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It was Kailen's favorite time of the day. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and the sky, although still mostly blue, was tinged with pinks and purples. If you looked straight up it was nearly black and the first stars of the night sky could just be seen twinkling there.

"I used to sit out at this time of day when I was feeling sad and lonely and just listen to the dragons talking. It always made me feel so happy..." she glanced over at Leanoth, the golden dragon that had somehow chosen her of all people to be a lifelong telepathic partner, "So talk to me you stupid big lump!"

The sun is nice and warm back at the Weyr. When are we going home?

Kailen sighed and buried her face in her hands, "You're hopeless today." She had brought her dragon to this remote mountain lake on the far eastern coast in hopes that it would improve her mood, but in spite of a good long bath and letting the growing dragon eat far more of the local wildlife than she should have, Leanoth was still sullen and out of sorts.

I'm also hungry.

"Well, you have already had more than enough to eat." Kailen stood up and brushed a few twigs off her favorite tunic. She loved the way its soft fabric billowed in the wind and she really liked the way it felt against the new mounds of flesh that had recently appeared on her chest. Not like her flying leathers that chafed and pulled at them uncomfortably.

Kailen was becoming the woman she had always dreamed of being. Raised from birth as a boy, she had never fit properly into that role and had always suffered for being different. Her ability to hear dragons talking had been a closely guarded secret, as that was something only a handful of women could do. When Leanoth had chosen a boy, rather than one of the girls who were presented for impression, it had caused a storm of controversy.

Only Lady Sheala, the Weyrwoman, had stood by the child's side and welcomed Kailen into her new roles as dragonrider and woman. The Healer's Guild had provided her the means to suppress the development of her masculine body in favor of something more feminine and now that femininity was beginning to blossom.

Kailen picked up the flying harness from where it lay on the ground and walked over to her dragon. "You win," she said, "let's go home." Within minutes they were airborne and both dragon and rider were restored to a better mood. Kailen and Leanoth were like one being when aloft, a single mind in charge of two bodies. They climbed until they could just begin to see the crest of the sun peeking back over the horizon then without a word everything went black.

o o o

Wingsecond F'tan looked up into the clear blue of the late afternoon sky and marveled at what a beautiful day it had become. He was sitting on the fence surrounding the feeding pen as his bronze dragon Jarlath continued to tear into his third wherry.

"Go ahead and eat your fill," F'tan thought to his dragon, "We don't have another fall for a seven-day."

Jarlath responded by flinging the cleaned wherry carcass into the woods on the far side of the pen and trotting off in search of another. F'tan looked back up at the sky just in time to see a flash of golden light appear out of thin air. "I wonder who..." but the question died on his lips as the speck of gold started doing back flips. He chuckled, "That has to be Kailen and Leanoth." He watched the young rider and dragon finish their playful aerobatics and begin a spiraling descent towards the Weyr.

"What a shame," he thought, "Kailen would have made a great bronze rider."

F'tan regretted it almost as soon as he had thought it. From across the pen Jarlath's bronze head appeared and glared at him, a mouth full of wherry preventing the dragon from making a rude noise.

She is a gold rider and unsuitable for a bronze! You know that.

For some reason all the dragons considered Kailen a girl in spite of his male body. Moreover they saw him as a woman well befitting a gold queen like Leanoth.

"I'm sorry," he looked plaintively at his dragon, "I didn't mean it that way."

But his dragon ignored him and just looked skyward instead.

"Oh no! Oh no, you don't! Don't you dare tell him..." but it was already too late. Kailen could hear any of the dragons at will, it was considered the final proof of his 'female nature', and now F'tan's very own supposedly loyal dragon partner had just ratted him out to the teenager.

An overly dramatic cry of indignation drifted down from far above the Wingsecond's head as he jumped from the fence. "Well here we go again, thanks to you," Jarlath made the dragon equivalent of a chuckle and continued to chew on his food as F'tan prepared to run for his life.

