The dark skinned, dark haired young woman rolled her eyes and shot at him from inside their cramped home, "Of course it's a dragon, twerp, we're in the sharding Weyr!"

The 'twerp' paid her slings no heed. "No, Ibbie! This dragon is coming towards us! I think it wants to talk!"

"Dragons don't talk, Apax. You're having fantasies again." None the less, the trader-woman set aside the money she was counting in order to come up to her brother, and to the door. What met her was a giant, opalescant eye.

"Hello," a voice like thunder rumbled, and the eye whirled with deep blues and greens. Ibbie shrieked and fell backwards, causing Apax to lose his balance and fall out of the wagon. Recovering just as he came up against the rock-hard ground, the dark boy rolled, then came to a stop up against one massive claw. "Sorry about that," that same rolling voice continued. "Are you hurt?"

People were staring, but the boy paid no attention. Like a monkey, he was already back on his feet, an was wiping the dust from his bright mishmash of clothes. "Naw, I'm fine!" he said, staring up (waaaaay up) at the towering body of a grass green dragon. "You're talking out loud!"

"Yes, I am," the dragon replied, its voice nearly too deep to hear properly. The ground rumbled, and Apax realized, with a start, that the dragon was laughing. "What's your name, boy?">

"I'm Apax," the child replied, watching in awe as the green settled herself to a leisurely lying position. Nearby traders and weyrfolk alike had paused to watch the unlikely conversation, the former with mistrust, the latter with amusement. "Who're you," the boy continued, oblivious to the stares.

"I'm Emeraldth, and I'm pleased to meet you, and you as well," she said, directing her voice towards the trader-girl who'd recovered herself, and was now holding herself up, trembling, against the door-frame.

Ibbie ran a hand over her rough, knotted hair and shot the green a sour look. "What do you want?" she asked, her voice only slightly tinted with fear.

"Well," Emeraldth began, and sucked in a preperatory breath, "You know how dragon-riders often go out and Search people to stand for clutches?"

"...Wait, what?"

"WOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!" Apax let out a woop as he put two and two together, while Ibbie looked as if she were about to collapse again.

Emeraldth, for all that a dragon can betray emotions, looked abashed by pulling a wing over her muzzle, then staring at them over it. "Well, I'm not saying that I've officially searched you. I mean, I haven't done this before..."

"So it could be a mistake..." Ibbie rested both hands on the lower-half of the door, feeling as though she would be ill.

"No way, sis! We're searched! We can be dragonriders, just like these people!" Belatedly, he turned and gestured to the watching (some of them laughing) weyr-folk. "It's what we've always dreamed of!"

The older trader let out a snort. "What you've always dreamed of, maybe. And no, I'm not planning on just staying here with him while the rest of the caravan goes riding out. You can't do that! You can't just leave your people behind." She gave the green a piercing glare, her fear overcome by her outrage.

"Oh," Emeraldth said, lowering her wing, and rumbling, "you wouldn't be staying here." She gave a cute grin--at least, what she thought was a cute grin, but which was more of a toothy, gaping-muzzled face--and tilted her head. "I doubt you've heard of a place called Darkling Dawn Weyr, but that's where I come from. I'd gladly take you two home with us."

There was a pause as Ibbie stared up at the dragon, and Apax held his breath. Finally, the young woman said, "You're right, I haven't heard of it, which is odd, considering that we've been versed in all the Weyrs of Pern. So why are you pulling my leg, dragon? And where's your rider? I thought these things were conducted human to human."

The girl drove a hard bargain! Emeraldth sighed and rustled her great, transparent wings. "I'm not pulling your leg, believe me! But... if you want to talk to my rider, then here she comes. Arching her neck back, the green tracked the movement of a dragon as it spiralled down for a landing.

Ibbie squinted and shaded her eyes with a hand. That had to be the smallest, darkest green she'd ever seen! And why was this dragon's rider on that?

