Lilith looked up at the Icarian night sky and was awed by the miracle of the perfectly pitch black sky. There were stories of a planet called Earth where the lights shone so brightly the sky was dark, not lighted by stars like today...
Lilith would have mocked the stories of Earth if there hadn't been those big junks of metal in the desert. Everyone knew those came from the ship that had brought them here. There was no way anyone could have made such smooth metals on the planet itself.
Sometimes Lilith wondered what it would have been like in the days before the move when the humans had still lived on that magical planet. But not tonight. The silent beauty of the night and the stars was enough to make her shiver with delight. Well, the cold pretty much took care of that too. But shivering out of beauty was much more romantic than shivering because she was cold. Lilith smiled at her own foolishness. She wasn't some giggly 16 year old girl anymore. She was 21, looking a few years older too. 
Lilith brushed away her shoulder long blond hair and got up. She had been sitting on a rock and was feeling all the numbness on places she'd rather not think about right now. She might still have to wait for hours to see the spectacle. 
Lilith sighed, she had calculated all she could, using the old tools they had given her. She had studied drawings and maps delivered to her by aspirants from other worlds and copies of the charts brought on the huge ship. Today was the day, she knew it. Today a passing star would reflect just right to form a corona on the nearest planet. An event that would light the sky for a brief moment, eluding the birds and plants to think the day was dawning.
Lilith was excited and a bit annoyed at the same time. Annoyed because no-one else had wanted to join her in her nightly watch. No-one seemed to be interested in seeing a grand show produced by nature, not now when all the crops were growing and the animals were giving birth. People needed sleep... but still, it only happened once every 500 years or so, why wouldn't they grab the chance to see it?
Following her irregular path of thought for a few more minutes she soon found other topics to think about. Lilith thought about the cattle on the land, the stars high in the sky and finally she thought about the draks. She could just barely distinguish the strange crooked lines of Mi'ihen castle in the distance. Would the knights be sleeping? Or would they be watching the sky like her?
Lilith suddenly yawned and closed her eyes. She was tired. She didn't know how long she had been sitting here, but it could easily have been a few hours. Thinking always made Lilith forget about time... but then wherever she was thinking of was probably more interesting than where she really was. Not that her home and family were awful... just dull. Not one of them understood the fun in calculating orbits for goodness sake. In her dreams she was at least understood and sometimes revered. 
Lilith sighed... being revered would be wonderful. Not too long, just enough to get her self- confidence growing and she'd be fine to work on for a few more years.
"Oh my God..." Lilith suddenly said.
She hastily slapped her cheek and arms. She was melodramatic and romantic. This was not the time to get lost in daydreams. Ok, maybe it was to keep the cold away. Lilith sat down again and grimaced as the cold of the stone oozed through her trousers again.
Lilith looked up and saw the first signs of the nearby show in the sky. Right on time and desperately needed. She opened her eyes as wide as she could and pinched her arm. She wasn't dreaming. The shape in front of the passing planet was really there. A drak...obscuring her view. Everything she had worked for lost. She had waited the entire night... and for what? Nothing! Her family had been right, she'd better gone to sleep and forget about stars and planets. No-one needed those to work or live.
Lilith followed the path of the drak and saw it landed not far off. Unlike her usual behaviour -blame the hours of sitting in the cold- Lilith felt it was her right to go yell at the pair. They had messed up her work, so she was entitled. Besides, they might feel guilty and give her a ride back. 
"Excuse me!" she said loudly.
"Yes? Jaletha, did you know there was someone here."
The Ore drak innocently shrugged.
"You ruined my work!"
"What work? Am I standing on a field?" the rider said hastily looking down.
"No, you flew! Right in front of the planet passing hit with the light reflected by moons and stars! That's what you did! It took me hours to calculate!"
"I didn't realise. Was that the pretty light in the sky?"
"Yes." the look on her face must have shown her anger because the rider took a step back and carefully said: "My name is Gwaur. Can I make it up to you in any way?"
"Can you turn back time?" the guild thing was actually working. Lilith nearly smiled.
"I know! I'm a judge and there are still some aspirant slots available. Jaletha, do you think she'd be suited for a drak?"
Jaletha nodded and grinned behind his paw.
"Somehow I think he planned this whole thing..."
Lilith didn't know what to stay. This was certainly not what she had expected. But it was better than returning home empty-handed. Besides, she wasn't cut out for farming anyway. Maybe she'd be good at riding. ..

