Reenda's father had been a crafter, a beastcrafter who dealt with leather and tanneries, helping heavy burden beasts along their training, and the like. Reenda never quite cared for those big smelly animals so much as she loved the birds around them. She could shoo pigs and wherry with a thought, gather chickens together and calm runners the same way. It was obvious that she had a gift - perhaps her father had it too, it didn't run on her mother's side of the family.

But Reenda's father had to travel and her mother preferred to remain in the hold where they'd met. The dark-skinned girl wanted to go with him, but was considered too young at nine turns, so he left with the other crafters to herd oxen over a mountain pass. They never returned: there was an avalanche that buried all but a dozen of the oxen and every one of the men moving them. When Reenda's mother heard this, she was grief-stricken for a time, but recovered enough to marry again and have another child.

How she'd wanted to go, Reenda wondered often whether her talent would have spared anyone? Or whether she'd just have been buried alive under tons of ice and boulders as well? She could hear the agitated calls of animals and birds, even the strange slithering minds of tunnel-snakes, and wouldn't they have been the first to warn their kin of danger from the mountainside?

Either way, Reenda grew up for the next half-dozen years with her little brother Ruun, in a reasonably isolated Hold, fiddling with whatever her mother wanted to try out (for one month it was weaving, another embroidery, and half a year at cooking... none of which suited Reenda at all, but all of them were interesting to try out at least once). Then, one miraculous day, Searchriders from Dragonhope Weyr came along.

It was almost like something she'd heard the Lady Holder reading to her young children: a fantasy of rescuing and dashing riders, danger and flight...

Well, there really wasn't any danger particularly, but there was flight, and the riders were pretty dashing!

She wasn't much use in the Hold, really, she was pretty but she wasn't a Holder - so even when the boys who were spurned by the frilly-dressed girls in the richer sections came down to slum it with her, they would never be serious about marriage. She had nothing to offer them. No land, not even any oxen - they'd died years and years before.

When she and the search rider took off from her home, his dragon commented that one of her talents could be of great use on dragonback. She mentally chatted with the brown dragon until the rider, skinny tall K'roohan, twisted around and asked over the wind whether he would be allowed to have his dragon back, when she was done chatting?

Though they laughed about it, and he certainly wasn't at all seriously jealous, it put the seeds of wonder in Reenda's mind. What could she do with this talent?

Though she'd been searched just before her sixteenth turnday, she wasn't sent out to a weyr for two years more. And in that time, she learned much about not just dragons, but Weyr life in general. Plus: there were birds... Plenty of them, this was a place directly over the cold, fish-rich sea! Gulls and other such scavengers were plentiful, but the ones she was interested in were the hawks and falcons that lived in the cliffs scattered among the dragons weyrs.

Several of them eventually came to her, tame, and obeyed her commands to hunt with her. When she was coming back from a good hunt, carrying fresh-caught fish in one hand and balancing the hawk on her other, it happened that a Beastcraft Master was visiting the Weyr on business. He looked her over very carefully, and muttered that she looked very familiar.

A flood of realization came to her: he knew her father! Briefly, for a few months, the Master crafter helped her learn more about the tasks that brought her father around the mountains. He appraised her skills and knowledge and confidently hinted to the Weyrleaders that even if this girl never rode a dragon (perish the thought) she would still be accepted at the Beast hall, for an apprentiship.

Sabon Weyr was her destination at last, when she was sent off to impress. Iashuth chose her above any other, his soft warm blue muzzle fit into her hand just as perfectly as the hawk on her forearm would. They returned to Dragonhope shortly, where her training fully began. It was when they were still young, Iashuth was less than three turns old, when Threadfall came back, and she experienced her first horrific touch of the strands. Thankfully Iashuth was quick to send himself between, but Reenda sports scars over her back and the back of her hand, which she considers to be hideously ugly.

What man would want that in a woman?

Well, probably, some here at the Weyr who have their own. Reenda has allowed Iashuth to participate in some green flights, and has enjoyed the benefits of having the dragon choose her mate for her.

A year later, two newcomers arrived, one of them a pretty gypsy girl on a lovely golden dragon. She too had the ability to sense animals minds, and became good friends over that. Reenda and Juso and their rather disparate dragons would fly over the snowy plains west of the Weyr hunting with both their minds and their eyes...

Reenda

Status: Low Ranking Rider
Age: 26
Gender: female
Dragon: Blue Iashuth; Specializing in diplomacy - weyr to guild/crafthall [queen Riseath + bronze Banurth]
Siblings: one half-sibling from their mother's side
Born: first
Health: very sturdy
Height: a bit short for an adult
Build: well muscled, but not burly
Skin Tone: dark brown, has scars from threadfall along their hand (right) and across shoulders
Hair Color: dishwater brown
Hair Style: knotted and unkempt
Hair Length: very long
Eye Color: dark brown
Literacy Level: learned to read before being allowed to ride
Politeness Level: their politeness extends to everyone around them
Focus: if focus had a name, this character's would be it,
but they are obsessed about something they do
This character is pretty good looking
They're known for being a bit stingy

Values and Goals
Likes: the unusual trait of how they can hear animals in their mind
Dislikes: the Mountains
Very strong goal: marry and have a family
Practically nonexistant fear: being ugly/stared at
Average like: a quiet Hold
Dislikes: a friend

Picked up falconry in the meantime

Dragon

Name: Iashuth
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: ' s / ' l / ' ws
Colors: body slightly tealish blue, wingsails rich denim; eyes shift with mood
Features: standard Pernese
Powers: Winged Flight, Teleportation (between), Telepathy (excellent with dragons and bond, but is picky about who else)
Parentage: queen Riseath + bronze Banurth
Origin: Sabon Weyr
Other Info: Provides Dragonhope Weyr with two clutches! Year 4 and Year 8, both with mate Gold Solsticeth, total of 15 offspring, no golds