Sahvii (sahh-VEE)

Her eldest brother would inherit the Hold and all it's lands, the vinyards and stables alike. Her eldest sister was already married and had been for several years, to a reasonable man with a reasonable plot of land for his own uses. Her next older sister was to be married to the less interesting of three brothers that had come to court - made the more suitable choice by the fact that the other two would get into violent sword fights when they were about town. And then there was Sahvii.

A beautiful girl, probably more than her sisters by far because of her shining platinum hair. The others in her family generally had light colored hair and dark skin like hers, but her great grandmother bore this white-haired trait. Along with another, one which Sahvii wasn't so pleased to carry.

Sahvii had learned to read and write along side her siblings, with a good Harper and a Scribe in the Hold because they really did need to keep track of things better than merely with verbal tales and tapestries. While she wasn't expected to marry a very wealthy man - though she could, being so beautiful fetched a lot of long gazes - she also wasn't expected to carry the Hold's duties particularly either. She enjoyed the fruits, and the wines they made. She even enjoyed the occasional romp with the runners to the distress of her seamstress and mother alike.

Then there was that one day, when she decided she didn't much care for being outdoors after all.

It was the day that the dragon riders had first flown past, her memory of the day was always going to be crystal clear. That day, her great grandmother's 'gift' awakened in her, and she felt the sting of a dragon being struck by Thread. Felt it. Heard it in her mind, the agony and distress. She was still outdoors, though Thread was falling nearby. There were others outside too, she was helping throw metal sheeting and sand-covered cloth on things they couldn't afford to lose. But the dragons were present, everyone knew they should be trusted to do their job well enough. The Hold paid its tithes on time, and often threw in wines for the riders.

But so painful was this mental contact, dragon to human, and so sudden, that she fell to the ground trying to scream. Nothing came out, not a sound but the rasp of her breath as if in a nightmare. Still out in the vinyards, on a warm day with few clouds, there were crawlers and flying bugs everywhere, the fruit being harvested would spoil and be left to them if not picked by then. The crawlers and spinners and flies, landed on her as did the leaves from the half-dried vines above.

The dragon who had been threadscored vanished between, never to appear again along with his rider who had most likely also sustained horrific wounds. But it was not with any amount of relief that Sahvii returned to the world of the living, when this violent death echoed away from her mind. She sat up to realize that a spinner was almost standing on her eyelid, and several grubby crawlers were inside her skirts. Shrieking, clawing at her hair and running as fast as she could through the straight lines of wine grapes, Sahvii arrived at the closed gates of the Hold, pounding on the doors.

Her mother tried to soothe her, she was only ten turns old at that time. Tried to show her the clean comb - just a few hairs loose but no bugs and no leaves - but Sahvii was still frantic. She sealed her shuttered windows for what would be the last time the next morning. The fantastic view of the snow-capped peaks in the distance, and the rolling hills covered with the rich grapes their Hold was known for, shut away in her mind as much as from sight.

Two years passed before she would approach the gates, but in those two years, something else happened to change her life as well. She met a servant girl who had been brought with her extended family into the Hold when her own had been washed away in a flood in the delta community she'd lived in below the mountains.

Ledina was at least as attractive as Sahvii, at least, the young Lady Holder thought so. Sahvii hadn't remained in her room all that time, in fact she thrived wandering the long, twisted corridors and the sometimes frightening disused caverns. She knew the ins and outs of the place very well indeed, traveling with a glow-stick in hand, like a lantern with glows shaking inside it at the end of a short wand. It gave off plenty of light - it helped shine on Ledina when she was at her worst, and brought her out of a kind of daze she'd been in for years since arriving.

Though Sahvii was a Lady in training, she had never had a problem with praise, or generosity. The girl, some had commented, would give away her own locks of hair if a child cried when theirs was shorn. So she knelt in the dim hallway near a crying figure, coaxed her into the light, and brought her back to her own chambers for a visit.

Ledina had been through hard times, it was obvious. But she was young - only a turn younger than Sahvii - and would adapt. Sahvii and she began exploring together, Ledina hardly expected to do much work around the Hold, as they hadn't even really noticed her slipping away. In a family of eleven with some others on board, her hands and strong back wouldn't really be missed. However, she and Sahvii were quite opposites when it came to large gatherings. Ledina was actually far more outgoing and pleasant among a crowd, while Sahvii tended to remain near the wall or the serving table to help hand out dishes. Doubtless because of her huge family, Sahvii realized, but they both valued time spent with just each other.

They found ways to amuse themselves in the Hold, such as sneaking into the vintner's chambers and taking tastes of the brewing wines or hiding in the rafters of the main hall when there were important men from other Holds present. Silent as mice, they would watch as maps were brought out, deals made, weddings planned.

Also in that time, Threadfall became more frequent. Ledina was shocked that her friend could hear dragons' voices, and tried to explain that almost everyone thought that was a great gift, not a curse. But Sahvii remained as far down in the depths of the Hold as she could, when she learned Threadfall was on the way. Thread meant dragons. Dragons meant pain. Her friend did all she could to comfort Sahvii, in those times. It cemented their friendship even more.

What Ledina appreciated most, though, was when Sahvii realized she couldn't read. Her fishing Hold wasn't poor but it was out of the way and Harpers hardly reached there more than a few times per Turn. Only two or three of her huge family knew how to read and write, most knew numbers and maths fairly well though. Ledina expressed curiosity about the scrolls and books found in various darkened chambers on their expeditions, and eventually, Sahvii began pulling some out off the dusty shelves, and reading them aloud. With a sand-pit available, Sahvii would challenge her friend to write out words once she'd learned the basics.

