Kirien and Vakantath

Kirien was the youngest daughter of Lord Agrov, the Lord Holder of Janos Hold. She was small and thin, with straight black hair falling to the middle of her back and bright green eyes. She considered herself to be 'okay' to look at, which was at odds with the boys of the hold, who considered her to be gorgeous.
But Kirien was not interested in flirting, or choosing a future husband, and spent her time daydreaming or walking along the beach, dreaming of traveling somewhere far away. She hated it at her father's hold, though she didn't share this with anyone else. It wouldn't have mattered, her family wouldn't understand. She always thought once she was old enough, her father would allow her to leave, and start out on her own.
She should have known better.

Green eyes stared in hatred as Kirien glared up at her father. "No." Was all she said.
Her father frowned, struggling to control his own temper. The two always seemed to bring out the worst in each other. "You're almost twenty turns old." He said at last. "It is time for you to settle down and marry. Choose a husband, or I will be forced to choose one for you."
Kirien just glared up at him, and didn't answer. She turned on her heels, striding up to her room.
She looked up as Alov, her older sister, entered the room. Her hazel green eyes stared at her younger sister with concern and confusion. "Hey, Kirien, is something wrong?"
Kirien's own bright green eyes met Alov's as she smiled. "No, Alov, everything's fine. I just had a talk with Father."
Alov cocked an eyebrow. She knew from experience that a talk between Krien and their father often meant an arguement. She shrugged and turned to leave. "Well, you'd better come down to dinner tonight." She said, and giggled.
Kirien looked up in confusion. "Why?"
"There's a new harper coming, he's supposed to arrive just before dinner." A male voice spoke up from the doorway. Kirien and Alov both looked over to see Astev, their brother and Alov's twin, leaning in the doorway. He brushed dark brown hair out of his face as he grinned. "He's supposed to be young, handsome, and unattached."
Alov giggled again, and Kirien just rolled her eyes. Hearing about the new harper just reminded Kirien of her fight with her father earlier. She sighed. She supposed she could go down to dinner, and at least see this new harper.

Kirien sat at the table with the rest of her family, silently playing with the food on her plate. She looked at the harper, where he was laughing and talking with some of the younger holder girls, obviously smitten with him.
True to her brother's words, the new harper was indeed young and handsome. His dark brown hair framed a round, olive-tanned face, and his deep brown eyes were bright with laughter. Despite his tall, slender appearance, he didn't look to be older than twenty turns.
His name was Adeletram, he was a journeyman harper from the Harper Crafthall. Apparently, he had come to her father's small, rural hold to...'get away' for a while, as he put it.
The harper was shown to his new room, and after dinner, Kirien was sent to check up on him. She heard him talking to someone as she approached. "Hey, no! Get away from there! Kian, get back here." He was whispering frantically.
Kirien pursed her lips, staring at the door to his room in confusion. She'd thought he would be alone, but...She knocked, somewhat hesitantly, on his door. "Harper? Is everything alright?"
After a brief pause, the harper answered. "Yes, I'm fine." He said, opening the door.
Kirien looked past him, into the room, but she didn't see anyone else. Just the journeyman's bags tossed haphazardly in a corner, and the furs on his bed rumpled up in great lumps. Kirien furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, she'd thought...Oh well, it probably wasn't any of her business, anyway. She shook her head and whispered some parting words to the harper politely as she left. Unnoticed by her, Adeletram sighed in relief as he watched her leave, before quickly shutting the door to his room.

Green eyes narrowed in disgust as Kirien glared at her father. Their arguement was beginning to mirror the one they'd had sevendays before, when the new harper Adeletram had arrived. "What?" She hissed angrily at her father. "What do you mean, you've chosen a husband?"
Her father stood up straighter, glaring down contemptously at his daughter. "I mean just that. He'll be arriving here tomorrow to meet with us." His brown eyes glared down at his daughter. "I told you, Kirien..."
Kirien just looked away. "I don't want to hear it." She hissed savagely, before turning on her heels and storming away. Her father's eyes widened in shock for a moment, then he regained his composure and stalked off in the opposite direction.
Kirien ran out of the hold, refusing to look back, and ignoring the questioning glances sent her way by the servants and drudges she passed. She made her way through the fields and walked into the forest.
Her father watched her from a high window in the hold. "...She'll be back." He thought.

