Difference between revisions of "Logs:Wing Considerations"

H'kon had made himself a seat of a pile of rocks alongside Arekoth's elbow. He had pulled off a glove, and was drawing designs in the dew on Arekoth's hide in the dark, over the twist of muscle in that bad leg.

It was the brown who first broke the silence.

« Let's go to an upper flight. It's where I belong anyway. Wings like these. » Their extension provided little shelter from the wet. It was a mist, and only seldom so organised as to create actual drops, subject to the pull of the ground rather than suspended in space.

Thread's gone, Koth. But H'kon's mouth pulled against the cold muscle of his face for a smile. Though you would be something.

The brown was pleased at that, more so when H'kon let himself see them together, first them only, with the heat of flame and the stench of firestone, and then, slowly unfolding, the rest, the wing, the Weyr, all airborne, fierce defenders. But the wing he pictured was still Avalanche, just moved up.

Your style is better suited to middle or lower. Even in his head, the words rang mournful. He kept his hand moving over the dragon's sleek hide. Now and again, his finger would find droplets where his own actions had separated the water from film into tiny pools.

Arekoth slowly settled his wings once again, and huffed moisture from his nostrils.

Polaris is in the middle flight. Frostbite. Equinox.

« Glacier, » Arekoth plucked from his rider's brain, the roll of a laugh ballooning the word.

But. Could be that considering flight position is archaic. H'kon changed his drawing finger from his first to his third. His hand moved slowly, growing sluggish in the cold and wet.

« If we had Thread, a bunch of this wouldn't matter. » It was petulant. The occasional whiff of sulphur over the link was enough for H'kon to know, clearly, his dragon's own source of melancholy, kept alive even after H'kon himself had abandoned his imaginings.

There is a lack of... urgency in the Weyr. Something that questionable pseudo-leadership and lacking tithes could not approximate, for all those had grown monstrous. Monstrous and slow and clumsy. At least now, the former had been dealt with. The latter... H'kon was not yet willing to rejoice and eat all the cookies he wished.

You don't suppose those cookies are getting wet?

Arekoth snorted again, though his nostrils were plenty dry enough this time. « You could throw those in a lake and they wouldn't get wet, the way she wrapped them. »

H'kon smiled more easily at that, even with the cold. Naelli took great care. The glow in his chest illuminated those darker concerns. He could feel the cold and damp erasing his smile.

« It's just a cough, Hal. »

I know. And this was not the time to think on this. She's gone old.

« Just like you. »

He interrupted his drawing to jab his middle finger into the dragon's leg. The waves lapped at the rocky shore, and the air grew colder. H'kon drew his legs in closer, hunched his shoulders, and stayed put.

It cannot be Glacier,

« Obviously. »

but there is something to that line of thought. Something he'd been trying not to think on, more to keep it from his own mind than Arekoth's. H'kon resumed the drawing with his middle finger. The path was well worn now, and water was running slowly to either side of it.

I do wonder if it would not be better, though, to go to one of the others. Not Taiga, not Boreal, upper, lower, but elsewhere. Snowdrift or Hailstorm would only cause problems, of this I am certain.

« I think you mean 'fun'. »

Iceberg... There was more to it. H'kon tried to put sentiment into words, uninterrupted by his dragon. No doubt it was Arekoth's curiosity kept him quiet.

« Upper, » Arekoth plucked again from his mind, satisfied.

Appointment in a Weyr is a strange thing.

« Deep. »

He barely heard the dragon. With the leadership so subject to change. "The Weyr is made for the Pass, mobility, flexibility, maintaining strength that may flag."

Arekoth stretched his wings, flexed his muscles. H'kon could feel it in his own shoulders, almost.

"And appointments of wingleader and 'second are set to last after the weyrleader who made them has been replaced, unless the new weyrleader should change it. Taikrin was no weyrleader, but Iceberg still holds the leadership she'd put in place. At least for now. If Sisha does not change it, she recognises it." Is that not so?

« Yeah, sure. Why not. » The dragon was flexing his talons. H'kon could feel the movement in the part of Arekoth's leg he touched.

H'kon grimaced. Does that then make it her authority that supports these leaders?

Arekoth's boredom was the more palpable in the resurgence of whiffs of firestone and old glory. H'kon took his hand from the dragon's leg to scrub at his face. The movement hinted at warmth, but only so far as to make the wet cool of the evening more obvious. He shivered.

Arekoth got to his feet, his one leg easing down more slowly as he tried to reclaim flexibility from the mist-turning-drizzle. « Come on, let's go do something. »

The Weyr is being given a chance to heal now. It needs to be whole. H'kon got to his feet as well, shoving his hand up under his jacket to try dry it on his shirt before working it back into its glove. I'm not certain that approaching Taiga would display any such intention. And Boreal... there are more problems even with that.

Arekoth crouched, and H'kon grabbed hold of his dragon's straps. The idea of K'tan still rankled him. Fayla... he knew so little of it all now. Koth, see if you can reach Bovinath.

When he'd buckled to the straps, Arekoth leapt to the air. It was wetter and colder, higher up, but it would be short-lived. And let us hope for stability on the next gold flight. We also need stability. Such as Avalanche was. The melancholy was at the back of his throat again. H'kon took one last look at the docks and rocky beach of Tillek below, and then forced it all away to focus on the spires of High Reaches. Warmth waited there. That, at least, was a certainty.