Bree - Senior Harper and Queen Rider for Blackstone/Dawnlight

Age - 40, rider since age 17

Husband - Adlari, drummer

No children

Sisters - Therbre, Aubree

Parents - R'iel, blue rider, Reen, harper

Gold Usodorith - hatched at Talor Cliff 17th hatching (closed)

Has never had an official flight (online), but (unofficially) has flown with browns and one bronze, clutches never having a gold and never more than 10 eggs. Usodorith is almost as much bonded to Adlari at this point, as she is to Bree, as their love for one another is endless and strong.

"Do you know the way there?" Bree asked, and Usodorith tossed her great head.

Of course I do. I know everything.

Adlari sputtered a laugh at that, and Usodorith trumpeted. She knew the way because she'd been shown, and she did not forget such things. Ryslen, no longer a weyr - Talor, her home no longer even existing.... Such changes did not really phase the great queen. She spread her wide wings, and lept into the air with the ease her age and experience gave her.

Usodorith was not a young dragon, indeed, she was more than twenty years old. But that put her firmly in her prime, according to most Blackstone riders.

There is something I wish to do for you first, before we really get going.... Usodorith bespoke, carefully, to her bond only. Bree leaned in, and equally in private, asked what it was.

I wish to pick your sisters up, so they may be at my clutch. I know I will have a good clutch, I feel it in my soul - you told me about souls...

"I did," Bree said aloud, "but what - they can't, you know that, they're much too old."

"Who's much too old?" Asked the blackhaired man seated snugly behind Bree on their specially made flying pads.

".... She wants to have my sisters at the hatching she's sure to have." Bree stated.

But I did not tell you why it would be hard - and I wanted to keep it secret. The dragon's mental voice felt tangy with annoyance.

Secrets are never good, not around dragons, you know that.... It would get out anyway. Now, what's this big thing you want to do?

You have not seen them in many years.

But I know they're there.

Do you? The way Usodorith bespoke made Bree feel quite uncomfortable.

She felt out for her sisters. They were as much triplets as clones but still just sisters. So much alike... And in ways very different indeed. Aubree had her head in the stars, but was such a good speaker she was brought to Blackstone to be their liason for 'offworld' contacts. And Therbre, she'd gone into hiding sometime before the Protectorate moved, and...

A tingling fear in Bree's gut brought another snort from the soaring dragon. You see? You have not really insisted on contacting them for too long. I know where they are.

And I know when to find them, at their best.

Bree's hands tightened around the harness, but she said nothing. This dragon of hers meant to bend time as well as space. Well fine with her. Just fine. She'd been headstrong and annoying for months - probably just her major pain of proddiness coming on too strongly - and so this was how she would ...

"Sweet," Adlari said, into Bree's ear, "calm down. You're making the poor flitter nervous. Brown Mixy was fluttering on Adlari's shoulder, clinging to him and holding on to his hair with red whirling eyes.

"Sorry, sorry. She's got this plan, and I guess we've got to go along with it. But - how are we supposed to do this? You've got to sign up for the flight, and we've got to find you proper suitors!" Bree was worried now.

But it will be all right. I told you, I can feel it.

"FINE!" Bree said, and Adlari knew it was just the nerves of this flight. They would have to locate the right kinds of dragons - Usodorith was picky anyway. But they needed to be of the right bent - old world, they called these dragons on Alskyr, those from another time and place. Where colors meant more than they seemed to on the world if islands, where rank seemed to shift seasonally when one queen rose or did not rise.

How this bizarre request to locate two long-lost sisters would complicate things, was another matter.

***

It was night, over the Alskyran isle of Paniya. Deeply so. Insects hummed in the warmth, the moons shone down weakly - the humidity in the air was stifling. Aubree woke again and again, unable to stay asleep. Something gnawed at her mind, the way that her daughter Yoshi had done before she was born. A strong telepath, that girl. Like Bree.

Why would she suddenly think of her older sister just now? How odd. They had grown apart over the years, rather too easily than any of them wanted to admit. Bree became a rider, married to her drummer love. Ther just up and left. Aubree was swept away by a certain blue rider, L'ren, important to the Blackstone line - and had stayed with him since long before they moved to Alskyr. Yoshi came as a surprise, of course - every healer they'd spoken to said she couldn't have children.

It was therefore quite odd, then, that Yoshi came walking in to her mother's room at that moment.

"Mother, there is someone outside to see you. Father knows them, but I do not." The golden-haired and fair skinned girl slung her finger through a curl, and waited for her mother to dress. What was L'ren doing up this late, anyway? This was all too odd.

"You see this is why you can't just - ah, there you are. Sorry, honey." L'ren said. There were two people near him, standing in shadow. Everything was in shadow, tonight.

".... Bree?" Aubree said, pushing past her tall daughter. "BREE!" The sisters squealed at one another, doing a hugging dance. Then, as they parted, Bree looked at the teenaged daughter of her sister - a girl that she'd only faintly been aware of being born.

Bree turned to the darkness behind her, and said, "you see? This is a terrible idea. If you do what you planned to, I wouldn't have a niece. Do you want that?"

