Lisa's Story

Lisa woke up in the Cabin with the sun shining in her eyes.  Of course, those
eyes remained closed for a good twenty minutes more, since Lisa was not ready
to get up yet.  She was wide awake, but she still felt tired in every ounce of
her body, so she decided to indulge in a nice daydream.  Soon, she drifted off
into a pleasant doze, thinking of fanfic she could write from one of her
favorite series of books, the Pern series... What if pirates, at some point
had surreptitiously landed on Pern, and exported some fire lizard eggs?  And
these same pirates had crash landed on some uninhabited planet?  And some of
the fire lizards had survived this?  And, what if a young explorer or runaway,
someone around her age...Ok, Lisa admitted to herself, someone very much like
her...what if this girl found the planet...

Slowly, Lisa, who had really been too tired to get up anyway, drifted back
into a dream...
     Suddenly, Lisa found herself standing on a strange terrain, very wild,
and somewhat unearthly.  She was kneeling on the ground in front of a
depression in a sandy area.  There were about 20 large eggs in the nest.  She
looked around, and saw no sign of a mother.  She walked around to the other
side of the depression, and looked in shock.  There, laying right next to the
nest, was the perfect body of a sort of lizard with wings.  The wings were
broken, and so was one of the legs of the avian, and it had apparently dragged
itself from the place it had been knocked out of the sky.  The tracks were not
visible on the sharp rocks beyond the sand, but Lisa caught a glimpse of gold
scales, matching the little lizard's skin, every so often caught on a rock.
   Lisa tenderly scooped a hole in the sand, and placed the lizard's body in
it, scraping sand on top.  Not a proper burial for such a devoted mother
(father?) but it was as close as lisa could manage.  Then, Lisa sat back and
tried to decide what to do.  She opened the pack full of rations and began her
unappetising lunch.  She had been subsisting on those for weeks, and she was
getting sick of the taste, which had reminded her of cardboard to start off
with.
     Something tugged at the edges of Lisa's consciousness.  Something was
different.  There!  That was it!  That egg, the one in the middle, it had
moved a centimeter or two.  Suddenly, it cracked.  Lisa looked on, fascinated,
clutching the forgotten ration.   The egg, rocking back and forth for minutes,
abruptly seemed to change it's mind, and cracked in half.  Out came the most
amazing little creature Lisa had ever seen.  Its skin was a bronze color, and
it's many-faceted eyes were flashing red as it screeched anger at this new
environment.  It looked around its new environment, and seemed sense something
it wanted.  It flapped its wings, to dry them, and when it saw that it was not
going to be able to fly yet, it began to crawl towards its destination.  To
her shock, it was aimed towards Lisa.  Or, rather, she noticed with vague
amusement, towards the ration bar.  Not sure what to do, when the little
lizard reached her, she held out the bar for it to eat.  It gobbled it up
quickly, and screeched for another.  It managed to get through three before
its little stomach was distended and it hummed in pleasure as its eyes
returned to a happy blue.  Stroking the skin she found to be wonderfully soft,
she wondered at the magnificent beauty of the creature.  Carefully examining
it, she decided from her studies of biology that it was a male.  Male... what
should she call her new-found friend?  For the second he had done feeding, he
had clawed up her shirt sleeve and claimed a position on her right shoulder,
wrapping it's tail around the back of her neck.  He did not seem to be willing
to let go, until she had unwrapped his tail gently and lifted him into her
arms.  Now she returned him to his position, and he seemed to fall asleep.
Maybe Sander, after the sand she found him in?  No, that's not exactly
right... Zander would be a nice name.  Yes, that would be it.
     Suddenly, Lisa's attention was diverted to the nest.   This time, about
half of the eggs were rocking all at once.  Oh, no, she thought, what'll I do
now?
     Back in Cabin X, Lisa suddenly awoke, and in a flurry got out of her bunk
and pulled on some clothes.  The rest of the cabin grumbled at the
interruption so early, but Lisa hurried into the pet sanctuary.
     In the door of Cabin X, a tall, straight man of about 60 years old stood,
chuckling at disturbed Cabin members.
     Annie, still disoriented by all the new things in the cabin, rubbed her
eyes and glanced at the man.  He looked somewhat out of place, as though he
were from some other country or time.  On his shoulder was perched a creature
not unlike those in Lisa's recent dream.
     "How does he fit into the cabin?" whispered Annie to Rachel, who was
standing next to her
     "He doesn't!" said Rachel, staring at him.  The man, who seemed to have
remarkably sharp hearing said.
     "You're right.  I'm just a figment of imagination."
     "A figment of whose imagination?" Michelle puts in.
     "All the fans of the Pern series.  I came to remind Lisa that she hasn't
reread some of the Pern books for years, and that it might be time again, but
Lisa seems to have taken care of that herself.  And my showing
up...complicated things a bit.  Like Tinkerbell's magic dust, I can't exist
unless people believe in me.  It seems that a lot of people around here want
to believe in the MasterHarper of Pern.  My presence allowed certain things
that Lisa was dreaming about to come true, because she wanted them to be true
so much.  In other words, since she has such a vivid imagination, she's got a
bit of a handful to take care of."  The entire cabin looked at each other, and
then rushed into the pet sanctuary.  Lisa was there, staring at 14 little
lizards who were curled up in the warm sand area that had appeared.
     "14?" someone said.  "That's even more than Menolly!"
     "Not 14,"  Said Lisa, sounding somewhat stunned.  "15."  She turned
around and a strange creature was cradled in her arms.  "Apparently my
affinity for crossovers works in my dreams too."  She looked a bit chagrined.
"I, ah, also like the movie 101 Dalmatians, and you know how there are 15
puppies, but they think one is dead?  Well, in my dream, it somehow equated to
one egg having been damaged by radiation onboard the ship (before it was laid
by the mother) and only the genes for its color was changed, and it barely
survived."  For in her arms, she held the brightest bundle of color you could
imagine.  Its scales were multicolored in an iridescent sparkling of every
imaginable shade.  It was smaller than the average fire lizard (or dragonet,
as Lisa had always found more fitting), but it was perfectly formed.
     "What is it?" someone said, and Lisa was too wrapped up in her new joy
to notice who had said it.
     "She's a queen." said Lisa, "A queen like we've never seen before."  She
paused for a moment, then stood up slowly, careful to avoid jolting her little
charge.
     She walked over to a new section of the pet sanctuary, and placed her
back against the door, pushing it open.  Inside was a beautiful site to see,
dragonet eggs, enough for the entire Cabin Xto have their choice of, and more.
"You see, in my dream, at the end, I found a few clutches where the mothers had been killed, and I loaded them onto my shuttle craft to relocate on a more hospitable planet.  Apparently, this is it."  She looked pleadingly at her cabin mates.  "Can we keep them? Please?"
The Cabin decided to take a vote. Meanwhile, as the MasterHarper watched these events, he chuckled to himself.  This girl had spunk, as well as enough imagination for 20 people. Hopefully enough to keep 15 dragonets busy.  He smiled at the memories of this favorite reader of his.  Only someone with as big an imagination would undertake that many fire lizards, even in a dream.  She would have a bit of surprise when she saw how hard it really was to take care of them, but she really loved those delightful creatures with all her heart, and he supposed that would be enough.