Holdborn, but feeling destined to ride a dragon in a weyr, Tsuna has always devoted herself to physical fitness and strength. She is quite good with a weapon, usually prefering staff or a sword, however she could not really practice these weapons in the Hold with the boys. She learned most of her skills from her older brother, Surrit. Tsuna was searched not long ago, and eagerly sent away to a weyr in the hopes that she'd either go away and ride like she wanted to, or come back with more 'girlish' an attitude. After a failure on the sands at the age of 16, she came back to Dawnlight to carry on her education in arms and tactics whether her parents or the instructors liked it or not.
She still hopes to bond, and with the whole Protectorate having moved to a new planet, she feels changes are in the air. No one has stopped her from picking up the staff she carries, and certainly now, no one insists that she marry into some other Holder family - there aren't any other families... And Dawnlight's folk were xenophobic *before* they moved to Alskyr...
So now, a little more than two years later, Tsuna and her family have been visited by another searcher. This time, he said, it seemed more likely that she'd bond. More mature, more balanced, and perhaps standing on the right sands.
She doesn't have any illusions, however, about Impression. She knows better than to think she belongs on a Gold, a green or even brown dragon would suit her attitude best.
Not many dragons could do that trick here, where they landed. Tsuna wondered if the world would have an effect on her dragon, should she bond to one. "What if she can't breed?" She muttered to herself, pushing a shirt into a tidy square, "what if he can't use flame? And what if they can't teleport? That would be disasterous..."
As she folded another shirt, Tsuna stopped and tilted her head. "No... no, that's not right. Because we're not even fighting the same things here. Ants - Ha! A dragon could gobble up an ant in an instant!" She made a snapping sound with her mouth, clacking her teeth and grinning. "Yes... any dragon I bond needs to be fierce. They'll need to be stealthy..."
"They'll need to be able to put up with your endless prattling to yourself," Surrit said, and Tsuna spun on him.
"Surrit! You made it! Are you coming with me? What about mom and dad, what'd they say about this?"
"Tsuna, you're hyper today..." He said, putting his weight on one leg and leaning on the wall, "relax... I don't know if mom and dad even know you're leaving so soon. I think they're under the impression that this weyr is 'here'."
"Like, here on Alskyr? Don't they remember the --"
"Oh I doubt it... You know how all those Alabaster house people just went right back to their farming and fishing?" Surrit drew his hand through tawny-brown hair, and then flicked it away from his face like his sister would. "And no, sweetie, I'm not going with you. I'm going to be training some ground crew for an ant fight."
"Oh! Where!" Her packing forgotten, Tsuna plopped down onto the cot she'd been using as a table, and gazed at her brother intently.
"They're... going off over sea. Other isles are getting hit hard. The ants seem like they're multiplying faster I guess. I think they're breeding somewhere we can't reach, like some island that might be too small for us to see flying overhead."
"But... will they reach Paniya?" Tsuna asked, serious. "I mean, if I'm needed too I'll--"
"No, Tsu, you go bond to a dragon. I'm not cut out for that, you're still young enough that you'll adjust to the work of it. And besides, if you're on a dragon, you'll be able to come back and fight by my side anyway!" He ruffled her hair, and left before she could ask any further questions. She knew that she had to be packed by nightfall, so she hurried along.
***
The great brown dragon snorted a greeting, and Tsuna's parents cried and hugged each other while their daughter was carried up into the night sky. How could they know that when it disappeared into the starry velvet, that it was going not just around the planet... but to another place entirely?
When the brown bearing Tsuna arrived at Moon Shadow weyr, he almost collapsed. It was a long trip. Tsuna got off his neck carefully, and approached his wedge-shaped head. "Thank you for carrying me, it was a long way, wasn't it?"
The dragon grumbled low in his throat, but his eyes spun a happy color, appreciative of the compliment. Tsuna insisted on carrying her own heavy bags, she'd packed them, she might as well heft the burden of getting them to her barracks.
