dead in the rock

[S'ris]

Urmath clung to one of the largest rock tiers, reserved for dragons of his girth and color, with his neck arcing down towards the hot sands and the men standing in the shadows. His eyes were whirling a gentle blue-green. His tail draped lazily off the corner of his shelf.

The sun had shifted from midday, leaving the clutch, but the sands were still baking hot, and if he had dared touch them S'ris could have scalded his hand on the surface of those eggs. He could feel the heat of the sand through his wherhide boots. The shadows' cast turned the eggs into ominous, lengthening points, and the Weyrleader stood in the shadow of the great golden egg with his arms crossed. Regarding it. Dwarfed by it. His mind and emotions were abuzz, reflected in the continual twitch of Urmath's tail.

The time was soon.

The eggs were still quiet, as their occupants grew, and how many truly grew he didn't know. That more than anything unsettled him. He had seen over a dozen hatchings now with dragonets dead in the rock. His dragonets. The conglomeration of his work, Hydaja's and Soforith's suffering, Urmath's hot-blooded willingness to fly faster, fly higher, fly stronger. Dead in the shell. The first few hatchings, they had cut the eggs open in desperation, only to find corpses. Some were intact but dead, some were grotesquely half-formed, and some were merely capsules of the yolky, primordial slime that should have been a dragon. Abominations that were more than a lack of color, abominations that cut to the heart and soul of every rider who shared the devastating loss to the Weyr.

Urmath crooned in sympathy, a sound that was half-moan, lost in the vastness of the hatching grounds.

S'ris gritted his teeth again the bile that nearly rose in his throat, and suppressed the urge once more to reach out and run his knuckles gently over the queen egg. That gold hue was dusky now and almost undistinguishable from the rest of the clutch. But that was hope, there. That was thirty years of hope.

"H'lain," he said absently. "I forget, do you have any sons standing this time?"

[H'lain]

Standing on the hatching sands should have filled him with excitement and hope. It did, truly; somewhere in those eggs were the future of the Weyr, like there had been at every clutch. But it filled him with dread too, knowing that some of these eggs would not hatch. Some of them would be monsters, deranged from birth, and some would simply go between and not return. H'lain stood abreast of S'ris in the blue shadow weighing down the sand, watching it, watching the Weyrleader. Somewhere above them, Urmath wailed, and H'lain's brows furrowed.

Suleth clambered along the hewn stone to the great Bronze ahead of him, head low and emitting a gurgling chuff. Investigating, consoling, before planting his heavy body squarely beside Urmath's to observe with him.

"None that I know of," said H'lain, voice thick and low as if he was just waking. They'd been standing on the sands in silence for a long while, and rust had crept into his throat. His eyes settled on S'ris, taking in the details of his face. Aged, weary, worried. H'lain extended his arm to place a heavy palm on S'ris' shoulder. "You know that, too. Why, worried I've sired a usurper?"

H'lain's laugh was warm and soft, proving that he only intended to alleviate some of the pressure on S'ris' mind. This clutch was likely Soforith's last, and by extension, would likely be S'ris and Urmath's last. Hydaja and Soforith were struggling as more and more eggs hatched into terrors, or didn't hatch at all -- everyone felt that grief, even H'lain, who often did his best to brush it off with optimism. S'ris was hurting, brooding, and H'lain's wry smile fell again to a look of sympathy.

"We don't have to stay here, if it worries you too much." He looked again at the great, pale-gold egg looming over them, and all the others past it. Waves of heat rose off of them and shimmered skyward. "There are others to tend the clutch."

[S'ris]

Suleth joined Urmath on the great shelves, murmuring his soft comfort to the lot of them. S'ris felt it through Urmath: a warmth tempered with sorrow.

His Wingsecond sounded tired. S'ris couldn't blame him; his own nights had been sleepless and full of intrusions, and thoughts of what might be and what could not be. What he could not allow--and what was completely and utterly out of his hands, lying instead in these shells, secreted out of his control.

H'lain put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and S'ris let himself be comforted. He had to resist letting his head roll sideways to rest his cheek on that hand. Tired. He was just so tired.

Let the hatching come. Let it be over. Let it be a triumph.

"I always wonder," he said, letting his voice be humorous, if ragged. "Though if Vitella is as fertile as her damn queen, neither of us have anything to worry about." The words 'damn queen' would have been absolute blasphemy if he was referring to anyone other than vicious Cath. He still remembered the nausea of watching Uisbeth's staggering landing, the ichor pouring down his face, his jaws gaping in a mute screech, and S'hyd screaming for him in the Weyr, cupping his own eyes as if they had also been ripped from their sockets. Meanwhile she had soared, a gleaming vision, crowing her victory, practically cackling at her raked and brutalized suitors. It was a tribute to H'lain's will and Suleth's skill that they had kept her in check, and satiated. That damn queen.

"Better your usurper than another," said S'ris, still joking, but at once, deadly serious. He knew other riders had been more involved in their sons than he would have liked. The tradition of communal child raising was fading along with other traditions Fortunately, the girl who would Impress the queen (should she hatch) would come from outside of the Weyr, so he had no potential rivals there. No--the real rival would come when the queen rose, and a younger, stronger dragon rose to catch her. Just who that would be was up to chance. Well, chance, and to a certain extent, the preferences of girl and dragon. Bitterly he thought that time was it could have been Uisbeth. The Bronze was distastefully pied, but he was in his prime. And yet he was useless. Crippled. And largely there went S'ris's hope of a son carrying on his legacy and maintaining the steady rule he had instituted.

H'lain suggested kindly that they go, and S'ris almost smiled. "I may be a fading ghost of a Weyrleader," he said drily, echoing the whispers of many. "But I'll do my duty. And you'll do yours, Wingsecond. Even after thirty years it's not too late to replace you." Even as he spoke, he reached up to grip H'lain's shoulder warmly, and they stood together in silent contemplation of the many hopes that lay before them.