But Kirien didn't come back, not that night or the next. After two days, the Lady Holder Kedarelia began to plead with her husband. "Agrov, she could die out there! Someone has to go out to find her. Thread falls tomorrow!"
Though reluctant to give in, Lord Agrov did eventually allow one of his sons, Astev, to take a small search party out to find her. It was no surprise that his twin sister Alov also chose to go with them. Those two always were closer to their younger sibling than anyone else.
It was a surprise when the harper, Adeletram, also chose to go along. The young journeyman insisted on going with them, finding it better than staying cooped up inside the hold. So, the three of them set out to find Kirien before the Thread came...

Kirien allowed herself a small smile as she walked along the road. It was two days ago that she'd left, and she had not been caught. It would just for a few more hours before she arrived in the nearest hold. She was finally free to do what she wanted.
As she watched, a golden flash of light appeared over the ocean as a queen fire lizard flew over the water. A flash of bronze followed, then another. A fire lizard mating flight. Kirien watched the flits until they disappeared from sight, and continued walking.
It really hadn't been that hard. Of course, she should have stayed, at least long enough to gather some supplies to last her until she arrived at the hold. But Kirien did know how to fish, and knew where to find some of the more common edible plants. She hadn't done that badly.
She came face-to-face with her biggest miscalculation only a scant five dragonlengths from the hold. Threadfall had become much less common during the past few turns, and thread attacks were becoming rarer all the time. Therefore, Kirien had not thought to take into account the possibility of Thread coming to her before she came to the hold.
The girl's face immediately turned chalk-white when she caught the first glimpses of the deadly airborne menace. She looked around in all direction, but the area around here was broad and flat. There were no hills, much less rocky overhangs or caves to take shelter in. There was a rocky outcrop by the beach, half a dragonlength to her right, but that would offer only minimal resistance to the thrashing threads that would soon descend.
Nevertheless, she thought some protection would be better than none, and raced toward the rocks as fast as she could. She was barely halfway there when the first of the threads reached land. She gazed in fear, and froze in terror as a large clump wriggled just in front of her, eagerly devouring the sparse, thin grass. She gasped in fright and backed away, just in time for a tongue of red-gold fire to burst into the air, scorching the thread from the back end up.
To her credit, she recovered quickly from the shock of seeing a large bronze dragon appear suddenly, and took the proffered dragonrider's hand, climbing onto the bronze's expansive back.
"Hold tight, we're going back to the Weyr." The man said, and Kirien nodded silently, unaware that he couldn't see the gesture from his position in front of her. The bronze gave one final, deafening roar, and disappeared between.

They reappeared over a large weyrbowl, and the bronze backwinged, landing neatly on the ground, and his riders disembarked. The bronzerider held her arm as she climbed down from the large dragon's back. "Are you all right?" He asked anxiously.
Kirien tried to nod her head, but everything seemed to be swirling around, and her head felt light. The last thing she felt was the rider's strong arms catching and supporting her, then she fell unconscious.
She woke up much later, to hear someone scolding the bronzerider from before furiously. "Honestly, H'lian! What did you do to the poor girl? She's exhausted."
She heard the rider protest. "I didn't-" He groaned. "We picked her up during Threadfall, she must have been caught outside without realizing there was Thread. We'd just arrived back here when she fainted."
She heard a woman tutting impatiently. "Get out of here, then, Searchrider. She's in my hands now."
Kirien looked up to see a woman shooing the bronzerider out of the room. She watched as the woman turned around. Seeing that Kirien was awake, she strode over to the girl's bed, gently pushing her back down into a laying position. "Sit still." She ordered Kirien in a kind voice. "You need rest after that ordeal you went through."
Kirien must have been more tired than she had thought, because she had already fallen asleep before she could protest.

A sevenday later...

