"Mother." Faralona said with a sigh. Her mother Forra ignored her blissfully, still pinning and sewing on the hem of the dress that Faralona modeled. "Mother," she said a little more aggressively. Finally, with no effect there, she added a turn and put her fists upon her narrow hips. "Mo-THER!"

"Hold still dear, the dress won't make itself."

Fuming, Faralona was very tempted to just yank the skirt away and leap from the box she stood upon. Instead, she chose to glower at the back of her mother's flaxen haired head until she could take no more.

"Mother, I'm not going to wear this."

"Of course you are," Forra said with her teeth gritted around another pair of pins. "You'll look wonderful at the gather."

"But mother I won't be able to ride that runner there, and it'll be impossible to chase that dimglow colt around in this. I can't wear it to the gather!" She said, flustered. But at that notion, her mother stood up and removed the pins from her mouth.

"You will go to that gather and look nice there." Her voice told Faralona that she meant it. But that was beside the point - because Faralona did too.

"Mother, I'm going to the gather to sell that runner and her colt, not to find a husband. For the last time, I'm wearing my normal clothing." Faralona stepped down from the box, and so-so-so wanted to yank the dress off herself and throw it down. But she knew how much work Forra had put into it.

"Look," Faralona said, holding her hands up, "I - for the last time - am not interested in getting married off! I'm ... I just don't - want to!"

"What you want and what you're going to get are different things, Fara!" Her mother yelled, losing her temper at last. While she was normally quite sedate, Faralona often brought out the worst in her. In fact, Faralona brought out the worst in everyone. She was always in scuffles and fights, and not just little ones. Spats with the other drudge children and perhaps the herder folk Forra was prepared to deal with. But too often, Faralona got mixed up with some of the younger Holders - their superiors. If it went too far, Forra was worried that they'd wind up being penalized or even sent away for her behavior. They could not afford that.

"Faralona, you are going to marry eventually, and you need to find yourself a man who will put up with you. They're not going to let you wear men's clothing, nor parade about as though you were more skilled as they! They're men! They have egos - but they also have the money and the power around here!"

While some of the words that her mother spoke might have been true, Faralona understood only one thing: that she was being mocked, and being married off would kill her as surely as a dragon turned thread to ash.

She growled and spun, "mother you don't understand at all!"

"I understand that you're a young woman, and you're in a cothold that can afford a little leeway now and again... But with your father away and your brother too young to work much-"

"Marry him off," Fara hissed, "he's cute, at least he 'gets' to wear men's clothing!"

And with that, Fara stormed away into the barn. The runners there knew her moods, and reacted to them. At least they knew to remain steady and wary instead of angry or reflecting her own dark anger. She calmed herself by mucking their stalls, knowing after many, many incidents similar to this that her fury might as well be directed at something constructive instead of just having to do it later after a hard cry or stomping about.

Faralona knew that everything in her life was slightly different than her mother imagined it to be. She was not the pretty young lass that her parents expected - though she was not ugly by any means she was never said to be the good looking daughter of poor Holders servants. Their family was small, which was fortunate because their very minor lordling could hardly afford to put all his own sons into attractive gather wear, let alone pay well enough for servants to do the same. He would host the runner races, he would certainly entertain, and take in tythes good enough for the weyr. But his wife was stingy with her stipend, and prefered to spend elsewhere than at her own cothold's gathers.

The dress that Fara's mother was making for her had been something that she'd saved up for, buying material when she could, using it sparingly in the creation and mending of other ...

"Oh, shards, she'll be furious," Faralona looked down at her new, unfinished dress. It was covered from hem to knee in stall grime, the elbows were black already, and her bottom had brushed against the wooden stall frame and gotten hay on it. Even if Fara's anger was directed somewhat at the dress, she knew better than to think her mother would allow all this hard work - and hard earned cloth - to be treated this way.

"But this is how it would look once I got the runners to the gather, anyway," Faralona said, absently looking at the two mares they weren't selling, "it's an example of what hard work looks like."

And that wasn't fair, Faralona knew her mother had come from a family lower even than it was now, working hard to gain the ability to attend directly to the Lady Holder. "Some Lady," Fara muttered, getting back to sweeping, "dies with but one girl born and no male heir, while her husband's out wooing a young merchant." That merchant became his wife but a few months later, of course - and only because she knew servants work herself, did she care to keep the current staff.

By the time Faralona had mostly blown off her anger, the stable was practically spotless. One could never say it was perfectly clean of course, but everything was in its place, the mares were brushed, their stalls filled with fresh hay, oats in their buckets, fresh water and the floor was still beading with its own dousing. Her dress could be cleaned, in fact she knew she'd have to be the one to do it.

