<Whew! Alone at last!> she thought. She looked off down the beach from the cliff where she had seated herself. A warm breeze blew into her face carrying with it the scent of salty sea air and fresh growing grasses. It ruffled her hair and for a moment she closed her eyes and pretended she was flying on a dragon.

Relena of Ruatha Hold had never seen the sea before she had gone to Bendan Hold. The trip there had been a long ride with the Traders caravan, watching the children and helping with the camp chores. She didn't mind the hard work, what she had minded was the press of people. There was always somebody around, she was never left to be by herself. After two weeks of it, Relena had been about to go stark raving crazy! It wasn't that they were bad, most of them were very nice peoplethey were just always there.

When she had arrived at Bendan Hold it hadn't gotten any better. Everyone was willing to show her around, she'd had children tugging her every which way, people slapping her on the back in greeting. She knew that they were all just trying to be friendly and show her that she was welcome there, but she wished they could have been a little less enthusiastic about it. After an evening of questions flying at her from every which direction, people crowding in around her and being loud and boisterous when she wasn't used to the noise, Relena had nearly grabbed all of her things and set out to walk back home. At least the walk there would be quiet. But then she would most probably have been caught out in threadfall and died. That would have been a silly way to die.

The next morning she'd woken up late! Then she'd been attacked by a horde of little ones loudly demanding that they be the ones to show her around the hold so she could get used to things. Relena had been given a very loud and disorganized tour with children shouting "my dad works there" or "this is where they make the wine but you can't go in there cause you'll get in the way." She had not had a moments peace in almost three weeks. Their voices grated at her like saltwater on an open wound. She just wanted to spen the day by herself, couldn't they see that?

That's when she'd struck upon the idea of rising early so that she could seek out the headwoman herself, get a list of necessary little chores she could do, like mending or sewing or gathering greens from the surrounding hills. The Headwoman had happily obliged her, seeing in this someone who wouldn't come bothering her later about some imagined slight or other trouble. She happily handed Relena a basket and instructed her to have at it. Relena had gathered up the basket of clothes set to be mended, a mending kit and something for lunch and set out to find herself a place along the hilly cliffs where no one would bother her. That was what she usually did at home, took a task outside with her where she could be by herself, and now she felt worlds better. It was blessedly quiet, there was no one else to bother her or try to make conversation with her and she felt like she could breathe again!

<It's beautiful here,> she thought of the ocean side. <I did not know that the ocean could be so big! I wonder how long it would take of swimming it, before one saw the other side. I may never want to leave this place.>

She looked out onto the ocean from hr cliff top spot and watched the seabirds dive and swoop in the high winds. The wind felt great blowing through her hair but it wasn't getting her mending done any faster.

<Maybe just a little farther down the beach,> she thought. <I'll go for another little walk and if I don't find the perfect spot in another fifteen minutes, I'll turn back and come back here. But first I'll just grab a bite to eat before I set about climbing over rocks again.>

She was getting dangerously close to Bendan Weyr, she might start running into people soon. She didn't want that. But it was such a nice day she couldn't help but explore a bit to see what she could see. There was a lovely breeze in her face the sun was warm but not unpleasantly so, it was one of those days where it made you feel that all was right with the world, even if it wasn't.

Suddenly a shadow passed by over her head. Whatever it was, it was big! Relena quickly looked up and saw the silhouette of a great bronze dragon soaring in the sky overhead. Her heart seemed to stop and her breath caught in her throat. He was winging his way over to a cliff nearby!

<I wonder if I would dare> she thought consideringly. Relena had never been anywhere near a dragon before. She had never seen one up close and she had always wanted to. It had been one of her secret dreams as a child, to go riding a'dragonback.

<This is likely the only chance I'll ever get to see one up close,> she thought. <If I don't take it now, I probably won't get another one.>

Her mind made up, Relena carefully climbed over the rocks and up the cliff a ways to where she had last seen the dragon land. Using all of the stealth she had acquired over her considerable turns of sneaking about silently through the hold (Back at Ruatha, they had nick-named her "the Ghost" because she seemingly popped up out of nowhere and disappeared just as quietly.) Not making a whisper of sound, Relena slowly eased her head up over the cliff face.

And there, spread out in all of his glory in a flat rock warmed by the sun, was the bronze dragon!

Her breath caught in her throat again and Relena felt tears swimming in her eyes.

<He's so beautiful!>

-Why thank you. You aren't bad either....for a human.-

"Eeep!" she cried in alarm. Relena could have sworn she just heard someone speak to her! She looked around, but didn't see anyone but the sleeping dragon.

