Cold rocks hold was no different. As Estukoth spiraled downward over the soft feilds, it seemed Amalasa was thrown back in time, when she was a young girl, weak, defensless..her cousin Paris coming to her in the night...she shivered and shook off the though. She hoped her dragon didn't notice, but her lifemate knew instantly.
    I will protect you Amalasa. She chimed.
    "I know you will, lovely." Amalasa whispered soothingly, to sooth herself as much as the emerald dragon. She looked down, and saw, to her horror, the very people she dreaded waiting for her. Paris, her cousin, and Iolan, his friend, stood smirking and watching her descent.
    Well, here it goes. She thought to herself, remembering the quiet girl that she had been. Time to show them the new Amalasa, the dragonrider!
    As Amalasa stepped down, all to aware of her revealing riding clothes, Paris greeted her warmly. "Hello." He said, sweeping her a bow. His face made her sick, and it still struck fear in her heart. "What a lovely dragon."
    Estukoth roared. Thank you Essy! Amalasa said silently to her dragon, doing her best to glare at the man who had raped her when she was only a girl.
    "Hello Paris, Iolan." She said, surprised at the coldness of her own voice. Oh yes, she was showing them. "Where is mother?"
    "She's down in the lower caverns, very sick." Paris smirked. "It's best not to wake her now, though she'll be glad you came. We can show you around your old home if you want, and you can get reaquainted--"
    "You listen to me Paris. I am telling you now, I will not put up with any of your nonsense. I am here strictly to see mother, not to see you, and if you stay away from me it will be better for both of us."
    Paris laughed and put his arm around her waist. "Oh come now Ama-" Amalasa didn't hesistate. With Estukoth to encourage her her foot shot out and caught Paris in the chins, catching him offgaurd and knocking him to the ground.
    "I am warning you." She replied and started towards the door. The sooner she saw her mother and got out of that place, the better. But she was proud of herself. She had finally stood up to them.
    Good job, rider mine. I think we struck fear into them. Estukoth told her.
    "Lower caverns." Amalasa muttered. She had to find her mother, see her, and leave.
    But it wasn't so easy as that. Her mother wanted her to stay, stay until the end, so stay she had too. Her mother wanted to see Estukoth and show her daughter all around the hold. Amalasa complied without complaining, she did love her mother and wanted her mother to see her as a dragonrider, but the other people of the hold wouldn't leave her alone. She gave them all her coldest attitude, but it didn't help, and actually only made matters worse. The  Rude Dragon Girl became subject of teasing.
    One night, she sat by herself, and Iolan came up to her. He walked rather unsteadily and looked drunk. He sat down across from her and banged his drink on the table.
    "Hello Amalasa, how are you?" He was clearly drunk. Shards, she didn't need this.
    "No better for your asking." She replied in her perfected tone of coldness.
    "Hey now, thats nothing to say to a childhood friend! I was merely making pleasant conversation."
    "I would hardly call you a friend."
    "Why do you act so coldy to everyone? You were born here Amalasa, like it or not, this is your home."
    "Cold Rocks Hold is dead to me. I am just here because my mother wishes to see me. In a few sevendays, I will be gone, and I will forget completely about this place." She stood to leave. Iolan stood too.
    "You're gonna just leave so rudely?" He reached for her arm, but tottered unsteadily. She jerked out of the way and kicked him in the chins. He didn't need that to fall to the ground, the wine had allready done the trick. Disgusted, she left the hall, leaving the laughter of Paris and his gang behind her.
    She wasn't really tired, but she returned to her chambers anyway. Thread was supposed to fall tonight, and she doubted she could sleep. Thread always awakened a sense of adventure in her. She and Estukoth had completed weyrling training at last, and though they were still a bit young, they would be fighting it in the wings of her Weyr soon.
    If she ever got out of this place.  The time here seemed to creep by. She was different now, oh so different from the weak child she had been, her coldness here surprised even her, but the place was still torture. More so now. The way Iolan eyed her...
    Amalasa! Amalasa jumped as she heard her dragon calling her. Rider mine, this is our chance! Thread will fall, and Falas Weyr has come to fight it. They called to me and asked us to join in the fight! They need every able bodied dragon they could find, and taht includes us!
    We are fighting thread? Amalasa shot back, excitedly getting up. Yes! This was their chance! Yes my love, I'm coming! She hurredly dressed in her riding gear. The noise of her movement woke her firelizard deaglow and he fluttered into the air and out into the hall. She didn't have time to worry about him.
    Rider's excitement mirrored dragon's as Amalasa hurried down the dark corridors of the hold, and outside into the night. Estukoth was waiting.
