Story Originally written like 2000? **note physical stats translate to about 7' tall and 200lbs with blue rather than browns...

Physical: 5'8", 150, fair to pale skintone, dark brown hair that is short on top and spiky, pale blue eyes. Good shoulders and otherwise long limbed build. Likes to wear flashy but good quality clothing, often dresses with sashes at his hip and rakish angles to the tunic he wears.

Emotional: he is highly empathic toward animals, with a lot of control ability that most runners tend to listen to. He has a stable personality, knows his place but knows that he wants to be in charge of things. Very organized, and pleasant to be around for both Holders and Weyrfolk.

Skills: an expert at steed breeding, handling and racing. He is a good rider but places the health and welfare of the runner before his own, and also at the expense of winning all the time (he'd rather see a runner finish last than push it too far and injure it). He has lucid dreams a lot, and with them learns from his experiences much more quickly than others. He is literate and loves to draw and write about his runners, but also has a secret diary about his love for dragons. He can't hear them yet, but when the search rider came to his home area he distinctly felt everything else around tingling.

Zhadar is the son of a Master miner (Ghean) and a dragon rider (Shard of blue Jeremoth) born early in the dragon rider's life. He was raised largely by his mother, and fostered on occsaion when she was unable to stay in the area. He was always around runners, and his abilities with them surfaced very early in his life. Finding lost foals, calling in goats and sheep, and even scaring away tunnel snakes and the occsaional wild cat were all things he did before he was ten turns old! He was searched recently and was surprised, not thinking that he was young enough for it any longer. He will certainly not need to stop doing his beast craft, while learning more about dragons, and he is in fact thinking about learning about dragon healing if he can.

Zhadar is a good candidate for a Bronze or Brown dragon, as he is stable and smart, organized and physically well suited to leadership, kind to his rides (the runners) and happy with most situations in life.

**

Zhadar leaned out of the window of the caravan, and bellowed to the driver.

"Heyo, this is where I need to part!"

The driver called the caravan to a halt, and Zhadar jumped from the wagon's open end.

"Thank you for helping me get this far," he said, and handed the man a small pouch with several marks in it. "And you said the Weyr was this way?"

"Travel through that valley, it's at the end. You can't miss it." Was the old man's response.

Zhadar unhitched the pair of runnerbeasts he'd managed to relinquish from his mother, and packed his gear on one of them. They would make excellent breeders, he knew that much already, but he had to get them to a weyr or hold first.

He mounted the other and then whistled a tune while they walked through the low valley pass. On either side, great mountains rose, but he could surely smell something on the wind other than more valleys and dirt roads: the sea! And with the sea, he knew that he'd find Blue Star Weyr.

***

Three days later, Zhadar and the runners arrived in the Weyr. He presented himself to the weyr woman and her staff, with a rolled up wherhide as his introduction from the Lords Paveh.

The woman read it, and then furrowed her brows. "We were expecting you days ago. Did something happen?"

"No, no. I could have made that trip more quickly, but I've two fine runners with me, and I didn't want to injure their joints." Then he looked a bit worried, "the hatching hasn't happened yet, has it? I mean, if I've missed it I'll feel like a wherry, but..."

"No, you haven't." The woman regarded him carefully. Here was a young man of some greater degree of compassion than she'd seen recently! "Well, if you have runners, you might put them in the stables for the moment. And then get yourself into the weyrling barracks, and settled in."

Zhadar bowed to her, and exited, and then thought. How could she have been expecting him?

***

Darkhanis grinned to himself as he read the weyrwoman's words from Blue Star. The boy was late! Where could he have gotten off to? And with a supply caravan running near by, he might just as easily have caught up with...

He chuckled. Then moments after he began putting pen to hide, the same flit which had just delivered the statement of Zhadar going missing, dropped a second hide onto the desk.

'He has just arrived. You knew he'd do this, didn't you you old schemer? He will do fine, thank you for understanding our need.'

Darkhanis grumbled a bit, "old? Since when am I old?"

He turned and exited the office area, to admire the sunset over Paveh Hold, and hope that their latest Candidate would impress well.

**

It was a very hot, achingly lazy day at Blue Star Weyr. It was long since Zhadar and the other candidates had settled in, and of course, it was while they were swimming, lazing, or sleeping the afternoon away when Melodith announced her eggs were hatching.

In the warm, white candidates robes, many boys and girls scattered into the hatching sands, which were if anything warmer than the exterior. They groaned and shifted from foot to foot but could hardly wait for the real excitement to begin.

The first egg to hatch was bronze, but it was his blue brother who impressed a boy first! Shortly, two greens and a brown hatched, and chose their partners. It was when a bronze, blue and brown hatched all at once that the confusion started. The brown and the blue began fighting over two boys, one of them was Zhadar! The brown was angrily snarling at the smaller blue.

"You crazy dragon! Don't you know violence isn't the answer?" Zhadar said to the brown, pulling his leg a bit to try and get him away from the littler blue.

I do but he wanted you! I could see it! I want you! I am Aiuroboth, and I saw you first! He started it!

"You do know, Aiuroboth? He started it?" Zhadar looked at the brown dragon with awe, and mirth. "Of course he did, Aiuroboth. Let's go."

The other boy took his blue off the sands, without any further fuss!

**

Aiuroboth eyed the runnerbeast with a bit of nervous anticipation. But the moment he was going to spring out of the weyrledge onto the field, Zh'dar gasped loudly and shouted at him, "don't you dare go after them!"

He sprinted to the dragon's side, and looked at the hungry orange-red eyes.

"If you want something, why don't you just ask?"

I want to hunt, Zh'dar. It is time for me to hunt for myself.

"You can barely fly, Airuo, don't you think you could wait until you're a little better at that first?" Zh'dar began scratching at the hide of his dragon, but the young weyrling wouldn't have it.

I wish to hunt. And fly. It would be good for me to learn both. You do not have to ride me for me to be able to fly.

Zh'dar sighed. The dragon was right. He could lift his own weight much more easily than he could both of them.

"All right, but not the runners! Remember, they're why I came here in the first place! And they'll be coming back with us when we head away. Back to the Hold they'll go. Right?"

... All right, Zh'dar. But only because you are being so sensible about this...

**

"We would have lost him! Thank you!" Called out a sailor from his toppled boat. The seas around Blue Star weyr were not calm this day, and with a storm coming after the one they were in as well. The brown dragon below Zh'dar trumpeted and managed to lift himself out of the water with his huge wings. Though choppy, his flight was more sure than the boat's progress below.

"It was good that you spotted that boy," Zh'dar said, knowing that his dragon could hear him. "I would never forgive myself if we lost someone."

Not while I'm flying! Aiuroboth thought back, bravely. He towed the boat closer to shore, where others like it were already tied in. Several dolphin noses poked out of the dark chilled water, and helped with the seamen on the ship.

The ship-fish like me, Aiuroboth smugly thought. They think that I am fast in the water. Like them!

"You are, Aiuro, you are!"