Aubree and Yoshi heard a movement outside, on the ledge. L'ren's blue Keath was dwarfed by the gold there. They were of the same breed, Talor, but of different clutches. The gold sniffed at this girl, who stood her ground and was hardly ready to bolt.

She will do then. I wanted you, Usodorith nudged her muzzle at Aubree, but you will not come back the right way.

"Do I even want to know?" Aubree asked, and Bree shook her head.

"We will come back here shortly," Bree said to her niece. "If you wish, pack some things up and get ready to stand.

"... For a dragon? You've come here at one in the morning to search me?" Yoshi said, incredulous even though she was sure it was right.

I wanted your mother, but you are even better - your father is a rider too. Good. Usodorith was getting jumpier and snootier by the moment, and Bree didn't want to waste any more time like this. Their next journey would be a longer, harder one, and one which Bree was hardly prepared for.

***

The sun shone down on a bleak area of Pern, scrub land barely given to sprout half the crops that were needed to support a group of people the size of Eden's Gate, let alone the two new children that were on the way in a month or more. Therbre stood in contemplative silence. Her pale golden hair stirred in the wind, but only dust rose - no crops.

"Staring at it won't make it grow," one of the older men of the little private outlaw village said, sagely. "I read that in a comic book, but it's still true..." He wandered away, his mind had wandered long before Therbre had arrived there. Something odd tingled in the young woman's mind. Her eyes stung, and she grew cold suddenly. In fact, she almost felt like throwing up - like it felt when Aubree was in labor - and then it was over.

Furrowing her pale eyebrows, Therbre turned to look into the sky instead of at their failing crops. And there, in the bold light of day, was a dragon flying down from the clouds. The sun was looming, as was the red star, and the winds of change suddenly blasted the girl.

Hardly more than eighteen, Therbre had run from her life in Dawnlight shortly after Bree bonded to the gold which landed before her now. She'd found a life that she could do what she wanted to - teach - and did it without 'permissions' from the Lords and Holders.

But here was a dragon, fine and strong, and much bigger than she'd imagined. Bree had shown off once or twice, but was kept so busy at the weyr that she hardly ever had time for her sisters or family - just like their father, in fact.

"You're back," Therbre started to say, but when Bree jumped down from the big harness saddle she noticed several things. Her sister had aged - a lot - and she carried with her a young girl just shy of Therbre's own age, who might have passed for yet another sister of theirs if not for her striking nose and hourglass figure.

"I'm ... back, yes," Bree said, slightly gasping. She was pale, and chilled, from the tremendous effort of flying from Alskyr to two decades prior on another planet. How Usodorith knew where to find Therbre was beyond the woman - and she didn't much care either. This dragon was about to rise, and all she could think about was getting her sisters to the clutch?!

There needed to be no words exchanged. In a moment, the experienced Bree had transferred almost everything she knew - history, time travel, everything - to her sister who was far more receptive to such things than Aubree was. Therbre nodded once.

"I'll get my things. This will be an interesting flight..."

***

Finally arriving at Ryslen, the group got off of the big gold and was mostly relieved when Jeyann came rushing up to them.

"You're here, excellent. Should we start -"

"You should start finding beasts for Uso to blood," Bree said, holding her head with two fingers, and tightly gripping Adlari's hand. "She's just about to fly, and I can't possibly tell you what to do. We've been all over creation just this last hour, and I'm going to need to be alone with my husband."

She began to drag Adlari away, when Jeyann noticed the pair of girls standing bewildered and with their gear.

"I'll assume you want them here," she called out, "and you might want to take the riding harness off your dragon before she flies!"

"YOU DO IT!" Bree shouted back, half joking, but more than half meaning it. She forced herself to calm down long enough to telepathically urge her sister to tell Jeyann some things.

Therbre got an odd look on her face - "is that what this is like?" She said, quietly - she felt the overwhelming sensation of proddy gold, Usodorith was glowing so strongly it was a wonder anyone could tell the sun wasn't up. "She wants to have a more traditional flight, um, weyrwoman," she faltered, not knowing what the title of the leader here would be, since this was apparently 'not' a weyr (how could it not be a weyr? look at it! it's a volcano! it's got dragons!... that were pink, and glittery, and... oh my...), "so if there is a way of making sure the males know who is and is not welcome to chase her, I'd do it fast."

Jeyann stammered a moment, and then fortunately, Mezireth took over for her. Broadly telling the local males to either clear out or find their 'traditional' counterparts. Those who were from old blood lines - and she added for good measure that the males needed to be large, and strong, and preferably experienced.

"And they might want to remember that she's married," Therbre added a moment after she felt the dragon give those instructions. "She's got a partner, the rider, right?" Her mind searched for the dragon's, and Jeyann almost exploded. One didn't do that, jumping in on someone else's dragon, did they?

But it was important, and it was urgent, so she allowed it. What else could she do?

As the pair of girls were escorted to the dorm halls, and the queen rider and her husband were sequestered away, Jeyann wondered aloud if her mother really wished this kind of thing on her, or if it just came with the territory?