Katri was bathing one day, tired from a days work as searchrider, when she heard her green commenting something about blooding her kill. Having lived in the Weyr all of her life, Katri knew what this meant and was out of the water and pulling on her robes in a flash. "Sophenth!" She exclaimed. "It can't be time now!"
    Time for what?  Sophenth asked, following her rider out of her weyr and down to the feeding grounds.
    Several riders were allready assembled there, they knew it was time.
   I'm hungry. Sophenth alerted her rider.
    "Blood your kill." Katri told her, gritting her teeth in preperation for her dragon's protest. She looked around at the other riders, E'orl, H'man,, K'tay, T'orr, all watching and waiting.
    Sophenth screeched and founght her rider's will, but Katri struggled with her, insisting over and over that she should blood only, and finially the green did. After she had downed and drank full of her third buck she sprang into the sky, the assortment of blue's and browns only seconds behind her.
    Katri fought to keep her senses as her lifemate soured, but even with a green it was hard not to get caught up in the rush. The Katri on the ground was releived to see her fellow Searhrider's  blue Ineth sink, spent, but the Katri/Sophenth in the sky felt only the rush of flying freely, taunting her would-be suiters behind her. She was no great queen dragon, but she was much more agile then the blues and the browns after her and she could still taunt them.
    T'orr pushed his Brown Flanth harder in his mind, harder and harder still. He wanted his dragon to catch that green form in the sky. Ever since he had helped Katri become Searhrider, he had felt connected to her in some way. His Flanth flew out in front of the other chasers, near to Sopheth, T'orr cheered silently as his brown neared her...
    Shocked and outraged, Sophenth took a sudden dive to avoid her chaser, but she dived too low and tow fast towards the ground.
    "SOPHENTH!" Katri screamed frantically. She ran out in front of the cloud, through the circle of eager riders with their dragons still chasing her to get a better look at her plummeting dragon. No! Sophenth couldn't be hurt! T'orr rushed towards Katri.
    "Sophenth!" Katri cried with all of her love for her dragon ringing inside her frantic voice. Sophenth attempted to backwing out of the dive and hit the ground wiht less an impact than she would have had. "NO, Sophenth!" T'orr caught Katri and held her now weeping form back from running after her green.
        "She's all right, she's justt stunned." He told her reasuringly, and sure enough the green rose again, still caught up in the rush of the flight. "She's clumsy, just like me." Katri sighed. "Just like I used to be, I could have killed her."
    "You didn't!" T'orr assured her, just as a loud bugle from his Brown signified that he had caught the green. Katri stopped strugling in his arms. She looked up at T'orr with a new expression on her face.
    "It's okay." He told her. "Sophenth is all right, and soon she'll have a grand clutch of eggs."