Eller, male, 6’, 150, age 17 turns, blond hair and blue eyes, with skin that burns easily in the sun.

Very thin and bony, he is very strong for his frame. He can’t hold out for long periods of time without resting, though he knows that working around dragons would be able to solve that little problem. Eller is the middle son of seven, born to a huntsman and his cook wife. He is very empathic and clever, and at the same time quite charming. In this manner, he has all sorts of hold girls waiting for his attentions. He loves to hunt, enjoying the crossbow and other distance weapons, as he is a very good shot. He is literate, though he doesn’t really enjoy reading or writing. Eller more likes tracking and taking trophies, and talks about the ones he has endlessly at the inn. He has a hunting falcon named Hirak which he uses during his hunts, though he is not remarkably attached to the bird.

When their dragons paired off around 15 years ago, E'ler and Sega remained together and have four children, three boys and one girl

Outside, far off along the eastern area of the Hold's grounds, the rain had already swept through and filled several shallow gullies with quickly moving water. A blond-haired young man and his two darker looking attendants hustled around trees, scurring to get back to the Hold before another lightning bolt blasted them. A falcon creeled in the sky, and Eller whistled to it. The bird swooped down, more accurate than any trained flitter, and landed upon Eller's gloved hand.

"That's a boy," he said, calming the bird by putting its cowl over terrified eyes. The bird's ruffled feathers soon calmed, though they were becoming soaked. Eller looked at the young hunters and tossed his head at one of the hilly passes near them. "That's the way," he said, shooing them quickly through it. He hadn't been wrong before, when the pair thought they were lost, Eller had come and located them. It was eerie, almost as if his bird saw for him. He certainly did not claim that it did, he was a better tracker than all that.

The trio slipped into the Hold's Gather Downs, which was rapidly soaking and filling up with the cold rainwater. One of the young hunters managed to get himself stuck into a tent-peg hole that would normally be filled with, well, a tent peg. The Gather Down would be busy any normal spring or summer day, but these late winter storms made it nearly impossible to hold gathers on a regular basis. Eller helped the lad out, his boot squelching now with muddy water.

They finally made it into the shelter which led down into Caledrus' tunnels. Finally feeling safe, the pair of hunters sped off to their cothold in the Holder's Nook. Eller shook the water from his hair, wrung his vest out, and made soothing noises to his falcon Hirak.

"Talking to birds, again?" Said a gruff but bemused voice. Eller looked up to see one of his friends, Kraen. Two young men could not be more opposite in so many ways, and yet so similar. Both of them educated at the same time, with the same Harpers, both of them quite adept at shooting Thread with their respective flame throwers. But beyond that, their enjoyment of things intellectual versus physical put them at philosophical odds. Kraen tossed his friend a towel.

"It's getting bad out there, is everyone inside?" Asked Eller, and Kraen shrugged.

"No idea, though I hope so. We've just got a supply caravan in, too. Fine time for rain like this."

"It's a better time for rain than Thread," muttered Eller. "And our hunt was ruined."

"There'll be wherry roast anyway, Eller. Don't pout." Kraen's green eyes sparkled. Eller swung the wet towel back at him, landing with a splat on his shoulders. Eller brought his falcon into his weyr, actually the animal holding area beside his, and opened his hood again after the bird was calmly in his home territory. The pair of men wandered through the area, and attracted the requesite looks and snickers. One as wet as Eller couldn't help it, he looked, well, drenched as though he'd been in the bathing chambers!

"You must get that fixed!" Called out a young man, laughing at the other two. "Look at this material! It's shredded!"

"It's frayed, and it's supposed to be that way," Eller said, "mind your own tailoring, Dolren, you're about to get a rip in your shirt…"

It was as vague a threat as any, yet the blond tailor's son reminded himself that Eller wasn't known for having a long fuse. "Suit yourself," Dolren announced, "no pun intended of course." Kraen laughed, Eller merely grunted.

"I'd like to just get dry and fed. Would you like to feed me, Dolren? Or do you think one of the charming craft girls over there will help?" Eller nodded a little toward the low wide room where the smell of food wafted from, and the bustling of people could be heard. The trio of young men put on grins and their best charm, and entered the chambers.

The dark haired Montella watched the three men come into the room and very nearly slunk out of it. If it weren't for the fact that she was still enjoying her meal, their presence would have run her out. So much ego, she thought, and so much bluster. Unfortunately, Montella's blue flitter Loopy enjoyed the company of loud mouthed, annoying males, and cheerfully sprang off her narrow shoulder and into the air above the men.

