Chapter Three: Landing

Dread tickled at the back of his neck despite the sure shelter of this safehouse. It was built of solid stone, the few windows deep in the thick walls, and Thread could not penetrate anywhere, but Neji still sat rigid and apprehensive on one of the rough wooden cots while he waited out the 'fall.

He'd never felt such primal fear as when he'd reached the open road at last, only to look up and see the silver shimmer of Thread in the distant sky. The cloudless day offered far too perfect a view of the falling spores, glimmering like a long line of shiny smoke.

He'd run then. The pain of his lashes and burns secondary as he ran and ran down the wagon-rutted road. There was a safehouse along this road, and it had to be near. He'd carefully calculated his path.

After many long minutes, he could see it, a squat grey brick of a building, when the ache in his lungs made him stop running. He panted, swallowed, and gasped at the sudden searing agony down his back and his right arm and leg that resurged as the rush of fear ebbed.

He didn't look up again, and just forced his way onward, stumbling through the recessed door into the single large room. No one else was here. He let his bag fall to the floor, and stood half-bent, staring unseeing at the packed dirt floor, until he caught his breath again.

He lowered himself awkwardly to the floor. Everything hurt. He was alone and Thread was falling outside.

But he was free.

He'd not heard any pursuit during his time in the forest. When fall was over, he would keep moving. With any luck they'd think him dead now anyway, caught out in the fall.

Now he sat, bag at his feet, until the last of his panic from the sight of Thread was gone. He had the pot of numbweed salve out, and the spare bandages as well, when the safehouse door banged open.

Multiple pairs of booted feet stamped inside. Neji froze, then jerked his bag over the numbweed and bandages before he dared glance over his shoulder.

There had been no barked orders in those few seconds, just the bustle of motion, and what Neji saw made him weak with relief. Not Hyuuga Cousins, or even Hold militia, only the local ground crew.

Four had entered, and Neji could hear the noise of more outside. They stood there, exposed to the sky yet fearless of Thread, and indeed they had little to fear. Large canvas tarps hanging along one wall were yanked back to revealed stacks of flamethrowers, the tanks and nozzles well-worn, but, Neji could see, well-kept.

They ignored him—he was a traveller, and they had work to do, patrolling the area to ferret out any speck of fallen Thread. Unchecked, anything the dragonriders missed would eat everything living, expanding until it ran out of food. Neji had once seen an ashy grey swath bitten out of the forest near the hold. The ash was the remains of the seared thread, but before the Hyuuga ground crew had burnt it away, it had consumed an area of forest as wide as the entire hold.

He watched them from the corner of his eye, trying to appear busy with his bag, as they hauled out the flamethrowers to their fellows outside.

He looked up at the wrong moment as the last crewmember slung the final flamethrower tank onto his back, and their eyes met. The man's eyebrows rose in surprise, and Neji's hands gripped painfully at the rough canvas of his bag. His eyes were far too recognizable here. The man's brown was the common colour, not Neji's Hyuuga grey.

"Huh," the man grunted, eyes flicking to the bandana covering Neji's mark. It too was obvious while he was in this territory. None of the Main Family wore anything like that, their foreheads bare and unmarked for all to see. "Yer best be out. En't no one missed the message 'bout you." Then he grinned, weathered face crinkling into kindly wrinkles. "En't no one decent thinkin' to catch ye, though, just 'em lordy types. G'luck, boy." He stomped out the door and yelled for someone named Abby to "get 'erself along with the other half and take south," and the ground crew was off to their work.

Neji stared after him in numb astonishment. It had taken a moment to work through the man's rough cothold dialect, but he understood now that there was a warning out for him. That this man hadn't alerted his companions and taken Neji in was a confusing surprise.

Whatever the reason, the man's words were wise; Neji had to leave quickly. He yanked his tunic over his head, gritting his teeth at the waves of agony that came off his raw, inflamed skin. He had to get it numbed and leave as soon as Threadfall was over.


Kakashi slapped Hataketh firmly on the neck, leaning back as he tied the leftover sack of firestone to the riding straps. The big blue rumbled in his chest, satisfaction that mirrored Kakashi's underlying his words.

Good Fall, he stated confidently, and Kakashi eyed the re-forming ranks of the fighting wings. No injuries worse than a bit of char burn. All in all an excellent outing. Too bad it wasn't quite over yet. Kakashi waved at his immediate neighbour, and Asuma returned the gesture, before Kakashi and a few others broke from formation to wheel off towards their respective ground inspection territories. He tightened the scarf over his face against the wind.

The Queen's Wing had reported that nothing had fallen past them, which made it unlikely that an errant thread was burrowing and spreading somewhere in the forest or fields below, but check they must, and check they did.

