Sun, Moon and Star, a tale of ....

Dragons! An amazing assortment of them, everywhere around us!

Star laughed to herself, while they were being taken up to the hatching area. But she sobered: there was something strange going on, something solemn. It was Sun who found out first.

"Someone died," he said, "someone important."

As the trio went with their white candidate robes and everyone else shuffling along, though they were excited, they could all sense it. Even the dragons were somber, they occasionally gave off a creeling sound which brought tears to Star's eyes.

But the hatching wouldn't be delayed, especially if you asked the hatchlings! They were ready to come out and live, even as they'd be renewing the whole cycle again. The first eggs broke up, and then were followed by many - this would be one of those hatchings, Lethe noted to herself as she watched from the stands, that you just have to pick a person or an egg and follow it until it's done. Otherwise you'd never see anything!

There were half a dozen eggs open, their hatchlings dumped out onto the sands - and it was twice the number that anyone would expect from a couple of eggs: they had twins! But those didn't interest Lethe as much as a beautiful duotone.

A green, who’s body was partially blue, stepped up to a trio of young teenagers, looking at them all in turn. Star knelt before the little blued green could make her choice herself. Only she heard the delightful voice in her mind: hey, I wasn't finished looking at the competition!

“Very funny, Wicapith,” Star laughed, rubbing her dragon’s eye ridges lovingly. Wicapith crooned, closing her eyes and giving into the attention her rider gave.

It wasn't much later that a pair of browns, one night-touched and the other a lovely chocolate shade, had stumbled up to Moon and Sun.

But in her haste to get around to the food dishes, Star and Wicapith stumbled into them.

Star, with Wicapith on her heels, turned momentarily when she heard a familiar voice cry out, “Hey, careful there!”

She turned, recognizing Moon’s voice easily. She watched as a night brown struggled to pick himself up. Moon shook his head sadly, grinning, kneeling to help Tainith figure out where all his limbs were. The night-brown would be big - even Star could see he was nearly half again bigger than her own hatchling! But then, greens were meant to be smallish.

Next to him, Sun was looking into the whirling eyes of his own brown. Hello, hello? Hungry hatchling at your feet, you can stop watching your lovemates and feed me a moment, can't you?

“Oh, yes, of course.” Sun suddenly said, blinking as if he had been stuck in hypnosis. “Come on then, Donomath,” he said, standing and walking behind Moon, both boys rejoining Star where they all left the sands together.

***

Later in the week, Phillipe the elf's body was returned from wherever they'd taken him - Lethe was among those who stood in silent vigil with a candle in the Weyr. Though she still stood near the kids, to help them figure out how to work riding gear and keep their balance on the smooth, slender dragons, she was distant even then.

"Did you know him?" Star asked. Lethe shook her head.

"... He Searched me, I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for him. I owe him that much gratitude at least. And look at all these good people," she waved her hand not holding the candle, at the riders, weyr folk and wolves and dragons that gathered on the shore below. "He affected all of them too. He must have been a good guy - it's a shame."

The trio stood in silence with their mentor, who would come and go as rapidly as she had before in the weeks and months to come.

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