Difference between revisions of "Logs:Forgetting Big Foot"

Vrianth was asleep, she was pretty sure. It had already been hard to stay awake, and now it was even harder. She had a sense of dreams, of firelight and wings without wherries and Milani's mother's bathtub moving slowly amongst the stars, but beyond it the world was grayer. On the other hand, that could just have been because it was dark.

Leova found that she was laughing, so she tried to do it more quietly. She even made it out of her cot without disturbing Vrianth. Almost. The young dragon's regular breathing hiccuped, and she stretched out that long neck and even longer tail before relaxing back into sleep again. It was enough, though, that Leova stopped to tuck a layer of furs beneath green hide where it pressed against the edge of the cot. And then she kept going, because if she didn't she wouldn't.

Leova laughed again. And then she shivered for the first time, walking barefoot in her nightshirt along the cold stone between the dragons' couches. They sprawled out so far these days, it was hard to find a clear place to walk. But she did it, didn't trip on a one, and found it somehow strange that she could navigate by whose snores were whose.

Out she went, and there were the stars. No bathtub, for which she was dimly grateful. So she leaned there against the cold rock, just outside the barracks, and tried to think while the ceaseless shivers kept her awake.

She tried to remember.

Particular people. Not groups, like the other stablehands at Tillek. Not from any longer ago either. Just a couple, just enough to try and figure it out.

Jasvie. She could see the dairymaid's upturned nose now, the laugh in her eyes, the mental image frayed and faded but there. So she thought about Jasvie some more. About the way they had first met in Tillek's courtyard, barely an exchange of smiles and not exciting by itself, memorable only because Leova chose to remember. That morning: meeting her first real friend at the Hold, and not having known it at the time. Which was why Leova would pull the memory up at night, even now. Making sure she didn't forget.

Jasvie. The way she ate her meatrolls from both ends until she got to the middle. Her jokes about what you could do with a fresh bucket of milk. The way she told Sven to go home that night, when it was Jasvie's Turnday they were celebrating but it was Leova who was heaving her guts off the side of the dock. The way Jasvie wrote letters, not as often these days but regular. Last month's letter had a little piece of red ribbon in it from fixing up her grandmother's dress, the dress that she would wear when she married Sven in the spring.

And the more she thought about Jasvie, the more one memory would lead to the next, and the sharper the different Jasvies would get. Some with braids, some with a ponytail, some with her hair loose, almost all of them laughing.

So next, after a little while but not too long because it really was cold, Leova thought about Milani.

It took just the space between shivers to call up the girl's face, the strawberry blonde hair and the way she walked in a crowd. More laughing there too and talking, talking, talking. About what Leova had expected, but she enjoyed it an extra moment anyway.

But there was one left, and she didn't have much time, she could feel it. Could feel herself getting colder and colder, the shivers closer and closer together. But this was maybe the most important.

And she could almost do it. Or she could, but she couldn't hold it.

Chestnut hide, that had once been more familiar to her than her own hair. Big, feathered hooves. Placid brown eyes that could roll with equine excitement as well as enjoy a sunny meadow. The tilt of tufted ears.

Big Foot's rich brown coat would catch the sunlight and gleam from the currying she so loved, but then it would become darker and greener under glowlight and then smoother and greener yet, a remarkable olive shade like nothing she had ever known.

And when she called back Big Foot's brown neck and moved to touch it, in her memory, her fingertips would graze through the thick strong hairs of the mare's mane to the warm sweatiness beneath, and she could breathe in the smell of clean contented runner and fresh hay, fresh straw, freshly oiled tack. But only the leather would stay the same, because now she was touching neck ridges instead of mane, was inhaling the subtle spice of dragon. Her dragon. Her Vrianth.

She couldn't hold it even that long, the nights she tried in her warm cot with her warm furs and her warm dragon in her head, and it seemed that this way she couldn't either. Jasvie, the others, yes. She could keep them. But not this. And she knew why.

But cold though she was, she couldn't find it in her to mind.