Hataketh flew low over the treetops, scaring up a few screeching birds, but there was nothing to be seen, and when they glided over the ground crew from the nearby Cothold, the leader waved the bright yellow all-clear flag.

The blue wheeled another slow turn over the ground crew, as protocol dictated, and Kakashi blinked slowly in surprise when the leader pulled a second flag. The bleached white cloth bore a stylized shelter outline in bold black with a red dot within. Someone was at the safehouse who needed help. It's a detour this time, Kakashi said to Hataketh in surprise. Hataketh dipped one wing in farewell, and Kakashi waved briefly as they turned to fly towards the safehouse.

Hataketh backwinged and landed neatly in the middle of the road. He tilted his head at the safehouse, eyes greying slightly and Kakashi felt worry roll off his dragon.

The one in there is hurting the blue said, he's lost.

Kakashi slid to the ground and gave his dragon a curious look. The blue was a lithe, agile dragon, as big as the smaller browns but faster, an excellent fighter, quick-minded and good-natured, but not generally sensitive to other humans. He'd certainly never Searched anyone. Kakashi wasn't even sure that was what he was doing now.

Yes, the blue answered his confusion succinctly. Kakashi shrugged, adjusted his scarf from under Pakkun (the brown fire lizard shifted a bit against Kakashi's neck in his doze, but otherwise ignored him), and went to the door, rapping once and opening it to reveal the familiar roomful of cots. There was only one person inside. Black hair hung halfway down his back, and Kakashi had only a moment to take in the hair style and the cut of the beige and black clothing before the young man jerked around to face him in an awkward spin, and stood, wary and tense.

The grey eyes confirmed it. This was a Hyuuga. That alone was pretty astonishing. The Hyuuga were as shut-in as they were hidebound. You didn't find them wandering around like this without a massive retinue. But the black bandana covering his forehead made it even more unbelievable. Kakashi blinked, tightening his mouth against a flood of memories. This boy was one of the Branch. On his own.

The young man's eyes widened, taking in the dark green flight jacket and embroidered headband with ill-concealed interest.

Kakashi raised one hand in a casual wave. "Weyrlingmaster Kakashi of blue Hataketh, of Konoha Weyr. How're you, traveler?" He spoke silently to Hataketh as well. Let Umith know that there's a new one coming in.

"Well enough," the young man answered with rigid politeness, no hint of relaxation touching his posture. There was an obvious urgency about him, but he let none of it affect his manners. He bowed, as stiffly as he had spoken. "If you are of the Weyr, I would request some information of you."

"Well, I have one piece you can have for free," Kakashi raised his eyebrows, smiled slightly behind his scarf, and continued, "Hataketh out there finds you interesting enough to haul back for candidacy."

That certainly stopped the kid in his tracks. Kakashi was mildly amused by the shocked look his words caused, and not at all surprised by the relief that rose behind it after a few seconds. It was obvious enough the boy was on the run, and Kakashi silently thanked the ground crew leader for alerting him. This one is not going to be caught, he thought darkly, feeling the phantom ache in his bad eye, and the memory of grey eyes like this boy's grinning at him from a different, younger face, Obito's ever-present toothpick between his teeth while they made great plans for the future. Dragons and Weyrs and fighting the scourge that fell from the skies together. He'd arrived filthy and exuberant at Kakashi's small home hold, just over the territory border of Hyuuga land, and stayed for nearly a year.

But Hyuuga was relentless and Obito was dead, and Kakashi had nothing left of him but a scar cut through his eye that had healed thick and white.

The altogether different pale-eyed young man before him regained his excessively formal manner quickly. Kakashi knew his own expression hadn't wavered. He continued without missing a beat. "Are you of age?"

"Yes, sir," came the answer, "I am Neji of Hyuuga, turned seventeen a month ago." The Weyr would verify that with the Harperhall, where the records for all holds and cots were kept, but Neji was Searched, so it was only relevant in that it would avoid Kakashi having to request permission that would never come from the Hyuuga family head.

He had a feeling, though, that even if the boy had been under sixteen, Tsunade and Iruka would still have accepted him as a candidate. The Weyr didn't regard Hyuuga's ways highly enough to give up a candidate in order to pacify them.

"Alright then, I'll get these attached to Hataketh." Kakashi hefted Neji's bag and strode out through the door.


Neji stared at the back of Dragonrider Kakashi's flight jacket, absently noting the lump of sleeping brown firelizard and the twined loop of rank knot on his left shoulder—bluerider at Konoha by the colours, weyrlingmaster by the braid, Neji's mind supplied, hours of study providing the meaning—not quite sure he could believe this. After a few seconds he followed, the late afternoon sun warm on his face when he exited the building.

