Disclaimer: Everything, including inspiration for this story, is owed to Anne McCaffrey. She owns all of it, okay?
Chapter Five
There was a buzzing in Kiroth's head as her mind tugged itself back into consciousness, but it didn't distract her from the irritating itch that had made itself present on her nose, right next to her eyes. The niggling presence continued, and with a grunt of annoyance she swiped at it with large claws – only to feel her eyes snap open in shock as a rather reproachful squeak met her ears. Curiously, the queen perused the small, delicate features of the flit that had just launched itself from her nose, wondering at the miniaturised limbs that were a mimicry of her own. Strange… In her own time, there were no small dragons.
"He's not a dragon," an abrasive voice said shortly. The unfamiliar creature before her gave a cry of adoration, and Kiroth could feel his delight and warmth at this nondescript human's appearance. The dragon mother gave a great harrumph and settled back on her haunches with a look of puzzled dismay on her face as the tiny brown flit winked from existence and then back again, right above the severe visage of a middle-aged human. "That boy you brought with you," the woman went on, "he's not stopped squirming since he woke up. And he bit me." The human's disgusted expression at that nugget of information provoked a snort of amusement from the gargantuan beast before her… And then Kiroth remembered why she was here.
With a hiss of breath escaping between her jaws, she retreated clumsily on all four legs, her claws scuffing at the dirt where she had been left to wake up. A brief assessment of her body informed her that all her limbs were responding, albeit stiffly, and the lacerations in her wings and tail had been slathered with generous amounts of a pungent-smelling substance. She sniffed at it cautiously, one eye fixed on the human who was frozen, holding the small-creature-not-dragonkin close to her breast, and then sneezed. The reaction was so mundane that the woman standing before her was not able to stop an abrupt shout of laughter loosing itself from her chest. Kiroth studied the human's face with slightly more interest. Despite the sharp features that characterised so many of her kind, and her abrasive voice, Kiroth sensed that this human was not an enemy. Not at the moment, anyway. Not unless she was stupid enough to hurt her dragon child.
Can you hear me? she asked cautiously. Her mind was buzzing again. Something was gripping her thoughts and muddling them, confusing them. Her usual forcefulness was being mitigated. Frustrated, she felt her tail begin to twitch, and struggled to control the urge to attack at once. The instincts that had protected her for nearly one hundred Turns were being blurred. Not all humans were enemies, she struggled to remind herself. Not when they had human things to help Ronan. Ronan who was dragonkin. Ronan who was hers. But to add yet more of this pitiful species to that category? She wasn't ready to do that. She repeated herself, though her senses recoiled when she tried to touch this strange, alien mind. Can you hear me?
The woman's eyes unfocussed slightly, the pupils contracting as though seeing inside of herself. Her quick glace towards the dragon was hesitant. "No, not directly," she said at last. There was a restraint in her manner, a manner rather obviously not used to being tactful and patient. "My flit can hear you, though." There was look of great loss etched into every line of her face.
Kiroth felt rather than saw the images and feelings that pummelled her from the "flit's" direction. Is that how you communicate? she asked curiously, allowing her claws to uncurl slightly. Very slightly. "It's how he communicates with me," the human said abruptly. A moment of lucidity entered Kiroth's thoughts. You are - Mirrim? she said quizzically, turning her head to one side. Mirrim looked up at the head that hovered twenty feet above her own, and shivered a little. Lessa had told her not to linger after finishing tending to the dragoness' injuries, but she had thought it would be safe to indulge her curiosity just this once. After all, it had been more than a sevenday since the great dragoness had appeared. It had taken them almost that long to clean and bandage her wounds. The others had long since left, stumbling over one another in their haste to be away from this golden, glittering threat to their way of life. This dragon had exactly the same way of tilting her head that Path had had. She winced. You are lost, the dragoness said bluntly.
"I know precisely where I am," Mirrim said acerbically, her eyes flashing. "I'm standing right next to you in the ruins of what used to be the Hatching Grounds." She looked at Kiroth pointedly. "Until you landed on it." Her phrasing caused the dragoness to look around, in this calmer state realising that some sort of human architecture had indeed been erected here - but that her landing had demolished most of it. Still, both she and the human knew that wasn't what she had meant.
I suppose I am - sorry - for landing in this particular place, Kiroth rumbled. If I had been conscious for the proceedings I am sure I would have directed my trajectory elsewhere. She blinked, and Mirrim fought to keep her mouth from falling agape. Had there been a hint of sarcasm in the dragon's tone? However, your geographical position is not relevant. I am talking of your loss. You look as though a part of you has gone.
