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Renna twisted her scroll again, bringing new words into view. She wasn't quite reading it, but she felt the need to do something with her hands. Her fingers traced over the leathery texture, eyes flickering up to C'mor every so often. It saddened her to hear of dragons dying, and like probably every other candidate, she quietly wondered if things might have turned out differently if she had arrived in time to Stand. Renna was over-confident; she imagined the blue darting toward her in a fabricated memory, how she would have soothed his rioting fears. But it was merely a fantasy. She hadn't been there, and now the blue was dead. It made her think of her father, but she shook it away, returning her focus to the coversation at hand and nodding sagely.

"Are you Weyrborn?" she asked, opting for the more polite term. If C'mor had asked for permission to stand, then she reasoned he might be a life-long dweller in this Weyr. To have grown up in a Weyr... Renna wished that she could remember what it had been like when she was here. But, of course, she had only been two turns old, and after her father's unseemly death, her mother had darted back to the Hold, almost overnight. If C'mor had been here all his life... perhaps he or his parents knew of L'den, knew of what happened during his weyrling training? She wouldn't ask; it was too painful. Plus, the association of being the daughter of the foolish rider who had disobeyed orders and attempted to fly between before it was time, costing the life of both himself and his dragon... it was not a title that she sought to hold. Instead, she nodded again, happy to have found someone so willing to answer all of her questions.

Renna figured that C'mor would inquire into her history, as she had inquired into his. While he spoke, she quietly contemplated how to treat the sensitive issue of her parents. For starters, her mother was under the impression that she was at Ista Weyr training to be a harper, and if C'mor happened to know her... well, that could be a problem. Secondly, she always ran the risk of him having heard of her father. But she didn't want to lie -- not that she was entirely opposed to it. She just liked to avoid it when possible.

So she toed the line. "No, I lived most of my life at Ista Hold. My mother trained here though, at the Weyr, for a time. My father was a bronzerider here, but I never really got to know him. And he's not at Ista anymore so..." She shrugged. It wasn't uncommon for children to grow up without their fathers, especially when that father was a rider. And it wasn't a lie either. Renna was only two when he died, and he wasn't at Ista anymore. Well, he wasn't anywhere -- but it made her feel better to skirt the edges of the truth without having to lie to C'mor's face.

She touched lightly at the edge of the glowbasket. "Hold life is pretty busy, a lot more people than you might find at a Weyr, but I guess Ista isn't a great example of that, overstuffed as we are here. Holds just have the space for the warm bodies. As for me, I think it would have been nice to grow up around dragons. I mean, I saw them at the Hold when I was growing up, but not like I do here." Renna remembered the days when dragonriders would arrive -- either with passengers, important messages, or to Search. All the Holdbrats would race down the halls and form a tight circle around the dragon and rider, eyes wide and mouths hanging open. It was one of the only times that Renna won any kind of race; she always managed to be the first one there. Well, at least until her mother had the chance to realized where she had run off to and showed up to drag her away.

"I suppose there are upsides to both, right? There is a wealth of people at Holds, from all different walks. Lots of different people to entertain you. Lords and Ladies to chase around. Never a dull moment. Big centers of social... gatherings." She waved her hands around as if to paint a picture for the bronzerider. "But I think -- well, I know -- I'd trade it all to just be in the company of dragons." It was dragons that had made the colonization of Pern possible. Renna's mother might have forgotten that, but Renna never would.

"I didn't have anyone to ask those kinds of questions to at the Hold. I'm sure I would've talked their ear off," she said, smiling. "I suppose that is what scrolls are for, teaching us things we couldn't learn otherwise." She tapped the edge of her scroll again, tracing over a particularly ornate letter toward the left of the page.

Renna was getting more and more used to riders having conversations with their dragons in front of her -- even when she could not see the dragon. Still, it managed to give her bubbles of excitement even now. What were they talking about? What would it be like to have a lifelong confidant? Renna wanted to find out.

"I'm sure you are plenty suave," she said with a grin. A little flirtation never hurt anyone, even if she was barking up the wrong tree. At the entranceway, a short women entered, arms heavily tanned. It was a face she knew well -- a beastcrafter who came to the library at the exact time every night. That was usually Renna's cue to leave.

Slowly, Renna began to roll up the scroll she had been reading, gingerly tightening it smaller and smaller. She would leave soon, but she could take her time. "I should probably be off," she said, sliding the scroll back into its canister. "The Candidate Barracks get a little dicey the later it gets. You have to be careful not to step on anyone, and if it's too late, they bark at you for carrying a glowbasket." She smiled, almost apologetic, and rested the stored scroll on the podium for a moment.