Candidate at Thayor Weyr
At the age of 12 turns, she entered Dawnlight's Harper classes as a full apprentice to the recordskeeper. Her hand writing is flawless, effective and quick. She has a good eye for detail, and always remembers names and places.
By the time she was 17 turns, just a turn ago, she was a Journeywoman in the field. Her abilities have attracted the attentions of the Lord Holders, and she doesn't really know whether to like or dislike that.
Helene enjoys wearing comfortable clothing, but loves looking good in a fine dress. Because she is at the top of her field, she tends to draw in good wages, and has a number of outfits suitable for any occasion. Read on, to see why they will come in handy...
Helene has begun traveling and in her travels she was traded a fire lizard egg for her record works at a small sea hold. Amazingly, it hatched golden! She was so surprised and laughing when the queen hatched, that she decided to call the flitter Surprise.
The caravan she looked to join had a number of young children on it, gypsies and wary journeymen like herself. The children were eager to see what this tan skinned woman with the harper badge would give them in terms of stories and grand tales...
As they got on through the old well-traveled roads, they learned that her expertise wasn't what they had in mind at all.
"I don't want to learn figures! What would I need those for?" Cried out one young boy. "We don't even use Marks when we're on the road, we barter stuff!"
Helene rolled her eyes and sighed. "I know that, child, but you should learn if you ever come across a .... a... runner race!" She snapped her fingers. "Indeed!" The children's eyes lit up again. As the caravan swayed back and forth with the rolling wheels, the inside of the third wagon was alive with giggling and cheers.
One of the parents peeked in to see her child grasping two sticks with markings on them in one hand, and a little twine-and-stick 'runner' mockup in the other.
"I won! I won! And I got six marks instead of two!" he gasped.
With a careful and pride-filled grin on her full lips, Helene giggled, "my work here is done."
She was in love with it. She strode up to the Weyrhold's main courtyard and got a smart salute from the guards there. They looked at the young woman's two carry-bags and her Journeyman's knots, and one of them stepped down from his sheltered perch and picked up the bags.
"Looks like you'll be staying for a bit?" He asked, and Helene nodded.
"If your Master Harper or Records keeper needs help. If not, I'll... be moving on."
"Well you'll probably want to speak to the Holder, anyway," the other called out, and pointed toward the white-garbed white-haired man in question. He approached with a smooth gait and Helene stood with a respectful demeanor.
"Sir, I didn't expect to have you as a greeting party!" She said, and he gave Helene a brilliant smile.
"And why would I not want to greet such a well-recommended woman?" He said, mysteriously, and extended his arm. She took it, hesitating only a moment. Confusion ran through her mind. How could he have known she was on her way? She held her tongue about it until they had gotten into the tower above the courtyard, where Lord Holder Engell had his office. A large window opened over the rest of the Weyrhold, shaded and west-facing, the sea could be located some distance off, mostly by the haze and the sea-birds.
When Engell sat behind his huge black desk and looked at Helene, he finally pulled out a bound journal which had of all things her name upon the cover in small blocky print.
"You... You have a file on me?" Helene said, startled at last. "How?! Why?" Surprise on Helene's shoulder inflated to a bigger size (which wasn't much, she was never quite very large) and flapped her wings menacingly.
Engell held his fingers up for silence, without even moving his hand away from the file. He looked at it, glasses sliding down to the end of his nose. "I have files on many people," he said at last. "This one was actually sent to me from Dawnlight."
Helene's eyes grew wider, but then... She breathed out a long, slow sigh. "Deon never did like me much," she announced. She certainly could add, now couldn't she? Of all the people who could threaten Deon's grip on his Hold, it would be a Harper like herself. One who could -- and should -- copy ancient texts and scrolls.
And understand them, of course. With the blessing of the Harper Hall.
"They were apparently tremendously relieved when you chose to actually Journey, when you walked the tables for your craft. How fortunate for me that you've wandered here to Alabaster, instead of into some musty old hall." He smiled, and Helene didn't trust him a bit.
"You're one of those psychics, aren't you," she said, flatly. Engell actually blinked in surprise at that.
He blinked again, with a grin faintly on his lips. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Now, about why you should be here..."
Yet it was still more than a little thrilling for Helene to be going back to Dawnlight to actually spy on her old Lord! She chose a dress that indicated her Harper's status, and a pair of pendants which complimented her father's riding and mother's harpering as well. She'd grown darker tan in the beautiful sun at the nearby sea hold, and she'd learned to hold herself with more of her stately innate grace under the tutelege of Engell and his host.
It almost felt dirty, this guilty spying business she was in. But it was something she was so very good at! She dismounted the beautiful dragon that had escorted her to Dawnlight Hold, and kissed the rider on the cheek. He whispered "good luck, have fun."
"I don't need luck, and I'm always having fun. Can't you tell?" She grinned, and her face was a mask once more. She normally had a slightly bored, almost indifferent look on her face, but now she was the visiting Harper girl come home! Oh how nice it was to see this Lord or that Lady's daughter, this craft master and that other drudge she'd almost forgotten.
She had never quite forgotten how to walk upon shell shards around Deon though. When he arrived at the party the Hold was having, it was as if a damp towel had been thrown over a bright glow basket. The talk was less cheery, and certainly less open.
Leave it to that overweight, sweaty bastard, Helene thought, to ruin a good party. But she went to him and curtseyed, he took her hand and obliged her with a dance. She could actually feel the tension in his hands, as they did a quick step across the large stone dance floor. He hated women, she recalled. Just hated them. He owned a couple of them, she could tell by the looks on their faces as they danced past the lines of girls against the walls.
Helene wanted to wash her hands -- take a hot bath -- when the dance finished. It was a good thing that Engell had insisted that Surprise remain with him in Alabaster for this night. If she had been there, Helene's inner turmoil and disgust would be showing off like a, well, like an angry queen flitter!
