[G] [O] 744.04.18 | This Might Have Been A Mistake

Living at the Weyr continued to surprise Ereben on almost a daily basis. His latest surprise was currently sitting in a pot of warm sand, its shell hardened to the point that he could tap a fingernail against it without thinking he'd ever break it, but he was also not sure how a firelizard was going to break through it whenever.

When Ereben had lived in the caves, there had been one firelizard. A brown one. At first, Ereben had been fascinated with the little creature but its owner, a gruff man named Richale, always waved Ereben away. Eventually, the firelizard began hissing at Ereben whenever he came close so he started making rude gestures at it. And wrote off the species entirely based on that one representative.

Because of this, when the Candidatemaster offered him a firelizard egg as part of a lesson in caring for a creature before hopefully Impressing a dragon, Ereben nearly turned him down. First off, the idea of a gift like that without strings attached was weird. Secondly, Ereben didn't want a pet that was going to hiss at him all of the time like that other firelizard had.

But when he noticed that most of the Candidates had one, or two or three of the little creatures, Ereben relented but only on the case that he didn't want to be singled out or bullied for being different. He didn't think the firelizard was a requirement but he also didn't want to piss off the Candidatemaster either.

So now he had an egg. That looked pretty close to hatching. And a list of instructions that he couldn't read (yet! He was learning how to read too but sometimes that was boring and he hated it but it was part of the lessons thing he had to do as a Candidate so he did it) but had memorized from someone reading it to him so now he was just...waiting.

One evening after dinner, one of the other Candidates let the others know that his egg was rocking, which meant the others should hatch soon too! So Ereben got his little bowl of meet, sat in front of his egg, and waited. And just when he thought that the other Candidate was wrong and nothing was going to happen, his egg gave three shaky wobbles and then split cleanly down the middle.

Ereben jerked forward to catch the emerald green body that tumbled out. A green? Greens were girls. Ereben didn't really get along with lots of girls so he didn't bother hiding his discomfort about a girl pet.

Then she arched her little head, looking up at him with those jeweled eyes, and she just looked so...cute. Like a miniature dragon nestled in his hands. She made a soft, curious sound, as if asking if Ereben was going to feed her or not, so he did. She bolted down each piece, licked the empty bowl, and then promptly curled up in his hands to go to sleep, curling her tail around her little body like a perfect little sculpture.

Ereben grunted. Weird. Now he had a pet.

What was he going to name her?

"Kora! Kora, get back here!"

Emerald green Kora, as she was learning was her name, was far too interested in chasing down the bug she had found because it was a BUG! She had to CATCH IT! And it didn't matter that she was flying dangerously close to other humans' heads, or that she had knocked over a glass of water, or that she was making a beeline for places she definitely shouldn't be going, she had. to catch. THE BUG!

She was, of course, COMPLETELY oblivious to her own, scrawny Ereben, trying to catch her before she caused even more chaos.

"Kora!"

Yeah, getting a firelizard was definitely a mistake. In the few days since Kora had hatched, she had been an utter nightmare of an addition to Ereben's life. Sure, she came right back to him when she was hungry but other than that, she had to explore EVERYTHING. More than once, Ereben had gotten an earful from someone about how she had gotten somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, as though Ereben had told her to go there or something.

Could he...return a firelizard? Like, give it back? Or was he stuck with her forever?

"Shard it, Kora," he muttered as he watched her spiral up after the bug. "It's just a stupid bug, you stupid firelizard. Quit chasing it." Or catch it! Whatever! Just be done with causing whatever current chaos she was on so that maybe Ereben wouldn't get chewed out.

Kora let out a terribly cute squealing sound of triumph as she snagged the bug in her claws.

Victorious, she reappeared in front of Ereben, proudly displaying her prize. "Yeah, congrats, you caught a stupid bug," Ereben muttered. He held out his arm for her to land. "Now can you stop being a pest? Ew, don't eat it on me!" Too late. Crunch, crunch, gone, with little bug bits on his arm for her to clean up. Which she did. "Gross. Dammit, Kora, why are you so...you?"

Kora chirped, cocked her head, chirped again. Like she was asking a question back. "Never mind," Ereben muttered. "Just...stop being a pain, okay? You got the stupid bug so now behave." Kora chirped, climbed up his arm to his shoulder, and became the poster girl image of a perfectly behaved firelizard.

That would last for about an hour but Ereben would take it.

It was quiet. Ereben was sitting cross-legged on his bed, absently scratching one finger at a piece of parchment with squiggly lines that were starting to look like words to him if he concentrated hard enough. The Barracks were usually pretty active though so the quiet meant that he actually had a moment to concentrate and that really long word was starting to look like the word "predicament", which meant a troublesome situation. Yeah, he'd been in plenty of those before, when he was Holdless.

But it was quiet and as Ereben twisted around to see if Kora, his firelizard, was still sleeping on the pillow behind him, he realized that her absence was probably why it was so quiet.

Which meant that she was probably getting into trouble somewhere.

"Dammit, Kora," he muttered under his breath. And he thought at her, hard. He was learning that if he forced enough...thought...down that weirdly gossamer link between them, she often just...popped back into existence next him, using that wild and cool teleportation thing that dragons and firelizards could do. And sure enough, he thought hard enough and pop! She reappeared.

Holding a lovely jeweled necklace.

"Kora, no! Oh, dammit, Kora, we don't steal things here!" he shouted. He snatched the necklace from her little claws, ignoring the sad sound she made. Great, just great! She was going to get him in really big trouble! "Where did you get this?" he asked hotly. Kora cheeped and then disappeared, probably returning to the place where she had found the item. Ereben sighed at his own mistake. "Dammit, Kora, get back here!" he thought (and said) really hard.

Pop! She was back. "Take me there. Like, fly there. Show me," he said. Did she understand that? She chirrupped and took off, lazily spinning like there was no trouble to be had at all.

If only.

Ereben followed her for half an hour at least as she wound her way down one hallway, up another, went into a storage room and then changed her mind, then darted up somewhere he couldn't climb, etc. All the while, he followed her, holding the stupid stolen necklace and muttering under his breath. "Kora, I swear, if you get me kicked out of the Weyr..."

He still hadn't asked anyone if he could rehome a firelizard. He probably should.

Eventually, she wandered her way into someone's open office, landing on a little wooden box. She placed a clawed hand on it and looked at Ereben expectantly. Creeping in, all of his senses making sure that no one was coming, he followed her, opened the box, and -- hey! Jewelry! "This better be the owner's stash," he said as he placed the necklace in there and closed the box. Kora made a sad sound as the shiny went away.

"No more stealing shit, okay?" Ereben scolded as he offered her his arm to perch. "I'm not going back to being Holdless because of you, you heard me?"

Kora peeped, which Ereben took to mean she understood. Now, how long she would remember that was another story.