"If you don't stop squirming, I'll never be able to finish your mane." Vaitris grumbled and exerted her minky-muscles to keep Ashka still. The white horse-Lady could barely contain herself.

"But Vai...if I'm late to this meeting I'll never pass my exams!" Askha made her little noises indicating that she would do as she was told, but only because she knew it to be the best course of action.

The regal look that she was going for was achieved by her handmaid putting tight braids into Ashka's grey-silver mane and then lacing them through metal barbs, which stood up like a fan along the sides of her neck.

Of course, Ashka could hardly help but look regal from the start. Her brilliant white fur was complimented by the shining inlay of golden designs in her hoof-hands and feet. The gold was not only extremely fashionable, but it served a deeper purpose: gold was one of the elements which alchemists claimed magic 'liked' using to be channeled through.

"I've GOT to get to my exam!" Ashka huffed, standing and examining herself in her huge oval mirror. Tiny Vaitris put the finishing touches on the horse woman's tail, and finally announced that she was ready.

Not a moment too soon, apparently. One of the things that Askha could do because of her magical training, was teleport. The air whooshed around her, and before Vaitris could even bid her good luck, the filly was gone.

Vaitris rolled her eyes. "Well, don't forget that you've got to be back in time for your next suitor's dinner date..." But Vaitris knew very well that this suitor wouldn't do - none of them were even close enough to Ashka's extremely high standards to pass the mustard, let alone pass the muster of her burning gaze.

Vaitri would have a lot to do before her mistress got home. Setting up the sitting room, the dining area, making sure that the cooks were putting together something that the poor man would be able to take home with him as a consolation...

***

Ashka's arrival amid the talking and chatter and last minute research of her Light magic class went almost unnoticed. Except for one particular student.

"Tlan," Ashka said, "I didn't expect to see you here."

"I wasn't sure if you would even bother making it at all. Showing your face after the last event and all." The lynx man, just barely younger than the filly, swished his tail around and glared at the tall woman.

She did her best to just ignore him - he was her only gall, the only stumbling block that made her work harder than it should have been.

He was better than she was at Light magic. To be better than he was, was Ashka's goal. Ashka tapped her hand to her side, and went to sit with the other high ranking students. Tlan slunk over to his own seat, it looked as though he had something else on his mind than just batting insults back and forth. They waited for the exam to begin.

With the Light magic class being her second such achievement, Ashka already knew a lot of the principles of magic. She was that much more advanced than most of the class. Even Tlan only knew Light magic, and perhaps that was why he was best at it. But Ashka had two and a half years of Air magic training behind her, and she was quite good at it.

When it was Ashka's turn, she tried not to see if Tlan was watching her. He couldn't help but do so, but she didn't want his eyes ON her.

Channeling energy through herself, Ashka produced a humming sound to concentrate upon. Between her hoof hands there was a little spark of light, which was then amplified until she focused it into what appeared to be a ball of bright light... Then with a flick of her hoof she sucked the light out of the whole room - so that it was dark, except for her ball of light.

"Cast away," she said, "Air Seeker!"

The ball lept from her hands, sweeping around the darkened room until it rested upon a young and rather timid looking avian student.

When she was finished, the light level in the room came up again. With her concentration ended, normal light came back. It wasn't as if the candles or torches had been extinguished - far from it. Their heat could still be felt while the darkness encroached. But the light from them had been tucked away inside the contained ball controlled by Ashka.

The ball had sought out the other Air student, done its job, and allowed Ashka to recieve a passing grade in the current class.

"Nice job," Tlan said. "You didn't forget that light contains darkness."

"It also banishes it," Ashka said. "And now, I must banish myself. Thanks for the compliment. I hope that you pass."

"I've already passed my Light exams," Tlan said, "I have to leave."

"No great loss," Ashka muttered.

"Actually it is," Tlan said, looking away. "You're at the top of the class, under me, you know. But now it's all yours. And you should know that the next level is far harder. And, the instructor doesn't much like fancy high class brats like you. He'll go really hard against you. Good luck."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ashka asked, tilting her head and trying to subdue her curiosity.

