She was always little, this girl. And thus, was she allowed to ride in runner races from a reasonably early age. In fact, her family couldn't keep her from the runners. She had a good touch with them, and for her tenth turn day they bought her a nice new foal just weaned, supposedly from a long line of winning racers.

From that day on she dedicated herself to the sport, keeping her runner healthy was of prime concern to her. Kallak was his name, and when he was just under three turns himself, they placed second in a big local gather day race. As if her father didn't gloat enough about her, he could hardly stop talking about the win.

But Ketzia wanted more.

Kezel, her older brother, was already in training to inherit the Holdings and held no jealousy over the whole thing. He himself didn't much care for runners, having fallen before Ketzia was born, and never quite getting back on.

Of course, Ketzia had fallen too. But she got right back up, and that pleased everyone. Even Kallak, the long-legged bay colored stallion she raised. He would hardly let anyone else near him - from stable boys to Lord Holder Kett - but where that counted the most, on the racetrack, was where he excelled from then on.

Ketzia, at sixteen, had won several races and even gone on a tour of the nearby Holds to show Kallak off. She'd set him to stud on two mares, earning herself some marks in the process, and was giddy with excitement when they had dropped. A filly and colt, both with Kallak's longer-than-normal legs and their dam's pleasant personalities, apparently. She hoped they would grow up with a companion like herself, though with a selfish chuckle, Ketzia hoped they never raced against their sire!

Racing wasn't all Kallak was good for, though. In the off seasons, when there was a gentle coating of snow over the fields, and hardly anyone else wanted to come exploring with her, Ketzia and Kallak went into the hills and found evidence of an ancient settlement.

She hadn't really paid much attention to the Harpers when they came through the Hold, like many children she cared for what she could do and see and interact with, more than just listening and repeating old dusty songs about people she knew had been dead for centuries.

The people who had lived here, among the shattered stones a few miles from her home Hold, had been dead for centuries too. But they left things to dig through, and that was what she really wanted out of a history lesson!

Kallak stood quietly by one ruined post, a handy place to tether him, while Ketzia explored. For many days she would return, but hardly ever mentioned where she'd been going. She didn't really want any of the other Holder children to come along, the younger ones might get lost or hurt, and the older ones might break or steal things.

She made notes in her scribbly writing, drew some things with a reasonable hand. There were mysterious boxes, metal, in one room which must have been some kind of storage area - so many things here, she just could not identify. Pieces inside them were broken, shattered with time, but some were intact if covered with a fine layer of ash. Thread had never hit this place, not directly anyway, but there had been fires, and the volcano off the coast had probably dumped several layers of ash over everything even before her Hold was settled.

Who were these people, she wondered, with the weird boxes filled with greenish gold-laced cards, with the pale colored half-melted stuff in squares that defied description... She had no idea what computers were - no one did - and thus could not really comprehend them in their long-dead state.

But other things were there too: deeper in the stone structures, where she had to be very careful since there were many slippery rocks and pools of runoff water from the hills around the place, were cold, dark rooms that had monolithic cabinets in them. Preserved for quite some time, though a bit rusty because of the climate, she pried open one of these filing cabinets to find an assortment of sheer paper, illegible writing, photographs and books... Things she couldn't really read since the script was so foreign - it wasn't that she was that bad at writing!

Several hours into this, she realized she would have to get home. Her legs had gone half-asleep and her rear was numb from the chilled stone floor she was sitting on. And so when she started to make her way back outside, she slipped and tumbled down a shaft which she'd avoided earlier! She fell into frozen water, dark, a tunnel that had all but sealed itself over time and trapped the drained runoff from above!

Now it trapped her! Chilled to the bone, terrified, she held her breath as long as she could, finding a foot hold here and a crumbled stone wall there... And as she dragged herself back up, she felt something distinctly slick and alive move against her shoulders. A tunnel snake? In the water? It didn't surprise her, that there could be such a thing after so long - but she only thought of that much later.

