You walk around the Lower Caverns, looking for something to do. You hear shouting and head towards the source, the kitchens. A young boy with the strangest hair you've ever seen runs out, waving his arms and babbling at the top of his lungs. He can't be more than ten years old, and he wears wherhide pants with a light yellow, short-sleeved shirt that just went out of fashion. He runs past you and trips over himself, and promptly bursts into frustrated tears. Since what he was running from doesn't seem to be following him and no one's around, you walk forward and try to comfort him.

He looks you straight in the eye, sniffling, and you get a good look at him. He has the strangest, spikiest hair you've ever seen, and it's black but appears blue in the light. He has wide, sky-blue eyes that are right now half-fearful. He tilts his head to one side. "Yer not from the Caverns, are ya, Mister? 'Cause I've gotta go before they find me and THAT, and if yer from there then I can't stay here anymore." You shake your head and tell him you're not, and what is 'THAT'? He manages an air of genuine innocence. "What? Did I say somethin'? Um, noo..." You roll your eyes and he avoids your gaze. "Anyway, I gotta bolt." He stands and runs away, and you call out for his name. "Sheyin!" he calls behind his shoulder, disappearing behind a corner.

You smile. Sheyin, you had heard, was notorious for the Very Bad Things he did around the Weyr. Once, the Weyrwoman Lemon found a frog in her bath, and it was later found out it was Sheyin's (although he claimed he had only set it down for a second.) He also got into Karen Sugoi's hair-dying mixtures and the candidates woke up with bright green hair. But nobody was cruel enough to turn him out of the Weyr, after how he had come there to be.

You shake your head and sigh. You'd only heard rumors, of course, since it really wasn't supposed to be common knowledge. Supposedly, his mother had died in childbirth and his father, even though he loved him, couldn't take care of him and sent him to a foster family. He got in trouble one day in a bar, and three big, strong men beat him into a bloody pulp, stripped him of his clothes and threw him into the snow. He would have died out there had not P'razz, the former Weyrleader, been out hunting his bronze Koreth. As it was, the experience left him very sickly, and one of the blueriders took a liking to him and fostered him. You had also heard a rumor that Sheyin could hear any dragon... and that when he turned 12 he would be a candidate for the next Clutch.