Cilla

Her head pounded as she slowly regained consciousness. "Uhh...." The world seemed made of something significantly less substantial than normal. "Meo?"

The big man, who’d become one of her closest friends during her last turn and a half at Adanuk was holding her in a sitting position and laughing. "We’ve got to stop meeting like this."

Cilla punched him in the arm before quickly standing up. She reached out her hand and grabbed Meodoc again. The ground seemed to be waving at her, but she knew it would pass. If there’s one thing a jockey learns, it’s that being knocked unconscious is part of the gig.

"Fool girl gets her fool head bashed in again!!!" Undil thundered up to them and raised his walking stick menacingly. "If you don’t have a concussion, I’m going to give you one!"

"Secret’s fine." Cilla put one hand to her forehead and used the other to point to the bay runner that was happily chewing grass not three feet away. "She just nicked her leg over the last jump, threw me, but she landed fine."

"URG!" Undil continued to wave the stick. When she’d first became one of his apprentices, she’d been terrified that he’d actually hit her. Meodoc and Iltar promised that he was all bark, no bite. Their comparison of him to a toothless watchwher got them all extra stable duty for five sevendays.

Cilla sighed and blinked once or twice, making sure that everything was going to stay where it was before looking up at her master. "I’ll look at her leg anyways. I’ll tell the Healer if anything even looks remotely wrong and you can cut my salary for a turn if she can’t race in a sevenday."

Undil glared at her, angry that she’d taken the words right out of his mouth. "Good." He stormed off to yell at the next person.

Meodoc laughed. "If I didn’t know better I’d think you lived here all your life."

Cilla smiled. "Undil takes some getting used to, but a if you can get used to the smell in a stable, you can get used to anything."

They laughed as Meodoc helped her brush, bathe and generally comfort the beautiful bay, Windstorm’s Secret. The horse was one of the major contestants in a jumping race in a little under a sevenday and Undil still hadn’t announced who he was getting to jockey her. Iltar, Meodoc and Cilla had all worked with the gorgeous creature many times, but after her performance today, Cilla knew she was out of the running.

"You should probably go get Celeste to look at your head." Meodoc shut the stall door and walked over to where Cilla was wincing as she looked for bumps on her skull.

"S’nothing. Besides, I wanna take Wind out." Cilla turned and smiled a dazzling smile. "I promise I won’t get my fool head bashed in."

Meodoc leaned in and kissed her. "Good. See you after dinner, you can find out whether me or Iltar will be riding Secret next sevenday." The other jockey wasn’t stupid, he knew Cilla’d blown her shot.

Cilla touched her lip where her friend had kissed her. Lately Meodoc had this funny idea that being friends wasn’t good enough anymore. Iltar assured her that it would pass, Meodoc just got antsy every now and then. Cilla didn’t think she’d been leading him on, but she did let him steal a kiss every now and then, mind you she let Iltar steal a kiss too. She smirked, wondering what Jwll would think of her sister if she knew she was fooling around with two different men.

*Meow.* Jevyan pawed at Cilla’s knee, asking to be picked up. Cilla laughed, in a good mood, and swung the kitten up onto her shoulder as she headed to the tack room for a saddle and bridle for Wind.

Second Wind was a beautiful grey appaloosa runner who Cilla, Meodoc and Iltar had gone together and bought from a breeder at Tesba Beasthold. She was a spirited little runner, who was actually quite fast, if you could rein her in and not let her spend herself to quickly. That’s where they got the idea for her name. The runner would race her heart out, lag behind for a few laps, but as soon as she got her second wind, she was a speed demon. The problem is during her lag laps she normally fell to far behind to ever win. She normally could finish within the top five, but she hadn’t gotten first yet. Cilla, Meodoc and Iltar were trying to fix her up.

Jevyan leapt from Cilla’s shoulder to Wind’s back and the two turn horse didn’t react. After a while, the horses accepted Jevyan, especially since Cilla had refused to come if she couldn’t bring her kitten. At first Undil had told her she couldn’t come then, but Meodoc and Iltar talked him into letting the little feline come. That had been one of the little hints Cilla had received to let her know that Undil wasn’t all he claimed to be. She smiled as she quickly saddled her runner and grabbed Jevyan. The image of Undil as a toothless watchwher was perfect. He snarled and snapped and hissed and growled, but he never bit.

