"Because," Maohli returned, coiling her long braid under her riding cap, "I haven't seen my father in a long time," she adjusted the riding harness that fit snuggly over her shoulders, "and I want to know if everything's alright, back home."

I've never figured that out, Jasperth interrupted, craning his head a little so that one swirling eye could focus on her, Why do you call her your father, I mean... She is a she, isn't she?

Maohli laughed and gave the black a heel-kick, though it could hardly hurt him, through that thick hide of his. "Of course Odyi's a 'she'! She's just acted like any father should, even if she couldn't be with me all of the time."

I still think you're crazy, Jasperth snorted and cracked a grin.

Once Maohli gave the signal, the both of them set off. Two dragons dove off of the cliff-face, caught the evening thermal, and spiralled up, and up, and up. The air was cool no matter where you went in Darkling Dawn--at least, by Igen standards it was. Up here, though, where individual weyrs petered out and the snowy cap of the mountain began, it was downright chilly. It was nothing compared to Between, but Maohli was glad that she had her thick riding coat. So you think we're going to get to see real-live Thread? Emeraldth asked, beating her wings now and then as she waited for the signal to go Between.

You'd better hope that we don't! Maohli returned, shuddering in her saddle. Back home, they'd been in the first years of a new Pass, and she'd witnessed the horrible things that Thread had done to her Weyr--her family. It was horrifying.

If we do, Jasperth replied to his sister, they'll probably rope us in to help out. I don't want to chase after flesh-eating strings of space goo. This is supposed to be a vacation!

Yeah, but it still sounds kind of fun, Emeraldth was saying.

Fun?! The Igen-bred girl choked, then glared over and down at the big green dragoness. You call this fun? And she showered Emeraldth with images--some fuzzy memories, some only as clear as a traumatic experience can be--until the green asked her, wordlessly, to stop.

Alright, the dragoness said, I won't tempt fate. Can we at least go, now?

Maohli gave a little nod, her good mood ruined. She recalled-as best she could Igen Weyr's rocky outcropping, its curved, volcanic bowl, the watch-stones that warned of Thread with each new Pass. And then the cold air of Darkling Dawn vanished, as did the light, and all feeling. They were Between.

And then, in only half the time it should have taken, they popped out into the blistering heat of Igen's mid-afternoon sky. A green on the rim of the Weyr bugled a welcome, to which Emeraldth and Jasperth responded in fluting tones. She's a tired one, Jasperth noted, as the pair of them circled in the bright, hot air.

Maohli nodded, suddenly wishing to pull off her jacket and helmet. If not for the wind, she'd be roasted already! It was amazing what three years away from home could do... Look, she said, pointing down near the lake-basin, where a number of dragons lay stretched out, some bellowing in pain, others held in the soothing, silencing grip of Numbweed. I'll bet we just missed a Fall. There's a bunch of injured dragons, there.

Augh, Emeraldth was offended enough to send, they look terrible.

She did warn you, stupid. Jasperth sent. His attention was taken up by the dragons, below.

They would have begun to argue, had an elder blue--one who'd been keeping an eye on them all this time--bellowed up at them. The pair of newcomers altered their course, dropping air in order to land on the massive weyr-ledge that the blue had been sitting on.

It's Ath! Emeraldth relayed, bugling down to the old dragon.

Jasperth was the first to land, and once the blue had backed out of the way, Emeraldth took her chance to land as well. An elder woman had hurried out to the ledge to watch them, and waited impatiently for Maohli to dismount. She held one hand on her her hip. The other, as well as her arm, was missing completely. "My daughter," she called, face up to watch Maohli as she slid down the black-green's forearm, "why haven't you visted earlier? Come here come here!" What ensued was one of the happiest greetings Maohli had ever experienced. The weathered face of her father had changed vastly since she left: now there were more lines around her mouth and eyes, more furrows engraved by pain and sorrow. But Odyi still smiled crookedly and took her towering daughter in a bear-like hug, and only released her when Maohli exclaimed about her amputation. "This?" The blue-rider said, giving her missing arm a semi-sour look and then shaking her dark haired head. "I'm lucky I'm alive. It's part of the job, though." She gave Maohli a pained smile.

