Bhaxe hummed to himself, in the rubble. He knew he shouldn't play there, where the earthquake many years ago - maybe generations ago - had buried a Hold and later another had exposed it again. There were people's remains there, sometimes he'd see a skull or a leg bone. Most times, he just ignored them.

As an eight year old, the whole world was made bigger by the nooks and crannies of this collapsed wonderland. Skulls and all. He was not oblivious to the dangers it held, the tunnel snakes and predators of the area could certainly come at him from the shadows here. But Bhaxe was not a coward, and he was strong.

"Bhaxe!" Yelled his older foster-sister, "come back here this instant!"

He was also among ten foster children cared for after a disease swept almost his whole cothold away. Dian was the loudest, and therefore the 'summoner' of the group. If you couldn't hear her from half a mile away, you had to be deaf. On more than one occasion, Bhaxe pretended to be deaf just to stay out a little longer.

This time though, it seemed a bit more urgent. Her voice had a hint of fear or anger in it, not like her usual bored self. Bhaxe clambored up the crumbly stones, pocketing an interesting shiny bit here and there before appearing at the crest of the ruins. Dian had already gone off to shout for the next errant child, it must be serious - she expected them to go themselves.

When Bhaxe arrived half the kids were already present and the others on their way from scattered grounds. Some had been working, most just poking around. The ruins were hardly a unique destination for Bhaxe, everyone liked going there one time or another.

Their foster mother, referred to by the kids as Auntie Wex, paced around the hearth room. Their home was unusually large for a single cothold - perhaps it had been used in the past by multiple families. They had a room for a pair of kids, and a couple spares, plus the larder and storage, and the dining hearth along side the main room. To anyone who'd traveled in the past, this place would have been labeled on maps as an inn, but for as long as anyone knew, including Wex, this was their home.

"Mama, w'as wrong?" Asked the very youngest, a three turn old girl whose father died in a drunken brawl and left her drudge mother with three other children. She slid her tiny hand up into Wex's and the woman stopped pacing around.

"Oh dear child," she said. "I don't know yet."

When everyone was assembled, Wex turned again to pacing around. Every eye followed her, until she stopped and spoke. "Uncle Roo," she said of her husband, "has not yet returned from his trip into the Hold. He was supposed to be back by sundown of yesterday, and it's nearly evening today."

"Maybe a storm came up!" Said one child. "What about Threadfall, wasn't there threadfall recently?" Another put in. Bhaxe remained silent, watching. Until the youngest said, "whabbout dwagon?"

Wex turned with a sweet and sad smile on her face, "oh child, Roo is much too old for a dragon to take notice of him."

"Then," Bhaxe finally said, "what now? Do we just wait for him to not show up, or do we send someone to find him?"

The look of pure horror on Wex's face showed everyone she would hardly consider the idea, but the eldest, a fourteen year old boy, said, "I can go, I've been needing to head out anyway. I could make sure he gets home okay, but ... It's time for me to leave."

While Bhaxe expected Auntie Wex to protest, she sullenly nodded, and told everyone to go to their rooms, and await dinner. She spoke quietly with the other boy, but while Bhaxe wanted to listen in, he instead went up to his room as requested. He pulled out the shiny stones and pieces of stuff he'd collected while in the ruins, and looked them over instead of trying to worry about whether their adoptive father was coming home.

His roomie, a child who had been left over from his own cothold, looked over his shoulder. "Say that's neat," he said, attempting to grab at one particularly bright stone. Bhaxe elbowed him hard in the side, causing the kid to double over and fall to the floor. "I wasn't gonna steal it! Shards, Bhaxe!"

Startled, Bhaxe helped Cho up and nudged the stones. "I'm sorry, but next time ask first okay?"

Later in the evening, when dinner came and was almost entirely silent, Bhaxe waited for word about when Talda would leave. It would be in the morning, of course, but would he be taking his things with him? Would they ever see him again?

Would they ever see Uncle Roo again?