"Thank you Lord Deon!" She panted, and scurried off to find anything to take her mind off the looks that the women were giving her. One of those ladies approached and Helene glared at her. "What do you want?"
"I want him to stay away from my son," she growled, "and if you've got any poison or perhaps a dagger I could slip between his shoulderblades I'd appreciate it."
"Your... you son?" Helene whispered, amber-orange eyes flickering from the woman, who couldn't have been more than thirty turns, to the pudgy man in the corner where his attendants kept people away from him. Any son of this woman couldn't be more than a dozen turns old at most. "Now that is almost as good as poison, my dear... Almost as good...."
The dark-skinned older man in the corner, who Helene barely noticed in the dark of the room at first, gave off an evil chuckle and a broad, white-toothed smile. "He could accidentally be mistaken for some other child molester, Engell, I myself would greatly enjoy--"
"I know what you would enjoy, Kalkin, keep that out of this conversation. It's bad enough." Engell snapped, and Kalkin gave a little sneer before turning back to trying to kill the plant in the corner just by staring at it.
Before Engell could say anything more, however, a knock at the door was followed by a rush of air as it opened directly. A white-haired but young looking rider burst into the room, grinning wildly. "Search rider, says everyone comes!" He gasped, and darted out of the room before the already-angered Engell could chastise him.
Engell waved at Helene. "If there is a search rider, they do always get preferred treatment. And you are still adequately young enough," he glanced at her file and knew that the turn she'd spent with them had gone by all too fast, "to stand on the sands. Go. I'll ... figure out what to do with that despicable tyrant later."
Helene made her way down to the courtyard with some hesitation. She had hoped for something more... Immediate. Something swift and dangerous and hard, something that the people of Dawnlight would remember for centuries to come.
Something that Kalkin would do to him, that you couldn't talk about in public. Something that you told your children about in hushed, vague terms to keep them in line.
But that apparently was not going to happen, and Helene felt for the first time like she had failed in her mission to give Engell the dirt on his competitors. Listlessly, she stood by the doors of the Hall itself, as the dragon on Search sniffed at the others.
Helene had been sniffed and ignored by several Search dragons here before, as well as two at Dawnlight when she still lived there. She knew that her father's blood was strong in her, but she also felt it only gave her the edge in her work. A ferocity that dragon riders had, only focused on her spycraft.
So when the big blue dragon from Thayor Weyr continued to snuffle at her, she finally came out of her reverie and looked at the whirling eyes before her.
"And you're... Helene?" Said the rider. She nodded weakly. Something felt different. Very different, inside her head. It wasn't just the flitter on her shoulder freaking out trying to keep the blue from knocking her off with his warm breath, it was something deeper.
"She'll have to come with us," the rider announced. "To Thayor. We've got our searched candidate, sir..." Helene blinked and looked to see Engell standing in the doorway. He didn't look altogether pleased, but he didn't look tremendously surprised, either. His dark shadow Kalkin behind him, on the other hand, seemed as pleased as if his own dragon had searched her. Didn't he have a dragon? What was his problem?
She snapped her attention back on the search rider. "I can't go with you! I've got work here!"
"On the contrary, Helene," Lord Engell said, calmly and with a sort of resigned sigh. "You do need to go with him. What would happen if the eggs on their sands were to hatch without you standing on them? And one egg would be left riderless?"
"But... There are people in the stands! There are always more deserving weyr bred brats waiting for their chance! Have them stand!" Helene was almost desperate. But it wasn't Engell's calming hand on her shoulder that did the trick for her. It was some other dragon that did.
A tiny, tiny blue dragon landed, having blipped between and bringing cold air with him. The dragon was hardly a quarter of the size of the fully grown blue search dragon, next to him. It was Sixth, Kalkin's odd dragon. He chirped like a flitter, letting off a long series of squawks and warbles, and even Surprise chirped back. Kalkin tossed his head and muttered, "go ahead. Just try and keep it private."
It appeared the dragon had spoken to him, but not mentally. Of that, Helene was oddly sure. How could she have known? The chittering was almost like language, and...
You should go! If my rider had not been upon the sands when I hatched... I do not know what I would do. I would have died. If you want to stay here, you will have to come back with a dragon! That would be very nice! A fine green --
"Sixth! Stop that!" Kalkin said, holding his temple with one long finger, and bearing a mix of a grimace and a grin on his face. "You've GOT to let him try for more greens, Engell... This has to stop... He's flirting with her and she hasn't even gone to the sands yet..."
The thoughts that sprang through Helene's mind were dramatically wrong. If she impressed at all... if she got a green -- and Sixth -- and Kalkin? He must have been a fine looking young man -- now over seventy -- and besides he was Engell's interrogator! HAH! No match in her mind even with a dragon aiding them would ...
Helene leaned against the marble wall of the Weyrhold, and looked to the sky. It was a warm afternoon, and that didn't help a bit. Her flushed cheeks grew red, but then she finally stood and pressed her hand onto Sixth's nose. Then she went to the search dragon.
"Okay. If you say so. But only once. If I stand and don't impress, I'm not going to try again." She turned to Engell and he nodded. He'd keep that promise, if she couldn't get a search rider to ignore her a second time... She'd heard such terrible stories of girls coming away three, four times without Impressing... one of them had even commited suicide because of it. She wouldn't be one of those.
Gathering her things took a bit of time, and effort, since Surprise was constantly warring with her, flying off with a sock or a scarf, when Helene was trying to pack it away.
Finally, she put on her serious face, her mask for all occasions. And left her comfortable spy business.
They have a wing for you, you know... Sixth bespoke her, clearly from far off, So you won't be alone here when you come back!!