She stood in shock before the Headwoman and tried to stop crying, but it was no use. The Threadfall had taken not only the weyr's clever wingthird and her father, bronze rider E'ka but half a squad worth of blues and greens - her mother Leea along with them. The remaining dragons' songs of anguish were coupled with echoes of human weeping in nearly every hall.

Most people would lose a sibling, parent or some relative during their lives. But few had lost both parents to the same incident - both riders - as Elaaki had. At the age of nine, too early to really stand for her own dragon, and too late to easily be placed with foster parents, Elaaki was brought into the lower caverns of her home weyr, and put to work in the kitchens to keep her mind off things for a time.

It didn't really work, and everyone knew it. Elaaki was a rider's child, and as such she belonged with riders. But since there were already a dozen newly-empty wing weyrs and plenty of full families already, there was little more to do than shuffle her around.

But in that shuffling, Elaaki became aware that she could learn. She knew her status, she'd never forget: everything she'd been taught and many things she'd simply seen or heard was embedded upon her memory since youth. She'd heard tales of others with such a condition, and learned directly about one from the weyr's recordskeeper. He told her there was a place, Dragonhope by name, who had a gold-riding, master scribe with a perfect memory.

It became Elaaki's goal to meet this woman. The local records keeper was a stodgy old man but he enjoyed chatting; company was hard to come by here where many 'records' were kept verbally, and his voice was crusty with use and age. He didn't have many scribes, and was pleased to have such a ready pupil in Elaaki. Her hand was steady, and she understood many things most girls her age didn't, the hows-and-whys of fighting wings, the way the air affected Threadfall. Plus, her vocabulary was astonishing. She would ask how a word was to be spelled or spoken if she saw it, and iterate it perfectly every time after. He related many tales and the history of their Weyr, as was his duty, but also a number of stories that he learned as a child in his old Hold long before. She enjoyed those tremendously: no one ever told silly tales or jokes here any more.

There came a time, however, when he moved her along. She went from the records chambers to the kitchens, into the beast halls, up to the fire heights.

She experienced her own first accident with oil in the kitchen, and was not allowed to use the grease bins from then on. This left her with a stinging pride more than any lasting burns, but still. Sometimes she would flex the fingers on her left hand and wince with the tightness of the reddened skin. The beast crafters were friendly and demanding, and she kept up with their work easily. They could tell she was rider material, and helped probably the most among all the folk she was traded off to in that regard. She spent a full turn working with them, gaining strength and confidence among animals as well as an endless flow of people. They hunted and cared for all of the animals needed to run the Weyr, and she learned to ride a runnerbeast along with guiding a cart pulled by oxen with an even and confident hand. They tossed her grain sacks and she didn't drop a one, they piled boxes with uneven contents and she managed them from one side of the Weyr to the other in the drawn cart without breaking a single glass against the piles of tools and stone meant for the metal smith.

The drummers taught her a bit, but more learned to get her to write down what they were drumming while they passed messages along. She wasn't uncoordinated, but she would never be worthy of an apprenticeship with them, and it took talent to truly work those drums. One 'accidental' or faked message could mean disaster along the drum-line. But with her there, they made certain that some Holds got the right message with a flitter sending it to them later, in case of any errors by their still-learning apprentices. She vastly preferred being outside with the drummers, than inside with the kitchen staff. The freedom of the skies called to her.

Quietly too, one turn at a time, Elaaki learned all about her weyr. Learned that it lacked a good weyrling master, for one thing, and lacked a solid wing leader for half its squadrons. No wonder they'd lost so many when she was younger. They had continued to lose riders here and there, though none at once as that turn. They had yet to replace their weyrlingmaster, they had yet to find a good wingthird ... or even a wingsecond. She looked to the sky and saw gaps in their ranks, at a glance. Even at their fullest now, with Threadfall sporadically spitting down and apparently cycling to a constant state, the two Wings they could get into the skies were staffed with only two bronzes, a trio of browns, and mostly blues. Even their green dragon roster was painfully understaffed. The way they flew in two Wings was also suspect to her: they could be of much more use as one larger Wing.

One Wing, for an entire Weyr, and one without a good leader. She didn't specifically blame the bronzerider for the deaths of her parents, but... Yes, yes she did. Why not? Everyone else did. That probably crushed his heart, but then he may very well have flown a substandard pair of Wings into Thread unprepared and ill-informed, and led twelve of them to their deaths.

