Stars in Daylight [Cathaline]

[Azhdarchid]

Dragons, and their riders, were daytime creatures. But with proper rest, they could mimic their wrinkly cousins, and their large eyes did not falter too badly by moonlight. Halventh backwinged down beside the Candidate Barracks, an autumn sunset brisk at his back, his human rider protected by his full suit of leathers. Head-to-toe, the wherhide left only the barest gaps around his face, between the attire and his goggles. He did not dismount, but turned human and dragon eyes alike toward the empty entry of the Barracks.

Yusk, Halventh inquired gently, in case the tiny green had only just waken up. His head dropped groundward, and he began sniffing around to see if she had left already tonight. L'xon tapped his knee against the blue's neck. There was no need to go seeking out a poor wher to abuse with draconic curiosity, especially the kind Halventh had to share. We are supposed to take one of your Candidates to Ista, to get him fitted for new spectacles. Halventh whistled over the last few words, quite unfamiliar with the last term in particular and showing Yusk more of a pictorial outline than a thought. But he is not out here. Can you wake him and send him out? He can wash first if he needs to. It will be morning in Ista. He may only be a Candidate, but he still represents the Weyr.

You are a foolish dragon.

I have already won a Flight today, Halventh said in his own defense. Obviously no fool had ever attracted affections. The blue strangely did not mention the second Flight he'd attempted, which had been a fast loss and a beat on his hip by a feisty and disapproving green. The winning round had been in the early morning, the second around noontime. The first day post-Thread was always a time for dragons to be as silly as possible.

I am glad it is not me who has to speak.

I know. Halventh raised his head and nosed at that tapping knee, and L'xon stopped, hugging the end of his snout. He let Halventh break free before anyone caught them snuggling, and leaned back in the natural saddle between the dragon's final two neckridges. He did not know if Newtollen was truly still asleep, but found it strange in any case that the boy had not rushed out to greet him. What if... His throat tightened, and he was thankful again that Halventh was covering their cover. But if Yuri came out instead of Newt, then there would be no hiding it.

It would almost be a relief.

[Cathaline]

L'xon did seem to persist in forgetting that Newt was a dual candidate. Of course, so did Newt, half the time. Plus Audren's inexplicable fondness for him meant that he did a lot more at night than most dual candidates did - most dual candidates were for dragons first and whers as an afterthought, and Newt might very well be the only person in the world who was the other way round. In other words, his schedule was complicated, confusing, and ever-shifting, just the way he liked it.

"Hi!" he chirped from behind the two of them. Well, it might have been a chirp if it wasn't horribly breathless, as he had just sprinted halfway across the Bowl as soon as he spotted Halventh's pale hide glowing in the moonlight. "Hi, I - hang on." Newt wheezed for several seconds, getting his air back, before smiling up at L'xon. Good thing Yuri hadn't emerged from the barracks, because even though this was Newt being extremely sneaky and greeting them as friends, there was no denying that such a shining look on the face of someone who had spent the past two days alternately listless and fretful was a dead giveaway.

It wasn't Lex's fault that Newt had been having a rough go of it, of course. It was Jafask and the constant reminders of the hatching. Reminders everywhere, from the bandages he had to go and get changed, to his roommate's condition, to the rest of the candidates, to the murmurs in the dining hall about A'bar's injuries and Orkia's death and all of it. But he'd cheered up considerably at the thought of escaping it all, particularly in company with his favourite rider, and he reached for one of Halventh's straps. "Thanks for coming," he said. "Sorry. I was eating. I told them you were going to take me - did you tell them, are we cool?"

He scrambled up into the saddle with significantly greater ease than he had the first time he'd gone on a trip with L'xon (not counting the Gather, of course). The exertion pulled at the stitches in his arm, and the wound over his heart wasn't much better, but apart from bruises he had total control of his legs and hands this time, and Newt was quite agile - you had to be if you wanted to study wild whers. "I don't think there's a specific time I have to be back," he said. "Our schedule is still kind of messed up because everybody is traumatised. I guess they think if they forced us back onto Candidate time immediately, everyone would quit in tears. I'm surprised nobody has quit. I don't know if we're all stubborn or crazy. What do you think? Give me all of your thoughts." He blinked innocently at L'xon, then grinned as he worked to get himself strapped to the harness.