For the moment, she concentrated on getting herself out of the dark corridor, coughing and sputtering and thankful that she knew how to swim at all. She'd probably never want to again. Ketzia knew she couldn't ride home in this condition, and she knew it would be a terrible shame later - but for now, she took a few of the old papers (ones, she looked hard for, that didn't have anything visible on them or were already in such a state that they wouldn't provide any knowledge later anyway), and lit a small fire.

Finally she was dry enough to mount up and head home. Her father was angry, but not furious at her.

He'd found the place when he was her age, he explained carefully, he was proud of her being so careful with it but not with how careless she'd been for herself! He knew better than to try and forbid her to go visit the place at all again, but he did exact a promise from her - an honest one - that she'd wait until spring when at least the water wouldn't be so cold if she fell into it again.

It turned out that would be a promise she didn't really have to keep. Search riders arrived before the end of Winter, and found Ketzia to their liking. This tore her apart. She wanted to be at home, with her family! But slowly she came around to think: if she had a dragon to ride, wouldn't it be possible to explore even more places, and more safely? She explained this to her father and mother and brother, and they all agreed: with a rider in the family there could only be good fortune.

"But what about Kallak?" She asked the search rider, who tilted his head. "My runner!"

"Wait, wait," he said, "Kallak the race horse?!" He said, "You're the jockey?"

"I am," she held herself proudly - coming to just over the search rider's waist and making even her father chuckle with the sight. "But what can we do with him? I won't be parted from him, will he be able to come with me? How... can I take care of both? If I impress of course..."

"There are ways," K'roohan said, explaining that they had good beastcrafters at Dragonhope, and that even if she couldn't be there herself, there was a clever workaround for keeping the runner happy - she wouldn't really be 'gone' truly, but she didn't understand what 'timing it' meant until much later.

Bidding her family farewell, and her few friends good luck in their ventures, good harvest for the farmers... Ketzia rode away upon a big brown dragon, while her prized steed was carried gently by the same dragon in its arms. Normally that would terrify any beast - or human - but with Ketzia there to call to him over the wind, they made it overland to Dragonhope in no time, and settled in easily. She'd almost managed to convince the brown rider to allow her to ride the runner while he was being carried by the dragon, but that, he finally replied, was preposterous and extremely dangerous. What a thought, though - to soar as though on a dragon, below a dragon, riding a runner?

As they arrived to Dragonhope for the brief stay before heading out to Shintaru, Ketzia thought with a devious grin, there were races to be won here where they'd never seen such a fast runner!

***

When the hatching's chaos erupted, there were plenty of incidents to watch, and Ketzia was almost able to prevent one of them. Almost. A boy managed to rush right out to the dragon that became his bond, but also lodged himself in the loose, hot sands halfway up his legs. While he was trying to pull himself free, Ketzia locked eyes with a brilliant green ...whose wing sails were as vividly red as the brightest image of the Red Star she'd ever seen.

You will take me exploring won't you, Ketzia ?

The girl laughed, "Absolutely, Ananth ."

And I'll meet this... runner of yours? I won't eat him. I promise I'll be very good. The green continued eagerly, making some of the audience chuckle.

***

Ananth was always Ketzia's biggest fan at her races. Though at first, before some of the runners and their jockeys had gotten used to her presence, Ketzia lost to one or two second-string pairs purely because the runners were spurred to a frightened pace by the dragon!

Eventually as all runners must, Kallak had grown too old to ride. He'd been studded for years, and some of his earlier offspring were growing into racers in their own right. None of that stopped Ketzia from doting on the runner until the day he didn't rise from his stall.

Ananth nuzzled her rider, I will race for you, she bespoke. And it was true, there were dragon speed races and flight courses that had begun to attract attention. So if for no other reason than to honor her favorite runner, Ketzia and Ananth entered - and won - for years to come!

Originally From: riverside community
Location size: densely populated
Location climate: seasonal
Searched: a couple weeks ago