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Farfire stood nervously on the sands in the weyr - she and Shatter weren't the only odd people around, but neither of them were used to humans in any way. They had barely been there a few days when the hatching was called!

A number of people milled about, cooks and the like, figuring out how many people were going to be able to eat, and how much less the pair of elves would have. But then the eggs on the sands began to break open.

A lovely blue colored dragonet hatched and struck out toward a male, and they left the sands to get some food. Everyone, even Shatter and Farfire, applauded. Another few moments later, a green came out surprising everyone. No one had even seen her. She paired off with a girl, and they seemed to be quite happy to have one another. Something about the girl's sad face reminded Farfire of herself.

Then a brown dragon came boldly out, and bonded to Shatter! Oh, he would look so handsome on that dragon, Farfire thought. He could shatter the skies with his magic, and the dragon would only amplify his abilities. But, of course, she thought a moment later, she'd have to teach him how to ride!

With a grin on her face, she watched as a pretty green-leafy colored dragonet bonded to what appeared to be a steed-creature of some kind. Then another blue hatched, and took so long to choose that a lot of the people in the stands as well as the candidates were starting to get a little nervous.

When Farfire's Nightride had hatched, it was nothing like this. Nightride was a bird, and though he was smart (certainly smarter than Apogee's Two Claws!) he was pretty much just an animal with an advanced brain. These dragons, though... They were something different. They spoke, they could send, they had clear strong emotions. Everything that people had, elf and human alike, but they had wings and legs...

Another pair of dragons hatched as their shells cracked against one another. The green one bonded a quiet girl, while the boisterous blue paired up with a happy boy. A brown came softly up to a boy who had come from another planet like the elves had.

Right about then, several more eggs were dug up by the queen, because she'd apparently been hiding them. A big brown came out of one of them, and paired off, while another egg was breaking.

This one held some kind of interest for Farfire. The wings coming from the shell were dark, luminous, and still wet - but black as her old bond-bird's had been. This was a small black hatchling, coming gently out of her shell, who looked about until she saw Farfire.

Farfire, my Visiz, I know I'm no Nightride, but we will fly together when I'm grown.

How it hurt to remember that just a few days prior, her bird had succombed to age. But Farfire whispered the name that she knew the dragon would respond to - it fluttered around like a soul name caged. "Lyesaseath," she said.

I'll never leave you, Visiz.

Kneeling next to the dragonet, Farfire cried with joy because she knew that this dragon, like Shatter's, would be with her forever and that was the truth. Dragons would age as they needed to. And she didn't really need to around the elves.

There were two more eggs left, and Farfire watched in the corner of her teary eyes that a green-gold mix bonded off, and then a pretty little green paired with a girl who had almost left the sands. Farfire didn't know how she would ever live if she'd turned down the offer to come here! She owed Ainea and Adisath so much!

When Lyesaseath was old enough to flap her slender, pointed wings, Farfire and Shatter had been hoping to fly. Since they didn't weigh as much as the human riders, they knew their dragons would be able to support them earlier. But they were meant to wait, as the weyrling trainers instructed everyone at once.

"Just because you've been on a bird's back for a while," said one trainer, "doesn't mean you know how to ride a dragon. It helps, of course, but we'll see how much when you take your first ride!"

Laughing, Farfire decided he was right. The angles were all different, and the dragons had leg-shoulders in addition to wing-shoulders. They had a longer neck, which made it far easier to sit higher up away from the moving wings, but also a longer body to keep in mind when swaying back and forth into turning and banking.

And the dragons could clearly do things that birds could not - loop and stall, hover, and the like. Those were things that tiny birds could do, but the big Nightride was not one of them!

After another hand of seasons, it was announced that the riders and their dragons had become adults - Farfire learned things about her dragon like anatomy and how she'd probably go into heat, and that since their minds were connected she would experience things more closely than ever.

Farfire adored that idea. But perhaps the thing that went deeper than that, was that humans weren't all bad. That they had different cultures just like elves which she'd heard about. That for all their size and bulk some of them could be delicate and swift, even to compete with elves! And even, that some of them had magic. All of them who were bonded with a dragon seemed to be open to mental communication, and that cinched it for Farfire. If she found a human, she'd think twice before running it off with her dragon.

Besides, Lye didn't seem too inclined to chase humans!