There was a dragon sitting on the road, comfortable on its haunches, forearms down between big hind feet as a cat could sit, tail curled loosely around him.

The massive creature swung its long-muzzled head toward Neji, the faceted eyes swirling with the green and blue of a relaxed dragon. This one looked to be perhaps thirty-five feet long. Blues were the second-smallest type of dragon… and yet this one was immense, to Neji's eyes. Neji had seen full-grown stallions, and massively bulky, stolid oxen, but this…

The dragon was lean and tough-looking, his hairless, sky-blue hide marked here and there by scars Neji knew had to come from Threadfall. His wings seemed too small, folded against him, the delicate-looking wingfingers and fragile membranes tucked close to his sides.

The blue cocked his head, and rose to stand on all fours, his big hind legs supporting most of his weight, large forepaws—hands, Neji corrected himself, the dragon had fingers, even if they were tipped with deadly-looking claws—flexing idly into the dirt road while his rider secured Neji's bag to the straps that were buckled at the base of the dragon's neck.

When he was done, the dragon stretched, suddenly catlike again, and Neji couldn't hold in a gasp or stop himself from stepping back as the wings extended fully, each one the length of the dragon's entire body. The sails were translucent, traced with a web of veins, and even more fragile-looking now that he could see them properly. Hataketh let out a loud yawn, his voice growling out somewhere between that of a wild lion and one of the huge guard-type dogs. If either animal could grow to past thirty feet long, maybe.

"Yeah, he is impressive." Kakashi drawled, looking eminently satisfied in a way that Neji was sure was a put-on for non-riders, but there was real pride underlying it, the kind Neji could remember feeling, barely, the kind that swelled the chest and firmed the chin and filled the heart, this kind Neji's parents had given him. And something else, something softer in Kakashi's visible eye. Another emotion Neji could barely recall, that he first thought was simply happiness, until he realized; it was love.

Then the dragonrider was back to the vaguely amused, overly-relaxed-looking man he'd been the second before. He swung himself up and secured himself, adjusting straps, and then he extended one arm to Neji.

Glad he could reach out with his undamaged left arm, and not his right, Neji held firm to the strong forearm and was hauled up to settled in the space behind Rider Kakashi.

After the first second of settling himself, he felt it instantly—size aside Hataketh was nothing like a horse. Horses were firm, strong, they were warm and they breathed, and the dragon was all these things, yes, but he moved so differently, and Neji could feel the intelligence in Hataketh's motions, the intent and understanding that a horse could never achieve. Dragons had no reins.

What did this feel like for the rider, he wondered, who felt not only the physical, but the mental part of it all?

"Get this on," he was handed a harness that he slid into gingerly, leery of shifting the bandages on his numb back. The bluerider snapped the dangling straps to loops on Hataketh's harness, tugged each one to test it, and then patted the blue neck.

"Try to move with him, not against him," Rider Kakashi said over his shoulder, "Takeoffs are always bumpy till you learn how to move with'em. And then we're going Between."

Neji felt his hands tighten to fists on his thighs.

"It's frightening," Kakashi went on, and Neji frowned but couldn't detect any hint of patronizing tone. "You'll feel like there's nothing around you, and you don't have a dragon in your head. So count slowly, sing a song in your head, recite a poem. Something. It'll help," Neji nodded once. "Alright. Hold on!"

Kakashi slapped Hataketh's neck, and there was a massive lurch that had Neji grab hurriedly for the straps at the back of Kakashi's harness, clinging as Hataketh's first whooshing wingbeats jerked them gradually higher, and Neji saw the ground drop below them with dizzying speed.

The dragon's wings locked in the extended position as they caught a current and Neji's grip tightened and his ears popped as they suddenly were incomprehensibly high. He swallowed to relieve the pressure and the wind was suddenly much louder.

"I like to get a good view before I go home," came the faraway sound of the bluerider's voice, yelling over the rushing air, and Neji stared at the spreading quilt of the ground below them. The deep blue-green of the forest was a massive irregular bulge to the south of the tiny winding road, a thread of dirt-brown against the trees. Meadows spread beyond that. To the north the forest stretched far enough that its distant border with the swampland was a blur of blue-green into grey.

Hataketh made a banking turn that made Neji's stomach drop as he was tilted sideways, and Neji looked east. Bright, healthy fields lay in organized rectangles. Sun sparkle bounced off the sky-blue ribbon of river that ran beyond them. Like a stone among jewels Neji could see the dull blue-grey sandstone walls of Hyuuga Hold, the sharp lines outlining the corners and narrow corridors of his home.

It was so small.

"Say goodbye," Kakashi shouted, and Neji thought for a second he heard satisfaction in those words..