"... Why wouldn't I? It surprised me when you passed the first time, and I wasn't all that sure you would be invited back after the --"

"Yeah, yeah..." Ashka waved her hand, and tried her best to forget the incident with the djinn and the flashlight...

"Because I think you're going to go pretty far. But far away from me, okay?" Tlan said, and Ashka wanted to believe him, but it sounded like a lie.

"Tlan, where are you headed to?" Ashka finally asked. The other students had filed out, either elated or in tears.

Tlan flattened his ears, unconsciously. "My mother is dying, and she wanted to see me before she... passes on. And I don't think I'm going to have enough time or money to get back here to finish up."

That made Ashka a bit concerned. Standing straighter, and furrowing her pale brows. "Couldn't you arrange something with the college?"

"She's leaving an awful lot of debt..." He sighed. "I'm going to try and work as a mage for hire, but I don't know if it'll be enough to keep my home in my family's name. It ... look, good luck, Ashka. I have to go."

He swished out of the college testing area, and was gone before Ashka could really decide whether to continue hating him or not.

***

With a poof of pepper, the cook announced that the salads would be perfect.

"If only Ashka would make it here on time," Vaitris hemmed and hawed. Her little nimble fingers moved around her buttons and she kept checking in vain in Askha's room. She should be back by now.

When Vaitris heard the ting-ting of a steed and cart coming along the stone drive, she drew in a long, annoyed breath.

"Will you please delay him?" Asked Vaitris of the whippet who served the house for a generation before Vaitris was born.

"I have done so before," he uttered, "and I am certain I will do so again..."

"Thank you," Vaitris breathed, and then rushed to Askha's suite. The mansion was large enough that it was easy work to distract anyone with a brightly colored room, a seating arrangement with clever paintings along the walls, or a pause in the library...

Vaitris fretted and paced in the lavish rooms where Ashka spent most of her time. "Get here soon. Get here soon. Oh please remember you've got a suitor."

But it didn't much seem like Ashka was going to make it even remotely on time. Her suitor was a middle aged ram of high standing in a community some miles away from theirs, and he wasn't about to be stood up by a young filly.

Vaitris went downstairs to attend to him. "Would you at least care to start a dinner? You must be quite hungry and our cook has put some effort into the meal, even if Ashka hasn't come in time to join you?"

The man snorted and tossed his head. His horns were decorated with bits of silver and chains of gold, it seemed that all the hoofstock in the higher classes wanted to doll themselves up for each other. "I suppose that it cannot be helped. Where is the young lady, anyway?"

As he tucked into the spicy salad fixings, Vaitris explained, "well, she was to attend her light magic final for second year studi-"

"She's a mage?" Bellowed the ram man, suddenly tearing off the napkin from his lap and standing abruptly. "No one said anything about this woman being a magic student. I'll not have one of those creatures in my home. Unpredictable, insensitive, self serving wench!"

When he stormed out, it was to the huge round eyes of everyone in the house. Ashka's parents had not been back from their tour of the Sapphire Ports, so they had arranged a number of 'dates' for their prized daughter. Perhaps she might actually accept one of them and leave the nest some time before they got back...

The steed and private cart hurried away and Vaitris let her narrow shoulders droop. "Well there goes another one."

"I was going to say," said the whippet, "that I must wonder if his first wife was a mage?"

***

Vaitris did nothing but worry for the next hour. Where could Ashka be? The exams couldn't be taking this long, could they? Her Air exams were very brief. Perhaps there were a lot of people ahead of her. Maybe something happened. She dared not think about that last one because well, that thing with the djinn...

At last, a whoof-pop of sound alerted Vaitris to the teleportation of her mistress back into the house.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she announced with a broad grin and a jangling of her hair jewelry. "... sorry, did I miss something?"

Pretty much anyone near by in the house glared at her with a certain 'you know what you've done now' look. The young woman suddenly realized that she had in fact had that little 'date' thing.

"It's all right," Vaitris assured her, taking hold of her arm and bringing her through to the dining room where her meal sat waiting, "he was not going to be the right one for you anyway."

