Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Pern. I do, however own many of the characters in this story.

And so she set out, with four eggs too,

Though no one yet knew to follow,

Well before the day all new,

To a large cavern all hollow

Chapter Two: Away

She woke with water around up to her knees, and sprang up with a curse, scooping her eggs out of danger. Luckily the sand was warm enough to exchange, and the eggs still warm.

Around late afternoon Yria stumbled up to the open doors of Seawatch Sea Hold and limped inside, carefully toting her eggs in both hands still. She had not eaten in three days.

A decent meal, some sleep, much 'ooh'-ing, clucking on her foster-mothers' part, several herbal teas, and a general fuss later, the girl sat by the hearth fire in the bustling, noisy kitchen as she put together a reed basket and furs. As she did so, layering the sand, she spaced the eggs throughout.

Finished, she let the eggs get warm very close to the fire, then moved them farther away, and set a chair over then, on which she sat, and waited. When she found the Sea Holder, Calton, coming back from the harbor, Yria fell into step with him.

"Yes?" he asked, distracted.

"I'm Yria, sir. About the fire lizard eggs I found- I was wondering when I can move mine to-" abruptly she stopped; the Sea Holder had stopped walking and was looking at her, a look of incredulity in his eyes.

"Your egg? Who ever said anything about you getting a fire lizard egg?"

This was very unfair, and she said reproachfully, "I found them, sir."

"You may have found them, but I, as Holder here, decide who gets them. Weol and Shom will have some; I will have one, Kilav"-his wife- "also, and Amat, Talukin, Yelmany, Viyriz, Yeln, Leit and Penit will get some. There will be no egg for you."

"But- I found them!" cried Yria.

"There will be no egg for you." he repeated with finality. Yria stared at him for a good while, numb and hurt; then each walked on in different paths. She knew what the girl Menolly had done many Turns ago an Half-Circle Sea Hold; she would do the same and hide away with fire lizards of her own. Forming plans for the future, she went back to tend the eggs one last time before leaving.

She knew of one perfect hiding spot. It had ventilation, holes that were invisible on the surface, for a fire, and one was just large enough for her head to fit through that she had covered with a movable stone.

In the cave, where walls were smooth from the underground stream that must have created it even before the first Settlers on Pern came, there was a decent space. This was just large enough for her to stand tall in and fit a seaweed and cloth bed, the already-scooped-out fire pit she had used before and the niche in the wall she used to store her things.

The entrance passageway was filled with water slightly at high tide, though it was shallow enough to wade in, and the hole by which she came and went was always unnoticed, hidden as it was by

She often went there, though no one knew it, to escape her chores. Moreover, it was close to the rotten log, a good landmark, and one close enough to get to easily, and to go to and from easily, but far enough to not be caught.

For first supplies, Yria planed, she would take fish, bread and klah, some blankets and three baskets of glows. If she needed anything else, she could make it, find it or take it from the Hold in the dead of night.

000

After two nights and days of sneaking, everything except glows into her new hidden home, she was ready. Yria stayed awake long into the night, then slipped out of bed, and took her prepared sack of clothes, and put her favorite boots on. Silently, she stole down the stairs, pausing only to take in hand two baskets of glows, shutters closed so as not to shed light.

The Hold doors were closed, but she slipped out a window; she would enter this way if she ever needed something from the Hold. Yria made her way down the beach; she knew it was low tide and she lowered the baskets of glows into the hole (by way of a hidden rope) after extracting one of them to light her way. Then she climbed down carefully one-handed, and was inside the tunnel to her cavern.

It was damp and grown with sea plants amid different shellfish, so she stepped carefully in the half-light of her glow. After a brief, damp up-hill walk, she found her room and opened the glowbaskets fully as she placed them in the natural niches in the walls.

Tiredly, she rearranged her things slowly and lit a large fire, and fell asleep in the furs with one hand resting on a basket of warm furs that held the four fire lizard eggs she had kept, as they rested near the fire.

She wondered what Calton would say when he discovered the missing girl and eggs, and smiled.