Montella, female, 5'4”, 110, 15 turns old, very slender and petite. Dark brown-black hair sharply cut and very straight, with brown eyes and a pale complexion.

Extremely quiet and introverted, however she has a strength to her small frame, and her nimble fingers are well known among the crafters – as well as her lovers. Mentally she is average however she usually reserves comment rather than having no thoughts on a matter. She usually looks like she's plotting something. Whether she is or not, she leaves to the future. Montella does not like attention, and will do quite a bit of social dodging to keep her privacy. She is the daughter of a woodcrafter and his weaver wife, among the younger of their 6 children. She would be happy to whittle or weave, but her heart is in the skies and with dragon kind. She has a fire lizard named Loopy, a blue who is quite the opposite of her personality.

It wasn't long after Ameth's Impression that three more eggs seemed to hatch at once crashing into each other where they lay nestled near Alanysath. A brown, a blue, and a third green lay among the shards.

The brown was the first to his feet though he seemed reluctant to stand at all. However since he had been laying on his sister's tail and his brother's hind leg, he'd had no choice. While his siblings tried to sort themselves out, he lumbered toward the male candidates stopping halfway as if to catch his breath before continuing on.

The brown finally made a dramatic show of falling at Kineos' feet. It was apparently too much effort for him to walk across the Sands. K'eos shook his head. "Is this really necessary, Mauroth ? It can't have been that hard, right? Come on, some food will re-energize you."

The blue and green had gotten themselves untangled at last and nearly beaten their brown brother to the candidates when he'd Impressed. The pair both headed in the direction of the female candidates. The green seemingly reluctant to leave her brother's side. The blue butted her with his head as he tried to separate himself from the green.

Offended the little green squawked and bolted. She ran straight to Montella who'd been standing behind and away from the other candidates. She nearly knocked her over in her haste and ended up stepping on the girl's foot.

I'm sorry, Montella, did I hurt you? I didn't mean to. I am Kalith, the green lamented that she'd hurt her new rider.

"I'm fine, Kalith. It's okay. See," she took a few steps. "You didn't hurt me." The shy candidate and her green headed off the Sands with Montella disguising a slight hobble due to her injured foot.

***

Montella stood with a little hesitation near her green, who wanted to pace. She could feel her muscles tensing, but Montella clamped down on any movement that the dragon would do.

"I didn't expect it to be you," the Weyrlingmaster said, "what exactly can you say about this?"

"That Kalith won't do it again, and that she's quite sorry. She only wanted to see what the noise was, and ... well, now I have to say she's a little twitchy at the thought of entering a dark place like that."

"Well a tunnel snake of that size attacking her face would be a pretty good reason for that," he muttered. "Make sure that she knows where not to go, Montella."

She nodded, and then when the Weyrling master was out of sight she embraced her injured dragon's neck.

I am sorry! It hurts!

"We'll keep putting salve on your bite, Kalith," Montella said. "Leave the hunting of tunnel snakes to the watch-whers and hunters, all right?"

***

There was hardly a scar visible by the time the group of dragons and their riders were ready to head back to Alabaster. But something rang through the green's mind, and on impulse Montella spoke to her friends. "It won't be night time when we arrive, will it?"

"Not unless we want it to be," Torrey said, patting her gold's shoulder. "You'll see, it'll be fine."

The massive gold raised her wings, and bugled. Their signal to saddle up and get moving.

"You'll like it there, you will!" Montella assured her dragon. The quiet little green still had worries, but as they took to the sky and then followed the gold and her bronze companions lead, they exited to a brilliant midday over Paniya island.

It is warm here! I like that!

And bright, and plus you won't have to worry about ugly old tunnel snakes. There are none here!

The dragon seemed quite happy to hear that.