"Loopy!" Called out Dolren, "ah, your mistress is lonely!"

From across the room, Montella shrank into her seat. How in the world was it possible that this stupid flitter could keep embarrassing her like this!? She never got the feeling from the animal that it was getting back at her for anything she'd done, like not feeding him or punishing him unduly… He was just such a squirt!

"No, Dolren, not lonely," Montella muttered as the young tailor sat beside her, "uninterrupted."

Kraen and Eller both laughed, but did not come by the pair. They had other more easily charmed women on their arms already. Mostly, ones who were interested in "warming and drying" poor Eller.

"Yeah, poor Eller," Kraen muttered, as they split up again down a hallway corridor.

"Hey," Eller said with a grin over one of the girls' shoulders, "you go out and save the day and I bet you'd be surrounded by beauty and warmth too."

The girls giggled, and hugged to his thin frame tightly.

***

Eller remembered well the day that the youngest of their family had been born. It was the same day that his grandfather, Elmeren, gave him Hirak. Eller had been ten years old, and the bird was but a hatchling. He protected the small bird, and fed him every hour or so when he woke. It was a lot of work for a young child, but he did it diligently. His grandmother and mother helped with preparing the mushy mixture that the bird needed to eat - but soon enough Eller was finding small pieces of meat to add to it.

Within a few weeks, the bird was entirely dependant on him, and devoted to him. Eller liked that feeling. But he also knew that the bird wasn't going to live as long as flitters or a dragon would - how he'd imagined that the creeling hunger pangs of the bird had been the cry of a dragon waking him in the night.

But it was not so. A hold-born son, able and witty, but not a dragoner was he. Not yet anyway.

The other boys in the hold were jealous of the bird, and one almost tried to steal him - but Hirak was loyal, and the arrogant son of a ranking holder got away with a gouge in his cheek and a half-bitten finger for his troubles. That nearly brought the Hold down upon the family.

"How dare you allow that thing to attack my son!" The lordling man bellowed. "Now he will be marred for life, and you are to blame!"

Eller's father began to say something but Eller spoke up. His voice was clear, if not deep. "Sir, your son wanted to steal Hirak from me, and my falcon is loyal. He was merely defending himself, and I wouldn't expect him to do otherwise. He's a good hunter, and your son would know that if he had ever paid attention to the falconers."

"The ... he - how dare you!"

Eller's grandfather, elderly but keen, stepped in. "My grandson is not lying to you, young Lord, and I'd take care to remember in whose home you are standing."

"Old man," the Holder warned, "you only live here by the grace of the Lords of Caledrus."

"Young man," Elmeren said, as Eller stood proudly next to him and his father Eldtar, "if your idiot boy steps close to my grandson or my other family again, you'll wish that all he did was need a bandage for his bruised pride. The bird is young, yet, and those talons will be fit to take his eye if that's his wish." He narrowed his eyes, white hair tossed back and slender frame tense. Eller thrilled that his family was as strong as it was. "Now, get out of our home, and take your child with you. If he wants a bird of his own, he can find another falconer family to provide it to him - but it won't come from my rook."

When the Lord and his son turned and left, huffy and certainly planning some kind of revenge, Eller noticed the small quirk of a smile on his mother's lips as she fixed the mashed potatoes.

"I knew there was a reason I liked my inlaws," she muttered and went back to her stirring.

***

The snow was way up on the peak distantly, but the wind and the chill air could have frozen anything down in the Hold. So crisp was the air that Eller didn't even wish to take Hirak out and let him hunt, the piercing cries of the bird might shatter everything.

So Eller went alone, clothed in warm furs and thick cloth, carrying his crossbow into the hills. There were sightings of an injured tunnel snake that was quite large, and how it'd made its way outside all this way was beyond him. There were tunnel snakes in the Hold of course, but they were everywhere. They didn't get as large as some in Weyrs though - and this one was said to be gigantic.

Soon enough, Eller found himself staring at a set of tracks so distinctive and so large, that he knew he'd found his prey. But he wasn't positive that he'd brought enough in the way of weaponry for it. Maybe he ought to head back - but his pride wouldn't let him. He was fifteen and hunting, of course he could take down a ten-foot long tunnel snake himself.

He looked at the tracks, closely. They were spaced so that it seemed that at least one of the beast's many legs were lame, and possibly with an injury to its foot as well. That was good, but perhaps not good enough. It had headed down into the Hold's northern storage area, for sure. It would probably have been drawn in by the smell of foodstuffs.