She kissed Jevyan and dropped the little kitten in a bale of hay before mounting Wind and starting off towards the track.

For a Weyr, Adanuk had a nice track and stables. About thirty resident runners live there, some racers, most work horses. Undil was in charge of the whole mess with a few crafters under him and Cilla, Meodoc and Iltar as his apprentices. The track was a full kilometre round and had jumps covering half of it. Cilla started Second Wind at a slow gallop, but the runner was soon fighting against the reins, trying to go faster. Cilla held her back, even though she knew the horse was getting frustrated.

A loud bugle startled the jockey and for the second time that day, Cilla found herself on her back in the dirt of the track. "Ugh. Shardin’ dragon." Second Wind, finally free of the person who’d been holding her back, galloped at full speed around the track as the green dragon flew overhead and landed in the Weyrbowl.

"You do know that was entirely your fault." Iltar was smirking as he offered her a hand and helped her stand.

"Shut up." Cilla brushed herself off.

Jevyan, who’d been on Iltar’s shoulder, reached out for his rightful owner. Iltar handed her the cat. "The runners are trained not to spook near dragons."

"Shut up." Cilla glared, but smirked.

"You’re the one who hasn’t gotten used to dragon calls." Iltar just had to push his luck.

Cilla knocked him in the arm before grabbing Wind as she trotted up and handing her to Iltar. "Take care of the horse."

Iltar rubbed Wind’s nose. "Where are you going?"

"See what the dragon’s here about." Cilla smirked, glad to realize that she’d surprised her friend. "I may not be used to the noise they make, but I can recognize them. That green isn’t one of ours." Cilla stuck her tongue out before running towards the Weyrbowl.

Since Undil had convinced her parents to let her come to Adanuk, Cilla’d changed a bit. She was still tanned, her hair was still blond and her eyes were still brown. She’d dropped fifteen pounds off her already slim figure though and the weight she had left was mostly muscle. She’d become sturdier and had only broken her wrist once since her arrival at Adanuk. She was constantly dusty and dirty and what she claimed as a bad smell, Meodoc assured her was simply the healthy smell of earth. As she ran towards the Weyrbowl in the cooling evening air, she was happy to notice that her bump earlier and her last bout with gravity, were having no unwanted side effects. Her breathing was normal and her vision was clear. Jevyan’s claws were beginning to hurt as the kitten fought for a grip on her shoulder as she sprinted. She winced and slowed down as she entered the Weyrbowl. Meodoc waved her over to where he, and a group of weyrbrats, were crowding around Weyrwoman Magika and the new rider.

"What’s going on?" She got closer and whispered as she strained to hear what Magika was saying and ignored the fact that Meodoc squeezed her butt.

"Searchrider." He let his hand hang around her waist.

For once Cilla was grateful that she was taller than most of the other girls in the Weyr. She stood on her tiptoes and could see what was happening. Magika turned to the crowd. "Searchrider Danelle and her green Moranth from Draco’s Inferno Weyr will search tomorrow. It’s too close to dinner for a search." Magika grinned. "No dragon can find candidates on an empty stomach. Shoo!! All of you!" She waved her hands and the crowd dispersed. Magika was a little eccentric at times, but everyone knew she was still qualified to be Weyrwoman. She had double the work of a normal Weyrwoman, considering she didn’t have a Weyrleader, and insanity seemed part of her job description.

Meodoc, hand still around Cilla’s waist, began to walk her back towards the stables and their rooms. The three jockey’s slept beside the stables in two separate rooms (one for Meodoc and Iltar and one for Cilla) that smelled like Cilla’s hayloft back at Tamae. They were small, and full of bugs, but since the three lived around the horses anyways, they didn’t mind. "So," Meodoc tried to lead her to the hayloft, a known ‘young lover’s’ hideout. "Heading out for the Search tomorrow?"

He was just making small talk, but Cilla was surprised at how much she actually felt drawn to attending. She knew that she was a jockey...she’d found the spot she’d been looking for, but why did she feel so...out of place than? "Maybe."

Meodoc looked at her in amazement. "Really? Undil’ll kill you."

Cilla laughed. "Undil couldn’t kill a fly. And why would he?" Cilla let him pull her up the ladder into the dark and dusty hayloft. She actually felt inclined to staying the night here, without Meodoc. The thought of sleeping in the hay made her almost homesick.

