She is the oldest of eight children, two brothers and five sisters follow her around the Caer halls. Her mother, shall we say, is exhausted, and is happy that at least some of the loud little critters leave to follow their older sister around. Zanzibar tolerates their presence with a broad smile. She is used to tending plants, animals, and her siblings with equal amounts of time devoted to them all.
Mother Zivlesi has taught Zanzibar all she knows about planting and harvesting, though the new terrain at Alskyr has changed some of the ways and means of their trade. Father Bainar is a part time goat herd, most-time weaver. He enjoys teaching the children his work, mostly because when they work, he doesn't have to. Zanzibar's work ethic mostly comes from her mother.
Her other siblings are Baran, Zanislav (pronounced zan-i-slaff), Rabizi, Zain, Rasli, Zizi and Bavin, from ages 15 to 4. Zanislav and Bavin are the only boys in the family. She is closest to Zizi, aged 6, and to Baran, aged 15. While she loves all her siblings she is distant from Zanislav, feeling the boy's jealousy from the moment they were able to compete. Though he is four years younger than she is, he makes a formidible opponent in mind games.
Zanzibar wonders if the Search rider could have made a mistake, as she was searched out from among many of the common workers in the Caer. Normally used to selecting grains and other such sundries and planting them alongside the workers, Zanzibar could easily have a craft Journeymanship in farmwork. She enjoys days free of any threats to the Caer, as it gives her time to think about what to plant and how best to use the narrow strip of soil that the Caer has access to for its small garden needs.
Zanzibar is a careful, sensible young woman. She knows the dragons will save her crops, and respects them and their riders greatly. She will more likely than not be chosen by a Green dragon, but if a Gold takes her she will accept this with grace and humility.
"I think you're wrong," said meek Rabizi. "She does a lot more work than you think. It takes time and effort to tend the herds." Though she was young, Rabizi's words rang true. Even her older brother had to admit that much.
He chomped on the grass, until it was just fibers and pulp. Absently, he plucked another, and worked it between his teeth.
"You shouldn't chew the grass like a goat," Baran said, knocking her brother on the head with her walking stick. "You'll wind up looking like one."
"He already acts like one! Baaah! Baah!" Zizi enthusiastically added, running to and fro. Where she'd come from was a mystery to the boy, he thought it was just the "middle three", himself, Baran and Rabizi, out tending the goats today. It probably meant that Zanzibar was closer by than he wanted. She might even have overheard him.
"Zizi, calm down, come back here..." Sighed Zanzibar, as she hiked over the steep hill. She saw her brother, and the other two, and as she panted from the climb, she waved at them. "Sorry -- she got away from me. Any of you ever want to have children, you think about her first..."
Baran let out a laughing snort, and very nearly bonked their brother on the head again, just for good measure. Rabizi walked up to their eldest sister and quietly said, "Zanislav says you won't ride good. I think he's wrong."
"... I ..." Zanzibar blinked at the bright-eyed girl. "I think you're both wrong. I don't know if I belong on a dragon at all," she glanced at Zanislav, "but I think if I do, I'll be able to do it well enough."
"We've got no riders blood in our lineage," Zanislav flatly stated. "Ever. None of mom's family, not one of father's, not a one." The air of challenge went between the boy and his sister. Their siblings stayed clear of both of them when they were like this.
"I think, Slav, that if the ancients believed it took a rider to ride and no one else, there would never have been dragon riders at all." Zanzibar turned, her beaded hair making little click-clak sounds. She gently grasped Zizi's hand, not tugging her along by the wrist like her brother would have done, and went back down the trail to the gardens.
"Oh, THAT went well," Baran said, walking off to catch her own stray goat.
Zanislav had to agree.
***
Zivlesi sat next to a bin of seedlings, cheerfully talking to them in a quiet voice. She spruced up each one, gave it a tiny bit of water, and patted the rich soil around it. She paused when she heard Zanzibar enter the garden house.
