A Whole New World

Writers: Estelle, Iluva
Date Posted: 12th August 2025

Characters: Alyena, Zaidi, Kibra
Description: Zaidi arrives fresh off the Searchdragon, and Alyena gives her a debrief on what to expect
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 9, day 27 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: Jossenth, R'lor

Zaidi

From above, Dolphin Cove looked unbelievably surreal. There were so many dragons that Zaidi was certain you could walk across the backs of them from one side of the Weyr to the other without ever falling.

On the ground, however, looking at how high some of them wheeled, she quickly retracted the thought. A shiver rushed through her. That was a long way to go. How could she ever explain this place to her brothers? It seemed beyond her. She could only stare, her mouth stuck slightly open. If she was seeing this with her own two eyes and could barely believe it, they certainly never would. She didn't have the skill to draw, nor the proper words to describe aloud or scrawl it badly in a letter, and frankly it still wouldn't have done the place justice.

She could still feel the thick leather riding straps tight across her front as she followed the green's rider through a giant cavern entrance, down a corridor, past people who wore leather and some who wore very little of anything. Her eyes bulged, not knowing just where to look, and bumped into the rider with a yelp.

"Sorry." She mumbled.

"That's alright." The woman, Kibra, said with a smile, "The Headwoman's office is just in here. She'll get you set up."

Zaidi hesitated. "You mean... you're not...?"

"No," Kibra chuckled, "This is outside of my job, so it's where we part ways - for now, anyway. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around, this place isn't that big. Don't worry, she'll take good care of you. Alyena's the best kind."

Zaidi gulped the emotion down and nodded. She wasn't about to argue with the Searchrider; she wouldn't even know how at this point. "Yes, ma'am." After a beat, she remembered, "Thank you, ma'am!"

Kibra wrapped on the door much louder than Zaidi expected, the hollow thuds echoing all the way down the hall. She knocked hard, Zaidi thought, more like her father than her mother. "I'll go see if I can find her." Kibra said, leaving her there to clutch her little bag like it was a life raft in a storm.

A short time passed, in which several people walked by the Headwoman's office, some glancing at the little girl waiting there with curiosity, others brushing past, indifferent to her presence. One older bluerider carrying a pair of large leather satchels gave her an encouraging grin and a thumbs up. Then, at last, the Searchrider returned with a smaller woman, dressed more modestly than most of the weyrfolk in a long skirt and a light linen blouse. Her dark hair was braided neatly, and she had a folder of papers under one arm and a bunch of keys at her belt.

"You must be Zaidi." Her greeting was accompanied by a warm smile. "Welcome to Dolphin Cove Weyr, and congratulations on your Search. I'm Alyena, the Headwoman."

Zaidi breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Alyena. "Yes, ma'am!" She nodded, readjusting her bag and straightening up a little as if hoping to look taller than she was. She wanted to belong here, even if she wasn't entirely sure what, exactly, she would be belonging to. But that was something she'd have to wait and find out later. She was just happy the Headwoman was smiling at the sight of her and not indifferent, or worse - annoyed.

"I got Searched today. Just me." She sounded a little more unsure and a little less proud than when it first happened at her family's cothold. Still, she smiled wide, bouncing on her tiptoes for a moment.

"So I heard. It was brave of you to accept the Search, even though you had to come here alone. Jossenth has a large clutch on the Sands, and we want to give her hatchlings the very best choice of Candidates." Inwardly, Alyena felt a touch of unease to see such a young girl brought to the Weyr. She barely looked twelve, the minimum age for candidacy. What must her mother be feeling? But it was the dragonriders' business, and she kept her doubts to herself.

She unlocked her office door. "Why don't you come in and we'll have a chat? Then I'll show you to the Candidates' barracks where you'll be staying, and you can meet some of the others."

"Alrighty, ma'am." Zaidi hadn't thought it was overly brave exactly, not at the time, but... perhaps it was. She glanced down the hall where Kibra had disappeared, and it really only started to sink that she was here in this big new place by herself, at least until she found out on Hatching Day if it would stay that way. That had her scooting in behind Alyena almost as close as she'd followed after the Searchrider.

"Are, um, are there many Candidates my age?" She asked hopefully, looking curiously around the office space and then at the Headwoman. "Ma'am."

