Logs:Fire Over Ice
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| RL Date: 17 January, 2016 |
| Who: Ka'ge, Zymadiath |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: An attempt at a brief reprieve lends to a long overdue moment. |
| Where: A road near Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 7, Month 11, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Partially overcast, autumn afternoon |
| Mentions: Draozu/Mentions, Iashun/Mentions, Y'tob/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, Paislie/Mentions, Dahlia/Mentions, N'rov/Mentions, Kh'tyr/Mentions |
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| « Stupid boy. » Ka'ge rode like a mad man down the wagon wheel-carven dirt roads as if chased by horrors. The giant gelding beneath him tears across open trails, less traveled than it should be in the tithe season. His ears are pinned back as he's spurred ever faster by both the rider who digs his heels into his sides, and the fear inspired by the massive dragon that skirts the tops of the trees above them. The runner's breaths are rapid, rhythmic and heavy, its draft-bred hooves slamming into the dirt beneath them and splashing into puddles to send water high enough to dampen the face of his rider. Above, Zymadiath soars with the languity of a shadow, blotting out the light that would have otherwise descended to bathe the ancient trader route. His efforts linger on the edge of boredom in comparison to the runner, for what beast of burden could ever outrun a dragon? Get out of my head. "Yah!" Ka'ge yells through clipped teeth. But panicked runner can run no faster, and skids to a jostling, gut-wrenching halt to slam the boy over the front of the saddle and then backwards as he rears up to strike his hooves through the air. Tempered steps drive boy and runner in a confused, stubborn and dusty circle as bronzerider reins him harder. But before Ka'ge can pull Bane back onto the roads, the snapping of thinner branches directly in his path lend to the arrival of Zymadiath. Practiced, folded wings allow him an only slightly harsh landing in the narrow space. But he has no intention of making it a gentle arrival; predatory, wolfish, his lips curl to bare too-white teeth against the dark mask of his face. A roar is not restrained, those wherries not already upset from their roosts, now erupting from trees nearby and filling the skies with their exodus. Bane bucks again, this time more violently, throwing Ka'ge from his back and fleeing some numerous dragonlengths away. Well out of reach, with fear-laden whinnies and snorts of disapproval fading off into the distance with him. The wind stolen from his lungs from his eighteen or so hand high fall, Ka'ge gasps airlessly from the ground, eventually finding the ability to cough. It's a struggle before he rolls onto an elbow, picking up a rock and throwing it at the bronze, a look of fury wrinkling his face. The pebble- easily nothing more than that in the face of his giant night-touched paw, strikes a talon with all the weight of a feather, bouncing off and rolling some feet away. Zymadiath watches it with a tilt of his head, then levels that faceted eye on his rider. There's a chortle of sorts, echoed in his mind with the trembling of the smokey edges of his night in the semblance of an unamused chuckle. « Stupid boy.» The gravelly mindvoice repeats as dragon encroaches, so low, a harsh whisper spoken around a corner in the dark of an abandoned room, « You cannot run from yourself as much as you cannot run from me. » Why did you even bother? Comes before he finds his voice, irritation granted in both avenues, "Go back. Go watch the Weyr. You know I'll be back..." He groans, shifting, "You know I can't leave." « Your bitterness fills you. » "You should talk." But it was no less true. Ka'ge, in so many ways, burned. His chest felt a'flame, his breaths tight and not just from his close encounter with a hard ground. « It is okay to care. » It's oddly gentle, this, from the bodiless mouths of nightmares, watched from the eyeless white sockets of figments not-really-there. Ka'ge, silent, stares upwards at the partially cloudy sky. Too little too late. « Get up. » Not a suggestion. Zymadiath's blackened muzzle is shoved against his stomach, hot gusts of air from his flared nostrils pouring over him. As Ka'ge defensively puts his hands up around the bronze's nose when it comes into contact with him, there's a moment. Of realization. Of revelation. Of awe. After all this time, nearly two turns since Impression, he'd never once just stared at his dragon. From the day he was shelled and they were both struck down, desires for revenge, justice, and the constant distraction of his purpose clouded his vision. Zymadiath had been a means to an end, and nothing more. Ka'ge curls his fingers around the contours of his muzzle and the bronze pulls back just enough to lift the boy to his feet. The rough leather of his gloves scratches over the hide and ridges 'round Zymadiath's nose in slow, intentional strokes of his thumb. They stand there, caught in their moment, the boy listening to the breaths of his dragon, funneled heatedly into his chest. The touch, a catalyst, as shadows- both teen and dragon- fall deeper. There's the memory of the bronze as a hatchling, so small and ichor-stained, laying on his blood-soaked chest while he seethed, giving birth to bitterness in the same breath as Ka'ge prided himself in achieving someone else's goal. There's the memory of the young bronze's shock and utter rage following the losses of Eliyaveith and Uiysath, which brought his rider like a shockwave to his knees, leaving Ka'ge frustrated, angry with the bronze himself. He wouldn't fall to Zymadiath's weaknesses, pushing him away, becoming even more distanced from the single soul that could understand him. Then there's the memory of Zymadiath's desperation as Fort's plagued skies sung in morbid keening that fell steadily in volume as voice after voice was forever lost Between. And Ka'ge looked only to the Holds and his Master, so wrapped up in his politics and the opportunities that laid in everyone else's despair. « Burdens. » The shadows collect around him, not quite so suffocating, but dense, encapsulating. They seek nothing, not even the guilt for which those memories should evoke. « Are by nature difficult to bare. She has made you feel. And it makes you stronger. » Stronger? It's less painful to train with Iashun than visit her. « Yet, you see it. » Ka'ge looks up from the blackened bronze hide to the seemingly back-lit faceted orbs of the dragon's eyes. But the gaze falters and he looks away. Sure, he saw it. From a husk of a boy who only followed orders to claim power, to one now who could see the potential for fire in place of ice. As much a weakness as a strength. A tightrope like the one he walked since birth. Zymadiath pulls his face back, drawing it upwards in that proud, eerie manner he claims. He spreads his wings back behind himself, an intimidating gesture, a demonstration of his strength and a reminder of the sheer smallness of the rider before him. « You have always served things larger than yourself. Wanting to deal in the wastes no one else wishes to smell. » More silence, words unneeded, Zymadiath means not just his Draozu. Mograith's, Vhaeryth's, the images within the darkness swirl, vague, hazy, brief. All the spying, the manipulation, even the bloodier... Would he not do the same for them? Perhaps he would, with his dirty hands. The Weyr had always been part of the bigger picture, colored by acidic bitterness, a toxic filter born into him by his upbringing. He had risked everything for Dahlia, his neck saved by luck alone. The same noose didn't hang there as it once did. Yet still, the sinking feeling lingers in the pit of his stomach, and his hands fall to his sides. For the first time, he was not just looking at a bronze dragon, but seeing Zymadiath. Not just hearing him, but listening. But we are alone. « We will always be alone. » For what else is there in the dark? What liars keep comfortable company? « But you need not be lonely. » |
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