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"Sear them!"

A curse rang out in the empty hallway, mingling with the clatter of erratic footsteps. "No...no!" This wasn't right. Faranie should be the one with a dragon at her side, not those fools. She was livid, watching in her mind's eye as the people around her impressed, watching them find their bondeds and slip away. It was too dark, hazed already as a memory, and tinted dark with anger, to see exactly who got what, but through the gloom she could see the vague size of the candidate herd diminishing. And the number of hatching-hum swells had grown too.

She grimaced, rewinding the memory to near the half-way point. She was staring forward at the golden egg, which remained unhatched. She had kept track of the hums, and the joyous proclamations. There should be six, or thereabout, unhatched or unclaimed. That was nearly half, and a pitiful number, especially from a queen so near to threadfall. She assuaged her own doubt with scathing comments at the mother's expense. Well, at least her idiot brother should have seen the truth and left by now. She smirked to herself, imagining her brother hastening away. Even if she didn't impress here and now, she at least could try again. Not like him.

Still, anger swelled like fire inside her. Unthinking, she lashed out, striking the wall. Of course the wall didn't break, but her hand did. In her state of rage the pain only fueled her ire, and she let out a screech before barreling down the hall, holding her bloodied knuckles to her chest as she made her way to her sanctuary, the room she'd shared in the barracks before. She'd have it to herself now. All the others in that thread blasted room had impressed. It would take all her strength not to tear their things up in a fit of pique just to soothe herself.

Later in the infirmary, Faranie would have seemed asleep to anyone passing by. With her bruised hand dangling into a bowl of numbweed, and her head tilted back to the wall, mouth gently parted and eyes shut, no one could see that she was still awake and writhing.

Dubbed an accident at birth, her life had been a struggle to start. Certainly her brother had been kind to her, but she knew better now. He'd pitied her. Felt badly for her because their parents didn't want her. He'd always been showing off his knowledge of dragons, but was it him they seemed to be interested in? No. It was her. At least, she'd thought so. She'd clung to their attention, using it to get back at her parents and brother for years. Their interest was her strength.

And now...Now she was halfway through her second decade. Nearly half done with the turns allotted for her to try her hand at impressing her own dragon. And so far, as much as she tormented and belittled Gar for it, she didn't seem to be any better off. It would have been perfect if only she'd impressed on her first try...

She'd seen how the repeated rejection had crushed her brother slowly. Like a great boot smashing a trundlebug under its heel. She shuddered. In a few years that might well be her. It wasn't fair. The dragons were supposed to like her. THAT was fair, right? Her parents hated her, her brother played at loving her...Wasn't it her right to call a dragon her own? Then why did they ignore her? Why?

She choked back a small sob. She couldn't let herself cry. Crying was admitting defeat. But she wanted to. Doubt gripped at her. Maybe this wasn't her place. Maybe she really was what her parents had always called her, not just for them, but for the world on the whole. Maybe no one at al really would ever want her.

Maybe she was just an accident.