He had lived with his foster parents since he was newborn, but they'd always made him aware that his rider parents had not abandoned him. That he had family elsewhere - up on the tall cliffs of a weyr, spread around Pern indiscriminately as green riders would be. When he was little, he was the only child growing up in the cothold resting near the wide, busy lake, but he wasn't the only child in the area by a long shot.

So he had playmates, agemates, friends. They were all fisher children, but thankfully since this was a lake community and not, as he was told frequently, an ocean-dwelling one, families tended to remain intact more often than not even when there was bad weather on the large lake. For this, Ledalt felt grateful. Even though he knew they weren't his true blood family, his home was here, his friends were here. He didn't know what he'd do if one of them lost a father or brother or aunt to the sea.

Ledalt became a fisher child as well, but his heart wasn't truly in it - not always anyway. At least, not once he'd been Searched.

His foster family wanted the best for him, or so they said, but when the search riders came Ledalt could sense their anger and fear. Why? When riding was one of the highest goals any child could aspire to? To save their planet from danger? He proudly stood among the others - a little younger, he was only eight at the time - and was given a thorough once-over by the blue search dragon. The rider made a note of it, Ledalt was too young to bring to the sands yet. He'd return some day.

Ledalt made a game of his work, after that. He pretended his catches were firestone, tossing baskets back and forth among the other young teens. They enjoyed the game as well, but they all knew that he was serious about it. He would pretend to be flying a green - though the other boys might laugh he defended that idea: "it was good enough for both my mother and father, why shouldn't a green be good enough for me?"

It wasn't very close to his fifteenth turnday when the search riders came back for him, and he could once more see the anguish on his foster-parents faces. But he bid them farewell, and traded items to and from his friends to remember each other by. He gathered his small sack of clothing, and headed up to Dragonhope.

There, he was grilled about his prior activities by the weyrling master and his assistants. They wanted to know things like whether he'd ever thought about flight formations, how he'd react to certain conditions, those things he could readily respond to. He had a good feel for abrupt changes in direction, after all he could stand on a small boat and still haul up heavy catch boxes. It was when they handed him a scroll and asked him to do some writing that he turned redfaced and had to admit that he'd never learned to read or write.

The weyrling master was stunned. "Not even a bit?" He asked, and Ledalt shook his head. At least the man's ire wasn't directed at him, more at his foster family whose only concern seemed to be getting a fish haul without lifting their own hands. And worse, they couldn't really be defended by claiming that they didn't know he'd become a rider some day, he'd been Searched!

"All this time, son, you should have been learning. Are you ready now? We often have brats who don't know how to read, it's not the end of the world. And it certainly won't stop you from standing on sands. But we like to make sure that you're prepared." R'vfen told him, and handed Ledalt off to the green-riding Ilina for instruction. She was friendly, fun, and best of all she allowed him to hang out with her dragon as well!

"I don't think I'll ever be very good at this," Ledalt said as he struggled with some words.

"It's all right, as long as you can get the meaning. Generally you'll be able to take your time if you're reading something. What's more important to most riders is that they can read a star chart, and you're quite good at that." Ilina was also good with praise, making him feel better about his half-hearted studies. She noted well that he was good with math too, estimations, weights, not necessarily reading the scripted numbers, but he learned those easily too.

"I just... I didn't want to be a fishmonger all my life, you know?" Ledalt said, sighed, and looked back at his simple word list. He wasn't really happy with how this made him feel, the letters were so squiggly, so difficult to remember!

"There's no shame in learning slowly, not all Holders even know how to write, and you're a much better student than some of them have been," Ilina winked, and sent him along one afternoon.

He'd be moved to a place called Aneris Weyr, he was curious now! What dragon might come to him? Only having been at Dragonhope for less than half a turn, he'd celebrated his first turning-day in a weyr, and decided he wanted to do so again for the rest of his life!

***

The evening was too warm to sleep, and Ledalt was nowhere near as comfortable as he'd like, when the call went up: the hatching? Now? Well now was better than never!

The last two eggs crashed into each other revealing a blue and a final green. The two headed in opposite directions but not the expected ones. The green seemed to sense who she needed quickly. That unseen force and need drove her to Ledalt .

The former fisher wanted to explode with joy and happiness. He had wanted a green, and here she was perfect and beautiful in every way. "Exactly what I was thinking, Saroth ," he responded aloud to her silent comment. He felt like his face would crack from the smile plastered upon it.

***

***

Green Saroth - Ledalt (L'dal)
Size: 24m
Personality: Determined
Sociability: Makes lots of friends
Traits: Has a better memory than normal
Likes: Rain
Dislikes: Being Idle
Mating: Likes blues
Other: N/A

Originally From: lake side community
Location size: seriously overpopulated
Location climate: rainy
Searched: as a young child