But it was the thought of that single, eldest girl that kept Faralona going most of the time. They were almost the same age, Fara was less than a year younger, and had only heard of the family history around the dinner table now and then. She knew that the girl was put upon at best, especially at gather time, when her brothers were the ones ready to marry into wealth.

Radyll, Radzat and Rodop were little terrors, half Faralona's age, and twice as feisty. One year apart almost to the day, at eight, nine and ten, they pestered their dark-haired sister Polldyn like goats baiting a watchwher. Not - Faralona chuckled as she considered that metaphor - that Poll looked anything like a wher! She sighed, Polldyn was pretty, but not beautiful and not boyish like herself. She had big dark eyes, just like her nearly-black hair. Her brothers inherited their father's pale hair and eyes, what with their own mother's blond and green oh-so-much prettier than Polly's mother had supposedly been.

Anyone who listened to the inner-hold's drudges knew what they thought of Polldyn's mother. And of her. Of course, they often said disparaging things about Faralona too, which caused those fights she was apt to get into.

Why, one time, Farlona recalled while she was sulking up to her quarters to change and wash the dress, the boys in the hold wanted to play 'rescue the Lady from Thread'. Faralona - older than they, but still only the oldest of the boys had been around for this - offered to play the bronze rider of the dragon wing!

They laughed so hard, the boys... Why, girls weren't allowed to ride bronzes. So, she countered, she'd come on a gold queen, burning thread just the same with her flame thrower!

Polldyn laughed and cheered, when Fara displayed (with sounds and motion) the act of 'slaying' all that Thread. The boys moved on. The girls remained together. So what if she couldn't ride a bronze - queens were more important. They were the heart of weyrs.

Males always came and went. Men. Dragons. It didn't matter to Faralona. Her own father had had an affair with some other traveling merchant, everyone knew. In fact there was talk of at least one other sibling out there, older than Lourn, with this other woman. And yet, Faralona knew him to be the most possessive, angry and domineering man in the cothold. He'd come home, though he'd never beat his wife, he certainly yelled. At least, he'd never beaten Forra while Feralona had seen him.

Males were the worst thing that Faralona could imagine. They were ... so... full of themselves. Of course, many of the women folk she knew had those same traits. She knew of two children that had almost been beaten to death by their own mother, she had to be locked away.

But they held no interest to her, even now. She'd been in her womanhood for four years, and though she'd developed physically she never once considered a young man to be worth looking at.

She'd rather look at runners, actually. And appraise them, keep them healthy and clean and ready to run or pull. It was an appreciation that her mother insisted was the 'same thing' that she ought to apply to pick-a-suitor. Keep them fed! Keep them clothed! Keep them happy by bending to their will!

Just as she'd insisted earlier in the day. It was the men who had 'everything'.

Sullenly she washed the gown. It really was pretty - it would look gorgeous on Polldyn. In fact... Faralona blinked, and cleaned more carefully. She should give it to her. Poll would love it, she wasn't all completely lost on things the way Fara was, she liked girly dress-ups, now and then. But she also was very, very clear that she liked Faralona as her prince, as her thread-fighter, as her ...

As her what, husband?

Perhaps. Faralona's throat developed a lump. As she cleaned and dried the dress, picking out the tiny splinters that had appeared where her rump bumped into the stall posts, she wondered. What did they call ... well, they didn't call women anything. They called loose women whores. They called good women chaste. But both of those required the use and abuse of men.

What did they call it when it was another woman that she loved?

***

"It's a travesty, that's what it is," Landry bellowed. His wife meekly cringed with every syllable. Lourn had tried to bolt from the room already but his father had slammed his fist on the table and glared, so the boy hunched in his seat glaring right back at Faralona. Fara's eyes met no one's. She stared at the center of the table, trying to keep calm. If she tried to move, even to sip her water, her father became even louder.

"I love her, I'm not sorry," Faralona said, simply.

"You will be," Landry growled, pushing away from the table. Unexpectedly, simply because he'd never done it before, he gripped his daughter's arm with his huge hand, and pulled her to her feet. "You'll marry who I tell you to, and it'll be a man and not some - some - freak woman!"

"That freak woman is the Lord Holder's daughter," Faralona growled, her eyes growing narrow and hard just like her father's. He was not a tall man, but he was hugely built, with hands used to holding tools and wood, chains and hauling lumber from the rare protected forests into holds like this. Faralona wouldn't be as big as he, she had her mother's build. But her face resembled his just now, more than ever. Her eyes were green, his were amber, neither were ready to flinch away.

Until Landry pulled back his massive hand and struck his daughter across the face. Even though it was hardly a full strength blow it sent her sprawling and into the wall. At that, Lourn did bolt from his seat, terrified. He was only seven, after all, hardly one to hold his own in a situation like this. Forra trembled, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Landry -" she whispererd, but dared not say another word.