Though it had been evening when they left Dawnlight Hold, it was somewhat past midday at Moon Shadow. The light made Tsuna very disoriented, but she soon got used to it. Minutes after dropping her bags in the shared room, she was summoned to the record keeper's office to make sure they knew who was from where - and where she'd be needed once she bonded and completed training with her dragon.
"Alskyr... is that a weyr?" Asked the records keeper, but his young assistant bumped up beside him and fluttered with the paperwork.
"It's a new place, don't worry, I'll handle this. You have enough work on your hands master scribe!" The gangly-limbed young man said. When the master had left the tables, he said, "so you're from that new world... What's it like? Where is it? I mean, can you see it from here?"
He went on with questions, they finished the small amount of real questions and wrapped up with an evening at the kitchens. The boy, named Baillen, was so excitable that he got Tsuna to relate a number of things she'd almost forgotten about the world. It was like he was testing her knowledge - and she passed with flying colors.
She was also about ready to drop by the time their night fell. "I've GOT to get to my quarters, Baillen, I'm pooped!"
"Well I'll see you in the morning then. I hear the classes are going to get to touch the eggs tomorrow, if the queen lets them. You're so lucky..." He drifted off into his own little world, while Tsuna bumped her way back to the barracks.
Two other girls shared this stone-walled room, and both of them had been on the sands before this without success, just like Tsuna. However unlike her, they were Ladies of rather high breeding, and didn't think much of the two-toned girl's choice of clothing.
"How... manly of you," said the one, "wearing pants like a boy."
"If you bond, you'll have to wear pants too," Tsuna reminded them as she disrobed, "so get used to it."
The other girls gasped when they saw Tsuna's strong, muscular body and legs. "What do you do to yourself!? You're not really even a girl -" the other gasped.
Tsuna turned slowly at the girl, leveling her amber shaded eyes at her. "If I'm a boy in a girl's body or a girl in a man's body, or a woman or a two-legged shaved feline," she growled, "it won't matter to my dragon. And if I bond and you don't, perhaps you'll have more to think about than how rude you are. I got enough chiding from my old home, and I'll not have it here." So tired was she that Tsuna didn't even bother trying to hide her nude shape from them. Instead, she stood, powerful and menacing, and sneered at them.
"We'llllll be off to bed now! It's light's out!" sputtered the first girl. The other followed suit. With the lights doused, Tsuna found her way to her cot quietly and slid between the sheets and into blissful darkness.
***
It was so early - why did it have to be so early! The sun hadn't even begun to grace the hallways but every candidate was called to their breakfast and morning chores. Tsuna dragged herself from the cot, putting on her work clothing, and noticing that the two girls had an even harder time getting out of bed than she did - and she suspected it was because they were used to not having to do any chores until quite late in the morning. Not so any longer.
"I'll see you in the caverns," Tsuna said, happily. She hadn't forgotten the stony and sharp words from the night before, but she'd well established her dominance over the pair of Ladies, and would have a good time messing with them until they got to the sands.
Tsuna dug into her breakfast eagerly. She'd forgotten what it was like to have old-world food, Alskyran dishes ran spicy and rather hot, here it was an exotically mundane mush that greeted her taste buds. And, of course, klah was no substitute for a good cup of Chagga Black... But she'd live without coffee, for the time being.
The candidates were assigned chores like scrubbing weyrs clean, helping move heavy loads, tossing things between levels of the weyr, and running up and down to the fire heights and back with messages. All of these things Tsuna could do with great ease, and kept up with the burliest of the male candidates. In fact, the brothers Madrigal seemed very familiar to Tsuna. They were also from Dawnlight, they too had been grilled by the excitable apprentice scribe in the records room.
On the way up to the drum peak, she and they huffed along at a good clip, ahead of the other candidates. Pico was used to running distances, so he was less winded, while his brother Sergio was strong but not used to this sort of endurance.
"They said we might get to touch the eggs," Tsuna panted.
"Do you think we will?" Pico asked, hardly out of breath.
"I'd love to," Tsuna replied, almost tripping over a stone but being held up by the strong hands of Sergio. "Thanks!"