When Eller reached one of the half-hidden doorways to the storage tunnels, sure enough it was bent open and there was a stretch of peeled skin left on one of the hinge edges. The tunnel snake had gone in. He'd be needing lights.

There was a small nook near the entrance with glows, and he shook a bunch of them out into the metal gutter that ran under the ceiling. They tumbled along, since the hallway was in fact angled down. The whole arrangement was very clever, but Eller hadly had time to think about it.

The light showed him that the beast was wounded and had freshly entered the place. Eller moved down the hall, and pulled open the little glow-gate to let the glows tumble into the next section of half-pipe into the hallway. Every ten feet or so, he paused, moved the light with him, and waited for sounds.

Eventually, halfway into the corridor, and with darkness swallowing up everything for half a mile in either direction, he heard a noise. His nose flared and he smelled the pungent acid of the tunnel snake's ichorous blood. Cocking the crossbow, and keeping two more bolts along its handle for quick use, Eller stepped again, and moved the glows.

They startled the tunnel snake, but it recoiled instead of running. Eller unloaded the first bolt into it, but either it bounced off or lodged somewhere he couldn't see. The snake gave off a bellow, and its many-limbed form slithered around in a half circle before turning on Eller.

Without a sound, Eller took the second bolt and loaded it, cocked the crossbow again, and fired. This time, he saw the bolt clearly enter the flesh of the thing just below its gullet, near the first set of its shoulders. The soft skin there bled out, and its leg twitched hard. Another leg he noticed was indeed injured, bitten by something bigger - perhaps another tunnel snake, maybe a dragon.

"Just stay right there and let me kill you," Eller said, his voice almost seeming to have a soothing effect on the beast. The third bolt flew directly into the snake's eye, causing it to wail and thrash about. In that moment, Eller backed up a bit, and took out another pair of bolts. While he was loading the first, though, the tunnel snake's heavy tail smacked into him and tossed the second bolt out of his hands. Still clinging to the first and his bow, Eller swung his left hand with the bolt up to protect his face - landing right into the jaw of the tunnel snake!

It spurted out another gout of black-green blood, and howled its pain, while Eller fumbled for his knife. It seemed an eternity as the tunnel snake snapped its head back and forth, tossing ichor over the wall and Eller's body. But finally- with a wet smacking sound, Eller's strong hand with the sharp hunting knife in it found the bone behind the creature's skull.

It trembled for a moment, spasming, and then was still.

Eller took the head off, and left the body for the folks that the Hold would send to clean up. This prize was his alone.

***

Eller was sixteen, and the girl was the same - perhaps a sevenday older or so. And her eyes betrayed her fears.

"I'm pregnant," she said, "what do we do?"

"Are you still interested in me?" Eller asked her. Her eyes grew a bit glum.

"I... I'm meant to be betrothed to Journeyman Basran," she said. "And I do love him."

"More than you loved me, when this happened," Eller said, tilting his head forward and giving her a playful smile. She fell into a grin of her own, and broke the tension in the room with her bright laugh.

"Well, I suppose so - but if I didn't still feel something for you, my friend, I wouldn't have bothered coming to you to tell you."

"What will you want then," Eller said. "When's the handfasting?"

"Oh - well," Medla tossed her head, twirling a strand of golden-yellow hair around her plump finger. "Not until the spring, and that's going to be a bit after ... well, after the birthing."

"You're sure?" Eller said, "because the timing could mean a lot. And, does he know?"

"He knows I will not bed him until we're wed," she said, and they paused before bursting out laughing.

"He must be a wealthy Journeyman, this Basran. I don't know him." Eller admitted. He wrapped his arms around her warm shoulders, and swayed with his ex-girlfriend in his room.

"He is, actually, he's a jewler - quite a good one." She seemed to smile while thinking about it. "He'll be making Master sooner than not."

"Then you're leaving me for money?" Eller jibed gently.

"I'm leaving the whole Hold for money, he lives across the river in Larks Hold." She said quietly. Eller's eyebrows knit together.

"Then... Will you be all right? With... or without the child?" He asked with concern.

"I think it'd be best without, and ... I will be all right. But I want to know where to go? Who to foster this child of ours with?"

"I'll ask around, and we'll keep it quiet. Medla, you know I'll miss you." Eller said, and she hugged him tightly.

As Medla left, Eller made a note to look up a couple people he'd been talking to recently. A pair who couldn't stop talking about their desire and inability to have children... That it might not even have been his child at all had never occurred to Eller - he believed Medla and thought at least that he could do her this favor. If she was going to live in Larks Hold she'd need it.

