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Date Posted: 21:57:56 12/14/01 Fri
Author: Kalya
Subject: The girl rushed into the Sands, staring at all the eggs...

But somehow, though she didn't even intend for it to, her gaze ended on the queen egg. She didn't want to touch it for the egg wasn't hard, but as she looked at Kylith's beautiful clutch, her heart swelled with joy, and memories emerged that she'd cared to forget...

“Joth, Joth, please don’t go! You’re only a little sick, and I’m going to Igen soon!”
“Sorry*cough, cough* Kalya, don’t think I can.”
“No no, you’re my only friend!”
“’M just a drudge Kalya, yer a holder’s daughter, you can Impress.” Dawn Sister, the green fire lizard Kalya had brought from her father’s trash for Joth chirped sadly, and in pain, and her heart compressed as she realized Joth must be near death if Dawn was so worried.
“Joth, promise me you’ll live! I want you to be free since you helped me so much!”
“Sorry ‘Lya, don’t think I can. You can’t change my fate, but you can change that of Pern! Go achieve yer dream ‘Lya.”
Sobbing, she could hardly look in Joth’s eyes as she knew he was fading.
“’Lya…you were the o’ly one who’d care fer me when I took sick, ya gave ‘m Dawn Sister, best gift I ever got from any’body…go Impress the queen ‘Lya, fer Pern, fer yerself, and fer me…Bye Kalya.” Her tears had soon wet the makeshift mattress she had set up for Joth.
“M’ o’ly friend!” Dawn Sister had cried a cry so horrible, etched with the pain of loss of the focus of her life, that it shattered Kalya’s heart, as the tears came in a flood and Dawn went to the between forever.

Her father had come up behind her then, and shoved her to the ground. “Why yous cryin’ ‘ver a lousy drudge, Kalya? He was jus’ a drudge.”
“But he was m’ o’ly friend…”
“Ya don’ need a friend bein’ a holder an’ runnerbeast breeder like me!”
"Oh yeah? Then what was mother for? Ain't she s'posed to comfort you?"
"I never lov'd ya mother Kalya, th' o'ly reason I married her was because she knew s' much 'bout runnerbeasts!" Even as her father spoke the words, Kalya knew they were false, he grieved, and gently Kalya had touched his shoulder, trying to sooth him.

He had slapped her hand back, it hadn't hurt, but she had yelped at his subtle return of what kindness she had tried to give him. Her heart had hardened forever, irreversibly toward him then.
She had looked her father straight in the eye and stuck out her chin. “Joth was a better friend than a father you’ll ever be.” Her father had smacked her so hard she had gone rolling.
“Doncha talk to me like that missy! I’m yer father!”
“And ya know what else fada?” she had asked of him, wiping the blood off her face that was dribbling down from her lip, “I’m gonna be a dragonrider!”

He had taken her home and whipped her so hard the scars had been there for days. She couldn’t even crawl until the third day, and then she had crawled out to bury Joth, brushing the crawlers off her friend with tears in her eyes.
She had born with her father another half turn, until she had run away, being old enough to Impress. She had taken the fastest runnerbeast and sped off to Igen Weyr, and she never planned on coming back.

Some people she had met along the way had felt sorry for her, and she had been quite surprised. What was misery in her life compared to how miserable Joth had been? She had survived so she could come here, that was what mattered. She hoped to Impress the queen so she could change Pern for herself and for her best friend Joth, but had seen enough miseries in her life to know, on a level in her brain, that she might not receive the queen. She could only hope, though she suspected that if she Impressed a green maybe she’d be just as happy.

Kalya slowly felt the tears trickle down her cheeks at the old wound of her's. But here, on the Hatching Sands, about to try to do what she had always wanted, her heart let go of the pain, and she forgave her father. If nothing else, this Hatching had been worth that. And she no longer cringed at memories of Joth, but there was one thing left, her determination, which included her ambition and drive. She would Impress for her old friend, just as she had always planned, but now there was no bitterness in her desire to Impress. And who knew? Maybe even the queen was for her...

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