    We shall fly thread just like the others! Estukoth exclaimed excitedly. Hurry, rider mine!
    "I'm hurrying. We've got to get you firestone you know." It seemed the Falas riders had thought of that, and one had brought a sack of it to Estukoth. Amalasa fed her dragon the firestone eagerly. They were really going to fly thread now. Her dream of being a dragonrider was real.
    Of course it's real! Estokoth said.
    "Less talk more chewing." Amalasa said, glancing at the hold and tapping her foot.
    "Amalasa!" A voic came from within the hold that made Amalasa jump with surprise and anger. It was Iolan. Did he never give up? Her bronze firelizard fluttered in front of him and flew to her shoulder.
    "Iolan! Iolan you idiot what are you doing here?" Hopefully he'd had a few hours to sleep and sober up, but looking at him, it seemed doubtful.
    "I could ask you the same thing!!" He shot back angrilly. He was angry! Was he that much of a fool! Thread was falling, or going to, and here he was out in the night as if it were no big deal.
    "Did you not hear the warning!!! I guess you didn't...you were passed out drunk. " She shot back, climbing onto Estukoth's neck. He was not going to make her miss this.
    "Where are you going?" He demanded. "Surely you won't be leaving Amalasa. Your mother still lives. And we haven't gotten a chance to get reacquainted!"
     "Iolan get inside!" She yelled. "Thread falls you idiot!" She really had no time for this, no time for his flirting, or his stupidity.
    "Are you going to fight Thread?" He asked.
    "No, I'm just getting on Estukoth to go watch." Amalasa replied shortly. Was he really this dense?
     "Estukoth is a weyrling, she can't fly thread!" Iolan called back.
    "Shows how much you know!" Amalasa shouted. "She can fully well fly thread, and if you don't get inside, you'll get fried by it!"
    To Amalasa's dismay, he began to grin.  "And what would you do if I didn't go inside?"
    "Then I would think you were a pure blind fool!" She yelled back. Seeing the expression on his face, she let out an exasperated sigh.  "I don't have time for this! If you want to stay out here and get yourself killed by thread to impress me, then good! Get yourself killed!"  Surely, he was not serious. Surely, even if he was drunk, he was not that stupid. Why was he doing this to her!
    Dont worry about him, and let us fly! Estukoth spread her wings and raised them into the sky. She could see the wings of Falas Weyr, not her Weyr, but a friend.
    Silver-white Silverosth says welcome, we may join her wing. Estukoth informed her. Amalasa looked, amazed at the coloring on the silver-white dragon, and smiled, a bit nerviously at the rider.
    She had to time to marvel at the genetically-altered Falas Dragons or the fact that she was actually in a wing, she had a job to do. Estukoth flamed the air in front of her. I'm ready.
    They did not have long to wait. Most of the thread was at the front of the formation, but as the dragons flew closer, Amalasa and Estukoth had their chance to sear thread. There was something satisfying on being on the back of a flaming dragon, it was even more satisfying to see clumps of thread burn up in the flame.
    Amalasa chanced to glance toward the hold however, and nearly fell off of Estukoth. That idiot! That sharding fool!
    Send Deadglow after the deadglow. Estukoth said with satisfaction after flaming a patch of thread. Sending her bronze firelizard after Iolan, who was running across the feild to the dragons, was easier said then done, but the firelizard picked up on his rider's anger and dissapeared promptly between. It didn't matter though. The fool pushed passed Deadglow and kept running out towards them and thread. What in Farranth was he trying to prove?
    Many dragons wonder who that is. Estukoth reported.
    "Never met him before in my life." Amalasa muttered. "He's a sharding fool, thats who he is!" The rider of the silver-white looked at her questioningly. Amalasa shrugged, nearly falling as Estukoth swirved to dodge thread, and mouthed "I don't konw why he's doing this".
    Before her eyes, Iolan tripped and fell forward. It looked fake, but she couldn't tell. She could see the other dragonriders looking at her though, the man she was with before she took off, they probably thought he was her responsibility. Well, she supposed she was. "Help!" He cried.
    The wingleader wants us to go see if that sharding fool is all right. Another time, Amalasa would have laughed at her dragon's use of language, but now she was just mad. He had ruined it for her, and she hadn't done anything to him! Estukoth broke from the wing and circled around to the ground next to Iolan.
     "Iolan you crazy deadglow!" Amalasa yelled, jumping down. "I would have just left you there if the wingleader hadn't told me to go 'rescue that sharding fool'! A you still drunk, or are you that much of a dimglow? You just ruined my shot at flying with a weyr for the first time!" She couldn't have kept the anger out of her voice if she tried. After this, she wasn't sure who she hated more, Paris, or Iolan. At least Paris had some common sense!
