With a crash, five dragons broke their shells. Five dragonets wandered around the Hatching Cavern, searching blindly for their bonds or, failing that, food.
The first dragon to decide was a large blue, who strode up to Mino and stared at the older man imperiously. Mino smirked down at the hatchling and chuckled. "Very well, Olysioth."
Ditzth's last two eggs cracked at once, spilling two hissing hatchlings onto the sands, a growling brown and a much larger bronze with gray streaks. They stood hissing and growling at each other until their sire reprimanded them, and they strode off in opposite directions.
The bronze became a new novelty; the first bronze to bond a female rider. The gray-marked dragon strode over to Karamex and looked up at her imperiously. Well? He asked scathingly.
Karamex pursed her lips, though whether from anger or to keep from laughing, it was hard to tell. "Well what, Ktelth?" She shot back.
Aren't you going to get me my food? He asked sulkily. At Karamex's affirmative answer, he jumped up and hurried his rider off the sands.
((No Weyrling Story))
Many heard the loud whoop that seemed to vibrate through the air, but not as many heard the awful snicker accompanying it. From a ledge, the buxom Karamex looked over the edge of Darkling Dawn, where there was nothing but an empty stillness and grinned look a fool. "A rider." she whispered to herself, hugging herself tightly as if worried that the ridership would escape through her pores if she didn't. Three long years had come to this... she wondered how the others had fared, in comparison to herself. "Surely they've handled it better then I have..." never had Karamex -or Mino- felt their age as much as they had in this moment, when they had to train with the others. A smile crossed her lips as she remembered the hesitancy of the young weyrling master to reprimand Mino. Oh, he had done a fine job... but it must have been odd, reprimanding such an old man.
At the thought, her head turned to watch Mino who was sitting down, watching a large bronze form and a smaller blue one tackle it out in the skies. A smile danced on her face. He hardly looked his age, and he didn't act so grumpy any more. Oh, occasionally he did... he wouldn't be Mino otherwise but... but there was sometihng sweet about the way he acted now.
"Woman, don't stare at me so." there was something grumpy about the way he said it, but when he turned there was humor in his eyes as he smirked. "Am I that..."
Karamex knew what he was about to say, so she stuck out her tongue in reply. Okay, so what if being a rider made people more grown up, and others more immature? She was still having fun. Sitting together and staring out into the horizon, she smiled.
Aye, they were riders now.
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