[FR] Different Ways, Worlds Apart
Title: Different Ways, Worlds Apart
Fandom: Flight Rising
Length: 1644 words
Rating: Teen
Summary: When Forestfire's nest-mate runs off, leaving him to care for their hatchlings, the clan's co-chief tries to put things back in order. But the leader of the mirror pack, Thorne, has her own ideas about what's right.
“She left,” Lastlight snarled, her orange, eye-spotted wings trembling, her muscular body quivering with barely contained fury. “She just-left!”
“There aren’t any rules about when and how dragons can leave the clan,” Sirei said carefully, trying to find the finicky balance between gentleness, which the four mirror dragons before her might take as weakness, and firmness, which might turn their anger and aggression against her instead. Inwardly she cursed the fae dragon who was the focus of Lastlight’s outrage, consigning her to the most pestilential front in the Gladekeeper’s eternal war. “She did at least wait until the eggs had hatched-”
“She barely waited until the shells had stopped falling! And then she was gone, just like that, without even a word to him!” Lastlight snorted, a sound like a choking, rasping cough. Turning to her brother, who was sitting hunkered down on the ground, rock still in contrast to her tense agitation, she growled, “I know I used to twist your tail by making all kinds of terrible suggestions for mates-but literally any one of ’em would have been better than that flittering maggot! What were you even thinking-”
“Are you blaming me for this?” Forestfire snapped back, jerking upright in immediate reaction, his wings mantling. His voice rose swiftly to a shout. “Are you sayin’ that I screwed things up, huh?”
“I just want to know why,” Lastlight yelled back. “You always said you were waiting for the right one to come along, yeah? Why her?”
Forestfire hesitated, and when he spoke the belligerence had drained out of him, leaving him oddly abashed. “The way she’d ask me stuff, and listen to everything I said, like it was interesting...ain’t never had anyone find me interesting like that before,” he muttered. “I thought...aaaagh.”
The other mirrors all looked studiously away from him, as if pretending not to notice his discomfiture. Sirei felt sorry for the young male-but still she couldn’t help preferring the awkward silence to all the screaming and ranting that had been going on before. She made a cautious attempt at moving forward. “Since Kila’s gone, that means that you have sole responsibility for the hatchlings.” She paused, uncertain, then prompted him, “Do you want to exalt them?”
“Exalt ’em just ’cause their mother slagged off?” he grumbled querulously, slumping back down onto his haunches. “That don’t seem right.”
“If not, then you’ll need to care for them.” Sirei measured his reactions-the hunching of his shoulders, the closing of his wings, the way he ducked his head-and was unsurprised, although somewhat disappointed. He was, indeed, so very young.
“I ain’t ready for this,” he mumbled, and Sirei sighed.
“Well, if you’re not-”
“I said I ain’t ready! I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna do it!” On his feet again, he bared his fangs like a snake, his sinuous tail lashing. “They’re my boys. And I’m gonna take care of them, all right?”
Sirei glanced toward the caves where Seraphinx was watching over the hatchlings. His boys, he said, but would be truly treat them both as such? Even the one who had been born fae, like their mother?
“We’ll help you out,” put in Arcus, who had been quiet until then. The other mirror male grinned amiably. “We’ve got two of our own right now; we’ll just pile ’em all up together, yeah?”
“Not much to taking care of wrigglers.” Those laconic words came from Arcus’s mate Thorne, the mirrors’ leader, who after an initial eruption of wrath that had outblazed even Lastlight’s anger had also gone silent, almost unnervingly so. She shrugged, green tiger stripes rippling with the movement. “Keep ’em clean, keep ’em warm, keep ’em fed, and keep ’em from doing stupid shit that’ll get ’emselves killed. ’S all.”
A mother herself, Sirei thought that Thorne was vastly understating the difficulty. Then again-mirrors. And at the very least her casualness had reassured Forestfire, who was looking much less traumatized.
“You’ll have other help too, of course,” Sirei added. “Seraphinx, and Flowerbat....” She paused, drawn up short as she found the mirrors all staring at her, their alien four-eyed faces blank with incomprehension or perhaps disbelief. “The whole clan helps, however they can,” she went on, carefully but with conviction. “That’s how the clan works.” Forestfire faltered over this, then gave an awkward little bob of his head.
“Huh,” was Thorne’s only comment. She scratched lackadaisically at the base of one crest.
“Why don’t you go and spend some time with the babies now?” Sirei told Forestfire, with a sense of relief that the situation seemed to be resolved, at least for the moment. “You can get to know each other, and Seraphinx can talk to you about taking care of them.”
