*Carlynee's Room*
**Chelea**

Just as Chelea finished, she looked at Carlynee as if startled she was 
still there.  A blush covered the pretty girl's face and she looked down 
at the drawing as if in embarassment.

Chelea felt the soft warmth of ^bright woman's^ breath on her cheek but 
didn't look up, even when she felt the picture pulled our from under her 
limp hand.  She had never been comfortable having other people look at 
her real drawings.  

When she'd shown her family a few, they'd laughed and torn them up.  
They had hidden the paper in the house so she couldn't find it and any 
time a sheet had gone missing she'd been punished, though she never 
found the hiding place.  So she'd drawn in the sand, but somebody would 
always find her and then she'd be punished for not doing her chores.  
Eventually she'd given up all together.  They hadn't cared about who she 
was, only how much work she could do and how much it took to care for 
her.  

When ^auburn mustache man^ took her in, he'd actually given her paper 
right away.  Many of the others had laughed at her pictures, but he'd 
always smile at them and give her more things to work with.  ^auburn 
mustache man^ had always been as excited to give her the paints and 
paper and she had been to get them.  

She looked up on the off chance that ^bright woman^ wasn't laughing and 
tearing it to shreds.  Chelea really didn't think she would, but so many 
others had...

Chelea glanced at the sketch books surrounding her and resisted the urge 
to start flipping through them nervously, though her twitching fingers 
clearly displayed her desire to.

^bright woman's^ hand enveloped her's and gave it a squeeze.  To 
startled to do anything else, Chelea squeezed back, suprised at the 
sympathy in her friend's green eyes.

Pulling her hand away, she brought Chelea's attention back to the 
"horse" drawing.  Once again, Carlynee wrote "Horse" and then pointed 
from her original picture, to Chelea's progressional one and nodded.  
Chelea smiled, quite suprised her guess had been even remotely correct 
and that Carlynee had been able to follow it.

Chelea watched ^bright woman's^ hands, which were pulling out drawings 
from her books, ignoring her moving mouth entirely.  The artist quickly 
wrote more of the funny things on them and handed them over with blank 
paper and graphite.

Carlynee tried to look eager and pleading at the same time, but Chelea 
wasn't exactly sure what she was pleading for.  She shook her head in 
confusion.

^bright woman^ took out the horse drawing again as well as her own 
rather meandering interpretation of the squiggles and pointed to them.  
The she took out another drawing with words, this one a snake, and 
gestured again to Chelea's sketches of the horse.  
Comprehension dawned, and Chelea nodded.  It would be something to do 
when she had to sit outside with all the hatchlings and H'lie.  It was 
so dull, and the dirt was to firm and well packed to doodle in.

She stood up, the drawings and paper carefully clutched against her 
breasts.  She would have kissed her, but she didn't want to crinkle the 
papers any more then she had, so she smiled and walked out the door.
****************
*Next Day, Training Class*

Chelea ignored H'lie as usual, trusting her dragon to remember what she 
needed to know in the hopes that someday she might actually be able to 
learn it.

But instead of just sitting there and day dreaming, she got out ^bright 
woman's^ drawings and started to translate the funny squiggles into 
something she could understand.  She was confident that H'lie wouldn't 
care since she never got anything out of this unless he demonstrated 
something.

She got through the drawings of a cat, dog, and snake, all on one piece 
of paper too.  She flipped it over to the clean side and started 
sketching the scene around her, making sure to include the auroras 
around everyone here as best as she could without paints.  

Chelea wasn't sure what the lights meant, but everyone here had them.  
Only a few people in the warren didn't.  At first she'd though it had 
something to do with dragons, but ^bright woman^ had it and she didn't 
have a dragon.

She was adding the finishing touches to her sketch, hardly noticing the 
others leaving, when somebody tapped her on the shoulder.  She gave a 
start and looked up.

H'lie stood above her, in his hand a book.  Without thinking about it, 
Chelea placed a hand over her drawing so he wouldn't see and took the 
book from him.  Placing it over her papers, she got up and smiled at him 
before leaving.

