Faith headed inside and looked around for a place to sit. The mess hall was already getting crowded, and she was a bit surprised to see a few other new faces. They must have arrived while she and Corey were in town. She didn't recognize their colors, though. Their outfits were deeper blue than the Ocean colors, and shot through with what looked like either gray or silver.

"Who are they?" she asked as she sat down.

"From the main river weyr, I believe," one of the riders already at the table said. "Seems they wanted in on the exchange thing too."

"Well, this will be interesting," Corey muttered. "More water dragons. Whoopee."

"They're small," Xander said from almost directly behind Corey. She smirked when he jumped; he hadn't heard her approach. "River dragons are much smaller than ocean dragons, no worries." She wrung out her hair one more time to get most of the moisture out of it.

Somehow, she'd managed to get back first, take a quick shower, and change her clothes. And then sneak up on everyone. She sat down at the table, rather smug with herself.

"River dragons are also very long and slender," Ryan added. "From what I've been told, at least. Very fast swimmers."

"How do you do that?" Faith asked her, curious. "Come out of nowhere like that?" She'd never seen anyone quite as good at it as Xander was.

"I've always been good at it," Xander said with a shrug. "Makes life easier when you can simply vanish when the bullies come looking for you, or an adult is mad at you for something you didn't do."

"I wouldn't really know," Faith admitted. "I tended to stay away from bullies as a kid, and adults usually left me alone when they realized I would rather read than anything else."

"Lucky you." Xander grabbed a plate of meat, putting some on her plate before passing it on. She put some other things on her plate too, though not much, and she picked at her food distractedly.

Corey settled down to eat as well. Hey, he was male, he had a healthy appetite. And he didn't steal food from anyone else, so they should be grateful for that.

Faith didn't take much, either. She still wanted to ask whether or not anyone else knew what was going on with the towns lately. It couldn't just be coincidence that both the ocean and forest weyrs were suddenly being cut off by their own counterpart cities.

After dinner, Corey got up, wallking over to the weyrleaders. He talked to them quietly for several long moments before the woman walked over to Xander.

"I hear you found something interesting," she said. "May I see it?"

Xander hesitated before she held out the skull to the weyrleader. "Calypso found it about a hundred meters out," she said.

The weyrleader nodded. "I'm going to borrow this if that's okay."

"Alright. But I want it back before I leave again." Xander crossed her arms over her chest.

"Of course." The weyrleader walked off with the skull, still engrossed in examining it.

Corey walked back over a few moments later. "Apparently every town is like that now and no one really knows exactly why or what happened."

"It's very strange," Ryan commented. "I've never seen towns just close up against riders before."

"There has to be a reason, though," Faith insisted. "No merchant or store owner in his right mind would just refuse such a large client base, right? And didn't people used to respect riders?" She sighed. "This makes no sense at all."

"It's the government. They have no control over riders, and they're the only ones who could do something like this on such a big scale." Corey scowled.

"So who knows what they want or why they did it. Probably trying to make us desperate."

"But desperate for what?" Faith asked. "If the weyrs traded amongst themselves, nobody would ever need anything. What good does splitting us all off do?"

"Well, for one thing, we don't all trade with each other," Corey pointed out. "Haven't for generations, apparently. Don't know why. For another thing, no dragonrider that I've ever heard of knows how to cut and set jewels. There are very few metalworkers. Besides, if we're cut off from the towns then I bet they won't let us take any more kids for potential bonded, which gives the dragons a more limited batch to choose from." Corey shrugged. "There's lots of things."

Faith sighed.

"I just wish someone would explain what exactly is going on," she said. "I'm almost thinking we should try to talk to the people in charge, figure out exactly why they're trying to push us all away."

"You're assuming they're reasonable and that they'll talk. They're not reasonable and they won't talk." Corey headed outside, glancing back to see if they were going to follow. He hated anyone from the government. He'd had more than enough experience with them.

Though she didn't say anything, Xander had to agree with Corey. She'd lived in a government-run and owned orphanage her entire life, and that had sucked. So she was more than happy to blame them.

Faith did get up and follow Corey. She figured he was heading towards the eyries, like he usually did, and that sounded like a great idea to her. She just didn't understand why the government would want to push the weyrs away. It didn't make any sense, no matter which way she thought about it.

