Ralto, Mei, Maira and Penina

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Penina and Maira gathered everything they possibly could onto their beds. Both girls had the benefit of Mei's expert tailoring, they could hardly say they didn't have enough clothing to keep them busy for a while.

"How about this? The party afterwards will be really important." Penina said, holding up a reddish-brown dress with a long slit down the side.

"That's totally not going to do it," Maira laughed. "It'll make you look like a rich girl."

"What's wrong with that?" Penina said, holding the dress to herself and swaying it around.

"You're no Lady -" Maira said, and ducked the wadded-up shirt that her foster sister threw at her.

"I think you should shut up - what happens if there's a lord at the party then? Wouldn't it be great to have a Lord to call your own?"

"Only if he comes when you call him, and doesn't insist you stay pregnant and working all your life," Maira muttered.

"There is that..." Penina said, and put the dress down. "Well, there's the good one for you," she pointed at Maira's deep blue gown. "That one is so pretty on you. I couldn't wear it."

"That's because you're impossibly thin," Maira grunted, folding the dress into a case. "How do you manage to stay that thin while I'm all poofy?"

"You've got boobies!" Laughed Penina, whose petite form had her own but weren't ever going to be as lush as her dark sister's. "It's all that rich food you eat."

"You're eating the same stuff every day - tons of it! Loads of it!" Maira laughed. "TROUGHS of it!"

"I wonder what we get to eat at a weyr?" Penina seemed off in her own little world. Maira aimed another shirt at her, catching the mop-haired girl in the head and making her spin it back at her darker sister with a grin.

"We can eat wherry all the time - they have to have wherry for the dragons to eat."

"That's true - but I hope they have mushrooms and beets."

"Ick," Maira stuck her tongue out, "beets are gross."

"Your problem is that you don't like the finer things..." Penina continued to pack.

At last, they finished up and were ready to head to Talis.

((Talis' clutch died. i've sent them in to Starburst instead..))

***

Talis was a huge place but it seemed somewhat lonely. Since Mei and Ralto were meant to be studying up on dragons - even though they were almost twice the age of the other candidates - they left the girls to their own devices.

Shortly, after only about a week, the girls were trying to do their mending while they heard a commotion outside.

"It's another search rider - why would they just come along here? What's wrong with them?" Someone said.

"Yeah, you'd think they would have searched their own place first, right?" Another young weyrbrat announced like he knew best.

"Besides, we need all the candidates we can - we have a big clutch!" Said one girl.

By now, the pair of mismatched sisters were curious beyond belief. They stood and peered out of their family's weyr into the corridor. Down it, and only a few meters past the last dorm on the hall, the landing area for this level opened up and there was a familiar looking blue dragon standing on the ledge.

"It's Kaprath!" Penina whispered. "Do you think he found a-"

"I'm sure of it," Maira completed without even thinking. In this weyr, they'd discovered that they could almost feel each other's pain or emotions when they were apart. Maybe it was being back on their birth world? Perhaps - but they knew that they were special even to other people.

Eventually Columbia strode down the hall and glared at several of the local weyrbrats until they left her alone. She stopped and backed up when she realized that Maira and Penina were right there watching too.

"You're the ones I'm looking for," she said. "I did find that weyr I was talking about. Darkling Dawn - they have several small clutches waiting candidates, and their eggs might start rocking any minute."

"That's great!" Penina giggled.

"We have to tell our folks," Maira said, "but we're barely unpacked so it won't take long."

"I'll tell them," Penina said, and sprinted off down the hall. Her white hair bounced like a runner's tail, and her long (and still growing) legs would take her quickly to their parents down in the library.

"I guess that leaves me to pick up our stuff," Maira smirked.

"I'll help," Columbia said, "if you want."

"Maybe you should tell the weyrwoman or the headwoman. Unless they know already?"

"The weyrwoman does - Kaprath told her already why we're here." She paused, "I wish he'd tell these little brats, too," Columbia gazed again at the annoyed weyrbrats that scattered when she did so.

Minutes later, when Columbia and Maira had packed up the girls' stuff again, the handsome Ralto came into the weyr first.

"Mei wants to say good bye too, but you will have to forgive her being slow. She didn't want me to pick her up. I don't know why." He grinned with a dazzling smile, and Columbia almost blushed - but she remembered how sound their love was for one another.

It took another couple minutes for Penina and Mei to come along. With hearty and teary-eyed farewells said and done, Columbia had Kaprath summon another transport rider for the girls' things, while they piled onto his sleek blue back.

Off they went... To Darkling Dawn!

***

"This is the cutest thing I have ever seen," Penina said, of the winged creature in front of her. "How can you sit there and not want one?"

The pair had gotten to Darkling Dawn little more than a week before, settled in, and the eggs were almost ready or so they were told. They might not bond in this batch - there were other females ready to clutch too, though.

Maira tsked her tongue at her sister. "It's complicated. It's like a flitter, but it's furry. That's just confusing."

"And your cat isn't?"

