This is a Candidacy Page for Cathair Fionabhainn

STATS

THE CLEARING

Yan looked down in the water and sighed. He didn't look at all like his father and half brothers...maybe that was why he hadn't impressed. But that couldn't be! Dragons didn't choose on appearance. Or at least, that was what everyone had told him.
Yan looked down in the water and his reflection faded to give way to the images of his memory. The first memory he had was his father letting him help wash Dreth when he was 4 turns old. His father had always told him and his brothers they were going to be dragonriders, even his sister had stood at the hatching of Gold Drisalath and Red Mernieoth's clutch. She had impressed a purple.
Not one of the 15 dragonets had so much as looked at him. He had been left alone on the side. His father had shook his head and told him he could try again, but the disappointment in his eyes was clearly visible.
Yan had been born out of a one night stand with a young holdergirl. She had been in the weyr as a candidate, but had gone back to her family after she had been left on the sands. S'pin had been a good-looking young man of 21, and Pellada, 17 at the time, had fallen in love with him. They had spent one night together before she had left for her hold again. Nine months later she had given birth to him. Her parents, shocked by this little accident and convinced of the Weyr's fault, they had put Pellada for a simple, yet cruel choice: Leave to get married to a man they had picked or get rid of the baby. Desperate as she must have been, she had given her baby to S'pin. Another 2 years passed before she died of bronchitis.
S'pin had later found a permanent Weyrmate in Senedra, a greenrider. They had gotten 3 more children. Yan always felt like his name was the only thing his mother had given him. It couldn't by any possible way be shortened in the honorific form.
Juno chirped and Yan looked up.
Brown Juno (adopted at The Dragon Soul)
"Yes, you are my friend and I'll always have you, won't I?" Yan said to the brown firelizard.
The brown flew towards him and snuggled up besides him, waiting for Yan to pick him up and stroke him over his belly.
"But I also want to make my father proud. I've always tried to live up to him, but maybe I just can't. It feels like my life has been one endless mistake, when all I've done is try to be optimistic and do what he wanted of me. Although, owning a dragon still seems like the greatest honour in the world."
Yan sighed and looked down on the brown, happily sleeping on his arm.
"I'll just keep trying no matter what...who am I kidding? I can't quit now!"
He sat back and closed his eyes...he was so tired from all the thinking he'd done.

He woke up when Juno nudged his arm and made an alarming sound. He opened his eyes and looked directly in glowing yellow eyes. He opened his mouth to scream, but then the eyes moved backward and he saw a girl, a very strange girl...He was so baffled about her appearance he forgot about his scream. He became completely silent and stared at her.
He noticed she knew what she was doing, but she also looked a bit scared. She frequently looked around her and twitched whenever there was a sound.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am Greyelle." she said.
"And....eh....what are you doing here?"
"I have come to talk to you, Drisalath said you would help me."
"You know Drisalath? She spoke to you? The one queen who has never ever spoke to another human being besides her rider before? That Drisalath?"
"Yes, that would be her."
"What does she think I can do?"
"Get the star maps to show me the way to Alskyr."
"But that would mean stealing them from the Weyrleader!" Yan was shocked.
"Why do you want to go to Alskyr in the first place? If I remember correctly, everything you have there can be found here as well."
"Not everything, not the one who calls me." Greyelle's eyes turned a very pale blue...
"Ah, and who is calling you?"
"not yet who in fact....the dragon hasn't hatched yet, but it wants me."
"And how would you explain an unborn dragon talking to you?"
"The same way I explain Drisalath speaking to me...they can and they do." Greyelle's eyes slightly became darker again.
"So, will you help me get the maps?"
"I might be able to get them for you. But how are you going to get to Alskyr once you have the maps?"
"I'll get there, don't worry about that." Greyelle got up. "You just get me those maps." And walked off in the forest...
"I'll be here again, same time tomorrow!" Yan shouted.

Yan ran back to the weyr, how was he supposed to get the maps? Knowing the weyrleader, he'd probably stay in his weyr all evening. He was really close to the Weyr, he stood still and took a minute to catch his breath as he asked himself that same question again.
"He won't be in his office. He'll be with me and Lija, as always the evening of a hatching."
That wasn't his thought....whose was it?
"Mine of course. Drisalath." the dragoness said.
"But how can you speak to me when I wasn't even able to impress a dragon?"
"Stupid boy." her harsh reply came "You have learned little, the dragon for you wasn't in my clutch. Now help Greyelle!"
"K, You're sure he'll be away?"
"Yes..."

