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Cabbie and Light Blue Printh - Bonded at Ryslen Weyr!

Age: around 21

Male, unknown gender preferences.

Location in Mall: Home Depot, sharing it with several others and a couple families tucked away in the sample rooms.

Cabbie enjoys the unfinished areas of any given place. He looks at a space and thinks "what could I build to put there?" or "how could I make that space more effective?" He has exceptional vision and a very steady hand - he does not hit himself with the hammer or slice anything vital when he's sawing or using power tools.

A quiet man with a soft smile, he's rather shy around other people. He seems to like being alone more often than not, and while he's pretty good looking (and has a really hot body) he doesn't seem to pay women much attention other than to help them out building things.

Cabbie was born in the Mall, like most of the younger folks, but his family kept in touch with him while he was growing up. They show up occasionally, and are quite opposite him. Perhaps that's why he's so quiet and shy.

He will always help out if something needs lifting, digging, or any hard work is involved. What goes through his mind at these times is a mystery - if anyone asks what he's thinking, he merely replies, "nothin' much."

On the other hand, Cabbie's intellect is not weak. Privately, among the shelves and tools, he feels at home. He is strong in math and geometery, but he lacks a lot of experience in other types of subjects like history. The only thing he does know is a lot of architecture and designs from the old books in the "home improvement" section of the store. If he did a tour of the wasted landscape outside, he'd know when a building was manufactured, what kind of materials it was constructed of, and possibly if old enough, who might have designed it (Victorian and earlier).

***

Two out of three. Cabbie watched Gasman bond and then Crash - when would his turn come? He was a patient, calm man, but inside he was torn. It wasn't fair! Why did they get all the glory and the dragons? And the girls? or the boys, for that matter?

But eventually, TrueGreen Viceith and Blue Chwilioth's clutch, a very small one of only four eggs, was about to hatch. The others went back to see what was going on because it had only been two days since Crash paired up with his brown. A surprisingly big egg broke open, and showed off two greens! It apparently had happened before, but not all that often, on these sands, that twin dragonets hatched from one egg.

That was enough to make Cabbie grin - how happy the pair of sisters were, who bonded those greens.

A light-blue dragonet came from his shell with wide-eyed wonder, gazing around at the walls and the stands, and sands... He looked glossed over, amazed, but Cabbie knew better. He could already feel the words forming in the back of the dragon's mind - in his own.

What we could do here! The dragonet whispered mentally. He was looking at the angles of the ceilings, the piles of sand... the way the doorways exited here and there...

"I think they have it how they want it, Printh," Cabbie laughed, quietly. He'd bonded! It was a wonderful feeling, that he could be together with this wonderful creature, and have all the sanctity and privacy that he really needed. They would be alone together, if need be.

But for the moment, they were meant to be partying with the just-older hatchling pairs!

Cabbie and Printh went along with the other weyrling pairs to their training. It was hard work, but both of them got the hang of it quickly enough. Raise the wing, drop the tail. Everyone moved in unison and Cabbie was glad he'd gotten the chance to see these moves in practice down on the ground first - it gave him the ideas he had to plot out their formation.

I like flying like this, with other dragons! Printh told him. Do you think we will have lots of others to fly with when you send us home?

Home... The thought of flying at the Mall ran a big thrill through Cabbie. His friends would all be back, with their dragons, so they would indeed have a group to fly in.

"And maybe we can show that science lab a thing or two," Cabby said. "They might fight one or two of us off, but not a whole fleet!"

Cabbie and Printh were the best pair to follow on the trip home. Everyone knew that Cabbie had the ability to remember good details like angles and stuff. Printh seemed to be no less able.

They went through the Nexus quickly, expertly even though they had only been through it once, and that on a different dragon's back.

The Mall seemed happy to see them, but then when Naugath dove over the people and scared some of them witless, Cabbie groaned inside. He and Gasman waited up in the sky, but then the red dragon Amocoth did the same thing a few hours later just for showing off.

Everyone was really happy to see them. Was there something going on? Did they know about the others? Well, obviously, no one expected everyone to get there at the same exact time. They'd wait it out, however long it took, and they'd be a team in the air again - for the first time.