Maira looked at the kitten that had started following her around. It was a simple striped grey male, but he attached himself to Maira's leg and wouldn't let go. She fed him - that sealed their fate together.

"But Horton is cuter than an egg - and at least cats don't have fur in an egg shell."

"Dragons come from eggshells," Penina said. "And what kind of name is Horton for a cat anyway?"

"My kind of name!" Maira laughed. "What would you name that thing, if they let you have one?"

"I don't know -" she looked at the small blue speckled egg she'd been eyeing. The Rukel were creatures that neither Penina nor her sister had ever heard of before - or on Alskyr. They were quite pretty, and Penina thought that it would be better to have a flying friend, than one like Horton.

"Well, anyway, I don't know if I can keep one. We're going to be busy..." Penina said. She touched the egg again, and then they went on their way to classes.

The girls waited expectantly at the door of the class, and then saw that the older weyrling class was just about done for the day. They had seen some handsome older teen boys in there, and hoped - both of them - that they would bond a nicely appropriate female dragon to their males. Just in case.

***

The day was dismal. Both Maira and Penina lay on their stomachs and looked out their shared dorm windows at the clouds and stormy skies.

"Miserable," Penina said.

"Icky," Maira agreed. But shortly, there was a ruckus at the doors.

"Hatching! Come on, get down here!" Said the excited boy. Maira and Penina glanced at each other and then bolted out behind him.

There were several sets of eggs on the sands, all very small clutches of pretty greens or odder rares. The eggs were small and wobbly, banging into one another.

The first egg of the evening broke open and a lovely darker green shook herself out of her shell. The group of girls gathered around but she only had eyes for Maira!

Do you think I am good enough? I do not want to disappoint you! Nambith announced only to Maira. The dark skinned girl skipped over to her dragon.

"Oh that's never going to happen, Nambith! Never!" She hugged the dragonet and oblivious to the jealous looks - even from her sister - of those on the sands, she left with the green to the food area.

Several - in fact most - of the eggs hatched in the meantime. Penina was on the verge of tears. Could the search rider have been this wrong? They'd just gotten here, how could they be ...

Two dragonets started fighting, swatting one another and acting quite nasty.

That's very immature of them, isn't it Penina? The pale colored green said.

Penina nodded, and grinned. Now she was bonded. Now, she knew what it was like - how it felt for her sister and all the others.... It was so fulfilling, she did cry. No one saw, she nodded again and said, "Come on, Tambith, let's get you some food."

They joined Maira and Nambith - laughing at the rhyme of their names.

***

It wasn't very long before the Rukel egg hatched, shortly after the dragons did. Penina's joy from the hatching was duplicated when the little furry cat-dragon-creature hatched.

"He's the most adorable thing in the world, isn't he?" Penina snuggled the blue Rukel. It bit her on the nose. "Ow!"

Serves you right, Tambith bespoke. I am your one and only.

"He's just hungry," Penina said, fumbling around for some meat. After he had eaten, it was true, he snuggled down much happier. "His name is..... Snap."

Maira, Nambith and Tambith all looked at one another. Maira rolled her eyes and Horton jumped over to sleep with Snap.

"Looks like someone doesn't care where the warm comes from," Penina giggled. "They're all stripey."

Very cute. Now, come along - we are to do strength training for our wings today! Nambith asserted.

I want to fly soon, don't you want to fly?

I do, the dark green replied. I hope they do too.

***

Flight was the most amazing thing that the pair of girls - or dragons - could ever have watned. They soared together in the skies, echoing one another's movements precisely and with flair. But it was because of that closeness that the weyrling trainers finally put their feet down.

"We're concerned that your dragons and you both," the elder man said, "are too attached. There will be a time when one of you won't up there with the other. Perhaps due to injury, or possibly death."

This led to a long silence, but the dragons were far from silent.

I would never let you die!

Nor I, you my sister!

Hush you two, bespoke Penina. She looked at the weyrling trainers and nodded. "We understand, but ... we're not really going to be fighting much thread, going back to Alskyr and all."

"That's right," Maira said - hope in her eyes. It wouln't be like that. It wouldn't be bad.

The weyrling trainers conferred but still agreed, that the girls needed some time apart to train individually. So they altered the schedules so that one sister had the early day to do flight training while the other was working charts or doing other such grounded tasks, then they would switch off for the afternoon. It got that their schedules kept them apart at all but lunch and evening times.

"I don't like this one bit," Maira said, "I mean, really. We don't need to worry about this."

"I agree. But... I think it'll be time to leave soon anyway. We've got the information we need," Penina said, holding the star chart image of Paniya's sky, "and we could just transfer out now."

Do you think we are ready to leave? Nambith said, I don't know yet.

I can teleport just fine, we learned.

We did in afternoon classes too, Nambith said proudly. So I guess we are ready.

The Rukel Snap and fully-grown cat Horton both seemed ready too.

"I wonder what happened with our folks?" Maira asked absently.

Little did she know... there was something odd in store for their elders. Not at all expected, but odd.