[Azhdarchid]

Halventh honked and pivoted towards the tinny "Hi!" at his backside, raising his tail out of reach. This was not an instinctive maneuver, but something Weyrling dragons were drilled upon, to keep them safe from ambushes while grounded. Their tails were ladders to be used by any marauding wher, feline, (or man) crazed enough to attack a dragon. Obviously the memory was kept somewhere in the most lizard-like catacombs of their brains, as the intelligent bits retained nothing past three days, or maybe a week in a beast like the blue.

More recently, his rump had been the target of a very impolite rebuke by a green in heat, and that was the sting he was taking as inspiration. Halventh ducked his head toward the Candidate, nostrils flaring as he issued a bellow in that eager face. Then he plunked back down on his haunches, keeping one glittering eye on the climber.

Oh. Nevermind. It is here, he informed Yusk, a little sulky. L'xon watched Newt ascend through the screen of his goggles, his head made narrow and bald by the leather stretched over it. His mouth was hidden, but clever slits following the sides of the cap allowed sound out. Not all rider headgear obscured the face so entirely, but L'xon had just happened to wear this fully protective suit today.

"You could still be a rider," he said, twisting his sleek head after the boy. He watched Newt grapple with the straps, then lifted his legs so he could turn around and draw them properly over his passenger. Newtollen certainly had the idea, and his execution might very well function, but the appearance was...unprofessional. L'xon turned his back again right after. "I informed them. There's going to be a lot of headwind here and at Ista." And that was all Newt got for a greeting (or reply) before Halventh flexed open his wings and fluttered up through Dalibor's latest cloudless evening. He faced the double moons and they painted his powerful chest in silver for just a moment, the wind striking down on him like a hammer.

Then he disappeared Between.

The dragon lingered in the blackness, where all L'xon could feel was him, his steady, determined other half.

He thought he might be breathing out now, rather than just holding his breath (as if that mattered).

Halventh touched him, and gave him an impression of wings moving, swimming forward through the dark. But that was not how Between worked, not really. He just wished he could have passed the notion on to his bondless passenger. Why was it taking so long?

This empty world...

Gave out to the screams of startled whersports and the hot morning sun on Halventh's body (L'xon could not feel it directly under the leathers). A flock of white-and-blue seabirds panicked around the enormous obstacle in their path, and shot around Halventh like darts of Thread moving upwards, back to their Star. They flew off so quick that L'xon could not see them anymore when he turned to look. Halventh exhaled, and the rest of their senses came to life, the odor of salt and a mist of broken wavecaps swirling beneath the dragon's wings. The blue circled in the sun quizzically, happy to steal a few more seconds of its full blast before L'xon directed him toward the hold.

In the foothills of Ista's coast sat the Smithhall specialized in glass and related affairs. It was distant enough that there would be little point in visiting the hold proper, and Halventh coasted past only to greet the Istan Watchdragon before he banked toward his proper destination. The Hall was all burrowed away in tunnels, and there was no courtyard for the visiting dragon to preside over. He alighted a green hill fuzzy with beach grass near one of the Hall's many eye tunnels. The strong winds buffeting the hilltop did not bother the man in leather, but he turned around again to hasten Newt's freedom.

"You would be expected to complete your business here, and leave. You can take a Dalibor sigil with you, rather than me in the flesh. If I were to fly off after you were already done, and just hung around the area, it would be seen as being in poor taste. Disrespectful. But it is not as if Istan beaches aren't popular. On the other hand, if I were to fly anywhere but my own Weyr after this, I have to inform this Watchdragon, but not necessarily the one at Dalibor."

[Cathaline]

"Could but won't," Newt said. If a wher wouldn't touch his mind, how could he hope to attract an even more sensitive dragon? Besides, he didn't hope for it. His decision to accept the search had been pure pragmatism, and his decision to remain had everything to do with not wanting to abandon Letorin, who was the best roommate he'd ever had. He still wanted a wher, after all. Dragons were the afterthought.