Her panting told Zivlesi that her eldest daughter had been on the hill, but her quiet sniffling told her volumes otherwise. That boy... Slav could never just keep his mouth shut. True to form, Zanzibar entered the seedling hothouse, and bade Zizi to go back to her thread spinning. The girl wanted to remain, but Zanzibar's serious look sobered the excitable girl, and she did as she was asked.
"You've such a way with her," Zivlesi said, with a motherly smile upon her dark skinned face.
"Thank you, mother," Zanzibar said. She was trying to continue hiding her distress, but it didn't work for long under the steady gaze of those vibrant green eyes that Zanzibar had inherited. She didn't believe that she could ever match her mother's wisdom through those eyes, though.
"What did he do now?" Zivlesi asked, almost in passing, while she dug at another pot of soil and seeds.
"I'll never be a proper rider," Zanzibar said, as she handed her mother a packet of spinach seeds. Zivlesi put her trowel down, and took her work gloves off. But Zanzibar wasn't finished. "He's right, there aren't any riders in my blood, it's just the land. And I love the planting and the goats and..."
"Well." The elder woman said. Had Zanzibar been able to see through the tears in her eyes, she would have seen a stern, if distant, stare on Zivlesi's face. "That is not true and you know it."
"I'm comfortable here on the ground... It isn't that I am afraid of heights or dragons don't like me, I am just meant to--"
"There is dragon rider blood in you, Zanzibar," Zivlesi stated, hard. The tone of her voice snapped Zanzibar's eyes back up and clear. "That's where he is wrong. You are good at what we do, planting and herding and your father's weaving. But that doesn't mean being on dragon back is not in you."
"... Mother?" Zanzibar stammered. "Wh... what?"
"We do not speak of it because it was many years before your father and I had become lovers. My uncle was a rider."
"But uncle Vasili is--"
"Not Vasili," Zivlesi said, and gently nudged the hothouse door shut. "I had three uncles. Vasili and Valdez you know. But when I was quite young, my father's eldest brother Dezin was selected to bond."
Zanzibar sat against the wall, stunned.
"And he stood, bonded well. In fact he bonded the only bronze in the clutch. We watched him grow and prosper, and learn how to fight the threats of the old world." Zivlesi paused, examining her nails. "And when the time came for him to join a wing, he did so. His dragon was powerful enough and he was good enough at strategy that he soon became a wing third."
"Then, was he killed in threadfall?"
"No. No, he was not." Her mother sighed, but it was an edgy sigh. "He was murdered in his sleep by a brown rider who sought the post of wing third for himself. His dragon took his body away, and never returned. And we do not speak of this. The rider was punished, but he still lives."
"You mean he came with us to Alskyr?!" Zanzibar cried. "And no one stopped him?"
"There was little we could do. After his punishment, he was free to do as he must as a rider. But we do not mention it because the pain is too great. My father has never quite recovered. Once, we tried to help him but..." She shook her head. "He left and remained at Dawnlight weaving for them. He has never left."
"That.... That's why grandfather is never around when the dragons visit him?" Zanzibar's mind reeled. Suddenly she could make connections that were impossible in her life before then. How her grandfather would remain in the cottage until the transport dragons left the family. Why the haunted look passed Vasili's face when they spoke on dragons and the weyr. When the weyr became a Caer, Vasili went to his brother's home and there he remained.
Surrounded by dragons, and ...
"I ... I hope he forigives me, then." Zanzibar said, simply. Her mother straightened, went to her side, and dabbed at Zanzibar's tears.
"You need no forgiveness. You must just be on the sands when your dragon hatches. If you are not there, then you both will suffer surely." Zivlesi nodded. "That's what I have heard, anyway." She picked up her trowel and gloves again, and began working like she'd never been interrupted.
That was the sign that this conversation was over. But Zanzibar still needed something answered. "Are you going to tell Slav that? What you told me?"
Her mother paused. "No. I think it's up to you to continue the strong line of bonders we might have, regardless of what has happened in the past. Zanislav does not need to know these things. All he needs to know is what he will do when you come home riding a grand golden dragon."