"Excuse me, but did you just say something?" she said timidly, her voice barely above a whisper.

-Yes.- The dragon raised his head, and Relena realized that the head alone was larger than her whole body! One of its multi-faceted eyes opened and looked at her. Relena backed up a few paces in fear. Its eye was the size of her head! Bigger!

<Oh my, I did not realize that dragons were quite so large,> she thought in dismay and alarm. The teeth had to be larger than the Head Cooks biggest meat-cleaver!

-You don't need to be frightened of me,- said the bronze dragon. ­I'm harmless to everything but Thread and food-beasts.-

Relena got the feeling that he was sharing a joke with her so she gave a small, tremulous smile.

"I thought dragons could only talk to their riders," said Relena. That was what she had heard anyway, she didn't know if it was true or not.

-You can hear me can't you?-

"Ye-es," she said slowly.

-Then I can talk to you,- said the dragon as if it should be obvious. ­And since I can talk to you I don't suppose you'd mind scratching my eye ridges would you?-

Her? Come within scratching distance? Her? Touch a dragon? She'd always wanted to!

"Yes," she breathed, barely able to contain her excitement. Relena cautiously picked her way across the rocky, uneven ground over to where the bronze lay sprawled out in the sun. "Where's your itchy spot? Here?" She began scratching.

-A little to the lefta little lower. Ah! There's the spot!-

Relena could here the relief and pleasure in his mind voice. She half expected him to start moving his hind leg up and down like on of the pasture-dogs back at Ruatha. She grinned. This dragon wasn't so scary, if one could forget about the fact that he was large enough to swallow her whole. But a dragon wouldn't do that, they were there to protect her.

-That's right....besides, I'd never hear the end of it from Heero,- said the dragon.

"Well, I can't just run around calling you dragon," said Relena backing up so she could make a proper introduction. "My name's Relena," she said, curtseying gracefully, just as her mother had taught her to. "What's yours?"

-I'm Zeroth, my rider is Heero....but he isn't here right now.-

"Ah, well I'm delighted to meet you Zeroth, I've never been this close to a dragon before. I didn't know I could hear dragons."

-Oh, you should come to the weyr then. They'd like you.- said Zeroth. He didn't explain why they'd like her, only gave her a certain sense that they would.

"If you don't mind, Zeroth, I've got some mending that I need to do. Could I sit in your shadow while I sew? I promise I won't bother you."

-I wouldn't mind. You can bother me if you like, just scratch my eye ridges every once in a while.-

"Okay," she said.

Relena found a nice spot in the shade cast by Zeroth and settled in with her basket of clothes to be mended. Zeroth watched as she deftly threaded her sharpest needle and started working on a tear in the seam on the sleeve of a shirt. She carefully made tiny exact little stitches. Humming to her self as she worked. That was one of Relena's habits, humming. She would rather die by threadscore than have to sing in front of an audiencebut she would happily hum and sing to herself as long as no one was around to hear her. When she was finished you could not tell where her work ended and the original seam began, except for the color of the thread. She smiled in satisfaction, no one had ever been able to fault her work.

The next garment she plucked from the basket was a pair of canvas pants, tough as sail-cloth. They had a hole in one of the knees that was too large to simply mend by stitching. Relena held up the pants to study the problem. She was going to have to slice off the bottom half completely then make a new seam by re-sewing it back onto the top half and do the same to the other leg so they'd match. Maybe she could even make it look decorative <I'll use the Landman's Knot Stitch,> she decided. She hadn't seen it used a lot there at Bendan Hold, maybe it was a specialty of Ruatha. She set to work. Humming small snatches of tunes that she'd heard over the years.

The sun was almost at its zenith when she was done, she held up the pants to survey her work. They had been shortened so they probably wouldn't be going back to their original owners, but Relena had done such a fine job on the reparations it looked like they had been sewn that way on purpose.

-Better than the original!- said a voice agreeably.

"Aaack!" Relena squawked undignifiedly. She had completely forgotten that Zeroth was there. She'd been so absorbed in her work. Relena caught her breath.

"I forgot that you were there Zeroth, you were so quiet and I had my work here." Relena stretched muscles knotted from sitting still in one place for so long. Then stood and walked over to scratch Zeroths eye ridges, like she said she would. "I brought some lunch with me, would you like some Zeroth?" asked Relena.

-What is it?- he asked curiously.

"I have a half-loaf of bread, some butter and sweetening, two redfruits and a skin of water."

-Vegetable stuff,- said Zeroth, his mental tone indicating distaste.