No thoughts from L'xon, and Newt didn't know why. There were lots of possibilities, and after all, L'xon had shown up to get him. He could've easily pawned the field trip off on another rider if he didn't want to hang out (and maybe more). Maybe he was in a hurry to escape the prying eyes of those who knew them.

Between didn't hurt any less now than it had six months ago. Thank you, Jafask, stellar job stirring up old memories that Newt had fought so hard to bury or sort through. He was never so keenly aware of his loss as when everything else became as empty as he was. Maybe it would be different if he hadn't known the void before, but he had traveled a-dragonback and found it, if not pleasant, at least not actively unpleasant. He had a strong sense of self for a bondless and a mind so sharp he could cut himself on its edges.

And regularly did.

But now it wasn't like being a bright star in a vast universe. Now it was like being torn to shreds and swallowed up by the universe, struggling to hold on to anything that was not pain. He couldn't have felt the glasses on his face even if they hadn't been smashed to dust, but he was nevertheless aware of them being missing, of his face and body and soul being stripped naked, but not by somebody who cared or wanted him - by a world that wanted to catalogue his vulnerabilities and, like a certain iron, zero in on the one button to push that would -

Do not look long into that abyss, they said, an infinite number of lifetimes ago.

It looked back. It had already looked back.

They burst out into tropical heat and brilliant sunshine, and Newt swore violently, clenching his fists on the harness to try to still his trembling. Maybe that was even worse than before, he didn't really know. If L'xon noticed he was too kind to turn and ask a question, because even a polite "are you okay" would have been a catastrophe right now.

"Okay," he said, blinking at L'xon. He wished he could see his face and his hair, probably sweaty and spiky from being under a cap. And his eyes most of all. "I want to go to the beach. I have to. I can't - I can't go back there. Not yet. You can tell the watchdragon that I'm afraid of it or just plain tell them that I'm the most desperately screwed-up idiot you know, but I don't want to leave yet. And also. I want you? That too. But you're not going to tell anyone that."

Newt gave L'xon a wan smile and slid down from Halventh's back, giving the blue a friendly pat before heading into the Smithhall.

He was gone a long time. The thing most people didn't immediately grasp about Newt was that although whers were his passion, he was not completely devoid of curiosity. Sure, there were Crafts he thought useless, like weaving, but anything which even tangentially related to whers - as smithing surely did, in obvious ways - also captivated him. If he'd lived several thousand turns ago he would have had six PhD's. As it was, he merely dabbled. But he could find a hundred things to discuss with the smith who fitted him for frames and gave him new lenses - easy to make, as they were just glass with no prescription - and when he finally emerged, he had specs settled on his nose, a second pair tucked safely in a leather pouch at his belt, and an armful of packages.

"Look!" he said, waving a document tube. "Edison is going to be my friend now for sure. If I can get past Esk. Which I never have. She's a tough one, but I will prevail. And I got you a present." Newt beamed up at L'xon, in a much better mood now that Science had been happening to him. "Not myself, giftwrapped. Although you're welcome to that too. A real present. It's kind of clever. I think so, anyway."

[Azhdarchid]

"I underst-"

L'xon stopped as Newtollen kept going, the Candidate's reasoning taking a turn for the secretive. When the boy offered a farewell smile, he nodded, watching him run off into the Hall. Halventh chuffed, lying down before he cocked his stallion-like snout off at the Istan Watchdragon in the distance. The pink twittered across the hills at them, and L'xon could feel Halventh's chittering response under his legs. After a minute, he raised his face toward Rukbat.

Heat. Ista did not suffer four seasons as much as Dalibor. The heat was either dry or wet, or in transition. Today was wet, humid, suffocating. He lifted off his goggles, unwound the leather cap and mask away, and closed his eyes against the sun. Bandages still obscured the right half of his face, though they were tightly drawn today, nothing hanging loose or disheveled. But he was still one-eyed, and a few Apprentices that had clustered to watch whispered amongst each other. Threadscore was the dominant theory, and the Apprentices conjured up far worse possibilities for what was contained beneath the cloth than the two sketchlines scribed by Jafask.