Meodoc pulled her down into the hay beside him. "Because," He was so close Cilla could feel his breath on her face. "You’re his apprentice. You’ve chosen what you’re going to do with the rest of your life. You’re supposed to stop looking for a future now."

Cilla pulled away from him, surprising her friend. "I’m supposed to stop looking for a future now?"

"Yeah." Meodoc wasn’t sure exactly was he was supposed to say. Every word he’d spoken was true. You didn’t just switch your apprenticeship when you were approaching your twentieth turn.

He got up and walked over to where she was sitting. He kicked the window open, letting a fresh breeze chase out the stale air of the hayloft. The night was coming quickly, cooly and quietly. They could see the stars. "Don’t you like it here at Adanuk?"

"Of course." Cilla did enjoy the Weyr life much more than her crowded little Hold. Not that the Weyr was amazingly small like she’d always imagined Tesba to be, but it had a more relaxed pace than Tamae...at least if there wasn’t Thread falling. Better than that, around here she was Cilla, or Just Cilla if Undil felt like poking fun at her. A lot of people knew her by name, considering she was the only female jockey here, and Cilla’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy racing. But was it really the runner’s she loved, or was it the speed? She smirked. She definitely wouldn’t miss getting knocked unconscious.

"Than why try to Stand?" Meodoc put his arm around her and tried to kiss her neck.

Cilla pulled away again to look him straight in the eyes. She smirked. "Because I can. Because I want to be somebody."

"You are somebody! You’re Cilla..." Meodoc was out of his league. Debating had never been one of his strong points.

"I’m a jockey...what’ll happen to me when I’m thirty? If I gain any weight? If I break my leg again? I can’t ride a runner forever." The more she spoke the more sure she became. "You said I’d chosen my craft...but what if I can’t stay here forever?"

Meodoc sighed and leaned back, letting her go. "You become a breeder, or a trainer or.."

"Or my father." Cilla stood up, and brushed the hay from her pants.

"If you want to look at it that way." Meodoc smiled up at her sadly.

Cilla kneeled, kissed him, and headed for the ladder. "Let’s look at it this way. I’ll always be a rider, my mount is just evolving."

* * *

Cilla slowly opened an eye as she heard a soft tap on her door. She moved to sit up, but found Jevyan still asleep on her chest. "Come in." She called softly, checking the window to see how light it was out. The sun was just started to peek over the horizon.

Iltar walked in a package under his arm. "Talked to Meodoc last night."

"Really?" Cilla knew she was at a disadvantage in this discussion considering she could only move her head slightly without disturbing her kitten. "And?"

"And you remind me of Second Wind." The smaller quieter man, who was easily as much in love with her as Meodoc, sat on the edge of her bed.

Cilla smirked. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

"I don’t know." He smirked.

There was a moment of silence before Cilla finally just sat up, letting Jevyan fall into her lap. She pulled the covers up around her. "Alright I give. Why do I remind you of a runner?"

"Not any runner Cilla, just Second Wind." Iltar looked her right in the eyes. "Because you pull against the reins. No matter who’s on your back trying to steer you, trying to control you, even if they’re trying to help you, you chomp on the bit, you pull against the reins. You’ve just got to run your little heart out, even if it means you burn out before the rest of the runners."

Cilla sat in shocked silence for a moment as the sun continued to creep along her bedroom floor and Jevyan began to play with the string on the package. "Iltar..." She wasn’t sure what to say.

"Here." He pushed the package towards her, swatting at the kitten. "Meodoc and I thought you should at least look like a candidate today."

"You guys are acting like I’ve already been searched..." Cilla pulled on the strings, letting the fabric of the package fall away to reveal the beautiful light blue fabric beneath. "Oh...It’s beautiful." She held the dress up to see the whole thing.

"Iltar, this is amazing..." She trailed off as she realized her friend was already gone. She smiled as she rubbed the soft fabric of the dress and let Jevyan play with the package.

* * *

This has got to be worse than waiting for the flag at the finals. Cilla tried desperately not to fidget as she stood in the Weyrbowl, clean, primped and proper, waiting for the astounding green Moranth to begin her Search. Jevyan was hiding under the hem of her skirt, nipping at Cilla’s ankles, still slightly peeved that she hadn’t let him up on her shoulder.

