Who Jet, Kyramith
What One Impression is not like another.
When Turn 2711
Where Weyrling Barracks, Fort Weyr

Fort Weyr - Weyrling Barracks
The rounded ceiling of this set of barracks is high enough to accomodate growing dragons. Lining the walls lengthwise are sets of stone couches and cots for their riders. At one end of the room are cabinets holding supplies for bathing and oiling young dragons, as well as the weyrling manuals. Against the opposite wall is a table with scraps of leather and leather-working tools. Tacked up on the wall is a diagram of riding straps.


She was trying not to think about it.

Truthfully, there were too many things Jet was trying not to think about.

« Why concern yourself? There are risks in battle and in venturing into the unknown. To meet them is to understand that risk. » Kyramith sat curled on her couch, watchful and alert, all four paws pressed to stone in-case she should need to move fast.

The young green did not even look at her as she spoke.

Jet could not say that it hurt, but it made her angry to see other new weyrlings hugging their dragons and doting on them, while hers hardly seemed to notice her, at times. Questioning the weyrlingmasters about it was not to be done. She was not going to ask if there was something wrong with her dragon, though she was growing more sure of it by the day. Did Kyramith even see in colour? She only ever shared with her in blacks and whites and greys, and even when she slept and she went poking around in her new lifemate’s mind, she found not a single speck of anything else. Did dragons see in colour? Maybe it was normal. Maybe it wasn’t. She was not going to make a huge deal out of something that could be nothing.

If not for him, I might not have stayed. I might not have been there for you to choose me.

« Casualties must be accepted. »

He is not a casualty!

The change was immediate, from ice to fire, a heat more searing than that of the forges ripping through her mind. Jet clutched at her head and doubled over, yet refused to give in or cry out, enduring what she had created or summoned in silence.

It was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

« You are mine. » Simple. Direct. No affection. No adoration, that all the Harpers wrote about. No nothing.

Well, that was just fine. She didn’t need to be loved or adored or cared for. She had been raised without those things and taught not to expect them, and even so, she had made mistakes. Just as she had started to think that she could maybe, perhaps, possibly begin to trust herself to consider that she might love another, he had been stolen away. And she had been stolen away by a cold, unfeeling and distant creature who refused to understand how she felt about… anything.

She didn’t need to be loved. She didn’t.

…She wanted to be. Quietly and desperately, she wanted someone to love her for who she was. And not even her dragon could manage it.

Abruptly, Kyramith uncurled herself and stepped down from her couch, to shove her nose beneath Jet’s cot and draw out something between her teeth. Whatever it was, she sat there before her, the object still clasped between sharp points.

It looked like the hilt of a sword, most of the blade snapped off, leaving a jagged edge.

…Where did you get that?

« That does not matter. You are going to fix it for me. »

A broken dragon and a broken sword, to go with the heart that had been broken before she’d left childhood behind.

How fitting.


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