I know, I know, shoot me. –cowers- I’m so sorry for not updating!

~x~

Selene and Xander crouched in the thick undergrowth, pressed tightly together, too worried about being found to care much about their unusual proximity. They had untethered their runners and set them loose before hiding their bags around the trees in the area. Selene jumped hugely as a fire-lizard flashed into the air, weighed down slightly with a roll of heavy hide. Selene beckoned Brownie forward, rising from her hiding place. Brownie winked out, and Selene immediately set off at a run. Xander followed her. She stopped abruptly, out of breath, and sat down on the loam of the earth, slowly unrolling the letter with the air of someone about to do something very unpleasant, like cleaning up after a baby with stomach issues.

Xander watched her as her brow furrowed deeper and deeper the further she read. Eventually she flung it down in disgust, taking a deep breath and then hiding her face in her hands.

“It was the fire-lizards’ fault, according to Mother. Beauty rose and Zair caught her. She wanted to keep me and Bella because Master Robinton hasn’t got any other kids apart from the drudge Camo in the kitchen. She guessed that Robinton wanted a child with his skills, or something to that effect. And instead she got me and Bella! Lucky Bella. But she named us both after dad. I mean, Sebell. I suppose he’s not my dad really.” She considered this for a moment, looking more depressed than ever. Then she carried on. “’Cause I’m Selene – with the ‘se’ and Bella’s got the ‘bell’ part. I hate my mother. She never stops to think.”

Xander didn’t bother arguing with her. He knew it would be useless.

“So, what now?” he enquired gently. Selene raised her head to face him.

“I don’t know. I guess … we keep going, all the way to the coast.” She was still speaking softly. Xander felt a wave of protectiveness roll over him, and he wanted nothing more at that moment than to snatch her up and bear her away to a place where nothing would or could ever hurt her again. He contended himself with moving closer and placing a hand over hers, although the rest of him ached to have more contact than that.

“Okay. Let’s not go anywhere now, though. Let’s find somewhere undercover to sleep, and we’ll make a good meal and maybe we can make some beautiful music together. What do you say?” he rose, keeping her hand tucked firmly in his. She got to her feet and drew close to him, as though using his body as a shelter. He wrapped an arm around her, much encouraged by her desire to be so close to him. Together they wandered through the woodland to the clearing in which they had left their things.

“Fred?” Selene called, her voice echoing through the trees. Xander added a piercing whistle, and then they began to collect everything together so they knew where it all was. The runners eventually appeared among the trees, and having tethered them down Xander lit a small fire. Selene went to one of the packs and pulled out a pan, a waterskin and some lumps of dried meat. While the broth cooked over the fire, Xander tentatively began a conversation.

“Would you ever consider going to the Weyr, ’lene?”

She thought about as she added some herbs to the pot. “I guess it depends,” she said finally, more willing to be honest with him than anyone else. “If it was Igen or Benden then no. Maybe Telgar or Fort, but not High Reaches. And not Ista, for sure. I’d hate to be stuck on an island like that. Why do you ask?”

He sighed. “Well, I was thinking, if we got close enough to a weyr we might be Searched, and then you’d never have to go back to your parents or the Harper Hall. My father always used to think I’d make bronze if I got the chance.”

“Who was your father?” Selene asked, realising that this topic of conversation had never come up before. “Oh, come on!” She protested when he didn’t answer. “At least you’ve always known who yours is!”

Xander frowned heavily. “N’ton.” He replied grumpily.

“What?!” Selene exclaimed loudly, knocking the pot a little in her astonishment. “No sharding way!”

“Way,” Xander replied crossly, wishing she would shut up.

“Why are you so bothered by it? I’d love to have N’ton as a father! He’s so nice whenever he visits us, and Lioth is my favourite of all the Fort dragons! He has the best sense of humour.”

“The dragons talk to you?” it was Xander’s turn to be shocked. Selene was unperturbed.

“Of course. They talk to Bella too. More talk to Bella than to me. The only ones that have ever spoken to me regularly are Lioth, Ragath – he’s a brown at Benden – and Kelsith, a green at Fort. Others say hello when I greet them, but that’s it. Lioth knows my name,” she added rather proudly, smiling at Xander. Then she deftly switched the conversation around. “Who’s your mother?”

Taken by surprise at the abrupt change of topic, Xander replied, “Ellera. She’s a Lower Cavern woman at Fort.”

Selene looked like she was working something out for a second. “So how come you’re not Natelleron, or something like that? I thought that’s how dragonriders pick names for their children?”

Xander shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess my mother liked my name better. I’m named after her grandsire, who was a brown rider.”

“So if you ever stand you’ll Impress for sure?”

“Nothing is ever for sure, ’lene.”

Selene nodded, then served up the broth. They ate in silence as the already dimly lit woods darkened more. When they were done they washed their dishes and packed everything up. Then they got out their sleeping furs and lay them down, climbing in after kicking off their boots.