"Yes," the woman said shortly. Mirrim was now thoroughly regretting her curiosity. How could she have been so stupid to remain - alone - with an unknown dragon that talked like a sharding dictionary? Like a human? Her fingers curled into white-knuckled fists, and she passed a shuddering hand over her eyes. Tolly squeaked in distress at the sudden bolt of pain and loss that seared his mistress's soul, chittering anxiously as she turned to go.
Wait.
But Mirrim did not stop, and it was the work of a moment for Kiroth to snort her irritation and stretch out her sinuous tail to bar her path. Mirrim, not being able to see over the top, whirled around in fury.
"What?" Her voice cracked, and suddenly she was meeting a gaze that, although alien and unfamiliar, was at the same time slightly compassionate. Kiroth did not allow her to go for several long moments. At last, she removed the living cage of flesh and skin she had embroiled her captive in, and allowed her to stumble onto the sands.
Where is my child?
The demand shocked Mirrim from her pain-filled lethargy. "Your child?" she echoed oddly. She shook her head, as though trying to rid her mind of some memory. "But he's human." Impatient with the awkward communication that using a flit entailed, Kiroth gave an impatient jerk of her muzzle and bridged the gap between their minds.
I know, she said irately, and this time Mirrim was able to fully appreciate just how different this dragon was to the ones of her acquaintance. The timbre of her mental voice was wild, and deep, with a strange, foreign roll to the vowels and almost a clicking noise to the sharper consonants. It was uncoloured by human activity, untouched by the most intimate of bonds. This was truly an animal - one with a unique mind that held passageways humming with thoughts alien to humans, all at once primal, instinctive: driven by animalistic cunning. I am no fit mother for a human, Kiroth murmured. But we cannot be separated. She tilted her head to the side again. It is a very odd feeling. I do not like it.
"Are you bonded?" Mirrim gasped.
What is 'bonded'? Kiroth enquired. Her mind provided the unwanted image of a slight, dark-haired girl who couldn't walk scrabbling desperately towards the hot sands, letting her soft skin blister in order to be with her.... She flinched away from the memory and bit out savagely, almost desperately: No, we are not bonded. The buzzing in her head grew louder. The dragoness' wrenched her eyelids into place to try to block the stream of partly forgotten memories, now quite suddenly lucid.
Mirrim was not taken aback by the dragon's sudden antipathy. She was lost in her own thoughts, unaware of the strange growing tension in the gargantuan beast before her. Abruptly she picked herself up, putting several stray wisps of hair from what had been a rather severe bun behind her neat ears, and dusted herself off. "One more question." Her tone was quizzical, but Kiroth had had enough. There was a familiar itching behind her eyes, edging along her skull and heatedly trying to centre itself in her brain. Straining, struggling with her sudden and unprecedented instinct to shred this human into pieces, she curled her talons into the dust and gouged great rents into the ground.
No more questions, she grated. Her eyes shot open, bleeding crimson. Just bring me the boy!
Ronan blinked in the dim light, recognising the room for what it was at once. A rather clumsy child, he had paid numerous visits to one like it in the small fishing Hold he had lived in to be tended for scrapes and grazes, and if the utilitarian-style pallets weren't enough to identify it, the strange instruments and pots of numbweed were enough to convince him. He wrinkled his little nose at the pungent smell.
It was then that he noticed he was not alone. Another small patient occupied one of the beds, her dark eyelashes whispering against a pale cheek. Her small hands fisted the sheets tucked around her, and there was a sheen of sweat on her brow. Ronan frowned, and slipped out of his own covers. He noticed that someone had given him a new smock and leggings, and bandaged his injured foot. Gingerly, he put weight on it, but rather abruptly came to the conclusion that it would be better not to use it at all. Quick tears glistened in his eyes, and his mouth opened to give its instinctive cry of Kee-roff... only to realise that he couldn't hear her thoughts.
The girl on the bed stirred fitfully, a small moan escaping her lips. His attention caught, Ronan crawled awkwardly to her pallet and plumped his little round body down on the mattress. He gazed at her curiously, and then slowly, hesitantly, picked up a corner of the covers and peeked underneath it. He gulped, and instantly regretted it.