Hataketh glided for a few moments longer, and then Kakashi added, "Start counting." and the world vanished and

one

there was nothing and nowhere. There was frozen dark around him and inside him and

two

he couldn't see, couldn't shout, couldn't whisper, couldn't move or

three

breathe, he couldn't feel his heart pounding or his lungs gasping, only rising fear

fo—

and then he could feel air again. The wind's autumn chill when the world returned felt like a warm caress. The void was gone. Neji had to force himself to loosen his grip before he drove the leather straps of Kakashi's harness into his palm hard enough to bruise.

He sucked in a breath of air, and another, and another. He could feel his heart pounding now, hammering in his chest.

"Now look at that, because you won't see it from this angle too often till you Impress," Kakashi called back to him, and he realized his eyes were pinched shut.

He forced them open.

The skinny road and the needle-tree forest and Hyuuga Hold were gone. Below them now was a massive stone bowl, a dead volcano. Rolling wild fields lapped up against the near curve, and from their location—the southern edge, by the sun's orientation—Neji could see two wide roads leading right up to the wall. That was where the tithe trains went, Neji realized, where that Kyuubi boy and his fellow candidates had taken the Hyuuga carts to the tunnels that passed beneath the walls of the weyrbowl.

Thick forest, more varied than the one they had just left, grew right up against the wall around the rest of it's perimeter. The leafy trees were changing colour, spreading orange and yellow among the permanent green of the needle-trees. The Weyr was a lone mountain, though far beyond Neji could see the rise and dip of the landscape that were the foothills of this continent's mountain range.

The bowl itself wasn't just bare stone. Green carpeted a good half, a lake filling the low end of the irregular oval. Trees dotted the grass. The rest, ancient volcanic rock, looked worn smooth, though not quite flat, by the years after the caldera had come into being, long before the dragonriders had made it a home.

But it wasn't only the grass and trees that showed the life of this place. It was the people, and the dragons.

Neji could pick them out from his position on Hataketh. They perched on the wide cliff-like rim, or were gliding gracefully in the bowl and a few were even in the surrounding airspace, arriving at or leaving the Weyr.

Hataketh was gliding smoothly, following the curve of the rim. Neji stared at the lounging dragons. Lithe greens and blues, heavy-set browns, and here and there a bronze, largest of the males. On the far side of the bowl Neji could even make out one hulking golden shape. Biggest of the dragons, mother and leader to them all, a queen.

A few were stretched out, some were curled up. They were alone or in pairs or groups, many with wings half-extended to catch the sun.

Neji's eyes were drawn to the movement in the bowl. A few dragons were making short flights from the ground to the small cave-mouths that dotted the inner walls, each one the entrance to a dragonpair's personal weyr.

Hataketh neared a jutting part of the rim that rose well above the rest. A brown dragon perched there, not relaxed like the others but poised and alert.

Hataketh's neck expanded between Neji's legs as he inhaled, and then his body vibrated with the noise as he let out a brassy bellow. The other dragon extended his wings and returned the call in a deeper voice.

The watchdragon, of course. Hataketh was signalling his arrival home. Neji had never seen the watch pairs that lived at Hyuuga except from a distance. Dragonpairs rotated the position, and kept mostly to their quarters, the dragon's "weyr" consisting of a half-covered roof on a squat building not attached to the main part of the hold, with the rider's room below.

Not at all like this magnificent place.

Hataketh dipped a wing at the brown as they passed, and swerved to glide towards the stony ground below. With a backwing and gentle downstroke he landed them lightly near a low stone building that adjoined the south wall of the bowl right where the stone floor became dirt and grass.

The reality that had fallen away when they'd launched from Hyuuga returned.

Kakashi unclipped his straps, swung one leg over and slid down. Neji worked at his own straps, looking slowly at his surroundings. The bowl looked huge and vast from within, the walls rising far above, contracting the world to the Weyr itself and the sky above.

"He's all yours," Neji heard Kakashi say, and turned to see him sketching a casual salute at another man, brown-skinned, with a scar over the bridge of his nose and a prickly expression at Kakashi's casualness.

"Thank you," he returned the salute more formally, and then turned a benevolent and welcoming face to Neji. "I'm Candidatemaster Iruka, rider of green Umith," he introduced himself.

That gave Neji momentary pause. Green. That meant… No, he'd… known about those kinds of men and women. It didn't matter. He couldn't let it.

"And you… have been Searched," Master Iruka smiled at him.

Neji shrugged out of the straps at last, thankful the numbweed was still at full strength, and slid off Hataketh. He steadied himself against the warm, solid shoulder for a second before snatching his hand back. He didn't dare offend Kakashi by touching the dragon more than necessary. The blue's gaze was on him now, sinuous neck twisting easily so that Hataketh regarded him with a slightly cocked head.

