At the age of 21 turns, she considers herself barely young enough to impress. But she has always lived in the weyr, fostered there from Dawnlight, rather than the other way around, when her brother became a problem there.
Her skills at math and reading are quite refined. She enjoys reading alone, and when she is in a group of Harpers, she rarely can be heard over them. Her voice is weak, she doesn't particularly like to sing at all in fact. Though she knows the ins and outs of the Weyr, how to run it and who has done so in the past, she would far rather remain a senior apprentice than have to face the Master harper and walk the tables to become a Journeyman. It would be too embarrassing to her...
But she does know the subjects. She knows when to bring in new workers, she knows when Thread is due to fall based on the drumming at the heights, and she has always had a fondness for the thought that someday she might become a rider, so she could share herself with just one other.
She's never found that one other, though she has been searched and stood upon Blackstone's sands twice before. While not exactly crushed, she made sure there was a lot of time between those candidacy stands. Enough time to make sure she had some hope... Once again, she's been searched, and once again, she will stand. But this will be her last time, she doesn't want to keep trying if no dragon will have her!
She did her best to slink by without being noticed, of course failing when one of her brother's disreputable friends came sauntering by.
Bronze rider N'ate sidled up to Jezebel and winked. "You're up late, I thought you Harpers liked getting your sleep."
"Beauty sleep is for Holder girls," Jez muttered. "But I wish I were asleep. Now that you guys are all back it'll be hours before the Weyr will be quiet enough to rest."
"Aww... Don't like all the noise?" N'ate jibed.
"Don't mind when it's daylight out, bronze rider. But tonight... I'm just beat. Done. Finished. Sealed and sanded."
"Your brother sends his regards," N'ate said, looking across the room at the blue rider.
"My brother sends people to my weyr, N'ate," Jezebel growled. "I don't want him sending me anything I didn't ask for."
N'ate looked to be communicating with his dragon, and then laughed. "Well, that's as may be. He's done really well in the wing, though, and he says you will too someday."
Jezebel looked across the crowded and rather dim dining hall to see her wild brother flailing his arms in the air, until some pair of drudge girls tossed themselves onto him.
Jezebel shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Too much klah..." She wanted to sink into the seat and sleep right there, but naturally N'ate and the other Screw Loose wingers had other plans. Since they had sustained only one very minor Threadscore, they were all up in a post-hysteric kind of way. Everyone was always elated when there weren't injuries.
What if she did someday impress? What if she were riding a dragon? She had long ago decided that her goal should never be a gold dragon. Those were for women of substance and pride. Which she obviously was not. A green or even a blue like her brother seemed more her speed, a nice small green...
She practically dozed off, before N'ate tapped her on her shoulder. He took her empty bowl of soup (she hadn't even remembered finishing it!) away and held her up in his lanky, strong arms. "Let's take you to your weyr, okay?"
"mmmkay," she muttered. The room's noise faded behind them, and Jezebel found herself being tucked into her cot by N'ate, kissed on her forehead and left in the quiet of her weyr at last.
***
In the morning, all too soon for Jezebel's taste, the wing assembled outside and blatted loudly with many dragon voices. They were announcing something, she knew. Something possibly other than just that they'd been almost injury free the night before. Fighting thread in the dark ... A shudder ran up Jezebel's spine. How dangerous!
Some might call it thrilling, but she called it crazy! So brave, those men and women on their dragons up there in the dark! Or during a storm! But she knew that in a storm, while Thread fall could be unpredictable, it was also stunted because water usually killed the Thread spore.
So many things contributed to the wing's performance. New riders, sickness, lack of sleep, wind conditions, how far they had to travel to get to the site of the Fall... Jezebel shook her head, wiping the sleep from her eyes, and gazed at the ceiling of her weyr.
Maybe she could stand, just once more. But she'd have to find a weyr that had the right dragons. She knew she wanted to get there early, as soon after a clutch was laid as possible. She had realized that the longer she could be near the eggs, perhaps, the more likely she was to impress. Had that been preventing her from impressing before? When she'd been shuttled away to one weyr and then another, only in time to watch the hatching and not impress?