Relena smiled and spread out her lunch on a nearby flat rock. She used her belt knife to cut the redfruits into exact sections and core out the middle, then she sliced some of the bread into thick round slices and smeared the butter and sweetening on it.

"You don't know what you're missing," said Relena taking a bite of the crisp cool redfruit, and a small bite of one of the slices of sweet bread. She snacked on her lunch and it was soon gone, she had saved some of the loaf just in case she was hungry later.

"Zeroth, let me ask you something," said Relena, as shyly and hesitantly as usual.

-I listen,- said Zeroth, as she scratched his eye ridges.

"Well, have you ever felt like you were going to be forced to marry, I mean against your will?"

-Dragons don't marry. We mate,- was his succinct reply.

"Oh, I didn't know that. It's not that I think my brother will force me to marry someone, because I know he won't. He doesn't like the idea of me being alone outside the hold let alone making a hold of my own. It's just thatI'm not sure that settling down and popping out child after child like all the other holder girls seem to want to do is really what I want from life," confessed Relena.

-Then don't,- said Zeroth. The answer seemed plain enough for him. One would not expect a wherry to swim with the shipfish, why then should Relena fly a current unsuited to her nature?

"But what would I do instead?" she said in distress. "I have no outstanding skills, only those required to run a hold and anyone could do that. I'm too old to be taken in as an apprentice"

Zeroth regarded the tiny woman before him with a feeling of supreme confusion. He'd known that humans could be funny creatures sometimes, his own rider being the exception of course, but this one was a mystery and a half. He could sense her distress, she was radiating waves of it, but he was puzzled as to what the cause might be.

-Find what makes you happy and do it,- said Zeroth, trying again to make her understand what he was saying. Maybe she was scrambling his words or something.

"There's really only one thing I've ever wanted to be since I was a small child and that's be a dragonrider, but I'd just as likely sprout dragon wings from my back and fly under my own power from here to Tillek!"

Zeroth tried to picture the little human with a pair of immense dragon wings and failed utterly.

"I'm going to grow up old and useless, then I'll become one of those spinster old Aunties drooling by the fireplace!" Relena finished with a small sob of distress.

-If the prospect makes you unhappy, then find something else you like more,- Zeroth tried again.

"That's just the problem," said Relena. "I can't think of anything else that I'm suitable for. I'm useless!" That's when she started sobbing into Zeroth's side. "I couldn't stop the Raiders from hurting my family! I couldn't keep Uncle Darlian from Going Away! I couldn't even run the Hold right until Noin came along! What will happen when no one wants me around anymore? I can't stand the press of people and they're sure to figure out that being surrounded by them scares me. They'll probably just tell me to go find somewhere else to live and then I won't be able to because I can't do anything that someone else can't do better and I might as well just stay out here and wait for thread to come and eat me!" she collapsed into sobs of distress.

-Now what sort of foolish talk is this?!- demanded Zeroth, hiding his alarm. ­You would not get eaten by thread because Heero and I flame it all from the sky. And why would they throw you out holdless? You seem like a very nice person to me.-

"You're right, I am being foolish," said Relena trying to calm her sobs. "But sometimes I just can't help it. I worry about my future, what will become of me and my time grows shorter. I'm almost eighteen right now, what happens when I reach my final majority and I have nothing useful to do with my life?"

Finally Zeroth understood why she was so upset. She was worried and scared about her future. She was also sad about her past and the recent death of someone close to her. (Zeroth wasn't sure how he knew that last part, it was just a feeling he got.)

-You are sad. The future has not happened yet, perhaps you will be presented with an opportunity that you cannot foresee right now.-

"You're right Zeroth, I shouldn't worry so much about it" she yawned, the crying and release of pent up emotions had left her feeling drained and now very sleepy. "Thank you," she said curling up on the ground beside the immense bronze dragon like a kitten curled up against its mother. "I've never really had a true friend before" she said and trailed off into sleep.

Zeroth caught all of the loneliness that came with that last statement, it came accompanied by images and emotions. Memories of her being too shy around strangers to talk, or to play and make friends with the other children in her hold. Memories of overhearing conversations from the other children as they talked about her, calling her spooky or strange, and sometimes even dim-glowed. Then of her thinking she'd finally found a friend, only to discover later that the girl had been using her and talking about her behind her back. She remembered being attacked for no reason that she could discern during the raid on her hold. The attack had left her with deep emotional wounds, and caused her to withdraw inside herself, except around her adopted father Uncle Darlian.