***

The three runners who approached the cothold bore more than one rider each, and it was with a huge cry of relief from Auntie Wex that one of them was Roo. The other was Talda, who didn't look all that happy to be returning after preparing so much to leave. But Bhaxe did notice that Talda's satchel of items wasn't with him - maybe he'd lost it, or maybe he'd found a new place. Bhaxe hoped that his foster brother had gotten on with his life. Remaining here wasn't even on the young boy's mind.

Everyone including Bhaxe rushed to help their Uncle Roo down from the thick-bodied runner, gathering his two bags of goods. The riders made conversation with the older kids and Auntie, while Roo trundled into the house.

It came out eventually that he'd encountered someone he hadn't seen in years, and they returned to his Guild hall instead of to the road. "There was no way to contact you," Roo announced to the room, hoping his wife heard outside, he knew he'd be telling this story again. "But ... here he is, my friend Garga!" The older man threw his arms up and showed off his skinny grey-haired companion. The man looked frail, but Bhaxe got the impression that he was a sharp witted person if not hard of muscle. When the slender man's grey-blue eyes fell upon Bhaxe they brightened with his smile.

"Well I think I know who you are," he said, "Bhaxe, right?"

"I... yeah, how did you know that?" Bhaxe said, surprised.

"Well your Uncle Roo has told me much about everyone here, but he said he saw me and you came to mind."

"Garga is a metalworker," Roo jumped in, "and he's offered to take you to his guild hall, if you want to see it! I thought, you always poke around the ruins and pick up bits and pieces, how'd you like to do your own bits and pieces?"

Bhaxe froze in a profound moment - for an eight year old this was the chance of a life time. For any age it was! "I... I'd like that very much sir!"

He turned to another of the assembled group, a slightly older and heavier girl, who had expressed interest in her deceased parent's forge craft. They arranged for the two children to move out to the guild hall, at least for a trip.

"And if it goes well enough," Roo said to the two of them, "you'd be granted apprenticeships! You'd be official guild crafters!"

"And you'd be two less on the mouths to feed," muttered the girl named Memen.

"Well that too, but your Auntie and I will miss you terribly." That was true, everyone knew that this couple had never had their own children. So Bhaxe endured the big hugs and congratulations, and then after dinner - with the trio of runner men - he was helped by Cho to separate the things he needed to bring with, from the things he wanted to bring. Most of his shiny stones would stay with Cho, who really loved them but was too much of a coward to go looking in the ruins for them. The meager clothing he had, of course, was coming with. He had a couple little devices that didn't do anything much - maybe he could get them to work some day.

He slept fitfully, hardly able to keep his eyes closed.

He was going to a guild hall! He was going to become a craftsmaster!

***

Well, that mastery thing would take some time. After three years, Bhaxe's arms and torso were strong with the effort of keeping forge equipment alive, and his skin was crossed with many small scars from the heated sparks. But he didn't care about those things, he knew that even as an eleven year old he'd been called 'handsome' and 'charming'. He had yet to make his own items, but he was growing in knowledge rapidly.

Master Garga attended him most days, but there was another Master present at the guild hall who Bhaxe admired greatly. He was a sturdy, short man - Bhaxe'd already surpassed his height! Almost like the dwarves of lore, pounding out a living among the metals and fire. It was Oda who showed Bhaxe what that device he'd found years ago actually was for.

"This," he'd said, "is a communication device. You would hold it here," he said of the box which was mostly gone, "and talk into it here. This little area was where you'd put your ear."

"And... people could hear you?"

"People with another one of these," Oda said. "And most folks had them. But then I suppose that was a long time ago indeed." He gazed at the item and almost sighed. "Nearly two thousand years, maybe more. This one's in fantastic condition, considering."

Bhaxe told him again where he'd found it, and Oda nodded. "I would bet that the Hold you found, the rubble ruins, that was built near where Landing happened so long ago, and someone else found it. They were keeping it, you found it later."

Bhaxe gazed at it, "could it ever work again?" That elicited a chuckle from Oda.

"Well, probably not, look at how much is missing! We don't even really know what went where. It's a mystery of the old timers, and I'm sure that we don't even have the right metals for working it."