"No one is the right one for me right now," Ashka said, plopping angrily into a seat and stuffing a fork full of salad into her mouth. Quite unlike any lady-behavior she'd been taught, she spoke with her mouth full and said, "why can't anyone just let me choose who I marry?"

"Because you are a ranking lady in a prominent family. Heir to a considerable fortune, since you have no siblings," Vaitris quipped. Ashka's mother had said this so many times, she could even get the husky voice of the older woman down into her throat. "Because you have refined breeding and you should only be paired to one of equal value."

"But ... I won't have time for that. I'm a student." She said, continuing to gulp her food down, "I passed through this time, and it looks as though I'll have to really push next semester."

Vaitris was interested in hearing all about this, so they talked about it while she ate. The otter girl had of course eaten long before. She listened to the tale of odd behavior from Tlan, and as Ashka was sucking down her soup, made the comment, "perhaps he liked you after all," to which Ashka nearly choked.

"He hated my guts! Always getting in my face, always harsh to my performances, always-"

"Always paying a huge amount of attention to you, always doting heavier criticism on you than the others in the class." Vaitris listed off, "never letting up. Why? Maybe because he thought you were worth it."

The slow realization that ... maybe, just maybe, she was right, crept into Ashka's mind. He had wandered around sneaking looks at her work, asking questions about how she learned this or that, and keeping his nose in her business the whole time she was at the Light college. He never made her work sour, she'd done any mistakes all by herself - and he didn't help her correct them - or did he? There was that time when she was working on a flicker-spell, which would make lights briefly dim and brighten, and he managed to slyly hint that her incantation was off a little bit... If she hadn't figured out that pronounciation she'd never pass that spell off. And... There were other times, and Ashka thought about them as her food digested.

With a blank, deeply-in-thought expression, she walked with Vaitris up into her suite, and they spent the rest of the night basically in silence.

***

In the morning, Ashka was active somehow before Vaitris got up. That had to be a first. She fretted about looking through her dressers and cabinets and boxes for ... something? Vaitris didn't know quite what the filly was looking for.

Finally, she brought out a wooden box which was filled with somewhat gaudy, but fairly expensive (and completely out of style) jewelry.

"This will do, I think. I hope." She breathed. Then, before Vaitris could even ask what she was doing, Ashka had begun to inscribe a strange spell in the air.

It was a complicated Air spell, one which apparently was going to allow her to track someone and let her both spy on them, and perhaps make a portal big enough to ...

"You're going to give him your old jewelry, to help him out," Vaitris whispered, not wanting to disturb her mistress. "Good girl."

When the spell was done, there was a strange wavery portal visible, like a mirror out of place hanging in the air. It showed Ashka what she wanted to see: Tlan's still-moving carriage. He was in the back, she saw that, no one else was with him, and his things were collected in the boot in the back of it.

Ashka muttered a spell about keeping pace, so the portal continued to move with the carriage. She manipulated it left, then right, then forward, until she could reach out and touch the Air mage's belongings. She slid the box into one of the half-open bundles, and snugged down the straps when she was done so nothing fell out.

Then she gazed at the back of Tlan's pointed ears through the round window of the carriage, and let the portal vanish.

It seemed to take energy out of her, that complex spell. She huffed and sat down on her soft bed, while Vaitris looked on with a mix of awe and pleasure on her face.

"I think he'll appreciate it. I hope he does. He looks like a fine young man, even if you've only ever complained about him." She asserted, and Ashka ground her teeth around.

"I can't help but think of him negatively, but... He wasn't lying. No one takes all their stuff from the college if they are coming back."

"Well, you did your part then." Vaitris then offered to help her mistress get properly dressed and ready for ... well, whatever they would be doing that day. "And are you going somewhere, or would we be staying?"

"... I want to go out, maybe to the park. I think I want to just distract myself..." So they did. Dressed in a less formal and far less complex outfit, but still wanting her mane to be just perfect, they got dolled up a little and went to the pond park nearby.

At first, Ashka wasn't really interesed in anything, but soon enough there were children playing and trying to fly kites - which she could assist in greatly, by causing a little 'unnatural' wind to pick up their toys.

