Hocayi - Male, age 17

It would be actually quite some time before the eggs on the Special Clutch Zone at Tripaldi hatched. That gave Hocayi a lot of time to think about his position - in the Tribe, in the dragon training realm, as a Powered Kin.

It was the last that seemed most important, because where he was now? The people - even the humans, or perhaps especially them - valued his psychometry quite a bit.

One of them on the sly even asked him seriously, to place his hands on the eggs in the sands, while the queens weren't looking, and tell him what he thought.

It was an odd request - but one night he did so. Hocayi knew that this was to be done secretly, so he said nothing to the other candidates. Not even the one he bunked with, a human boy.

The strange man led him around, as the queens slept restlessly - one stirred, and they would either freeze or bolt out of the chamber. Hocayi had little trouble doing that but his companion, whose name escaped him, could not run nearly as well.

But they didn't get caught.

Later on, just before the eggs seemed ready to hatch, Hocayi heard the rumor that several of the green-queen's eggs had gone missing, and then later on, been found in the gold-white queen's nest. Odd.

Hocayi kind of knew that he'd done something naughty - but it wasn't a bad kind of thing, it was a secret anyway.

He was adequate at keeping secrets. Not as good ad Dijo, not as bad as say, Iryudyo. It lasted long enough so that his participation, however secret or unknown, wouldn't matter anyway. The eggs on the sands were hatching.

It was a very early day, but Hocayi would be up anyway. He liked to sit on the ledge of the level's balcony, where dragons would come and roost while their riders did their work inside the stone mountain.

He got down to the hatching sands, and was handed a plain white robe. Everyone else had them, and he knew - just by touching the robe - that it had been worn by someone who bonded the right dragon, not so very long before. They helped the dragons focus on the face and eyes of the potential bonders, didn't they?

It turned out they did. When the first egg shattered open, Hocayi looked at the hatchling in surprise. He had a beautiful burnished look to his silver and blue skin, and he walked among the male candidates eagerly. But then he turned them around and played games with them - until he found his female bond across the sand.

Hocayi thought that this little silver-blue would be trouble - even for his pretty human bond.

The next egg hatched and the young dragonet couldn't find his bond on the sands, so he turned to look among the visitors. There, he spotted a young boy, who came to pair with him among the official candidates. Two more bonded and then another couple. It was chaos - it was wonderful.

A tiny-tiny black-green hatched, but it didn't look nearly as sickly as everyone else thought it did. Hocayi agreed with the female's bond as she took her friend away, when she told the dragonet to ignore the people who jeered the tiny hatchling. That was hardly fair, not giving her a chance even when she's just been hatched!

But Hocayi's attention was brought to another egg, because as the group of humans moved around to see a couple bigger eggs hatching, there was one dragonet who paced around the boys with ease and grace. The style of this white and black blended-colored dragonet was as a cat, and he came up to Hocayi and looked him in the eye.

Am I a suitable mount for a cheetah-kin?

"Yes, Enfinth, you are." Hocayi said. He knew that this was right - that this little Enfinth was going to help him and his tribe win whatever war they needed to fight.

***

Tripaldi's other side, the "not" special clutch zone area, was kind of surprised when they started to see black, purple, red and multicolored dragons popping into the sky over the mountain-edge. Obviously, they didn't quite know about the other sands. Nor did they know that there were non-humans bonding dragons of non-traditional colors over there.

Hocayi and Enfinth kept to the plans that were given to them when they learned how to fly. They were to remain as close as possible to this side of the mountains, until they were confident enough to play off being from wherever they could think of. At some point, Hocayi thought, and Enfinth emulated, they would have to find out that the dragons were here all along...

Enfinth bespoke, why must we pretend like this?

"I'm really not sure... I think it's... Well," he admitted sadly, "it's kind of like how my Kin relatives kicked me out of my home, for being different. They're scared of things that are different."

But being different is not a bad thing, you are not bad. Why are you different?

"Because I can sense things, and speak with my mind. Not all the Kin can do that." Hocayi said. It sounded absolutely stupid when he came out and said it.

That's absolutely stupid, Enfinth bespoke, shaking his big head. I mean - I can send my thoughts where they need to go. It is merely how I communicate. Right?

"Sure... But imagine if you found a dragon that couldn't speak with their mind? Or if they ate people, or something?" Hocayi tried this tactic. Maybe it might make more sense?

Well. I suppose. But since I am yours I do not need to worry about those things.

"Sure you do," Hocayi said, as they saddled up for the trip home to the Plateau. "Because we're probably going to wind up fighting those very same people that don't think it's okay for me to mind-speak."

I'll fight them well, my one.

"I know you will, Enfinth, you will."