After the raid, Relena had simply not opened up to anyone anymore, she'd only get hurt again. Relena was far more comfortable away from people than around them, she even took her meals in private when she could. She didn't like being crowded. It brought back terrible memories from long ago.

Relena had spent most of her time out on the cliffs and ledges near her home sewing or reading or gathering herbs alone. And when thread fell she always found a safely hidden niche away from everyone and all the noise and worked by her self there, or read the fading remains of the ancient record in the hold records hall. She'd also spent a lot of time with the beasts in the beast hold, she'd felt more comfortable around animals than humans sometimes.

<It's too bad I'm not flying Search this Hatching,> thought Zeroth. <This one would make a perfect candidate for the queen egg.>

Zeroth protectively covered her with one wing to keep the sun from her eyes. He recalled a snatch of something Heero had told him one time, about how a lot of the best Weyrwomen had come from Ruathan blood. Perhaps there would be a way to get her onto the Hatching sands. He'd ask Heero about it later, for now, there was still plenty of good sunning time left. Zeroth laid his head down for a snooze.

"There you are Zeroth!" called the voice of his Rider, Heero. "I'd wondered what cliff you'd found to sun yourself on. It's quite a distance from the Weyr." Heero looked around, noticing the basket of mended clothes. "Have you taken to stealing clothing now? I can't say that the Weyrwoman's going to like that."

Heero agilely hauled himself up the last few feet of the climb. Zeroth looked over just in time to see the mussy-brown-haired head of his rider appear over the lip of the cliff. As usual the warm rush of happy feelings that accompanied when ever he first saw his rider and partner Heero welled up in him. Then he remembered the person sleeping under his wing.

-They aren't mine, they're hers,- said Zeroth indignantly. What would he want with peoples clothes anyways? H couldn't wear them and as far as he was concerned the hide was of no use without the meat inside of it.

"Oh they are eh? You know it's odd, I don't see anyone here," said Heero with an affectionate chuckle for his dragon.

-Hush, you'll wake her,- Zeroth cautioned his rider.

"I'll wake who?" Heero asked gamely.

-The girl,- replied Zeroth.

"What girl?" asked Heero, mystified, looking around. He didn't see any girl. His dragon could be remarkably cryptic at times.

-The girl under my wing.-

"What do you mean girl under your wing?"

Zeroth moved his wing aside slowly, trying not to stir the person sleeping in the soft grasses there.

"I still don't see...Oh." Heero looked down and for the first time in his life was simply awestruck by the sight of another person. The girl that Zeroth had been guarding had blonde hair the color of sun-ripened wheat fields and a face that had been tanned from the sun that was the loveliest tanned face he'd ever seen on a girl. He realized with a start that she must be about his age, she'd looked younger sleeping there. She wore a violet tunic with red embroidery along the seams, the colors of Ruatha Hold if he wasn't mistaken. The shirt under her tunic was a spotless white short-sleeved affair for the summer. She looked delicate, small and thin like a willow branch, but Heero could see the wiry muscles on her hands and arms. She obviously did her part, whatever it was she did. He looked for a shoulder cord or a badge to tell him where she was from or what she did for a living. He could find nothing.

-So who is she?- he asked silently of his dragon. Heero stood there gazing at her as if mesmerized.

-She said her name was Relena,- replied Zeroth. ­She's a very...unusual human.-

Heero's heart sank. She was the daughter of a Lord Holder, or the sister, Heero couldn't remember which. As such she was, what was that gambler phrase Duo used? "Too rich for his blood." Yes, that was it.

The sleeping form began to stir from the ground and yawn and stretch, almost like one of the weyr cats coming out from a nap. Heero looked down into two eyes of the most clear and luminous blue he'd ever seen. They reminded him of the sea on a perfect day.

Her mouth formed into a little round "O" of surprise.

She backed away, frightened. Then scrambled to her feet to keep out of his reach. Heero realized with a start that she was afraid of him! Her posture and expression betrayed alarm and wariness. Well she had no cause to fear a dragonrider, certainly.

Heero quickly moved to reassure her. She jumped back from him like he'd burned her.

"Perhaps you did not see my badge," he said, raising both hands to show her he carried no weapons. He turned to show her the badge on the shoulder of his riding leathers. Wingleader of Bendan. "I'm a Dragonrider, and the dragon you were sleeping under is Zeroth, my dragon." Heero tried to be as harmless and non-threatening as possible to reassure her.

"Is this true Zeroth?" she asked, just as if she had every right to expect an answer back.

-Yes,- said Zeroth simply.

