"Belle!" Katie called. "Belle?"
All morning, the young hatchling had been missing. She had been fine the previous night, no signs of illness or injury, and she had proven herself to be a hardy dragon in her first few days. Still, Katie couldn't help but worry. She had had rough luck with hatchlings. All others had left to find other clans to serve, and all but one had been exalted to serve their new deities. Even then, the remaining one lived in a distant Lightning clan, keeping too busy with work to ever visit. She tried to shake the thought away. She would find her daughter curled up in a bush not too far from where she had fallen asleep, and that would be the end of it. Everything would be fine, the incident all but forgotten, and the day borderline uneventful.