Oh. My. Gods. My gods. I'm stunned. I really and truly am. Shocked. Amazed. Surprised. Stunned. I said that already.

Why, you ask? Why?? Good gods, I'm bonded to a ball of freaking fluff. I don't know what possessed it. Him. It's a him. Tiny, fluffy, little-baby-cute, earnest, honest-to-gods dragon cub. I can't imagine why anything like that would want to bond me. I'm ancient compared to him. I'm boring. I'm mean. I don't even like dragons, for gods' sakes. I don't know what possessed him.

Gods, I don't know what possessed me! I could have refused, not taking the damn scroll, stayed out of the candidates group, for gods' sakes. But noooo, I had to go and touch the damn thing, and now I'm bonded to some little brat who thinks I just need a friend, and that'll make me happy, cheerful, and perky. As if.

I honestly didn't see it coming. I was freakin' rude to the kid at the meetings. The first meeting I didn't even talk to him, not once. I talked to his big sister, she was half Light-- the fluffball's a Fire-- talked to her a little, she was kinda okay. Kept grinning at me funny. If anything, I wanted to talk to her, but she bonded some off-world girl. And at the second meeting started off by being rude, made him stick his tongue out at me, then talked about-- gods, I don't know if I even remember. Something about hiding, like playing hide and seek like brats do. And at the third meeting? I hardly talked to anyone at all! Oh, he tried a bit, but I wasn't having any of it.

I didn't come here to bond, dammit, I came here to find out about Sanctuary and give Ty something to do! I came so that my family would think I did my best and go think up something else for me to do, and let me be for a while! I don't even like dragons all that much! They're arrogant, obnoxious, magic-hoarding freaks who don't like daemons and who think they own everything just because they've got their own goddess.

Oh, and I don't like kids any more, and this brat who bonded me is, like, fifteen. Maybe. That's something like five, for you humans; it's ten for somebody like me. But it's young! He's a baby, for gods' sakes! What am I supposed to do with a baby?? Let him trail along after me while I study things that would bore him to sleep? I don't know anything about taking care of kids, not any kind of kid-- and it's been years since even Ty was a kid, and then I was a hell of a lot younger, too.

Gods. I just don't know what to do.

Where is he? Where the hell do you think he is? He's back at the complex with Ty and his little brat. Yeah, Ty bonded. As if any of us had any doubt. My brat's sister. Twin sister, actually; impossible to tell them apart. They even smell alike. Gods, as if one brat wasn't enough, we have two between the two of us....

I don't have any idea what we're doing now. News can take so freaking long to travel, you know, I don't know when the family is gonna hear about this. For all I know, we're gonna be stuck in those dinky candidate rooms for the next ten or fifteen years until the brats grow up and they shove us into the Guard or whatever they do with dragon-pairs. Oh, oh, or we could travel, live in tents with the brats' trader parents! Gods, I can just see it. I'd be miserable and Tyrolean-- I don't even know what Ty'd think. He's so shy about bein' seen in public, he'd probably spend most of his time hiding behind the dragons.

Maybe they have some kind of housing thing worked out in Sanctuary. I didn't even think about it, cuz I didn't even think we'd be bonding. Maybe the family will actually hear about things immediately and come get us. I can just imagine what those brats'd be like in Daemon-Pride Headquarters back home. Or what it'd be like for them; nobody really likes dragons there, either. It's the usual daemon opinion that they're arrogant, nosy freaks, since it's the usual dragonic opinion that we're all immoral, back-stabbing freaks. Freaks all around, that's us. 

What, you wanna know what the brat thinks about all this? Nothing, what'd you think he'd think? As if I'd tell him anything 'bout how I feel on the subject. I'm mean, not cruel. Besides, I'm not stupid, either; I don't want any bawling babies on my hands. Far's he knows, I'm just surprised, thas it. Don't expect that I'll have too much of a problem; it isn't that strong of a bond, not like what Ty and Calcari-- that's his, a little girl-puffball-- not like what they've got started. 'Sides, he's so young and silly I bet he wouldn't know what disappointment and annoyance even look like. Innocent as a baby, that brat is. Thinks everything's sweetness and light, gods, even thinks I'm nice, somehow.

....

All right, so he's cute. I'll give him that. I still don't want him. I'll think of something. I just don't know what, yet.