It was a friendly game between him and the younger riders. It served to teach the dragons how to hunt in the wild and gave the riders practice in lining up ground runs, skills they would each need one day. F'tan started to jog down the length of the feeding pen waiting for the pair to make their move. When he reckoned that they should be in position he glanced up and over his shoulder, but the sky behind him was empty. Instead a very large and very fast gold blur was closing on him less than a dragon height above the ground.

"What the..." F'tan broke into a run. They were coming in much too low and fast to make this game safe. What's more Leanoth didn't exactly look like she was playing. Her claws were out and her mouth was wide open.

"They do know this is a game, right?" he thought anxiously to Jarlath.

I think so, replied his bemused dragon.

Just then F'tan felt a blast of wind as the gold dragon back winged to gain enough altitude to clear the tall dragonrider's head. As she passed, Leanoth's tail caught F'tan squarely in the back and he pitched forward. He tucked into a ball and rolled along the ground in the way all dragonriders were taught to take a fall.

He rolled to a stop on his stomach and stayed there, counting out three slow breaths before trying to move. This was where young riders usually made a big mistake. They tended to leap to their feet as soon as they stopped rolling, but he always cautioned them to take three calming breaths and then assess their situation before getting up. A simple leg fracture could quickly become a deadly compound wound if one tried to stand on it!

He was fine though. Leanoth's blow had been little more than a tap and he had been expecting it after all, but as he lay there he heard a frantic Kailen shouting, "Land! Land now, I think he's really hurt!"

So F'tan stayed where he was and pretended to be unconscious. "We'll just teach the little pipsqueak a lesson," he thought.

Before Leanoth had even touched down, Kailen was on the ground and running to F'tan's side. She dropped to her knees beside the fallen rider and gingerly touched his shoulder. "F'tan? F'tan, are you all right?"

F'tan reached up and grabbed Kailen's wrist, pulling the young rider down as he flipped himself over and started to wrestle the way he often did with the other boys. "Run me down like food will you? I'll teach you a thing or two lad."

Kailen screamed and fought to free herself from F'tan. To her this wasn't a proper game at all. What was F'tan thinking? She beat at his hands and wriggled this way and that trying to break free, "Stop it! Stop it! Get off me!" but the strong dragonrider would not let go.

F'tan was becoming annoyed. The boy wasn't wrestling with him properly, wasn't even trying. In frustration he threw Kailen to the ground and tried to pin his shoulders, but Kailen took the advantaged and quickly stood up, pushing F'tan off balance. As he fell backwards F'tan grabbed at Kailen's shoulders and they both ended up sitting on the ground, F'tan with his arms wrapped around Kailen's chest.

F'tan was laughing now, "That's more like it boy..." but he stopped short when he realized that his right hand was cupped around something that definitely should not be found on any boy. He reflexively squeezed it and Kailen let out a shriek, twisted out of his grip, whipped around to face the stunned rider and slapped him squarely across the face. Only then did she burst into tears and run to jump on Leanoth's back. The gold dragon hissed menacingly at F'tan before leaping into the air. Within seconds they were over the rim of the crater and out of sight.

F'tan just sat there, too bewildered to move. He stared at his right hand, his fingers still held the shape of what he had felt. He looked back up to the rim and mumbled, "How does he get those into his flight suit?"

o o o

Our daughter is here to see you.

Sheala smiled. There was only one human that Trinith referred to as their daughter. So it was no surprise to see Kailen walk through the door, what was surprising was the child's appearance. Sheala recognized Kailen's favorite tunic, the one she liked to wear when flying for pleasure, but it was filthy, covered in grass stains and a seam had been ripped open at the shoulder. Her hands were balled up into tight fists and her hair was completely disheveled, hanging down over her face partially concealing her dark expression.

"What on Pern has happened?" Sheala thought.

Before she could stop him H'mon stood up and walked over to the young rider. "Looks like you were in a fight Kailen. Did you win?"

Honestly, men! "H'mon, dear," Sheala said quietly, "why don't you go down to the common room and get yourself a nice hot cup of klah while Kailen and I have a little talk."

