Turen had always been good at bartering and getting a good deal. While he was bold, though, he wasn't stupid, and knew when to back down out of a bad situation. It was one of those situations that left his father and elder brother seriously injured, left for dead in fact, along the road. Turen was distraught - his mother and two sisters had been spared any damage, but this was just the last straw. The wandering caravan of goods had been ransacked, their trade partners finally showing their true colors and simply robbing them blind.

It left his brother half-blind, as well, and his father had lost a finger. But their egos were more bruised than anything - and their finances.

So when Turen and his family arrived, late and obviously distressed, to the gather where they had been headed before being accosted, he breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the heads of several dragons.

"The riders will be able to find them, I know it," Turen said. But his father was adamant, no dragon would be coming near him, for whatever reason. Still, his family could hardly afford the healing that was badly needed, and they could hardly sell their own wagon because that would leave them no place to sleep let alone store their goods when they did have any.

They also could not spare their thick-skulled runner, besides he wouldn't respond to anyone but Taar or his wife Reana anyway. So Turen snuck off and looked furtively through the crowded gather for any sign of those dragons' riders.

It was packed, it was so busy here as this would be the last gather until the Thaw. It made no sense to him, Turen couldn't understand how his father could let his pride get in the way of finding help to get their goods back and stop those thieves! He was positive that he'd seen one of them here as well - and if they were selling their goods, Turen wasn't sure he could keep from flying at them with his bare hands.

It would not be wise to do so, young man, said a voice, inside his head. Turen's eyes watered, he froze up - it was really there, in his mind, a dragon's voice. Besides, now that we know your plight, we will look for those men at once anyway. Ah there. My rider has seen one stealing from another person here.

"He... what?" Turen whispered, leaning against the nearby post and looking around. He spotted a tall, bronze-colored dragon whose eyes looked directly at him. It couldn't be any other speaking to him.

It only took a few minutes before the entire group of theives were rounded up and paraded past the family - the families, because there were several - that they'd robbed.

"Please don't tell them the dragons helped, please don't," Turen whispered, looking at the dragon. "I don't know why but he hates dragons, and father will be spiteful if he..."

They need not know it was you who I spoke to, the bronze said, but how is your father ever going to get over his fears and anger at losing his brother, if not by knowing that we are not all 'bad'?

So that was it... Taar had mentioned only a few times, and mostly whispered to his wife, this mysterious brother that none of his family had ever met. Always spoken in anger, as though he'd been betrayed, but also with a deep hurt, regret.

Turen thought that was the last of it, they'd had a long day and were busy sorting through the piles of stolen items to make sure that they weren't taking anyone else's work. But Turen was wrong. For in the morning, three days into a week long Gather, one of the riders spotted him and cornered him at a tanner's stand.

"My Baluith tells me you're very steady-minded, whatever that means," the rider said. "I'm T'vi, and even though he's not part of the search team, I'd say that Baluith has a good nose on him. You should stand, I think you'd do well."

"I... would but my father, he's - he would never let me-"

"It's not a matter of letting you," T'vi stated, "you should know that. He doesn't really have much of a say. And, I think your family has its own path - yours is different, isn't it? You came to the dragons, you knew that we could help you."

Turen thought about that, it was true. His sisters were both too young to be Searched, and doubted that they'd be strong enough to ride. His brother was already blinded in one eye by that rogue's knife, he couldn't possibly stand now, but his attitude and experience would suit him to the caravan for years more.

But Turen... He looked to the skies, he got inspiration from the dragons he spotted here and there.

"All right, T'vi, but... I don't know how to tell him."

"I will, besides with a bronze like mine, it'd be hard not to."

***

Taar stood with his eyes frozen, slightly wider than normal, but also with the bruise over one of them still coming into its full bloom of color. Stiffly, he stood with his hands balled into fists, the only sign of movement when he occasionally tightened them.

T'vi spoke flippantly, about how the dragons would be able to use a sturdy fellow like Turen. He perhaps noticed a moment too late that Taar was furious, but at least he caught himself and paused before saying, "you know, my own father was very angry when I was searched, too."

That gave Taar a moment's pause.

"But things worked out well for me. And ... I know that there are risks, but life is risky. You might have been killed by those men, nothing to do with dragons or even Thread." He paused with a strange look on his face, which Turen recognized as being spoken to by his dragon. "No dragon would willingly allow their rider to come to harm, most would never allow any man to be harmed on their watch. It was an accident that took your brother, not anything more... And it's time to let that go."

Taar let out a long-held breath, and closed his dry eyes. "If they hadn't taken his body... away," he breathed raggedly, "perhaps... I'd have felt better."

"Ah, they took him between then," T'vi nodded. "It's a tradition, not meant as a slight. He was a rider, that's... what we do."

While he wouldn't go near the bronze, Taar did give his grudging approval for his second son to Stand. Turen smiled broadly as could be.

***

Sedona was a good place to learn things, like how to read and write. While he had moderate exposure to math, bartering generally meant verbally - so he was taught to read. He knew how to ride, and the wide back of their burden runner was a good substitute for the broad neck of a dragon. He was attentive to details, which made the weyrling and candidate trainers happy.

He was a bit... assertive, not too dangerous but certainly he'd need to have his ego put in check every once in a while to keep him from getting punched by another rider once he impressed.

Thankfully it was to a brown dragon that he impressed - and not to a bronze. His Starth started out very similar to T'ren: he scolded the blues he hatched near and beat them to the candidates. He'd never be as big as some of the bronzes, but as a brown went he was hardly small. Starth and T'ren went through the ranks and learned their drills flawlessly ... well, T'ren did. Starth had a problem with recalling things until moments after they were needed.

He was a charmer though, dark and wily, like his rider. Their first Threadfall he avoided all manner of dangerous chunks of the stuff, accepting the praise but then having to be chastised for showing off like a silly blue.

When another weyr, Dragonhope, called for transfers, the folk at Sedona figured that if this hotheaded rider and dragon could be tamed, it would be there. Thankfully they were right - Starth and T'ren wound up in the Pintu Anjin wing, with plenty of Threadfighting opportunities, as well as gathers to attend, items to be taken elsewhere, basically busy work that let the pair work off their youthful energy in productive ways. Their energy didn't dim, over time, but their responsibilities did, and they took their duties more seriously.