[Statistics] [Candidate] [Hatchling] [Weyrling] [Adult]

Mikaila paced the floor for the hundredth time that morning, glancing outside at the Searchdragons circling the Weyr for perhaps the ninety-ninth.

It seemed she had waited her entire life for an opportunity like this - and she wasn't permitted to leave the Hall! The Weyr's Healer Hall was almost empty - why couldn't she go outside!

Shoving honey-brown hair impatiently from her face, Miki risked a glance behind her. Perhaps the Weyrhealer wouldn't notice if she just went outside for a moment. Occupied with a patient.

The apprentice bit her lip nervously, then threw caution to the wind and slipped out.

The air in the Weyr was cool and young people lingered in the Bowl, hoping for their chance to be noticed and possibly Searched. It seemed this ploy had been successful for one young man who was presently speaking with the greenrider, an awestruck expression on his young face.

Miki watched the proceedings longingly - it seemed all her life she had worked to becoming a dragonrider and now, at age seventeen, she felt her time was running out. Most Weyrs still accepted candidates up to the age of twenty-five, but that seemed such a long time away. The apprentice healer thought she just might burst if she didn't get Searched soon.

Startling her from the scene momentarily, a brown firelizard popped out of between and hovered before her, seeking attention with winsome aerobatics.

Miki grinned, then put on a mock-fierce expression. "What do you think you're doing, Lenan?" she inquired gruffly.

The firelizard cocked his head as if to say 'what do you think I'm doing, silly?' and landed on her shoulder.

The view before her once more firelizard-free, Mikaila took a deep breath and stepped casually forward. She filled her mind full of images of dragons - of her riding a dragon - and warmth and fun and anything else she thought the Searchdragons might like.

After a few moments, she grew gradually closer, and her world crumbled around her.

A hand on her shoulder. She spun. The Weyrhealer, stern, rather irritated.

"No!" she cried, despairing. "The Search! They'll leave, I have to stay, please! "

"And what makes you think you can just abandon one duty for the chance to..." The Weyrhealer's face froze and he looked upward suddenly, and smiled somewhat nervously.

"I'm sorry," a the greenrider said with a little smile. "Am I interrupting something?"

The Weyrhealer shook his head, looking somewhat embarrassed. "No, not at all. Go ahead, ma'am." He seemed rather surprised - that Mikaila had been noticed? Or that he had been interrupted?

Mikaila looked up with honey-hued eyes, pale lashes beating furiously at the rider against the bright sky. "Uh... hi," she said feebly.

The rider chuckled. "Hi yourself." She leapt down from the dragon's neck and started talking. She was from Andromeda Weyr, she explained. A Searchrider - and her dragon had apparently found a fondness in Miki.

Mikaila nodded breathlessly, listening captively, hardly able to believe she was hearing all this. Could it actually be happening? She was being Searched... for a Weyr... and a dragon was... there were eggs... a candidate!

After all the times she'd gone through this is her head, in her dreams, Miki just managed to say a breathless thankyou, before she fell to the ground in a faint.