H'mon pointed at the steaming pitcher of fresh klah sitting on the table and wondered if his weyrmate had lost her senses.

Sheala rolled her eyes and then mentally searched the weyr for his bronze dragon Roloth. "Get him out of here Roloth and find out who attacked Kailen!"

H'mon's eyes glazed over for a second as he touched minds with his dragon and then he said, "Great idea! I'll go right now... uh..." he started to pat Kailen on the shoulder, but thought better of it. "You girls have a nice chat... um... bye." He rushed out the door past Kailen whose shoulders began to shake as her body was wracked by dry sobs.

"What in shards happened to her?" Sheala reached out mentally for Leanoth, hoping for an explanation, but was met with a wall of blind fury and hunger. Shocked she spoke instead to her own dragon.

"Trinith, please go see what is wrong with Leanoth. Try to calm her down, she's tearing Kailen to pieces in here."

Sheala watched Kailen's knuckles flash from white to red as her fists clenched in rhythm with her sobbing. She wrapped her arms around the girl and held her tightly until Kailen's body finally relaxed and she began to cry freely.

As they stood like this, Sheala tried to put the pieces together in her mind. If Kailen had been attacked, that would account for Leanoth's anger, but not the intensity of it. Dragons just weren't that emotional. Kailen was also reacting much too strongly to her dragon's rage... or perhaps it was the other way around? And there had been the hunger... a deep hunger... and something else...

"Oh no..." she whispered aloud. It's too soon! She's not big enough yet! Leanoth can't be ready to mate!

How could this have snuck up on Sheala? She had been watchful for any signs since the last impression, but she had still not seen this coming. Then it hit her, the first sure sign that a gold dragon was ready to mate was a disruption of her rider's cycle, but Kailen didn't have a cycle to be interrupted! How long had this been going on without her knowing it?

"Please let the child be as clueless as I was when Trinith first mated," she thought.

Kailen had calmed down enough that Sheala was able to lead her over to the table and set her down on a stool. Sheala moistened a cloth with cold water and put it on the back of the girl's neck. "There now, it's not that bad. Let me pour us some klah and you can tell me what happened."

"W-what am I going to do Sheala?" Kailen whispered, "I'm not ready for this."

"Shards, she already knows!"

"Ready for what dear?" she hated to patronize the girl, but she needed to get to the root of Kailen's fears as quickly as possible, they might not have much time.

"You know what! Leanoth is ready for her mating flight, but I'm not and I just don't know what to do."

Sheala sighed and knelt down in front of Kailen. "Well dear, you have to keep her from feeding for as long as you can and she'll do the rest. You know that, we've spoken about this before."

"That's not what I'm talking about Sheala. What's going to happen to... to m-me?"

Sheala hung her head, she had been dreading this moment. "Kailen, I... I just don't know. This has never happened before. There's just no telling how the riders will treat you or even how you will react to them. You essentially become your dragon for a time and normal human emotions just don't apply. I won't lie to you it can get violent. I can tell you that male green riders go through this all the time and they don't seem to suffer from it."

"But a green mating is not really the same as a gold, is it?" Kailen rested her head on Sheala's shoulder and started to cry again. "Sheala, I'm frightened!"

"I know darling," tears came unbidden to Sheala's eyes, "I'm frightened for you too."

o o o

H'mon didn't have far to look for the culprit, F'tan was sitting in the common room staring into a mug of klah and looking as guilty as a runner thief. H'mon poured himself some klah and sat down across from his second in command.

"Well? Anything you want to tell me F'tan?"

F'tan looked up at the Weyrleader and shook his head. "I have nothing to tell you H'mon because I have no idea what just happened. One minute I'm wrestling with one of the boys and the next minute..." F'tan stuck out his right hand and stared at it.

"Well that was your first mistake. She's not 'one of the boys' anymore. I know because I make that same mistake all the time. She can be 'one of the boys', like when he suits up to ride a fall. With flight leathers on and his hair in a rider's braid he's all business. I can relate to him as a man like that, but you have to figure that when she is dressed in a skirt and has her hair all brushed out and clean that she might be trying to tell you she's a girl just then."

