J'ray, one of the best Istan wingleaders, was furious. Drills were not going as well as he wished. The fact that his wing was still performing better in their practices than the other wings according to Weyrleader N'mon made no difference in J'ray's mind. It was his duty to train a perfect wing, so that no one died in Threadfall. Nothing less than perfection would suit him.
"B'fit, tell Merth to watch his form!" he now shouted at his good-natured wingsecond. "He's cutting the corners too close and carrying you half-lopsided!"
"I'm staying on, aren't I?" the brownrider asked, chuckling. B'fit, who also served as the weyrharper, was the only rider in their wing who dared to speak back to J'ray in such a manner, an exception that he contributed to being almost two decades older than J'ray. However, B'fit and Merth both moved with a lightning-fast energy that belied B'fit's fifty-odd years.
"You've got to do more than stay on! Oh, shards! Can't you make that overgrown brown firelizard of yours use his tail to balance you better than that? Oeth, speak to Merth, please!"
With an amused look between brown Merth and J'ray's bronze Oeth, Merth followed the wingleader's instructions before Oeth had a chance to relay the message.
iMerth says that he can hear you just fine,/i Oeth told his rider. iHe says that dragons have long ears. That is what his rider says./i Oeth sounded unconvinced. iAre my ears longer than Merth's? I am a bronze, so my ears should be longer than a brown's. /iThe dragon sounded a little indignant about this.
iEverything about you is perfect, including your ears,/i J'ray answered, and a knot of tension that he had been carrying in his shoulders started to drain away as he felt Oeth's warm voice in his mind.
J'ray moved on to the blues and greens, bellowing more directions to improve their spatial positioning, riders' postures, and reaction times. His wing, who knew they were best in their Weyr because of the long, hard practices, did their best to obey the instructions. They all knew what lay at stake, and they all landed at once on the ground to repeat the drill, this time with flames.
"Halt!" bellowed J'ray, as one of his wing's green dragons suddenly launched herself into the air, her bewildered rider still holding the sack of firestone that he had been about to put on her. All the blues and most of the browns immediately followed. With a furious look, J'ray slapped S'per, the green's rider, hard across the back, shouting, "Stay with her! Why did you bring her to drill so close to rising, man? Some warning would have been nice, you poor excuse for a herdbeast!"
"I didn't know," S'per said. His eyes showed his true shock at Fisith's sudden flight, and J'ray exhaled a loud, perturbed breath and forced himself to calm down. As wingleader, he would have to deal with this later; right now, it was more important to keep the dragons and riders safe. With that thought, his own bronze dragon launched himself into the air after the smaller dragons with a sudden motion.
iOeth, what are you doing?/i J'ray demanded. "If your dragon's not flying, you're dismissed!" he yelled at the rest of his wing. He noticed Derry, green Linneth's rider, take charge of the youngest riders, sending them back to the Weyr.
iI am trying to catch Fisith, of course,/i the large bronze answered.
iBut you haven't chased a green in over a turn! I thought you only wanted the queens now!/i
iThe greens were getting too easy to catch, but this time I gave the others a head start, /iOeth replied, sounding as cocky as J'ray himself sometimes did, and then J'ray felt his dragon's thoughts focusing only on the flight. Caught up in the steady and fast beating of Oeth's wings, J'ray found himself also thinking only of catching Fisith, whose glowing green color was not much brighter than her usual brilliant hide. No wonder S'per had not seen her change colors—J'ray had not noticed it himself when the wing had gathered to begin their drill. As wingleader, that made this unexpected turn of events as much his fault as S'per's. He would have to mentally flagellate himself later, though—he had to stop fighting to stay rational right now and simply let dragon-nature take its course.
Oeth overtook one of the browns first and focused on passing the others. Soon, only Jusuth, the fastest of the blues, was ahead of them. However, Jusuth was close enough to Fisith that J'ray felt a rush of disappointment from Oeth, but it did not deter the bronze dragon, who was flying in their direction about a dragon-length below the smaller pair's altitude. Despite his closeness, Jusuth could not manage to catch the green, as she kept swooping upward just out of his reach. Jusuth reached out once more for her as Oeth came up underneath them, and with a sudden change of direction, Fisith swooped downward and the large bronze caught her. J'ray felt S'per's slim body in front of his, and his last rational thought was that the greenrider was as tall as J'ray himself, which hardly mattered at all, but was the only part of a green flight that J'ray found physically preferable. Again, not that it mattered... As they brought their dragons home, it didn't matter at all.
J'ray opened his eyes, propped himself up on an elbow, and looked around. The events of the flight quickly came back to him, and he realized that the reason that he felt like he was freezing cold was because he was, in fact, naked and lying on the ground outside. Some time must have passed because the sun had all but disappeared below the horizon. Reaching over, he shook S'per awake. Everyone else was gone, probably back to their weyrs to give the two men some privacy. Mating flights did not usually happen while the riders were out in the open, J'ray reflected, wryly. He felt Oeth's contented slumber nearby and squinted in the near dark until his eyes located the smaller shape of Fisith, also drowsing.
"Wingleader?" the younger man, blinking his eyes.
"Yeah. Are you all right? I mean, I didn't—"
"I'm fine, wingleader. You didn't hurt me," S'per told him.
"Good. Come on," J'ray said, hastily sorting out their clothes. "It's the rainy season, and there's no point camping out and ending up in a downpour."
"Right," S'per mumbled, pulling on his trousers and quickly belting them.
J'ray finished dressing, too, and started walking toward his dragon. iWake up,/i he urged Oeth. iLet's get back inside before the night air makes you sick and you turn green./i
iI am not a green. I am a bronze./i Oeth was confident of that.
iWell, I'll turn green if I have to sleep out here, so come on!/i J'ray's mental voice was full of both love and impatience, and his dragon quickly moved toward him, crouching so that J'ray could climb on. J'ray could make out S'per climbing on Fisith before they blinked out between.
The men were both soon in their own beds, each in his own comfortable weyr. As he drifted off to sleep, J'ray thought to himself that there was one nice thing about a green/bronze flight—there was no need to make anything more of than what it was.