It made her feel good, suddenly, doing nice things for people. Even ones she didn't know - even ones she didn't much like.

Vaitris had always cared for her, Ashka knew that - but she wondered suddenly and asked, "Vai, do you serve me because your family has done it, or because you want to?"

Vaitris' eyes darted from the pond (where she was eyeing a handsome ibis man who dove into the water) to her mistress'. "I ... what an odd thing to ask, Ashka, I do it because I want to. Your family has treated mine to a fine life for generations, but that doesn't mean we couldn't go and serve someone else. You're... fun." She decided that was the right word. "Worrisome, but fun."

"Worrysome? Why am I that?"

"You didn't see the suitor last night. Furious - but as I said he wasn't right for you. He obviously had something against mages, and you know men of money. He would have made you suppress your magic at least around him, unless you could use it for his purposes."

"Men." Ashka spat. "They're all like that."

"Not all of them," Vaitris said. "Your father encouraged you to go to the Air college, didn't he? Without prodding from your mother. They get along famously, don't they?"

With a dreamy look, Ashka nodded. "They do, but I don't know if I can live up to that. I ... how am I supposed to find a good man? If I even want to?"

"Maybe you could weave a spell for it?" Vaitris said, curious as to how much could be done with air and light.

"I could. I could do that." Something clawed at the back of her mind: what if it brings me to Tlan?

***

In the afternoon, Ashka had set up shop in the porch behind the mansion. It overlooked the gardens, and was enclosed by cleverly woven silk transparent screens to keep the bugs out but let the light and air in.

Vaitris looked on curiously, because Ashka had to dig through a book to find what spell components and words she needed for this. Normally she would be able to wave her hand or cough out some few syllables, but this time it looked like she had gotten in over her head.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Vaitris asked, a little unsure of where this was leading. Perhaps she ought not to have suggested it, but... it was too late - Ashka was set in her path and couldn't be dissuaded from it by anything short of a natural-- oh wait, she couldn't be dissuaded from it.

When Ashka began speaking her spell it was with the same confidence she always showed working Air magic. Yet, there was a tinge to it, a slight hesitation. Vaitris didn't want to interrupt, but she thought something strange was going on. She crept nearer, in case something happened and she had to pull her mistress away from ... whatever it was.

When the spell was completed, an ear-shattering thunderclap overcame both of them. Far from being her typical whoosh-pop of air from a brief teleportation across town, this was a huge noise, very similar but bigger. As if filling a much bigger space with air, from some other locale.

When the pair of them looked around, Vaitris gathered her wits about her first. "Now, where've you taken us, and can you get us back?" She asked, bravely keeping herself between Ashka and the people - she didn't much think they were people at first glance.

The people didn't have any fur. Their faces were flat. They wore similar clothing to what Vaitris was used to seeing, but they weren't ... people as she knew them.

With a frightened, knowing breath, Ashka whispered, "humans," and then hugged Vaitris to her body. Whether she did this to further protect herself, or to keep Vai from being accosted by these odd furless folk, no one could tell.

"Are you... all right?" Asked one of them. He spoke the same language as they did? Or was it a trick of Ashka's spells?

"We are fine," Vaitris asserted sharply. "Keep your distance."

The man held up his hands - odd, bald of talon or claw. But he behaved rather like people that they both knew, and seemed to be more curious and concerned, than aggressive or barbaric.

"Our stories tell of humans," Ashka said, "are you?"

"Are we what, human? Yes." He said, and the others near him muttered to each other. "You aren't, that's certain. You just appeared as if from between."

"Between what?" Vaitris asked.

"Teleported like a dragon," someone else supplied.

At that, the pair looked at one another with surprise. "Dragons are very rare," said Vaitris.

"Not here they aren't, you're in a weyr - we live and work with dragons every day. Without them, we'd never survive." Said a woman, "would you like to see?"

The other humans seemed to make a path when that woman came by, and Ashka immediately noticed the air of authority about her. "I would, how about you?" She asked Vaitris, and they finally let go of one another to walk side by side again.

