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Bauden
He was a small boy, only about five turns, sitting in his mother’s lap, playing with his favorite toy, a stuffed dragon given to him by his father. His father was a dragonrider, his mother a Lord Holder’s daughter. He looked up then as something wet dripped onto his head. His mother wiped the wetness from her cheeks as she saw her precious son looking up at her. He didn’t understand what was going on and so returned his attention to the dragon toy, pretending the dragon was flying about, charring Thread left and right. He didn’t notice when the door opened and a tall man walked in. He didn’t hear the words exchanged by the man and his mother, or the sad, tender looks they exchanged. The next thing he knew his mother had set him on the floor. He didn’t protest it was easier to play on the floor than it was in his mother’s lap anyway. He giggled and grinned, making the dragon toy swoop and dive as he chased down the last of the Thread. He looked up then, turning his head to tell his mother how proud she should be of him. He and his dragon had fought the entire Threadfall all by themselves and not a strand had gotten past them. But as the words left his lips he turned to find his mother gone. She was no longer in the chair behind him. He was alone with the tall man. He didn’t know then that this man was his father, that his mother had given him up to his father because she was being forced to marry a Lord Holder who didn’t take kindly to having a “weyrbrat” running around his halls. All he knew was that she had left him, she had abandoned him with this strange man he’d never seen before. A man who looked at him with a mixture of wonder and pity in his eyes. Continue... |