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***

The girls and their adorable greens - as different as the girls themselves, yet as alike as the foster-siblings as well - arrived from Darkling Dawn to see their parents had also bonded dragons! They knew that their parents were searched and everything, it was just so ... weird, to the teenage girls.

Their dragons, like those of their parents, were adults. The two years or so that they'd spent apart seemed like forever at the time, but now that they'd had a chance to reunite they realized they'd all have something to talk about now and fill any silences with the praises of their dragons!

Maira and Penina chattered about their adventurers learning to fly, Mei chuckled about how hard it was at first to even sit on her dragon but her leg was finally doing well enough that she often didn't need her cane. Ralto did the hardest work of tending the dragon riding gear and making sure that they all had oil and fresh hide scraped clean. Penina looked up at the Starburst dragons and giggled.

"They look so pretty together. And mom, your dragon, she's so gorgeous! She's almost glowing, that silver on her is so bright!"

It was true, Yinnith's hide though already pale green in color and speckled with a sheen of silvery dots, she was starting to give off a bit of a glow. Not like having light shone upon her, but like she was casting light.

With a weird sensation, Mei realized... her dragon was grown up. Yes she was young, certainly a bit too young to be rising, but that was just what Yinnith was about to do!

And like her rider, the only dragon that Yinneth had eyes for, the only one she even allowed anywhere near her just now, was the handsome wood-brown with silverish speckled Vaniroth.

"Mooo-om!" Maira gasped, "Your dragon's proddy!"

She and Penina shared a long, silly giggle as they watched both Mei and Ralto get those weird looks on their faces as their dragons flew up into the sky. Though it wasn't a very long flight, it was quite... passionate. The green-silver bugled not only her thrill of having a flight, but her anger at the blue and another brown who tried joining in! On her flight? With her mate? Why the only indignity that could pass that up would be if those upstart greens down there joined in...

What a relief they didn't rise until a few weeks later, eh?

***

Maira and Penina knew that their parents had always had a very active, very personal relationship - they were more in love now than they'd been before, which was probably saying a lot. The girls, now sixteen and some moons, had long been looking over the handsome boys in the weyr or at gathers. Their tastes ran faintly different from one another, at least in looks.

What Maira liked in a man was shoulders - big, strong, muscular shoulders, and a strong back to go with them. A rider's shoulders, in other words. Penina found that she was attracted to the long-haired, long-faced boys, sometimes they were a bit outcast, sometimes they even had to wait until they were fully ranked riders before they could grow their hair out instead of having it shaved down while in training. She wanted to run her fingers through that hair...

They were thinking, and talking, about boys more often. Especially since a few days ago their parents' dragons had flown a pretty, if short, mating flight. What would have happened if Yinnith had allowed other males to crowd in on her? What if one of them had won? Well nothing like that could ever possibly separate the pair of riders, so why would it do so to the dragons!

But who would they, the girls, prefer to have inseparable? None! Though they talked, a lot, about who might make a good weyrleader, or whose dragon was the hardiest, and who would probably throw the best after-flight party, or who even would be the best kisser... The thought that they'd be 'stuck' with one man the rest of their lives made both girls squik and make faces.

"Why not?" Mei asked, poking at Penina with the end of her cane, "I mean, I found your father! We're perfect together, or don't you think so?"

"I'm not talking about you," Penina said, "I mean, can you see me and - and that one boy, what's his name? Y'dun? I mean, I love his hair, he's so cute, and his blue's got such great color... but I've heard the other boys say he snores so loudly that they gave him his own weyr because of it!"

"And I don't know about B'lel," Maira sat down opposite her mother at the wide table that their shared weyr had, "he really is ... um, all muscle..." she tapped her forehead and everyone laughed.

"But your dragons," Mei said, "they will rise, and by the looks of things, soon. Are you planning on announcing them?"

"I think they're going to fly together," Ralto said, from the ledge where Yinnith and Vaniroth lay basking in the midday sun. "It's uncanny how those two act just like you two do." He blinked, and laughed, "only they have an excuse, they were born from the same mother."

"It's a wonder they weren't born from the same egg," Maira laughed, "only Nambith's big butt would have crowded out Tambith's poor wings!"

When the pair of greens were ready, they did in fact sign up for a flight, a paired, dual flight at Starburst. Though they'd spent time away from their home on Alskyr, what was another couple months? They would see these clutches through, this flight, the next, and enjoy their time away - they could return sneaking in 'before' their real time elapsed anyway. That way... wood would get cut, clothing sewn, boys oggled... And dragons would be living in that village by the big forest!

next!

Brown-Silver Speckled Vaniroth, Starburst, Clutch 1a, gold-green Emynth & silver Kyarath

Green-Silver Speckled Yinnith, Starburst, Clutch 1a, gold-green Emynth & silver Kyarath

Dark Green Nambith, Darkling Dawn clutch 3, Green Diath & Brown Nowyrth

Green Pale Winged Tambith, Darkling Dawn clutch 3, Green Diath & Brown Nowyrth