Dressing slowly, but not wanting to miss her appointment with the Master Harper, Jezebel put on her finer clothing and her apprentice badge, and went down to the harpers chambers.
There were others waiting, probable candidates and some who would be awarded their journeymen's knots. Her stomach dropped like a stone: what if they wanted her to jump through hoops to become a Journeyman today!?
She drew in a breath and calmed herself. If she was called for that, she'd do it. Take the fear and stuff it down deep, deal with it later.
As it turned out, it was twofold, this meeting. A'rd, the search rider well known from Dawnlight Hold, lead search rider for the Protectorate, had found several likely candidates out there to spread around Pern. Now, he was waiting in the harper's office for more people to jump out at him.
And then of course, it was Jezebel's turn to begin reciting information. To begin singing. Oh how she hated that part! But her voice didn't give out completely, and her store of knowledge certainly didn't run dry! She recited a ballad she'd invented, which was designed to keep records straight and done in a prompt manner. Something that she'd been told to teach to the younger apprentices, who were going into records themselves.
Then, the elder Master harper bent his ear to listen to Jezebel explaining in great detail why she would make a fine Journeywoman.
It was so forced... She didn't believe a word of it. In truth, she wanted to tell him that she would remain an apprentice all her life if she had to. But... The words kept coming out of her mouth, far braver than her mind seemed to be.
At last, she ended her recitation of her worth. A'rd was still there, and his white eyebrow crooked up while he listened to his dragon. Then he said more to the harper than to his apprentice, "she'd actually make a much better weyrwoman than you think."
"I would NOT!" Jezebel gasped. The thought horrified her! "I would not make a good ANYTHING!" She turned and even before the Master harper could award her with the proper greeting fit for a journeywoman, she had bolted out the door and disappeared down the hallway.
Her tears obscured her vision, and she ran into someone in the hallway. It was not even close to coincidence that it was her brother M'cel.
"Slow down sis!" He said, holding on to her shoulders. "What is wrong? Why--"
"I don't want to go be a rider, I don't want to be anything but what I am now!" She tore away from him, but didn't run any farther. She panted, leaning on the wall. Her eyes were red, tears staining her face. M'cel went to wipe them off and Jezebel didn't resist him.
"You'd make a good rider. You remember, no one thought I could do it, but here I am. Still flying, haven't gone between or hit a mountain yet."
Jezebel snickered, and snorted back a sob.
"But you'd better listen to your superiors," M'cel added a moment later, he saw A'rd walking slowly toward them, and turned his sister around to face him. "A'rd, you take good care of my big sister."
"I don't feel big," she sniffled. "I feel like an idiot."
"Well, don't. Here, your Master told me to put this on you, and tell you to stop running from yourself." A'rd placed the knot of Journeyman Harper onto Jezebel's shoulder. He pinned it down, and nodded to himself. "There. Now you can run where you wish, anywhere you want."
Jezebel stared at him, and then down at her shoulder. It certainly did look ... good, there. She felt a wash of pride and shame at the same time go through her.
"I've acted so ... childish!" She sobbed. "Running away from Master Sholo. And you." A'rd smirked. Jezebel continued. "So I guess... Now that I'm a Journeywoman I can pretty much go with you anyway. Is... Is there a clutch somewhere that I should be looking out for?"
A'rd smiled, and M'cel laughed.
"Actually yes, at Talor Cliff." A'rd said. Jezebel's face drained white.
"Talor... is such a hard place to get into... It's ...Oh, I can't possibly stand there! They wouldn't have me! I would shrivel up on the sands and--"
"You would do just fine," A'rd said. "You WILL do just fine. When the time comes, there will be a dragon for you on the sands, and you'll do everything the way you're supposed to. In fact, we can even give you pointers on what to remember to do."
M'cel took his sister's hand, and A'rd led them away to her weyr, and helped her pack for Talor Cliff.