What complaints existed for this imperfect idol dwindled as the dragonrider was forced out of his jacket and underlayers by the relentless sun. L'xon left his flotsam piled on Halventh's shoulder and walked barefoot to the dragon's hip. He laid down just where the blue tail began to slope to the ground. Halventh opened his wings, flapping them occasionally at the Watch, shading his rider and moving air over his bare chest. L'xon knew better than to wait up for Newt. He closed his eyes, dozing in the daylit night.

He is coming back.

L'xon surfaced with a yawn, then got up and returned to the saddle, pulling all the leathers back on, even the ones obscuring his face, and snapped his goggles back over his eyes. He would be the same wherhide statue Newt had left behind. Halventh, his spy, had detected the bouncing ball of imminent satisfaction readily among the working smiths.

He blinked behind the goggles at the restored Candidate advancing through the sunlight, laying one hand over his ribs since touching himself most anywhere else was inadvisable. He had met Edison once, but did not register what about the document might prove so vital to him. The round, dark eyes of the goggles fixed on Newt for his jest, but no laughter made its muffled way through the mask. L'xon tied the one essential belt-strap onto his passenger for safety, then mustered Halventh skyward.

Hey- he started, privately, as Halventh swung toward Ista Hold. The blue circled the Watchdragon's spire a few times, till he was finally forced out by sheer willpower. The pink had been a little shiny: very dangerous. "We'll have to get further away," L'xon continued, this time aloud, his head turned toward his shoulder. "Else this brainless colt is going to blab everything to the Watch." His voice had the steadiness of a man conducting fighting maneuvers, or planning a capture of thieves. An honorbound guardian's voice. No friendliness in it.

A few wingbeats to devour the coastline, and they were cruising over minor fishing holds and the like. Unfortunately the beaches were productive and populous property, and everywhere the dragon flew shadows of people scurried below him. Wind tore in sideways of the sea, filling his wings lopsided, and Halventh drifted more than pushed his way along, veering a few leagues one way and then gliding back. "You can choose," L'xon offered, the smallest kiss of trust.

[Cathaline]

Newt's smile faltered a bit, and his eyes narrowed at L'xon behind his specs. Balance was restored to his sense of self, and yet they also met that once again, he viewed the world - and the people in it - from a slight remove. Newt had very few people skills. That is to say, he had never bothered to cultivate him, because people did not interest him - at least, their bodies didn't, only their minds and their words. He'd never learned to read them.

But this body interested him and even Newt could not fail to notice that Lex was swallowed up and hidden by leathers, and being a little standoffish. Was it all for the benefit of the watchdragon? Was he so afraid of how friendliness might be taken that he had to act like ferrying a candidate was a chore? Was he scary good at sneaking or was something wrong, had Newt done something wrong, should he have gone to Lex's weyr after all, should he not be babbling about sex quite so loudly even with no one around to hear them...

See, this was why he tried not to give a damn about people. This was what happened when Newt turned the full force of his intellect on himself. This was why it was so dangerous for him to try to adjust to his wherless state, why he had to cling so hard to normality, because if he wasn't careful, he was entirely capable of losing himself in a wicked mire, in an endless stream of consciousness. It was far safer to keep his mind on things outside of himself, on whers, on science, on gifts, than it was to try to dig into his own psyche, even so far as to figure out if he had done something wrong, much less what he might do to fix it.

Newt watched the coastline pass below them, the waves rolling into the shore, people moving as tiny dots along the sand, boats a pale wink of sail in the blue-green sea. He tried to focus on that, on the lives moving on below them, and not on the insecurities that he did not like and would much prefer to bury under his customary arrogance. But while he might be overly certain of his own mental gifts, he was significantly less sure that he had any charms to speak of. It never occurred to him that L'xon might be using him for anything, just that maybe L'xon was bored or annoyed or had come to his senses and realised he could do a million times better.