*** (this search takes place after the Kshau Protectorate shifts to Alskyr - without having told anyone about it.)***

There were dragons in the air, over the flats, and Eller didn't want Hirak to be too cranky so he held the old bird close to him, with the hood over his eyes.

The rest of Eller's family followed him, but were somehow not either surprised at his wanting to see them, nor too enthused to go themselves.

Eller arrived at the Flats, where dozens of others were already gathering. The weather was quite clear, early spring in this area brought with it the smell of greenery and the sounds of rutting wherry. He recognized a good dozen of his friends, Kraen among them. They stood together proudly as the dragons flew down.

"Where do you think those are from?" Kraen asked, and Eller had no answer.

He guessed, "Probably Alabaster, but I don't know. They haven't come recently."

The riders motioned for everyone to please quiet down. The brown rider from Alabaster was K'yle, the Lord Holder's son. There was a blue rider, T'shen by name, whose travels through the Protectorate were quite amazing. The third was a woman, but quite the odd one, on a gold dragoness. For some reason, it looked as though this woman had ... fur and a tail. No one quite believed it until she dropped to the ground and started talking to her companions, but sure enough there were small ears poking out over her mop of silver hair, and a long tuft-tipped tail that swished about.

People began muttering almost immediately, but K'yle shushed them with a wave of his hand. "We're here on search, yes! We're going to give an announcement that's a bit important, to your Lords!" He answered several questions quickly, and then turned to his dragon who bellowed for quiet again. "Thanks - now listen - the Protectorate is going through some drastic changes. We've found a place that's better than all this," he waved his hand but few understood what he meant by that cryptic remark.

They continued to answer typical questions, but avoided mentioning this odd event, and then began allowing people near the dragons so they might be searched.

Eller watched as Aaryea and some others grouped up, and started their approach to the dragons. Cendar snuffed, "there's Caledrua herself," at the sharp-tongued woman who was the eldest daughter of the Lord Holder of Caledrus. "Does she really think she'll get Searched?"

"I think she just was," Aaryea sighed. Kraen chuckled at that, but Eller was more intent on the dragons.

K'yle let his brown snuffle over the pair, and apparently decided that they were both acceptable fare for dragons.

Eller calmed Hirak again, when the bird got a whif of the dragon. "Sir, if I might ask?" He said to K'yle who was clearly unused to being called 'sir' - he was hardly that much older than Eller or the other young folks out for Search. "What is that woman? The furry one?"

K'yle looked at the female gold rider, Kaytcha, and shrugged. "She's a feline, now. She didn't used to be, she was a girl before. We moved, and lots of people changed."

"What do you mean, 'moved'?" Eller said, suspicious. Kraen echoed him.

"Well, we ... took the Protectorate to a new planet. I haven't announced it yet because I wanted people to have a bit of time to be settled in before they got a big shock."

"But..." Kraen said, "moved?"

"Yeah - with the dragons. It was a big thing. But I'll be making an announcement anyway. When we come back. So get packing. You're both going to want to prepare."

"Can I bring my falcon?" Eller asked, and K'yle shrugged again.

"I think so, but you won't have a lot of time to work with it if you bond."

Eller decided that leaving Hirak with his folks wouldn't be such a bad thing. As long as he knew where to find him, and knew that he'd be able to raise another bird if he didn't bond...

*** (from the group's search page)***

The large group of gathered Caledruans milled about, surprised at how many there were, and how many of them knew one another - or at least knew someone else in the group. Each had an attachment to the next, they almost could form a chain of familiarity.

When another rider showed up, a day after the trio had Searched, several of the Seached recognized him as a man who had formerly lived there! One of the girls, Janice, bolted to his side when he got off the back of his proud bronze dragon.

"H'ndar!" She cried, laughing and relieved to see him. Every time he would visit, there would be another scar on his skin, and every time, she was eager to locate it.

"It's just Hendar, if you want," the rider said, with an odd smile. "I'm not so fond of people saying it that way any more." He smirked at Janice's odd reaction (she furrowed her eyebrows and went to apologize, but then stopped and swatted him instead).

"But why?" Janice asked. "Why suddenly this odd change? What has really been happening out there?"