F'tan continued to stare at his outstretched hand, "Yeah that makes sense. I just don't understand how he can be both."

H'mon looked at F'tan's hand, but it didn't look injured. "Well that's just women for you. They can be all kinds of things all at once and never give you a clue."

"No, I mean how can Kailen be... how can he have... and also have... it just doesn't make sense. You know?"

H'mon looked puzzled. He ran that over again in his head a few times and then said profoundly, "Huh?"

"I mean he was a boy, we all know that." H'mon nodded in agreement. "Then he impressed Leanoth and suddenly all the dragons said he was a girl. And now..." F'tan lifted his hand up to show H'mon.

"Um... F'tan, is something wrong with your hand?"

"Yes... err... no. No, it's... Kailen has...." F'tan leaned forward and whispered, "H'mon, he has... breasts!"

H'mon relaxed and sat back. Was that all that was bothering the man? He chuckled, "Well of course she does! Sheala's been making her drink that nasty smelling goop from the healers ever since the impression. Haven't you noticed that the boy hasn't gotten any taller or started shaving yet?"

F'tan looked shocked. This was the first he had heard of this. "And this... this 'goop' from the healers is making them... grow?"

"Oh sure! Sheala says the girl'll have a nice pair one day and at the rate she's going she'll need a new flight jacket any day now." H'mon reached across the table and chucked F'tan on the shoulder, winked and then started laughing. F'tan started laughing too, although he wasn't quite sure just what part of all this was funny.

o o o

Sheala finally managed to settle down Kailen enough to walk with her to Leanoth's weyr. When the young rider stopped to hug her dragon, Sheala noticed bite marks all along Leanoth's neck. Trinith, it seems, had not had as easy a time calming Leanoth as she had doing the same for Kailen.

She put Kailen to bed and offered to stay with her, but the girl said that she would be all right or at least as all right as she could be under the circumstances. They agreed to talk again at dinner and Sheala went about finding out what had instigated this whole mess.

She found H'mon in the common room with F'tan and dragged the whole story out of her weyrmate later when they were alone. It probably wasn't F'tan's fault, most people in the Weyr only knew Kailen from riding with her during thread falls. At those times Kailen tended to exhibit the more masculine side of her personality, as did all of the gold riders, and in her leathers with her hair pulled back she certainly looked more like the boy everyone remembered. Sheala would have to do something about getting Kailen to mingle more with people when she was just being herself.

That night, at dinner, Kailen excused herself from sitting with Sheala and H'mon and sat alone at the far end of the table. She said that Leanoth was in a 'funny mood' and that it made her want to be alone. Sheala watched as Kailen picked at her food and stared off into space. She was worried about her young charge, but there was really nothing she could do now except try and be there for her when the time came.

Kailen was picking at the remains of half a meat roll on her plate when she heard someone clear his throat. She looked up to see F'tan standing across the table from her. She glanced down the length of the table for some encouragement from Sheala, but the Weyrwoman was talking to someone else and not looking her way at all.

"Um... Kailen, can I talk with you... please?" asked F'tan, a little unsure of what the young gold rider's reaction might be.

Kailen looked up at the tall Wingsecond and wondered when he had become so handsome. She waved her knife in the general direction of the bench in front of the bronze rider, "Of course, please have a seat."

F'tan sat down, "Kailen... I'm very sorry about what happened this afternoon. I apologize and I assure you that nothing like that will ever happen again... ever!"

Kailen tried to remember just exactly what had happened between them. Their little wrestling match had only been the catalyst for venting her real problems and now that she thought about it, it had actually been kind of fun. At least up until he... a smile crept across her face as she remembered his hand on her breast. "Never huh?"

"Nope. Never ever." He smiled and tried to look reassuring, but he was having a great deal of difficulty looking Kailen in the face. His eyes kept drifting to the front of her very billowy blouse.