"There," he said at last. "See it? Right there." It reminded him of the southern jungle, a press of trees that had so far survived the Pass, with the glitter of a stream heading toward the ocean. Not as romantic as a standing pool or a waterfall, maybe, but it looked relatively secluded and there seemed to be room for Halventh to land in a clearing, while still having enough shade to protect them from the noonday sun.

[Azhdarchid]

The dragon crooned at his passenger, Pern's friendliest cloud of thunder. He banked on the point of his wing, forcing L'xon to reach back and grab a fistful of Newt's jacket. The belt tether would protect the boy if he fell, but the slip-off and sudden grab of tension was worthy of a stomach's contents in tribute. Halventh pitched over onto his other wing, then slipped both in so he could fire through an arch of trees and fly directly over the streambed. A few branches whipped off as his wings struck them at either side, and it was not long before the flier met his match.

A downward dip in the stream lay cloistered in a patch of boulders, the trees leaning in at either side. Halventh coasted right up to the wall of leaves, then suddenly dropped the air from his wings, plunking his talons down in the mounds of river stones leading up to the more obstinate geology. The trees were relaxed in over his head, and he would not even be able to take off from here. The blue seemed to have little difficulty with this, and turned around, stomping his feet to make mud-holes in the streambed and even splashing after a shoe-sized fish with a few galloping leaps.

He bugled, then put one arm out to shore. The clearing Newt had cited was far away. Halventh would never turn down a challenge, spoken or not. L'xon untied himself and let Newt deal with his own, standing up on the dragon's shoulder and resting his hand on the proud upcurve of blue neck. His masked face turned with the precision of a bird's, scanning the surrounding glen.

"How did you even do that?" he asked Halventh. "There's no wind here." Just a breeze tugging ineffectively at his leathers. Halventh hummed. "There's a wherhide in the saddlebags if you want it," L'xon shot over his shoulder before he dismounted. He began inspecting the bank of the stream, kicking through the soft sand with the toes of his boots. Halventh dunked his snout into the water, lapping it up till Newt had followed his rider to ground.

Then he reached out with both paws and seized the Candidate, dragging him one foot into the stream, and sidling up behind him with a rumble. The dragon lowered the point of his nose to Newt's hair, a few drops of water falling between them. L'xon glanced back at this amidst his examinations. "What are you doing to him Halventh?" he asked for Newt's benefit. Halventh growled, though as dragon noises went it was not unfriendly.

Holding him for you, he proposed. The bars of his talons closed a little tighter on the Candidate, keeping everything but his head very snug behind a wall of blue. The prisoner might be able to wriggle free eventually, he was agile, or it might be easier to convince the dragon to let him go.

L'xon finally turned around, facing Newtollen and his dragon. He grabbed the hood of his headgear and tugged it back, flashing his mop of yellow hair. Walking over to the Candidate, he peeled off the cover stretched across his mouth and nose, dropping it too into a scarf around his neck. He stopped in front of Newt, and transferred his goggles to the top of his head. The rider licked his lips, then put them to work in a smile.

"It's okay now," he decided, and cupped the side of Newt's face. Resting his other hand on the blue barrier, he leaned across and kissed the boy, tilting his head to work his tongue inside.

[Cathaline]

It was a thrilling landing, and really, it should not have surprised Newt as much as it did; Halventh was something special, and Newt shrieked half with laughter and half with horror as they plowed through the trees and finally came to a spot. Had to hand it to the blue - they were definitely isolated now. So isolated they might never escape the grip of the Istan jungle.

There should be a rule, wait until your dragon has come to a complete stop before disembarking, because Newt had two straps undone when Halventh pounced at a fish. The jolt just about knocked him out of the saddle, and he yelped and fought to get back into a position where he could unhook the remaining straps. "I'm okay! I'm okay," he insisted, grateful that no hands came to assist him, because really, he could do this himself.

