Dragonish Surprises

DRAGONISH SURPRISES

  By Tanna Hulse





She was walking down the cliff walkway.  She didn't realize what she was doing.  There was nothing in the field but the newborn dragonet’s getting ready to go to the impression tomorrow.  No one was to bother them, least they become attached.  Yet she was not going willingly.  She was being pulled by something.  She knew not what.

She kept going down further and further.  Her thoughts returned and she knew where she was going.  She fought against the pulling, but her body would not respond to her commands.

The walkway path was getting larger and larger, until it was big enough for all the masters to walk down it in a horizontal line.

She started to fear what the grown dragons would do to her for coming a day earlier and disturbing them.

She walked further and further, and faster and faster until she was running, for the pulling was so strong.  The more she feared the faster she ran.  The farther she went, the more she feared what would happen to her.

Then she heard it.  It was the crying and whining of upset baby dragonets.

She began to wonder.  She had seen the contestants for the matching going to the hatching ground to familiarize themselves with the dragonets for attaching while they couldn't see yet.  Tomorrow when they open their eyes, the contestants will be there and the baby dragons will choose one to be its rider.  She remembered seeing the contestants all happy and satisfied after visiting them.  Why would one of the baby dragons be crying?  Was it hurt?  And why on the High Mountain was she being pulled to the ground!?

She remembered when she was young; wishing one small, leathery, ugly, winged dragonets would not like any of the candidates and cry out for her instead.

But she gave up on her childhood dream long ago, when she turned 500 years old.  That was just 175 years ago.

She looked around and up the cliff side.  She could see people rooting for something.  Some people were looking at her, staring straight into her silver eyes, or maybe it was her long brown hair that was blowing in the weak wind.  Maybe they were all looking at her stout little nose.  Stout noses were common among the slave-servant girls so she doubted that.  Her parents and friends always told her she wasn't just a slave-servant, but she knew she wasn't anything special.

She stopped running at the bottom of the cliff.  She had regained all control of her body.

She heard people screaming at her.  What were they saying?  "Go to the hatching ground?"  She couldn't!  She'd be killed by the grown dragons or eating by mistake by one of the dragonets!!

She could see them now, all of the grown dragons in a half-circle around one of the dragonets.  The one that was crying.





Something poked her in the back.  She whirled around to meet face-to-stomach with the Mother Dragon!  But she wasn't angry with the young slave-girl.  She was crooning for her to go to the hatching ground, further on into the field, and into the half-circle with the dragonets.

She heard her friends calling to her.  She looked up to see the widest smiles she had ever seen on their faces.  Madae's long brown hair was blowing in the wind, and her violet eyes shining into the early evening sun.  Both Barnet's and Pirina's black hair, were neither moving.  It was cropped incredibly short.  The only way to tell these twins apart was that Barnet has orange eyes and is 5'3" tall and Pirina has red eyes and is 4'3" tall.  Corma wasn't yelling.  She couldn't.  She didn't have a voice to scream with/ she was a mute.  Her blond hair, normally to her ankles, was now trying its hardest to reach out and grab at Katura's shoulder with the wind's help.  Corma was the shortest of the group.  Coming up only 3'8".  Katura was the next in height.  In all her 314 years she has only grown to 4 foot.  Corma's 542 years old, but both of her parents were short, too.  Whereas Katura's parents were both over 5 feet tall.  Height wasn't something she got from her parents, but short brown hair she took from them.  She cut her hair to look like them.  Her yellow eyes came from her father.  They were both waving for her to go on.  She yelled to them, "I can't, I'll be killed!  I'll be killed."

Everyone on the cliff side started to laugh at her.  "Go get your dragonets, silly, stop stalling!" they told her.

She started to walk around the dragon, saying to herself, "Go get my dragonets!  Are they kidding?!  I'll get killed or eaten!  Who do they think...?" She stopped mid-sentence by the golden dragon mother.  She was blocking the way up the path.  She was angry now and scolding her for being silly.  The cliff sides erupted with laughter again.  The hideous cries of their mirth echoing down to her.