Zivlesi did not look up, but Zanzibar hugged her mother and kissed her cheek. "Thank you, I understand." And then left for her own quarters. Zivlesi continued to plant, to nurture, and cried on the dark soil.
"Only, come back to us, my dearest daughter... Come back to us..."
***
Zanzibar twiddled her fingers, while standing in the great Hall outside H'lis' office. Inside it, she knew there was a search rider talking about his choices. Outside, she and two others were waiting. The last few days had been a blur to her, she got as much of her spring planting done as she could, without rushing the jobs. She helped her mother plant the seedlings into the garden, and ran the goats away with her sister...
She continued to allow Zizi nearby at all times because the girl was going to miss her terribly. When Zanzibar told Zizi that she was to leave the Weyr and head off to bond a dragon, Zizi's first question was of course, "when do we go?" And then, naturally, her tearful, "why can't I go with you?"
Zanzibar knew that their mother was watching her when she gently let the child down. She explained that it was a long journey -- Zizi didn't much like traveling so much, because she got so tired. She told the child that it was a foreign place that had lots of people she hadn't met -- and Zizi was not used to lots of people, was she?
So in her quiet way she calmed her dear sister. Zanzibar simply avoided her brother. It was not really fair on him, he was yelled at privately by their mother and father -- particularly by their mother. He glared at Zanzibar during the two dinners and three breakfasts they had left together. His silence told Zanzibar that he'd been cowed by the punishment that their mother must have assigned. But Zanzibar didn't know what that punishment might be. She didn't bother to ask. She was getting quite giddy.
When the office door opened, all three potential candidates almost lept out of their skin. Zanzibar and the young 'computerer' Zudi both heard the third member breathing quickly and with difficulty.
"Well, kids," H'lis said with his friendly face looking somewhat guarded, "I have been told that only two of you will be able to go to Quinalt weyr." That elicited the expected gasps from the trio. "But, there's going to always be another clutch for the third. You've all been searched, so that's the bonus which you all should concentrate on."
"Well I have to go," said the third member of their group, a golden-haired girl with a very pretty face and an even prettier necklace around her slender neck. She had nicely manicured nails on her soft fingers, hands which had not seen hard work -- perhaps ever.
Zanzibar looked at her own hands. They were dark, she even still had a line of dirt below the thick but even nails she had. She had worked with those hands all her life, and though they were far from perfectly pretty, Zanzibar felt they ought to be more sleek or with longer nails... The tint of jealousy ran through the dark skinned young woman, because it had always been the case that a rich holder girl would usually get what she wanted, no matter her real qualifications. Zanzibar had been burned by this harsh reality before, and she was certain that it was about to happen again.
H'lis took in a breath, the girl spoke over him. "And of course I'll send my family the information about where we're going. So, we could go now. I'll have them send my things along."
"--" H'lis left his mouth open. The girl just blabbered on about her dresses, what she might need to bring in terms of shoes, and how many servants would be available for her use when she got there. Finally, the weyrleader held his pale hand up and snapped the girl's mouth and jaw shut with his fingers. Tightly. "I would save the congratulatory party for when you actually get to go to a weyr, girl-child. You're not the one who's going. Zudi, Zanzibar, you two should get packed up and ready. I'll be sending whatever else you need beyond that, after you arrive."
Paired gasps, along with a stunned silence, followed. Then, the slender holder girl gave off a wailing shriek the likes of which almost broke windows across Alskyr. "I will SO be going! I will! My father is the House lord of Klaiben! How dare you say I won't be going!"
Zudi backed away almost immediately, practically hiding behind the much taller Zanzibar. She too gave the girl a bit of room. But the search rider, and H'lis, both closed ranks.
"Well, Lady of Klaiben, you're going to have to address your father as a holders child still, until you do have the chance to stand. No amount of money can get you onto those sands, dearest. You can't get there by boat or caravan, remember?" H'lis announced, rather coldly. "Now take your prissy beautiful face out of my sight, and maybe get a job in the weyr so you'll better understand why you've been denied." The normally placid, if vibrantly confident, bronze rider sternly stared at the girl -- and even Zanzibar could tell that his family-given telepathic talent was working overtime on the child. She stood her ground for less than a second before turning and shrieking, running away down the corridor as other folk had come out to see what the big deal was.
