The younger sister is always the worst off.

Carnage has always known that, and in Dawnlight one sister is one female too many in a family. Being the fourth, last child meant that surely she'd never inherit squat -- as she put it.

So she put herself to work with Dawnlight's smith guild. It was hard work, and painful sometimes, but Carnea did it without complaining and determined to make her way.

Of course, even though she's stronger than most men her age, she never got the same respect in a craft guild than men would. Why? Those big lung-hammers -- as she puts it. She wears suggestive clothing even though it puts her creamy skin in danger of scarring and getting burnt.

She's never cared. She takes glee in knowing that other hold girls her age are preening and making themselves look all pretty-and-nice for some boy or other. She hardly cares about boys -- she would rather compete WITH one, than FOR one, any day.

Boys are for "girls". And Carnage, once she changed her name and moved to Eden's Gate, knew that boys and girls both feared her. She is a talented smith, has her own set of heavy tools for jobs anything from shoeing a horse to making an entire wagon. No one touches Carnage's tools!

If they want their hand bitten off, they'll touch em!

Carnage does not want to return home. She has always loved the wilder elements of rogues, following their footsteps out overland. She actually just up and followed a bunch of raiders out to Eden's Gate, and they could hardly deny her entry once she showed up for dinner.

She is loyal to them, but more loyal to herself.

The clanging of Carnage's hammer onto hot metal went long into the night. Everyone was used to it, by now. But still, it made for difficult sleep for some members of the cothold. One of the elder gentlemen who made his way in the world by killing vermin (and roasting them for snacks) staggered his way into the smithy's cement-walled enclosure.

"It's time t' sleep y' crazy gel! I'm tryin' ta anyway. Git!" He shooed at her with his gnarled hands, and she finally looked up at him from over her anvil.

"Oh, go way, old guy..." She growled. "I'm workin!"

"I kin see dat!" He spat. "I kin hear it too!" He tapped his wrinkled head, droopy ear and all. "An I'm done wit it! Off t'bed witcha!"

Carnage steamed for a moment, and then put her hammer down. She looked at the piece she was working on, and decided that it would wait. The old man was right. She was just restless and keeping everyone up all night wasn't really going to solve that problem.

"Whatchoo need," said the geezer, "is a man t'help y' git t' sleep."

Carnage laughed loudly, "and what, that wouldn't be you, now would it?" She burst out into loug guffaws moments later. The old man snickered, tried swiveling his hips, failed, but made her laugh even harder.

She escorted him back to his smallish shack, and patted his shoulder. "Thaks old guy. You're a charmer, you know that?"

His eyes misted over, looking at hers. "I used'ta be. Why... I wuzza rider, I wuz."

Carnage had been about to leave but she stopped. "You!? Hardly! And besides, where's your dragon, old man?"

"Dead... dead n' gone like th'rest o m'family. All ashes and dust..." He looked at his hands, clenching them though it obviously caused him pain. Carnage crept back inside. It was very dim in the room, but the stars and moons above lit the flat outside well enough. She licked her lips, unsure what to say.

"How? When?" She asked, shortly and while sitting herself down on the ragged foot stool he had in his shack.

"Y'come right to th' point, don'tche?" He took in a long wheezing breath, and told Carnage of his youth. How it had been spent in all the right places -- born to a poor Holder but searched as a youth, brought to a weyr and stood... Three times before he impressed. A bold blue dragon was his. He couldn't choke out the dragon's name, but his tears showed Carnage that he truly was a rider without his dragon. He spoke further of his wife, their sons, all dead from nothing more sinister than a house fire. "Dem goats... She kept'em inna house y'see? They'd walk all ova ever'thin. An one night, one o'em knocked a lamp down. Caught th' blankets afire... T'ey never woke."

Carnage's shoulders slumped, and her eyes stayed with his. "I'm... so sorry. Yet you rode your dragon proudly, didn't you." She said, standing. "He died bravely, and you... You're very brave to go on without him. You should tell the records keepers of your stories."

"Ach... what would t'ey want wit'em? T'ey would'na believe me anyways." He waved her off, but said nothing more. Carnage bid him a good evening, crept to her own small hovel, and slept.

She dreamed of blues, of browns and greens... Dragons in their many colors. Of course, she also dreamed of fires and goats, the heat of her forge a fresh memory that woke her up more than once during the night.

In the day time, everything was as it was before. She struck her anvil and the sheet of metal she worked, in time with whatever motion she'd been keeping. The old man crept by her work shop with a gift: a small rodent on a stick, roasted to perfection (read: charred to cinders) and with a gloss of some sticky honey glaze on it.

"I made it special," he whispered, winked, and disappeared back to the main buildings. Laughing, Carnage took a break and enjoyed the 'treat' as she thought of things to make.