Three hours later it was dark...very dark. A soft wind blew in from the West and the 2 moons had risen. Yan crouched down behind the Lower Caves entrance. There was nothing in the weyrbowl and Drisalath promised the watchdragon wouldn't say a thing about him sneaking around. He ran softly to the weyrleader's weyr and climbed the stairs. He quickly entered the weyr and saw Bronze Geribalth.
"He won't even notice you are here, he is sleeping. I know." Drisalath told him.
He carefully went round the dragon and into the small passage that would lead him to the record's room. He tried not to think of the possibility of the Weyrwoman suddenly wanting to check her notes or something because she would catch him red-handed.
"Haven't you got a confident bone in your body?!" Drisalath scolded "I won't let her enter."
Yan used a dim glowbasket to search through some files. Luckily the weyrleader was a very practical man. Yan found the star maps after about 5 minutes of lifting up papers and reading book covers.
"Drisalath! What should I do now?"
The queen nearly alerted her rider with her loud snort as she replied:
"Take them with you of course!"
"Can't I just copy them? He might miss them...."
"He won't miss them, he knows where Alskyr is, he doesn't need those maps. Now get out! I feel Geribalth waking up."
Yan almost flew down, but he took his time to pass the bronze very carefully. He stuffed the maps in his travel sack and went to sleep, still fully dressed.

Yan woke up the next morning by the smell of breakfast. He quickly changed his clothes, took his sack and hurried to the Lower Caverns. He took all he could carry and was out of the Weyr before anyone could stop him. Juno flittered out in front of him, knowing they were going back to the happy spot with the soft grass and the river.
When they got there, Yan sat down and said to himself he would only have to wait 10 hours for Greyelle to show up.
Five minutes later he was sleeping.
Yan woke up because Juno bit in his ear. He stumbled to his feet and saw Greyelle running away to the deeper forest.
"What are you doing? Shouldn't you at least thank me?" Yan yelled, a bit angry because she was going to leave without saying something. That was in fact when he realised he had planned on going with her. His pride wasn't usually demanding about stuff like this.
Greyelle turned round and stood silently while he yelled at her.
"You know it's not nice to leave me here! I did a very risky thing and could have been caught! And then leave me while I sleep?! I don't think so! What kind of weird creature are you anyway?"
Saying that he looked up at her face and saw she was crying.
"Well, it's not something to cry about....I just think you should have thanked me."
"Why would you want to have anything else to do with me? As you said, your part in this was over and everything turned out ok, I made sure of that."
"Maybe, but I want to come with. No buts, I want to go to Alskyr and there's no stopping me. So, how where you planning on getting to another planet without a dragon?"
"Like this", she said and took him by the shoulders as they teleported.   

