Doll by Dolldivine / Azalea's Dolls

Flitter: Sedona

Name: Karys

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Origin: Holdbred, minor holder's child

Height: 5'8"

Build: slender, shapely

Skin: light tan

Hair: medium brown, very curly, to mid-back, often kept up in a loose tail/bun

Eyes: brown

Personality: hopeful

History: Before being searched for Sedona's sands, Karys was being groomed for her marriage to a Holder near hers. However, the qualities that any Search rider would be looking for - and certainly any that their dragon might sniff out - were ones which created a bit of friction in her household.

She'd learned all the finer points of embroidery (her garments were always sought after, the delicate stitching was expertly done!) and had a firm but knowledgeable hand at controlling the staff and servants. She knew a good amount of math and had a good memory for ballads.

She just didn't like being kept indoors. She was often scolded for running around in the mud as a child, after rainstorms. Or even just standing out in the rain. Her excuse was that it brought her closer to the world, she wanted to experience it first hand rather than hear dreary songs about it in the depths of the Hold. The skies called to her, she listened to the Harpers stories of Threadfall and dragons flights with far keener ears than the endless drone of Holder rights or peasant uprisings.

Karys felt sure that the skies would some day hold her closer. It was sweet of the Holder man she'd been sold off-... er, betrothed to, that he'd gone so far as to write a little tune about the sky. He was reasonably romantic, in fact. The letters that she'd gotten since she was fourteen turns old were sincere and well-penned. So of course when they were to meet, she expected a charming and handsome suitor.

Of course, when they met, he was a painfully shy, and unfortunately ugly man. To be fair, even Karys's mother was shocked at the teen's appearance (uneven teeth, badly kept hair, that bulbous nose that was echoed in his father and three of his brothers, and most of all those buggy eyes), but Karsen firmly put her foot down. Her daughter would marry him. He was worth a good bit of marks, and honestly appearances - so they said - weren't everything.

Karys let this go on for several years. They would write, and certainly Karys was still more than a little impressed by his frank and open letters. In one he apologized for not having told her of those unflattering features of his. In another, he hoped that he could find a flitter nest and send her an egg - he had a brown flit that he trained well enough to send messages to those in his own Hold - but since he'd only been to hers once he didn't feel comfortable trying to send him off for fear of losing him. Karys wrote back every time, she was hardly impolite, and really she was fond of him at least on a mental level.

When the Search riders landed in her Hold, Karys was overjoyed. Not because she'd be relieved of the duties that her betrothal would cost, but because she would finally reach the skies.

***

The hatching that afternoon was somewhat eventful, but not for Karys - at least, not until the little green snuck out of her shell and approached her. Karys had hardly noticed the presence of the dark colored hatchling, but then those brilliant eyes met hers. Hungry, a bit absent minded, but all kinds of happy to have found her One.

Karys and Morunth would be trained to fight Thread - and even as a weyrling the dragoness knew he duties thoroughly. From the air she could spot a Thread burrowing into fertile soil, and did her best to root it out and flame it.

The forgetfulness that the green had was a source of frequent hilarity, according to Karys. The dragon loved to nose into human activity, and ask bold, colorfully innocent questions. Karys took advantage of that to allow her to introduce her to new friends and the occasional new foe. Few people disliked Karys, but it looked as though the girl would still have a rival here and there.

When she found a nest of eggs herself, Karys thought instantly back to her betrothed. How was he? She'd been able to send him letters now and again, but with her training and the duties that a dragon rider had it was a rarity rather than the norm. She distributed the five eggs to those she felt would most appreciate them (a cook, a foster mother to half a dozen young children, and two weyr brats who would likely be searched and ride in their futures), but kept one for herself. It hatched into a deep blue, and she named him Nightsky. Shortly after this, and shortly after her first Threadfall upon returning to Albion for her final wing assignment, Karys set herself a course of action.

Since her own memory was quite keen, she sent Morunth between, and arrived in the sunny skies over Lewell's hold. Her betrothed was out among the fruit trees, as he often wrote about doing. It wasn't hard to spot him, anyone that saw Karys arrive looked in the same direction toward him. She realized he hadn't seen them come in, and since Morunth hadn't bugled loudly - rather she always gave a happy little twittering trill - he hadn't looked around. He was concentrating on getting a lemon out from its uncooperative resting place.

"I'd prefer an orange," she said, "lemons are much too... lemony!" They were his words, from an early letter. At that, he stood up stiffly and turned, buggy eyes under confused brows. "Hello, Lewell," Karys said with a smile.

It was a good thing that everyone else was too busy gawking and talking to Morunth, because he would surely have been too embarrassed to cry openly like that had anyone been there. "I... I thought you'd have forgotten me," he stammered. Karys shook her head.

"Hardly. That would be most unbecoming of a Lady, and I was always taught to be gracious."

"But you're a rider now," he said, looking at her riding gear. He saw over her shoulder and up a bit nearer the Hold's entrance, that green dragoness she'd bragged about in her scant letters. "What is it like?"

"Come find out," Karys said. She held her hand out, and Lewell looked at it with confusion. "Come with me, come to the Weyr with me."

"But... but I'm sure there are much better... suitors..."

"Lewell, you are still the man I knew," she laughed. "Come with me to the Weyr, stay with me. Honestly," she rolled her eyes, "the menfolk in the Wery are so coarse, some of them can't even read."

He'd taken her hand, but as they walked toward her dragon he almost balked. "Wait, you mean... you mean, stay with you? At Albion?"

"Of course," Karys said. "Though my dragon loves to flirt, you know that I'm not that type. She can find herself as many suitors as she wants, I've had you as mine and I like it that way." She knew he would try to make excuses as to why he couldn't, or shouldn't, and spoke again before he could voice those concerns. "I've spoken to the Headwoman at the Weyr, and she still needs good help. With those weyrbrats and people that can't write a proper letter, I've ... shown her some of your writing, she likes your style." His expression showed a precious mixture of surprise and dismay, and then pride.

"A steward, perhaps? Oh I'm much too ugly to greet people at the Weyr..."

"If you don't want to do that, you could still be her assistant. Taking notes, doing those inventories you say you like! It really is just like at a Hold, Lewell, it's just that there are dragons."

He would agree, of course, and after only a few sevendays they were handfasted - after half a decade of waiting and writing, and disconcerting interruptions! Morunth did finally bugle, though moments later she'd forgotten why...