Impressing Sands
Heidi

writers_choice topic: Impression
fandom: Pern
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She stood on the hot sands watching the golden egg waiting for it to crack and start to open. She spared only the briefest of glances to the center of the nesting grounds where the boys were already cooing over the dragonettes and stuffing chunks of meat into their mouths. The queen egg had yet to even rock in preparation of opening. She could hear the murmurs in the arena - people were saying the egg was dead. That the queen, who was already ageing and had a reduced egg count the last several clutches, was now producing dead eggs.

She refused to believe it, however, this queen egg *had* to be alive. She'd loved the dragons ever since she'd seen her first one in the sky as a child and asked her mother what they were. She'd dreamed of standing on the clutching sands and impressing her very own dragon from the moment she met the old queen and looked into her multifaceted eyes.

Leaving the group of scared girls, she raced over to the egg and wrapped her arms around it. "It's time to come out," she whispered.

The sudden rocking of the egg shocked her and she jumped back. Standing between the other girls and the now shaking egg she watched as the shell began to crack and chunks fell off.

Suddenly a golden head appeared and she heard. //Help me.// Being repeated in her head. She looked back at the other girls, who were backing away in fear, and turned to help peel the shards of the egg away from the dragonette. //I'm Nashet.// she heard again and the head butted hers. "And I'm yours," she whispered back rubbing the eye ridges.