"Thia! Where are you? Thia!" A young girl looked up from the record book she was reading avidly toward a voice filtering down the hall along with the dust. With a slightly disgusted sigh, the closed the book and slid it back into place. It was full of hatching stories and Impression lists, bringing that aching back from deep inside.

Her yearning for a dragon had begun around the age of ten, when both of her parents had been killed, stuck out in a Threadfall neither had noticed until it was too late. Her father had managed to hang on for three more days of agony until he died, while her mother had been killed instantly, a nasty clump right on the head. Everyone who cleaned up their burned bodies said it was the most horrible thing they'd ever seen. None had thought to talk to the young girl they'd left behind. None had even thought of her, other than to find some childless couple to thrust her upon, leaving her alone with all this fear and emptiness. She couldn't help but feel....abandoned.

It wasn't her parents fault they hadn't seen the foreboding greyness on the horizon. It wasn't her foster parents fault that no one cared about an orphaned child, there certainly were enough of them running around the streets stealing food and things from their stalls at Gathers. Her foster parents were a cook and a herdbeast breeder for Draco's Inferno, and she was sent away to live with them. It was there she'd seen her first hatching and noticed the look of pure joy on the bonders faces when their dragon chose them. Ever since she'd been presented at six hatchings, none of the dragons chose her. They didn't really much look at her either, except maybe to avoid stepping on her feet.

"Why? Why don't any of them pick me?" she'd cried to her foster mother. "The way I understand it, there is a specific person for every dragon out there. You just haven't found you dragon honey." And with a pat on the back, the woman had left, feeling as though she'd solved the matter when in fact she'd left so many questions unanswered.

"Thia! Get your hide out here now! I'll not be calling you again." Grumbling bitterly under her breath, Thia climbed the stairs into the kitchen where her foster mother stood with her hands behind her back and a cheshire grin on her face. Sanlyn wasn't a mean or uncaring woman, she'd had her own fair share of troubles and was compassionate to those she fostered. Plump, with short salt-and-pepper hair, she did mostly cooking but also helped keep the weyrbrats in line. "Yes?" Thia asked impatiently, she'd been right at a spot in the hatching where the gold was about to choose her bond and was eager to get back to it. "Phillian brought you a present back from his trip but left so shardin' early this morning because the herd is in heat that he couldn't watch you get it. I don't think it'll wait much longer, so I'll have to give it to you now. Hold out you hands."

"What do you mean 'it won't wait much longer?" she asked as she put out her hands. Sanlyn dropped a bowl into them and shuffled off to the hearth on the other side of the room. "Meat? He brought me a bowl of meat? I don't even eat meat..." Thia trailed off as Sanlyn began to dig in the thick layer of sand spread in front of the hearth. "That's not your present hon, it's for your present. Now come here." Sighing, Thia drug a chair with her to sit by the warm fire. It was here that most of the weyr's firelizard population came to lay their eggs. This high in the mountains it stayed cool year-round and there was no beach close to the weyr. Some found heat vents that proliferated in the geothermically active area and laid their clutches around them, but more than likely if a person's firelizard was about to clutch, they would be brought here.

Sanlyn was digging in a far corner of the sand, very close to the fire. "Why did he bring me a firelizard? Not that I'm ungrateful, but we have plenty here, some are even going unbonded." She shrugged and continued searching the sand. "He said you deserved something different from the usual firelizard, and said a man told him that this was a special egg." Thia smiled. Her foster father wasn't one to be very emotional, he rarely smiled much less showed affection toward anyone. "Aha, I knew I put it closer to the fire!" A small, cream egg was set gently into Thia's hand and promptly began to tremble. She watched closely as the little creature began to slowly force its way into the world.

First, out popped a tiny gleaming claw, then another through the widening hole. A small snout appeared as the flit wriggled its way free. Once hatched, Thia felt the stream of emotions being directed at her, first curiosity then a voracious hunger that needed to be filled. "How beautiful, it's a silver, and female! And look at those tiny little hor..ow!" Sanlyn had reached out to pet the flit's head and was rewarded by a bitten finger. "You better feed that critter, I have to go start dinner." Sanlyn sucked on her injured finger and turned to go as Thia gently fed the impossibly small flit. "What to name you now..." she thought as it ate from the bowl. "Cine, that sounds like a good name for you."All Cine did was burp and go back to eating. "Silly girl, you need some manners." she taunted, but settled back to watch her new friend fill her belly.