Teba's pages, written around 2001

Teba is a strong, healthy young woman. She is 16, stands about 5'9" tall, and is very muscular from her years as a youth working with the animals on her family's farm. She has fair skin which tans well, dark red hair that is thick and flows to her shoulders, usually all around. Her eyes are small and light brown. Her face is round, and somewhat plain.

She is a hard worker, but loves and works with equal passion. She can be trusted to work on her own, she is quite the self-starter. She is the first to question a bad order, and the first to defend her own way of doing things, but she will examine other options as well. She is fierce when defending her friends.

Teba has always worked with animals and machines. She enjoys spending time outdoors and is usually on hunting trips, many alone. She is skilled in most hunting techniques as well as cooking on the road. She is a deadly shot with a crossbow, and good with a knife.

It has been said, Teba would do well on a Green, being a steady, strong willed girl. She could ride a Gold with success, but she has little patience for the types of mind-numbing politics which go on around such pairs.

Dragon hatched from Clutch #3 Green Primith and Blue Pejioth at Aneris!

Teba had just finished dragging in the carcass of a large wild wherrie when the dragon landed. She and others stood in awe, but her fascination was peaked because something about this dragon was familiar.

A blue, looked like he bore someone as old as the skies themselves... With the white hair and all. But Teba was wrong! The man who dropped from the blue's side was young and healthy, but his hair was shock-white and his skin as yellow as pollen.

"Welcome to our little cothold," Teba said, trying to get her hands clean from the dirty carcass by wiping them on her backside. She extended her hands with a bit of worry, but the rider took them with a smile on his handsome face.

"Clear skies," he replied. "My name is A'rd. I'm a search rider for the Protectorate."

Teba jolted back a bit. "The... You mean Shard's outfit?"

"Well..." A'rd smiled and chuckled a bit, "it isn't just his, you know. Many fine riders are in it. He just ... coordinates everything. He's quite good at it."

"Like his father was," Teba said mysteriously. No one had ever met Shard's father... She looked at A'rd. "So do you want to check over the younglings? There aren't many here." Teba turned her head and red hair fell into her eyes as she scanned the faces of grubby children and young teens. But A'rd had something else in mind.

"I'm actually here today representing the weyr that I impressed Trelerth here from, Aneris Weyr. Sometimes it's easier to get their own dragons to search for candidates for their eggs. Trelerth here has a nose for candidates," he commented. He did go throught he motions of telling the blue to examine any of the other rag-tag children, but as he expected, there were no likely candidates found there. Not yet anyway. Perhaps there would be one when they were older.

"Ah, well, that solves that then," someone said, and started gathering those children up and moving back into their small stone house. They pulled the carcass that Teba had delivered inside.

"I'm sorry, A'rd, there wasn't anyone here for your search." Teba seemed genuinely disappointed that none of the boys or girls would be impressing any time soon.

"Oh, I never said that," A'rd replied, and with a slap of his hand onto her shoulder, Teba's eyes grew quite wide.

"You don't mean I-- You're saying I--" She squeeked, and then started doing a little dance of happiness! "I've been searched? I've been searched!" She chanted, until others came back outside to watch. The elder of this little cothold trundled over to her, using a cane to walk and brushing his long stringy hair from his face.

"You will make us proud, Teba, won't you." He stated, and then they helped her get ready for the flight to Aneris Weyr.

***

When the announcement went out, Teba was only half awake. She'd been up late the night before, doing chores so she didn't have to do them later. She darted into the barracks closets and grabbed her white robe. Then, carried by a bronze dragon (what an honor, still!) down to the hatching sands at Aneris.

She was so nervous. What if she wasn't able to Impress? What then?

The air was still, but alive with humming from the dragons. Then a tiny egg shattered and what might have been the smallest bronze ever to hatch, came from his shell! A boy impressed quickly, and the hatching was on! Teba was still worried, but then...

Two eggs came open at the same time, and there were two medium colored greens! They collided and ran toward the girls, and specifically they ran to a girl named Idaila whom Teba had gotten to know while in the weyr.

Then, one of them turned from her, and looked right at Teba! Not only that, but she pounced right onto the strong young woman! Her red hair tossled around, and the green contrasted with it so strongly it made some in the stands wonder if her head had come open and was bleeding!

I am Murath, that is my sister. I do not want her person. I want you! You are mine! Will you feed me?

"Of course I will," Teba said, after announcing her name to all!

"Get down! The thread is coming!" Someone bellowed, and Teba watched from her dragon's small back as the silver sheets began to rain down on the ground. The fall was not on anyone's chart, she knew that much. It wasn't supposed to be falling for days to come!

The weyrlings at Aneris gathered and took their small, inexperienced group of dragons into Threadfall... REAL threadfall, not the practice thread they were getting used to.

Some of the younger riders were having trouble, but Teba confidently rode up into the sky, and urged Murath to blast at the thread. They continued to do so until Murath's firestone stomach was empty.

I cannot do any more, she thought to her rider.

"We must return to Aneris, then! Come on, we can load up again, if you're not too tired!"