"She can hear you?" questioned Heero in surprise. That didn't happen often, maybe one in every eight hundred had the empathy necessary to become a dragon rider. Out of those few, the odds of having the ability to hear all the dragons speak to one another were too small to count. It didn't crop up very often, but when it did the weyr usually snatched it up faster than a toddler grabbed a sweet. The ones with her ability almost always made impression, usually to a queen or bronze, and almost always made weyrleader or weyrwoman respectively.

Heero's mind was racing, she was the sister to Lord Holder Milliardo whose protectiveness of her was infamous....How in the name of the First Egg were they going to get Milliardo to part with his beloved sister? If they approached him and casually asked him to let her go flying straight into the face of danger and death, the good Lord Holder would probably have them all stuffed and mounted for their temerity.

-She's a bit of a timid thing isn't she?- Heero 'cast tightly to Zeroth after he'd been observing her still-wary behavior for a few minutes. Relena wasn't letting her guard down, and was keeping both eyes on him at all times. That was alright as far as Heero was concerned, she didn't have to open up a conversation for him to observe her.

-She has good reason, she has been hurt before,- explained Zeroth. ­She knows how to run a hold, she would make a good weyrwoman.-

-Let's not go jumping the gun Zeroth, she hasn't impressed yet,-Heero replied. -Hell, she hasn't even been Searched yet.-

-The eggs will hatch in another two weeks, we have time.-

-You're right, I think we ought to go slow with this one. It's a good thing it was us who found her. Duo would have scared her out of her hide.-

Heero got the sensation of low laughter within his mind. Zeroth was one of the cleverest dragons on Pern (in Heero's admittedly biased opinion). There was not a whole lot that he missed.

"I don't think I've told you my name. It's-"

"Heero." She said abruptly. He noted absently that she had a very pleasant voice, calm and reasonable.

"Oh, So I did say my name," said the wingleader. He didn't recall mentioning it

"Actually it was Zeroth," she said hesitantly. "He told me his rider's name was Heero."

"Oh, well he said your name was Relena, you're from Ruatha Hold up to the north and west correct?"

"Yes," she said her voice quiet yet carrying. She was ever so carefully sneaking over to where her basket of mended clothes was sitting right near him. Heero, seeing her move towards her basket, thought he'd help her out. In one smooth motion he picked up the basket of tattered clothes and offered it to her, arm outstretched.

Relena had started and backed away at his sudden movements. Clearly she was not the sort who trusted easily, or often. They had something in common already then.

At an encouraging sound from Zeroth Relena cautiously took a step towards him, and when he made no movements to harm her, took another. She moved with an unconscious ease and grace that a rider could appreciate. If she was from Ruatha, then she would have no troubles adjusting to riding adragonback.

Timidly she reached for the basket Heero held by the handle in his outstretched palm. Slowly, as if trying to keep as much distance between them as possible even while reaching for his hand, Relena took the basket from him and set it down near her feet. In a striking contrast to her earlier behavior, Relena now appeared confidant and not at all afraid.

It was as if Heero had passed some kind of test and had been judged "mostly harmless." Relena curtseyed elegantly to him and her manner became a little less reserved. Her voice firmed and took on a more regal quality that had not a touch of arrogance in it anywhere.

"Thank you, Heero," she said as she came up out of her curtsey. "I should return to the Hold for now, my mending is done."

"It was nice meeting you," he said politely, just as his foster mother had taught him to. "I hope I'll see around sometime." That part at least was very true. He had never seen or met anyone like her. She was a bundle of contrasts.

"I like to spend all the days that I can outside," she said. "I've never been near the ocean before, I can't get enough of it. I like it here at Bendan."

"Do you miss your home at Ruatha?"

"Not as much as I did earlier this morning," she answered honestly meeting his sapphire-blue eyes with azure ones of her own. For a split second Relena looked vaguely surprised by something. Suddenly Relena flashed a rare and dazzling smile at him and Heero felt a deep flash of....something shock through him. It wasn't painful, just highly unusual. He resisted the urge to swallow as his mouth suddenly went dry.

With a final whirl of her skirts, Relena was abruptly just...not there. Heero looked around. She was gone alright.

-Hn,- thought Zeroth. ­I wonder how she did that.-

-I wonder when I'll see her again,- Heero thought with unconscious longing. He knew that that night his dreams would be filled with eyes the color of the sea on a perfect day and hair the color of sun ripened wheat. He'd never dreamed of anything pleasant since the day....Nevermind. It still hurt too much to think about it.

Authors Note: well I hope you enjoyed part two, and I hope I made it worth your wait. As always I'm constantly working to get all of my projects finished and out there in a timely fashion.

~Nightheart.