"You'll be - twelve? Yes. Mostly they're children of the Weyr who asked to become Candidates as soon as they were old enough. It's more unusual to be Searched at that age, but there are a few." Alyena put down her papers on the desk, but she chose instead to sit in one of the chair near the hearth she used for more informal meetings, and gestured to the other. "My daughter is your age, and although we live here now, she grew up in a hold. We both know what it's like to find yourself in a place that's so different from what you've known before."

"Yes, ma'am. I turned twelve in month seven." Zaidi replied. She scooted into the other chair, holding her bag loosely in her lap and tried to imagine this woman being unsure or uncertain of herself here. She couldn't, not quite, like trying to imagine her parents ever being children, but it was still comforting to hear.

"So, your daughter... she likes it here now? And you like it?" Zaidi wondered belatedly if that was a bold or inappropriate question, but she was dying to know the answer - to feel like firm ground wasn't as far away as it felt.

"Yes, we both like it very much. Though it does take some getting used to! But it's easier when you're young," Alyena said, remembering how quickly Evalya had settled in. "We have classes for our Candidates, to help those who are new to the Weyr get used to life here. I'm sure you'll feel at home in no time, but if you have any worries or questions that you'd rather not ask in class, you can always come to me or Weyrlingmaster R'lor."

Zaidi smiled and the tightness in her belly eased. Things were looking good. These were the exact kinds of things she needed to hear in an office that was almost twice as big as the room she shared with her sisters. She couldn't help looking around again, tracing the lines of the walls with her eyes.

Just how long it would take to adjust depended on just how much she had to adjust to - from the physical space itself, which wasn't even taking into account _dragons_, to the way people lived here. "Weyrlingmaster R'lor... Is he your husband?"

Alyena had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle a surprised laugh. "Oh, no. The Weyrlingmaster is a blue - a dragonrider. They don't get married, not in the same way as we do in the holds. You'll learn all about that soon." She was not sure how appropriate such knowledge was for girls of twelve or thirteen, but it didn't seem to have done Evalya any harm, and perhaps it was better than the ignorance she'd grown up in at Emerald Falls.

"As well as classes, all our Candidates help out with different tasks around the Weyr. There's chores, and the opportunity to learn new skills, or even apprentice to a craft," she explained, taking out a spare sheet of paper to make notes. "So that I can understand the best places to assign you to, maybe you can tell me a little about yourself? Something about your family, where you grew up, and what you like to do?"

Zaidi nodded like she understood. "Yes." Then she tapped her chin and tried not to look like someone who never had to describe her home to anyone before. "Well... Ma'am." She took a long, contemplative pause before saying, "My mama is from all the way up North, but I haven't been there yet. My papa grows tubers and beetroot and sometimes I help him pull weeds. But he doesn't let anyone help with the giggleleaf but grandpa. And _sometimes_ he tries to grow redfruits, even though everyone hates that. Even mama." Zaidi's lack of enthusiasm for that failed venture was plain. Then, realizing she ought to explain the physical layout of her cothold, too, so that the Headwoman would have everything she needed, Zaidi did, earnestly describing the rows of fields, the dense woods fencing the horizon. The half dozen metal roofs glinting between the trees that held a small colony of people.

"And then, on this side, grandpa and grandma's cabin is here, and then ours is waaay over here." Zaidi's hand shot to the right through the air. "It's far. But we're also the closest to the beach. My brothers and I like to go down and throw spears at the big packtails, and race to see who can gut ours the fastest." She did not say which of them usually won. "I also really like canines, ma'am."

"So do I," Alyena said, looking up as she made notes. "The beastcrafters here breed them, to train up for hunting or catching snakes." The battle to keep tunnelsnakes from devouring their stores was an endless one in the coastal Weyr. "Some folk keep them as pets - you'll see felines here, too, and firelizards, though they can be pests if they're not well trained. You don't have one, do you?" It wasn't unknown for newcomers from the coastal region, and every firelizard could be useful as a messenger or a snake-hunter.

Zaidi shook her head. "No. I'd really like one, though. My grandma has a brown, Gorri, but he's just kinda mean sometimes. And for no reason!" It was also still a little strange to think her family's canines weren't going to be underfoot anymore, and she could only hope that they didn't miss her too much while she was gone (or vice versa). "So, um. Do the beastcrafters let the Candidates help with them?"