A wherhide? Of course he wanted it. He didn't even want to use it for any particular purpose, he just wanted to see it. But there were things temporarily more important than whers - at least, more important than tanned and cured whers. Unshackled at last, Newt skittered down Halventh's side and doggedly followed L'xon, scrambling over Halventh's forearm to -

Instantly become a prisoner again as Halventh captured him and held him tight. "Hey," he protested; the snout nosed at his hair and whuffled it a bit when Halventh growled, though Newt knew enough of dragonkin to be well aware it was not a vicious noise or even an unhappy one. He began futile attempts to abscond, pushing at Halventh's hide, but the grip just tightened even further, like a Chinese finger trap, had Newt known what that was.

"Hey," he repeated, when L'xon's question was not immediately followed by explanation. Newt's eyes followed L'xon's progress in disrobing his head, and he said, "Why is he doing this? Is this an intervention? What did I do wrong? I'm sorry I took so long in the Smithhall, I met this really nice guy who wanted to talk about designs for wher goggles and I had to - "

Oh. Okay. Newt melted, and had enough time to smile back before there was a mouth covering his own. He parted his lips, sliding his tongue along L'xon's, seeking warmth and contact and that clever little tingle that curled out into his body. The glasses made it different, digging into his face - not cold metal anymore after a flight in Istan heat, actually rather hot by now. It was a small added complication, but one Newt was decidedly pleased with.

His cheeks were already pink when their lips finally parted, as they inevitably must, and he said, slightly breathless, "You know, he doesn't have to hold me down. I was literally on my way to jump your bones, and now it's hard to - I want to - " He attempted to indicate without being able to move that he wanted his hands on Lex, everywhere, and legs tangled together, and clothes off, and all of that. It finally occurred to him, several minutes late, what the seeming non sequitur from earlier might mean, and he blurted out, "Oh, is the wherhide for a blanket for us to - yeah, that's probably a better use for it than what I was going to use it for."

[Azhdarchid]

"Yeah," Lex echoed, turning away from Newt and beginning to shimmy off his riding gloves. It took a while: each finger had to be pulled out from the tight leather. "All the comforts of home." He rubbed the bare back of one hand across his forehead, smearing his hair and then making attempts at sorting it. Halventh relaxed his grip on the Candidate, though not enough to liberate him. Newtollen would have to find his agility once more, or convince the dragon to let him go.

L'xon bent down to start in on his boots. "Hotter than dragonfire out here," he murmured, untying each set of lacing and then notching the tips back together so they did not hang. He organized the boots next to his gloves, and kicked at the sand now with his bare toes. Unbuckling the fasteners that held the halves of his face mask together, he cleared the deflated hide from around his neck, and folded each piece neatly beside the rest of his garments.

He'd been a few feet away, but now he walked back past Newt, climbing Halventh's arm to grab the saddlebag the Candidate had stashed his treats in. He carried it back with an arm held out straight ahead of him, like a trophy procession, and laid it out next to his things. "What were you going to do with it?" he wondered aloud, grabbing the front of his heavy flight jacket and opening it up. He was still all leather underneath, but it was no more than a second skin, not seasoned with pockets and loops like the jacket.

His tether belt came next, though he still needed a few baubles from it so he placed it on the side closest to the flat span where he could lay down the wherhide. He headed over to Newt's cage and stuck his hand between Halventh's fingers to retrieve said blanket. He had to rummage around for a bit, but ultimately dragged the piece free and carried it over to his neat array of discarded clothing. "What did you get for me?" he wondered, dropping the hide and turning around toward the detached saddlebag. L'xon squatted down next to the parcel and unlaced the top. "Do you want me to look?"

[Cathaline]

All the comforts of home and none of the dangers. As soon as Halventh's grip relaxed, Newt began several spirited attempts to free himself. He started with peering up at the blue's chin and coaxing, cajoling, commanding, and finally begging to be let free. This seemed to have little effect, and Newt did not realise that the way to the dragon's heart was with gifts, nor did he have anything to offer but words at the moment. He left off only to respond to Lex's question. "I was going to look at it," he said sheepishly. "Enjoy the craftsmanship - see if there was anything I could discern about its former owner."