She pouted, "Oh... well if that's the way you want it, then okay." She lowered her gaze and pretended to examine the remains of her meal. Then she looked up at the bronze rider and batted her eyelashes. Hang on! Was she flirting with F'tan? She had never done anything like this before, what had gotten into her? She chalked it up to Leanoth's 'funny mood'.

Don't blame this on me.

Kailen ignored her indignant dragon and tried to change the subject, she didn't want F'tan getting up to leave just yet.

"So, you were feeding Jarlath wherries this afternoon. He really seemed to be enjoying himself."

F'tan swallowed hard and tried to look only at Kailen's face. He was beginning to notice that it was a very beautiful face. "Um... Yes. We won't have another fall for a seven-day and I just thought I'd let him gorge himself for once."

I wish you'd let me gorge myself once in a while.

"Stop eavesdropping!"

Kailen licked her lips unconsciously and said, "Gee, seven whole days without a fall. What are you going to do to m... err, with yourself for all that time?"

"Oh, I'll find something to keep me occupied." F'tan simply couldn't keep his eyes off the front of Kailen's blouse. He couldn't get thoughts of what might be hidden there out of his mind. If he kept this up though, she was certain to get mad at him again. "Say something nice, you idiot!" he thought.

"Um... Your hair, it's longer."

Kailen smiled and tilted her head to one side. Pulling at a strand of sandy blond hair she said, "Yeah, longer hair sort of comes with the job."

"Most green riders wear theirs short... the girls I mean... and the boys too for that matter." Shards! He was sounding like an idiot. "I guess it makes putting your helmet on easier."

Kailen twisted the strand of hair around her finger, "Gold riders have... other responsibilities. Do you like it?"

"Well, of course! Who doesn't like... hair?"

He finally managed to drag his eyes away from her blouse long enough to glance down at her plate and noticed the half eaten pie.

"Hey, can I bring you another meat roll? That one looks cold and perhaps some fresh klah?"

Kailen smiled, "Thank you F'tan. That would be nice, but no klah please. I'm drinking water tonight."

F'tan stood up, "Sure thing, I'll be right back."

"I certainly hope so," she thought to herself. Suddenly she was ravenously hungry!

Sheala watched all this play out from the other end of the table. At least those two were on speaking terms. F'tan seemed to be going out of his way to be nice to Kailen and it was working because the girl had a smile on her face for the first time all day.

Sheala elbowed H'mon in the ribs, "Just what did you say to F'tan this afternoon?"

"Huh?" said H'mon, "Oh, nothing much. I just gave him some words of wisdom."

"Wisdom?" Sheala sounded skeptical, "What kind of wisdom would that be?"

"I just passed along everything I've learned over the years about dealing with emotional women."

"Oh really? And you managed to pass along this vast wealth of knowledge in just a single afternoon?"

"Oh no, that only took a few minutes. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing bones."

Sheala shook her head in quiet resignation.

"Trinith, remind me again why you keep letting Roloth catch you on your mating flights."

o o o

The next two days passed slowly for Kailen. Leanoth's 'funny mood' continued and she refused to leave her weyr for any reason. The stress this put on Kailen began to show more and more as she became surly and short tempered around people. Only at meal times, when she sat and talked with F'tan, was she able to relax and let a smile appear on her pretty face.

Sheala noticed the growing friendship between F'tan and Kailen and was glad to see it, especially since it was almost certain that Jarlath would be one of the dragons chasing after Leanoth when she finally took flight. Kailen would need an ally like F'tan in her corner when the time came.

She had seen the pair talking animatedly all through breakfast, but they left together before Sheala had finished her klah. When she met up with Kailen again outside the common room, the young rider was dressed in flight leathers and had braided her hair.

"Kailen, where do you think you're going dressed like that?" Sheala asked in a worried voice.

"F'tan and Jarlath are going to show us a special spot they know off the south coast of Ista. He says it's a great place to watch the sunset and it's always warm there." Kailen's eyes sparkled as she spoke.

"I don't think it's a very good idea for you to be going anywhere at a time like this, especially with F'tan."

