At last, Varnith's gold-tinged queen egg began to rock more violently, and the queen bugled, bringing everyone's attention to the quivering queen egg. A spiderweb of cracks appeared in the delicate shell, until it hardly looked as though the egg could hold itself together any longer. Finally, the egg shards fell away, revealing a perfect little golden hatchling. She blinked as her mother's head hung over her protectively, and her gaze moved instinctively to the female candidates. They both shifted nervously under the gold's gaze, but the hatchling finally creeled and turned back to her mother. There was a short, hidden exchange between the two, and Varnith curled her body around her golden daughter protectively.

This one says she will not bond. She will come back to Dragonwillow Weyr with us. Her name will be Ousth.

Oblivious to her rider's protests, the golden queen nuzzled her daughter fondly before allowing her to go off to join her siblings in feeding, and finally Aisling gave up and decided to go along with it.

[extract from hatching #18, Darkling Dawn]