"Yes it will," Faith agreed. "Though it will still be nice to get home for a little while."

"Yeah, I think so. Home after this sounds good." Corey liked the thought of going home for a while again. Getting a proper eyrie for Vyren would be nice. Plus being somewhere familiar was always good.

"I think we might go up North for a while," Xander said with a shrug. "See what all we can find on the ocean floor up there."

"Yue and I are going to see if we can't get all the way to the south," Ryan said. "Maybe go see the Stepping Stone Islands and visit the far southern weyrs."

"Sounds interesting." Xander stretched briefly, pushing her plate away. She looked up to find the weyrleader beconing her over.

"Aw, crap." Grumbling, she got to her feet and stalked off to go talk to the weyrleaders.

Faith watched as Xander went up to talk to the weyrleaders. That was interesting.

"I wonder what they want her for," she said.

"Something about the bones, most likely," Ryan said.

"Would make sense," Corey agreed. "That or they think she has a nasty attitude or something. She could have gotten into trouble or something, I guess."

"Maybe," Faith nodded. "I think it might be more about the bones, though. They seemed really interested in them, didn't they?"

"Yeah, they did. Well the bones could be important. They could be an ancestor of dragons, or something. Who knows how old they really are?" Corey shrugged and got up as most everyone else did.

"We'll find out later what they're talking about, I suppose."

"Yeah. Maybe we can ask Xander or something," Faith said, going back to her dinner.

Corey nodded and headed outside as did most everyone else, so they could go to bed. He decided to go stay with Vyren again tonight, so they could both look over the pretty things he'd hoarded. He was trying to figure out what to do with them; just putting them in an eyrie seemed so boring... Maybe he'd get one of them cut and do something with it. If he could manage that.

Faith didn't immediately go back to the eyrie after dinner. Instead, she went to the workshops, where they made harnesses and other such things, to see if she could get her hands on some wire and a bit of leather cord. She got the materials without any trouble, and then went to the eyrie.

What is that all for? Lapis asked as Faith sat down and picked up one of the shards of ruby from earlier. Faith examined it and then put it down and picked up another one, looking for one that was just right.

"I'm going to see if I can't make a necklace or something with one of these," Faith replied as she finally found the right ruby. Carefully, she started to cage it with the wire, wrapping it carefully and securely so it wouldn't fall out.

Really? Lapis asked, interested.

"Yep," Faith replied as she worked. Once the gem was sufficiently wrapped, Faith used the wire to form a loop at one end and strung the leather cord through it. "Hold still," she said. She climbed up Lapis's back and slung the necklace around the dragon's neck. Once she was sure it wasn't too tight, she tied it off. "There. How's it feel? Is it tight at all?"

Not at all, Lapis replied. She looked down, admiring the sparkle of the red stone. She was pleased, which made Faith happy.

"I'm glad you like it, then," she said.

Corey gave up on trying to figure out what to do with the rocks for right now, instead settling in against Vyren's side. The thought of going back home was stuck in his head now. Home sounded nice. Traveling was fun, but familiarity was good too. He still had a lot he needed to do back home, too.

So the next morning when everyone got up again, he went to go talk to the weyrleaders. They told him they'd be sending out a new batch of people within the month, and he offered to show any Forest riders who wanted to go how to get to the Mountain weyr.

And, since he had the information, he went to go find Faith and Ryan and share it with them. In case either of them was interested.

Well. Okay, he knew Faith was interested. So mostly just Ryan.

Xander and Calypso had been up since dawn, digging around for bones. They didn't even bother to bring up much treasure, although Xander did have a small bag set off to the side so that they could put any really nice stones or jewels in there if they wanted.

But, even more 'important' (to the weyrleaders at least) was the slowly growing pile of bones. Xander had set them all on a big piece of canvas so she could just pick up the canvas to give to the weyrleaders later.

Especially since they'd started finding really small bones, almost like finger bones and knuckle bones and the like.

Ryan nodded when Corey gave him the information.

"I would be grateful to learn the way to the mountains," he said. "I'm sure Yue will appreciate the change of scenery, too."

Faith went out to the shore and saw Xander and Calypso diving again.

"Find anything interesting?" she asked when Xander came up momentarily.

Corey nodded. "Yeah, I think we'd like to go home for a little while. Plus it's much cooler up there than it is here, so Yue will probably appreciate that." He grinned.

"Guess you'll be following us home sometime pretty soon, then."

"The weyrleaders want me to find all the bones I can," Xander grumbled, carrying an armful of bones over to put in the pile. "Told me to take as long as I need, to try and clear out at least a portion of the beach." She rolled her eyes.

"I'm interested to see the mountains," Ryan said. "It will be different."

"Do they have any idea what the bones are from, or are they just having you collect them for now?" Faith asked.

"I like it up there. It's pretty quiet, cool, occasional rain. We get snow up there too." Corey grinned. "Which is always fun to throw at people."

Xander shrugged. "Dunno. They didn't say. Just shooed me off to go collect more bones." She rolled her eyes, sitting down for a little while. "As if I wasn't in the water enough yesterday."

Ryan grinned.

"You haven't seen a snow fight until you've watched a dozen ice dragons go at it," he said. "It was war, and half of them ended up buried. Not that any of them cared."

Faith grinned.

"You're bonded to an ocean dragon, I think it kind of comes with the package," she teased.

"I bet. They probably did it on purpose." Corey snorted. "I can see them packing themselves in a snow den or something like that."

Xander rolled her eyes and waded out to get more bones from Calypso before flopping back on the sand. "Yeah, but at least most of the time I can just sit on her back and she'll paddle around quite happily."

"Oh, they did," Ryan replied, nodding. "They were having tons of fun. You know, snowballs the size of a small horse, things like that. The snow fight only ended when it got dark enough to see the borealis."

"I can do that with Lapis," Faith pointed out. "I'm still not entirely sure how she floats, but..." She shrugged. "She does."

Corey snorted. "Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm not that surprised." He shook his head, leaning back against a tree. "Still wounds like a lot of fun, though.

"We float," Xander said with a shrug. She didn't much care about how or why things happened, just that they did. She knew everything she needed to know about Calypso, and she was good with that.

"Not all of us," Faith pointed out. She shrugged. "I suppose it's just one of those things." She might get the answer eventually, or she might not. It wasn't too terribly important, regardless.

Xander shrugged again, pretty unconcerned. "As long as you can swim it's not too important." She went to go get more bones from Calypso again.

"Yeah, pretty much," Faith agreed, watching the two dive again. "We're headed back up to the mountains pretty soon," she said when Xander came back up. "What're your plans?"

"Probably go back to the Ocean weyr and put everything away," Xander said with a shrug, piling up more bones. "It would be too hard to get up to the mountains."

"I figured you probably wouldn't be going to the mountains," Faith agreed, nodding. "And we've all agreed that we're just not going to the desert, it's not worth the sand and everything."