Later, it came to her. She feverishly made thinner and thinner sheets of this metal. Then, she applied cutters and clips to it, bending the edges, slicing it into many long thin strips. She welded bits together, pressed others and folded still more. Then... Only then, after two days and nights of working alone, did she finally come out.

She strutted over to the old man's shack. The thin metal roofing on it needed repairs. She'd get to those shortly. The place really needed a good metal worker like her. She slapped her hand on the adobe wall, causing a bit of it to crumble to dust below her hand.

"Hey! I've got something for you!" She called. Momentarily, the man's withered form came stumbling out from the dim interior, into the daylight.

"Whazzat." He said, almost half-forgetful of the girl and her attentions the other evening.

"Here," she said, and put a largish object into his gnarled hands. He examined it with a foul look on his face at first, because it was in fact somewhat abstract. But then his features softened. It was a dragon in flight, wings unfurled out to their maximum, neck stretched out, and rider atop its back with one fist upraised. The tail curled below it as a base. It was a remarkably clever piece, and not something that the old man could ever have expected. Not from this coarse loudmouthed girl.

He breathed in deeply and couldn't say what he wanted to. He merely smiled, and placed the object on the table (wobbly, ill-made thing), and sat heavily beside it. He was still gazing on it when the dragons came outside.

Carnage looked over her shoulder at them, a big bronze, and Shard's blue Jeremoth. Ah, of course. He needed to help search riders come to this place, since they'd moved.

"There's one now," said the rider of the bronze dragon. "That girl. See her?"

"What, with the tools on her belt?" Shard said, from Jeremoth's back.

"That's her. Maybe you should go tell her?"

"Tell her what?" Carnage shouted.

"That you're searched, Carnage," Shard yelled. The blue skinned man shrugged, and waved his hand at the bronze rider. "He says so. And so does Jere. You know he's never wrong."

"Never wrong..." Carnage echoed. "Well, what if I need to stay for a while?" She said, glancing at the old man's shack, its roof in disrepair.

Then you're going to have to come back to this place through time, to do it, Bespoke the bronze. For the eggs on our sands at Firestone are almost ready to hatch, and we've not much time to waste while you decide. An egg for you, among the bigger ones...

Flattered, but still adamant, Carnage stomped first toward the shack, then her workshop, then back to the dragons. "Look, can I just finish something first? This roof needs repairs and I can do them, but ... there isn't any one else here to do it. I don't want anything happening to the old guy while I'm gone."

"Then you do what you must, and I'll be waiting. If you want help," Shard said, "I'll be here."

"Just keep those eggs from hatching without me. And if we have to time it back to get there, we'll do that, too, right?" Carnage liked the smile on Shard, and went back to her work.

She stepped onto the hot sands and felt right at home. It was exciting, but it was also something out of a dream. White robes, which made it easier for the dragons to find their one and only chosen rider, also made it hard to feel entirely comfortable. No one wore white robes unless they were the center of attention.

Well, as the eggs began to hatch late at night on hallows' eve, everyone on the sands, from the queen to the smallest candidate, was the focal point of everyone's attention!

It took a number of eggs hatching before Carnage really believed she was there. A dark blue dragon came from his egg, swinging his tail into another egg and breaking it. When the little green which he dislodged started hissing at him, the blue turned on her and she very nearly gave him a bite! But, Lisanth picked up the blue by his tail -- looked painful! -- and placed him away from his sister. The green impressed first, but then as he blasted a trumpet of annoyance at his own mother, he walked right up to Carnage.

Carnage, we'll show her! I'll be the biggest and toughest blue ever, and she won't be able to pick me up ever again!

Laughing, Carnage replied, "all right, Havocth, whatever you say." She did believe him. He would be big! And she hoped... that perhaps he would be of the same stuff as her own dreams... What would anyone say if she told them she'd wanted to ride a male dragon because perhaps some day... she might fly and become a weyrleader?

It is not such a far out thing, Havockth said. To be a blue and to be a leader. The Sea Blessed wing is only blues and greens, and their leader is blue.

"I was more thinking about the Protectorate's leader," Carnage said, as she scrubbed the strong winged blue dry. "Shard rides blue Jeremoth. A fine blue. You should look up to him."

I do. But he is odd. Sometimes he is far away.

"That's the Protectorate. We'll get there. Don't worry. First, we can fly and fight. Then, when we've had enough, I guess there's a great world to visit. But I think we could come back to help here." Carnage nodded to finish the statement.

Good because I like flying and I like the thought of fighting. Will it be dangerous? Thrilling?

"It'll be the best thrill ever!"

When Carnage and Havocth arrived at Alskyr's Protectorate Isle, they were pleased to announce that the dragon had retained his ability to breathe fire. It was no big surprise, of course, not to Carnage anyway.

When they flew against the old world's threat, he wove around it like a pro. Now, they'd be able to fry spores and chew on ants... The thought of it sent a half-mad laugh from Carnage to her dragon, who seemed to echo it with his eyes!