“Night,” Selene said through a yawn, almost asleep already. She hadn’t realised quite how tired she was. Xander watched as her breathing slowed. He wasn’t that tired: time was a little different in this area than back at Fort, and his body was still telling him it was early evening. Selene muttered something in her sleep and twisted closer to him, murmuring the same thing again. Xander moved his head closer to her lips, hoping she would speak again. Her voice was clearer the next time.

“Dragon … pretty … stay with Xander – no, pretty dragon .. both stay …”

Then she trailed off into nonsensical mutterings again. Xander smiled to himself and shut his eyes, unwittingly shifting closer to her sleeping form and falling asleep slowly, revelling in her nearness.

-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-

They travelled onwards for several days, catching birds and tunnel snakes instead of going into Holds or cots and risking recognition. Selene was ecstatic when they eventually reached the sea.

“It’s so beautiful!” She exclaimed in delight, dismounting and rushing to the cliff edge. Xander got off Mareika and made his way over to stand by her, slinging a casual arm around her shoulders. She was standing in awe of the ocean, watching as it crashed heavily onto the jagged rocks far below them.

“I never saw the sea before,” she told Xander quietly, tasting the salt on her lips as she spoke.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he replied, still staring. Then both of them were distracted by the loud bugle of a dragon behind them. The two runners screamed in terror and bolted back away from the sea, out of sight in seconds. Selene squeaked and hid behind Xander, who pivoted to face the dragon and its rider. He had to stop to check what he was seeing was real. There was a dragon all right, of medium size. But of what colour? He appeared brown, but he had a large blue patch running all down one side and extending over his wing. Xander moved slowly back, afraid that the thing had some sort of disease. Selene suddenly laughed, and moved her head to whisper in his ear.

“Girolth says that you are terrified! I asked him why he was like that and he said that a lot of the dragons in his weyr are many colours. I think he’s beautiful.” She said, her voice still hinting at laughter, the sea behind her and her previous fear of dragons all forgotten. The dragon’s rider leapt from his saddle to his forearm, then down onto the ground.

“Greetings! Girolth most reliably informs me that you two are Xander and Selene, and that you are runaways.”

Xander, still eyeing the dragon, didn’t reply. Selene shoved him.

“Yes, that’s right. Who are you?”

“I’m F’rel, wingsecond. What are you running from?” the rider asked them amiably, smiling brightly.

“My parents.”

“I’m not running,” Selene and Xander replied at the same moment.

“I’m just following her,” Xander explained at the look of puzzlement on the dragonrider’s features.

“And my parents are scheming liars.” Selene informed him with a small smile.

“So you have nothing to tie you here?” F’rel asked intently, his eyes flicking between their faces. He was middle-aged, Selene guessed as she nodded her head.

“Well, would you consider coming with Girolth and I? We ride on Search and he happens to think that you two would make splendid candidates for the eggs on our hatching ground.”

“What weyr do you belong to?” Xander asked, watching incredulously as Selene reached up to pet the multi-hued head of the dragon.

“Adara.”

“I’ve never heard of that weyr. What is your true purpose?”

The rider smiled. “Of course you’ve never heard of us: no-one knows we exist. Just as we like it. Our weyr is deep on the Western Continent. There are grass plains and mountains there, but none of the Ancients ever got that far and so our home is generally considered barren. It’s truly beautiful. We have always been there. Our founders disliked life in the cold North, and Southern was off-limits, so they went west with their dragons around halfway through the first interval. We have as little contact as possible with this Northern Continent, and the Southern one. We do not want the responsibility that the weyrs here must deal with. We are free. Will you come? We have a large clutch and too few candidates: we like our hatchlings to have at least some choice. So please? Will you come?”

“I will,” Selene said softly, caressing Girolth’s eye ridges. Xander knew that wherever she went, he would follow, so he nodded his agreement.

“Thank you a hundred thousand times,” F’rel exclaimed fervently, starting to help Selene up into the saddle. Girolth twisted his head to watch as Xander leapt up smoothly.

“You’ve had practise!” F’rel guessed as soon as he reached their level, settling himself in front of them both, so Selene was sandwiched in between the two men. Xander nodded, his eyes tight. F’rel kept wise silence, and Girolth leapt skywards. Selene clenched at F’rel, fists tight on his wide belt, and Xander wrapped his arms around her to make her feel more secure.

Don’t panic. I will catch you if you fall, Girolth told her, just as F’rel yelled from in front of them, having to shout to make his voice heard above the roar of the wind.

“I’m sure you know the drill, but just take a deep breath and count eight seconds, then we’ll be out above Adara.” He didn’t waste breath on further conversation, and then Girolth transferred between.

The brown striped blue on watch-duty bugled a welcome to Girolth, and his rider waved a salute as he swept past, landing gracefully in the large weyr bowl. Xander and Selene were astounded: the weyr was almost exactly the same as Fort and Benden in layout. The only main difference was the many different colours of dragon, and the general warmth. The colours varied mostly among the males: bronzes with brown patches, blues with bronze stripes. About half the dragons were solid colours, and most of the females had only very small amounts of the other colour on them. The greens for example often had either no gold, or ‘socks’ of gold that looked like they had walked through a particularly sticky ray of sunshine.

