My tale begins earlier than most. The events of my life started before I hatched. My memories begin a few days before I broke through the shell. I was eager to escape and face the world, but something inside of me held me back. It was not yet my time. I remember the warmth from the sands and my muscles aching to be stretched and tested for the first time.

The time had come. I pushed and clawed at the shell enclosing me. I rocked back and forth, trying to get out. Suddenly, I stopped. Something wasn�t right. I stayed still, quietly huddled up inside my shell. Pain surged through me. My mind reeled. The searing flowed through my body, but the pain was not my own. It was as if something connected to me was having holes burnt through its flesh. I heard the distant screaming of what I would later learn to be the distressed call of a dragon in pain.

The next thing I remember was heat of an intensity that I could never have imagined. This time the pain was my own. I felt as though I was on fire. My scales bubbled and melted in the heat. A bright orange light filled my shell from all sides. My sensitive eyes burned in the brightness surrounding me, a light much greater than the day had ever shown me. Within seconds, the light was gone. The temperature cooled to normal in minutes. The pain, however, took much longer to go away. I tried not to move, but my shell shattered into a dusty ash that fell around me, leaving me unprepared to face the world I had so longed to see.

I remained curled up in the sand and ash until a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see a golden creature a thousand times my size. The queen dragon�s eyes looked sad as she shredded fresh meat into tiny pieces and dropped them down to me. Despite my pain and curiosity, my ravenous hunger controlled me. I practically inhaled my food until my stomach could hold no more. Sated, I stared back up at the queen above me. Her name was Nurith.

As I gazed up into Nurith�s eyes, I saw myself for the first time. Reflected in her eyes was a little black fire lizard with whirling golden eyes. Smooth, charcoal black scales were melted across my body. I watched as muscles quivered underneath my burnt flesh. Long, sharp talons decorated my limbs. A small spade point rested at the end of my tail. I stared into my own eyes, seeing myself through the eyes of another.

Nurith showed me my story�s beginning. I saw a brown dragon blink into the air underneath a falling cloud of thread. I heard the screams again. I watched both dragon and rider writhe in pain and blink between again, this time not to return. I heard the calls of the mourning dragons, brief as they were in the falling danger. I saw through Nurith�s eyes as she streaked across the sky. I fell with her, trying to catch the thread snaking its way toward the beach. As we descended closer to the sand, we took a deep breath and out came fire, a beautiful and pure flame. Then we were choking, trying to stop the flames mid-breath. A flashback floated through my mind. We were diving again, trying to catch the thread that had passed through the brown dragon. We inhale. Just as our fiery breath is released, we see a clutch of broken eggs. One egg was left unhatched. The queen egg. Fire scorched the thread that was wriggling their way toward the egg. As quickly as they started, the flames diminished. The queen egg was beneath us, a charcoaled shell. In the blink of an eye the shell was gone, all that was left was an ash covered, charcoal colored fire lizard.

In the weeks that followed my burns healed, leaving smooth black scales. My eyes, which remained golden, are the only piece of me that shows my true stature as a queen. Though I became known as the black fire lizard, I am still golden down to my very soul. Nurith had impressed me, making me unique in another way. I did not look to one person, nor was I wild. Through my connection with my larger cousins, I heard all of the dragon riders. As one would imagine, I quickly became a very valuable member of the Weyr. Nurith and the other dragons called me Tarlith. I am honored with a dragon�s name.