"This is called Lantessama Weyr," the woman explained. "I am Trix, and my dragon is queen Frynoth."

"Royalty," Ashka commented. "Good call."

"Well, she's called a queen because she is the senior breeder for the weyr. There are other golds, but they are not called queens until they have laid eggs for the first time."

Thinking this over, that made some sense to both furry women. They got a lot of odd looks from people on their way through this Weyr thing, but since they were with the woman who rode the queen dragon, they both assumed it was okay - people would just have to get used to it.

They toured through the hollow mountainside and at one particular location the woman Trix laughed and announced, "perhaps you could take a couple eggs off the shelf there, they look almost ready to hatch. We've got flitters enough around here, stealing food from our plates."

"Flitters," Ashka said, and her companion giggled.

"She means the little drakes, look," Vaitris pointed to someone who had one perched on his shoulder. It peered at the fur women and made a little chippy-cheepy noise. "Oh can we really, Trix? It's awfully generous of you."

"Go ahead, they are quite used to people, even the wild ones. And when they have an attendant they are of much better use."

With an odd feeling - one which threw those words around in her mind - Vaitris realized that she was the attendant keeping Ashka from wrecking everything in her path with her frenzied and scattered attentions. She reached up to the ledge over a hearth, where there were several more little pots of clay with sand in them.

An egg was within, and suddenly it - as promised - started to break open. Vaitris could hear the tiny peep peeping of something inside. She looked at Ashka and said, "get one quick! It's hatching!"

When Vaitris looked back there was a little green snout sticking out of the hole it'd made in the shell, and it cracked all the way through in a moment. While she was busy giggling at it, and someone handed her some food for it, Ashka grasped at her own pot.

Vaitri's little green hatchling cooed and purred at her.

While Ashka seemed to have a little trouble holding the smooth pot in her hooved hands, she did well enough (she did have thumbs after all, and her hands were more flexible than they looked, only the outside edge was hard like a four-footed horse's hoof) and at last a little brown flitter gazed at her from the shards of his shell.

"What are you going to name them?" Asked Trix.

Vaitris thought for a moment and then announced, "Lettuce," with a laugh. It was all she could think of - the dinner the night before, and the pale green lettuce leaves just like the flitter's hide, peppered with darker markings here and there.

"How about... Link," Ashka said, with her dreamy-voice. "He feels so welcome. It is a he, right?"

"Yes, and the green is a female. Just like their big cousins the dragons." Trix continued to walk with them down into the hatching cavern - where a great, beautiful golden dragoness lay protectively around a number of very large eggs.

"They do have dragons," Vaitris breathed, "and look at how big..."

"Well, queens are the largest of their kind. They produce the most eggs and the most variety of them. And this is my queen, Frynoth. She and her mate ... well, they did something that dragons don't usually do when they mated, they traveled between. Like you did." Trix got an odd look on her face, and then said, "would you two like to stand for her eggs?"

"Stand?" Ashka said, distracted by Link, "what do you mean?"

"Well, our dragons don't do well without companionship. People are meant to bond to them."

Vaitris looked at her mistress with a knowing, smart little smile. "That is why we are here, isn't it? You did screw it up."

"I..." Ashka said, annoyed that Vaitris, with no magical training whatsoever, could have been so right on. "Well, yes, I did screw up. I think I wasn't specific enough. Or maybe I said the words in the wrong order."

"You brought the two of you here with some kind of... spell?" Trix asked, curious.

"Yes," sighed Ashka, "yes, and it was meant to bring me to a man who I'd be able to tolerate long enough to marry."

"But it didn't do that," Vaitris sang, laughing.

"I think I did say the words wrong... I brought us to a place that needed us, though, didn't I?"

"If you'll stand for the eggs, that's what you are here for," Trix announced.

"Then I'm standing!" Vaitris exclaimed, happily. "And you will to, won't you? We can go back home - your parents won't even know you've been gone."

"Except for when I come home with him," Ashka indicated the flitter who was even now trying to climb the ladder formed of the brass and metal clips in her mane.