"It's okay, Leanoth's 'funny mood' is all gone today. We'll be fine. See ya!" She turned to go, but hadn't taken more than three steps when she doubled over as if in pain. Sheala rushed to her side and went to take the girl's arm, but the second she touched her Kailen pulled away. "Don't touch me!" she hissed through clenched teeth. Sheala caught sight of her eyes and gasped; they looked wild now and were filled with an all too familiar fire.

At just that instant an ear splitting roar erupted from overhead and Sheala looked up to see Leanoth perched on the lip of her weyr trumpeting her availability for all the world to hear. She looked back at Kailen, "Shards!" she thought, "Why does she have to be wearing flight leathers at a time like this? She looks too much like a boy! I have got to get her out of them and into a skirt before the bronze riders start showing up."

Usually by now most first time gold riders were in a state of panic, but Kailen seemed fairly lucid. She was looking up at Leanoth and was clearly trying hard to gain control over her dragon.

"Let her go to the feeding pens," Sheala coached, "but don't let her eat anything. Only let her blood the kills. You can do that from here, just try and keep her from feeding as long as you can!"

Kailen looked at Sheala and said in a frighteningly calm voice, "No, we always fly together." Sheala looked on in amazement as Leanoth suddenly crashed down on the bowl floor just long enough for Kailen to leap on her neck and they were off before Sheala had time to react.

A weyr woman, who had run up to help with Kailen, stared slack jawed at Sheala and said, "Now there's something you don't see everyday malady."

"No, you certainly don't!" and Sheala was off at a run for the feeding pens. By the time she got there Leanoth had already blooded several herd beasts and had another one held high in the air. Sheala watched carefully and although the dragon's fangs were set deep within the animal's torso, she was not chewing or rending it. Sheala looked for Kailen and found her standing in the middle of the feeding pen. She climbed over the fence and ran towards the girl.

Kailen had somehow managed to tear open the front of her flight jacket. The girl's breasts were heaving under the loose leather in time to her rapid breathing, the nipples already looking raw from the friction. With her arms locked rigidly at her sides and her knees shaking precariously, Kailen had lost any ability to undress herself. Through clenched teeth she managed to squeak out, "Just one more..."

Sheala stripped off the flight jacket and then started to work on the buttons of Kailen's trousers. When she finally had them undone the sight of Kailen's erection startled her. Sheala had been thinking of Kailen only as a girl for so long that she had forgotten the true nature of her body. She remembered the Master Healer once telling Kailen that a side effect of their treatments would be permanent impotence. So much for the Healer's art, their ministrations and potions were apparently no match for a gold dragon in heat.

She managed to get the trousers down around Kailen's ankles, but she had to resort to knocking the girl to her knees to actually get them off. Sheala quickly stripped out of her own skirt and threw it over Kailen's head, pulling it down she tied it around the girl's waist. Then came her blouse, but Kailen's arms wouldn't move so she just pulled the blouse down over top of them. At least her breasts were covered. Finally she pulled out the leather thong holding Kailen's hair in a braid.

Sheala didn't have much time left. Leanoth was looking to blood her last kill and she still had to get Kailen back to the Weyr. She jumped into Kailen's flight leathers without even trying to button them, they were hopelessly too small for her anyway, then hauled Kailen to her feet and turned towards the Weyr. That is when she saw them, a line of bronze dragons high up on the rim of the crater. There were seven up there already and more circling to land.

She dragged the stumbling girl along the path leading back to the Weyr. Kailen was starting to lose touch with reality and babbled incoherently, "one more... no more... last one..." As they reached the entrance to the Weyr her body jerked upright and she cried out, "No!"

As Sheala expected the bowl was deserted except for the small group of men waiting for them. These were the riders of the bronze dragons perched atop the rim and thankfully F'tan was among them. "Help me F'tan," she pleaded, her strength nearly spent. F'tan trotted over, lifted Kailen out of Sheala's arms as if the girl were weightless and carried her back to the group of waiting men.

