Disclaimer: Not mine, the wonderful and well-adored and respected Anne McCaffrey owns them. She's the Pernese Goddess.

A/n: I'm glad the last chapter had such positive reviews! Here's another one, my treat.

Home Again

"I'd just tell them and run like Thread's on your tail back to Terranth and go between as soon as possible."

"Et'an! That's not helping!"

"I'm just saying!"

"Oh, stop it you two. K'dra, just go up to your family, have a nice little reunion, and when they're drunk, tell them Terranth rose to mate and you were busy having hot dragon induced orgasms courtesy of your sexy bronze wingleader."

"SHAUNA!"

"You two don't have to yell so loud!"

K'dra could feel the sweat forming on her palms even as the air whistling around her was cool enough. She sat upon Terranth's neck as they flew straight for her family's holding, having decided that it would somehow make it easier by the procrastination to tell her parents.

Why would they not understand? Mating is a very natural occurrence, and you seemed to like it as much as I, Terranth queried.

It's complicated, Terri.

How?

Well, the way I was raised was that a man and a woman did not mate unless they were to be permanent mates dedicated only to one another. They understood when I was first Searched for you that this would happen one day when you rose, but it still doesn't make it…it doesn't make it any easier.

I don't understand.

K'dra sighed at hearing her dragon's frustration in struggling to understand a concept most dragons and their riders or Weyrfolk didn't adhere to. She leaned against the wind's pull to give a comforting slap to Terranth's thick hide.

I know. And it's not your fault or mine that they and I had been raised you only mated with one partner. Craft and Hold breeding is very different from Weyr bred since you dragons choose different mates often.

The Weyrleaders don't, Terranth snorted, but she didn't sound so offended or confused, just grudgingly accepting.

Sometimes, K'dra noted. It's preferred the senior pair are together. Can you imagine the chaos there would be if Sakura's queen kept choosing a different bronze every time she rose? That'd be at least two bronzes a year, possibly three. They'd go through all the bronzes on Pern within a span!

Terranth seemed to find the whole idea of the theoretical chaos hilarious, and her thoughts and mind voice were tinged with ripples of humor. It was what K'dra had been hoping for, and she found herself relaxing into flying Terranth, willing the nervous fluttering of her stomach away.

Her reserve lasted only until they could see the outline of Sonnette's Dawn Hold, then it came back like a vicious down drafted clump of Thread, lumping together right in the pit of her belly.

K'dra?

Yes, Terranth?

If they do not accept your telling them the truth, then you can take Et'an's advice, and we will go back to our Weyr.

K'dra was laughing when they landed near her father's holding. She was still chuckling as she dismounted.

Why couldn't we have gone to HIS hold? HE has more room; Terranth looked over at the closely packed hold cottages in some asperity. She was tiny for a dragon, but even so, she liked plenty of space. The field near her father's hold was about the size of the main Hold's courtyard, but not much bigger, and hemmed in on all sides with small holds which even now contained curious children and adults alike at the sight of a dragon in their midst.

"Gavin is here today, and so are my parents. They are the main three I need to tell. Besides, you have more than enough room to stretch out."

There are too many holds and children, the emerald dragon snorted, eyeballing the throng of excited children pointing at her.

Not that Terranth didn't like children, she did. She just didn't like them climbing and shouting at and about her when K'dra wasn't around.

"I'll try and be fast, dragon love. Besides, I think you can take 'em," K'dra laughed, stroking the sparkling muzzle affectionately as she passed.

"Momma, Papa, I'm home!" K'dra called as she strolled past the familiar barn and storage structures, eyes glancing about, taking in details and objects that had once been so much a part of her life.

"Kendra? You're here! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom," K'dra chuckled, accepting the warm embrace, and taking time to scent the essence that was uniquely Latonya Ulric. "I just had a bit of time for a short visit, so I decided to pop on in."

"Oh, oh dear. I'm so glad. Well, if you only have a short time, come inside. Your father and brothers are going over some sort of newfangled contraption from the North," Latonya rolled her eyes heavenward and K'dra once again laughed.

It was good to be with family.

After greeting the males in her family, including her new 'brother' Darryn, K'dra was sitting down with a cup of klah mixed with a liberal douse of wine, and waiting while her younger brother was sent off on an errand.

"Well, sweetie, we know you can't stay long. So what's going on?" Nikkos inquired gently.

"Yes, what's happened. You have that pensive look on your face when you're worrying about how we'll react," Gavin had to add.

K'dra shot her brother a frown, for once acutely irritated at his ability to read her so well.

"Well, for one, I am now fully recovered and I've settled in at the new Weyr and into my wing very well."

"That's wonderful, dear!" Latonya beamed, holding back a sigh of relief. She was still a mother, still K'dra's mother, despite her eldest female being a dragonrider. She worried.

"Yes. Thread's Bane is one of the better wings at Halcyon but then again, I'm biased," K'dra grinned, relaxing. This was safe territory, sort of.

"Of course."

"I mean, they've been wonderful. My wingseconds are very talented, and think themselves humorous, though their antics have appeared so on occasion."

She stopped to take a sip of wine and mentally brace herself with Terranth's encouragement to go on.

"Anyway, they've been taking good care of me since Terranth and I were transferred and you remember R'ahvin, bronze Xenith's rider?"

"The cute one with green eyes and nice body."

"You have no idea," K'dra couldn't help smirking slightly, ignoring both her father and her brother's raised brows and the telltale heat on her face, ploughing on. "Anyway, R'ahvin is my wingleader, and Xenith caught Terranth yesterday when she rose."

There! K'dra held her breath, waiting for her family's reaction.

You said it! Be prepared to run! I am ready.

There was a few moments silence, and in that span of time, the three's faces ran the gamut of emotion: shock, surprise, sadness, and finally, humor.

"Really? That R'ahvin was the same bronze rider who took an interest in you as a weyrling correct?" Gavin was the first to recover. Probably since it was his baby sister and not his baby girl who had dropped the shocker.

"Yeah," K'dra had the grace to look sheepish.

"He finally caught you," Gavin smirked and K'dra punched him in the arm, grinning in relief.

"Dek spit."

"Thread worm."

"Children!" Both looked to a still shocked but now controlled mother. "That's better. Now, that's…interesting news, Kendra."

"Interesting news?" K'dra repeated, disbelieving.

"Now, now, Kendra, don't get your hackles raised in a snit. What your mom meant wasn't meant to be offensive." Nikkos gave his daughter a stern but loving look, and it was that love that drained the anger and offense away.

"Caught us by surprise is all," Gavin nodded. "Knew it was coming, but it's one thing knowing it'll come, another to know it actually happened, you follow?"

"Yeah, I do. It's just…I can't help it! Terranth needed it, and I would eventually have to know it sometime, and why not enjoy it? So what if K'vic and R'ahvin helped me out?"

"Wait…who's K'vic?"

Do you run now?