Eagerly, then, the dragon winged her way between, appearing over the abruptly-formed firestone sack line. "Here! Throw me one!" Teba called, while someone else spilled out some firestone for the young dragon to chew on her way. They went back to the Threadfall, scorching the thread high in the air. Both of them were exhausted, and Teba was chilled to the bone -- her leathers were not suited for this, none of the weyrlings were quite dressed for the real thing yet.

One of the scored boys drew up next to Murath when they were on their way home.

"This stings..." he said, but he did not head off to the infirmary. Teba thought he was either being brave or stupid.

Will we ever be allowed back?

"Not in there, Murath... Not in there!" Teba laughed, as they flew off. The gather grounds were still reeling from the abrupt dive-bombing that Murath just attempted. Didn't succeed in landing, or even in actually hitting anything. The mischievious green did however succeed in scattering a stall of runners, three bovines and half a dozen goats out into the gather crowds. Angry shouting and a faire of other people's fire lizards were sent up to the dragonpair. Soon, the flits had to return to their owners, and left Murath and Teba to laugh on their own.

Until they got to a particular mesa. There, they rested. But also there, someone was waiting for them. A tall, healthy looking dark-skinned man rested against a brown dragon.

"I heard you caused a ruckus at the gather," he said. His tone was dark, and he wore a scowl.

"Well... Yes, I guess that's what you'd call it. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"Because I haven't given it. This is Lyrath. My name is L'skan. I was sent to intercept you, but I suppose this will have to do."

Murath seemed to dip her head in apology to the large brown dragon. I am sorry. I did not mean to be so bad.

"It's just her nature, she likes pranks and such... Um, why exactly have you been sent? I'm getting worried."

"Don't be." Suddenly the dark man let off a great bright smile. "I'm in the Hunters wing of the Protectorate. You've been suggested as a new wing rider with us. I've heard good things about your abilities, and that of Murath here."

You see! I was not being bad! I was ... showing off!

"Yeah, that's it..." Teba muttered. "So... you'd be asking me to join a wing, is that it? Well. I can't say that I should refuse! After all, it was this or wait for Shard to find me a wing."

"Shard would have been here too, but he's too busy shuttling candidates..."

Time had been kind to most of the riders and their dragons, as the Protectorate's days on Alskyr dragged on. Days turned to months, to years.

Some riders went back to the Old World on occasion to fight Thread, some to find their families, but most remained on the lush Kshau Island or the beautiful Paniyan mainland to become trackers, couriers, or even bandits themselves.

Teba did none of those things. Murath and she worked hard to maintain their bodies and their minds, hunting and helping with the local construction duties. Their wing had never truly broken up, it was among the few that was reliably up in the air when a big Ant invasion or other danger appeared.

But Murath had changed a bit in the meantime. She was sleek, strong, not a big dragon by any estimation but she was as always fast in the air. She still loved pranks, but there was something different about her metabolism now: she needed no firestone to chew, in order to brew up hot, long-lasting flames.

Some other dragons could speak out loud, others gained or lost abilities. Teba was glad that her bond was among those with this interesting self-producing fire. There was no need to gather coal or other flammable rocks, no need to get dirty with the disgorging of the remains of them. Instead, just a long hour or so of cruising over the Ant hoards and roasting them until their crisped carcasses littered the beaches.

It did, however, have a side effect that Teba hadn't expected, and didn't show up until one morning quite a while after their move to Alskyr. Several large and small clutches had been laid in the mountain's hatching sands, and things were getting a bit crowded.

But it made Murath a bit... proddy.

Quite a bit, actually.

I wish to mate, and have my own offspring. She bespoke, and Teba glanced up from her cook pot.

"Wait... oh. Oh, you..."

Do not need to chew firestone, my one. I can flame and have fine offspring!

"Well that's... yeah, that is something to think about isn't it."

I am thinking about it right now.

"I can tell." Teba wasn't joking. All she - or her dragon - could think about was who would be good enough, who might be the one to catch this quick, witty green.

But this was not the right place, the right time! Alskyr's dragons didn't need the further interruption or competition - there were already dozens if not scores of Protectorate dragons competing for their food sources as well as jobs.

We will return to my home sands. I know there will be some good competition there, and we do not need to worry about over-populating this place any more. There are too many of us here. This island is a good home, but not to so many!

Teba was once more struck by the honest assessment that her dragon was capable of giving.

"But...Aneris? So many of those old world places, I've heard they're all gone and dust by now. With the Interval and everything..."

Intervals and Passes mean nothing when we can go where and when we want to! Jeremoth even showed me!

"Oh did he now!" Teba laughed. Well it was only fitting that the Weyrleader's dragon show her own a thing or two, while they themselves were... well, he wasn't exactly cheating on Rue, as the green-riding scribe was, herself, flirting with some other rider at that party! "Okay then, we'll head back there. It will be interesting to see who comes to this flight of yours, my one. I know you'll give them a run for their money!"

**

They were delightfully flown by Blue Taivoroth (of T'rak) and the clutch hatched without a hitch. 8 dragonets, including a white! 1 brown, 3 blues, 4 greens.