Julija picked at her food, pulling out the grain noodles and trying to set them aside for someone else. They always made her stomach grumble and rumble, and if she ate bread - well that was the end of her day. She'd spend hours trying to rid herself of what everyone else seemed to enjoy.

There was a reason she stayed so slim and muscular: she almost always ate nothing but meat. She did enjoy other vegetables and cheese, but anything that came from a grain she had to avoid like crazy. Since they hadn't been at Dragonhope very long, she was still a bit shy when it came to complaints, but at last after a full day of vomiting and pushing out the other end... She had to corner the cooks and ask if there was anything they could make for her that didn't have bread in or on it?

At first they laughed, but the head of the night shift's staff clucked her tongue and started looking through her books for solutions. After a few questions and answers, they decided rice would be acceptable, and tuber mash when dried would make excellent pasta if they tried. In fact, it was going to be something that they'd try making for everyone, just to spice things up. Julija chuckled to herself that she managed to get an entire weyr to eat something new because of her.

On her way back to the shared dorm that she and her friends had commandeered, she heard a distinctive click-click of paws on stone. Her heard fluttered, hard, and she stopped dead in her tracks, two hallways shy of her destination. The animal was getting closer, closer. To Julija's mind, any dog that was prowling around at night was simply out to get her. But she was petrified.

The dog had a long, white nose and skinny legs - a tall and slender animal that was excellent at rooting out tunnel snakes. Anyone else might think that the dog was beautiful and well bred, but to Julija it was not only hideous but scary. It's long snout had myriad pointed teeth, its snarling maw dripped smelly saliva, its black eyes peered into her like they could read her mind. The dog's body language brightened (again, to anyone else watching, though there was no one to see) and she wagged her tail, stopping in the corridor long enough to try sniffing at the human. She didn't see too many people in the halls this late at night.

"What'd you find, Goget? What'd you-- oh, not a snake," Wede said, she was a brown rider impressed here at the Weyr, but she kept her old job of cleaning the tunnels of vermin when there was nothing in the sky for her to fight. Her brown had grown up into a mid-sized dragon, but still far too big to come inside and help clear the tunnels!

"Please - please, take the dog away!" Julija whispered, trembling and pushed up as far against the stone wall as she could get. Wede looked at her with a stern face.

"What's wrong with Goget? She's not rolled in dung in days!" But that little bit of humor failed to cut into Julija's fear. Wede obviously didn't think much of this. "Go on Goget, seek, seek." She gave a command and the dog sped off in search of her snake prey. Wede approached the girl, who was several turns younger than she. "You're afraid of my dog? She's just sniffing for tunnel snakes same as always. Nothing to be afraid of."

"Nothing?" After a moment, Julija stood more normally but still glared at the hallway where the dog had gone. "Nothing, explain this then?" She lifted her skirt a little to show three long scars on her calf. "Dogs don't like me, I don't like them."

"A dog did this? When?" Wede was shocked - obviously her dogs would never!

"Years ago... I was little, and I guess I wandered into a neighboring field, and ... well there were guard dogs. And when I tried to get away they got me."

"Of course, if you ran, they'd chase you," Wede said, "that's what dogs do. Especially if there's more'n one of them."

"Well I don't like them. I have to get back to my dorm," Julija said. She was still shaking from weakness of the day's allergic reactions, and now this?

"I'll make sure Goget stays around the bend," Wede said, "next time, don't run. Just... just watch and learn, instead?"

It was clear that between these two strong-willed girls, they both wanted to make sure they impressed the other with whatever their feeling was. But in a way they were both right: Wede knew dogs and their behaviors. Julija had been on the bad end of a group of poorly trained dogs. If they crossed paths again, perhaps they'd be friendlier. But for the moment, Julija was happy to just be back in her dark, warm den.

***

Julija made herself useful where she could - since she was too young and not at all professionally trained, the artisans who were responsible for carving the Weyr weren't going to let her hang around. But instead she found a master Smith who pounded out silver and ores into weapons for the hunters. She stood around until he noticed her, and finally tossed his head at the bellows, which she eagerly took up.

Though she was somewhat girlish in appearance and nature, she definitely enjoyed the work here. The noise, the heat... The whole area was filled with sound. But what she liked most, was that eventually after a few days of this, she was able to ask for her own weapon. A slender knife, one which she put into a leather sheath at her side, and might help keep her safe.

Her focus in the forge was commended, the smithy enjoyed having her around - not just, he said, because she was a pretty girl, but because she kept the boys on their toes. After all, if a girl could do this hard, demanding work, they surely better get to their own jobs! He told her that productivity had increased a lot, and showed off a few numbers and a chart. But sadly, Julija admitted with her lip snugly bitten between her teeth, that she didn't know how to read big words.

"Best to learn then," he told her, "especially with you on the sands."

"Does everyone know who's been searched in this Weyr?" Julija stomped off, but was filled with curiousity. Maybe everyone did know. What if there was something different about Candidates like herself? Well... she regarded her situation with a bit more reason. The next day she went back into the forge, and asked the Smith master to tell her if any of the boys were also in need of some schooling. Running the bellows was hard work, but didn't require much in the way of perception - except for the master's requests for more or less air.

So a harper was brought into the forge, not one of the local scribes, who might have been slightly better to teach writing, but these young folks needed to be able to read first. They could figure out writing later! A young man with a burly build and a great voice supplied lessons. He held up cards that the scribes had made for this, with big letters on them. He shouted out between bellow pushes, and the boys and Julija shouted back to him what letter they saw. Eventually, they'd move on to words, and in the meantime the harper would break into song about this place or that event.

"Clever girl," the smith master said, "getting two jobs done at once."

Then... all too soon, there was a weyr in need of candidates, and Julija along with Bojan were sent!

***

There were some ... odd people at this hatching. They had fur, tails... They were like people who were animals. Bojan and Julija stayed well clear of them, it just wasn't right. But they seemed to enjoy their hatchlings just as much as any normal human. And, what's more, the dragons went right to them too.

A lovely bronze hatched first, and impressed one of them in fact - a male with big teeth and feline features. It was Bojan up next though, with a lovely brown that excitedly followed him to the food.

The other group of dragonets that hatched just then included an exotic purplish blue - who headed directly toward the girls, and Julija was where his eyes paused and turned that brilliant shade of green.

Yours. I am yours, I am Eysoth. He spoke quietly, but Julija felt that he was very strong indeed. She helped get some of the goo off his head, and wingsails, and then moved past the recordskeeper herself, so proud to finally say, "his name is Eysoth."

She could hardly get anything else out, her throat was constricted in excited joy.

Eysoth

Color: Blueberry
Gender: Male
Size: Average Blue