Not enough time had passed since that night, lit by glows in the hatching cavern. Sometimes she could still feel the claws that had destroyed her face and taken something from her, sometimes everything would be fine. That was what she had to tell herself regularly, so that she didn't listen to what others said, didn't remember seeing her mother so upset and hurt. The latter was most likely what hurt the most, at least from what she could tell.

Miela stretched out her body on her cot and rolled over, Minion floated up into the air with a squawk of indignation, only to settle back on her side once she stilled completely. In the darkness of the night she couldn't see anyway but it dawned on her what side she'd rolled to and the teen let out a huff. Nearly a month had passed and she was still making the same mistake when it came to what side she slept on, but she'd done it every turn of her life until that point and really it would just require her to lift her head up to see.

Slowly she reached a hand up and placed it over the eyepatch. It didn't hurt as much anymore, which was a relief given how much pain her entire face had been in for so long after the claws had left off. Some days she wished the bandages that had covered the extensive damage done to her face hadn't come off, because then the rest of the candidates she went to lessons with wouldn't look at her so strangely. Scars and missing eyes were nothing among the ranks of dragon riders and candidates, not when faced with rambunctious unbonded baby dragons until one chose them. Miela's however, hadn't been because of excitement or as a result of an accident. That blue had intentionally been holding a grudge and wanted to punish her for her unabashed thoughts.

Minion adjusted where he was sitting and came to rest on the pillow above her head as a shudder ran down through the girl's slowly thinning frame. Blue dragons might haunt her every waking moment for the rest of her life, but as a Candidate she couldn't let that happen, she'd need to get over the now almost instinctive recoil she had when a blue dragon so much as came into her narrowed field of vision. Her own father's had sent her running, as if that wasn't embarrassing enough. Soon she'd hear her fellow candidate's talk about that, no doubt.

Unable to see him above her head, Miela reached a hand up and ran it across the soft and tiny body of her brown fire lizard. "You aren't so bad, maybe brown dragons aren't so bad either. Or greens." Destiny had shown her where she belonged though, the blue had actually told her as much, expressed his views on her worth. He and his bronze brother that hatched from the only other egg she'd laid a hand on. Of course, naturally, she was worthless to a bronze dragon but as thoughts did, they always twisted to the negative and after many nights laying awake trying to breathe past her nightmares, Miela had eventually decided that she'd been called worthless. Even the mother had told her that seeking a powerful dragon was insolent.

Sure, she'd called one weak out of anger, but she'd learned her place now, all the way at the edge as far away from the other candidates as she could manage to get without stepping off the sands entirely and being removed. No golden mother or bronze father would want her anywhere near their children after what Aresoth had said, for she'd heard the talk even hours after the touching had finished. No candidate would want to be near her after seeing those who barely knew her get shredded in her presence.

It was fine, she would continue to stand until she aged out because the dragons from her first hatching had spoken the truth, that she was worthless. Miela hated everything and everyone but rubbed Minion's head as he cheeped nervously. Not him, certainly not her mother, but the rest of the Weyr could leap off a cliff.

She'd learned her place below everyone's boots.