Disappointed, but now charged with a kind of goal, Bhaxe put the item onto his desk, and pondered it for the rest of the evening. What if it could be made to work? How did it produce sound? How did it send and recieve? Was it an item that enhanced telepathy like the dragons and riders used? How could mental noise possibly be translated into real sound?

He fell to sleep, exhausted as every day, but his dreams were vivid. Of dragons and strange wires, colorful days and nights filled with people wearing strange clothing. ... He didn't know of where he dreamed, but he hoped... he hoped it was real...

***

No closer to the goal of making his communicator work, but certainly deserving of his Senior Apprenticeshp in metal smithing, Bhaxe proudly displayed his knots to the others in the guild hall. His work with fine lines and knives, small weapons and even pretty filigree won him this honor. Memen passed her Journeymanship the year before, in another part of the hall - she was doing harder mine and forge work, actually making the pure, beautiful ores that Bhaxe worked with smaller tools.

Between the two of them, they shared old memories of their cothold - they'd kept writing to Uncle and Auntie, eventually the letters dwindled to once or twice a year though. The other children in the cothold were drifting apart, and it was clear that eventually when one or the other of the parents died, the rest would just have to live on their own somehow. The house would be taken over by Dian, though, she'd expressed a keen interest in making it into either a fosterling house like Roo and Wex made, or even make it an inn again.

Memen held up a shard of metal, she'd clearly been working on it for a while. It was just for re-melting, but it had a pretty shape and a gorgeous color. "The master said I'd heated it too much, but I knew better. He just doesn't know how to work it to this stage. I can't believe he's a master at all."

"Well he's not like Oda," Bhaxe said. "Oda'd take that piece and make a ... tiara or something - you know, for those rich Holders who come through looking for shiny tack and bangles for their runners?"

"Oh do I know them," Memen grumbled. "They were the first to buy my own work," while it sounded like something to be proud of, she really didn't give the impression she wanted to deal with them.

"Won't ask - won't ask..." Bhaxe said with a laugh. But he noticed that Memen wasn't laughing, she was quite serious. "... What's wrong?"

She looked away, her dark blue eyes filling with what Bhaxe knew were hot tears. He'd never seen her cry - he didn't even think she ever had.

"They bought my work because they had to apologize." She said, curt. "Their son raped me. They said that if I shut up about it, they'd buy everything in my work crate."

Bhaxe could hardly move. With a tight throat, he squeaked out, "that's... horrible!" But when he gained back a little feeling in his fingers (they'd gone numb - he hadn't known how he'd react to such a statement) he put his hand on Memen's shoulder. "When? Why didn't you say something? Come to me?"

She got a strange, sick look on her face, "I thought... he was actually interested in my work. I was embarrassed. But he ... wasn't. While his folks were haggling he took me to the empty forge room and ..."

"But..."

"This was two years ago," she said, straightening out and scrubbing her face with her sleeve. "I shouldn't even be crying over it. No man wants me anyway. None have since then. You don't."

"But... I ..." Bhaxe sputtered, "but that's not fair, Memen, I've known you all my life, you're my friend - not my lover... I hate seeing how those other kids ruin their friendships by ... doing more."

She turned her frown into a bit of a smirk, "okay, I'll let that one go. I'm... I'm sorry, I should have come to you. You're a demon with those little knives. But still," she sighed, "you'd only have gotten into terrible trouble if you'd hurt him for me. They're the type of people who just want to keep their dirt covered."

"Holders are like that, yeah," Bhaxe said. They continued their conversation bashing holders for a while. Bhaxe was still left cold - by the fact that she was harmed and he hadn't even known... It made him angry, afraid for her. She was older and much stronger than he, but like she said he was quite good with the little knives that he made... Maybe...

No, no of course not, he would never consider ... Would he?

***

The guild was alive with talk, a year after Bhaxe became a Senior appy. Memen had continued with her work and was now teaching younger apprentices how to work her forge - her forge! Bhaxe had a couple young kids with him too, at any given time. For a fourteen year old, that was heaven. He kept his focus on the work, And Oda had been talking of Journeyman status for a while.