Self-conscious now, Neji smoothed away a frown before it could manifest fully and bowed. "Neji of Hyuuga, sir," he said calmly.

"Formerly," Kakashi added, strangely firm, and Neji glanced at him, seeing nothing but the same laconic attitude of earlier. When he looked back at the Candidatemaster, meeting his eyes properly for the first time, the man's expression was one of surprise and peculiar realization. Iruka's gaze moved to his bandana, and Neji felt tension coil painfully in his stomach.

If they sent him back… his stomach twisted further, cramping with nervous pain. His hands, in fists at his sides, tightened against the discomfort, but he didn't let the reaction go any further.

But the Candidatemaster only nodded, and gestured to the low building. "Follow me, Neji. I'll explain how things work here, and get you settled. We're surprisingly full just at the moment, but there is always a free bed for a candidate."

Kakashi appeared near him, holding out his backpack, which Neji took, numb with relief. He only peripherally noticed Hataketh taking off again, the wind of his departure whirling dust around them.

He was really here. At the Weyr.


The noise of the dining hall extended its cacophonic din well along the corridor down which Neji was following Master Iruka. Almost five hundred people called the Weyr home, Iruka had informed Neji, three hundred-odd of which were dragonriders.

It was now the first evening meal, when those three hundred filled the tables, gathered by wing. "Midday meals and restday meals are quieter," Iruka had explained. Riders often ate in their weyrs, or took picnics outside during those times.

The candidates and weyrlings ate at the same time as riders, so Neji was being led to the table where he would eat meals for the indefinite future.

They turned the corner, and Neji was unprepared for the sudden increase in volume, and the sight of such a mass of people. Long tables packed with people of all kinds, their voices mingled with the clink and clatter of plates and cutlery, punctuated with the odd outburst of laughter or shouts.

There were twenty tables arranged in two rows of ten. Fifteen were fighting wings, and it was easy to spot them when Iruka pointed out how at the head of each sat the wingleader.

Neji looked carefully when Iruka pointed out the Queen's Wing table, one of the two nearest the kitchen. The gold queen dragons didn't breath fire, so the wing flew low-altitude, the goldriders burning away the Thread that got through the wings above with flamethrowers, and the support of a few permanent non-gold riders as well as all the newly graduated riders, those who had yet to be tapped into the other wings. Weyrwoman Tsunade headed that table, though all Neji could make out of her from his distance was the blond glint of her hair and the very ample curve of her chest that was somehow not so much motherly as imposing.

The Weyrleader headed the leading wing of the mid-altitude flight, and his mass of white hair was easily visible from where he sat at the other table closest to the kitchen.

The five tables not occupied by fighting wings were filled with candidates and weyrlings.

One table belonged to the Weyrling Wing, a support wing made of half-trained weyrlings that didn't fight Thread directly, but delivered sacks of firestone to the riders during Fall.

The last four, on the farthest end from the kitchen, were split between the unflighted weyrlings and the candidates. They were also the rowdiest, though not by much. Even the Weyrleaders' tables were loud. It was all completely opposite to the tense, quiet mealtimes the Branch had held together at Hyuuga.

Neji and Master Iruka skirted the edge of the room, passing the mid-altitude wings and finally reaching the candidate tables.

Iruka tapped the shoulder of one candidate, a chubby young girl with pigtails and spiral family tattoos, gesturing for her mug. To Neji's horror, he then banged on the table until he had the attention of all seated there, along with the second candidate table, and the adjacent weyrling table, to boot.

"Candidates, this is—"

"NEJI!!" came an overjoyed whoop from the near end of the second table. Neji had never, ever heard his name spoken in that tone. He turned abruptly to see the Kyuubi-marked boy stand up so quickly his chair clattered to the ground. His eyes were sparkling with glee and he wore a wide smile, for what reason Neji had no idea. He couldn't help his own eyes widening in surprise but he restrained himself beyond any further reaction. He realized he ought to acknowledge the greeting, so he nodded once, and somehow the grin got even wider at that.

"Yes, Naruto, thank you," Iruka said with a quelling but amused look toward the young man who stood bouncing on his heels. There was general laughter and a few cheers from various directions. "this is…"

Neji tuned out the rest of Iruka's introduction when his eyes fell on Hinata. She was watching calmly enough, having absorbed none of the rowdiness of the others, but she looked radiantly happy, shockingly so. She smiled at him shyly, face free, as ever, of any of the superiority or contempt the rest of her family had for him.

This time it didn't seem disingenuous, didn't set off a flood of fury, didn't raise his hackles and force him to regard her with defensive contempt. Rather, he felt unexpectedly relieved, and inclined his head to her in an abbreviated bow, suddenly uncertain. But she returned the gesture with a sincerity and honesty he'd never seen in the rest of their family.

