Sourly, G’yr surveyed the miniscule mouth of the Talor Cliff ground weyr.  It was /always/ Anyghari.  Ghari this, Ghari that, and D’tol not letting him get away from one class without being paired with the sorry wherry-brain.  <<I’m sorry you don’t like Anyghari, G’yr, but it isn’t Inyxith’s fault.  We do owe her a lot, after all, since that firestone drill,>> Jyvadoth rasped in his head, moodily.  <<What’s the matter today?  You’re far too grumpy.>> He glowered up at the big blue, who nonchalantly flexed his wings a little.  “Only that the rest of our class graduated a fortnight ago, and /she’s/ still not ready, so you and I are held back!  You deserve better, Jyvadoth.” Jyvadoth snickered rudely in his head.  <<If we all got what we deserve, G’yr, we’d be in sorry shape.  Don’t be a naughty boy.  Kiss and make up.>> G’yr glanced up, outraged.  “If you think that I’m going to apologize to that addlepated twit of a Holder’s daughter, you can go flame Thread straight from the source.” <<It was only a suggestion.  There’s no need to be rude,>> Jyvadoth said tartly, stretching.  <<We need a break.  Why don’t we go Weyr-hopping?  You can see all the sorry Candidates, and see a different set of riders than this poor lot.  Inyxith is rather overwhelming if you have to talk to her /all the time/.  Which I do, since /you/ are busy feeling sorry for yourself.>> “Stow it, Jyvadoth,” snapped the slender, dark-haired young man, but he rappelled up the azure shoulder and settled between his lifemate’s ridges.  “Let’s try Dark Moon Weyr.”

The distinctive markings of a Dark Moon green flashed in the feeding pens below, and, quick as though, Jyvadoth’s matte wings tilted, sending him in for a landing on a ledge crowded with glaze-eyed riders.  <<She flies!>> boomed Jyvadoth, and G’yr twitched, sliding hastily down his lifemate’s flanks and unhooking the riding straps.  They slithered to the ground, and Jyvadoth hissed audibly as he leapt into the air. “What’s happening?  Who’s flying?  /Jyvadoth/!” the bitter young man cried out, and a brownrider glanced at him with poorly-concealed contempt. “Wenaveth is proddy and flying.  It’s purely natural,” the man said clearly, then muttered into his beard, “Honestly!  Pure-as-rain /weyrlings/.  He’s old enough to know better.” He’d have tried to introduce himself to the obvious lifemate of the glowing green, but a surge of heated thought came to carry him away—up with Jyvadoth. The blue’s straight, driving style and his expert use of the unfamiliar air currents enabled him to catch up to the main body of chasers.  His baritone klaxon warns off a smaller blue who came close to fouling his wingtips. <<Give me room…Let me through!>>  <<I can fly as fast as any of you, I can fly her if I wish!>>  <<I am young, but also strong, and she is blinding you all with her wake!>> <<G’yr, she’s so small.  It’s like trying to brush a vtol!>> <<Wenaveth…I almost had her, I almost had her!>> The same brownrider elbowed G’yr in the ribs.  “Make your wretched blue stop that.  What is he doing, playing tag?” Indeed, Jyvadoth’s alarming speed was continuously being foiled by a wingtip-turn by Wenaveth, who gleamed against the sky like a quasar gone haywire.  In his efforts to turn, the large, broadwinged blue had cut off more than one chaser.  The thin, ascetic G’yr paled.  “I can’t help it,” he whispered, and was dizzied as his blue began a steep dive, and /there/…. Pendactyl claws closed with the gentlest of motions around Wenaveth’s muscular shoulders, and she shrieked in rage, and then called an ecstatic note as she and Jyvadoth twined and fell, a meteor of azure and viridescence. “I’m sorry,” he gasped as the delicate blonde fell into his arms, and dark and light heads met for a dizzying kiss…