At last he gave up the attempt to convince Halventh that freedom was deserved. "No, don't look! I'll show you. Just give me a..." With that, he did what he ought to have done in the first place and scrambled lithely out of the cage, with only a few faltering mishaps due to his hatching injuries. Thank goodness they hadn't tried this when he had an opened palm and the wounds on his legs, because he definitely wouldn't have escaped under those circumstances. Under these, it took only a very few minutes before he had scrabbled his way over the grasping dragon fingers, lowering himself to the ground.

The boy eyed the dragon warily, as if expecting his efforts to be met with Halventh reaching out to reclaim him and laughing at him. When the blue didn't grasp him, Newt grinned at him, tossed him a salute, and darted to Lex's side. Nudging the rider aside with his shoulder, he gave him a quick peck on the lips before completing the work of undoing the package; he lifted out something wrapped in several sheets of paper and carefully folded them back. Whatever was inside them was obviously fragile, and precious.

It was small - a tube perhaps five inches long, golden but not glittering, misshapen and covered in pock marks and tiny outcroppings. At first glance it might be a piece of rock, but Newt held his hands out toward L'xon, with the object cradled in them, and said, "It's lightning-struck sand. It's glass, of a sort. They're kind of rare, valuable for their curiosity. And for science, in their way. It's not super pretty but I thought - you're a rider, I'm gonna be a handler. You're the lightning and I'm the sand and together, we're bizarre-looking, but a work of art." Newt blinked up at L'xon from behind his glasses, hoping that this attempt at poetry would be met with approval.

[Azhdarchid]

Halventh cooed at Newt, an innocent blue dragon who had never caused anyone trouble. He shuffled around and stomped out to the middle of the stream, then wandered a ways up it, trying to find a spot with enough clearance to at least cover his belly if he laid down. The occasional snap of big jaws trying to pinch a tiny river fish echoed down the streamside.

L'xon had moved onto his knees when Newtollen demanded he desist, and waited by the bag for the few minutes it took for the Candidate to worm free. The light kiss got a blink, and the unveiled gift got several more. But he restructured his expression when he saw Newt's brown head turning his way. Pursing his lips with what he hoped was curiosity, he lifted the tiny rod out of Newt's care. It rolled roughly across his palms, the right one bare now with a pink line to mark Jafask's artistry. L'xon...blinked.

He lowered it to the river sand, poking the rod into the grainy bank and twisting it a few times. The frozen sand failed to fall apart, and L'xon flipped it back up, airborne for a second before he deftly caught it. At last he smiled, and got up to take the rod down closer to the water. The thin break in the trees over the streambed let a little of Rukbat's light in, and L'xon stuck the rod out into the fragmented rays. His smile opened, an appreciative parting of lips.

"...sure you didn't just break this off that big bronze, Cilisk? It's him exactly." Though his expression dwindled a little when he considered what Newt would have had to break to get a hunk of this particular shape. Thinking too far into your own jest, Lex. Newtollen was a spirit of inquiry. L'xon tried to hide that he had a brain most of the time. An ugly, beautiful potion apparently, crystallized in his hand. The Candidate was infatuated.

The bluerider pulled the rod in and rested it against his chest, closing his eyes as he tried to fight through the implications of that conclusion without making a show of it. "Thank you," he said, as I kind of afterthought. He glanced at his spirited companion. "You can go and smooth out that hide now. It's a bronze too." He would walk after Newt whenever the boy finally set to work. "Your spectacles look exactly the same."

[Cathaline]

Newt beamed when L'xon smiled. It had been a spur of the moment purchase; his new Smith friend had been showing off his collection of fulgurite, and this piece had been among the most beautiful. Not the biggest by any means, which was why he'd been able to afford it. Couldn't afford much, obviously, he was only a candidate, but this was good.

Infatuated? Yes, but he had been for months, since long before things took this fascinating and illicit turn. Newt wasn't stupid, he knew the odds that L'xon had even small feelings for him were low, and that was fine. Above all, he had never expected reciprocation. Besides, he was a candidate; he was not in a position to put his heart on the line. He was a prospective handler; he knew his heart would someday not be his to give, not entirely.