Even with that knowledge, of how incredibly dangerous flying against Thread was, Elaaki was determined to ride. But she'd not been officially Searched even though she was a rider's child. She was determined as well, to produce results when she rode. To be a leader - would she aspire to ride a gold? Well, what girl didn't think she'd be a queen-rider? But she was sensible about it. It was her father's side that rode ranking dragons; though truth be told, all his relatives, though Impressed well, had also died in threadfall over the turns. Her mother's family had more luck, but it was only after digging through the records to locate half of them did she know that they existed at all. None of them resided at this Weyr she was born in.

She wished to prove herself worthy to any dragon, but curse it she hadn't had the chance! Even when their local queen - old and worn - was flown by a brown dragon (also old and worn, it seemed that even the younger more healthy dragons didn't feel like wasting their effort on such a delapidated old queen) and there were eggs upon their sands, she wasn't Searched and wasn't allowed to stand.

She watched hopelessly as three lovely dragonets - two greens and a brown - flopped around the sands creeling for their One, found none, and eventually pined away to die before the end of the hatching. It was pathetic, it was horrible. It reminded her of her own family's woes. If one of them had been for her, wouldn't she have been compelled to help out and descend to the sands? It was not enough that she was watching from the stands above, there was no one for those hatchlings. What if... what if there had been?

Elaaki couldn't sleep that night, wondering all the what-ifs. If she could have provided the right bond to one of them? If she could have found the right bond for one of them? Had the Weyr's search riders looked far enough and wide enough? Truth be told she didn't even know if they still had a search rider. Her mind wandered away from thoughts of only dragons, what about the people? She was nearly fifteen and had seen some number of people passing through their shabby Weyr: traders, local folk bringing tithes, entertainers and harpers with news and lore. Runner racers and wherry sellers. None remained on, and some even took a few from the Weyr's ranks with them when they left. She saw two births among those passing through, one barely in time for the woman to drop her son into the arms of her husband, and another from a runaway girl and her handsome thief of a boyfriend.

This Weyr would not keep either of those children or their parents longer than a season. They moved on with purpose (different purposes: one because they were due at the man's family Hold, the young runaways because they were still running), they moved on with two of the kitchen staff and a basket of fertile wherry eggs. It brought into contrast that the other thing Elaaki wanted, perhaps more than anything, was to have a secure family. The feeling of being lost among the brats in the Weyr never left her. She knew there should be a better way. A way that riders had of slipping in a kiss or the thrill of a mating flight linking a pair that had already been in love. That would require riders and dragons. She knew there were Weyrs that were thriving and healthy. Weren't they where she really belonged?

Maybe... at Dragonhope. So when she was, in her opinion anyway, old enough to stand properly anywhere, she sent a politely worded letter of request to the Weyrwoman at Dragonhope: I should like to learn among quality riders rather than the hopeless lot here. She'd considered having the drummers pass the message along, and knew that at least one of the Journeymen would have eagerly sent it, save for the fact that then everyone who understood those drums would know what message she was sending. Including the Weyrleader. The drummers had flitters, and friends in distant locations - she used one of theirs to send this message without alerting any other in the Weyr system.

Though she didn't harbor much hope that it would come to be, within two sevendays of her sending the scroll there was a clap at her once-more-temporary weyr's door. A tall, slender man stood there with a quirky grin on his face. "Search rider, at your service," he said, bowing with his ungainly stork-height making him almost clip the door arch.

She wasn't sure that he'd even been announced by bugling of a Watchdragon... because they didn't have one. That blue had died half a turn ago in yet another weak fight against Thread.

Within a few hours, Elaaki was gone from her home weyr and off to a new one. She'd barely packed when they got on the brown dragon. She had been on dragonback as a very young child, but it came back to her instantly - her skill at Runner riding was what K'roohan commented helped her adjust very easily to the broad shoulders and wing beating gait. They looked down at this shabby hillside Weyr, and K'roohan said nothing while Elaaki turned away from it without a tear.

Though she'd miss some of the folks there, she learned quickly that the atmosphere at Dragonhope was far stronger and closer than it was at her old home. The climate was colder than between, but she'd learn to live with that. Maybe they had intended her to stand at their sands, but the call had apparently gone out for another, and she had a more urgent need than they could satisfy at Dragonhope. She'd do well at this other place, Darkling Dawn, they told her. K'roohan's brown dragon Takanath formally Searched her, at long last - and she did shed tears of joy at that. With almost no time to rest, not even enough to unpack her few belongings, Elaaki was brought to Darkling Dawn to stand at a queen's clutch worthy of note.

Elaaki knew there would be a good weyr waiting for her when she returned. What rank would she ride back on, now there was a question she could not answer!

