Certainty {Naireth's 2nd Flight}

[Reky]

To be the first Tan in all of Pern had no significance to Naireth. She was content to be what she was; titles held no special pride. She humoured Samael on occasion, who liked to introduce the dragon to her baby son as 'the original tan,' but even if Naireth understood the concept, she did not care. Why should being first have any impact on her being? She existed to serve. It made her feel fulfilled. She was simple in that all she wished for was to obey and protect, and she was stoic, but there never seemed any denying that the first Tan in all of Pern held a quiet intelligence rare among her kin.

She knew, for example, that she was to Rise soon. She did not snarl and thrash like a green; she did not grow stubborn like a queen. Rather, she grew accepting and only a little bit more independent. She bathed even when Samael did not remind her to; she was more proactive with her schedule, pressing to be earlier and earlier for drills. This, considering that Naireth was such an easy dragon usually, made Sam a little weary - but she was grateful anyway, since Naireth would never be a terrible monster. Even with Naireth due to Rise, the rider had plenty of time to spend with her son and his father.

When finally Naireth did take to the skies, Threadfall had just passed. The sky had cleared of its tangled menace and gave way to a cold afternoon sun, low and pale in the sky. Riders were stripping their straps and jackets away; dragons were taking to the lake to wash away the ash and soot. Naireth had been antsy all through the fall, but quelled it duly until she was free to be back on the ground. She stretched her long, creamy wings, considering. Yes, her body decided, and she padded calmly but decisively to the feeding pens. She blooded her kill without having to be reminded. Her eyes whirled faster and took on shades of red and purple. She poised her great, lithe body and pounced into the sky.

Call them, Samael pressed. She felt heat rising in her legs and her gut. They were already tired from fighting Thread and she felt weak at the knees. She was glad that Qaelis was in the creche.

Go to Q'sis, Naireth told her.

Call them, Samael said again. Don't worry about me.

Naireth snorted. Come, she said to the males of the Weyr, and carried herself higher into the sky. The wind was faster the higher she went, and colder. It nipped as a portent of nascent winter, but still held the crisp, clean scent of autumn. Naireth combed the sky with her mind for the minds of her suitors, but did not bother to look back. She would fly, and then why she grew tired, she would fall back to whoever would catch her. There would be no games; no delays. Just simple, distilled instinct. Just something plain and traditional.

Samael, feeling more needy, ran through the back hallways of the Weyr. Her face was still sooty; she still wore her breeches and undershirt from 'fall. "Q'sis," she said, loud and pleading, as she came into his weyr. She hoped he was there and not at the lake with Unath. She needed him and briefly felt strange for it - like being a mother meant being chaste and homely, but she was still an animal of flesh and blood. She felt the snarls that Naireth did not use up tugging at her human throat.

[/blockquote]

[Azhdarchid]

[ Q'sis / Unath / implied Qunath ]

Unath was at the lake, and had fallen asleep with her paws and half her head submerged.

But Q'sis had dropped himself off at the weyr before leaving to her to her own devices.

There was no interior route to his den, the highest point in Dalibor, and he had been shaving down the outer stair over time with graceless brushes of Unath's bulk against the wall. The last dragonlength was more climbing than walking, a test of balance and nerves. He might have held the opinion that the path was demolished, but then his woman called from that way, and there was no shudder of dragon wings to mark any bearer but her own feet.

Q'sis had similar attire to his caller: the thin, tight tunic that fit between leathers and skin, and the heavy riding trousers he'd unbuckled but not yet worked off. On one knee next to the pool in the cavern adjacent to his bedroom, he ran his weathered hand through the water. Eight turns and he had yet to trust the everflowing geothermal heat. But it remained under his palm like a pulsing heart. When Sam called, his thoughts shifted not to her but to the plea in her voice, the unexpected loudness. His dark eyes flicked not out into the shadows between the pair of them, but to the heavy beltknife he had discarded in-sheath on a peg by the washroom exit.

He knew that sound, kin to alarm. Conveying some urgency too acute for words. And here he was, playing with his bath. Weapon out of arm's reach. Sloppy. Dalibor bred sloppiness. Rolling the lingering stiffness of a six-hour ride and many exchanges of firestone and empty bags out of his shoulders, Q'sis lunged upwards and strode out of the wash, seizing the sheath loop for the knife on his way. He pinned it back on his sagging belt as he swept through the bedroom, and out to the dark, empty dragon's nest.

Samael wavered there, thin as a shadow till he touched her, realized her in the gloom. Each muscular arm and its suite of scars wrapped over her slight body and pressed her in against him. Together they made fine creatures of soot, inhabiting the dark, noses dulled by ash and Threadfall. Briefly he looked out again, at the ledge beyond her, but Naireth was not there. He could see her though, ebbing away in the autumnal sky, a cloud among clouds. Shining along her edges.

