"It's finally over," Christalla smiled to M'ressan.  They were 
sitting down to breakfast with Evelle and Wynn.  Her manner had lightened 
a bit in the last few days... her morning sickness had lessened, and the 
heavy load on the DragonLady had begun to lessen.

	"I'm looking forward to incorporating the new dragonriders in 
Gamma," Wynn confessed.  "We're still small, but the leadership I've seen 
so far has been incredible."

	"You'll definitely get all the new riders," M'ressan agreed.  "And
I'm planning on speaking to Alpha and Beta Wings about the possibility of
some transfers to make the three wings more equal, now that Gamma has seen
its first combat." 

	"You think we've proved our worth?" Wynn asked, grinning slyly.  
"Well, I was planning on implementing a Flight structure that would be 
implemented this way..."  The two men fell deep into Wingleader jargon 
almost immediately.

	Christalla looked at Evelle and smiled.  "They might as well be 
speaking another language."

	Evelle laughed, happy to see Christalla feeling better.  "Well, 
we have plenty to talk about ourselves, like what to do with Carie now 
that she's become our Junior Queenrider."

	Christalla shook her head.  "I'd never have guessed," she said. 
"Carie didn't even want to be a *dragonrider*!  I thought she might end up
with a Dragon anyway, but with the Queen!  She's going to need a lot of
work to learn to be a Queenrider." 

	Evelle nodded.  "Well, there are two of us now.  I think we can 
handle it."

	Suddenly, M'ressan cried out.

	"M'ressan??" Christalla cried.  "What is it?"

	<Quesarth is going to lose his Human!> Kaeryth panicked.  <Save
Quesarth!> Christalla, stunned, looked up and met the eyes of M'ressan,
Evelle, and Wynn, all of whom had just received some form of the warning. 

	M'ressan stood up, gesturing to Wynn.  Christalla and Evelle 
scrambled out of their seats and hurried to follow M'ressan.  He seemed 
to have received a location.

**********

	David looked up to see the three Dragons moving into position 
around him, attempting to block his contact with the broken, crying 
V'rdeen.  He looked at Minty, Darlea, and Briana who stood in his path.  

	"Why are ye doin' this??" he exclaimed, his mind still clouded 
red with revenge and the need to protect Minty from harm.  "He hurt the 
one I love!  I can't just let that go!"

	<STOP,> a voice sounded in his mind.  <We *can* work this out,
David.> David started to turn and felt a strong hand on his shoulder.  He
turned quickly, his tense fighting reflexes triggering-- and froze as he
met M'ressan's green eyes.  <I know how you feel...  But V'rdeen must be
dealt with in a way that won't hurt Quesarth, and won't tear the Warren
apart.  Aloud, he simply said, "Please stop." 

	Behind him were Wynn, Evelle and Christalla.  Evelle was staring
at V'rdeen as Alicynth explained things to her...  stunned to see a love
she'd never known was there. 

	David's head was pounding, and all eyes were on him.  He looked 
at his weapon, looked at V'rdeen, cast his eyes over all the dragonriders 
around him...


Respectfully Submitted,

Susan Rati
Administrator, DragonLands

NRPG: You guys are doing a great job, but I just wanted to throw myself 
in there <G>.

Justin: Well, this amounts to the kind of post that I make jokes about, 
the cliffhanger pass-the-buck-to-the-next-player.  (Famous one was one 
that was tossed at me on one of my starships, a post ending with "And 
then Iona made her decision...")  But I figured you'd want to write this 
yourself.

"And then David made his decision..."