Kallia untied the little scrap of hide and read squinting. “Dulath says it is time for us to fly. I think she means the females of the Variant clutch. Do you think Mijath has been acting odd lately? Signs of maturity: restlesness, aggrivation at little things, eating and then eating more… Since Mijath cannot fly properly, I would like to extend a message from my Stunt sands… we had another sea-dragon born a little more than two turns ago! Should I introduce Moeomth to Mijath? He is in Vallen Cove, near the sea now. I think they would get along famously. – Baeris”
With excitement growing in her dark brown eyes, Kallia giggled and grinned from ear to ear. She found another piece of wherhide and wrote back, handing the note to Striker who knew just what to do with it.
“It’s been six turns, Mijath,” Kallia stroked the long face of her little dragon. “And I know you’ve been acting funny lately. I wonder how you’ll react to all this…”
I will be fine! Mijath crooned, How will this Moe-eeomth get here?
Kallia tilted her head, “I don’t know, but I hope he does! Now, let’s get down to the lake and see about catching you some lunch!”
But today, there was something else on the wind. A large blue flitter which Z’rin remembered from a couple turns back. Ah! How could he forget! Master Healer Baeris’ blue Striker! The bronze-sized blue landed on the warm sand beside the rider, and flapped his wings to attract the proper attention. Then he passed a roll of wherhide to Z’rin.
“Well, thanks, Striker!” He said. “I wonder what this could be…”
When he read the information, Z’rin’s smile grew wider than it had in many months. Mijath. He’d heard of this pale yellow dragoness. Could she be a queen in disguise? After all, yellow white was just one or two steps away from … gold!
“C’mon Moe! It’s time to see about going back to the Healing Den! Or GreenWing Ridge, anyway. They’ve got a lake, and a dragon you need to meet!”
A dragon! What kind? I know lots of dragons here!
“You’ll like this one for sure! I just hope that her rider likes me…”
It is cold up here! I forgot! Why didn’t you remind me!?
Z’rin laughed, and rubbed the dragon’s neck. “Sorry, Moeomth, I forgot too.”
The tall dark-skinned healer Baeris arrived shortly, along with a pleasantly attractive woman wearing a beautiful boldly colored gown. She looked to be just barely older than Z’rin, perhaps one or two turns. Baeris introduced them both to one another, and like the riders they were, both smiled and grasped hands proudly. Kallia seemed half-shy, but then warmed quickly to Z’rin. His open, charming smile and his silly half-red half-blond hair made Kallia relaxed. Kallia’s easy stance and her professional grace made Z’rin pleased to be around her.
Then the little pale yellow dragoness named Mijath walked into view. She did not have webbing on her feet, but her wings were very nearly the same shape as Moeomth’s. Straight, with a long fused hand-bone that made the edges of the wing sail quite stiff and useful for water propelling. Her tail was long in proportion to her high body, and she daintily picked her way across the warming pebble beach.
That is him? Mijath bespoke.
That’s her! Moeomth bespoke to Z’rin at the same time.
Kallia’s heart suddenly quickened. It was Mijath’s doing of course. She had been acting just the way Baeris had suggested lately: broody as all get-out. She would bring a half-eaten carcass of some little herdbeast back up to Kallia’s weyr, and ‘leave it for later’, which meant all of about half a candlemark. Now… She understood. Little Mijath was going to rise.
Or drop, as the case might be! There was a strange air around the beach, and several of the smaller blues and browns had also dropped down from their ledges along the high Buenos Weyr cliff. Delicate little Mijath, six turns old, was giving off faint but very distinct hints that she was in fact ready to mate.
Her eyes turned a dark shade of violet and then red, and she bolted toward a pen which Baeris had thoughtfully told the lower cavern’s folk to bring. Three large goats stood in it, and then there were two.
Kallia gasped and her eyes widened, and halfway before she knew what was happening, she yelled at her little yellow queen. “Blood that! Blood it! Do you hear me!?”
Barely, the dragoness heard. She snapped her neck back, and the goats blood drained into her mouth. The other two bleated but could not escape and the long neck of the dragoness reached over the pen to snatch one, then then next. In no short order, the yellow-white skin of this little tiny dragoness began to shine like a glow basket! She looked like a star on the beach, glimmering with her eyes still quite red and angry.
Kallia had never seen her like that. Only… Once before…
None of these sorry browns or blues are nearly good enough to catch me! Watch! Mijath bespoke with a bugle. The six meter long tiny creature ran along the beach, and the others, bulky and struggling against the stones, barely started up before she hit the water. It was only natural for her to head there, of course, since she had never flown in her life! There, where she felt quite at home and at ease, in the chilly water of the high mountain lake, she swooped below the water’s surface as a shooting star.