"So they do Fly more than once," he praised, and if it sounded faint it was only surprise mixing in. Neither of them had been oblivious to Naireth's newfound inconsistency, but Q'sis thought it might fade, a temporary apparition of desire. All the tans had exhibited a single clutch with their maidens, but nothing after. Naireth was the first to go past the time boundaries set by supposedly similar dragons, the reds and oranges.

His first thought: all the better to set their superior, docile breed apart. The second: a lack of fertility might be construed as a weakness. But there Flew Naireth, and all was well. Whether or not she clutched was moot, it was the capacity that mattered.

Not that he would turn down another post-Hatching night with Sam.

He got his thumb into the sheath loop of his knife and unhooked it, allowing the weapon to clunk to the floor in its leather case. Then he seized lower on Samael, giving himself the leverage to hitch her up and coax her legs into a lock around his waist. Her thigh rested where the knife hilt had been, and Q'sis pivoted effortlessly to carry her back to the bedroom. It occurred to him that the suitors' human parts might feel out the location of Naireth's lifemate like so many tiny worms. Men under the influence of their summoned drakes had an insidious empathy to reenact their dragon's victory with. Supposedly they united with their beasts in all manner of ways.

Q'sis felt nothing. He was bonded to a sleeping rock, and she never rose to the occasion, only went on sinking. Maybe that one time Callistath had caught him unbonded, or once under Unath's personal influence, or that whole prior life of heat and blood with the wher- but not since. And he did not think to draw his dragon up to block the path. For all he cared, the suitors could come. They could listen. They could watch. Learn from the best.

Glancing across the expensive, pristine furs that had been awaiting his equally clean post-bath body, Q'sis knelt on a plush fur rug beside the bed instead, and laid Samael's back to it. "You did not need to run all the way up here," he proposed as he felt out her wrists and pulled her arms away, grip tightening as he forced them back against the floor. "Good girl, Sam." He did let one of her hands go. He needed his fingers free for other places anyway. "None of those pathetic lizards have caught you yet," he mused as he began testing his fellow tanrider's weaknesses. "You will have to tell me when."

[kireon]

H'lios lifted his head from the pile of scrolls he was pouring over. Their contents innocent seeming, odd perhaps, but the sketches on them nonetheless replicated beside him on a fresh hide. Little notes were added to those replicated sketches, particular places marked out with tiny 'x' and circled spots. He considered himself no artist, but he could copy a map down with a reference with an incredible amount of detail and replicated said copy without needing to see the original later on.

"You must be crackdusted if you think I am going to vie for the tanrider's attention." His words were spoken in a growling rasp towards the disappearing bulk of one slender, glacier blue dragon.

Hmph, she already calls for another. Don't flatter yourself, H'lios. You may have eyes like my hide, and are almost handsome enough to match my glorious self, but even the dimmest of glows could see that lovely Naireth's would have called the father of her child.[/i] Nelideth retorted, waiting impatiently for the damnable man to hurry himself to his side. He knew the man was meticulously hiding things left and right, storing materials one place, and hides in at least six others before returning matters to their orderly places.

His rider, honestly.

A disapproving, red glare was sent in the black haired man's direction as he waited, still. Honestly, without him, that blasted man wouldn't be able to feed himself, much less see to things that were clearly important.

And you would Chase yourself into a cliff if it shone in just the right way, you wherry brained canine. H'lios retorted, taking himself up to the blue's seat ridge.

It'd be a short flight down, and he borrowed his bonded's mind enough to gently touch Dosk and Dota's own to let them know he was on his way.

Nelideth's landing was pointedly bumpy and uncomfortable in response.

How wonderful you are, such a pale, lovely star in this fine sky! He sang out to her, utilizing all he was to burn the pace behind her. She was a leisurely lady, he would certainly be more than happy to play escort to her. As you have commanded, I have come on your behalf, shining Naireth!

You are worse than a half trained Harper stuffed full of dreams and cheap wine. H'lios sent after him with a shake of his head, going into the caverns where his lady and her colorful bonded awaited.

If she were not in the mood, he would suffer through another of Dosk's mostly confusing, but highly entertaining histrionic plays and dances to distract him until things were settled.

[Kiran]

Divith had been relaxing in the lake, observing the after-Threadfall routines of the other dragons. Routine. His Kelsira was a creature of it, rising early to work and coming back late... If she came back. If she didn't decide to sleep in the forges, or worse yet worked through the night. If the woman didn't have drills or Thread duties than more often than not. Today she had asked him to drop her off at her Weyr so she could clean off and find her way back to the forges. The Threadfall had made her concentrate on something else for a while, freed up her mind for a few precious hours and given her inspiration for a work she wanted to create now that she was free for a while.