  "Estokoth is only a weyrling, she's not old enough." Iolan replied. Estukoth roared at this. Weyrling!? Amalasa, why do we help this human?
    "Don't say something you don't know to be true!" She yelled, face white with anger. "We have completed weyrling training thank you very much, and Falas weyr thought her old enough to call her to help! Though thanks to you irresponsibility....uuuug, why must Cold Rocks Hold always hinder me son? Come on, can you get up?"
    "If I could, then I wouldn't have yelled for help now would I."
    'I don't know, your a crazy drunk dimglow, who knows why you could have called." She helped him, very roughly, to his feet. He struggled to limp back toward the hold, which now looked incredibly far away. Amalasa sighed as she watched him. With that limp, which might or might not be real, there was no way he could get back to the hold.
    "If you are faking this, I swear to Farranth...." She let the threat hang and looked up at the dragons. They had told her too, the irresponsible fool of a youth who couldn't keep people that she hated under controll. "Come on." She growled, pulling him towards Estukoth.  The green lowered her neck and Amalasa helped him--roughly, climb on behind her. When Estukoth took off, he grabbed hold of Amalasa to keep from falling off, and she stiffened. He never gives up does he?
     "That was fun." He said when they landed and she helped him down.
    "I'm hoping you can at least make it to an infirmary by yourself." She replied. Iolan grinned sheepishly.
    "Arrrrrrrrrrg." Amalasa growled. Iolan grinned.
    "That was awesome." He said as they slowly and painstakingly made their way down the corridors. "It must be awesome to be a dragonrider."
    "Mmm hmm."
    "I should try to be a dragonrider! That would be the life, riding a strong dragon, lots of willing greenriders..."
    Amalasa burst out laughing, shifting her weight and nearly causing Iolan to fall. "You? A dragonrider! Hah!" He wouldn't last two days as a dragonrider!
    "What?" Iolan demanded angrily. "How is that so funny?"
    "It just is." Amalasa replied amid laughter. "I've seen you, heard your father's grumbling. You only work in the fields when it's to impress women. You get drunk and pass out in the middle of the hall. You'd be laughed off the sands! Oh, I know dragonriders more arrogant than you, believe it or not, but at least they have dedication. Being a dragonrider is a whole lot more responsibility than you'll ever see in your entire life. You have to work hard."
    "I can work hard! You don't know how hard work in the fields is. I can work very hard if I wanted too. And it wouldn't be that hard to just fight thread."
    "Just fight thread? You think it's just about thread? 'Just fighting thread' is more of a responsibility than you can ever know, and not the only one! From the day you impress your dragon, you have to bathe and oil and feed it, and at first it can't even catch its own food, you have to prepare for it. I'd like to see you try that. That's why people like you aren't dragonriders."  Pern would be in trouble indeed if people like him were dragonriders.
 
 

    "...nice to see you again Amalasa my dear." The woman looked so small, so fragile, lying there. This woman had raised her as a child, if not well, cared for her.
    "I know life wasn't very ideal for you." She said. "Ideal for us, at this hold.  I'm surprised you came back at all, after what happened." Amalasa grimaced, remembering.  She didn't fear Paris any more though.  She had changed very much over the years. "I just wanted to see my dragonrider once before I...I..."
    "Shhh mother, it is all right."
    "Yes, it is all right now. I wanted to tell you, I'm sorry for all that happened, that I couldn't give you a better life at the hold. But you've made a life for yourself now, that is wonderful.  Return to it, my daughter." Amalasa took the womans hand.
    "I want to stay with you as long as I can." Until the end, she would stay with her mother.
    "No daughter. You want to leave the hold, and I don't blame you. Leave, and fight thread, and defend pern, and make my memory proud." The words were a dismissal. Amalasa's mother had always been a dictating person.
    "I love you mother." Amalasa said. "I will."
 
    And that was it. She was free to go. She felt shaken.  Her mother was gone. The past few sevendays had been painful, but perhaps necesarry, for her to see how much she had changed, for her to see that she had at last found a place in life, and she had no more reason to be here.
    She left that night, as quietly as possible, to aviod any more run ons with Iolan or Paris. Iolan had been acting...different, since that night, maybe he had finally gotten some sense, but she wanted nothing to do with him. His eyes on her, perhaps more than Paris, made her feel cold.
    You don't have to see any of them again. Estukoth reminded her. Your a draognrider now! Estukoth was an adult, she could go back to Dark Moon and fight thread, soon Estukoth would rise, and she could get back to her dragonrider life. Never would she be bothered by Cold Rocks Hold again.
    Or would she be?