==== 11th July 2013
==== C'zan, Khallth
==== After several painful conversations, memories catch up with C'zan.

Who C'zan, Khallth
What After several painful conversations, memories catch up with C'zan.
When There is 1 turn 9 months and 4 days until the 12th pass.
Where Den of Iniquity, Igen Weyr

drunkzan.jpg


Den of Iniquity
This weyr is nearly two spaces, the initial entrance being wide enough for a dragon to enter, with a friend if they don't mind being close. A stone couch lies to the right, carved by use into the perfect shape. Leather riding straps hang from a peg, and there is a perch for firelizards. Further in, the ceiling lowers and the walls close in, and it's this cosy, cramped space that C'zan calls his own. Stalactites cling to the ceiling, hanging down far enough to brush the top of someones head. A bed lies in the corner, rumpled and unmade, clothes and empty wineskins visible beneath. A press stands beside it, the surface hidden by empty mugs and random hides. A rickety take is set against one wall, illuminated by a dying glowbasket. Piled on the table is a jumble of odd parts and tubing, in a partial state of assemblage.


The greenrider is there, just out of range, just out of reach. His skin is flushed with heat and beaded with sweat as he stalks around the room, bouncing from one foot to another as if reluctant to stay on the ground when his lifemate flies so high.

If C’zan stops focusing, then the room expands into the sky, and the green races ahead. Her hide gleams, a brilliant poisonous viridian. They fly as part of the chasing pack, wings spread wide to take advantage of the thermals. She calls to them, a full throated and teasing hum. Only the strongest will win her.

Only one bronze chases, and he is young, barely out of weyrlinghood. He does not know these skies as they do.

Two other browns fly, strong and worthy. If he cannot win the green, then he can at least hope a strong winged brown can.

The four blues cannot hope to compete, but they are full of heart as they try.

The heat over the lake provides an updraft and they lock their wings and rise in an effortless manoeuvre. No fancy acrobatics here, just simple flying.

Above, the bronze falters, wind spilling out from under his wings. In an instant he loses ground and falls behind. The dragon partner knows when he has lost and begins a slow spiral downwards. The rider doesn’t give up, and is bodily removed by one of the brown riders.

The green shrills again and puts on another burst of speed, turning in a tight circle to pass beneath the chasing pack. The highest flying brown drops in pursuit, but one of the blues misjudges and rises. They tangle together, and both fall. They plunge through the heart of the pack. The brown gets free and arrests his descent.

Halfway through their turn to follow the green, there is nothing that Khallth can do to avoid the blue that falls straight towards him. Gunmetal grey talons flash, and everything becomes pain and ichor.

Half blinded, body singing with lust, still locked in the mind of his dragon, C’zan staggers to the entrance of the ground weyr, feeling himself falling through the sky.


Gravel crunches beneath his feet, and he catches himself with palms flat on the ground. The mental presence of his brown fills his head, dominating the ruined mindscape.

«You dreamt,» Khallth says clearly, the dry wind moaning softly.

C’zan laughs morbidly as he gathers himself. “Too many reminders in too short a time.”

The scudding clouds overhead part to reveal the star filled heavens. Everything shifts and a picture forms, drawn from C’zan’s memory. A young Khallth, still a weyrling, chasing a laughing C’zan. Another shift, another image, another memory of love and pleasure in times gone by.

C’zan stands in the mental landscape and watches, head tilted back as his brown gently rummages through his memories. The fear filled pain of the dream begins to recede back into the cold darkness within.

A fire kindles beneath C’zan’s feet and rises, bathing his legs in the golden warmth. Everything else is driven out of his mind by the constant and steady love of his brown.

The weyr is still dark when he wakes in his own crumpled mess of a bed. One faceted eye is unlidded as Khallth wakes. C’zan rises, steeling himself against the chill of the stone floor.

His head aches, the familiar dull pounding at his temples that he knows from experience will only get worse. The half open wineskin drunkenly slumped on the table is a temptation, a siren call, but the pull from his lifemate is stronger.

Khallth needs him.

The brown hide is soft and warm under his shaking hands, pliant and gleaming with health. By touch, C’zan maps every inch of his dragon in a ritual that serves to sooth them both, one born from that nightmare of a time, turns ago.

Every favourite spot is scratched, and Khallth relaxes inch by inch, sprawling out at his length, his mental landscape alight with a myriad of campfires that reflect in the skies above, announcing to the world that they are not alone. C’zan bubbles with pride and with pleasure, a disused smile brushing his lips. Finally, he rests his hand just above the dimly glittering remains of the wounded eye.

For a moment, still deep in each other’s minds, the mental stars reflect the last memory C’zan has of that disastrous flight. The greenrider, writhing against one of the other brownriders. Disappointment on the faces of three of the blueriders. Pain.

And written across the face of the fourth bluerider: Triumph.

This time it’s C’zan that banishes the image fiercely.

“How about we visit Southern after drills today. Bake some of the aches out?”

Mental appreciation as Khallth lids his eye and dozes. C’zan settles himself on the browns forepaw and leans in against the heat. His head throbs, and pounding drumbeat that calls endlessly for surcease. But that can wait till the sunrise. For now, he dozes with his dragon.

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