EDITED: Thank you everyone, especially Astrokath, who pointed out mistakes.

A/N

Okay, so you've probably read more than a few Pern stories from the rider's point of view, but is it not those gigantic flying beasts that made you want to pick up Dragonflight in the first place? If you ask me, people are focusing more and more on the riders, and less and less on the dragons.

But now I realise that I will not be satisfied until I read a story that stars the dragon, not just as the human character's friend and mount, but as the main hero of the story. But alas, if such a piece of writing has been penned, I have yet to find it. So what do I do? Well, first I mope around angrily for a few weeks, and then when the school holidays come around, I get of my butt and start writing!

I do not own the Dragonriders of Pern, the planet its self, thread, the dragons, the firelizards- ah, you get the point. They all belong to Ms. Anne McCaffery, and now her son Todd McCaffery. I am but a humble reader of the series.

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Chapter 1

A few days before the hatching

Though the hot sand physically warmed her, the unborn dragonet felt empty and cold in her recently formed heart. The smooth, curved walls that confined her seemed to grow smaller by the hour, and soon she feared that she would run out of room and suffocate.

She knew not what she was, nor why she was being kept here- she was terrified, fearing for the life that she was only half-aware that she had.

She had a colour now- she didn't notice this, of course, it was much too dark, but her leathery hide had changed from an almost white shade to a wonderful, healthy forest green.

Had the young green known of time, she would have known that it was a few days ago that she had started breathing, though for all she knew, it could have been half a century since then.

The dragonet wanted to be free. She didn't like it in here. It was dark and scary and it made her feel so alone. She didn't know that she had a mother, who was only a quarter of a dragonlength away, but it wasn't her mother's company that she wanted, anyway. Who else could she want?

More than once, the green had tried to break the shell of the place that she would later come to realise was her egg, but every time she failed to so much as make a crack. And she was so sleepy, always sleepy. After every attempt, the green would close her eyes, which had so recently been non-existent, and fall back into slumber. And even when she didn't try to escape, the mere act of lying there, growing, exhausted her. Come to think of it, even now…

She was getting kind of…

Slee…

Sleepy…

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Her eyes flew open as another sharp prickle went through her gums. By now, growing had exhausted her so much that she didn't even have the energy to flinch in pain. However, the teething was forbidding her to sleep, the small triangular fangs constantly pushing their way through her tormented gums. Oh well, she was awake now- she might as well try and figure out what was going on outside.

Her hearing was nothing compared to what it would be once she was an adult, but if she strained her ear flaps, the yet-to-be named dragon could pick up some of the activity outside.

For a while, all there was to listen to was the sound of something making loud crooning noises. Loving noises. The noises were not for her. A flash of jealousy went through her, an alien emotion. She quickly tuned out to the sound and concentrated on the tiny pangs of pain originating from her gums, her eyes turning slightly red. She had no way of knowing it, but the noises came from her mother, admiring the egg that her golden daughter would soon spring from. But she didn't know that she had a mother- she didn't know that she had siblings. All she knew was that someone was getting loving attention, and that it wasn't her.

But an embryonic dragon had a very short memory span, and the jealously was soon forgotten. It was replaced with curiosity for the sounds of sandals crunching on the sand, and the occasional nervous giggle of a creature that the green knew nothing of. Though they were new to her, she felt a sudden rush of love towards these beasts, and the dragon knew- knew that one of them was for her, all for her and no one else. Hers would love her, and her only, never leaving her side. She made a final half-hearted attempt to break away from whatever prison held her, but naturally, it didn't work.

A loud, harsh voice barked at them. This voice sounded too deep to belong to the potential mines, too old. It was the voice of an adult human- and the green didn't know how, but she suddenly knew that he was a rider, a human who belonged to a dragon- a blue, to be exact. Named Ranioth. She honestly didn't care though. He was not hers. He was someone else's.

"Okay candidates, gather 'round. Don't go near the eggs until I say so, especially not the golden one, unless you're willing to face the wrath of Tulith there." Who was Tulith? Golden egg? What egg? Was she in one of these 'eggs'? Was her 'egg' golden?

"Now, don't you try and pick any of them up, because the Weyrwoman and I will be watching, and you won't like the consequences if we catch you. You'll also disrupt the hatchling and probably do severe damage to your back. Just walk over to them and stroke them. Be careful. The shells get harder near their hatching day, but if you hit them you'll awaken the embryo. Gold candidates, follow me- you'll need the Weyrwoman's help to get passed Tulith here." There was a shuffling of feet, and some of the potential lifemates approached the green's egg.

"Is it a blue?" A male voice asked hopefully.

"Probably not," a female voice replied. "Almost defiantly a green." Green, thought the embryo with amazment, for she had been unable to see the colour of her hide through the darkness.

"Are you sure?" The male asked again, tapping the dragon's eggshell.

She wanted to tell him to stop making those noises, but of course, she couldn't.

"Syler! Stop that immediately, you will aggravate the hatchling!" The boy named Syler shuffled off, grumbling.

"So you're certain it's a green?" Another male voice asked. This one was deeper, kinder.

"Y- yes," Stuttered the female. "It still could be a blue, of course, there's no way to be certain…" The boy laughed quietly.

"You've been here for three clutches, Syetta, and you've never been wrong about an egg before." The green was annoyed, wishing they would stop talking about the girl and resume paying attention to her.

"Well- yeah… but I still haven't impressed, have I?"

"Ah, your dragon, like mine, just hasn't hatched yet."

"Thanks, Roaniax." The green's eyes turned blue inside the eggshell. Then her last growing tooth gave a final push and they quickly became tainted with red.

((For the record, this is how I make my names: I randomly stab at the keyboard until I make up a name that sounds good. -Grins- If there are any mistakes with the dragon embryo's development, and I'm certain there are, I apologise.))