Several of the blues took to the air and tried diving at her, but their depth perception was all off, and she knew it. They dove into the water meters behind or to the side, never accurately enough to catch the tiny glowing dragoness. Then, Moeomth turned his head at Z’rin and almost seemed to grin. His eye ridge almost curled into a rise, like a human gesture of bemusement.
They don’t stand a chance! Rust-orange colored Moeomth bespoke, and with one smooth movement turned his head and snakelike body into the chill water. That it was so much colder than even his Vallencove sea water suddenly didn’t matter at all. This high lake had different currents to it, and it had a treasure worth fighting for in it too!
Three blues and one more brown took to the water, valiantly trying to keep up with the tiny darting yellow-white dragon. Her short, hard wings gave her all the edge she had ever needed in the water element! Even though she could never know what it was like to glide on thermals in the air, she twisted nimbly in the sea and darted below two of the blues. It also seemed like her breath held out for ages! Kallia’s breath came in short bursts, almost gasps because of her dragon’s intensity below the water.
Baeris watched the pair of riders who would surely be paired off – if briefly – for this “flight”. The other riders thought it half-joking, this flight under water. Baeris had warned them, but still their dragons had to try!
One blue and the larger brown came out from the water, exhausted. They dipped their heads to their riders, almost in shame, but both of them still wanted to know who could possibly win this flight!
In the water, Moeomth snaked around the other two blues, still following the glowing trail of Mijath. Her tail disappeared behind a long string of kelp, and it seemed that she dove down deeper. A spot of yellow against the dim grey-green of the lake’s depths. The smaller blue gave up, surfacing before he drowned. The brown too decided that this was the end. He could see perfectly well above the water’s surface, but this was out of his element! He was used to flaming thread, not trying to use flame to illuminate the dim water!
That left a blue and the long sinuous Moeomth. The blue surfaced and dove again, capturing enough air to take him to the bottom of the lake. It was a deep lake, and a large one. And by the time he’d come halfway to the bottom, both Moeomth and Mijath were nowhere in sight.
Mijath meanwhile spent little energy taunting her pursuers all this time. Normally a queen would throw insults or jokingly wait for a suitor to catch up, only to drop from his clutches at the last second. Mijath led Moeomth on a twisting, diving and turning ride around all the jutting lava-rock and heavy kelp and seaweed she knew so well. That was her main advantage in this flight, she knew the territory while Moeomth had to learn it by following her every stroke!
But he was bigger than she by almost three times! Thirty meters to her dinky six, and with the added ability that his webbed legs gave him, he saw a spot that she’d turned around, recognizing it in time to know that if he doubled back, she would have to come out – HERE!
Just as Mijath’s powerful wings propelled her around a tall outcrop of stone, with the dim green light filtering down through the water above, she felt a presence, sensed a great shadow just a moment too late! Her big lungs still had a candlemark or more worth of air in them, and it was a good thing! Moeomth’s long neck twined around her whole body, practically enveloping her!
“Oh be careful,” Z’rin whispered, “Please be careful she’s so small…”
Kallia heard this and apart from the fact that her tight bond with her tiny dragon was almost overwhelming her, she smiled at the care that this sea-rescuer had for her dragoness. They mixed their arms together, and Baeris delicately led the pair away to one of the fishing huts down at the lake’s edge.
The pair of dragons, yellow-white and orange-rust, burst from the water’s surface once or twice, roiling about and tangled around one another, a sight to see that wouldn’t be expected to be repeated anytime soon!
***
A short few sevendays later, Mijath laid a number of eggs in the Healing Den's warm shelter. But it was a struggle for her to do so. It was her birth-weyr, true, but she had a hard time walking so far along the ledges and into the hollowed out areas of the Healing Den.
Mijath's rider Kallia approached Baeris. "Mijath says that she would love to help with the eggs more often, but... up here it's so difficult when they don't fly."
Baeris nodded deeply, and then had to tend to other business. The Frenzy hatching, for one thing! After that, when there were sevral un-impressed candidates left, Baeris had the idea to allow them into this hatching. After all, the candidates had nothing wrong with them, save perhaps the time and place they had come to Impress!
Dasera, one of the jilted Candidates, came along to ask about something, and then noticed that Baeris' had cleared the sands of all the eggs which had been present during the Frenzy Clutch hatching. "They've been moved," she announced, "down to the lake shore. A small shelter is being put up, but it is where the mother of the cluch wishes to have her eggs lay while she tends them."
Meet the other candidates who are here waiting already!
Dasera, female, did not impress at last stunt clutch
Mikalla, female, did not impress at last stunt clutch
Karige, female, almost arrived in time for the last stunt clutch!
Rillan, female (pending links on page for flits)
Azmere, female
Leoca, female
Maranni, female
Miarra, female
Rayle, male
Tarran, male
Last update 2/12/01