Cilla pushed a strand of hair out of her face and smiled at Undil. The Master Beastcrafter glared at her. He disliked her decision to stand for searching, but he couldn’t stop her. Meodoc assured her that it was only because he didn’t like the thought of her leaving. Cilla blew him a kiss. He scowled.

"Cilla?" Weyrwoman Magika raised a brow as she caught sight of the girl. "Undil let you stand?"

Cilla smiled to cover the butterflies in her stomach. "Not exactly, but he couldn’t stop me."

"Tired of runners?" The Weyrwoman smiled.

Cilla bit her lip a moment, looking for an appropriate answer. She caught Iltar’s wave as he entered the Weyrbowl, but quickly went to stand with the rest of the group that didn’t want to be searched. "Just chomping at the bit."

Magika laughed and returned to where the Searchrider was standing.

Cilla sighed and relaxed slightly, knowing that the only thing stopping her now was Moranth’s decision. It was a beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky with only a faint breeze stirring things up enough so the humidity didn’t kill a person. The air smelt like flowers and grass and, if you had the nose to recognize it, horses.

Jevyan continued to play with the hem of her skirt and the ribbon flowing from her waist. The kitten had obviously forgotten her past sins in favour of this new game. Cilla laughed as the breeze tossed her hair. She would have loved to be atop Wind, or Secret racing down the track on a beautiful morning like this. Come to think of it, she would have loved to be atop a dragon flying through the sky on a morning like this as well.

I agree. It’s a beautiful morning for a fly. Maybe I can convince Danelle to take the long way home. Cilla was too busy daydreaming to notice that the emerald green beauty had approached her. Moranth’s swirling eyes were only a few feet in front of the astonished Cilla.

"Home?" The voice in her head still confused her, it was the first time a dragon had ever bespoken her and she found it slightly unnerving. Jevyan was trying to climb up her skirt. Without thinking, Cilla picked him up and let him perch on her shoulder.

Yes, to Draco’s Inferno Weyr. You didn’t expect to impress one of our Jr Queen’s children from here did you? The green’s eyes whirled deep blue with amusement as Cilla’s jaw dropped.

Danelle smiled at Cilla. "We can’t guarantee you a lifemate if you come with us, but Moranth thinks you’ve got a pretty good shot at it. You’ve got potential. You are invited to stand during the hatching of golden Yelanath’s clutch at Draco’s Inferno Weyr. Do you accept....?"

Danelle left a pause for Cilla to put her name in and her answer. The former jockey, former breeder’s daughter smiled. "Just Cilla, and yes I do."

"Excellent." Danelle let Moranth continue searching as she went to talk to Magika about Cilla.

The next thing she knew she was being crushed in a bear hug by Meodoc and Iltar. "Congrats! I knew it!" Meodoc finally let her breath.

Undil walked over, but was not as enthusiastic. "I knew it! I find someone, turn them into a half decent jockey and they run off on me!"

Cilla, a wonderful bubbly feeling slowly consuming the butterflies. She took a few steps forwards and kissed Undil on the cheek. The older man blushed. "Thank you for everything Undil. I’m sure I can put many of things you taught me to good use as a candidate."

The beastmaster grumbled something intelligible and swatted her gently with his walking stick before heading towards Magika.

Meodoc and Iltar both laughed. "Guess it was a good thing you decided to try huh?"

Cilla stepped closer to them and kissed first Iltar and then Meodoc. "Thanks for everything guys. I promise I’ll keep in touch."

"You better." Meodoc blushed slightly. "You still own a third of Second Wind. Don’t want us keeping all the marks we win off her." They all laughed and to her amazement, Cilla felt a tear on her cheek.

"You guys can have her. I consider the dress as a fair trade for my third." She rubbed the soft fabric of the gift they’d given her.

"You’ll regret that when we’re rolling in marks." Meodoc touched her cheek with his hand.

"Probably." Cilla smiled at them both as Iltar handed her a bag which she already knew contained what few possessions she owned. She gave them one last smile before heading over towards her ride and new life.

"Hey Cilla!" Iltar raised his voice louder than she’d ever heard it before.

She turned, worried that he was going to say something to make her cry. "What?"

"Thanks for the ride."

* * *
Cilla’s picture from The Woman Says.
Second Wind’s picture from Beach Shard’s Weyr.
Cilla is a candidate at Draco’s Inferno Weyr.
Background from Myrror Images.