Just then, two more riders and dragons arrived, yet more old Caledrus inhabitants who had long since vanished to their own devices. One was riding a dragon whose color shocked a number of the Searched - and a good portion of the onlookers who couldn't be forced to leave. The dragon was a bright shade of red, with paler white markings on it. The rider was a girl who had been well known by the higher status Lordlings - Ezhar the dancer. Her partner, T'nor (who had no such problems with his name being shortened, he still thought it quite an honor) rode a two-toned blue dragon, both clearly from one Weyr by their appearance.

"We will be needing the different dragons to take you all to your destinations," K'yle announced loudly, in his half-squeaky voice. He could sound very serious, when he put his mind to it, but he'd never have the command over people that his father did. "We're going to show you some places that are in need of candidates, and if you think one or another is to your liking, we'll see if you can bond there."

Someone called out, "don't you mean Impress?" But K'yle glared at them.

"No, I mean bond. It's a more broad term. We've found places that aren't all ... well, you'll see. You all will understand best after you get there. And the rest of you," he gazed at the assembled inhabitants who hadn't been Searched, "don't worry. We're all going to explain it soon enough - but you will have to be patient and you will have to trust us."

Another trio of dragons and riders came through the nexus, Betweening was such an old-world term, one of whom had lived at Caledrus as a first-class records keeper, before he was searched. Waadier, now fondly known as D'ier, and his pretty green (what a surprise for people who knew him, huh? NOT!). D'ier and Elkinorith joined the search team on occasion, and he apologized to K'yle for not being there earlier.

"It's all right. It's these two I'm worried about," the Lord Holder's son glanced at his half-sibling Pasha, and Pasha's brother Haze. "Didn't you think there would be enough good candidates here?" He asked them, and both men waved him off with a grin - the same grin that he often had on his face.

They had ridden in on a pair of large dragons, Haze's large bronze Alkalmith, and Pasha's brown Surketh. The dragons moved from their landing spots to an area with bumpy ground that suited them to rest upon, with the others.

Gold, Bronze, two Browns, two Blues, Green, and Red... They lined up like a spectrum of possibilities. Resting and chatting, the dragons seemed to largely ignore the people around them, until K'yle whistled for their attention.

The little booklets that D'ier handed out to the group of Searched folks had shiny pictures on them, of dragons and different weyrs - they could tell that these images were real pictures, not paintings. There was something very surreal about this. Very few people of Caledrus knew about photographs, and most of the ones who did, only knew in theory. They did know that Alabaster had some strange machines that could almost seem to think for themselves. Perhaps these pictures came from them?

"Now, look over everything. There is information about each location's needs and desires," K'yle said, as D'ier finished handing them out. "But I want you all to keep in mind one very important thing. We are *not* going to be fighting Thread any longer."

There was a pause, when everyone put down their pamphlets and stared at him like he was insane.

"There are other things on our minds now, as riders. There are threats to our home, but Thread is not among them. However we have learned that those people who were born on our old home," (that elicited a lot of muttering about what in the world he could mean) "tend to bond best to old-world dragons. Dragons who would be best familiar with you. Dragons of the older colors," he tossed his head at the fivesome plus one oddity. "and not ones with the newer breed types. When you get back to Alabaster, you'll see what I mean."

"How much has our home changed?" Demanded someone, "where are we if we aren't on our old home?"

"The world is called Alskyr," said Kaytcha, her gold dragoness tossing her head and reminding people that even though the girl had fur and a tail now - was not human as far as they were concerned - she had still impressed a grand golden dragon like herself. "And it's a very nice place. You will all benefit," she turned to the onlookers who had started to mill about nervously, "because this world is rich in plant life, and our isle has some wonderful people on it that accepted us on it."

"The arrangement was made," K'yle said, "by my father, by T'shen, and by some other people high-up. We knew that if there was an announcement there would be panic, and we wouldn't be able to bring everyone along properly."

Pasha and Haze, standing together with their shoulders bumped, nodded. "And you never noticed, did you?" Pasha asked. He was the stronger telepath of the two, and his lineage (K'yle's side especially) were ones which had helped the most.

"It's not important how long we've been here," said Haze, having heard someone ask that among the Searched, "what is important is that we integrate everyone into our new ways, sooner or later."

"That brings us to the dragons," T'shen said, sweeping past the brothers. The Searched group were apt to stare at him anyway, tall and handsome as he was. Even D'ier (perhaps especially D'ier) gazed at him in wonder. "The dragons who pair off with Caledrus inhabitants will be living with you, here." He swept his hand and suddenly - because they had been inclined to ignore it and nudged telepathically to do so by Engell and his troupe - people noticed that the mountains that had greenery about them, also had ledges, caverns, terraces... Big enough for dragons to roost if they so wished.

