Red's Ten - Tayred

Tayred

Age 10, Dragonhealer/Healer Assistant

She remembered the smell of everything. Tayred's nose was known even though as a very young child all she did was complain about the stinks around her. However, she soon learned the names of each of those smelly herbs, the pastes which were blended - in fact she could smell a paste or amalgam and tell you which things went into it! Her mother and grandmother were both herbalists, both trained a little at the Healer's Hall. Her mother did more cooking with those herbs, her grandmother more healing.

Her grandmother died long before the ground-quake, but left a legacy to her young 'apprentice'. How to mix numbweed - a lesson learned to wear gloves after that first time - and how to apply it... When to apply it. That was one among many things which Tanay and her own daughter Tayred learned directly from old Tyu.

Tayred played in the halls of Copper Hold with the other children her age, and was the only one of them that didn't scream or cry when she scraped her elbow or bonked her head. She was the only one of them who knew almost instinctively how to describe what had happened in an accident with the goat pen and a startled drudge. And she alone among the girls at least, never flinched when that one young Lordling split his gut open on a hunting trip that did not in fact net the biggest boar on the Hold grounds.

Tayred was an interesting girl, but she was never quite in tune with things until the quake. She tried to keep her head as her grandmother would have wanted - but she was the one to have discovered her mother's body laying half-buried in the cavern, and her heart broke quietly as she pulled away rubble from two of her best friends crushed bodies. She was taken, with those few other survivors, into Dragonhope Weyr's halls. It smelled different here, she was brought to the infirmary with the rest to be checked out. She had only a couple cuts - and insisted that any attention be paid to the more heavily injured.

Virin, the Weyrhealer, found this both amusing and intriguing. And later, as she watched the interaction between the girl and her half-sibling Yalred and their sire Ayred... It wasn't just the man and his broadly scattered offspring. It was the girl, who had helped out while Ayred was unconscious, who had helped other families deal with their grief... She would make a superb healer some day.

If only Opal hadn't searched her. But even so - half her family rode (more than half, she kept reminding herself) and also held a craft. She could learn both. Virin asserted that yes, though searched, any and all help the girl wanted to give, would be welcome in the Weyr.

This made her quite proud, Tayred like all her other half-siblings could remain at the Weyr if they didn't impress... And if they did, well... that was even better!

She was a sensible girl, with a sensitivity about her that must have caught the eye and mind of the blue who hatched early on in the grand Talis Weyr's final frenzy. He was a light sky color, not so bright as some, not dusky either... Just the right shade of blue. He stepped carefully, not wanting to injure himself. He knew that this heat on the sands would go away - his dam and sire assured him of it when he asked. But more so, Tayred assured him.

Their eyes had met from across the sands, and he lifted paw after paw through the hot stuff to reach her. Her among all - though she was not even ten turns old. Kaquamoth would grow to a pretty big size, almost as large as a brown. That, Tayred assured everyone, would make certain that he was big enough to help carry injured riders or people off to the Weyr for healing! The Zamin Pankh wing, ground forces and healers, welcomed them eagerly as much as Virin and J'vanna did in the infirmaries. Both healers and dragon healers alike valued this girl and her nose, and her dragon's keen sense of direction.

NAME: Kaquamoth
COLOR: Blue
SIZE: Large blue
PERSONALITY: Bright, empathetic, health-conscious
PARENTS: Gold Vakantanth x Bronze-gold Tamoth