As F’rel helped them down he hurriedly explained the politics of the situation. There was one senior queen, quite old, and two junior ones already. Of the three queens, only one of the junior ones had green on her at all.

“You’ll be able to recognise Reymath by the tip of her tail and the edges of her wings, which are green. They’re multi-coloured because of strange minerals that rise in the lake we use for bathing and the dragons sometimes drink from. If the queens drink often enough during pregnancy their offspring will invariably have random colours. We judge the true colour by either size or dominant hue. You’ll get used to it. Now, let me introduce you to the weyrleader and weyrwoman.”

He marched off, and Selene and Xander hurried after him, staring all around them at the dragons. The occasional faceted eye watched them go, but most were fast asleep. Eventually, F’rel found out where the two weyrleaders were and led Xander and Selene to a tall, fierce-looking old man and a beautiful old lady, who had to be somewhere near seventy. F’rel dropped a slight bow and Selene and Xander were quick to copy him.

“You found candidates then, F’rel?” the lady asked, eyeing the two up. “You didn’t steal them, I hope?”

“No, Anika, I didn’t steal them. They were running away, and I asked them if they wanted to come. Girolth thinks the girl could impress a gold, and the boy bronze.”

“Is that so?” the man asked, raising an eyebrow and taking a closer look at Selene. “Well then, F’rel, find them rooms and clothes and supper, and then let them get some rest. Tomorrow will be a big day.”

F’rel nodded and bowed again, then hustled Selene and Xander away.

“Don’t mind them,” he said as soon as they were out of earshot. “They are old, and most people around here don’t believe Mareth will rise again. But for now let’s find you something to eat! You must be hungry, it’s almost nighttime.”

Selene nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. Xander took her hand and dragged her gently forward, past curious onlookers. The kitchen cavern was much the same as Fort, Selene noticed, and the smiling matrons could have been at any one of the Northern Continent weyrs. One of the women bore down on them with large bowls of broth and warm loaves of bread. Xander and Selene dived in, eating messily and hungrily, ecstatic to have proper food for the first time in a while.

Selene eventually wiped her mouth on her hand and looked up at Xander, who was finishing off his meal.

“How do you suppose they’ve managed to be so secret the whole time? You’d think someone would notice if a large contingent of dragon riders suddenly disappeared.”

Xander frowned and swallowed the last piece of vegetable from the broth.

“Maybe we should ask. If we Impress we’ll have to learn the history of this place, won’t we?”

“Oh, yes, the Hatching. Do you really think we might both Impress? That would be brilliant,” Selene said, her eyes shining. Xander smiled at her.

“Yes, that would be amazing. Let’s find out when the Hatching is.”

They took their bowls to one of the Aunties at the sinks.

“Thank you, my dears. Are you two candidates for the Hatching? I’ve not seen you around here before.”

Xander nodded. “Yes, F’rel brought us from the Northern Continent. I’m Xander, and this is Selene. Do you think you could tell us when the Hatching is?”

The woman beamed. “Why, tomorrow! That’s why everyone is so excited and tense. Now, I’ll just get someone to show you to the rooms you can have. Carem! Come here and take these two to the spare rooms down by the lake entrance, you know the ones.”

The drudge nodded and beckoned to Xander and Selene, grabbing up some furs as he went. He led them down a long stone passageway and up a flight of stairs, then stopped at identical doors next to each other. He opened the one on the left and indicated that Selene should go in.

She did so, followed by Xander, and they both smiled in pleasure at the room. A large bed sat in the middle of the room, and as the drudge placed some furs on it Selene examined the sturdy desk and Xander wandered around, studying the bright patterns on the woven grass rug.

Selene was left alone as the drudge led Xander into his room, and as soon as the drudge left Xander hurried into Selene’s room and grabbed her hand, his infectious grin bringing a smile to her own face.

“C’mon, we’re right next to the lake here,” he said happily, and dragged her down the corridor a short way before finding a small archway through which they could pass and stare in admiration.

The lake was huge and a beautiful aquamarine, fading into dark blue in the middle. Several solid-coloured dragons were lounging around the edge, and one of them opened one eye to gaze lazily at Xander and Selene before shutting it again and enjoying the last rays of the sunset as it disappeared below the horizon.

“It’s beautiful here,” Selene said, dropping to the floor and lying back, staring up at the fading sky. Xander lay down next to her and they just lay there in silence, listening to the sounds of the weyr preparing for bed, and when the last dragon left the lakeside Xander sat up.

“C’mon, we’ve got a big day tomorrow,” he said, getting to his feet and holding out a hand for Selene to use to pull herself to her feet. They each reached their separate rooms and Selene smiled at Xander sleepily before going inside hers.

“Night,” Xander called softly.

“Night,” she said back, and disappeared inside.

Xander got into his sleeping pants and was just giving himself over to sleep when his door opened quietly and suddenly Selene slid into his bed next to him.

“I was lonely,” she said by way of explanation, and the promptly shut her eyes and fell asleep. Xander smiled and let sleep take him.

~x~

Okay, so leave a review telling me how annoyed you are that I failed to update! I’m not going to try to make excuses, just beg your forgiveness!