"Even if you've got a good welt on your face, you'll go to this gather this time and you'll get it right." Landry towered over his daughter who'd crumpled on the floor more in surprise than in pain. True, it did hurt - a lot - and was going to leave a huge bruise for days. But that he'd done it, that was too much. "The runners be damned, you are going to marry before you're eighteen, and you'll marry who I tell you to! Get to your cot, little wench, and get ready for the gather tomorrow. I'll hear nothing from you about this Holder slut of yours."

Faralona saw her mother's eyes peal open, if anyone had heard him say that they might all be banished from the cothold entirely! Even if the girl wasn't popular, she was still the eldest of the family!

Faralona paused, wondering if she should push her luck and remain on the floor against her father's wishes. But the anger balled up in his fists and the power behind those thick digits told her she'd best not disobey this time. She stood and wobbled a bit, she could already feel the sting of the black mark that would be rising over the next hour under her eye. Her whole cheek burned, but her face was red with anger, not with shame.

As she passed into the hallway stairs, she dared a glance back at the table, where her father hadn't turned so his back was to her. "So this is what it's like to live in one of those families. Karu and Katall were right, I'd rather not have a man in my life, like they'd rather not have a mother. If a man does this." She indicated her face to her mother, glaring, and Forra looked away to see whether her husband was going to turn on their daughter.

He did not follow her, but Faralona could hear them - well, him - arguing late into the night about her behavior.

How it was so 'wrong', how it was 'against nature' and all manner of idiocy. What did it matter who you loved, when it was returned? When a man wanted a woman and she didn't like his advances, he was sad - and if Polldyn had ever refused to be around Faralona she'd surely have felt the same way. They were not just 'best friends', they were not quite lovers, but both knew that that would be where this led. They'd kissed once or twice, almost by accident the first time, but later in earnest in private.

If Landry knew that... he might have ...

Faralona drew in a deep breath, blinked away the tears of pain and anger that had developed in her big green eyes, and began to silently choose what to pack away.

***

The gather days were overcast, which was good. But still bright, still untouched by Thread and attended by what appeared to be an entire Hold full of travelers. Why would anyone even want to come through here? Faralona wondered to herself as she gazed at them from their plot of land. Their stables and farm was just under the kitchen side of the Hold, the best place for good runners, actually, with solid land and good drainage. It was a plot that grew good tubers, but little else than grass and perhaps a quick growing shade tree. Trees certainly did grow fast here.

Thread had scarred the land hundreds of years before, they all knew it. But now, there was a weyr that protected it. They had brought grubs from the South, tilling the soil until it yeilded results, and then keeping track of progress on turning the land from barren to lively by sheer physical effort.

Faralona had known the jutting hills and wide plateaus all her life, and knew them from runnerback as well as foot paths. A pair of rice fields bordered the last village, with the water drainage all ending up there it was likely nothing but rice and tall-grass would grow there anyway. The stand of fruit trees to the north belonged to the Lords, fields of grasses and oats mixed with the other grains that fed the rest of the cothold. Life here wasn't bad. It just wasn't perfect either.

It was no rich-man's Hold. There were four Lordlings with large plots of land split up, all related men whose great-grandfather was their only tie. One was usually absent entirely, and his lands were essentially taken over by the others. The hold itself was split too, but it was Polldyn's family who officially ran the place. It wouldn't be too long before the other two elderly Lords gave up their parcels - but they might not give them to Razeltar either. That kept everyone on edge. So those loyal to him threw better parties. Good gathers. The elderly men had families who had either deserted them long before, died in tragic 'accidents', or been Searched and never came back from a weyr. They were of no true consequence to the next generation of Lordlings here.

Unless they managed to sell off their portions of the Hold to someone who wished to be there.

And it just so happened that one man did. Faralona heard talk of him even before the gather had started, several sevendays before. Talk had run to worry - would he be so rich that he'd be able to oust all the lords? Or just the old man - maybe the second?

But one rumor she'd heard suddenly came back to Faralona as she started walking around. In her pretty dress (which had to be taken back from Polldyn - her step mother all but threw it at Forra to get her out of there), she didn't bother hiding her huge blackened cheek, instead she strutted around like it was a Threadscore on a bronze rider.

The rumor had it that her father had introduced the old Lord Heuro to the younger one, named Juden. Could it be that he wanted in on ... Oh, of course. Their money. He was selling her. To get this man into their Hold. So he could have a place of status.

"Hey, isn't that Landry's girl?" Someone said, she didn't know the voice right off. It was a man, and for some reason that made her angrier than ever.

"I am actually Forra's girl, Landry was so good to give me this beautiful welt last night, doesn't it go with this butter-cream dress of mine?" She mockingly yelled, twirling around like a giddy girl only with a fierce mask on her face.

