To most, the past three days had been a dreary, drippy mess. I loved them. I love the rain, snow, sleet...hell, I'd probably be one of those idiots out on the front porch taping the tornado as it closes in on me with death in it's heart. I love any weather...but sun. Yes, I am a depressing person sometimes... I walked in the rain with my small flurry of flits, (though I, by no means had the most firelizards of the candidates) sat in the records room and read until my eyes wouldn't focus, and worked on my laptop sitting on ledges too close to rainwater for electronic comfort. The clutch seemed to be taking it's own sweet time in hatching, but I was in no hurry. This life appealed to me, at home there were far more rules and restrictions. Here, we were all our own people.

It was Tiny that put the idea in my head on the third of those dreary nights. "You know, you don't really have to go back..." he said in an almost conspiring tone. Valefor snorted, currenly playing host to the rapidly growing flits I had Impressed. "She'll go home, she wouldn't want to leave her parents in worry." I merely shrugged. "I don't happen to see that as the handicap you do, my furry muse." He snorted again, twirling his impossibly long tail and watching me type with beady eyes. "I don't suppose you'd ever thought of timing it, have you?" He said this with the tone of one just unveiling something important that he's sure everyone else missed. Rolling my eyes and glaring at him, I said, "You know that that's not a good idea, it would be easy to get lost in between. You think that I would risk the only dragon I get to time it back home? Not to mention myself..."

"Oh come on! You know it's not as dangerous as they make it out to be! They just tell those horror stories to scare ignorant little weyrlings away from it!" "With good reason!" I couldn't help but shout. I find it hard sometimes that Valefor is the deepest reflection of my thoughts. Then again, there was that niggling little bit of pride and worry, deep down. I'd left without so much as a not goodbye, though a few days after arriving and once my two elder firelizards were old enough, I'd written a letter and sent Keoie between to my house to deliver it. It seemed like it took forever for the little flit to return, I was out of my mind with worry. But she showed up the next day, a look of smug satisfaction on her face. Valefor was about to retort to my earlier shout when we all jumped at a pounding on the door. "The clutch is hatching!" came the shout and I pelted from bed and donned the robe, dashing to the sands.

My heart nearly hammered from my chest as I ran, the three flits and Tiny in flit-form trailed behind me with joyous coos and trills. My mind was consumed with nothing but the thought, "It's hatching...it's hatching..." They led us onto the sands in a manner we'd all written about dozens of times, and when that first egg hatched and out came a bronze, dripping with egg fluid and bumbling as all baby animals do, my heart stopped it's hammering and wedged itself in my throat. Even though I'd been around the adults for weeks, there was something terribly real about those eggs. It had all seemed like a dream before, I was sure I'd wake up any time now. But when that bronze stumbled across the sands, tangling his wings with his legs, uttering little dragonish sounds of love, it all hit in one big boom.

"This is real...this is very, very real and I'm hopefully about to meet the best, first, last and most real friend and love of my life..."

Though it felt like only moments, I must have been frozen in that spot with that thought running through my mind for a while because when I re-focused on my surroundings, there were significantly less people and eggs on the sands. Not only that, but the four precious gold eggs were rocking. I gasped, my heart yet again lodged itself in my throat. I didn't presume to think myself so important to Impress a queen, nor did I think I had quite the "take charge" personality, but I can't lie and say the thought had never crossed my mind. I was so caught up at the trembling of the gold eggs that I didn't notice the dragonet that had settled at my feet. It waited quite patiently until the gnawing in it's stomach became too much.

Lauren, I am rather hungry. he said in a deep, mellow voice. At last, my heart resumed it's normal position as I jumped back and cried, "Oh!" A blush I didn't know the reason for spread across my cheeks as the night blue hatchling grinned in his draconic way up at me. A name came into my mind, Araselth. I smiled and knelt in front of the night blue. He seemed so perfect to me, so obvious that we would be together, how had I not known him from birth? "Araselth! You..." I didn't sneak up on you. You just weren't watching. he said, leaning close to be stroked. Never before was anything so beautiful to me, I scooped him up off the hot sands and carried him off to sate the gnawing hunger that was filling not just his belly, but mine.

Later, with much bickering back and forth between Valefor, Tiny and I - done quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping hatchling in my lap - I decided to stay on Pern. I wanted to go to my weyr, see my characters - though I was sure some might want to murder me on the spot for the hell I had put them through. Either way, I was staying. Araselth slept peacefully, so full of meat I thought he was sure to burst. Tiny had nestled down with my three other flits and Valefor, much to Valefor's frustration. I'd send a letter back home with one of my flits, I had brought a camera on with me. They could see Araselth and that I wasn't dead...In the future, maybe I'd go back.