| Threnody |
| But when Saroa reached Moire Weyrhold, the tumult of so many dragon thoughts nearly deafened her. She bore it with the same silence that she bore everything except dragon pain. Saroa allowed herself a little pride at the way she walked straight and tall into the Weyrwoman’s domain. Weyrwoman Aurelle was a good bit taller than the half-starved thirteen-Turn-old, and she looked so regal as she sat on the lowest stone step to the Stands, her airy, simple gown transformed into the raiment of legend by Saroa’s awed eyes. But it wasn’t the Weyrwoman that fascinated her so much as the dragon. “Rhysilth!” she greeted the enormous gold, face shining. “Congratulations. Twenty-two, and I’ve heard they’re beautiful.” The queen dragon blinked and studied the girl with one lambent eye. <<You are this girl my brother Alnath found, this Saroa?>> “Yes,” she replied, all her reserve gone. Saroa swallowed, painfully. “You’ve no idea how I’ve longed to answer you, when you call.” <<I am glad you’ve finally come. I think that there will be one of my daughters or sons for you, Saroa. I certainly hope that…no, never mind,>> Rhysilth cut herself off, but her head turned enough that she could see the gold shell of her most important daughter. Saroa Stood on Moire’s Sands for the fourth clutch of Rhysilth and Chemith. Yet, though each dragonet would peer at her, startled, as they walked by, there were none who stopped to claim her. The tiny gold stared at her for the longest of all, twitched, and then hastened to coil around a sharp-faced young woman from Crom. “That’s all right, Thamiath,” Saroa whispered, half-smiling at the joy in the young queen’s choice. “There will be a dragon for me someday.” She was oddly stable for a young woman who’d come out of such circumstances, self-reliant and unwilling to ask for aid. Saroa spent as little time in the company of humans as possible, preferring to talk, starry-eyed, to the dragons. Dragons, to her, were safety, were the untouchable heaven that she’d unsuspectingly brushed. Most of all, she loved Alnath. |
| T’mael was consternated when Alnath bespoke him, concerned. “Just my luck,” he said wistfully, watching her reach toward the sky, smiling. “I rescue her,”—and lose my heart to her, he thought privately—“and she ends up adoring you, you big blue lump.” <<All jests aside, my rider,>> Alnath said seriously, <<This is not healthy. She needs friends among her own kind.>> “And you think I haven’t tried to be her friend? She’ll barely speak to me. People, to her, are dangerous and unpredictable. Dragons are non-threatening, because dragons speak, but do not touch, love, and do not leave. That is her idyll, Alnath, and I pity the rider if she ever falls in love with a human being.” |
| Saroa Stood twice more on Moire’s Sands before she met her lifemate. It was doubtlessly the old queen Jiantyth’s last clutch, tiny at a mere twelve eggs with only one bronze in their midst. The last-hatched dragonet, a pale and delicate brown, found his bond with his mind before he found her with his eyes. “Iphaeth,” Saroa breathed, and looked around for the lucky last-Impressed. No one else moved. “Iphaeth?” she queried, incredulous, and then she was running, sliding to his side in a spray of sand. It was four days of delirious joy before Saroa’s dream came to a crashing halt. <<Saroa?>> Iphaeth’s silk-slide whisper brushed against her thoughts. “Yes, love?” she answered, turning and smiling at him. Nobody had ever seen Saroa give such smiles. <<I hate to bother you, but I think…I think I ate something that disagreed with me,>> Iphaeth told her, uneasily. <<You’d best get the dragonhealer, and he’ll have me to rights again.>> Iphaeth’s discomfort, however, was not from his stomach. He hated to lie to her, but he could feel the tremor in his limbs. His sight had been rapidly deteriorating since his Hatching. The brown doubted he could have walked to the dragonhealer, had he had a groundweyr. Something was seriously wrong. When As’mir came, Iphaeth waited until the Dragonhealer’s bronze Oruchanth was bidding his Saroa welcome to tell the man what was wrong. As’mir blanched and closed his eyes, an ancient pain flitting over his face. Quietly, he drew Saroa aside. “What is it?” she asked, her mismatched eyes enormous in the half-light of the dimming glows. Quickly and dispassionately, As’mir explained himself. “Iphaeth’s body lacks one of the elements it needs. Unlike normal dragons, he can’t process the nutrients that support his nervous system.” The healer swallowed. “I’ve had one other case like this, probably before you were born. He was also from a clutch laid by Jiantyth; to the same father, even.” “What happened?” Saroa said fiercely. “What did you do?” As’mir’s shoulders drooped. “Not enough,” he murmured. “I can’t fix it.” “Can’t fix it?” Her voice wavered. “What does that mean?” The Healer would not meet her eyes. “Two or three more days, and he’ll die.” “But you have to heal him,” Saroa insisted, voice rising, expression frantic. “You can’t…Iphaeth can’t be dying!” “I could have healed Achelth, had he not panicked and betweened,” As’mir said miserably. “I could have counseled Kylei so that her green would not set herself against Achelth when he caught her, even though Achelth’s rider was a man she hated. But I can’t heal something if there is nothing that I can see, nothing that I can prod and touch and do! Do you know how little we know about dragons, really? In the old times, perhaps, my Craft knew how to tinker with the body’s chemistry, but I don’t!” Panting, he turned on heel, face contorting in anger at his helplessness. “I can give you something to help him sleep, but that’s all.” Numb now, Saroa walked the ten deliberate paces to Iphaeth’s side, and lay down beside him. Face buried in his flank, she motioned for the healer to leave. All that she could hear was the faint thrum of her lifemate’s heart. |