Balance. His rider still lacked it.

Divith closed his eyes for a moment before hearing the becoming call of a rising female. His whirring eyes opened, taking in the lithe tan form that was taking to the skies. Balance. His rider needed it in all things. As did he. How long had it been since he had last Chased? His thoughts were too often preoccupied with Kelsira and how to bring balance into her life. He had been neglectful of his own. Besides... Divith couldn't help but give a small draconian smile. Besides, they both were lacking in this area recently.

Launching himself into the air, the blue angled himself sharply towards Naireth. I come. The words were a simple acknowledgement of receiving the tan's commands, that he was her humble servant in this and all things. The beckoning of a sub-queen was not to be ignored. Because in Weyr hierarchy, after all, there had to be balance. As he winged towards her, seeing the other males in pursuit, Divith made his own play for her attentions. Let us find balance together.

If Kelsira had been in any state to think clearly, she would have rolled her eyes at how that sounded. But she couldn't, her mind too far gone in the lust that ran through her - no, Divith's - veins. It had been what seemed like forever since her blue had last chased and the bluerider couldn't honestly say that she missed it. How could she when thee was work to be done? When she was so caught up in losing most everyone she knew that she couldn't imagine being with people, intimately or otherwise? So the unannounced decision of her dragon to go after a sub queen was more than shocking, knocking Kelsira off balance both mentally and emotionally, driving her halfway to the Weyr that she just knew Samael was in before she could manage a thought or two about what was happening.

Sharding- What do you think you are doing, you blue beast?!
Finding balance.

The response was both smug and condescending, the calmness of her blue's mind disrupted by the lust that he felt as he chased after the Naireth. Kelsira swore before finding herself at the door to a weyr. Not Samael's Weyr, no, the one of her weyrmate. Kelsira swore again, far more quietly, seeing the two upon the rug. Her lusts wouldn't be satisfied here whether she won the flight or not. The bluerider's eyes turned towards the hallway, watching for another rider to come for the tanrider. They could be disappointed together.

[Reky]

((Super late! So sorry, school was busy!))

Samael drew up into Q'sis' warmth, her arms and legs around him, but her head was still half in the sky. She ducked her forehead against the hollow of his neck, biting back her little moans. The sky was cold to her, partway between feeling the strength of Naireth's great body and feeling the chill of the clouds herself, and as Q'sis laid her down on the rug she had a precious moment in her own body.

Good girl, he told her, and a humouring smirk came to her lips - something purely Samael's - and she arced her back beneath him. "I don't have to wait for them," she said defiantly. "I don't have to wait for Naireth--" but that was not entirely true, and her eyelids fluttered and closed as she was transported back into the air, high above and far away from Dalibor.

Naireth flew resolutely. She took a great deal of the emotion from Sam, but it seemed to have little effect other than being fuel for her great wingstrokes. Behind her, now, were Nelideth and Divith, and their words went unregistered. They were of no consequence. Naireth needed no frills or flattery; just to fly, until she was done. Some tense time passed and Samael, aching and desperate on the ground, kissing her lover and breathing hot against him, took hold and spurred her higher into the sky.

Choose, Samael commanded, sick of waiting. For a moment, Naireth felt like she was going to defy her rider, and Sam languished beneath Q'sis - she was being teased by her own dragon! - but then Naireth fell back to one of the blues. It was Divith, but the choice was arbitrary, and Samael stole her mind back to herself. She grasped at her man's strong shoulders. The sudden lucidity of her gaze would have been answer enough, but she breathed a thankful "There," and was glad that the trying part was over. The rest of it was more in her element.

[/blockquote]

[Kiran]

No other Rider came after the tan. Why? Did they all have weyrmates? Kelsira scowled, glaring at the empty hallway. The empty skies. Almost empty, save for another blue that almost faded into the clouds and the tan which she/Divith pursued. Naireth's wings took her far but her blue pursued. The tan took no notice of his words, merely flying.

He buoyed himself up on thermals to keep up with the beautiful dragon. The sand of the earth that took wing. The meeting of earth and sky. Divith wanted it desperately. The balance! She was the true balance, his balance. He gloried in chasing her, the sky pursuing the earth (how funny, as their counterparts were eternal, never needing to chase one another). She was only interested in flying. Divith didn't care. He would follow her until he blended into the sky he resembled, becoming one with it and holding Naireth as the sky cradled Pern.

He didn't have long to wait. The tan fell back into his claws, and Divith glided with her back down to her element. Kelsira had no one to cradle her, and with a groan wrenched from deep in her gut she stumbled down the hallway. A passing caverns worker noticed her state with a gleam in his eye and reached out to pull her into an empty weyr. The first Flight Divith had won after so long without. But she had a partner to fall back to earth with, and that made it okay. She'd forgive him.... soon.