"I'm so proud of you Danil."
His mother hugged him fiercely to her breast. D'nil hadn't the heart to correct her pronunciation of his now defunct holder name. Jolill had never fostered any of her children away. She was letting go of a huge part of herself with D'nil.
He thought of Firenth and sighed as he squeezed his mother tight in a farewell embrace. She had already lost that part of him, though she could not know it and would not learn it from him.
Both Jolill and D'nil's siblings who had come to watch their brother at the Hatching were being returned to their hold at last, two days later than expected. The death of little green Irith had been too much for the dragonmen and women of Ista Weyr to contemplate their ferrying duties. With no Threadfall due for some days the dragonfolk had retreated to their high weyrs to remind themselves of the special bond they held and the first duty they had to their life mates. Ships and wagons had been tendered for that return journey that the Search dragons had performed inbound but days before for the remaining guests of the Hatching.
D'nil began to push his mother away gently. It was time to go. Sea son that he was, he knew the tides would not wait. He didn't say anything. His mother's pride was the last thing she wanted to express to him. If he were to assure her that "he would be fine" or to discourage her from worrying, she would burst into tears. On a practical level, D'nil did not want to go through this twice.
Jolill released her son finally and turned quickly away from him to stride down the gangplank, her pace quick with emotion. D'nil stepped back from the gangplank to rest his hand on the post of the Istan jetty.
It was a large passenger ship with rowers as well as three main sails. It seemed indecent really, given it was to carry all of twelve human passengers. D'nil had not seen the Lexir board her father's ship, but he did not envy his own family her company on board the vessel. Apparently she had boarded the ship with her head high, without assistance or a veil of felis to ease her own grief.
He shuddered as he felt the wave of desolation pass through him again, residual grief that his dragonet was beginning to forget, but for which he would retain the memory forever.
D'nil whispered his dragon's name Firenth in his mind. He had his own dragon. He would never be parted from him. He yearned to return to where his dragon was coiled on the sands by the lake, but he was resolved to see his family depart.
The main sails remained furled as the ship was pulled away from the jetty by the oarsmen. They would remain so until they left the slight and shallow harbour.
The motions of cast off and the heavy pull of the oars seemed desperately slow to D'nil. Perhaps it was just the greater bulk of the hull that seemed to slow all those quick practiced motions down to D'nil's trained eyes. Perhaps it was the heavy burden it carried within.
D'nil watched loyally as the ship retreated into the distance. He contemplated the sleepy wake the ship trailed, a tug in the water's fabric. He had begun to fancy he could see something similar wherever a dragon went, as the dragon parted the sky so he or she could pass between.
A shimmer in the shape of the now distant ship showed D'nil that the main sail was dropped. He couldn't see the rise and withdrawal of the oars from the sea for it was it too far away. Now it would speed ahead, with the wind billowing out the canvas and pushing it homeward.
Home, D'nil promised himself. Home will be my first journey between.
D'nil returned as the dragonets were rousing themselves from their naps. Just like hungry chicks cawing hungrily for their parents they began braying and mewling for their mates to come to them. D'nil observed this with a smile that he couldn't help, despite the atmosphere of recent tragedy that seemed to hang over Ista Weyr like a fog. He was the first to arrive back to where the dragonets had been put down for their naps. Each dragonet raised their wedge heads to glance at him hopefully as he passed. There were so many wings and tails, D'nil had to step carefully to avoid squeals of anguish that he knew would come from these miniature hypochondriacs.
D'nil.
The bronze rider felt his fate slide into the most involuntary and automatic expression of puppyish adoration as his dragon bespoke him. He saw the bronze shape moving towards him and he stopped to let the dragon make the perilous journey himself. Now that he wasn't watching where he put his feet, he was able to look ahead and he noticed something about the circle of dragons that Firenth had just broken.
The bronze dragons had lain in an apparently proprietorial ring around the two queens. He didn't remember leading his dragon in that direction, nor had he noticed that when he saw to it that his dragon was sleeping and comfortable in the warm sands before leaving to see his family off. Had it been some unconscious instinct on his part to do so?
He certainly hadn't noticed the proximity of Daruwinth when he had settled Firenth. He might have taken steps to avoid her if he had known. Certainly he wanted nothing to do with her rider. Like all the weyrlings and most of the Weyr he had witnessed her disgrace in the Bowl. There was an unspoken consensus among the class that she was responsible however indirectly for the untimely death of the little green.
D'nil remembered that little creature hatching over his boots. She could have been his.
He did not know if the queen riders were expected to have training as the rest of the weyrlings did.
Firenth greeted him by pushing his head into D'nil's embrace. D'nil stroked the magnificent face and gazed into the faceted eyes in wonder. It was like suddenly finding his own soul had form and he was entrusted with its care. Running his hands down the bronze neck, his fingers tripped over a rough patch where D'nil's first growth had begun to split his hide.
"Let's get you to the lake," he said softly, his fingers lingering on the scaly patch as if it might spill open. He led the dragonet towards the shore where there were shallow troughs filled with oil.
They had only been shown the bathing and oiling procedure the once. After that, the weyrlingmaster had told them, they would know what to do. D'nil accompanied Firenth into the water until he stood knee deep, at which point he let his charge immerse himself in the warm water. It was fresh water, and it was thought to share a source with the rest of the Weyr's free flowing drinking water. Just as well. D'nil and the rest of the weyrlings had received a morning nap's worth of lectures on the maladies of the pelt that just salt-water could cause. Only once the oil had begun to seal the lesions could the dragons be allowed to play and dip their wings in the sea. This dragonish eczema diminished with age, where regular oiling began to strengthen the hide and the skin stopped giving way to the growth of new layers every two days. For now though, oiling was going to be a meticulous ritual where the rider responded to the slightest complaint from his dragon.
Firenth's nostrils and eye ridges appeared playfully above the surface of the lake.
I see you.
I see you.
D'nil laughed as his dragon and he shared the same thought. Firenth dipped below the water again with barely a ripple and D'nil was briefly reminded of days of his youth spent on his father's ship petrified of the super Threads that his brothers swore to him lived just below the surface, waiting to consume any man-over-board. The calm days were the worst, his eldest brother Raboor had teased him, where a boy is tempted to dive into the lazy swells and then they grab you and begin to eat you slowly from toe to head so quietly that you wouldn't notice until you tried to pull yourself out again and realised everything below the waist was gone. Tiny bubbles on the surface were all the warning you'd have.
D'nil was suddenly yanked from his reverie by the frantic splashing of bronze wings, forelimbs and tail as Firenth suddenly appeared to be attempting to be making his first flight.
Thread! Thread in the water!
All the dragons asleep on the shale beach awoke simultaneously and began a cacophony of squeals and roars that hadn't been heard since the Hatching.
D'nil flinched at his dragon's cries of alarm and terror. As he filled his lungs to scream for someone to please help his dragon, Irith's poor pained face flashed into his mind's eye. He splashed helplessly in the water, not knowing whether to retreat to the relative safety of the shore or to risk life and limb to avoid a dragonless existence and save his dragon from utter consumption by Thread.
His eyes locked on his Firenth who wings and body appeared to be wrapped in silvery ropes tethering him to the water's surface, pulling him down into the deep water where he had been playing a moment before.
As the water reached a boiling consistency around the hysterical beast, D'nil plunged forward.
I'm coming. FIRENTH!
D'nil. NO!