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"That's right, kids," Kalkin said. "I've been practicing. Now, look. What is going on here?"

Sixth chirped in his sing-song language, "they brought you something. You were out while it hatched, isn't it beautiful?" Sixth moved his wing aside, and as the rest of the noisy flitters scampered into their nooks and hollows, Kalkin saw an elegant looking winged creature that was almost - but not quite - like Engell's ...

"Bat weasel?" Kalkin asked, and Sixth nodded.

"Well. That's new." Kalkin said. He reached his hand down and the softly furred creature nuzzled him. "He or she?"

"She," Sixth told him.

"Then, Slick? Is that a good name for you?" Kalkin asked. The weasel-bat stood up on her hind legs, and nearly fell backwards, regained her posture, and flapped her little wings.

"Yes, that's it all right..." Kalkin said. "Guys - girls," he said to the couple drinks dragonets, "meet Slick. Don't you dare chase her."

"Do you need me to untie anyone's insides today?" Kalkin asked brightly at Engell's door. The white-haired man looked up somewhat tiredly, and blinked. "Because there's a flight, and I would like to attend it. Remember when I had to ask if I could go outside?" The dark-skinned Kalkin grinned and had a somewhat manic look on him.

"... Is there any reason you even bother to ask? You're just going to get lost and find your way back via the Den." Engell sighed, "it's a good thing Baeris puts up with you. She should pin a map to your shirt."

"You should talk," Kalkin said, and then sat on his boss' desk. "Why not come along?"

"Why? Because the last time I did that you ... Never mind!"

"He's cute, and his dragon's green, Tehn would be able to compete. Sixth is fast but Tehn's young."

Before Engell could say anything, Kalkin was leaning over the paperwork on the desk, still grinning madly. "Come on, broaden your horizons. Try something new."

Engell could hardly even move. It wasn't rage inside his head, it was sheer embarrassment. Even though there were no other people in the room (albeit an unusually high number of their flitters and drinks dragons, there was a flock of them watching) he blushed strongly and tried to speak. Nothing came out, he sputtered for a moment, and finally forced out, "go! Get! Leave! Fly! Have fun! But leave me out of it!"

Kalkin laughed and put the papers back in their place on the desk, before slipping out of the room. "Sixth and I thank you from the bottoms of our very deep and very horny hearts."

Engell sat back and stared at the door, which was still slightly open, and watched as the train of flying creatures they both had followed out after.

***

"Now, look, Sixth," Kalkin said, the blue trying to concentrate, "this is Pern, the old world. It's the middle of nowhere, and it'll be cold. Do not - and I mean not - drop me over the ocean."

We get to fly over an ocean! Sixth tittered, his voice musically cheerful.

"And there will be people there, they might not approve. Let's try and be ... normal." Even that sounded hard to do, according to the healer-slash-interrogator-slash-engineer. He could do many things. But normal activities were rarely among them...

Her name is Akaneth, Sixth announced, I know where to look for her. Dragonhope Weyr. Thread is falling there, you know.

"Thread..." Kalkin shook his head, "it's been so long since I thought about that stuff. We really should do something about it. Blowing up that planet would be a start."

Wouldn't that just spread Thread everywhere in space? That would be bad... Sixth tooted and hummed.

"You are right. Let's go," Kalkin mounted up the tiny dragon, wearing his 'cold weather' gear and keeping a small amount of clothing and other goods in a satchel behind him. Even if they didn't win the flight, he reasoned, S'xon and he had some catching up to do. He'd been there once or twice, or perhaps it was that Saxxon knew him from another world. Or two. It didn't matter. They could be brothers anyway, tall dark and handsome brothers.

Giggling, they arrived to Dragonhope without a hitch. The green Firestone-born dragoness they were to chase was already present, and Kalkin commended Sixth on his ability to come in over land, instead of water. Once Kalkin dropped from the dragon's back, though, he sped back into the air and joined a number of the local dragons in their play above the grey cold ocean waves.

Kalkin prowled around the grounds, and finally met up with the local healer, Virin, S'xon's daughter. Now that would be a fun ride, he thought. He was perhaps the only person alive who could survive her...

"Here for the flights," Kalkin said, dropping his satchel down near the desk of her office and startling her, "so I figured I would make myself of some use. If you need me."

"We always 'need' you," Virin said with a bit less of that caustic edge than others might have gotten. Maybe it was because he did look like her father. Or because she'd often thought the same thing about him? "I've heard the flights are backing up. Get signed in, and then come along. We had a runner roll on someone, yesterday, and I want you to help straighten their bones back up..."

While that was going on somewhere in Kalkin's past (sorry, the flight hasn't been flown yet!) meanwhile back in the present...

Sixth sang his pretty little muttering-to-himself song, as Kalkin read over some of the latest reports of Alabaster's earnings. Though they were not officially a Caer here on Paniya, nor a Weyr, their dragons still performed a ton of duties for local inhabitants. Everything from search and rescue to heavy lifting, construction and currier work. They often helped fishermen out on the open ocean, Kalkin shuddered to think about that duty.

It is not for you, or me, but I do like fish, my friend. Sixth sang from below in the courtyard. He and Tehndarinth were playing a strange little dragon game, the rules of which involved overturning stones and sending themselves Between whenever they were about to be run out by someone from the hold. They vanished and reappeared frequently, it was making some folks dizzy watching them.

When they returned after a longer stint in the Nexus than before, Sixth excitedly left off with the game and flew up to the ledge overlooking the courtyard, where he knew Tehn often sat watching his bond in the big office there.

"Kalkin, why's your beast watching me like this?" Engell yelled, knowing perfectly well that Kalkin was just outside the office and could have heard a whisper equally adeptly.

"Because he thinks he's found something of great importance. Ignore him. He'll go away." Came the reply. But even Engell knew that the older man's face had a smile on it. Eventually Kalkin came walking into the spacious office and scratched at Sixth's nose through the open window.

"Well, what is it?" Asked the dark skinned man.

There is a flight, you remember Falas? It is there I wish to fly.

"But..."

No, no, it's okay! They're back. Fore, they are in their future. It is all right. And the flight is for small dragons, like me! The tiny blue shifted around on the ledge, nervous like a school child. Excited, he flared his wings and almost fell off the ledge.

The blue dragon gave a trilling purr, and Engell watched as his interrogator and this musical blue had a strangely one-sided conversation. He didn't understand a 'word' of the sounds that Sixth made, every once in a while Engell tried to translate it but he always wound up cheating and asking his own silvered-white flurry dragon Tehndarinth what had been said. In this case, Tehn announced that he was not officially interested in going, this was meant to be a more traditional flight. Frenzy.

At Falas. Kalkin's smile grew wider, "then I will get packing, if there are no pressing engagements on my schedule?" He looked at Engell, who shrugged and waved his white hand.

"There is something else we'll be throwing in together," Engell said, "but it will wait until you get back. That will give you incentive to come back in one piece this time."

Sixth flew off from the ledge, and went to chat excitedly with his dragon friends and anyone else who wanted to listen. They were going to a frenzy on the old world, where other little-sized dragons would be welcome!