Once there was a little girl named Sraile. Her father was the Lord of a Hold, respected and powerful and rich. But he couldn't do anything to save his youngest daughter's life when she grew sick in the middle of winter when the roads were all blocked off with snow. All he could do was sit by her bedside while Sraile grew worse and drifted further and further away, and he hated every minute of it.
Sraile herself could remember nothing of that time while she was sick; she was still only a little girl, and she was delirious with fever most of the time. Obviously she grew better eventually, but everybody around her could see that she would never fully recover from it; she would always be a weak and frail girl, never as strong as she was before the sickness.
Sraile has grown older now, has reached her sixteenth birthday. But her father doesn't want her to grow up, not really; he nearly lost her once, he's not going to lose her again. He turns away any suitor who comes to call, and soon, they stop coming. Sraile doesn't notice any of this; all she does all day is dream, asleep and awake. Her imagination takes her away from her own life and into the stories she hears the harper sing each night, tales of love and adventure and heroes and dragons. She wanders through her hold in a waking sleep and daydreams about a hero of her own, protected from the rest of her world by her father and her own obliviousness.
He cannot keep her innocent forever, though.
Soon after her sixteenth birthday, Sraile attends a Turn's End Gather, and that is when she meets Bryant. She's not quite sure who he is or where he came from, but oh, he's so kind and handsome and charming, and before she knows it, she's feeling more alive than she's ever been, and they're away from the crowd now, alone, and he's smiling at her with a look in his eyes she's never seen before...
She finds herself doing things she's never even considered doing: secretly defying her father in tiny, petty ways, sneaking out of her rooms at all hours of the day and night. Sraile stops daydreaming about old tales and fantasies and starts thinking about her future.
She and Bryant spend some of their time talking about running away together, about how he's going to get a ring and a small Hold of his own, and how he's going to marry her and spend the rest of their lives together. Other times, they find something else to do with each other.
And then her father finds out, and it all comes crashing down around her. Bryant leaves and never glances back at her; the next thing she's heard of him, he's left for another Hold without even trying to tell her where he's going. But meanwhile, her father is red with anger and he's gripping her arm so tight it hurts, and he's never hurt her before.
She's blinded with tears, and the next thing Sraile knows she is turnd out of her home with just her belongings and nobody to help her or take care of her. "I won't have a whore for a daughter!" Her father shouts, and then he turns away so nobody will see his own tears, and that's the last she ever sees of him.
She walks for days, and it's hard because she's not used to physical exertion, and anyway, she's never been a very strong girl. Her back aches under the weight of carrying everything, yet her food is quickly running out and she doesn't know where she's going.
She makes it somehow, though, and she arrives at another Hold. She has to pawn off all her belongings to survive, because though the dresses and the jewelry and toys are pretty, they won't feed her or shelter her from the cold nights. Once she's sold off all her possessions, she doesn't know what to do. She asks people about Bryant, but nobody's ever seen or heard of him, and she soon gives up. She never sees him again either.
Now, more than ever, she wishes she could go back to sleep and dream.
Sraile survives, though, and she begins to work as a servant--a drudge, really--in the household of the Lord Holder. It's completely different from her life before. She sleeps in the kitchen with all the other servants and never has any time to herself. She wakes up at the crack of dawn and doesn't get back to sleep until long after everyone else as gone to bed. Many of the things she is asked to do she has never had to do before, and she is left helpless by her own ignorance. That's when the other women take pity on her--or maybe they're just exasperated with her behavior--and begin to teach her.
And she learns. Soon her dainty hands are as callused and dirty as the other drudges', and she becomes indistuingishable from the other women, except for her hair. She still has a bit of vanity and refuses to cut it; it was once her most beautiful feature, and though it is often dirty and tangled now, she just puts it in braids when it gets in the way of her work. She even becomes proficient in the work she is assigned, and she gets noticed.
Slowly, very slowly, she proves herself to be a diligent and skilled worker, and thus she begins to work her way into a better position. Instead of the hard scrubbing and cleaning all the time, she helps the cooks prepare the food, or takes care of the animals, or even attends to the Lord Holder's daughters sometimes. Because she can read, she helps the stewards keep track of expenses and supplies, and within two years of the day she came into this Hold as a lowly drudge, she is working comfortabley as an assistant to the Headwoman. It's nothing compared to the days when she lived with her father and spent her days in a dreamland, but it means everything to her now.
And then the dragons come. Sraile doesn't pay attention at first, barely thinks of them until she comes face to face with one. She stops in her tracks, forgetting where she was supposed to be going, and stares at it. It is a large dragon, as large as a bronze, though its hide is a shimmering pale color instead. It turns one large swirling eye down to look at her, somewhat curious, and she meets its gaze steadily. It lifts its head again when its rider approaches, all thoughts of her apparently forgotten, and she greets the young man with a courteous nod.
She is told she has been searched. It surprises her, but she tries not to let it show. She doesn't have to think about it for long; she nods again and murmurs, "I will go, sir. Thank you." She doesn't waste any more time talking; she goes to finish the rest of her chores and set things in order before she leaves this place for the final time.