But now? Something else was going on. Dragons were coming! Several weyrs both near and far were on Search, and they were combing for anyone of the right type. That included guild folks and cotholders, drudges and journeymen alike. Assembled in the large courtyard below the guild's cliffside awning, a large number of teenagers and preteens had been shuffled together. Memen stood beside her friend, but wasn't sure she wanted to be there at all.

"I'm not dragonrider material," she asserted flatly, with a bit of sure fear in her voice. "I'm terrified of heights - why do you think I like working mines, anyway?"

"But if you're chosen to stand, won't you?" Bhaxe asked. "It's an honor..."

"Yeah, I know," she said but quieter, as the riders approached to judge them, "but ... it's the results I worry about... Either I'd fail to impress, get all weepy and have to come home anyway, or I'd impress and fall from my dragon the moment we start learning to fly... or Between into a cave - you know how I think of the mines all the time. Can you imagine if I forgot where to go and wound up telling the darn dragon to teleport into a cave underground!?"

That was something worth worrying about, Bhaxe realized. But he'd never really thought about it. He'd been focused so much on his work for the last six years. He had occasionally had that colorful dream filled with hope and dragons, but as often as not forgot about it in the morning.

But the dragon who stood in the courtyard brought it back to him vividly. It ... couldn't be - it looked like the ones in his dream. With a fleshy crest, strong body, long tail... It was when the brown flexed his huge high wings into the air, that Bhaxe almost gasped out loud. Memen turned to him and her eyes were wide with 'shut up, you idiot!'

Somehow he held his tongue for the minutes that it took the riders to get to his part of the lineup. It felt like days. He stared at the dragon, who looked around with those brilliant whirling eyes. All the colors that he'd seen in those dreams were held in the eyes of that dragon.

"What's your name," the rider asked, "and rank?"

"Bhaxe, and I'm ... well, I'm not a Journeyman yet but my Master wants me to be soon. Senior Apprentice, sir."

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen sir," he replied. He still hadn't taken his eyes off the dragon. The rider glanced over his own shoulder at the brown.

"Hrm, well, Takanath says you're rider material. So you're going to have to say good bye, I'm afraid your friend here isn't coming."

Memen visibly looked so relieved, then so happy for her friend. "Congratulations!" She said, hugging him. Two others had been Searched, and out of the whole group that wasn't much. The next morning they'd be headed off to Dragonhope for the duration, and eventually to wherever the sands required.

Bhaxe penned a letter, probably his last, to the cothold. He promised to visit if he could, but likely he would be too busy with dragon work or forgecraft. If anything happened to him, he told them, Dian would get what he owned and it should be distributed. Though that was an oddly somber way of announcing his potential ridership, he had considered all the angles. Especially when Memen talked about betweening!

The other thing that got him thinking, when he realized it, was that there was a lot more... sex... between riders than there was at guild halls or cotholds. And what if he impressed a dragon that was randy? What then? He had ... well, no experience! He'd have to do something about that. But a grip of cold came around his chest whenever he thought about it. Rider girls were strong, pretty, hardy types. Many of the girls at the guild - Memen included - were ... a little less than gorgeous. Masculine girls, like her, though they were great for friendships often had the same attitude: they weren't interested, because it just took time away from their work.

But Bhaxe would just have to deal.

***

Arrival on dragonback - anywhere - for the first time, was the most thrilling moment of Bhaxe's life. Takanath swept into the cold air of Dragonhope, far far to the north of the guild hall where Bhaxe'd spent much of his life. The climate was so different here in the North, he thought he was going to die.

"You'll be fitted for warmer clothing," K'roohan announced, "but if you keep shivering like that I might keep you around just for amusement!"

"It's not funny!" Bhaxe yelled, his teeth clattering, "it's freezing here! You didn't say it was this far north!"

"I shouldn't have to! You're going to deal with cold a lot worse than this! We just did!"

"But..." Betweening wasn't as cold as this. Or at least, Bhaxe didn't think so. The bone-chilling wind here in the frigid air above the cliffside weyr, that was cold! "Because it's wet!" Bhaxe said, "the air here is wet with the ocean... Between is dry!"