It had been going well, until one of the other Lord Holders came upon them as Ledina sat on the floor and her friend demonstrated what she'd learned about reading blueprints. They had both loved looking over drawings and illustrations of Holds and Halls, and the few graphics depicting Weyrs were of endless fascination as well. They'd begun trying to design their own keep - something incorporating the space of a Weyr, the functionality of a Hall, and the common areas of a Hold.

It wasn't that, which infuriated the Lord Holder, however - it was that Sahvii was supposed to be accepting his courting. She'd known there was a young Lord about, her mother mentioned him casually but not forcefully, and suggested that she be amenable to his advances. He was probably four turns older than she, putting him at around eighteen, and he was much bigger than either of the girls (probably put together). Furious that she would spurn his meeting requests to sit in the musty chambers babbling to a servant girl, he grabbed Sahvii's arm and pulled her into the hallway - and then returned to confront Ledina.

Watching in horror, Sahvii could do nothing but pummel his wide back, as he struck her friend. Ledina was badly bruised, when Sahvii finally dove between them, sternly staring at her would-be suitor and informing him of his errors.

She recieved a heavy slap across her face, sending her tumbling. And even though she had already been hurt and her eye was half swollen, Ledina bolted from the room into the Hall, to find someone to stop this madness.

In disbelief, both girls - complete with swollen cheeks and bruises across their bodies - stood before Sahvii's parents and watched as the boy was merely told not to interfere again. Not that he would be punished, not that he would be removed from the Hold, but that he would be told he was bad if he approached them again.

This obviously did not sit well with either of the girls. They weren't headstrong or wild, they were more interested in justice. Obviously, they wouldn't get that here, what with the young Lord Holder's father being wealthy enough to prevent it. Thus began a turn's worth of sneaking about, quiet avoidance, and grudging accomodation. Of course, the boy made every effort to put himself between them, on the sly naturally. He would sit near them at gatherings, walk between them if they happened upon each other in the hall, jostle his way around them purposefully hard when no one was watching.

So the last time that the dragons came, Ledina managed to pull Sahvii out from the darkened corridors and into the courtyard. "They're Searching," she whispered on the way, "they're Searching and if we get Searched we'll never have to deal with him again," Ledina pawed at her friend, who eventually strode up to the courtyard grass to stand among the others.

Under the overcast sky, with two dragons and their sturdy riders. Disparate not only because one was a dusty blue and the other a shining bronze, but they were clearly two different breeds. While Sahvii was still trying hard to shut her mind to their chatter (and they did chatter, those two dragons were talking to each other like mad, and it turned out the blue was actually female...) Ledina prodded her to wonder at how many different types of appearances there might be among dragon kind...

Sahvii had her eyes squinched shut, when the handsome bronze rider walked by. He glanced at Ledina who shrugged and smiled, but then cleared his throat. Sahvii shook her head quickly and opened her eyes, not even realizing she'd been doing so.

"Vesulth tells me you are trying to tell them to shut up," he chuckled. He had such a beautiful face, now this was a young man who could capture Sahvii's attentions if he wanted to. Of course, that happened all the time to him. "Now, why would you want them to do that?"

Sahvii paused, the dragons also paused. She glanced at them with just her dark red-brown eyes, and furrowed her white eyebrows. "I... have bad memories of dragons speaking."

She felt his bronze speedily conversing with not only his rider, but the blue dragon nearby. She felt - but didn't understand what was being said, it was too quick and too intimate. She closed her eyes again. "I just want to be alone," she said simply.

"A dragon means you'd never be alone, but you would be independent as well," said the female blue's rider, who was a young man. He'd approached after looking over the rest of the line of young Holdlings, stopped at Ledina and appraised her as worthy to Search.

Ledina whispered again, "it'd get us out of here, we could see a Weyr up close, those caverns and sands..."

Again Sahvii looked up to the bronze rider's eyes, "if you're Searching me, I suppose I accept, though it will take a lot of getting used to. So many dragons... so close."

"It's possible that with a dragon's mind bonded to yours," F'stan said, "your ability to hear others may fade a bit. I've heard of such a thing, in Dragonhope we've got a few like you. You'll get used to it. It's just like Holders chatter, really. You've never had the chance to learn to block it out like you would them," he tossed his head and glanced at a trio of Holder Ladies who were indeed some of the chattiest young women in the Hold - and Sahvii never even realized it until that moment. They did nothing but giggle and whisper and chide each other. Dragons, apparently, were quite similar.

So she and Ledina were Searched. It was to Aneris Weyr. They would stand, but to Dragonhope farther along the mountains that they would return if they Impressed. That suited both of them. As they packed up their few things, they chatted about how it would be made much easier to deal with life in a new place, with men like F'stan around...

***

Status: Lord's child
Age: 15
Gender: female
Siblings: 3
Born: last
Legitimacy: born in a happily married family
Childhood Health: sick occasionally like a normal child
Adult Height: an average-height person
Adult Build: thin as a twig
Skin Tone: dark brown
Hair Color: platinum blond
Hair Style: pulled into a braid
Hair Length: very long
Eye Color: rich red-brown
Literacy Level: are able to read and write fairly well
Politeness Level: as long as they know their place, they are polite and well mannered
Focus: they are continually distracted by the things around them - work? What's that?, yet that attention is often over-used in certain conditions
While their striking looks make some jealous, most are just attracted to them
They are known for being very giving and generous

Values and Goals
Hates: the unusual trait that they can hear dragons speaking
Hates: the Great Outdoors
Average goal: build or create
Extremely strong fear: bugs
Strong dislike: a Dragonry or Hatchery (only because of hearing dragons)
Is very happy with: being alone
Odd Skill (learned outside of craft if any): horse riding

Originally From: high mountain community
Location size: kind of large
Location climate: temperate
Searched: a few days ago