Kirien had refused the dragonriders' numerous offers to take her home, insisting that she had no desire to go back, not to mention that she doubted her family would even miss her at all. Although none of the Weyrfolk believed that for an instant, they respected the nineteen-turn-old's wishes, and allowed her to stay at the Weyr.
Kirien had quickly fit in with the women in the lower caverns, and spent most of her time helping the Headwoman or anyone else that needed it. Of course, the Weyrfolk were never ones to refuse help when it was offered, so Kirien was kept quite busy.
She'd quickly grown used to the dragons, though careful to keep a polite distance. But she'd never noticed whether the dragons showed any interest in her standing for a clutch.
In fact, the dragons themselves couldn't seem to agree on whether or not she should stand. Valirith's clutch had already hatched, and as Kandrith had still not yet risen, there was currently no clutch to stand for anyway. Though the searchers all agreed that she was worthy to Impress, none of them could agree on where, or when, she should stand.
Kirien remained blissfully unaware of the dragons' scrutiny of her, until she met the abandoned dragons. She'd been wandering around the outer reaches of the Weyr one day, when she stumbled across a darkened hallway, which lead into another, large cavern. She asked someone where it lead to.
The man just shrugged. "The abandoned caves." He answered quickly before hurrying on his way.
Kirien stared after him for a moment in confusion, wondering what in Faranth he had meant by 'abandoned'. Surely he couldn't mean...abandoned dragons, could he?
Curiousity overcoming her caution, she made her way into the caverns, intent to find out what this was about. At the end of the hall, she emerged into a very large, dimly-lit cavern, and gasped. There were no fewer than seven dragons here! Three blues, a brown, two bronzes, and even two large golden dragons looked up at her as she stared.
"Why...? How'd you all get down here?" She whispered, half to herself, but was answered anyway.
Our riders left us. One of the bronzes spoke up.
They didn't want us...The larger of the two golds spoke before trailing off in thought.
The other gold's eyes whirled red as the other dragons glanced at the queen warily. Naeemah will come back for me! She snapped. She still wants me! She has to...
"Naeemah...was your last rider?" Kirien hazarded a guess.
Rainbow eyes crackled with blood-red fire. My only rider! The queen hissed vehemently.
The other dragons watched nervously, apparently this wasn't the first time the gold dragoness had stirred up potential trouble.
The gold's attitude only made Kirien angry too. "Then why isn't she here? If she loved you so much, why are you wasting away down here, instead of being with her? That doesn't seem very loving to me."
The queen dragon glared at her. The gold's hateful gaze gave new meaning to the old saying, 'If looks could kill.' You don't know...You don't know anything!
Kirien was unperterbed. "I know enough to tell that you're in pain." She whispered. "What kind of person would put their lifemate through that? How can you still trust her?"
Naeemah's my rider! The gold cried. She's my bond, my lifemate! She has to come back...
Kirien's own green eyes narrowed. "She's not coming back! She doesn't want you, or she would never have abandoned you. There are other people out there, who wouldn't-" She paused, hand outstretched toward the queen in a vaguely comforting gesture.
Shut up! The gold roared at her. You're wrong! Get away from me!
Kirien gasped as a sharp, shooting pain tore through her outstretched hand. She pulled it back, fingering the long, deep gashes on her palm. She clenched her teeth, staring up at the gold dragon, whose bared, white fangs were still stained red. The dragon looked almost as surprised as Kirien at what she had done, and the other abandoned dragons were nothing short of shocked at their clutchmate's behavior.
Vakantath, how could you!? The other gold dragon reprimanded her sister as Kirien raced out of the cavern, still clutching her bleeding hand.
She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall down her face as she arrived at the infirmary where she had first woken up in the Weyr. The healer inside caught sight of her, and clucked impatiently as she approached. "What's wrong, dearie? Cut your hand-Oh my! How did you do that!?" The healer grabbed Kirien's arm, causing the girl to gasp in pain, and she promptly adjusted her hold to a less painful position for her patient as she began to attend to the wound.
"For Faranth's sakes, child! How on Pern did that happen?"
Kirien refused to answer at first, causing the healer to worry even more. Finally, she hesitantly replied. "...Nothing, I just cut my hand, by accident." She refused to say more, and the healer didn't persist.