"I suppose," K'roohan said. The dragon bugled to announce their homecoming. Dragonhope, when seen from above, was quite impressive though it wasn't anything like what Bhaxe'd imagined. Weyrs were usually in volcanoes right? But there was none. It was built more like the guild hall, actually.

They landed and Bhaxe was immediately able to dart into the warmth of a hallway. He clutched himself, even though the rider always had a spare jacket on hand. The fur lining wasn't enough! Bhaxe wasn't fat at all, well muscled... not protected!

"Well this is greatly amusing," said a woman nearby, "K'roo you're taking kids from the South again aren't you? Poor dear," she said. "I'm Tiruzel, the headwoman here. Come along, child, you're going to freeze. K'roo, you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Does he do this often?" Bhaxe asked, between chattering teeth.

"He does," the woman replied. She eventually brought him before the big hearth in the nearby kitchen, stuffed some warm bread into him, and got the tanner and weaver to start finding him something warmer to wear. Within days, he was also introduced to the weyrleader and woman, S'xon and Kira.

"I think he'll do well at Seiryuu," said the woman, blond hair tipped in black. "Don't you?"

"Sounds good to me," S'xon the terribly tall bronze rider said. "You'll ride well, but if you wish to continue your craft you can do that too. Right now if you wish, you may come back to Dragonhope when your dragon is an adult. We still are in need of wing riders."

"Then I'll probably do that," Bhaxe said. "Since there's need, sir."

"Good lad," the darkskinned man said, ruffling Bhaxe's long hair. "And don't let them cut your hair. We don't make anyone do that."

He turned, and Bhaxe was startled to see the man had hair almost down to his waist! And weirdly, it was in a kind of reverse color from his wife's, black with blond tips... strange. But he liked this place, it was comfortable inside. Outside! No way!

That would take some getting used to... And after a dragon might impress him, he'd have to learn.

In and out of the cold, Bhaxe was learning to deal with life in the Weyr. It wasn't much different than the forges or the guild hall, you got up, cleaned, ate, worked, rested and bathed, and went back to bed. The routine was good.

Then, they went out again, this time with a couple of people they'd scraped together from Holds and even the weyr, to head off to Seiryuu. They were all but late, too, which was odd considering they had to travel through time as well as space to reach this place. K'roohan had confided very briefly that this place was as far away from Dragonhope as many other Nexus destinations, only it was still on Pern... Whatever that meant! Where else would they be?

A kid with a sad face and a clearly troubled past impressed a blue, right off - then there were greens, and...

The brown that came up to Bhaxe was chipper and hungry. Almost as hungry as Bhaxe! “Let’s get us both something to eat, Trizoth,” Bhaxe called to the light brown who quickly came over to steady the young man who was technically eight Passes displaced from home. Ar’wen, the search rider who accompanied the trio of Dragonhope candidates quickly followed the long haired young teen to make sure he followed Quachir’s orders - to make sure the time-thrown three were kept healthy and well fed. That suited everyone just fine!

Bhaxe's (B'x) Brown Trizoth (Tree-zahth)
Personality: Loyal and quick to follow orders. Thinks hunger is a normal human state of mind.

It's time for me to fish, Trizoth bespoke, splashing into the lake. It didn't surprise B'x at all - he too was thinking that fish might be a good meal tonight. Every meal was good, actually. He chuckled, and realized that the dragon's feelings really wore off on him a lot.

If it wasn't fish, it was chasing wherry or the goats that occupied Trizoth's time. They were fast in the air, good at learning moves, and B'x had already been tapped for a strong duty in the Weyrleader's wing when they got back to Dragonhope.

Though they did indeed have a spot in the Crafters hall here at Dragonhope, B'x and Trizoth fit in very well in the wing that had chosen them. That would be the Weyrleader's wing, while he was still young and Trizoth still growing, they could all tell that the brown would do perfectly well settled in this big attack chain.

But his son, one of the smiths in the Crafters area as well as a rider, approached B'x and made sure that his quarters were near the smithy's. The detail of his work would gain him some noteriety later in life, when he designed some special dragon 'armor', it wasn't really defensive so much as decorational, but it was beautifully made, and shone so in the light when the dragons wearing it flew by.