The trio of young travelers who had been to this Hold before (they knew her as the girl that rode runners, primarily, and had respected her if distantly, until that moment) exchanged looks with one another, and faded quickly into the crowd. Faralona grew more angry by the moment, with the scornful looks that people were giving her.

What right did they have to even look at her? To see her like this, embarrassed and bruised by her own family? She heard them snickering, she heard them muttering as she passed. Did they not see she had ears? Did they think she was deaf?

"Come get me, Faralona the prize, offered for only ... how much gold did you say you had sir? Did I see gemstones in that bag?"

She went on like this for half an hour before her father heard her. And then, it was as though the Red Star descended upon her itself. He literally dragged her, hauling her over his shoulder as she screamed and kicked at him, up to their hut. Forra was out with Lourn thankfully, when they got there. He foisted her onto the kitchen table like a sack of grain, but held her shoulder down so she could not rise.

"Faralona, you will hear these words once from me and I swear by the Red Star if you cross me again I will bind you to your seat to make you appear calm." He was eerily not at the same angry tone he'd been the day before, this rage was tempered with something Faralona realized was desperation. "You will sit before Lord Juden and you will obey his every request. You will dance with him - or for him if he asks it of you. You will be silent and not speak a word - and you will not ever mention money."

Faralona, still pinned to the table and at a serious disadvantage should Landry decide to pummel her with his free hand, said listslessly, "but that is what this is about, is it not, father? It's all about your getting money for me to be some house-bitch for a man I've never met. Hit me if you want. Tie me up if you have to. I won't marry him."

She was only mildly surprised to find his free hand had gotten around her slender neck. He held his fingers there, hard and rough from their work, but he did not squeeze. Instead, he merely stood there for a moment, said, "you will," and then let go of her.

"Get your hair back into a bun," he asserted, "and wait by the kitchen lift near the Hold. If I see you at that gather again, like that, ..."

"You'll kill me? What, and lose your precious money?" She spat. She knew that baiting him, like the night before, could lead to a very dangerous and final confrontation. But now she felt like nothing at all mattered. Nothing. Not who she was, not who she loved, nothing.

She was empty of all feeling, when she turned to go to her room. She heard him exit the hut but since he could hardly bar the door from the outside he merely stomped away.

Breathing out slowly, Faralona picked up her step to the room she'd had all her life, and then rooted out the small pack of clothing that she had secreted away while 'getting ready' the night before. She had to go, she couldn't take this. But before she vanished entirely, she had to say good bye to Polldyn.

***

The steps to Polldyn's room were rather steep but Faralona's feet were sure on them as they had always been. They grew up together, these girls, there was no place that Fara couldn't find her ... her ...

"Fara!" Polldyn gasped, when she saw her friend at the door of her private chamber. "What happened to you?!"

"I hoped you'd be here," Faralona said, listless and flatly, "if you'd been out at the gather already I don't know what I would have done." She dropped her hands, they were empty - she'd already set up one of the mares with riding gear and snuck her out to the back end of the runner's grazing field. A fortunately fallen branch from a tree blocked whatever view a casual glance might yield, that there was a runner out there alone. "I have to go, Polly, I have to leave. My father is ..."

"Your father did this, didn't he," Polldyn said, hesitating to touch Faralona's face. "Oh Fara, I can feel it - it's so hot even from not even touching it..." Tears brewed in the girl's black eyes, but Faralona's were still dry.

"He knows that I love you, he thinks it's a travesty against nature," Faralona said. "... I do love you, Polly. I can't not love you. That can never change. No matter what happens. He wants me to marry that man old Holder Huero is selling his plot to, I'm sure of it." She took a shaking, long breath, and added, "you know I don't want to marry ... anyone but you. I love you."

"But - But - I love you too," Polldyn said. Her slender figure was a shadow that moved to embrace the light. Faralona stood almost stiffly until they touched, and then she had to fight from breaking down entirely. She allowed the tears to come, hot on Polly's tall shoulder. But she could not afford anything more. She fiercely embraced the girl she'd loved since they met almost fifteen years before, and then pushed away. She looked to the side, anywhere but those hurt, dark eyes.

"I can't be here, I can't stay here, or he'll probably want to hurt you too. The - the things he said, Polly, I ... I can't even repeat them."

Polldyn sucked in a breath and bit her full lip. "My step mother has said such things, I think. But never to me. I think she tries turning my father against me, with them."

"Well I don't want to let that happen," Faralona snapped suddenly, "I will come back, Polly. I will come here and ... and I'll take you away on my dragon. Remember?" Now she sobbed, "Remember how we played?"

They fell into each other's arms again, the only sounds were muffled by their shoulders, neither wanted to let go. But shortly Faralona did have to let go. She had to steal away, with hot tears dropping to the stone floor and lingering - the only thing Polldyn had left of her lover.

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