"Because," Emeraldth interrupted her thoughts as if she'd been reading them (and she very likely had been,) "Jasperth is also Maohli, my rider's, bond. And he says to tell you that he most certainly isn't a pathetic green. He's a black and proud of it." Emeraldth let out another rumbling laugh, watching with amusement as the black settled, and a hulking girl slid down his shoulder.

When the dust had settled enough, the rider approached the two of them and gave a deep, apologetic bow. Her sandy hair had been thrown into a quick, messy baid, and she wore only two layers of clothes: proof that she'd been summoned without warning. "Hi," she said, her mocha-coloured skin tinted with a bright blush. "I'm so sorry about this... Emeraldth didn't tell me what was going on until Jasperth here relayed everything to me."

Snitch, Emeraldth said for only Maohli and the black to hear, though she said it with good humor.

"Yeah, well," Ibbie said, looking from between the two dragons, back to their rider, "it would have bee nice to have had some warning before your green, here, swooped in on us and tried to lay claim on us like some kind of herd-beasts." She scowled across the way at the rider, Maohli. Judging by her face, she was probably a couple years younger then Ibbie herself, though her massive size was enough to fool anyone into thinking she was older, or at least more menacing. Built like and ox, she was about as pretty, though... Ibbie felt that, under other circumstances, she would have liked this girl. She reminded her of an old friend she'd made, back when she was Apax' age.

Again, the rider dipped into another apologetic bow. "I'm very sorry, again. Like she said, Emeraldth hasn't Searched before. I'm sure she's just out of whack or something."

"Out of whack?" the green chuffed, "I'd like to think that maybe I have a talent unfolding, here. And I want to see if these two bond. It would be nice, to have an official job, you know."

"Excuse me," Ibbie butted in, her voice high pitched against the dragon's low one. "Don't we get any say in this matter?"

Apax, who'd been silent all this time, piped up. "We should go! We should go!"

"It is common courtesy for those Searched to stand at their Search-dragon's respective Weyr," one of the locals suggested helpfully. More people were watching the unfolding drama, and even the traders were losing mistrust, entertained by Ibbie's outright denial.

Flanked on all sides by supporters of this dragoness' proposal, Ibbie did the only thing left that she could. She looked to her parents, helplessly. Both of them looked rather put out, however, neither of them looked like they were about to interrupt. No help there.

"Well," Maohli finally said, playing nervously with her braid, "if you were to come home with us, and stand for a clutch, and not Impress, we'd return you to your traders right away--if you still wanted to go, of course. If you do Impress, Weyrling training lasts for about a year and a half, and after that, Darkling Dawn has no strict rules on where their riders go. We're a very relaxed Weyr."

"With plenty to see and to do," Emeraldth added, trying to close the deal.

"But I don't want to become a dragonrider," Ibbie replied, plaintive. True, it would be better living then selling her body on the road... but the high risk of flying in the face of Thread terrified her.

Her brother danced back up the steps to give Ibbie a hug, "I do," he said so that only she could hear. "Can I go, at least? You could just come to watch me! I'll Impress, and then we can come and protect the caravan!" He was already planning ahead, like usual.

The trader-girl had balled her fists over the half-door, and looked about ready to cry, or to throw something. "FINE!" She shouted, finally. Maohli cringed. "We'll go with you and your stinking dragons. But as soon as that clutch hatches and we don't Impress, I want to be taken back here, right away!"

The rider nodded rapidly, and Emeraldth let out one more rumbling laugh. Apax danced on the stairs, cackling out loud. "I'll be sure to, if you don't Impress," Maohli agreed.

"Just let me take care of some business..." Ibbie sagged where she was standing, defeated.

----------------------------------

The morning air over Darkling Dawn was crisp and cool, enough so that the two traders shivered noticeably. Ibbie was strapped in behind Maohli, and Apax was behind the both of them. The newly made Candidate girl wished that she'd had heavier clothing. The only thing she'd found was a winter jacket that only served to keep them warm up through Benden Hold, should they ever have travelled there in the cold season. No one had been able to find a helmet that fit over her mass of knotted hair, so now the whipping wind froze her ears. Not that she noticed so much. She was still frozen from Between's icy grip, feeling like she'd just died and come back to life. She was clinging for dear life to the rider's back, hoping that Maohli didn't take her the wrong way for it. Apax was, of course, unphased by the deprivation. She could almost hear him hooting, though the strong wind carried away most of his voice.