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Hatching
Shortly after Lilith had arrived at Mi'ihen castle, carried through the night on a drak like she was valuable, the clutch had hatched. It was the middle of the night, hours from dawn when she heard Marianne, knight of Water Valeiski knocking on all doors to come.
"This is going to ruin my night-day rhythm..." Lilith sighed and got up. 
When she got out of her room, following the other sleepy aspirants, she wondered if she should ask on of them if they knew why all the big events at Castles happened at night. Eventually she decided not too. She had only been there a week, besides the question would make her look silly. She wasn't silly.
Downstairs she saw the other aspirants waiting. The High Prince and Princess had also been waked, she noticed. A cruel smile lit her face. She wouldn't be the only one to suffer a bad night's rest.
Suddenly Valeiski came out of the Deep Cavern bringing her draklings along. The first to go out was a small Ore drak that paired one of the boys. Lilith sighed as the pairing occurred. Would she feel that sensation tonight too? The next drakling seemed to make it all happen, but in the last possible moment the female water chose one the other girl and Lilith was again left standing. She could only see two more draklings waiting with their mother. Lilith looked around, there were still three aspirants! The two seemed far more possible to find draks so Lilith bowed her head, concealing some tears that came to her eyes.
Suddenly she heard a drak say something and she pulled herself together. She should be happy for the two others. there would be other clutches after this one. She had only been at Mi'ihen for a week. Lilith bravely looked up and stared at a small shadow walking towards her. A night drak gone unnoticed in the dark. 
"What did you say?" Lilith asked.
"Why are you ssso sssad, Lilithch? My name isss Tebanaki." she said.
The little golden-black drak crawled as close as she could against Lilith's legs, leaning against them as if they were the only secure object in the world. Lilith bent down and hugged her Tebanaki. After that Tebanaki made her hunger public by the rumbling in her stomach. Lilith smiled and let her drak toward the waiting food. 

Night Tebanaki
Trained by Head Knight Tamond and Night Sonelet
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Adult: Flight
Tebanaki soared through the sky, dodging the clouds as she encountered them.
"I'm not particularly fond of this game Tebanaki..." Lilith said clinging to Tebanaki for support as she took another unexpected turn. It was late evening and Lilith was getting rather annoyed with Tebanaki's games.
"But I have to dodge the clouds if you want to see it."
IT. The spectacle she had missed on the night she had been judged. Tebanaki had offered to take her to the spot halfway across the planet so Lilith could see it on the Southern hemisphere. Lilith had really been thrilled at the prospect, but now she could only wish she had stayed at Mi'ihen.
"Miihen is rather nice..." Tebanaki commented.
"I thought you didn't like all the green." Lilith answered.
"It became interesting."
"How so?" Lilith asked, she had long since stopped trying to make sense of her drak. For a night she had a peculiar sense of logic.
"I have for the first time seen a meaning to me being there." Tebanaki answered.
"Philosophic tonight, are we?" 
"A bit. Do you believe in Faith?"
"What a way to change the subject." Lilith said, "Of course I believe in Faith. How else would I have met you?"
"Hmmm...then there is a reason." Tebanaki said cryptically.
Lilith shrugged and adjusted her telescope. Being on a flying drak had it's advantages.
"Now keep absolutely still, dear." she said and looked through the lense.
Tebanaki hovered, her two sets of wings almost a blur in the air as Tebanaki flapped them too fast to follow with the human eye. She sighed and followed her own trial of thought while her rider was busy looking at the sky.
"Drats! I miscalculated." Lilith exclaimed.
"Maybe it is Faith that you won't get to see it."
"IT better be ready for me because I won't rest until I see it."
"When?" Tebanaki asked.
"IT will be here again if I wait 50 years. I can wait."
"Does that mean I have time enough to rise?"
"Of course. You could fly thousands of days before IT will be back."
"I don't need thousands of days." Tebanaki said, "I just need one."
"You fly every day." Lilith said, making notes into her journal.
"Yes, but not every day I get to choose another."
Something dawned in Lilith's head. In her frantic searching and calculating she had somehow overlooked the fact that Tebanaki was a full-grown drak now. Lilith guessed it was only right for Tebanaki to want to fly. It was the way the world turned round, ever renewing itself. Maybe it was time for Tebanaki to give the cycle a go. But then, hadn't she always heard draks mated for life? Shouldn't she have some say in this matter?
"I'm not ready to find a lifemate just yet, mine." Tebanaki said.
"But... how..?"
"We will search and see what is out there. And then we will choose once we are both ready and willing." Tebanaki said ending the conversation.

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Lilith paired at Mi'ihen Castle
Font used is BoisterBlack

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