A/n: Hope y'all like this chapter!
The Moment After
A million thoughts and images swirled around her consciousness, some going so fast and others slowing down, K'dra didn't know if she as awake or sleeping. She did know that some time had passed since she was taken by an unexpected anger that fed into the physical hunger, and then she was lost in the swirling of the images. Bits and pieces came at her as she struggled for consciousness.
Green dragons as a rule were not sought after as ardently or fervently by the male dragons and their riders as their larger sisters, the great golden queens. The reason being, successful copulation would not yield a clutch, nor was there really any esteem for a dragon to catch a green.
Too many thoughts, emotions, feelings all around. Am I awake, am I dreaming, is this happening now, or before?
Some weyrfolk claimed it was a green's chewing firestone that made them sterile, as the little green firelizards produced clutches of their own when they rose to mate, so many accept this theory and it was widespread. However, still others believed there was another reason, one that was so far back in Pernese time that we had lost as many pieces of knowledge as such things happened.
Is that a light? Movement?
For whatever reason, while a rising green wasn't as prestigious, the greens did provide a way for the often left out browns a blues a chance to release some of their pent-up sexual tension, as they were too small oftentimes to really try for a queen. Many of the younger bronzes who chose to participate used the greens as a practice fun for the next chance to fly the queens.
Heat. Something warm is right next to me. I want to know what it is, but I can't. I can't move, I'm surrounded. Something won't let me go!
There wasn't as much emphasis on the greens to blood their kill and not gorge, as many didn't feel it necessary.
"If they don't breed, why let them bleed?" some callous ones would joke.
But K'dra had never accepted these terms, especially after Impressing Terranth. Greens were just as special as any queen, it was so unfair! They were fast, agile, they could flame and fight Thread, they were more useful than just breeders. So what if some were flighty? That didn't change the fact that most had wonderful personalities and had just as much love and affection and need as any golden beauty.
So K'dra didn't let her little green gorge, fighting a painful battle against the one mind, the one will, who she never should have been in contention with. It was one of the hardest things she ever did, but in the end, she knew it would pay off. She let her randy dragon bleed the carcasses dry but solidly put her mental 'foot' down as she tried to tear into the meat to slake her hunger.
Trying to get free. Struggle, twist, turn…need to get away, heat is strong, continuous.
Terranth howled her fury and defiance, incensed beyond all reasonable thought or action that her beloved would deny her in this moment of great need.
This is not fun, one part of K'dra duly noted, but that part was shushed as K'dra finally won and got her way.
Snarling, Terranth attacked and blooded her kills, hide now glowing an eerie but beautiful neon luminosity that caught and sparkled in the sun like a emerald taking shape and appearing in the hands of a Master Jeweler.
She took to the air in a burst of movement, surprising many as she had still been sucking on one of her kills, her lithe and light build already propelled up, up, and away before the carcass of her most recent kill touched the ground.
Hungry, have to get away, have to get free!
K'dra was dimly aware she was being ushered away, surrounded in part by what she'd recall hazily as a ring of sweaty, male bodies as primed and ruddy as their dragon counterparts. Her mind was all for Terranth, heart in her throat, so connected she swore she could feel the wind rushing past her, feel the blood pumping through her pinions as they veined and stretched out to the fullest, feel the pulse just below, waiting, so ripe for that special moment.
Sakura, senior queen rider and the Weyrwoman at Halcyon Weyr, looked up from the Records she was inscribing, cocking her head as she heard the commotion. Her weyrmate and Weyrleader sat across from her and listened as well.
"Sounds like our little transferee from Thread's End is finally rising," S'gal commented, grinning at his mate, wiggling his eyebrows.
"About bloody time," Sakura grumped good-naturedly, attention once more going back to her Record, mind already dismissing the matter.
Terranth-K'dra was thrilling in the feeling of power she held over her pursuing males. She was the reason they left the routine of the Weyr. She was the reason they were flying so hot and so high, so intently and so desperately. She was, for only the second time in her life, the object to be desired, to be sought, to be possessed. It was a feeling she didn't get often, and she indulged herself.
What was that? A shadow, a downdraft?
She screamed her defiance, twisting and writhing in the air, smooth and supple body easily side slipping the larger and heavier male body, catching the flash of blue and brown and wait, was that bronze hide? Terranth-K'dra didn't linger, using her speed and small form to the advantage, crowing her wicked delight in making them work and pant after her like she was the only pool of water in a sea of desert sand.
These males were tricky, and the longer the flight went on, the more desperate and the more stops they pulled to get her. Terranth knew the only place she could go and truly be safe from the pursuing males was denied to her. A strong presence violently and emphatically refused to let her go between, to that sweet nothingness where she knew the others would not follow.
Having her one escape denied, she was stuck with more natural means, and the only safe place not denied was…up. Snorting in laughter, Terranth thrust her wings and shot nearly straight up vertical, narrowly avoiding a hurtling blue body that nearly clipped her tail.
Don't let them catch you…there's so many. Got to get high, can't get away, too many! Colors swirling all together, need air, hard to breather, need to get away!
Inexperience was the key that locked their fate. It had been sheer luck and blind instinct and the luck that had Terranth so small and agile that they had managed to elude capture thus far. But the lack of any real plan, the fact they hadn't known they could plan and work together as a team, led to their downfall.
But they didn't fall alone. At the peak of their altitude, many miles and miles far above the world below, just as she-they were basking in the sunlight and their own glory, the snap of wings, the surprise of claws piercing, gripping, a neck entwined about their own, and they were falling…falling, corkscrewing about each other in that most ancient of dances.
K'dra gave a groggy groan as she came out of a deep slumber. She ached in places she never had before and she was really trying to decide, if it was a good hurt or a bad hurt.
The body beside her, the source of that heat, the culprit in keeping her pinned down, stirred and she could sense the power of that body, feel the press of muscles shifting and stretching and rippling against her back, causing her body to instinctively react, quivering with sensitivity.
Powerful arms left her side and she could hear the owner give a soft groan of appreciation as he –whoever he was- stretched and popped cramped muscles and tight ligaments.
K'dra was idly wondering how it was she got to be with such a tight body –man- behind her when she suddenly remembered with shocking clarity the reason why.
Terranth's first mating flight!
With some hesitation, she turned slowly, that sort of slowness you do when you really don't want to look back but you can't help it, you had to know even if you didn't want to. Slowly, so slowly, turn around, don't look at that chest, that deep, broad chest that tapered down to…look up! Slowly look up, no don't enjoy the view! Look up!
Stare at the angular chin, focus in on what rider managed to catch you and your speedy little green. Look into his eyes…and meet a set of amused sea green eyes staring steadily up at her.
"R'ahvin!"