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human Tani image originally Connie Sellecca on the cover of TV Guide...

Mama Tani's Fosterlings

The large cothold among the low hills beckons you. Around it for several hundred yards are fields and gardens, as well as pens with goats, sheep and the occasional larger herd beast.

Notably, a number of brightly colored birds (perhaps brought by the Ancients? they certainly don't look natural around the other native animals) walk carefully among the plants, and high in the trees.

The building is made of stones and brick, with two large chimneys each with a plume of pale smoke coming from it. There are low, large windows on several sides of the home, with glass set into them that shines.

There is a courtyard on the east side, where a pair of runner beasts are tethered, and a larger area beyond which it appears that dragons habitually use as a landing ground.

Vines grow on the west side, all the way up the side of the building. Small, violet and blue flowers accent the whole area on that side, and fragrant smells waft on the slight breeze to your nose.

When you approach, you hear the sounds of laughter, children playing, and a sing-songy adult's voice playing a game with the younglings.

You estimate there are at least a dozen children in the house, and, curious, you move closer to look into the window.

Sure enough, there is a group of young children, all perhaps under 12 turns old, gathered around an adult woman, singing and playing a dance game.

Suddenly aware of you, the woman looks up and breaks off from her game. She smiles brilliantly and tells the oldest girl to continue the game, while she gets up and comes to the door.

"Well, hello!" She calls from the door, "why don't you come on in? The children are mostly behaved..." She rolls her brilliant green eyes as one of those selfsame children bullets past her chasing another smaller child.

"Mostly..." She repeats.  Then she smiles again, and holds out her arm indicating the more orderly and unused dining room area of the house, on the eastern side. "Come in, traveler. Anyone is welcome for a day or two in my cothold. That is, if you can tolerate the children."

"You certainly have a lot of them!" You say, suddenly, blurting out before you think it might be rude.

She just laughs.  "They aren't all mine," she says, "only three of them. I do have many more, but these are the youngest of them."

"My name is Raanatani, but most folk call me Tani. I suppose you could call me a professional Foster mother. But I really am a Journeywoman Beastcrafter. All the birds and animals out here I bred myself for certain traits."

"Like those ones with the tails?" You ask, looking at them outside, as they make an odd noise.

(("Reeeaaaww! Reeeaaaw!" they call))

"Oh, no, those ... well, yes, I suppose that you could say I bred them, they were nearly extinct when I found them on the Southern continent. They're called peacocks. Truly beautiful, aren't they?" She watches them for a moment, as entranced as any one would be as if seeing them for the first time.

"Would you like some klah? I've always got some on." She makes herself busy with getting you something to drink, and adds a small plate of cookies to your serving as if on impulse. "Don't tell the children," she whispers. "They don't get cookies until later."

"I've come about the Candidates," you say, around a mouthful of tasty oatmeal cookie.

"Oh, my children. Most of them are quite old enough to take care of themselves, but they always come back to visit me. If you want to see their pictures and learn more about each of them, you can go into this room and take a look at their journals. They continually send me updates, some of them even send me pictures and gifts from their Weyrs. I'm so very proud of all of them, even those who I only Fostered."

Go look at Tani and Ilya's Egg Gather Dragons! originally on egggather.html

Raanatani's Egg Gather!

"Hi honey!!" Tani cried, as her hunnybunch Ilya came into the Fosterling wing at the Center. "Did you bring me anything fun today?"

Ilya looked at her and smiled, the whiskers he had genetically implanted into his face twitched like a bunny's and made Tani laugh.

"Of course I did," He said with a grin. "But you have to come and get it. It's at Gallmim weyr."

"Oh!" Tani jumped up and down, with excitement. "I'd love to see the weyr! You know that I've got THREE kids there with dragons, now! V'naard, Tanis and Beao'!"

Ilya nods, sighing. None of them are his children, those are on another part of the website in another part of reality. Tani switches genres so fast sometimes... Even he gets confused.

"What do we have to do?" Tani asked.

"We have to dig. The dragon there," he points to the deeply black-green one -- whom he rather likes, as black and green are his favorite colors, "buried her eggs to make it more of a challenge to find her children. I thought that maybe you and I could find them together."

Tani sprang to his side, giggling with excitement. Her tail wagged in the air and then she remembered: she needed to be human to be on Pern. Of course, that meant that Ilya's whiskers had to go for the duration too.

"Let's go!" Tani cried, and they zoomed to the time machine to find Pern already dialed up from Ilya's last visit.

When they moved through time and space, it was almost as if they were going between, like on a dragon. They were cold and slightly disoriented when they arrived at Tani's fosterling hold, at the foothills of a mountain.

"I always like this place," Ilya said. "It reminds me of Sweden."

"Chocolate and salt licorice will do that too," Tani reminds him.  She sees a dragon fly overhead, and its golden hue tells her who it is. "Look! It's Tanis! That's her Gold Zanilanth!"

"We will have to ride, to get there, so let's get going." Ilya said, as the dragon landed. "She's grown," he remarked to Tanis, about the great dragon which would convey them to Gallimim.

"She certainly has," Tanis said, laughing. "In fact she's told me that she might rise for a mating flight soon."

"But you're ready for that," Tani pointed out, holding on to her daughter-on-Pern while Ilya climbed behind. "I know you've been quite the flirt."

"I can't imagine where she got that trait," Ilya muttered, but by that time they were already in the sky!

When they finally arrived to the weyr, there were some others already there, but they were seeming to have little luck. Someone cried out they had found one, and made the rest dig with even more energy.

"Look at all the people," Tani said, and Ilya nodded.

"We can start over here, where there aren't so many people. Maybe we'll get lucky." He said, leaning into the first shovel full of hot sand.

It did not take very long, before Ilya got his shovel slightly stuck on something. He slid it to the side, and pressed his hand into the hole. There, sure enough, was a large egg!

"Found one," he whispered, and Tani broke from her own digging to watch. Ilya took a breather first, making Tani tremble with pent up excitement. He looked at her, and smiled. "It's hot!" But he moved shovel full of sand after another, away from the egg. Soon it was exposed.

Within moments, Ilya's egg was on top of the sand, and he cradled it with his strong arms.

He seemed to be listening to it.

Then, he hurriedly moved his head away from it, as it cracked open! A strangely muted color of Bronze poked through the crack, and a voice crooned out.

The pale metallic sheen on the dragon attracted a lot of attention of course, but Ilya was rapt with his new friend.

"His name is Vajrath," Ilya spoke reverently, "and he says he will brighten the sky with flames when he is needed!"

*

On the hot sands, several people murmured with the name on their tongues. Then, another egg was found, on the far side.

With a sigh, Tani went back to digging. She would be so sad if she didn't find one after all this work!
Tani could barely contain herself when she gently uncovered an egg! She took in a breath and began digging with her hands, putting aside the shovel because she was afraid it would hurt the egg. "Oohh, look! Ilya! I've found one too!" Her voice brimmed with pleasure, and finally she took the egg from the warm sands, just as it opened! Out came a small, shining green nose, followed by a lovely set of emerald wings. The palest green she had ever seen, covered this dragon from head to tail!

Tani hugged the dragon's little neck, brushing off the sand and pieces of shell from her hide.

"How wonderful! Finally a dragon of my own! What is your name, little girl?"

In her mind, Tani felt a sweet voice say, I am Zakurath, born in the spring!
Tani burst out with a giggle, "Perhaps we will fly all around the universe!"

Ilya beside his Bronze laughed, and said, "lets let them grow up enough to fly around the sky, first, Tani..."

Tani and Ilya have an adventure in the nexus!