Healing & Meeting (UPDATED)

"You know my dear, you can just let someone else do this trip if you want. You can always leave on the next attempt to find a new Rider. Besides, I'm a new Rider myself so taking the egg back and forth is kind of redundant at this point." I whispered into her ear.

"...I may just do that." she responded in kind. It wasn't long after that I felt her tear anew.

"Do you know the spell to warp light around yourself?" I asked her.

"Yes. Why do you ask?" she asked.

'Ēborisk, my friend. Would you be willing to take my soon to be wife for a flight to the Stone of Broken Eggs and back for me? I want her to calm down a bit.' I asked.

'Your wife is my sister, partner. Throw her up here.' he said with a chuckle.

And so Arya went on her first flight on a dragons back. Before getting out of sight she had already forgotten her sadness. All we heard was a loud "Woohoo!" as Ēborisk was flying as a very fast speed.

"Evanyar, come talk with me. I've missed so much of your life. It's time I caught up on some of that time." Islanzadi said.

...

Four months later

"Well that's it for your leg, Glaedr. Unless you feel any issues." I said.

'No. Everything feels as I remember it. Thank you again, Brother Evanyar. I am in your debt.' Glaedr said.

"You can repay me by helping me train any new Rider's. I've set up a ceremony for all the elves to interact with the fifteen eggs I have. With luck we'll have some little dragons running around, driving their Riders insane." I said with an evil smirk.

"Yes. I remember many sleepless nights during Glaedrs first month, myself." Oromis said with a distant look.

"I thought it was just Ēborisk. Are all newborn dragons like that before reaching the one month mark?" I asked.

"Oh yes. They have an ocean of energy that helps them to grow fast, but they need to exercise for their muscles to tear apart and heal. If they don't, their muscles will stretch as the bone grows until they can not move and die of starvation or predation." Oromis said seriously.

"Well when you put it like that it makes sense. I'm no longer upset that I went a full week with zero sleep." I stated.

'A full week? Not bad. I think I only managed to keep Oromis up for five and a half days. Good job Ēborisk.' Glaedr said.

'It was not like I was trying to keep him awake. My muscles were just hurting and the only way it stopped was to run around.' Ēborisk stated.

'I know. But as we get older we count the length of time as a rite of passage. So feel proud, you defeated your senior brother at something.' Glaedr said.

"Onto brighter topics, Arya is returning today. If she wasn't needed for the return ceremony I'd have asked you to go get her Ēborisk." I said.

'I already asked her. She said we should wait for her here.' Ēborisk relayed.

"I can't wait. I think I'm ready to tie the knot. Oromis? Do you have any advice for a soon to be married gentlemen like myself?" I asked.

"Not really. Be honest, listen and be there. That's all I can offer you." Oromis said.

"Fuck, that works. I can't ask anyone else since I don't know anyone else...that and my social skills are shit." I said.

"And your language isn't any better. Why do you curse so much?" Oromis asked.

"According to Markai, I was raised amongst villagers as a commoner. Whatever that means. But cursing was a part of everyday life there. I can't change it anymore than you can stop desiring to join Glaedr on a flight. It's a part of who I am, but to constantly try to suppress that part is exhausting. So, like I said, I'm a Rider before a King." I explained.

"I suppose there's no helping it. Are you going to allow Arya to test the eggs first?" Oromis asked.

"Yes. She was adamant about doing the journey so I didn't tell her about the eggs. Luckily both her and Mom agreed that my existence should remain a secret for now. The ceremony will be set as soon as she comes back. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to have everyone travel here with Arya to introduce myself back into society, first. Then I'll introduce the eggs for everyone to walk past and see if we get lucky. However, these eggs will stay with me, they won't be going into anyone else's hands." I explained.

"I understand. She should be here by mid day then. Are you ready?" he asked me seriously.

"Nope." I said with a 'pop' at the end.

"Haha." he could only laugh in response.

...

Queen Islanzadi was at the front of the procession so was the first to notice the stage I had made for the occasion. She didn't react, but walked up onto the stage with Arya, while I was mentally communicating with them both as to what I was going to do. But they faltered and started looking around frantically for a few seconds when I told them about the eggs. They quickly regained their composure, but couldn't keep the smiles off their faces.

"I have brought you all here today for a very special occasion. Firstly, allow me to reintroduce my daughters betrothed, Evanyar." Islanzadi said while raising her arm to her left.

Without hesitation, I dropped the spell of invisibility on myself. "Hello." I said hesitantly.

After several seconds of silence there was an uproar. It took more than a minute for them to calm down enough for my mother to continue.

"Allow me to also introduce his partner, Ēborisk." she finished.

More than a dozen seconds of silence after I revealed Ēborisk, and several minutes of constant chatter. But they finally realized we were sitting there, waiting for silence.

Now it was my turn to step forward.

"As my mother said, I'm Evanyar Sianilo. I'm not a fan of being the attention of big crowds, so I'll make this quick. I need everyone to make a line, and please remind calm. My father left me with fifteen dragon eggs and we are going to try and find their partners today." I said before people started running to form a line. Luckily, Elves are faster than humans so it didn't take more than a couple of minutes for the more than one hundred thousand elves to form a very long line.

"Thank you. Allow us to begin." I said as I made the ground form sixteen pedestals. "Honey, if you would place your egg onto the first pedestal."

After doing so, she stepped back and allowed me to place the other eggs onto their pedestals.

"Now then, I expect everyone to keep a nice, orderly line and not cause any trouble. Step in front of the first egg for six seconds before moving onto the next one. Everyone else stay at a distance of one egg away before you proceed please." I said.

It took a week, but almost everyone was able to try their luck with the eggs.

Seven eggs hatched. Seven new Rider's were born this day.

After some thought, I decided to allow Saphira to continue her journey alone to the other realms in search of a Rider.

"This is going to be a lot of work." I said to Oromis.

"Yes. But this is what we do." he responded.

"Yes. Yes it is. I guess I'll be spending more time with Arya than I had first expected. Now that we're both Rider's, I guess we'll be able to bring the eggs back and forth together eventually. But not until this batch of Riders are capable of being left alone." I said after some thought as I brought the remaining eggs back into my ring.

"Yes. I suspect we'll be hearing wedding bells in the future." Oromis said with a smirk.

"You best watch yourself, or I'll try to set you up with my mother." I said seriously.

Oromis almost died that day, choking on the water he was drinking.