With Wildstorm there and her beautiful Prism Storm dragoness growing at a marvelous rate, Cryten realized that his stint here was almost over. He'd spent more than a full year here at Ryslen, and had almost entirely forgotten to send anyone any letters.

You could rectify that, Kaalerith said. There are flitters, and you know you could play games with those numbers you've told me about.

"... What?" Cryten said, surprised at the canniness of the dragon's response.

At the Healing Den. Right? The dragon tilted his head, a proud Ryslen dragon through and through with his bright crest and lashing spaded tail. Cryten knew that his dragon was not only one of the larger rare-colors in the place, he was probably among the smartest. Now that he'd overcome his annoying habit of chasing off Wildstorm and Keluanya, of course. He was more in the habit of wanting to be near the weyrling. Hello? Are you even listening to me? I think you could make a bunch of notes and send them all in order, who would know? It's beyond time, your birthplace. Right?

Smirking, Cryten realized that he'd struck the nail right on the head - "you're totally right, I can do that."

And in order to do that, he had to actually acquire a flitter. It was a good time do that, too. A harvest festival was being planned, and he knew that at any given gather, one could find a variety of different flitter eggs. It was only a week wait, for the gather grounds to fill and for the riders to start fixing themselves up for partying.

Cryten held a couple Marks in his hands and began to wander the stalls. Wildstorm was out there too, he could hear her laughing, and he wondered if he ought to get her a gift? Probably. Gifts were always good no matter where someone was from or how old they claimed to be.

One stall was from a wonderful weyr called Maura Lynna, and he dropped a mark for a particularly large egg. Then, he found a stall that had a wide variety of clothing. From leather goods to fine silks, all manner of dyed, rough, natural and synthetic fibers were there. Cryten's vivid imagination could see Wildstorm in anything - wanted to see her in nothing, because he knew that was always best.

But he selected two items and paid a decent price for them. And off he went to wait for his egg to hatch, and for their graduation exersizes.

***

It wasn't even four days later, when the egg he'd bought broke open to show off a dark, aggressive green flitter. She was gigantic, the size of what one might assume was a brown or even bronze flit. "You're a big girl, aren't you!" Cryten said, "now, eat up! You've got training ahead of you..."

He fed her and started working on visualizing the entrance to the Healing Den, just in general, for her. It wasn't hard, and Kaalerith helped him beam these happy thoughts to the flitter.

What are you going to name her? She is big, but she will never be big like me.

"Nothing will be, except maybe your offspring, Kaal..." Cryten said. "And I think we'll call her Scammer - but don't tell mother that."

So went the weeks, three in fact, until Cryten was sure that Scammer knew her role. He tested her and with one letter had her bring it to his mother Tessrabia at the Den. The sign over the entrance to the Healing Den said "181" that day, shortly before he'd gone off. So... he had spent a while at Planet Twenty, and then waited here... "Three twenty," he said, forcing a number in his mind to imprint on Scammer. He rolled his letter up, and handed it to the flit, who took it and cuddled it to her breast lovingly. Then, she flew off, vanishing to the Nexus. A few minutes later, she returned with another letter, one from Tess, in her grasp. She was chilled, of course, and Cryten put her up on his shoulder and let her nuzzle his neck for warmth.

"She did it, Kaal," Cryten said, "you were right on. You sly dragon."

That would seal his working fate for the next few days. Pretty soon, though, it had become time for Wildstorm to graduate as well. The dragons had all been born fairly close together in fact, and it seemed like certain of them matured to adulthood more quickly than others.

The Prism Storm dragoness was lovely, especially on this early winter morning. Her wings fanned out, and showed the audience at the commencement exersize a full rainbow of color. Her glistening storm colored hide was unmarred by the presence of a harness - Wildstorm would be damned if she would make her precious bond wear one of those things. Cryten knew the feeling... But he'd followed the rules anyway. They flew with harness or without, and he knew that once they got to Planet Twenty again, they'd both be flying freely more often than not.

When the group of prismatic and cloudy dragons and riders went their separate ways, Cryten knew that the time had come to present his gifts and they should go - home to Planet Twenty!

.