And then Master Iruka touched his arm, and he forced himself stiff before he had time to flinch. "See me after the meal for your schedule," the Candidatemaster said, and waved him towards the table.

"Yes sir," Neji answered automatically.

"Here! Here!" Naruto had righted his chair and was beaming at him and motioning him over. The one to his left, at the end of the table, was empty, the place setting clean. Neji stared for a moment, then moved to the chair and sat, seeing no other nearby available seats.

"You're here, I can't believe it," Naruto leaned near and whispered, face inches from Neji's. Neji jerked back at the violation of his personal space, and Naruto looked apologetic for a moment and drew back infinitesimally. "That's so great." He leaned away again, looking incomprehensibly pleased. The intensity of his joy was mind-boggling, and… terribly intrusive. What did he have invested in Neji's arrival?

Naruto tore a chunk of bread off a roll with his teeth and chewed, still regarding him happily. The people across from them and beyond Naruto took the opportunity to introduce themselves while Neji sat mute and stiff, overwhelmed by the noise and eagerness surrounding him. Nobody seemed to care about his lack of reaction. Perhaps they just thought he was shy.

"I'm Kiba, this is Akamaru!" a bronze firelizard perched on the end of someone's arm was thrust at him briefly.

"I am Lee! I'm overjoyed to meet you, Neji! I know we'll be the greatest of friends!" came from the boy who sat across from him, a round-eyed fellow with black hair in an unflattering bowl cut and completely green clothing.

"Helloooo, handsome!" wafted down the table from a girl with a blonde ponytail, titters echoed by a pink-haired girl next to her.

"Tenten," came the straightforward greeting from the girl next to Lee. Hair just as black, but in two small, neat buns. She just nodded at him and went on eating.

Naruto started telling him the names of the people farther down, while Lee tried to get a word in edgewise, asking about Neji's exercise habits, and the boy with the firelizard started making it do tricks.

"Hey! I forgot to ask, where'd Master Iruka squeeze you in?" Naruto interrupted himself, and at Neji's blank look, he added, "Uh, I mean, where's your room?"

The Candidatemaster had checked a ledger and nodded to himself before writing a room number on a scrap of paper. Neji repeated it to Naruto, and got a look of surprise that momentarily eclipsed the exuberance on his face.

"You're with me," he said, and his gaze turned aside, inward, with a flicker of something odd—relief?—before the enthusiasm of earlier returned. "It'll be great," he grinned, and then looked back at the mass of candidates. "Now, who was I—yeah! That's Shikamaru, don't worry, he always looks pissed off…"

Neji stared blankly down the table while Naruto's jabber filled his ears, drowning even the general din of the dining hall, grating on every nerve he had.

He had to share a room with this person.

He'd survived Hyuuga. He'd survived leaving it to come here.

But how was he supposed to survive this?


Mercifully, Naruto didn't chatter into the wee hours after lights out. He simply beamed at Neji from his bed against the opposite wall, said "good night!" with almost unbearable cheerfulness, and then covered the glowbasket on the long table between them, plunging the room into near-pitch darkness.

Neji, still sitting up, heard Naruto flop down, mash his pillow, and that was all. He breathed a silent exhale of relief, and lay down on his side. He'd managed to put on more numbweed salve and new bandages while Naruto was at evening chores, so everything was blessedly numb. He started his own chore rotation tomorrow, but for now he enjoyed the quiet, pain-free darkness.

The bed was comfortable. Not luxurious by any means, but the mattress was better than his old one, and everything was clean. The linens and blankets smelled totally unfamiliar, though, none of the dusty, wood-resin scent of the cupboards that Hyuuga used to store its bedding. Just a light smell of herbal wool-grub repellent and soap.

He wondered how long it would take for him to stop feeling like he was pretending this would last. In the dark, it was easy to fly back over the past five days as though they hadn't happened, back to Hyuuga, back to Naota and Hanabi and Uncle and a future of absolutely nothing.

But then Naruto changed position, making his bed frame creak slightly and his blankets softly shift, and Neji was suddenly recalling previous hours instead of previous days. The astonishing noise of the dining hall, the sight of dragons in the bowl, smiling Hinata and ridiculously exuberant Naruto.

The future ahead of him was dauntingly full of possibilities now.


"Glorious morning, candidates, how are you all? Eaten well? Done some morning exercises? You are all in the most perfect flower of youth and should all be doing your best to live it to the fullest!"

Neji blinked at the tall, green-clad man that was practically singing out his greeting as he approached them across the pale morning-lit weyrbowl. This was the wonderful Master Gai that Lee had been squealing about for the past half-hour?

He and Lee and Tenten were on the same chore rotation, which meant he'd had about a second of relief that Naruto was with that pink-haired girl until he'd remembered who the name "Lee" belonged to.

