2024-07-08 - I HATE YOU.

"STOP, STOP."

She SCREAMED and SHOUTED and rocked violently at her egg, scrabbling with twitchy stumpy limbs, wordlessly cursing how small and trapped she was, how powerless she was to fix this.

"DON'T HURT HER, DON'T HURT HIM."

Their pain screamed white-hot in her mind, their argument was a whirl of terror and explosion of electric and red emotion, of feelings and words she had never known and dearly wished to reject - of forcing, the perversion of that delirious chase of bubbling and sparking emotions, making it into something BAD, BAD, BAD.

The details eluded her, naturally; her bile at the sheer feeling unwelcome and terrifying and Rioth wasn't sure if the feelings were Utaibath's or her own or someone else's.

But she knew she was frightened of this blue and rider. She knew they should be nowhere near the chase.

She knew she hated this blue and rider.

"STOP, STOP. PLEASE STOP. I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU."

The last part lifted into a helpless, furious, wordless screech. She what?

And even as it died down, as these dragons and people were pulled apart, Rioth remained quivering, reaching as she always did to her nearby siblings.

She had never had as strong of a reaction to another dragon before. Had it been hers? How could he bring such foul feelings? Could he just be bad - or was he just behaving badly? Spoiling the chases seemed incorrect, wrong, unforgivable.

In the wake of what she had learned about Golds, downright frightening.

Rioth shouldn't have listened to anything he had to say, but something nevertheless managed to stick: There was always a Person. She would get a Person, too.

What if her Person was a bad one?