The child could not be above a Turn or two older than him, being slightly slimmer in stature, her body having lost the roly-poly fat of her younger years. Mebbe eight, Ronan thought slowly. He made to touch her shoulder, to wake her, but the uncomfortable memory of how she looked and how much she must hurt stopped him. He whimpered a little as his eyes grew shiny once more. The girl was hurt - a lot. There were great raw burns covering most of her lower torso and thighs, stripping her of skin. The bruises purpling their way along the ankles, calves and knees just added to the horror, and there was a strange, dead look to the flesh. As though it wasn't working anymore. The grimy coal-dust that was indelibly inked into the wounds was going to turn them septic, but Ronan couldn't know that.
There were footsteps coming down the hall.
"I've told you, Renna, the girl must be kept in seclusion. Any contact with any infection can and will kill her. Who's idea was it to put her in the same ward as the boy? He woke up for the first time just this morning!"
"But Mistress!" another voice implored. "With that heap of scrap coal collapsed, it was all we could do to find a spare room for her. We're drowning under the weight of casualties. Some of the other healers have patients in their rooms!" There was a silence, but for the smart tap of feet on the floor. The voice continued a little acidly. "I don't think she'll thank us even if she does survive. It's not like she'll ever walk again."
There was a ponderous silence between them, and then they walked into the room. The Mistress was a tall, lithe healer, whose hair was pulled sensibly into a bun at the nape of her neck. The first thing her grey eyes sought was the little boy on the pallet… where he was supposed to be. It was perhaps unfortunate that he had not had the presence of mind to move back to his bed, but he was still stunned by the revelation that this newly-found girl would never walk.
"Why are you sitting there, child?" she snapped, more shocked than angry. "Quickly, get off of her bed!" As she scooped him up rather than assist him to the other side of the room, he fixed his gaze on her.
"Never?" he echoed.
"Never what?" Karryn had never had much patience with children.
"Never walk again?" The mistress suppressed the urge to snap at Renna for speaking so loudly near the door, but reminded herself that they were all on tenterhooks. She shrugged her shoulders, but her gaze flickered to the still form on the other bed. Ronan wasn't finished. "What's her name?" he persisted. His worried face was curiously tender as he bit his lip.
"Mirrol. Her name's Mirrol," a harsh voice supplied from the doorway. Ronan gasped. The figure was a broad-shouldered man, with a white pallor to his face and dry, burning eyes. "She's my daughter," he croaked. Healer Karryn was hurrying over to him, pressing him to sit down "and not to fiddle with that bandage." But he pushed her away, his blazing gaze fixed on the curly-haired five-Turn-old in the bed. "She – wouldn't be – on that sharding bed – if your sharding dragon and you had kept away," he hissed. "My Mirrol –" his voice cracked "wouldn't be – dying – if you weren't here. Why don't you go back to your own sharding time, eh, boy?" He took a step towards him, eyes red from weeping, and his legs gave out from under him. There was a sickening crunch as he hit the floor, his eyelids already fluttering with fever, his breathing hoarse. A small voice shrieked in pain.
"Pati!"
Review replies: Just wanted to thank everyone who has reviewed so far! I never imagined anyone would actually review this story and like it, but I've had some brilliant directional criticism, and some truly helpful guidance.
Thanks go to reviewers of Chapter 4:
Diglossia: Ah ha, you so sure? But you're right, there may be…
Miz636: Glad you were surprised! I've got a few more surprises up my sleeve, so watch out and tell me what you think!
lvevilwoman: You've been reviewing all the way. Thanks so much for the compliment!
suki53: There will be info on that coming up in the next chapter. Stay tuned!
GinnyStar: You follow my own line of thinking! Thanks for the review!
ShadowRebirth37: Yeah, I'm awful at updating. Hope this was worth waiting for, and thanks so much for the compliment!
Katescats: Thank you!
Tsaukpaetra: Thank you, I will!
And also everyone who has reviewed so far(!):
truegold-dragonstar, E-san, Warbender, GinaStar, Cad2u, clara200, kittycass21, H-Maude, astrokath, Fynhavir Leveque, Charmedfanforeva, Silver Eyes in Shadow, ephona, kuuz, Shandril Wielder of Spellfire, ThJaFl, dragon of atlantis, RL Seward, Azurath DragonTongue…
Thanks for taking the time to say what you really thought!
Author's note: You deserve a chapter. Sorry it's taken so long to update! The confrontation between the dragons may be coming soon… So look out!