After the flight

Sidran paced in what passed for her office, Teagan and Eniseth back, Aliseth curled up asleep after her flight, Gaveth seeing no problem at all with anything that had happened.

Maraxith still out of the Weyr, Yllaveth too. It snagged her thoughts, but wasn't why she paced.

Aliseth had attacked and banished the bronzes and browns (and blues, if she heard correctly), refused to be chased by them. She had planned on making Jah'vi a Wingleader already, but now...

Bloody shards. It was already uneasy, between Eastern and White Lightening. Stress and short rations and grief and betrayal, and now no safe ground in even in a queenflight...

Scores and ruin, she thought, and paced some more.

Yllaveth backwinged to land lightly on her own ledge. Br'son let out an exhalation of commingled pleasure and anxiety. Sidran was back. Gaveth waited on his ledge. The Weyrsenior thought briefly of avoiding her altogether and simply seeking a bath and his bed...

but he couldn't. Too much had happened. Whatever else she was, Sidran was still his Weyrleader, and he owed it to her to be up front and honest. The Weyr needed them to be a team. So Br'son squared his shoulders, slid down from Yllaveth's neck and walked up the narrow ramp from his Weyr to Sidran's.

"Weyrleader?" he called out, cursing as his voice broke a tiny bit out of nerves. "May I come in? I thought we might talk about... today," he finished, sounding weak.

Sidran stilled, her head swiveling toward the entrance. Br'son sounded unsure, and surely not about the flight.

So. Maraxith gone, Yllaveth gone. She allowed herself a full-bodied eye roll, then smoothed every expression. "Since when do you stand on formality, Weyrsenior?" A slight twist to the last word, not teasing or mocking, just...a bit more than questioning.

Br'son walked in, shrugging. She was right, he shouldn't be so formal. That looked suspicious, and it wasn't as if he'd done anything wrong.

Had he? He and Sidran were not wed, as Holders wed. Monogamy on that scale was impossible for dragonriders. But there had been some... something, hadn't there?

He didn't know.

"I need a bloody drink," he groused, unaware that he did so out loud until he heard the words come out of his mouth.

She studied him for a moment, then shrugged. "You know where it is. Pour me one?" She had a feeling she'd need one, for whatever...this was.

For a moment, she remembered how young he was, but then dismissed it. They all were, comparatively, but once you became a rider, finished training.

Well. None of them were children, were they? Choose and live with choices. If only Casriel weren't so bloody hard to work with, stubborn wretch.

"Of course," Br'son said, giving her a little smile. He shrugged out of his flying jacket and draped it over a nearby chair, then headed to the small cabinet that held Sidran's growing supply of liquor. He poured them both a glass of something from the still, and then turned back and handed hers to her.

"Sidran," he said softly, sitting down opposite her. "I might owe you an apology. If I did, then I am truly sorry. If I don't, then I'm truly sorry for making an arse out of myself right now."

She debated saying it for him, ran her free hand through her hair and shook it back, then spoke. "Did you send me with Teagan on purpose, so you could sleep with her?" She cocked her head, no judgement in her tone, an honest question.

Confusion flooded his expression, then indignation. "No. Faranth! No! I just... I needed to get Teagan safe. I didn't couldn't risk Eniseth going up, too, and Teagan is so young... You were the one I trusted most, I guess. Ashrah was handling the other weyrlings and I... well. I had to help E'zen, but I had to leave too and..."

He broke off as the words all tried to tumble out on top of one another. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, took another drink and then opened his eyes.

"No, Sidran. What happened was purely unplanned, and mostly a product of flight lust, I believe."

Sidran sipped her drink, considering that not entirely likely. "You know she is sand in my riding leathers, and this won't help." Lifting a shoulder in a rather elegant half shrug, she added before he had a chance to answer, "Nevertheless, you don't owe me anything. We never said differently, and so it is. Speaking of things that won't help, Aliseth attacked J'ril's brown, of all the luck."

If she were hurt, she'd never show it; not unless it served some sort of purpose. And while she didn't know how she'd react if Casriel decided to be smug about this, she had other things to worry about at the moment.

Br'son nodded, and gratefully seized upon her offered subject change. Although he couldn't get rid of the sick feeling that he'd just allowed something wonderful to be lost. Hoping that he was wrong, he turned his mind to the problem of Aliseth's flight.

"That's unfortunate," he said. "Was Treyath badly hurt?"

She made a face briefly and sat back in her chair, folding a leg under her. "Not seriously - he won't need to be grounded, but I'm sure if you ask J'ril he'll have a different opinion."

A brief sigh and another sip, and Sidran added, "Bad enough if there's only one queen they can chase, and nevermind a brown has no business in a queenflight when we desperately need as many dragons as possible, this is only going to make the...faction, it might as well be, of traditionalists worse."

Br'son gave another sigh. "I'll speak with E'zen tomorrow. I can't imagine that the shadows can't mate with the traditional colored males. I'm curious to know why Aliseth won't... And if it's a permanent prohibition, or was just for this flight?" He took another drink.

"How's Teagan?" he asked.