"And mum? Is she still watchrider at the Hold?"

It felt like someone had punched Maohli in the gut. She stood there, speechless, mouth hanging slightly open. It shouldn't have been a shock: deaths happened all the time during falls. Stupid mistakes, dragons and their riders fighting too long for one reason or another, their senses dulled by exhaustion... sometimes things like this happend. And yet... she'd never expected it to happen to her mother. "I'm sorry," she finally said. Odyi had been much closer to the green-rider then Maohli ever had, considering that her mother had payed her little attention. It must have hurt Odyi a heck of a lot more then it hurt her.

"It's alright... it's been what, two years now? A little more? You know what they say, time dulls all wounds." But the older woman's eyes were watering, and now Maohli leaned forward, and embraced her father again, this time rocking slowly and allowing the blue-rider to cry on her shoulder. What a home-coming.

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After their initial meeting, Odyi seemed to put all of her pain behind her, and worked her hardest to get Maohli and her pair settled in. The guest weyrs of Igen were nothing by comparison to Darkling Dawn's, and Jasperth complained incessantly that there were tunnel worm-holes on his couch, or that it was too hot, or that his couch was too big, or that the herd-beasts here were all sinew and no meat. Emeraldth settled in nicely, like the polite guest that she was.

And Maohli was put to work.

First she was sent to help with preparing crockery and mending clothing. It was almost as if she hadn't left home at all, and the people around her certainly gossiped the same as usual. Then she was put to help with the preparation of the life-saving numbweed, which made her wish that she hadn't come home at all! The stuff might be heavenly for wounds, but it was hell on the nose and the hands to make. A couple of days went by, and another Fall passed, this one over Igen's main hold. Maohli had convinced the local riders that, no, Jasperth and Emeraldth couldn't help directly, as they hadn't had proper training. ("What kind of Weyr were you brought up in, anyways?" she'd been asked, more then once. Never mind that Jasperth was an impossible shade of black, which should have explained everything.) Instead, she helped the Weyrlings and candidates by tossing sacks of firestone up to riders. Yet again, her freakish strength and ox-like build had come in handy, though she didn't doubt the next day she'd feel like she'd been battered into the ground.

Injuries occured, and once the Fall was over, Maohli helped as best she could by running back and forth between the lower caverns and the healers, carrying cauldrens of salve and medical supplies.

Weren't we supposed to be on vacation? Emeraldth asked one day, flopped over the ledge of the guest weyr. Below them the Weyr buzzed with activity as a trade caravan crept in, but Maohli and her two dragons were too tired to see what was going on.

Yeah, Jasperth agreed from farther in, I don't think I've done this much work since we got out of weyrling training.

I don't think you've ever done this much work, period. Maohli shot back from her cot. She'd thrown one arm over her eyes, and lay with only a shift on. Everything was too hot, and too bright, and her back was killing her from the firestone toss the other day.

I resent that, Jasperth said, just as his sister arched her neck and peered with more interest over the ledge.

"Hey, Maohli?" she said out loud, "come here a minute." The girl groaned, but struggled to her feet and trudged over. "Down there, look."

"What?" the girl asked. All she could see were the ant-sized specks of traders and Weyr-folk, intermingling and bargaining. There was nothing unusual, not that she could see.

"That pair of traders, down there," Emeraldth pointed with one claw, her whole arm dangling precariously over the ledge's edge. "May I go down and talk with them?"

"..." Maohli gave her bond a look of mild confusion. "Why ever couldn't you?"

"...No reason." Emeraldth shot her human a toothy grin, then slipped over the ledge like a seal into water. Maohli watched her dive, then pull up into a nice, if windy, landing.

She's up to no good, Jasperth rumbled ominously.

"Since when aren't you two up to no good?" Maohli countered.

Hey, this time I have nothing to do with it. the black gave her a piercing stare, and then let his muzzle split in a dark grin.