*** (some bits from hatching)

The hatching happened in the evening, barely after dinner had begun. The cries of the dragons, humming louder and louder until they threatened to break the shells themselves, stopped abruptly as a blue-winged green broke shell first. Two more blues (fully blue they were), and then several more... The slightly angry seeming green that hatched growled and stomped around. She growled, eyes whirling with impatience as she strode to the candidates, already eyeing them up and down. The sturdy blue that followed her was not impressed by her insistence, and he didn't really seem to be in a hurry to bond at all.

The green seemed to know exactly what she was looking for though, because she went straight to Elaaki . I wanted to be first, she said in exasperation, but I'm here now. I'm Lissuinth.

Elaaki simply cried, though... she waited until there were fewer eyes on her to do so. Finally. Finally she was freed of the weight that had been on her for so long. No old and tired weyr could have produced this amazing dragon. Lissuinth, she rolled the name around both her mind and her tongue. It was a fine name, for a fine - and hungry - dragon.

***

They had returned to Dragonhope only after the first eight months of their training. It would be best, they felt, to have some amount of experience on their side, before getting back into the swing of things at Dragonhope. Darkling Dawn was an amazing experience, that was certain. They learned all the typical duties and regimented forms and did exceptionally well. Possibly thanks to Elaaki's memory, but equally due to Lissuinth's surprisingly clear mind. The dragon was never snippy with people openly, not after her hatching anyway. But sometimes she did make some interesting and private comments to her rider about events or people she encountered. That man was too fat to be riding that runnerbeast, that lady was pregnant shouldn't she be taking it easier?

Elaaki finally requested help in getting back to Dragonhope, which came in the form of her Search rider, the very tall and skinny K'roohan - who Lissuinth dubbed 'the stick man'. His dragon helped orient the green, and together they went between after a final sweep around Darkling Dawn's lake. It was a good place to claim to be from, Elaaki's heart was full and she waved at the Weyrling trainer and others remaining there with gusto. She'd learned that a weyr could be much, much more than what she'd grown up in.

And was now headed back to the place that would be her true home! They'd prepared a weyr for her among the recently-constructed Outlook - a second peak that bordered the southern edge of the Weyr proper, and where she would be afforded a further education and training for those rescues that the dragoness had already performed. Rescues? Yes indeed, swiftly coming to the aid of a weyrling rider that wobbled and toppled from his harness, the dragon caught him before he could be lost. It was a thrill, and soon enough riders were willing to help toss 'fake bodies' around, this doubling as firestone tossing but with an added twist of 'don't break their arm as you grab it', or 'that neck just snapped look at the blood - firestone dust...'

As Elaaki and Lissuinth settled into this role, they were given knots according to their new rank, rider in the Zamin Pankh wing - surrounded by healers, dragonhealers, messengers and watch riders. This was home, this was exactly where she belonged.

Originally From: lightly forrested community
Location size: kind of small, once large and thriving generations ago
Location climate: very hot
Searched: this morning

*****

DRAGON

Name: Lissuinth
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: small 7'6" s / 21' l / 24' ws
Colors: grassy mottled green with paler white-green points on face, tail tip, and all limb/paws and fingers, lighter faded greyish green wingsails, dark strong green neck ridges; eyes change, claws light
Features: traditional pern features of split tail and such, but with paw-like feet, 3 fingered leathery wings
Powers: Winged Flight, Lissuinth is careful and precise with her flight, and though she's not remarkably durable and can only handle a typically-green duration of a Fall she can lift quite a bit of weight and carry it without incident. This makes her very reliable for retrieving casualties in mid air, and she has become known as 'the catcher' - since she has more than once been able to nab a rider as they fell. She can carry her rider and at least one more rider, generally holding on to someone else to carry them rather than allowing more on her back.
Teleportation / Betweening, she's able to teleport short distances in quick succession, though she doesn't like doing this when there are people riding her. She expects that at some point she may get threadscored while they are rescuing someone, for this reason. She can strain her ability to move up to 20 miles at a jump, but she definitely relies on Elaaki's visibilty and mental clarity for returning to spots she cannot directly see. She wants to be able to teleport much farther distances, but she becomes quite worn out.
Communication, she can telepathically connect to her rider and nearby dragons, speaking with clarity and confidence, and is not afraid to use big words that her bond has taught her to describe things. She is considerably smarter than most green dragons.
Assisted Firebreath, This is not her favorite thing to do in the world, but Lissuinth can burn a modest flame at a short range, which she uses mainly when they're in thick Fall on rescues, but not really to 'fight' thread. She would have no problem at all adjusting to her rider using a flamethrower, and maybe some day... if she decides that, she might be allowed to rise for a mating flight. Until then, however, this young dragon knows the value of that flame.
Parentage: clutch #41: Pernese Gold Jasmith x Pernese Brown Anubith
Origin: Darkling Dawn
Other Info: Smart, confident, always top of the class (or wing?)