"Master Gai!!" Lee waved vigorously. "I did four crosses of the bowl this morning before breakfast!" Neji stared at Lee. The bowl was huge. At a jog he estimated crossing it lengthwise in about twenty minutes. Tenten caught his eye and gave him an understanding look steeped in amused resignation. He took that to mean that Lee's exercise schedule wasn't exactly standard. Lee himself apparently wasn't really standard either.

And Lee and Master Gai were… identical. Not… related, probably, given their features, but they both wore green from head to toe and had the same rather terrible haircut. Neji tried to decide if he should fear for his sanity.

The green garb didn't have anything to do with deviant—no, he had to stop thinking that way—with same-sex sexual preferences, though. Gai's rank knots were bronze, and bronze riders were supposed to prefer women. Or so Neji had understood. Gai's manner was a bit odd to classify him as conventionally straight.

Lee, though…

Neji banished the line of thought. That entire subject was irrelevant now anyway. Master Iruka had told him that candidates were prohibited from pursuing relationships because weyrlings had to devote themselves to their young dragons after impression, not other people, and that sexual activity would confuse and frighten a dragonet..

"That's excellent, beloved pupil of mine!" Gai was praising Lee. "Now, prove yourself by gathering many herbs this fine morning!"

Master Gai was in fact a weyrlingmaster, not a candidatemaster, only here because dragons were needed to ferry the chore groups that were herb-picking to the meadows outside the weyr, but it was plain that for both Gai and the weyrbred Lee, that distinction hardly mattered.

Neji hefted the large canvas bags that he'd been handed by the dragonhealers this morning. They each had two, and would be collecting medicinal plants all morning. Gai would be ferrying them to a wild field outside the Weyr for that purpose.

"Greetings, Neji!" Gai boomed at him, and Neji ducked in respectful acknowlegement, hoping that his impression of Master Gai's utter strangeness was properly buried. "I hear you've come in from Hyuuga, I hope you'll settle in to this wonderful Weyr of ours very soon."

"Thank you, sir," Neji replied, unable to come up with anything more appropriate, and Gai slapped his shoulder. Neji flinched inwardly, but the numbweed was still working.

"Oh, now, how will you ever experience the glory of youth if you're that formal!" Neji said nothing, unsure how to respond to that. Gai was looking at him with a deep frown.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Master Gai, he's just arrived. Give him some time."

"Too right, too right, my dear," Gai agreed, making a complete about-face. He didn't seem to do anything by halves. "Settle in, young man, settle in, but then you must embrace the fine culture of this Weyr!"

"Yes, sir," Neji managed. Odd to see it so clearly, that really anyone at all could work to secure a place for themselves here, even someone as blustering as this strange man. People of rank at Hyuuga had no such… zest for life… as this man did.

He's so… happy, Neji thought, incredulous. It was foreign. Everyone here was so… content. Well, not everyone, all the time, he'd seen people arguing at mealtime, seen a couple have a vicious whispered conversation in the hallway that led out to the latrines this morning, but overall… It wasn't normal. Where was the tension, the fear of higher ranks?

"Let's go! Last time I took candidates, they only filled a bag each, and I know you can do better than that. Two bags each!"

Two bags. Neji nodded.

Bronze Maith landed nearby, stirring up a cool breeze. The dragon was immense, longer and larger and bulkier than Kakashi's blue.

"Maith! You look so handsome this morning. Gai takes the best care of you, doesn't he?" Lee approached the dragon without hesitation. Neji forced himself forward only a few seconds later, and Tenten walked beside him.

"Don't worry, they're kind of frightening at first but you get used to them. I came from the big Healerhall off Konoha Hold so I'd seen a few before I was searched, but it still took a while to get used to seeing them up close."

Neji glanced over at Tenten, trying to work out why she was trying to converse with him.

"I'm not frightened," he answered curtly, and she frowned slightly, taken aback, shrugging and looking away. Neji gave himself a mental slap—he didn't want to anger anyone here. Apparently her conversation was some kind of pretension of empathy. "But he is only the second I've seen up close," he added, making his tone more neutral.

That seemed appropriate. She looked at him again and smiled. He made a vague head nod of acknowledgement and looked forward again towards the dragon. Lee was already mounted up.

Gai finished securing Lee's harness straps to Maith, and Tenten was the next up, and then Neji. Even after the lurch of takeoff, Lee didn't shut up, and neither did Gai, both bellowing back and forth to each other. Neji heard the odd laugh from Tenten.

He really didn't understand these people.

Neji made sure he had filled two bags by midday. Towards the end of the morning the numbweed started to wear away, but he pressed on through the growing discomfort. He couldn't show any weakness, and he ignored his two companions as much as he could.