H'lis cleared his throat, shook hands with the search rider, and addressed Zanzibar and Zudi. "Now that that trauma is over... Congratulations."
"Thank you sir," Zanzibar said, still a bit hesitant. "I hope that I bond well."
Zudi lept back out from behind her, pulling himself into the crook of her elbow and wedged himself under her arm. "Me too. I totally agree." The cute younger boy had wires sticking out of his head, some that led into a high-tech device hanging on his hip. "Thanks! I'll be ready as soon as my dad knows. He'll be totally proud of me."
"I'm sure he will," H'lis said. They watched Zudi escape the crowd which had developed. "Now, Zanzibar, you all right with this?"
"I am, sir. I ... I don't know if you knew about my great-uncle?" She asked, hesitating for a moment but going with the question none the less. She watched H'lis' face and she knew the answer.
"Yes, I do. There certainly won't be a repeat of that event, I'm sure." He said. Zanzibar looked down the hallway.
"I hope not."
H'lis gave a little chuckle, trying to reassure her, "she'll stand some day, but not until I know she's got it in her to actually work for a dragon. You, I know you're able and willing to work for your praise. And you deserve it. I saw the prize-winning zuccini you grew last season." He winked. Zanzibar finally laughed, and bowed cordially to the weyrleader.
"Then I'm going to pack. I will see you outside, I guess?" She asked the search rider, and he nodded. Finally, with the excitement of the day and the success of her search catching up with her. She packed with a giddy glee. Then, she was off to the new weyr.
But... She suddenly realized that the young steward was yelling about the eggs hatching. Now?! It was late, almost early in the morning! How could they be hatching now? Well, Zanzibar shrugged off her night dress, and into the candidate gown which was provided to every bonder ready to stand.
It was itchy. And she wanted to have bathed, organized her hair. Just something... But then she noticed all the other tired eyes and sleepy expressions vanishing like her own had gone, as they got to the sands. The eggs were moving, they really were going to hatch! Tonight! This morning! Whatever!
A bold brown snapped out of his egg, and to the immeasureable distress of the search riders and the candidates, he bonded from the stands! Zanzibar wondered if this boy he'd chosen had seen any of the weyrling classes or been instructed at all. Then two blues hatched, bonded and left the sands. A big bronze came out and covered himself accidentally in sand so no one could see what color he was until he'd already bonded! Another dark brown hatched, then a green. Another bronze hatched out, and then the big egg - sure to be a gold - broke to reveal (predictably) a beautiful little golden dragonet. Of course, Zanzibar's heart swelled every time a female dragon hatched, but even the males were simply beautiful. The queen did not head toward Zanzibar.
However, the next to hatch was another bronze, who tried to get back into his shell, before bonding to Zudi! Zanzibar clapped with the crowd, oh how H'lis would be proud of the little hacker! A pair of greens broke out and wandered about, bonding to their choices and leaving Zanzibar alone still. A blue came from the egg which had been tossed about by the pair of greens. There was one egg left. Only one. And there were three candidates. If only that one egg hadn't found someone in the stands? But that was not how it was to be.
Then the egg hatched, and wonder of wonders, a second gold emerged! The boys sighed and backed away, and Zanzibar hoped beyond hope that this dragon would want her. After all, there had been one Stands bond already... what about two? The dragon wound up having rolled over onto one of the boy's feet, and she snapped herself away from him.
I was just wondering if you were going to want me, too, Zanzibar... The gold's voice was a thrill inside the girl's mind. It is funny that you and I thought the same thing!
"Don't think for a moment that I wouldn't have you, Kohlaurnth," Zanzibar announced, on her knees to embrace the hatchling. She and the new queen left for the meat trays, leaving two boys -- who bonded eggs having been hidden by queen Polanith-- behind.