ALSKYR

They arrived at Alskyr midair, flying above a small island at dusk. Greyelle carefully winged down and let Yan go.
"I've landed us on a deserted island. You can go back if you want. But you have to decide now."
"Oh no, I'm coming!"
"Good, because this isn't the right place." Greyelle said smiling, "Now you can ask for other dragon worlds."
"Letting me do all the dirty work...I see, k, point me to the nearest human and I'll ask."
"The nearest human will be here in exact 8 minutes and 15 seconds."
"How do you know that?"
"Don't know, I just do, just trust me on this."
"You sound really familiar, are you sure there isn't still a part of Drisalath in you?"
Yan saw Greyelle heading for the trees..."oh no, you're not" he thought and grabbed her arm. Pulling her behind him toward the other human. He thought her fear of humans was strange, he hadn't hurt her, right? Not really. It was not like it would kill her if she talked to humans. He saw the man, not that much older than him cutting through some thick vegetation. A blue flit in close pursuit. Well, it wasn't exactly like a flit, but it looked enough like it to make the connection.
"Hey! Wait a sec, we need you!" he shouted
"I can't help you, I don't know where I am exactly either." he said, going on with the cutting.
"We need to find a planet with dragons on it."
"Well, Alskyr has dragons in the Caers."
"We know, but we are looking for a planet with an eternal sunset apparently."  Yan looked back at Greyelle and saw her hiding behind him, which was hard to do because he wasn't big himself. She shouldn't be afraid.
"I can't think of one right now, but they might know more in the Caers. A lot of offworlders pass through there. They might know about your sunset world."
Yan received blurry images of Juno who was apparently exchanging thoughts with the blue. They seemed to like each other.
"But you won't get their soon, the nearest Caer is miles away!"
"Oh, we'll get there." Yan took Greyelle's hand: "Greyelle, do you know where you should go?"  He had to look her in the eyes for her to notice. She was getting into a trancelike state, that wasn't good. He began to worry about her, she obviously wasn't used at being around humans at all. At last she nodded.
"Is there any room for me? I'm getting bored with the travelling and I'm running low on food too. If it isn't too much. I'm Bryan." Well, the least they could do was take him. He didn't really know if Greyelle was up to it, so he looked at her again. She nodded. Yan waited for her to take his hand and tried to relay friendship through it. She would get through, but she would have to try. he wasn't about to give in, he thought he had heard somewhere that giving in, just aggravated the situation. They teleported to a huge cliffside, trees sheltering them from any people on their way in the Caer. The flits who were again transported along made some weird manoeuvres in the sky before they calmed down and landed on a tree branch.
"What do we do now?" Bryan asked.
"We talk." And maybe it was best for Greyelle to stay behind, her eyes were awfully pale.
"And you think that will just work? What's your name by the way?"
"I'm Yan. If you know how to go about it, we will be talking soon enough."
"I think we better let Greyelle stay here."
Bryan shrugged and entered the Caer.
"Greyelle, is everything ok?"
"I'm fine, don't worry about me." she said, but her eyes betrayed her.
"Come on, I can see it isn't ok!"
"I'll be fine once I have rested, now go."
Yan left her, looking back a bit worried and urging Juno to not leave her side. He caught up to Bryan and together they entered the Caer.
Yan noticed the purple immediately. He knew the Alskyrian colours of course and his sister had impressed a purple. Her rider looked like a perfect way to start. She was busy, but she looked like she knew everything about the Caer. When he approached her however and asked her about a dragon-planet, she reacted rather irritated. maybe he hadn't judged her right, but at least she had an answer ready that they could use:
"Alskyr's all you need, but if you must know, Sermelon will tell you where that planet is."
She pointed at a large building inside the Caer with beige stone walls. Bryan and Yan walked up to it and went through the door. Yan at once noticed the man. He looked a lot like the uncles and aunties in the holds, old with white hair, but he had way more energy than them. He looked their way and asked:
"Yes?"
"Are you Sermelon?"
"Yes, you are?"
"I'm Bryan and he's Yan." Bryan said before Yan could.
"You don't look like the youngsters they usually bring me to teach."
"Oh, but we just need to find a planet." Bryan said, moving closer to the man. Yan also moved closer, because the man had a strange accent he wasn't able to understand completely.
"A planet eh, there are a lot of planets around, you will have to be more precise."
"Well, it is a planet with dragons, and an eternal sunset."  He said.
"I think I know one or two planets as you describe, do you know anything else?"
"Yes, there was a huge flight and a lot of female dragons are now sharing sands."
"Ahhh, That would be Danach! An offworlder told us about it, a month or so in the past. That isn't too far from here...I think."
Sermelon got up and walked slowly to another bench, there he took out some maps and started arranging them in squares.
"This is Alskyr" Sermelon pointed to a small circle in the lower corner of the maps, "And this is Danach." A slightly bigger circle in the upper right corner.
"So you want to impress a Raug Dragon? I wonder how you will get there."
"We will, thanks for the explanation." Yan said.
"Yeah, we should probably go." Bryan said.
"Young people are always in such a hurry! But you're right on this one, those eggs will hatch soon."
Yan ran outside, Bryan following him. Greyelle was still waiting for them. Yan wondered for a moment how she would know where to go when he felt a soft touch in his mind. So that was how she did it. Well, as long as they would get there, it was ok. He realised the connection went both ways, he could feel her anxiety. Yan looked nervously around, where could the danger be coming from?

DANACH

"We are here!" Greyelle exclaimed, loosening her grip a bit, Yan had to cling on in order not to fall.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes, but we have little time."
"Fine with me, why won't you fly us in closer?"
"Because that is unsafe." Yan doubted that, but went along with her explanation. He noticed the trance-like state gaining on her again, so he quickly took her arm and shook it before he said:
"Well, you better give us directions, because I don't know where we might be."
"Maybe five minutes to the North."
"K, let's go!" He held her arm even faster and started running. Halfway across the clearing he looked back and saw Bryan still standing where they had started off, examining the plants apparently. It wouldn't be good to leave Bryan behind now, he might get lost. Neither of them knew this world at all.
"Come on! You'll have plenty of time to do that, but only once to attend a Raug Hatching!!"
Yan relaxed a bit when he heard Bryan saying:
"I'm coming."
He wondered what bonding a Danchian dragon was like...would it be the same as bonding a Pernese dragon? There were so many eggs if he could believe Greyelles Unhatched One that one of them had to be right for him.

That's All for Now
Story coming soon - The start of July will bring inspiration and free time.

Yan's male red-black-green-gold rainbow copper Reantorapth
Parents - Kuzami and Kyoto

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