Red's Ten - Yalred - Y'red

Yalred / Y'red

Age 11, Runner expert

He had always been near runners and other livestock. Such was life among the hands at a large stable! Racing runners, pullers, Lady's day-riders, they serviced the lot. Yalred had the strength and build for it, sure hands, good eyes and a sense in his head of where he was needed and how - around Runners, he could calm the worst of them down with a touch and a soft voice. Was it akin to speaking to dragons? Perhaps, it was said that his grandfather on his mother's side had such a gift - runners gathered around him, and they had done so whenever Yalred's mother brought him to the pastures. The runners stopped whatever they had been doing - whether it was chasing each other, nipping to set their rank, or just grazing - and would come to sniff his hair and nibble gently at his ears. Even as an infant, this was the case.

He'd grown quickly and healthy, though sickness took two of his half-siblings and an uncle one year. He was trusted to do many duties, a little earlier than many others his age - but no one even blinked when his mother sent him to tend the more ornery racers, after all they'd all seen his talent with them and knew he could fend for himself at age seven.

The one thing he didn't do much of was read ... this bothered his sire when they met once or twice, and for some reason, Yalred let it bother him too. So before he turned nine he'd cornered a Harper to help him get at least the foothold of education into his head. It would be a while, in fact until he was a dragon rider, that he finished his education off.

The ground-quake at Copper Hold had been felt by the runners at his stables, many dozens of miles away. It shook tack on the walls, and made every one of the horses alert and nervous. It was more difficult to calm them at that moment, because he himself didn't feel it. But he recovered from it more quickly than they, and made sure that they all would remain in their stalls while things were figured out. Flitters by the armful were sent out to find news, and when they returned it was all bad.

Copper Hold, one of the favorite places for his mother to bring him and visit her kin there, had been all but destroyed in the quake. He cried for her, she'd lost a close cousin as well as an aunt. He met up with his half-sister Tayred, she clung to him because she knew they shared blood as well, when they met up in the Weyr a little later. Yalred came with the groups who arrived at the Hold to help dig out, sort through the rubble. His sister, earlier by days with the survivors more easily found.

It was his first trip to the Weyr, though he'd been used to seeing its dragons fly overhead on whatever duties and missions he could imagine. Though he was generally thought to be a serious boy, his imagination was truly top-notch. Perhaps it was that he was always closer to his dreams than many - he could ride any runner, he could talk to the beasts... But he did want to ride a dragon, and got his chance that one day after the tragedy.

It was like nothing he had ever thought. Riding a runner was similar, with the wind and movement... But a dragon's stride was so different. On the ground, he noticed their muscles - they walked more like predators than runners. They had a long, slinky motion that included the bobbing of their head and the balance of their tail. He even pointed these things out to the rider as they arrived, and that rider was surprised that a young boy like him would even notice such a thing. But Yalred was full of surprises. Taking off on a dragon wasn't like jumping a runner over a log. Not at all. And not just because you go up and keep going up. But because those other bones and muscles, the wings, suddenly took over and made the feeling of motion below your butt change.

While Yalred and his mother were busy tending Ayred and waiting for him to wake up from his terrible injuries, K'roohan was discussing things with the Weyrlingmaster. Even if the boy wasn't Searched (which he was only about a month later by Opal) he would very clearly make for an excellent assistant in instructing the movement and harness training for the dragons. G'il, another of the flight instructors, agreed after watching the boy gather and ride one of the runners. "He's natural at it, like his father was apparently," G'il had never met Ayred but had heard enough from the others - and the dragons knew.

As they spent more time with his father, and eventually others of his kin, Yalred knew that this was the place he was meant to be. Even to serve the Weyr as a stable hand, that would be fine by him. To ride though... what an honor that would be! When his mother bid him farewell he'd already been Searched and knew where he was to be sent, and he knew he could always find her again.

To Talis Weyr the group went, and though he and his one younger sibling were indeed younger than most there, he was still old and bold enough to Impress a bronze. Achath was not bigger than the browns nearby, but would be well suited to the boy. Though the dragon was a bit on the impish side, he would posture and freeze in motion whenever Y'red needed to show something off.

As they both grew into adulthood, Y'red was accepted into the Chulmun Nalge, along with his sister Leredda, to help train weyrlings. With everything he knew about runners, who still responded to a whisper or a touch or even just being near him, his sense of balance and ability to describe what he knew were of tremendous value to the Weyr.

NAME: Achath
COLOR: Bronze
SIZE: Small Bronze
PERSONALITY: Clever, jovial, likes animals
PARENTS: Gold Vakantanth x Bronze-gold Tamoth