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Standing again at Twin Moon
Once bonded at Reunjriti Weyr
Mirage was silent, but her porcelain face told Siren that she already knew. Perhaps it was their intense telepathic bond, or perhaps someone had sent a letter ahead.
"Reunjriti closed, something happened to them," Mirage said simply, but her profoundly sad tone almost brought a sob out of her daughter.
"My dragon is dead," Siren said. She began to walk toward the hold, but her mother put strong white fingers around her elbow.
"Siren, stay out here," Mirage said. "The hold is a mess - a steed got loose in the courtyard and-"
"Mother, I must rest," Siren said, flatly and with no further argument. The hold was indeed a bit musty and smelled rather bad of horse offal and grass. Half a dozen servants swept and scoured.
A couple of them raised their heads and almost greeted Siren, but then they saw the stormy look on her face, and they left her to her quick walk toward her rooms.
The room was still there, still hers as she had wanted it. But it smelled of cleaning fluids and not the way she remembered it.
Siren plunged into her pillowy bed, burying her face into the blankets, and cried silently.
"Go away," Siren cried. "Everything else does."
Mirage sat gently by her daughter, running her fingers over her messy, dirty sable hair. "Siren, you have done more than most candidates could ever have. It was not your fault. Many of that weyr's dragons have suffered untimely deaths."
"Mine didn't bother to grow up at all... She just wasted away. I will too." Siren said. Her voice was muffled by the big pillows.
"You will have another chance at it," Mirage said, hardly daring to hope that Siren would accept.
"I will not have this happen to me again." Siren said.
"It won't happen again. It cannot. Twin Moon isn't an old world dragonry. It's off world. Their dragons are quite --"
"I DON'T WANT ANOTHER CHANCE! I want my dragon back!" Siren threw a smaller pillow at random, which Mirage didn't even have to duck. It impacted the wall and knocked over a vase that Siren had made several years before. It shattered into a thousand pieces, and Mirage got up off the bed.
"Then you need to get out of here. The only way you'll find a dragon now is if you go to a dragonry. Twin Moon is a perfectly good one."
After moments of stifling silence, Siren sat up. Mirage had gone, left the pillow and the crumbled vase where they lay. Siren got up, and with tears in her eyes making her progress difficult, she put the bigger pieces of the vase back into place. It could never be glued back together now. It was as shattered as she felt.
Yet... All the parts were there. The whole design was like a puzzle. Siren spent an hour with the remains of the vase before her, delicately pushing piece after piece together. It sat in ten large pieces, fragile enough that if one piece were to be moved, they would break again.
"There are other ways of finding your dragon as well," said a man's voice. E'tan. He stood leaning against the door frame. He looked weary, his blond hair was slightly longer than it ought to have been and he too had dark circles under his pale blue eyes. It wasn't because he had been crying, rather because he was in the middle of a long research project, and had learned of this little disaster.
"I don't want you here," Siren said, glancing over her shoulder. A portion of the vase crumbled again, and she sneered. "You've never been here when I needed you, why should you come now?"
"Because I can take you not only to your new dragon, but to your old one as well." E'tan didn't come in the room. He knew better than to do that. Siren was incredible. She held his prying mind at bay so strongly that he could locate her by the tremendous headache she caused him. He thought with a grin that this must be how Kalkin had to feel, when he had dragons talking to him.
"What do you mean, take me to my old one? The bones of my dragon rest on the bottom of a cavern - along with half her sisters and unhatched eggs that rot."
"Her spirit flies still." The tall man said. There was a hint of danger around him, but more of intensity." It made Siren very curious.
"Does mother know you're here?" Siren decided to ask.
"She brought me here," E'tan said. Siren couldn't tell if he was lying, or not. It hardly mattered now.
"What do you mean, still flies? The dragon is dead."
"Dragons and their riders spirits live on, in the Nexus. You're familiar with it, I believe." E'tan said.
"I am, but I think you're crazy if you --"
"I am hardly insane. The Nexus is a place filled with the minds and spirits of those lost. From many worlds, not just the last one we were on. Ask some of the riders who helped move us here to Alskyr."
Siren wasn't certain, but she thought she detected him trying to force the issue. She blocked his mind and he winced. So he had been trying. Siren sneered.
"I'd hardly go anywhere with you. You're liable to push me off and let me drift away."
"Only if I thought it would put a civil tongue in your mouth, Siren," E'tan snapped. There was fire in his eyes, now, but he wasn't angry. "You've certainly got enough fire for a dragon. Enough to spare."
Siren stood, letting the crumbs of the vase drift to the floor. She would want that left where it is, for her to fix later. For now, she was intent on fixing something far more important.
"You're serious," Siren whispered. "You want me to go to this... Twin moon, was it? Why should I go there?"
"Because the dragons there are sound, solid and quite beautiful. Quite like yourself. Now come along. Wash up and get packed."
"I've hardly unpacked from --" Siren choked again, but then raised her chin and said, "I'll pack better this time. I didn't bring enough pants last time."
