Tabitha's pages, originally written around 2001

All too closely related to Weyrleader Shard, Tabitha's father would never have approved of her activities had he lived to see them.

As a Journeywoman Healer, Tabitha is well known. As a, well, a drug dealer, she is even more known. Her expertise in mixing 'potions' for people for a variety of reasons (in an amourous mood? need to shut someone up? have a bad itch? got an unwanted pregnancy?) is almost unmatched in the whole Protectorate. However, this has taken her into scrutiny from the Healer's hall.

At the age of 10 turns, she entered the Hall, and by the time she was 15, she already had mixed up herbs and chemicals which only the Masters usually worked with. Her talented hands are not the only thing she uses when mixing, however. She has remarkable vision, and is able to spot the most minute color changes in mixtures, powders, and sees herbs hidden in even the most dense Southern jungle.

Now 20, Tabitha has grudgingly been awarded her Journeywoman's knots, and been sent off by her Masters. They only hope that she doesn't leave a trail of addicts and bodies on her way across the world...

It would be a perfect day for gathering if it weren't for the Gather! Tabitha chuckled to herself as she walked along the Hold's outer lands. She was so distractable already, and what with the dragons coming and going overhead so often picking up the berry baskets and often a berry picker or two, she was almost beside herself.

What to do, what to do? Ostensibly at Two River Hold for their Berried Alive gather, attending as a Healer in some nominal form (they had their own group of them, a Master down to several dozen apprentices, so she knew they could handle any real emergencies that the Gather had to offer), Tabitha wandered out past the berry fields and into the wilder areas, with her small collection basket slung over her shoulder. It moulded to her hip with a familiar ease, and her hand rested on it while she worked her way past the trees and nearer the rivers.

What were their names? She couldn't remember. She wasn't entirely sure that she'd known in the first place. When her tall tanned half brother Shard brought her here on his beautiful blue dragon Jeremoth, he'd pointed the rivers out and shouted their names to her, but she wasn't really listening. She was busy enjoying the natural rush of having gone between and come out again.

What a perfect drug THAT was! "Can we do it again?" She had asked, and Shard only furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head at her as they landed. The busy gather-grounds held excitement for Tabitha, but only after she rested up. She had big plans.

Tabitha needed to find some fresh herbs, if her latest compound was to do its job properly. And with these large rushing rivers nearby, it was the perfect place and time of turn to do so. It was unlikely that any of the local healers or even herders had picked any of these wild leaves, as they were considered toxic to humans and annoying to most beasts.

So she put several handfulls of them into her collection pouch, and spotted a beautiful patch of weeds which she knew could assist in the hallucingenic properties of this very mix! With glee, the pink-haired girl (yes, pink... what of it?) plucked off several bright green berries and their triple-tipped leaves, putting them into the pouch as well.

On her way back to the Hold, Tabitha had already begun to break some of the leaves up into grinding sized bits. By the time she reached Two River, her hand had gone numb from the process.

"I keep forgetting gloves," Tabitha giggled. It hardly mattered. The whole rest of her was numb from walking in the sun and hunting through the area for herbs. It was almost noon, and the dragons were coming on in force now. Tabitha slunk back to her small private Healer's weyr, and began her actual work.

***

"Do you think he's okay?"

"He will be just fine," Tabitha said, angrily. "He needs to sleep a bit. He'll be fine." The journeywoman snapped off her gloves, and glared at the pair of young men. One of them had brought their friend in, having found him passed out near a bowl of something burning. "He ought not to have used so much of it. I did tell him how to administer it properly."

"Well, he's not coming round." Said the second friend. "You'd better hope he's okay for the rest of the gather."

"He'll be asleep for at least the rest of the day," Tabitha looked at the unconscious man's eyes, and then glared back at the pair again. "Why don't you two go out and find him something to make it up for him. He'll be missing most of the Gather."

Grudgingly, the pair left her weyr. Tabitha slumped against her seat, and looked at the pale-skinned boy near her. If only he had listened. The dose would have killed a smaller or younger boy, that's certain. What they brought her back in the bowl, still smouldering, was almost enough to make half the drudges in the Hold higher than dragons flying.

"Thought you'd be a man, huh?" She said to the limp form, holding up his arm and letting it drop. "Well, let this be a lesson to you. If you can remember your own name when you wake up that is..."

She got up and tidied the weyr a little, and then went out to see the dancing and festivities at the Gather. She brought along small 'doses' of her favorite handout, something that could easily be burned like a stick of incense or blown into the wind to produce a mild euphoria. She looked up to the taller of the hills where the fire and drum heights were, and thought about planting a huge drum of the stuff up there when the wind turned down over the gather grounds.

Chuckling and leaving that thought aside, Tabitha began looking for potential buyers for her wares.

***

"What do you call this stuff, anyway?" Asked one of the riders, an anonymous brown rider who had enough of dancing and wanted to relax. She'd intercepted him on his way to the wine stalls. This was far better fare.

