The Eggs
Lityan rushed out towards Ysvelt, cradling the eggs, Chaltyk
on her heals. Outside the Cave she nearly shouted, until she remembered the
avalanches. It wasn't that she had forgotten all the dangers, nor forgotten her
best friend had just died. It was more like carrying on, it's what Greyne would
have wanted.
Ysvelt didn't turn when she came closer, but remained seated on a block of grey
snow.
"Ysvelt! We've found these eggs..." Lityan started, "Are you
ok?" she ended, slightly uncertain.
"No, I am not, whatever you found can't be important."
"But still, you are older, can you look at one and tell me what they are?
I've never seen one of these before." She had to keep him occupied, Anyone
could see they were bird eggs. It was no good for him to sit here outside.
Chaltyk arrived, panting from the effort of keeping up with Lityan. Ysvelt rose
and turned toward them.
"What do you care about these eggs, they'll be long death anyway..."
A soft crackling from the one he was holding tight learned them otherwise. It
rocked and moved and shuddered and breeched, giving way to a small creature,
white as snow. No-one of them had ever seen any creature like this before. It
had small wings.
"Keep it warm!!" Lityan said aloud, "It looks wet.". She
gave one of the two eggs she was still holding to Chaltyk and carefully folded
her hands around the remaining one. The shell felt hard and dry, still warm from
when she had brought them, or warm from the creature within? Soon more crackling
sounded and a silver grey, like like mountain rock erupted from Chaltyk's egg
and a little blue green, somewhat smoked like dripping ice crystals hatched from
hers.
Lytian's Aqua Crystal, Chaltyk's Silver Dusk, Ysvelt's White Ice
They camped beside the cave that night, near the little fire
of Chaltyk, gaining strength. All of them carried a little firelizard on the
arm, only their heads were showing, their bodies tucked deeply away in sleeves
and furs.
"We'll need to gather our strength to move on alone." Ysvelt said.
The sad tone in his voice suggested he was not just talking about the crossing.
"Won't they have waited for us?" Lityan asked.
"No chance of that, they'll have left as soon as they could."
"It won't be easy getting out of here on ourselves." Chaltyk said.
"No." Ysvelt said coldly, determined to get out. Chaltyk shrugged and
laid down to sleep. The others soon followed his lead.
Lityan awoke to find the two men gone from the cave. At first
she panicked thinking they had left her to die, but the fire was blazing high,
some food left and 3 warm little bodies laying beside her. She carefully got up,
trying not to disturb the little creatures.
"We should give you names." she whispered.
"Yes, we should. Sleep well?" Chaltyk entered.
"Fine, where were you?"
"Out, looking for a passage. We found one too"
Both Lityan and Chaltyk gazed in the fire for a moment, cherishing it's warmth.
"I'm thinking of calling mine Crystal." Lityan said.
"That's a good name for her." Chaltyk agreed.
"How do you know it's a girl? I haven't seen them behave differently."
"That's because they are sleeping. This morning I fed them. My silver, his
name is dusk by the way, got up and sat straighter than the other two, but they
banded together and conquered him. I tell you, he's male and the other two are
female. No men can make a pact that good." He chuckled "Ysvelt named
his Ice."
"Fitting." Lityan said.
"Yeah, but somehow too cold."
Lost
"How long have we been walking?" Ysvelt asked.
"Two hours I think, it's hard to tell without the sun to make
shadows." Lityan answered.
'Hmm, that's not good. We should have reached the turn point by now."
Two days they had gone South. Ysvelt telling them they would reach the road East
soon. He had travelled the road back and forth maybe 40 times. He knew it. But
still they were lost.
"What do we do now?" Lityan asked, her voice quavering a bit, she had
never been lost before.
"We go East anyway, we'll reach the ocean and go North from there."
Chaltyk said.
Flitter Instincts
"We're lost again." Lityan shouted."It has been days and still
no ocean." She sighed and sat down on a fallen tree trunk.
"We've just haven't gone far enough East yet." Chaltyk said, calming
her.
"Ysvelt turned round and came to them
"We'll make it. We've just got to keep on walking."
Lityan reluctantly got back up and started walking again. She was tired, not
physically, but mentally. Each day they had walked beneath what looked to be the
same old trees and passed the same old little lakes and streams.
"For all we know we're going in circles." she said grudging.
"We aren't, look closer and you'll see."
Lityan sighed again and walked, she would be lost even more without the others.
Three weeks they had been walking now. Luckily there were still wild animals in
these forests. The hunting had slowed them down, that would probably explain why
they hadn't gotten too far. She looked up and saw Crystal flying circles above
her. Those little creatures had sure grown up fast.
One minute Crystal, Ice and Dusk were flying high above them. The next they
shrieked, dove down and started pulling clothes, hair and beards alike.
"What's this?!" Ysvelt shouted as his Ice grabbed hold of his beard
and winged backwards, painfully pulling out strands of hair.
"Why would they attack us?" Lityan howled as Crystal, who remained the
smallest scratched her scalp while grasping hair.
"They want us to follow...see, they stop pulling once you go in a certain
direction." Chatyk said as he followed Dusk through the trees. Lityan and
Ysvelt gave up their struggle and followed as well.
"Are you sure we'll find some candidates here? I know it's a winter
flurry and it's sure cold enough here, but there can't be many humans around,
Amitath." They heard a man say.
Lityan, Chaltyk and Ysvelt froze at the same time.
"Did the creatures know?" Ysvelt whispered. He looked doubtfully at
his Ice. The little White firelizard shrieked softly as she cleaned her hide.
Page 1 -
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- Page 4
- Hatchlings - Weyrlings -
Adults
Chaltyk, Ysvelt and Lityan are Candidates for the Ryslen Flurry 2002