Kindan’s face was lined with more than exhaustion when he was finished.

Fiona met his eyes demandingly and the older man gave her an astonished look in response. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Kindan said. “I’d like to send for Tintoval.”

Talenth? Are you up for a flight? Fiona asked her dragon. We should pay our respects to Melirth and Cisca.

Talenth’s response was an enthusiastic, Of course!

“I’ll see if she’ll come,” Fiona told him. She nodded to him and Lorana. “You two should get some rest—”

“A bath first,” Lorana said wistfully.

“Just be careful not to fall asleep in it,” Fiona warned. “Timing it can make you that tired.”

Lorana raised an eyebrow in surprise, then nodded compliantly when she saw that Fiona was deadly serious.

Fiona was still so concerned with their weariness that she put off her departure until they were both safely in bed.

“Are you going to tuck us in?” Kindan teased sleepily.

Fiona shook her head silently, her face going red. She quietly put on her riding gear, went to Talenth’s weyr, put on and double-checked the riding straps, and then urged her queen out to the queens’ ledge.

Talenth was glad of the exercise, even though Fiona could feel that the gold had some muscles that were still sore from the previous day’s exertions. To warm her up, Fiona had Talenth do a slow, lazy circuit above the Weyr before fixing the image of Fort Weyr firmly in her mind and giving Talenth the order to go between.

The cold of between was a tonic to Fiona, seeming to banish all the nagging thoughts that had been quietly demanding her attention. She counted slowly to herself, one, two, three—

And burst out above Fort Weyr without any bother. The watch dragon challenged her and Talenth bugled a response, the watch rider waving at her. Fiona waved back, surprised to see V’lex again, even though it hadn’t yet been a fortnight since their return from their journey back in time to Igen Weyr.

Fiona smiled to herself as she remembered the mating flight of V’lex’s green Sarinth; the first mating flight she’d ever experienced after her Impression of Talenth. Beneath her, Talenth rumbled in amusement.

Soon, you’ll be a mother, Fiona thought to her queen with a mixture of pride and teasing.

I’ll clutch, Talenth corrected her, adding wistfully, maybe there will be a queen egg.

Or two!

Two would be more, Talenth observed abstractedly. All the same, Fiona understood her dragon’s meaning: While two would be good, it would be more than Talenth could imagine.

It was another question for the Records, Fiona thought as she guided Talenth in a spiral down to the Weyr Bowl below. Did queens ever produce two gold eggs in the same Hatching?