of course, which holders, craft masters and the like to do the same. For Caitlin was in her element anywhere -- and any time -- she found herself.

When Caitlin found herself at Isla's sands, she only waited half a moment before the shaking eggs of Jeschuteth's part of the clutch. She was watching someone else, though, while a beautiful green dragon mottled with marble-shades on her skin came wobbling up to her.

She bumped up to Caitlin and stared deeply into her eyes. The shining golden orbs fluttered through many colors before deciding on a teal-green. You are mine, I am Flaviath!

"Oh!" Caitlin laughed, startled. In her mind, though, she called out with a pleased I hope you don't mind that I missed you coming to me...

I think I can forgive you! Feed me!

Flaviath crooned when Caitlin scrubbed her neck. That harness is awful. I hate it. Please let's just throw it away and burn it!?

"Flav! No, I can't do that. We need that to fly!"

You need it, I do not! The green swept her wing around her face, an expression of ire on her muzzle.

"But I can't just hang on," Caitlin said, "... It does look like that harness is rubbing you in the wrong spot, though. I'm going to see the leather smith about making you a new one that fits right. Okay?"

If that is the best compromise we can reach, I suppose...

Flaviath spread her dark speckled wings, and left the ground. The winds were just right to cruise around Isla one last time before leaving for the Protectorate. Or, perhaps, to wherever E'tan was. Caitlin had it in her head to visit the blond telepath and inform him of her successful bonding.

He knew already, of course, because the records room updated itself almost magically, but that was one trip that Caitlin wanted to make. It was no mistake that she had to home in on his brown dragon instead of the man himself - the dragon knew better ways of getting others to his side.

It is nice to see you again, the dragon bespoke and Caitlin heard him clearly, though filtered through her own dragon's mind. Utainth looked well, and Caitlin urged Flaviath to tell him so.

You flatter me.

I flatter you too, Flaviath bespoke, and while Caitlin was searching around the odd dark halls of E'tan's private non-worldly home, she suddenly realized that ...

"Caitlin," E'tan said, boldly and clearly disturbed by the sudden intrusion, "you've brought a flirtatious green to my home?"

"I didn't mean to," Caitlin responded, and then smiled widely. Perhaps she did mean to at that...

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