"Even when you come home riding a dragon?" Trix said, with a broad grin.

What happens next is up to the weyr!

**

The wait at Lantessama was much shorter than the pair thought it would be. Lettuce and Link seemed to enjoy themselves at dinner time, and managed to keep quiet while Ashka and Vaitris were in their classes.

Then, about three weeks after their arrival, the hatching was announced by a loud bellowing and a hurried scamper through the halls.

Vaitris had noticed the presence of another pair of 'furs' and shapeshifters had also come to the classes - but the unicorn (who Vaitris knew her mistress truly wanted to find out more about) hadn't been very sociable.

When they were led to the sands, Vaitris was hemming and hawing over her mistress' hair. "You've hardly even gotten dressed! Slow down!"

But they didn't really want to miss anything. They were actually the first ones there on the sands. The mysterious unicorn man showed up later - and Ashka did indeed watch him intently.

But it was nothing compared to the attention she devoted to the egg which she felt most close to. "I like this one," she said. But it wouldn't matter, because the dragons inside the eggs chose, not the other way around.

Shortly, a big dark egg was shaking but it wasn't the first to hatch! A bellow from another portion of the sands brought everyone's eyes to a sparkling pale blue hatchling.

Hello Ashka, I'm Airyath! She bespoke - changing the idea that blues were male. She attempted to flap her wings and get over to Ashka, but instead managed to gallumph over several eggs and cause a round of laughter.

Oops! I didn't mean to - I guess I can't fly yet!

There was a wistfulness in her voice, something that Ashka knew she would never have to part with. She didn't need a husband - she needed only Airyath.

"Not to worry my sweet, I'm an air mage - we'll get you flying in no time." They exited the sands, because this little blue was hungry!

Several dragons hatched - including a beautiful bronze, and a glowing green. A blue came out, then another couple greens. Two more eggs broke open, showing a very tiny brown who spun herself around - yes, her - to get a look at everyone left, before deciding on Vaitris.

Don't be surprised, Vaitris. My name is Eladith.

"Well, they did tell us that browns were male - Link's male, and he's brown..." Vaitris laughed, but she had to clear her eyes from the tears that had formed.

Now, she too knew the closeness of a bond which could never be broken - she and Ashka would never leave their bonds. They'd heard awful things about hatchlings which were left on the sands alone or unbonded, or abandoned after their bond - usually they died!

Well no such thing was going to happen with them!

The dragons were growing up quickly. The glowing blue and pale burnished brown flew together as a team, and quickly got a reputation among the other riders.

It didn't hurt that Ashka was an air mage. She could predict where they could best soar in the air, and when it came time to practice the dangerous teleportation moves she was first in line.

Vaitris cautioned her from showing off, and certainly from trying to help the dragon do the stunt.

"It's her day, I know..." Ashka sighed. "And she's learned very well. I just don't want any accidents to happen..."

"Like the accident that brought us here?" Vaitris grinned, her brown female almost seeming to laugh beyond in the line of dragons.

"Should we try heading back home?" Vaitris asked her Lady when it came time to realize their dragons were grown up. Half the others in the clutch had already been sent on their way to their respective weyrs or dens, so now this left the pair of 'morphs with a dilemma.

They could stay at Lantessama, or they could go home to impress their friends.

They would have to do that anyway. It was just the very thing to keep their interest up in even going home at all. If they didn't do it now, they'd never bother! The pair and their wonderful dragons would just keep wandering around teleporting from world to world.

Not that that was a bad thing! Airyath insisted that she be shown off to the family - to prove that she was better by far than any old husband that could be forced on her rider.

And Vaitris could hardly stop Eladith from wanting to see the countrysides and sights that their world would offer. It never bothered Ashka that her bond was of a "lower" ranking than her handmaid's, after all, she was glowing! They were both females - that was odd in itself, so they couldn't be compared to their normal counterparts anyway.

Besides, no one would know, if they were to go back home. All anyone would ever hear was that this was the right pair for them.

Wonder what happens when Ashka's glowing blue comes up against a certain Ryslen Sapphire and his ornery black-unicorn rider?