"Euphoria," Tabitha announced, with a grin. "It's a secret blend. But if you're a rider, you won't have any trouble finding me to get more, now will you?"

"That's no behavior for a rider, lad," said a gruff, deep voice. Tabitha jumped nearly as high as the brown rider, as they saw a man who had a stern gaze on his face. He was unremarkable but still his sudden appearance made Tabitha wary.

"He's a rider of quality," Tabitha said, "and he understands the value of relaxation. And you obviously do not." She looked him up and down, and decided that she did not see a customer in her view.

The rider stood stoically between the brown rider and Tabitha, until the other rider scampered away. Tabitha glared at the taller man. "You've just cost me several Marks, sir."

"So you fancy yourself a trader, now do you?" Asked the man. "I was told you were a Healer."

"I am," she said, drawing herself up and letting her bright colored hair catch a little of the breeze that swept through just then. A fine addition to the drama of the moment, she thought. Perhaps it was just the after effects of the euphoria.

"You should keep away from the riders with that stuff. If their minds are muddled when they fly, the will probably die."

"How could they? If they've been properly trained?" Tabitha countered. "Are riders not supposed to be the most highly trained members of our fine society? I respect them, sir. And I also understand that they live their lives as if every day were their last. Why deny them the pleasure of a simple moment?" She put her hand on her hip, and watched the man's expression. But she knew that he wasn't just thinking about what she said, he was talking to a dragon with that blank stare.

Her eyes narrowed. When the man returned his gaze to reality, he furrowed his brows and growled at Tabitha. "You're to stand. Faranth help the world, if you impress, but the dragons know best. And my dragon Scith has told me that you are Searched."

Tabitha's eyebrow raised slowly. "... Searched? Sir?"

"My surprise as well," muttered the man. "Be at the sands soon. The eggs will hatch without you if you are not there. And no amount of your euphoria will keep you from grief if there was a dragon there for you and it dies."

With that, he turned and disappeared into the crowd, as Tabitha gulped back a shocked gasp.

"Searched..." she breathed. This was nearly impossible... But she would do something. She would stand. And if there WAS indeed a dragon with her intended as the rider there, she would be good at it. She knew it. That would give her the chance to go between, as much as they could... Any time... yes! She WOULD stand!

And she would impress!

"And you mocked my Search," Tabitha said, with a huge grin, at the Hatching feast. She'd been put to work in the infirmary, and had gotten used to "not" trying to sell her poison wares there.

The search rider who had questioned his blue's thought that Tabitha might impress grumbled and rolled his eyes.

He thinks that you are still not fit to be a rider, my Tabitha. Why is that?

Because he's jealous. He's only got a blue -- a silly male -- and here you are all perfect and dark!

That certainly made the dragonet happy. Back in the large shared barracks where most of the hatchlings had been sleeping, Blith crooned in delight. Tabitha tucked in to another helping of cold salad and shaved meat, and relished that this night, they would be indulged just a bit in their celebration.

The pink-haired girl looked around. "So many vintners, so little time..." She said, cackling to herself.

"Wheeeeoooooooooo-yeah!" Tabitha screeched at the tops of her lungs as the weyrlings took flight for the first time. Contrary to popular belief, the pair were *not* experimenting with either flight or drugs at the time, so her reaction was pure. It was also quite similar to the other weyrlings, which made the weyrling master rather relieved.

It was all he could do to keep the pair from nosing into the flight wings after that. But Tabitha was requested by the Protectorate even before they learned flight. Shard approached the weyrwoman, and the weyrwoman approached the weyrling master.

"She's to learn straight-flight techniques as much as possible and as quickly as possible, but then she's to go betweening the moment they're able," the hesitant weyrwoman stated. Her flight instructor was also doubtful, but when Shard asked something of an odd candidate from his Protecorate, usually they got results.

"I wonder why?" Tiyanni asked absently. She shrugged, and watched as the group of half-dark, half-light, and normal dragons took wobbling to a high art into the air.

We will get there. It is not even a matter of time. We will be where we are needed and it will all be fine. Stop fidgeting.

The black-green dragoness sternly warned her rider as they flew overland to the next station.

"If it were a matter of timing it, do you think you'd be able to?" Tabitha asked, worriedly.

I will be able to do whatever is necessary. Remember, my rider, you are important to the Protectorate, and I had been told I am too. Now, stop worrying and help unload those supplies like you said you would.

The dragon dropped to the ground, and let her rider off. She took some padded bags off the dragon's shoulder, and watched as they were whisked away to the Hold where a rock slide had all but sealed in several miners.

"How horrid..." Tabitha said, trying to bite her nails through her gloves. "They'll be needing my help."

With a professional air at last, Tabitha rolled up her sleeves, and announced that she was a Journeywoman Healer, she would do what she could.

Well... see what happens at the Halloween Flight!