"That mountain," Maohli shouted back to them both, "Is the Weyr!"

Ibbie slit one eye open (they'd been squeezed shut), and peered down. And then wished that she hadn't. It wasn't so much that the height frightened her, not when she'd spent most of her life leading wagons past precipitous drops and over narrow, mountain-side goat-tracks, but the fact that everything had changed so completely. Where before there was a dusty volcanic bowl and brown-grey mountains stretched in every direction, here was a single, monolithic Weyr, alone amongst the nearly flat spread of green carpet that spread in every direction. "This doesn't seem physically possible," Ibbie murmured into the back of the rider's shoulder, looking with great disgust out across the untamed forests. What was this place protecting, anyways? She wondered if there was a Darkling Dawn Hold somewhere nearby.

"We're coming in for a landing," Maohli shouted again, and the traders felt a sickening drop as the large green spilled air from her semi-transparent sails. The black swooped nearby, clearly unhappy that he didn't carry anyone, himself.

The landing might well have been gentle, but to Ibbie, it was like riding a runaway wagon: up, down, up, DOWN. And they were still.

Getting down the living side of the green was problematic enough for Ibbie, but she managed it, and soon they were unstrapping their few belongings from the black Jasperth's side, and trudging wearily up the great steps of the main entrance-way, and into the Weyr proper.

Both of the traders stopped in their tracks, and looked out over the vast chamber. These was the hatching grounds, of course, where not one, but three great dragonesses laid guard over their groups of eggs. "This way," Maohli said, her ugly face cracked in a friendly smile. "I know, it's pretty Impressive."

Apax began to snicker, despite himself. "You're funny," he addressed her and her unintended pun.

"I'm glad you think so!" Maohli returned, shifting the gear she was carrying into her one hand in order to ruffle his hair. To Ibbie, she said, "I'm going to take you to the Candidate's barracks. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds. You'll be staying in the girl's wing, and Apax, here, will be staying in the boy's. I've got to check and see if he's allowed to stand, yet. I'm not sure if the Weyrlingmaster will allow anyone under the age of ten to stand."

"Hey! I'm eleven!" The boy protested.

At Maohli's incredulous glance, Ibbie nodded. "He's right. Everyone's always mistaking him for a little brat. Well, he is a little brat, but he's older then he looks. It'll serve him good when he's older, I'll bet.

"I want to look older, now," the boy grumbled, distracted now as the giant gold shifter her weight and glared over at them.

"Alright, well I'm sure he'll be okay, then." Maohli said, lightening the sour boy's mood instantly. "This way!"

So they took the curved outer wall to one hallway, and Maohli pointed out the features that could be accessed from the ground level. A small, secondary kitchen, work rooms, class-rooms, washrooms that had, of all things, a heated bathing pool! Maybe this place wasn't so bad, after all! Finally they arrived at the end of the hall, where two door led to the two different barracks. "This is your stop," the rider said, opening the girl's barracks. The place was mostly empty, though Ibbie saw that a couple of beds were obviously taken. All of this space! She entered the room cautiously, and set her belongings on the cot closest to the door. "Will you be coming by, again?" She asked tentativly.

"Of course! I just have to report back, and let the Weyrlingmaster know that you've arrived, and then I'll take you two on a tour, if you like."

"That'd be nice," Ibbie said, scanning her strange new surroundings. Maohli gestured for Apax to come with her, and closed the door behind her. Shards. This was just so weird... Ibbie hoped that it would be over soon. Stand, maybe her brother would Impress, maybe not, and then they'd be out of here. Somehow, she didn't think that that plan had much weight behind it.