He laughed at L'xon's joke. "Isn't it? Reminds me of his dam, too. Of course there's so much variety in hide color that we could've compared any piece of glass to some wher...but I thought it was nice that this one resembles them." Whers that L'xon knew, must know because everyone did. The gratitude warmed his heart as much as the tropics warmed his skin, and Newt scurried away to smooth out the hide on a relatively-smooth patch of land.

"Of course they look the same," Newt said. "I know what I want and I get it - when I can. I tried new frames once and they feel totally different. Different weight, different everything. It was way more jarring and unpleasant than not wearing them at all, so - I stick with what I know. In certain ways I am not adaptable." In others, too adaptable - too willing to do this, to be here, to risk everything.

The bronze wherhide was beautifully cured, and Newt's fingers caressed gently over it. You could still see the sheen, he noticed, a deeper, leathery color much like Lachask. A full-grown wild bronze could do a sharding lot of damage before eliminated, and this was one of the few body parts useful after death. Not because you couldn't eat whermeat if you had to or find some other use in organs and bones, as curiosities like the lightning glass if nothing else, but because of tradition - it would be horrifying to do such things to dragonkin. Interesting that the Tannercraft got away with commandeering even the hides, under the circumstances.

Newt was unusually quiet while he examined it, and then he turned back to L'xon. "It's hard to tell after the Tanners get their hands on it, but I think this hide belonged to a ten-turn-old bronze," he announced. "Knowing that is just a parlor trick, but it's always nice to keep my hand in the game of knowing more than anybody else."

[Azhdarchid]

L'xon had been about to ask how Newtollen could read the skin when the Candidate revealed it as more quirk than talent. Sitting down in the sand, he concentrated on tugging off what remained of his leathers instead. The top came first, messing up his hair again.

"Sadly you have no competition on this stream. Come here." One of his arms still jammed in hide, he nonetheless waved the Newt closer. He cleaned the boy of his tunic too, exposing half the mural beneath. Then he started undoing the crosshatch of leather ties on the front of his riding trousers, slipping it all off and moving his seat to the stretched hide.

Rather than babying Newt further, he rubbed his hands along the bronze surface, up and down, furrowing his pale brows. "Only ten?" And to think he had never given a second glance at any aspect of the hide past its quality before. Looking at it the way Newt did made it just a little sad. "I suppose that is a good run for a wild." A wild bronze, the kind of monster that could gut a burdenbeast in a single swipe. He had never asked what had brought this creature in contact with someone capable of killing it so efficiently, leaving so much of its clothing intact. "The little ones are preyed on by everything, including the big ones. The big ones meet man when their food runs out. And then..." He patted the leather.

Reaching back into the sand, he secured the stone rod and transferred it to one of his belt pouches on the hide's other side. "Actually I remember now the tanner told me they have to get them within those early Turns, otherwise he said the hide turns uh...bumpy. 'Calcifies,' I think. They get plates, deformations. Did you know- well, you do -that the domestics don't turn out as bad? Obviously tanners don't get to touch those, but it doesn't stop them from coveting. He said they're all relatively smoother, regardless of age. Maybe they just haven't met Cilisk."

Leaning back on his hands, knees bent, he smiled sheepishly at the know-it-all. "See I am not utterly useless for learning things. That's not an invitation to teach me though. I don't think you want to try that. It is better when you are unfettered, and I make discoveries from you sort of- incidentally." Tilting his head at the hide, L'xon pushed his fingers into it more purposefully. "And early is best too because when they start fighting..."

At first he could not find what he was looking for, but then he lifted his rump away and spotted it: a thin, rumpled valley, a shallow scar where the assaulter had only managed to rip in one talon out of two. "Always fighting when they mate. Every time," the bluerider sighed. "Most dragons don't fight. The Flight isn't just racing, it's a dance. They interpret each other without even touching- before they touch, anyway. They think more, and they're all about eyes, vision, not pressure." He looked up at Newt. "I have always found it to be very beautiful. On those rare occasions when I am permitted to be a spectator, anyway." Halventh sung a few wistful notes from somewhere downstream, a few jesting trumpets becoming long calls across the water. L'xon turned his head, then lifted his shoulders. "Of course firelizards don't fight either." He grinned hopelessly.