Sidran smiled at that, briefly. "Teagan is Teagan. I don't think she really believes me that having Eniseth rise while her rider is still so young is not going to work - I'll leave the follow up conversations to you. I thought she'd be at least fourteen before we'd have to worry about it, but the shadows are..." Another pause, a slightly longer, rueful smile. "Queens. They'll do what they want, I suppose."

Br'son felt a stab of guilt at her words, and a pained expression crossed his face. He tried to cover it with another drink, but he was pretty certain she noticed. Well enough, maybe she deserved it.

Then a thought occured to him.

"You know, you're right. Queens do do what they want to do. Maybe... If we can keep Eniseth from rising too soon, which is wh at we're all after anyway, maybe we've got time. Maybe we can convince Teagan to befriend one of the bronzes... Z'ash, for instance. He's young, too. Cas... Ah... Well, I've heard a theory that makes a lot of sense. It's possible that only a bronze can sire a Titan queen. Yllaveth was bronze-sired, you remember. The shadows are an asset, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of losing the large clutch producers."

Her eyebrows lifted - not for his expression, which was a thing - but for the last. "How do you know they're not large clutch producers? And any beastcrafter will tell you not to pin assumed truths on one case, exceptional as Yllaveth might be." Besides, she was positive it didn't mean Casriel would ground Maraxith for Yllaveth's next flight, nor did she have any intention of trying to have that conversation with Gaveth.

"Either way, having Z'ash and Teagan make friends is an excellent idea, and should be easy enough knowing Teagan. I have my wings set up, and of course Jah'vi is a Wingleader. We'll be best off naming him Weyrsecond as well. I was leaning that way, but thought we might have time to let the wings fly..." Her smile quirked briefly and she put her glass aside. "And we don't."

Br'son bit his lip, appalled at his slip, and then shrugged. Firene was gone. He'd given his word, but what good would discretion do a dead woman?

"Firene told me," he said. "She came here, minutes before Yllaveth's clutch hatched. She looked awful, haggard and confused. I think... I think she'd been timing it, if you've ever heard those old stories. Anyway, she left me a note that said that the gold queens were about to all die off, and that for that reason I must not allow the shadow dragons to chew firestone. She called them mini-queens, said that they'd produce smaller clutches, but rise about twice as often as golds or titans. She told me... she swore me to secrecy. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

He let out a sigh, and then straightened his shoulders a bit. It actually felt good to share this horrible secret with someone.

Sidran held very, very still. Firene, traveling in time, like a harpertale. Why risk it? How long had she been, to know about the shadows, to go back -

That couldn't possibly have been her only stop, to warn them to prepare their shadows. Could it? Firene never did anything for only one reason, and - her stomach lurched. Had Firene always known? Gone back and told herself, about the illness, about the new colors? Made the new colors, on purpose, with her lover?

Not mistakes. Not spontaneous mutations. However, whatever had happened, Sidran knew now that Firene had had a part to play. And so did they all, and now she knew it was a purpose.

She almost smiled. "Bloody woman. I wonder what else she knows. Knew." Leaning over, she touched his knee briefly. "No need to apologize on this, Br'son," she clearly meant it, "Firene...well. Weyrwoman, and Weyrsenior, privilege. I don't think I could have told you, either."

Gratitude flooded through him, at her understanding... at her touch. Maybe, after all, all was not lost between them.

"I should have, though, I think," he said. "I hated having secrets between us. I feel that... well. It's better when we... don't."

And that made him think of Casriel again, which made him blush. Again. Blast it all. Something else. He had to talk about something else.

"So... a meeting tomorrow, then? The full council? You can announce your wings publicly, and your 'second, and I'll confirm mine. We may as well officially recognize T'kal as our Weyrsinger and Brielody as our Candidatemaster, too, don't you think? We'll need her soon enough."

She nodded, not bothering to hold back her smile. Trust, and less secrets, and blast Casriel for making it more complicated, but she liked her Weyrsenior. Quite a bit.

And his quick thinking on a council was part of why. "Yes. Align us all as best we can to address the tension." Infuriating, that it would be worse - even if Aliseth had been caught by a brown or bronze, it would hardly have made the stubborn-minded any more willing to come together. If losing all but a bare wingful of their kind hadn't done so, a maiden flight had no chance.

But it certainly had done the very opposite of help, instead.

"Good, we'll do that then. I'll have Yllaveth inform everyone to meet at midmorning in the council room," he said. And with that, there was suddenly nothing left to say.

Nothing that would help, anyway.

So Br'son got to his feet and finished the rest of his drink. "Thank you for the drink," he said. "And the talk. I..." He trailed off, then shrugged. "I will see you tomorrow."

And with that, he turned and started toward the ledge.

She was always so considered, Sidran. So much of what she did was reasoned, thought out, often calculated.

But Firene's revelation was on her mind, and it was something she couldn't possibly have planned for. And the flight. And the tenor of her young Weyrsenior's posture.

She was up before she thought it through, and reached for his hand, brushing her thumbs over his knuckles. "This will work, Br'son." The council. Them. Either or both. "I trust you."

Br'son met her eyes, closed his hand around hers.

A moment, a long one, during which all he wanted to do was kiss her. How could he want that, when he'd so recently come from the arms of another?

Eventually, he settled for lifting her hand, and brushing her knuckles across his lips in return. "Thank you," he breathed across the surface of her skin.

Then he let her hand drop and fled.