"No problem... Here we are. And, now what?" Sergio looked down and saw a number of dragons descending on the lake, below. When the other candidates got there, they all stood huffing and puffing, regaining their breath, while a huge flight began in the weyrbowl.
"I wonder if they want us back," Sergio said, thumbing down to the candidate trainers who were frantically waving at the group.
"I don't know... I can't quite make them out from here," Tsuna said, grinning. A couple of the other candidates wanted to head down - one of Tsuna's room mates was apparently terrified of heights (great survival trait for a dragon rider, Tsuna thought to herself) and another was so afraid of breaking the rules that he'd almost wet himself as Sergio prevented him from leaving.
"If they have a fit," Tsuna said, "you can all blame us. We're the ones bullying you lot around, right?" She glanced at the pair of girls from her dorm and threw them a smirk. Then, they turned to watch the flight of a large green followed by an entourage of blues, browns and the spare white or bi-color.
After half an hour the flight took itself too far out of sight to see from even the drum heights. And right about then was when their candidate trainers arrived at the top of the heights...
***
"Consider it punishment for your trick on the heights," the weyrling master said, as the golden queen on the sands rolled her eggs and angrily snarled at anyone who came near. "She's been moving them around occasionally, I guess you all just lost out on the privelege of touching them since you were up there all that time."
Though one or two of the candidates were able to swallow that guilt, Tsuna didn't let it sit for long. "But sir, shouldn't she be interested in allowing us to at least be near the eggs? If they're going to choose one of us they'll have to know our voices."
With a sigh, the weyrling master admitted, "she doesn't even let us count the eggs, let alone know for sure if there's really a gold among them -"
THERE MIGHT BE, be happy with that! Bespoke the testy gold. It is enough that these young things are honored enough to be allowed this near.
"She's getting quite testy," someone muttered. "Must be close to hatching..."
"That," Tsuna said, "and that flight earlier. I've been told that queens are very ... territorial?" She turned to the weyrling master, and pried another lesson out of him, right there on the sands.
"Yes, Tsuna, the queens won't usually allow any other females near their clutches. Some greens who are allowed to clutch might see it differently, but most of the time queens are just like this."
JUST LIKE WHAT!?
***
The days went by quickly... Tsuna and the other candidates continued to have their lessons and finally were able to approach the eggs while Zenath was getting a much needed rubdown by her rider and several flitters.
Tsuna walked among the half-buried oval shapes, until... Perhaps something caught her eye, maybe her toe dug deeper into the sand... But this egg, here... She knelt next to one of the many orbs in the sands, and placed her hands over it barely touching it. It was so hot, hotter than the sands, even.
You're calling to me, Tsuna thought. I hope I'm right for you, whoever you are...
The dragons began to croon just *after* Tsuna had gotten dressed for the hatching. How could she know? She just did. Tsuna almost hoped that she'd be at the sands alone before the hatching began, but that was not to be. The eggs hatched one after another, singly or in little groups, this was not a very large hatching but it looked like a nice solid one.
A green came first, then a blue, a red amazed everyone, and then Pico and Sergio bonded a pair of browns! They were so cute. A beautiful bronze came next, then the blue who had hatched with the browns bonded. A strange blue bonded to a girl, then another one. A green came over to the girls and Tsuna was begining to get a little queasy. Had the egg that she'd touched hatched yet? She couldn't tell, the eggs were rolled around so much in the meantime that none of them were in the same spot as they had been before. A purple hatchling came out, but didn't bond yet. Though a brown came out first and bonded before the purple made her choice. It was a female, Tsuna noted.
Another pair of browns hatched, one large and one small. While the smaller one was sad and looked a little scared to be there, the bigger one jumped from the shell and headed straight for Tsuna!
I'm here! I'm here! He bespoke in a happy tone. Tsuna knew right then that this had been her egg. She didn't know if it was going to be gold or brown or spotted, but she knew that this hatchling was to be her lifemate!
"Come on Zwith!" she called back as they ran to the kitchens. Tsuna caught a glimpse of the sad girls who hadn't bonded again - but thought the better of sticking her tongue out at them. Even though they were annoying, they were going to be sad for a long time to come.