"You can certainly be assigned to them for chores, although it'd be the master crafter who decides exactly what you do. For Candidates there's generally a lot of cleaning up, but that's true of most assignments," Alyena replied, a hint of amusement in her voice. "You also have the option to train in the craft more formally, as an apprentice. Most of the Weyr's crafters offer an introduction for new Candidates - you can try out several if you like. If that's something you'd be interested in, you can tell me and I'll arrange it. There's no need to decide now, though, if you want to take some time to get settled in first."

She thought for a moment, remembering something. "One thing you will need to do is to see one of the harpers. Some of the smaller holds we Search from don't have a full-time Harper, so they'll check if you need any extra lessons to catch up with writing and Teaching Ballads and such. It's nothing to worry about, most of the time those Candidates have practical skills the weyrbred ones don't, and you do get out of chores which most of them seem to be pleased about. They'll go over that in your classes." Putting her notes aside, she straightened. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask me? Or shall we go and find you a place in the barracks?"

Zaidi's head whirled so fast it was a wonder she didn't slip out of her seat a bit. The Headwoman told her not to worry, and the idea of actually getting to apprentice in a real craft tickled her pink ten times over. Yet simultaneously she never felt so behind in anything as she did now, so uncertain about what sort of life awaited her here. All because a dragon told her she'd do well in this place. A Harper had come to her family's cothold on occassion, maybe only enough to count on one hand if she tried, but surely that didn't count, and if she wasn't already baseline overwhelmed about everything, she might have tried to convince Alyena that she absolutely knew every one of her ballads and could do anything as long as it didn't involve a stylus.

Staring up at the Headwoman for a long, silent moment, Zaidi's brown eyes were asking all the questions she didn't know how to, and with each passing second she really didn't know how to start. "No, ma'am." So she shook her head emphatically and clumsily shouldered her bag. "I'm ready."

"All right. If you do think of anything, my door is always open to Candidates." Alyena could well understand how the young girl might be overwhelmed with all this new information; she'd experienced the same sensation herself when she'd arrived. She led the way out of the office and back towards the cavern entrance, pointing out a few important places on the way. "That's the way to the laundry - and that corridor takes you to the kitchens, although it's simpler to get to from the dining hall.. You won't have any trouble finding it at mealtimes, just follow the crowd! The Lower Caverns can be a bit of a warren, but if you're not sure where to go, just ask any of my staff and they'll help you find your way."

They emerged into the hot sunlight of the Weyrbowl and the Headwoman shaded her eyes, pointing to a pair of large stone buildings over to their left. "Over there are the barracks. The furthest one is for our weyrlings until their dragons are old enough to fly, and the nearer is where the Candidates live, unless they already have quarters in the Weyr itself." She started towards the nearer of the two buildings. "The weyrling barracks is empty at the moment, since our latest clutch just moved out into their own weyrs. So it'll be relatively peaceful for you until the next Hatching."

Beside her, Zaidi frantically tried to memorize every details before it slipped through her mind like water through a sieve. She listened as intently and walked as slowly (and closely) as she could without full-on tripping Alyena, hoping to stretch this part of the tour out a little longer. She'd only just gotten comfortable with the Headwoman, and it took staring right at the grey stone structures before she realized they were heading _into_ the barracks. That _she_ was.

Her stomach clenched, her heart trapped like a frantic avian in a cold fist.

What was she doing?

For the first time, the thought crashed over her -- she might have made a huge mistake. After all, she loved her brothers and they loved her and they _still_ found ways to aggravate her. What if the other candidates weren't friendly? Wouldn't help her? What if she _hated_ it here? Something told her she couldn't just go home now.

Zaidi dragged in a deep breath, then another, steadying herself. Most people seemed kind so far. Most likely someone would help her. She hoped they would. And if not, then Alyena would (she just needed to find her way back to her office first).

High above, dragons wheeled in more shades of blue than she knew the names for, lapis and aquamarine and royal blue so soft they looked like petals. Browns roosted along the ledges in umber and mahogany and copper, crowning the Weyrrim like living stone.

The high sunlight caught on bronze, the winking fields of it, burnished and pale. And there - her first glimmer of gold.

And everywhere, absolutely everywhere -- an overgrowth of life, a lushness crawling over stone in the living image of the forest itself. Not a forest Zaidi had grown up with, but a thousand living, breathing leaves, each with its own mind, its own heartbeat.

It was too much to take in. More like something out of her grandpa's stories than something real. Too impossible to believe.

And yet -- somehow -- it was already swallowing her whole.

Last updated on the September 2nd 2025

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