The Little Queen

Writers: AL, Cali
Date Posted: 15th August 2009

Characters: T'kob, Meledei
Description: Meledei voices her concern about Elleth's size.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 4, day 9 of Turn 5

"Sir?" Meledei approached the Weyrlingmaster, concern apparent on her face. She had been watching her dragon for some time now. Everything was fine developmentally. She was eating fine, she was flying fine, going /between/ fine. She didn't seem to have any problems with any of those things, yet Meledei still couldn't help but be concerned. "May I speak with you a moment?"

"Sure," he hesitated in his doorway and added, "Does this need to be an office visit, or can we walk and talk?"

"Well, we can walk and talk." Meledei agreed as she moved to the side so T'kob could get past her. "Though let's keep our voices low if that's okay."

It sounded somewhat serious, but as she agreed, he continued on. "Okay. Embereth was wanting to eat. A walk to the feeding pens should be private enough don't you think?"

"Yeah, that sounds all right." Meledei waited for T'kob to lead then kept pace with him as they walked briskly. "It's just...I'm a little concerned about Elleth."

T'kob watched as Embereth soared overhead as he beat them to the edge of the pens. He wasn't surprised at Meledei's comment, most of the weyrlings were worried about some small detail of their dragons health or diet or behavior. It was almost always unfounded. "What's going on?"

"Well...nothing's wrong with her development per se." Meledei had checked about that, just to be sure. Elleth was perfectly normal in that respect. "It's just...her size..."

The Weyrlingmaster nodded. He'd noticed that the young queen wasn't growing as fast as some of the others, but he'd talked to the dragonhealers and they'd judged her proportional. "She is a small one. Nothing wrong with that though."

"But she's _really_ small." Meledei chewed on her lower lip. It seemed like the others were getting bigger and bigger, but Elleth was still the size of a blue - and not even a big one. Tealth was still bigger than she was. "She's not even in the average range for a gold her age."

"Dragons grow at different rates. Just look at your fellow weyrlings. Some of the browns and blues are just as big as the bronzes, but they'll slow down or the bronzes will speed up, and their differences will become apparent. Maybe she just hasn't hit her spurt yet." He hoped she wasn't worrying too much about this, he didn't want the queen to get anxiety over something that wasn't really an issue.

"I don't know." Meledei crossed her arms over her chest, her brow creased with her worry. "She's smaller than even the smallest size for a gold her age by a sizable margin. It's just worrisome to me. I'm afraid I'm not doing something right, not making sure she's eating enough, something."

As Embereth swooped down and hooked his sharp talons into a large herdbeast, T'kob looked over at Meledei. "I tell you what. Why don't we start keeping a log. We can measure her every sevenday, we can keep track of how much she's eating. We can talk to one of the dragonhealers after a month or so and see if everything is on track." And maybe in a month she'll start to get bigger.

Meledei nodded slowly. "All right, that sounds reasonable." Maybe Elleth _would_ grow more. She hoped she was just slow and nothing was wrong. Meledei didn't know what she would do if something _was_ wrong with her lifemate.

Last updated on the August 16th 2009

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The Little Queen