Lee had gathered enough plants for a full bag and three quarters, and Tenten had one and a half, most likely because they didn't keep to the job and instead kept talking to each other.

When Gai returned to the meadow to ferry them back inside the Weyr, Neji's two full bags earned him another slap on the shoulder from that this time sent a wave of burning heat down his back. He hid the flinching recoil by bending down to yank another plant from the ground. He stuffed it into the bag before anyone could notice it looked nothing like the one they'd been collecting.

He barely listened to anything on the flight back, tuning out Lee's vehement assertions about doing pushups or some such nonsense to make up for not having gathered sufficient herbs.

They had to deliver the bags to the dragon infirmary, and then it was with a tightly clenched jaw that Neji made himself walk at a natural pace back to his and Naruto's room.

Gai had delivered them back to the Weyr exactly half an hour before midday meal, but other chore groups had finished early, and some were still finishing. The baths were half-ful and there would be a constant trickle of people until lunch.

But Naruto was just leaving their room when Neji arrived. He gave Neji a wide grin and waved his towel at him as he headed off to the baths, and needing it, from the smell. Naruto's chore group was shovelling dung or some such, but Neji was too relieved that their room would be empty to care about the offensive odour.

Neji only glanced at him and then went on into their room, shutting the door behind him. Alright, then. He'd have time if he did this fast. He pulled off his shirt and took a breath, slowly untying the knot that held the bandages around his torso. His wounds seeped and stuck to the bandages, and this was going to hurt.

It did. And when he had finished, he was almost out of numbweed salve. The few scrapings left on the inside of the jar settled a dread in his stomach at having to function without any relief after it was used up.

He didn't have time to waste on that now, however, and the lack of sensation was a vast relief as he headed to the dining hall. It bothered him that the wounds didn't seem to be healing, but he had to be imagining that. It took time after all, and he should be safe from discovery if he only kept his head. If the Weyr discovered his injury, they'd find him unsuitable. Insubordination bad enough to be beaten for was surely not something they would tolerate, and he couldn't leave here, not now.

"Neji," a soft, familiar voice reached his ears as he reached the candidates' table, low in the noise of lunch chatter, but he'd been trained all his life to know it, and turned to look at Hinata .

"Yes—" he caught himself in time and spoke only her name, free of any formal honorifics, "Hinata." Here they were supposed to be on even footing.

"W-would you sit next to me?" There was an empty seat by her, and she laid one hand on it. Beyond her sat Kiba, his bronze fire lizard on his shoulder nibbling on a small piece of meat, and then that other boy with the tinted glasses and high collar whose name escaped Neji. Both watched him.

"We don't bite," Kiba smirked.

He couldn't refuse, there was no appropriate excuse. "Yes. Certainly."

He'd never sat next to her before. Stood behind her, yes, but not this. He served himself in silence, finding himself surprisingly hungry now that he had food before him. He'd been too distracted by his wounds to think about food before, but the smells now made him ravenous.

Hinata didn't say anything, apparently content to have made him sit there. Whenever he looked at her she only smiled at him, and of all the people in the room, she was the only one he could be certain of, could know that each expression was what she really felt.

She'd never managed the mask that everyone else at Hyuuga wore. She was pathetically transparent. But now it was the only thing he could be sure of, even if the small smiles were expressions he didn't know what to do with.

Ironic, perhaps, that the only other person from his despised former home was the one who made him feel the least nervous.

Only towards the end of the meal did it occur to him that she might feel the same way. She was more like these weyrfolk than he was, but she still had grown up in the same place he had.

"Do you like it here?" he asked when they had almost finished eating, and surprised himself by actually wanting to know.

"Yes," she nodded, looking at first at her plate, then raising her gentle grey eyes to his. "Do you?"

They had the same eyes, and features that easily marked their blood relationship, but he knew his didn't soften like that.

Her question made him think. He'd asked without expecting the query to be turned back on him.

Did he like it?

"It's not Hyuuga," he replied, keeping his voice low.

"Well, y-yes, but… do you like it?" she asked again, and he frowned at her. She just waited.

Like it? This place unnerved and infuriated and confused him. People were strange and he couldn't understand them. But they all seemed to belong here, despite each person being completely different from the next, and even the oddest people he'd ever imagined could achieve great things.

But he shared his room with one of them, he shared the Weyr with all of them, and none of them were like Naota or Uncle and… no, Konoha Weyr was not like Hyuuga Hold, but it wasn't simply that it was different, it was the quality of the difference.

"Yes." He did like this place, and he almost didn't want to, because he couldn't be sure yet that he would be able to stay.

Heal, he ordered his body, swallowing a mouthful of meat that turned hard and choked him on the way down, heal, before they find out and send me back.