Hello! This is my first Temeraire fic, but I've written three for Harry Potter. This idea just hit me one day, so hopefully you'll all like it. This story is supposed to take place during World War II, so if anyone has any ideas of which battles I should include, go ahead and comment. All characters are my own, except maybe a couple references to the Temeraire series later on.

Disclaimer: Naomi Novik owns the Temeraire series and its characters. I'm only borrowing the ideas for my own use.

Prologue

"Kinsey! Wake up! You have to go! Now!"

The frantic screaming and shaking was what woke Kinsey Kestrel from her otherwise undisturbed sleep. She groaned softly, shaking her head as she realized that it wasn't her roommates who were shaking her, but Captain Starling, a woman who often ferried people from town to town on her Greyling.

"What is it?" she shot awake, suddenly very scared.

This was the second time within a week that she had been abruptly awoken in the middle of the night, and the last time had been because of a family tragedy. This second waking was causing her to fear a second calamity.

"The egg is hatching."

And suddenly, Kinsey understood. This event was directly linked to the first. But she had no time to argue, because she belonged to the RAF now, and if they ordered her to see the egg, then that was what she was going to do.

She yanked on a pair of trousers and boots as well as a loose shirt within the span of a minute and grabbed her aviator's jacket as she blew out the door. Captain Starling ran ahead of her, waving her arms and calling out as soon as they were in sight of her dragon. Kinsey pulled on the jacket as she ran, followed by the leather gloves she'd shoved in the breast pocket from the day before.

In only a few moments, she was fully dressed and swinging into her harness behind the Captain. Sparrow, Captain Starling's dragon, leapt skyward as soon as she signaled that she was safely clipped onto his back. The wind whipped the hair that was loose beneath the edge of her aviator cap around behind her and stung her eyes so they teared up. She took a moment to pull the goggles down in front of her eyes, only just in time as they hit a cloudbank. When they emerged, she was dripping, but that hardly mattered. When they reached the air base near London she would be warm again.

***

After what must have been hours, Kinsey finally saw the lights of London stretched out below her. Sparrow banked sharply to pull them into a descending spiral towards what must have been the landing pad. Kinsey waited for touchdown nervously, her stomach churning. She never got airsick, but right now she felt as if she was going to vomit.

The egg that was waiting for her should not have been hers at all. The guilt was killing her, and she was afraid that the egg would sense this and reject her. Even so, she had to try, because she was the next likely candidate for that egg.

They were getting lower. The ground was only forty feet away, so Kinsey began to shift on Sparrow's back, ready to hit the ground running. She could see a group of officers on the ground waiting for her, waving their arms in the air as they approached.

Ten feet. She unclipped her harness, and as soon as she felt Sparrow land, she jumped off his back, stumbling a bit as she started trying to go forward before her legs caught up with her. An officer steadied her, and then they were all running towards the hatchery without a word between them. They all flung themselves inside, and one of the hatchery workers looked up at them from her post.

"You're just in time!" she said as Kinsey flung herself onto her knees in front of the egg.

The egg was cracked deeply, and she could hear the dragonet moving around inside the shell. It was nearly out, and had they been even five minutes later she might have missed the hatching altogether. Another loud crack echoed through the hot, humid chambers, and in a flurry of long wings, the dragonet tumbled out of her shell in front of her. Kinsey leaned forward, looking at the awkward creature before her. It was hard to believe that in just over six weeks' time the tiny being in front of her would be sixty feet long with a one-hundred and twenty foot wingspan.

The dragonet lifted her molten orange-yellow eyes to regard Kinsey carefully, apparently examining her for her worth. Then, flapping the blue and orange wings a few times, she finally seemed to come to a decision.

"Hello," the young Longwing said shyly.

"Um, hello," the girl was somehow startled despite expecting some sort of response from the creature in front of her. "I'm Kinsey."

"Oh," the dragonet seemed slightly dejected. "I don't have a name."

"Do you want me to give you one?' Kinsey asked, mind suddenly racing. She had forgotten all about the dragon needing a name in her panicked flight here, and now she found herself with a blank mind.

"Oh, yes! Please," the young Longwing perked right up. "Something fierce and frightening would do quite well."

Kinsey quickly thought through all the fierce names she could think of, and finally she said, "How about 'Athena'? That's the Greek goddess of war."

"Okay," the newly christened dragon was very excited now. "I like it."

"So do I," Kinsey grinned at the small creature.

Then Athena paused. "What does 'Kinsey' mean?"

"It means 'King's Victory'. My mother told me that, and said it was a good name to have when one day you'll be a fighter for England."

"We get to fight?" Athena asked fiercely.

"Maybe," Kinsey smiled in reply, then became more serious as she remembered the state of the world at that moment and changed her mind. "Probably."

"Well, nobody will stand a chance against us!" Athena decided. "After all, right from the moment we were born, our names declared that we will fight, and we will win!"

"You may be right," Kinsey laughed at the young dragonet's vehemence.

"I know I'm right," Athena was adamant.

Kinsey really, really hoped that she was.

So, what do you think? Good idea? Bad? Tell me in a review!