The dragon picked her up and took her to the edge of the hatching ground.  The dragonets rushed to her and she screamed.  She tried to run and stop the on-coming dragonets, but was drowned in dragon kisses in stead.  She couldn't stop it.  She screamed again.  She was so confused and frightened.  She could have sworn she was being eaten.  The dragon nuzzled its head against her pointed ear.

"My name is Percy.  The contestants weren't what I wanted.  And there weren't enough of them, so I was left out.  I like you and told mother.  She brought you.  I am solo happy!  Are you happy?  Do you want me?"  The words entered her mind in a rush, as though by magic, but she knew it was how dragons talked to their riders and owners.  She felt emotions of extreme excitement emanating from the dragonets.

All at once, she began to realize this was real.  She's a dragon rider!  "Yes, I want you!  I am happy also!" she wanted to cry.  Then added,”But why me?  I'm just a slave-servant girl.  I can't be a contestant!  Why'd you choose me?"

"I told you.  I like you." she said in her own dragonish way.







There was a tap on her shoulder and she turned to see one of the grown dragons and his rider staring down at her.  It was a blue dragon.  She looked at her own and it was a blue, too.

She began to remember the rituals that happened after the impression between the male and female riders of the same color dragons.  Between the old and new riders and owners.  She didn't want to have any children yet.  She didn't think she was old enough.  But his eyes changed her mind quickly.

He slid down from the dragon with a practiced dismount, all the while his golden hair flying every which way.

His violet eyes were twinkling in the dim sunlight.  Was it her imagination, or was he smiling at her.

The second he was off, her dragonets and his dragon were together crooning at each other, celebrating the new attachment.

Her eyes left the dragons to meet squarely with the 'young' man's.  She knew him, served him and his friends' table at meal times.  He couldn't be more than 5 years older than she.

"You're lucky," he said with a voice of tenor.  "A blue.  They're quite rare."

"But you've got one...sir." she said as he took her hand and helped her off the ground she had fallen to.  (She was a good runner, but couldn't outrun the baby dragon.)

"No more 'sir'.  You're a dragon rider now and dragon riders don't go around calling other dragon riders 'sir'!  Now come with me and I will explain what happened and what you must do." he said firmly, but friendly.  She thought to herself, "His eyes are the purest I've ever seen."

Then aloud, "But Percy explained.  She didn't like the other people..." She started, but she couldn't continue.  Stace was holding her close.

"Don't fight.  I'm not going to hurt you.  You weren't allowed to watch the impression this morning.  No one was, except the contestants and master Kerviski.  We all knew what was going on.  The dragons told us."

She stopped when Percy entered her mind again.

"Don't fight him. He's not going to hurt you.  He likes you.  He always has.  You're not a slave=servant anymore.  So why fight?  Besides, you two are to be married in a few days?" she said and giggle-laughed in a dragonish way.

She didn't resist him anymore.  She had always liked Stace, and hoped he liked her.  He always smiled at her when she served them, and was polite and kind.  She realized how that she more than liked him.  She loved him.

A slave-servant was never married before and or had become attached to a dragon.  Her father was a dragon rider who used her mother to satisfy his needs as all other unmarried riders did with slave-servants.  That was 678 years ago.  Her mother was 1427 years old, her father, 1430.

She had been used only once, by a master, master Kerviski; he was a master of medicines.  He was kind, but also gentle since she was only 675 years old.  He was also you, 724 years to his name.  But that was all 3 years ago.  She hadn't been used since.

Stace picked her up and carried her off of the hatching ground.  His touch was kind, gentle, and soothing.



All of the dragons were flying and gliding around the dragonets.  Making dizzy designs of gold, bronze, brown, blue, green, red, black, silver and orange, as all the people from the hold, slave-servants and masters included, swarmed around Stace and her.

All her hopes and dreams had come true.

Terielle was the happiest elf in all the hold this day.















                      STAR UNIVERSE