Corey did head back to the eyries, calming himself by rubbing Vyren down and then oiling two rough patches, and finally relaxing against the dragon. Vyren snaked his head around to curl around Corey protectively, though neither of them slept. They just sat in silence, each in their own thoughts.

Xander had found a tree that leaned out over the water, and she'd set up a hammock there so she could be close to Calypso without actually being on the sand or in the water. Hey, it worked for her. Although she was looking forward to getting back home again.

Faith went in to settle in with Lapis. She checked her dragon over like usual and oiled the one rough spot she found. Lapis enjoyed the attention, and was more than happy to curl up around her rider and settle down for the night. It still took Faith a while to fall asleep, though.

Ryan went down to the eyries a while later. He didn't usually sleep with Yue anymore, he'd broken that habit a while back, but tonight, he didn't mind. Besides, Yue kept her area much cooler than the rest of the eyries, so it was more comfortable for them both.

A few days later Corey was standing knee-deep in the water while Xander and Calypso swam further out, rooting around for more bones per order of the weyrleaders.

Of course, the little pile of shiny things that Xander had told everyone not to touch helped too.

Xander surfaced and swam back to shore. She still hated the water, but her swimming was improving, at least. She handed half a dozen bones to Corey, who set them in a separate pile, and then she waded back out, took a deep breath, and dove down under the water again.

She'd even managed to find goggles somewhere so she could see in the sandy water and not have sore eyes for the next two days.

Calypso came out part way to add to the pile of shiny things before she handed another skull to Corey with surprising delicacy and dove back after her rider. She just thought it was a fun game of search.

Corey shook his head in amusement as he watched them. "Think they'll let anyone else at that treasure?" he asked Faith. He was kind of surprised Lapis hadn't tried to steal anything yet.

"Maybe once they sort through for the best pieces," Faith replied. She'd waded into the water as well, though Lapis had stayed on the beach. Faith had given her dragon a very firm instruction not to touch the treasure ("Don't touch, Calypso is bigger than you are."), so Lapis was just watching the two diving in the deeper water.

Xander emerged again, coughing a bit, and got back to shore. "Here." She tossed a pretty pearly white rock to Ryan. It reminded her of Yue, and she didn't know how much treasure the dragon had. Most were more than happy to get more.

"And here. More bones." She tossed them to Corey, who caught them easily.

"Think I should take these up to the weyrleader?" Corey asked. He did have a small pile already, so he could go drop these off and then come back for more.

"Might as well. I think Calypso is having fun digging in this spot, so once she's gotten everything from here we'll probably be done. For a while." Xander sighed. At least the amount of treasure was going down.

Ryan caught the white stone when Xander threw it to him and examined it. He was impressed; she had a rather good eye. He could see patches of moon opal in the rock, which itself seemed to be a quartz of some kind.

"Thanks," he said, setting the stone aside for the moment. He would give it to Yue later.

"I still think it's kind of creepy that you're finding bones down there," Faith said. "Such small ones, too. I don't think any kind of dragon is that small, is it? Even the plains dragons are bigger than that."

Xander nodded to Ryan before turning her attention to Faith again.

"We find bones all over," she said with a shrug. "I found bones before, it's not all that unsual. The only unusual thing is that they're so small."

"I'd like to see it all put together," Corey said. "So we can figure out what it is."

"Still weird to me," Faith replied, shaking her head. "You know, city girl and all that." Which was why she refused to touch the bones. Something about it just weirded her out and she didn't want to get too close to them. It was probably stupid, but even still.

Corey shrugged and picked up the bones in a sack. "I'll be back in a few. Gonna go drop these off." He shouldered the bag and walked off with it.

Xander dove under the water briefly to take things from Calypso, hauling them back to shore. Then she flopped down there, stretching out.

"You'll be able to come pick stuff out in a minute or two," she said to Faith and Lapis. "I think Calypso's about done hording for the time being."

"Alright," Faith said. "We can wait." Going over to the shore, she grabbed the folded towel there and handed it to Xander. "Honestly, I never thought it would be quite so easy to get pretty things for Lapis. Things like this are crazy expensive in the city."