Fourteen nests hatched that week, nine in one day; Kaydrin's eggs decided to be different and take all night, hatching at dawn the next day -- the last finished climbing out of her shell just as the sun finished its path to the top of the sky. And so they received their names, names that suited their births: Sirocco, first-shelled, for a strong wind. Chinook, who followed -- another wind. Nykterinos, the nocturnal. Parallax; their father was an astronomer and promised Kaydrin it made sense, as did Adhafera and her curly coat, Perseus and his extra-sharp spines. Dagian was last to break shell, her name suiting her time of birth similarly to brother Nyk's. And those two in particular continued to suit their names; she always woke early, he always did most of his playing and learning and exploring at night.
Kaydrin's nest had been settled in a nice proper pile of stone ruins, and the hatchlings never wanted much for things to climb on, experiment with, and try to eat. And when the army sent their cadets over so the hatchlings could consider proper partners, it was to the amusement of all seven that the humans kept falling on things. They weren't very good climbers, and if they were going to try to impress this particular nest of dragons they had to do better.
Of course the first six weeks of life passed kind of quickly, and so by then the young dragons had made their decisions about whether or not they wanted to go into service in the first place. To humans, from the outside, it seemed awfully young to make such a choice. To dragons, it was easy: some were born to it, some were not. The humans who were around it a lot, at least, got used to it. The high-rankers never saw any problems with it.
Nykterinos, who had long ago decided that while he would be happy to serve, partnering was not for him, nonetheless enjoyed (sleepily) watching the cadets when they came to visit, hoping to wow his siblings. One of them managed to lose his coin early on, which should have denied him entry, but Adhafera had immediately taken to him and insisted he be allowed in to get to know her. By the time they were seven weeks old, Adhafera was living in the barracks instead of the nest. Parallax made fun of him: If you're serving, why aren't you out meeting people?
Because, and Nyk yawned, I prefer to guard. I'll stay here. I'll do fine.
Kaydrin had insisted this was a valid life choice, but dragons as stronghold guards were rare enough most of the hatchlings didn't believe it. There currently wasn't one, after all; not except their parents, and they didn't count. Not that all of their parents were in the service themselves, but most of them were -- the hatchlings who decided the army wasn't for them were few and far between.
Perseus chose not to, for instance.
That was it, for their group.
And for the fact that she was born first, it took Sirocco an impressively long time to make a choice. But one night, finally, she scrambled over a pile of fallen rebar to Nykterinos and lay down next to him, proclaiming only, I like that one.
He didn't get a chance to say 'which one' before she was pawing his head in the right direction: and a tall, thin human in a long blue coat was just off to the left, cooking at a fire he'd just made. By himself.
Why that one? He's been here every day, anyway, why haven't you talked to him before?
Sirocco yawned; it might've been early in the day for Nyk's standards but she had practiced her gliding all day and was wearing out. I've just been watching him. He's hiding something, but he's doing it in a really good way. I don't think much of anyone else can tell. He's got fancy clothes but he's not really all that fancy, is he? I bet he'd be good. For what I want.
As far as Nyk knew, what Sirocco wanted was to take over the world; she had that kind of commanding presence. This human, on the other hand, was poking at a campfire with a long stick. By himself. On the other hand, as a fire dragon Nykterinos approved of that, and -- maybe this one would do. He wasn't sure exactly what made a good choice; he hadn't gone to that class. Hadn't needed to.
Not that it would have surprised him if Sirocco hadn't gone either.
Let's go bother him, she suggested suddenly, and sprung to her feet. You can run through that bonfire, right?
Suddenly Cadet Delurin's dinner wasn't going as well as planned.