Hello computer.

My name is Urdnot Mordin. Ammah says I should talk to you. She says words travel faster than ships right now, and there's people in the sky who would like to know that our family is safe and strong. "And BIG!" says Arakh, because he just looked over my shoulder.

We're not all that big. Four in my clutch, and three in the one after that. Ammah says she's not putting up with any more of us until we're old enough to hunt on our own, and Arakh says it's all her fault for making such strong, stubborn babies. (I am not stubborn. My BROTHERS are stubborn.)

Antidote Day was three hands ago, and Ammah and Arakh took us to see the Shroud and the Old City, just like every year. We all broke up some of the dirt around the tower, which is almost as hard as rock, but my claws are the strongest in the clutch, because I'm the oldest. Ammah and the other shamans showed us how to plant seeds there, and how to bleed a little into the soil to show the seeds we expect them to grow.

The Old City already has plants. Ammah says its name has been lost, just like a shaman's, but I like it better than the Shroud anyway. We go there on Antidote Day too, but that's not a shaman thing, that's a parents and hatchlings thing. We move rocks to unblock the stream, which SOMEDAY I will find out where it comes from, and splash in the water. Last year Ammah tried to meditate, until one of the babies tried to swim in the sacred well and she had to pull her out. This year Ammah said she would come back later to meditate. Ammah says next year she'll take me to see the pictures in the tunnels, but Arakh wants to take us hunting for thresher maws instead. My little brother Wrait (he's bigger than me, but I'm older, which is most important) wanted to go this year. Arakh told him that he had a quad, but he wanted Ammah to let him keep HIS. Next year I want to see the pictures AND chase thresher maws.

I have to stop talking now. I want to go ask Arakh what a quad is.

Bye, computer.