When he set her down again Kailen dropped into a crouch and eyed all the men warily. Some glanced nervously at one another, they were used to young gold riders being nearly catatonic by this stage. Kailen on the other hand looked ready for a fight.

From beyond the rim a single high-pitched roar rent the morning air and from the middle of the circled bronze riders it was echoed by Kailen's own strangled scream. With that, Leanoth was aloft.

The dragons up on the rim were in for a surprise, they had all been prepared to leap down on the young dragon and catch her off guard before she could gain much altitude. Instead they watched helplessly as a golden projectile shot right through their midst and headed for the clouds. There was general confusion as the bronzes all tried to get turned around and airborne at the same time.

On the ground the group of men formed a ring around Kailen. None of them seemed as concerned about her not being female as they were about the fangs she was showing them. Instead of being lost in what her dragon was doing, Kailen seemed to be taking an active role in it. Still in a tight crouch she turned slowly, eyeing each of the men in turn the way a predator eyes its dinner. Some of the riders were so unnerved by this that their dragons actually fell behind the pack in the race to catch up with Leanoth.

Sheala watched as one by one the bronze riders stepped back from the ring surrounding Kailen. She looked at the faces of those remaining to try and determine who might be in the lead, but she had better luck just watching Kailen who invariably turned an evil toothy grin on each rider just before he stepped back.

High up now, Leanoth darted from cloud to cloud, always gaining altitude. The pack had begun to dwindle, but those who remained still looked strong. It was time for her to take some offensive action to reduce their numbers. When she entered the next cloud she rolled over into a shallow dive and then quickly turned her head straight up. She crashed through the pack of pursuers flying nearly vertical and as she passed them her tail took out three who all fell away and lost any chance at catching her.

You would love this view Kailen!

Leanoth was now higher up than she had ever flown before. The sky above her was nearly black and the world below was a uniform sea of blue. Leanoth's strength was beginning to run out as the thin air caused her to beat her wings even faster. Encouraged by the sight of her slowing accent, two of the three remaining bronze dragons poured on more speed in hopes of overtaking their objective. The third held back content to wait for the inevitable.

On the ground just three riders remained and F'tan was one of them. Sheala looked at her Wingsecond and saw the dragon fire in his eyes. Each man still seemed to think that his dragon was about to take Leanoth, but none seemed willing to claim Kailen for himself yet. Sheala looked again at Kailen, she was still alert, still ranging slowly from suitor to suitor. Suddenly her eyes locked on F'tan and Sheala sighed, she had been rooting for him and Jarlath, but Kailen's wicked smile had not been wrong yet. Any second now she expected to see him step back.

Then Kailen launched herself at F'tan, wrapping her arms and legs around his neck and torso she planted a deep violent kiss squarely on his mouth and refused to budge even as the stalwart rider staggered backwards under her weight.

The two pursuing dragons were now vying to be the one to mount Leanoth. They had almost caught up with her and were now snapping at one another. Leanoth waited until both dragons had their necks extended towards one another and then she folded up her wings and dropped on top of them. After the impact both bronze dragons fell like stones and Leanoth spread her wings again only to find Jarlath hovering in the thin air above her. She had no more fight left in her so she nosed over into a shallow dive and didn't protest when the larger bronze dragon flew on top and grabbed her with his claws.

Jarlath rolled his golden prize over and dug his claws into her belly flesh. He was not about to let his trophy fall away from him now. Their wings began to beat in unison as there, on the edge of space, with the black star filled sky above them and the bright blue disk of Pern below them, they consummated Leanoth's first mating flight.

o o o

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All characters in this story are a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental.

This work is copyright © 2005 by Juliet Carnell, it is not public domain and all rights are reserved. This work is not for publication. This work may not be reproduced, distributed or sold in any format or media. This work may not be included in any collection without the express written permission of the author.

Dragonriders of Pern® is the registered trademark of Anne McCaffrey.

Story elements that have appeared in Dragonriders of Pern® are copyright © 1967-2000 by Anne McCaffrey and are used here without license.