Cliffard
Male, age 21 turns
Hold bred, Guard for the Lord Holders

Experienced with many hand to hand weapons, Cliffard has always loved to spar and is very athletic. He is only moderately literate, though he knows a lot of Hold gossip due to his close associations with the Lord Holders.

Though he does not often talk about his political bent, he is trusted by both "sides" of the Dawnlight Hold's debates. He only wishes that the debate will not turn to bloodshed.

He is interested in dragons, specifically because thread killed two of his childhood friends. He harbors a slow, burning desire to destroy thread but knows that his battle will only be a one-on-one with it in the end, and he knows that few dragon riders live to a very old age to enjoy their retirement.

Should he impress, Cliffard will elide his name to C'liff, and would be happiest on a brown or blue dragon.

"Cliffard, I know I can trust you," Lord Holder Deon said. "It's a matter of utmost importance."

"Sir." Cliffard said. He was not nervous, being called to the Lord Holders chambers was something that guards were always doing around Dawnlight. Always. "You can count on me."

The aging leader nodded, greying half-bald head sweating in the heat. "Son, I'm going to entrust to you a duty which few others have been entitled."

Cliffard straightened. This might be big! A promotion in the guard would mean--

"You're going to Aneris Weyr. To be on the sands. For me." The elder Holder leaned back in his wherhide seat and it groaned under its weight. He pulled a small cloth from his vest, and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. "Did you hear me boy? Aneris is taking Candidates. I've learned that we don't have many people represented there."

Cliffard thought, and then spoke before he realized what he was saying. "There was M'cel, and A'rd. And M'cel's blue just flew a dragon in Seasparkul--"

The glare on Deon's face shut Cliffard up quickly. "Those two are not my men. You are. You're to report to the transport rider first thing in the morning. Make me proud."

The threat in his voice was tangible. Cliffard knew that to stand and not impress would probably mean his dismissal from the guard as well, and he would be out of everything. But to stand and ... come back with a dragon, now that was an idea he could sit with!

"For the good of Dawnlight Hold," Cliffard saluted his Lord Holder, "I will be ready, sir. And I will be ready to fight Thread above our Hold."

"Till your dying day," Deon muttered, almost too quietly for Cliffard to hear. But on the way out of the sweltering office, the guard did not pause when he heard that little statement.

If he were to go and not impress, Cliffard thought to himself, he might just as well stay at Aneris, for he surely would not be welcome in his home.

He headed off to his semi-private barrack shared with another guard, who was sleeping at the time he began packing. His bustling woke the man.

"Cliffard, you dimglow... what time is it?" The man groggily said.

"It's time for me to leave the Hold and become a dragonrider," Cliffard said, proudly. He was far too excited to sleep, so he packed, and then headed down to what passed as a tavern in Dawnlight's central court to give his goodbyes.

When the eggs began to hatch, Cliffard had been at Aneris Weyr only about a sevenday. He'd barely gotten into the weyrling classes, but had a strong sense that he'd be used to the effort and power that it took to become a rider very quickly.

He ran with the other males to the ledge where two blue dragons waited to escort them down to the hatching sands. He was excited, but he was also a little calmer than some.

Then, they got down there and to the surprise of everyone an egg which many had bet upon to be a blue hatched not only first, but with a bronze hatchling inside! He'd just lost half a mark on that one! Smirking to himself though, he watched as the thrilled young man who Impressed that bronze was led off the sands.

But it was a while before anything else happened to Cliffard. Two greens hatched, one going to Teba, an Outcast Dawnlight woman. He'd kept tabs on her, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that her red hair was amazing, and her firey temper was even more attractive. But then, a blue dragon impressed, and next an egg no one expected from a Green's clutch: a gold!

At last, Cliffard watched as a brown and a blue hatched together, and the brown nosed ungracefully into the sand, while the blue was rolled down to the side of the sands. Benar and Cliffard practically racing each other from the line of waiting boys. The brown one went to Benar, while Cliffard heard something in his head for the first time since getting to the weyr.

Help me, C'liff, I think I'm stuck! I can't fly if I stay stuck here in the sands forever!

How he knew the hatchlings name was beyond the young man, but when he came to the blue's side, he said, "Come on Triymyth, get up. You're fine." He smiled at Benar, or B'nar he assumed, from across the sands, and they left before the last egg waiting hatched.

"You can't possibly eat all that," C'liff said as Triym began to scarf down another wherry.

I can! Don't you think I deserve to?

C'liff smiled to himself, and patted the blue on the shoulder. "You do, Triym. We did good, didn't we?"

He thought back, to the hours before. Unbeknownst to the weyr, as the weyrlings were training, Thread had begun to fall nearby! The call went out almost immediately, and Aneris' weyrlings met the challenge! Though they were not fully stocked with firestone, the weyrlings braved the Thread and hopped back and forth between, to save the cotholds in danger!

Triymyth then belched up a bit more firestone and finally settled in to gorge himself with a congratulatory meal. C'liff wished that he could join in, he was awfully hungry from their --

"Hey! Come on! There's a feast being made, we're the guests!" Teba shouted as she ran down the hall. Her green Murath had been eager just like Triym, to fight. They were both thankful that there were few injuries.

C'liff got up, told Triym that he'd be back.

I will be asleep! This meal and our thread fighting have both made me so tired...

"Sleep, dear friend," C'liff said, "you deserve it!"

"Well, now that we've got that all out of the way, I'd like to make sure you get where you're going, all right?" The weyrling master announced. He began handing out notes on wherhide scrolls to certain of the now-grown weyrlings at Aneris. Some of the young men and women looked at their assignments with surprise, but not C'liff.

"Hah, I knew we'd be there together," he muttered to himself. "The Hunters wing, at the Protectorate," he explained to someone. "And Teba and I are both on this request. She's nowhere to be found, you notice that?"

The others laughed, and C'liff went off to find his dragon.

He was waiting in the weyr, crouched and prepared for takeoff already.

Well? Well? Are we going!?

"Of course we are, Try, we're already there, practically!"