Shani hadn't seen many dragons until they came in the middle of the night.
She'd seen a few, just not too close. Her father and the others had dealt with dragonriders before, but she hadn't been allowed to be around for those conversations. She wasn't quite old enough, she'd thought at the time, maybe when she had ten turns - but now she knew it was likely secrecy. She knew too well now that a secret was only that until more than two people knew about it.
It was the shouts that woke her first, she and her cousins sleeping together in one of the wagons parked behind the farmhold. She sat up straight, heart beating as if she'd had a bad dream, banging her head hard on the roof; not even noticing because of the roar that felt like it shook the ground.
They all froze. Shani tried to peer out through the tiny window, out into the darkness, to make sense of what they were hearing. She'd barely had a chance to look before the door to the wagon was thrown open, one of her uncles silhouetted in it. "Go! Hide!" he'd shouted, then he was gone.
Serah was the first to move, her hair even wilder from sleep, shoving off and down from the bed. It was enough to spur Shani into movement, dragging the others with her, out into the cold night air. She somehow had the presence of mind to wrap a blanket around her, but not enough for shoes, her mind a chant now, gogogogogo. The din had become louder outside, men and women shouting and screaming, dragons in the air, the crack and splinter of wood - her home, were they destroying her home? - but there was no time to think or listen or watch or breathe, there was only time to be strong and quick and fast and gather the other children and run. She was the oldest. She had to keep them together.
They didn't run too far - Shani knew the youngest couldn't make it. There was a woodpile not too far off in the brush that they could hide behind, surrounded by tall grass; the ground was so cold her feet numbed immediately. She did her best to keep everyone silent, but it was impossible to stop the sniffling, the crying. She wrapped the lot of them in her blanket and crouched behind the woodpile, spying what she could of the raid through the gaps and holes in the stack. The dragons. The destruction. A glimpse of her father taken off, bound - the last she ever had.
(Now, now that she knew the High Reaches dragons, she was nearly sure she knew some of them from that night. She suspected Vrianth was one; she didn't think too much about it - the dreams came back.)
Dawn crept over the farmhold so, so slowly - first making the wreckage of their home eerily grey and colorless, then bleeding life into the landscape so they could watch their family and livelihood taken from them as they shivered in the cold. She and her cousins, they could hear the riders talking... about how they should just kill them all. How it didn't matter what they'd done, they should be left on an island to die, left to jump off high ledges for all they cared. What would happen to her father? Where had Serah gone in the confusion, her aunts, the boys? Shani wanted to be sick, but she had to be strong and she had to be quiet. Who knew what they'd do to her, to the others? They couldn't be taken to the Weyr too, imprisoned in rock up high.
They waited, shaking with cold and fear, until the big gold dragon left, waited till they all left. Waited until past dark and dawn the next day, too scared to move. They didn't come out until some of their aunts finally straggled back with the runners they'd made off with, certain the dragonriders would be gone by then... but they certainly packed up with whatever was left quickly enough after that, abandoning the farm hold to keep moving. They never stopped moving after that.
No one slept very well after that night, not for some time. Even if they could, one of the children would inevitably wake up sobbing at some point in the night. Shani didn't remember it ever being her. But she didn't lie to her weyrlingmasters when she said she didn't remember some things about her childhood. There were holes she didn't talk about, she'd never tell anyone about. Not even N'rov, because though he wouldn't pity her, what he knew of her story made him look at her in a way she wasn't comfortable with. Even that sympathy was too much.
She was so glad she hadn't impressed Hraedhyth. She was so glad she hadn't impressed the blood of that fucking dragon that destroyed her whole life. She was glad Tiriana was gone, but she sort of wished she was here to climb over, along with K'del.
They had taken Aishani's home and now, Aishani Vijay had taken theirs. Now, she wondered if it was time to tell them about it.
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