Nebavri was hungry and itching and Chelea wouldn't mind some food 
herself.
***************
**Rivirn**

He walked into the dining hall, famished and not in the mood to put up 
with his hatchmates incessant and shallow chatter, as usual.  Their 
constant cheerfulness got on his frayed nerves and just made him angry 
on top of being depressed.

Rivirn got his food and went to sit with his grandmother.  Elspeth and 
her companions weren't much better, but at least their converstaions 
were amusing and more along the lines of what he was used to listening 
to.  

Elspeth and V'nio tended to hang out with a very promiscuous crowd.  
He'd been almost amused at how they would start to talk about their 
bedpartners the other night, and then suddenly would remember he was 
there.  They would all look at each other uncomfortably.  Eventually, 
he'd ask how it was and then they'd splutter and change the topic 
entirely.

Now though, they really didn't care anymore.  Most of them had probably 
guessed that he had had some experience in bed, especially when he 
started offering little bit of advice here and there.  It was almost 
like being back in the slave camp, talking shop with the rest of the 
concubines.

He had never realized before that he didn't know how to be with people 
his own age, since he'd never been with them.  At the hatching party, he 
hadn't minded dancing with Iralyn, she'd been all right.  But some of 
the others.. it made him want to grind his teeth just thinking about it. 

Still, it would have been nice to have somebody to talk to all the times 
he wasn't eating with his grandmother's friends.  Sighing, he started 
picking at his food and let the conversation fly over his head.  He just 
didn't feel up to it today, he was exhausted, more so then usual.  He 
was thankful that his companions respected that, unlike most of the 
others he was expected to make friends with.

Rivirn looked at his food, not hungry in the least, which was really 
odd.  Now that he thought about it, he hadn't been hungry since 
breakfast yesterday morning.  And neither had Icetek, he recalled 
worriedly.  He'd only picked at his breakfast while the other hatchlings 
had devoured theirs.  

<Ice?> he asked his dragon.

<Mmm?> was the rather despondent reply.

<Are you feeling all right?> Rivirn asked as he got up and went to throw 
away his food.  

<Just tired...> Icetek answered after a while.

<You hungry?> Rivirn asked as he walked outside.

<No!> was the rather vehement reply.  Moments after, Icetek's mind took 
on that same exhausted feeling.

By now Rivirn was seriously worried.  Was Icetek sick?  H'lie had said 
it didn't happen very often, but it could.  By the time he reached his 
dragon, Icetek was asleep and wouldn't wake up.

He ran his hand gently over his dragons snout.  His worry jumped up to a 
nearly full fledged panic as he felt a chill from his dragon and the 
skin flaked slightly under his touch.

He ran off to find H'lie.
**************
NRPG: Whether what Icetek's got is serious or not I haven't decided or 
much care *shrug*  It just kinda wrote itself... :)

Submitted by,
Bridget Olson
Chelea and Nebavri,
Rivirn and Icetek

                            .  ,   
                            . ,`o--Y  
    ____.....------.'      .,' ,,~''   `,------.....____   
''''`    `---.:: ,':       ; ,'         ;`. ;;.---'    '```` 
            `   `:__`-._   `.`.,    _,-'__;'   '         
                 `  `---`---'`'`---'---'  ' 
      ____________________ \`--'/`____________________
       Bridget Olson aka  ```  '''  badei@hotmail.com 
       Dyanisa & Sienra             Daere Warren
       Inagua & Myacura          "  Geode Warren
       N'lin &Trefoil           ''  Whiteriver Warren
       Chelea & Nebavri         ''  Xylian Warren
       N'dovra Leriamtiq       ' '  Ralengarde City
       Lt. <jg> Sirosa Badei   ' '  USS FARADAY
      __________________________' '____________________
                                 -
   "The limits of life are the limits of your imagination."
   
               I am the God of my own universe          
                     What is moral or not             
                           I decide                         
                     What is to be or not             
                           I decide                             
                       What was or not
                           I decide
                  Your are your own God too
                   Make your own descisions
                              -me


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