"... So you're saying," one of the Searched girls said, "that we will be coming back here, to live, with our dragons."

"That's it in a nutshell."

"Then let's go!" She said, laughing, looking through the pamphlet. Aaryea was grinning like mad, as she looked through her own.

One thing that a number of the searched noticed was that there were multiple openings at several of the locations. Particularly, a place called Blue Sky had lots of openings, but for some unusually colored dragons on the sands. Some of the searched were leery of such things. K'yle told them not to try for those types, then. There were other locales fit for them.

Eller kept coming back to the Blue Sky pages. The dragons were interesting looking. Horns, and two-toned bodies. They looked as though they had wingsails in a contrasting color, that was kind of cool.

Eller noticed that Sega too had found the smart looking Blue Sky dragons pages and wouldn't turn to another. "I think we're going there," he said, and she nodded and grinned.

He brought her over to K'yle and waited until he'd stopped talking to another Holder with all kinds of questions. Why ask why?

"We'd like to go to Blue Sky," Sega said, happily.

"Then Blue Sky it is," K'yle nodded and told them both to get their goods, if they were ready to fly.

The weyr was damp and somewhat cold - it'd rained on and off for days, and this weather wasn't changing any time soon. It put a dent in hunting but not in seeking out any stray vermin - there were still mice and other small rodents, as well as native creatures, which roamed the darker low caverns, and flitters and cats only caught so many of those.

"Hunting mice," he muttered to himself, with a grin, "what a mighty man I am."

"You'll be mightier if you head to the sands," someone said, catching him on his way back through the halls. "The eggs are hatching, both clutches are showing cracks!" The steward in training bolted down the hall, trying to locate any of the other locals for the hatching.

It was hardly fun, getting the white robes on and then having to race out to the sands. What dragon decides to lay eggs that'll hatch in the middle of a typhoon? Eller was chilled to the bone, cold and wet, but still, he was standing for a dragon! And these dragons were quite the interesting ones - all of the adults were up in the rafters of the huge cavern, humming their song.

The other candidates trudged in with Eller, he saw Sega looking nervous and twitchy, but she might have just been extra cold. She wasn't known for dressing very warmly.

But the first eggs were trembling and about to hatch - Eller watched with great interest as a big bronze erupted from his egg. The gambling up in the stands was wild, a bronze was a great signal for an exceptional clutch! Apparently though, this bronze was taking his time, and a green had hatched in the meantime while he was drying his wings. She started to walk toward the candidates but suddenly the bronze made off toward the boys, getting in her way and stopping her progress. He impressed, and then two more eggs hatched, another green, and a blue. The blue bonded even before the first green had, but she did shortly. The second green paired up a moment later, and then a third green egg broke. However, this one was a multicolored, she had golden wingsails and belly scales. A big black dragon broke his shell, too, astounding everyone.

The black found his bond in the boys, while it was not a big surprise to Eller that his companion Sega was the one that the green gold had chosen. He smiled inwardly, that was a good choice. She'd be tiny, but she was still a queen.

Eventually, two more greens and a blue impressed off, then another three green hatched. They fought or were just entangled as they exited their shells, broken up by their new bonds. Another set of eggs came open at the same time as the big queen's egg, the others bearing a brown, two blues and another green.

The queen shoved in front of the others, because of course she was a gold - and they deserved all the space they could get. The blues had some trouble pairing off, but they eventually found their friends, while the green and brown bonded shortly. Then...

There were only two eggs, and one broke to show off another bronze! Eller looked around, dazed. Had it been all but him and the other, a girl, left?

The bronze stood proudly before the young man and told him, even if all the other men were left, I would have picked you anyway, Eller. I am Isurth!

Eller grinned widely, "I know," he said. The name echoed in his mind, and he practiced saying it while the last egg broke giving the last girl on the sands her beautiful green.

Eller, or perhaps E'ler, since he kind of liked the elided names of the old world, strode away with his fine bronze.

Isurth lurked around on the hunting grounds, watching. He was far too young and small to participate in a full flight, but he could watch.

"You taking notes?" E'ler asked, and the bronze nodded carefully, his eyes scanning how one bronze ducked below the queen in flight, while another bided his time. They were wearing her down, he realized.

Yes. The bronze in back will win, I believe.

Sure enough, shortly, when the other browns and the leading bronze had dropped from the flight, the secondary bronze had caught his queen. A technique worth remembering. Especially since there were queens that were going to be chase-worthy graduating soon...