“Yeah, okay!” Forestfire flashed his more accustomed insouciant grin at her, and then bounded off toward the caves. Arcus and Lastlight went loping after him-curious to see the hatchlings too, Sirei supposed, or maybe it was a pack thing.
“What about her?” Sirei glanced back at Thorne, who had remained seated. Her voice was low, but there was a feral intensity in it that sent a prickle of wariness down Sirei’s spine.”
“Kilaialeia’s gone,” she repeated. “There’s nothing to be done about her.” With a shrug, she added, “Wind dragons are like that, you know, blowing in and out at whim. I’m not saying she wasn’t wrong, of course, but-”
Thorne’s mouth curled up in a fang-baring sneer. “She took our food, our training, got all up in everyone’s business with all her egg-rotting questions, dumped her get on us and kited outta here, and that’s all you’ve got to say-‘oh well, too bad, she’s gone now’?”
“What do you want me to say, Thorne?” Sirei lifted her head to stare down at the other dragon from her full height. It was just the two of them now, and she was the co-chief, second in the clan. She had her own pride-of-place to defend. “If she’d done something criminal or damaged the honor of our clan, then yes, we’d pursue the matter. But this is just...unfortunate.” Turning away, she sighed. “Forestfire got his heart broken, but he’s young, and resilient, and he’ll find a real mate someday, a dragon who’ll appreciate him. And...I think he’ll be a good father.” She smiled at the memory of his determination, and of his eager, enthusiastic grin as he’d headed for the hatchling caves. “It’ll all work out.”
“Well,” Thorne said after a brief pause, “so I guess it’s all sorted out then, huh.” Glancing back at the other dragon, Sirei saw her rise to her feet and stretch long and, somehow, dismissively. “I’mma go see my newest pack-kin,” she drawled, and trotted off, tail switching idly-and Sirei wondered why that apparent casualness caused unease to stir in her once more.
* * * * *
“I cleaned up your mess.”
Thorne clapped her wings shut and shot a glance over her shoulder at the black dragon who had appeared behind her. How an imperial could move through the overgrown forest so silently, she had no idea.
“Dunno what you’re saying,” she remarked, deliberately relaxing her wings and returning her attention to grooming between her front toes.
The rustling as he moved closer could have been nothing more than the whispering breeze, but now that she knew he was there, she could feel his presence like a tightness between her shoulder blades. She was too old a hunter not to have a danger sense, and it was weighing on her now.
Smooth as water, dark as shadow.
Cold as ice.
“Staked to the Gladekeeper’s tree is a little blatant, don’t you think? Some dragons might be horrified, or at the very least offended.” She said nothing, and he continued, “Not to mention the possibility that you might anger the Gladekeeper herself.”
“That’s sayin’ I did something that’d make her angry,” Thorne replied blandly. “I ain’t done nothing like that.”
“Hmm.” Glancing back again, she caught the gleam of white as he smiled toothily. “She does appreciate good compost material.” Taking on a more businesslike tone, although that sly good humor still lingered, lacing his words, he went on, “That said, if you have a similar need in the future, please come and see me. While I appreciate your skills, if it’s anything to do with the tree, that kind of work calls for a professional.” His grin widened even as its amusement darkened. “Unfortunately, you’re not exactly qualified.”
Not like she’d had any intention of exalting that little insect. That was way too good for the likes of her. Though she supposed that if Seishirou had wanted to do it, then that was all right. Be a shame to waste stuff.
Maybe he took her silence for agreement, because she felt the shift in the air as he turned to go. Curiosity pricked at her, overcoming caution. “Hey.” She gave him a look, sidelong and casual, and beneath that, calculating. “How’d you know?”
His brows raised. “How could I not know?” As she chewed on that not-answer, he bent his long neck, his head dipping in a bow that might or might not be mocking before he slipped away into the shadows. They seemed to hide him damnably fast, but she flicked her gaze to heat-sight, and there he was, bright-limned as he moved between the trees, just like any other creature.
Not ice after all. She snorted, dismissing her unease.
Still. She’d seen a lot of dragons, and she feared no dragon. But this dragon-
This one, she’d walk careful of.
Despite that, she couldn’t help the thought that came, and her mouth bent up into a predatory, speculative grin.
Just imagine what kind of hatchies she could make with that dangerous bastard.
Alas, when Seishirou and Thorne do eventually get together for a one-off nesting, the result is this:
Go on; click on him.
(You can find pictures of all the dragons at my lair.)
Fandom: Flight Rising
Length: 1644 words
Rating: Teen
Summary: When Forestfire's nest-mate runs off, leaving him to care for their hatchlings, the clan's co-chief tries to put things back in order. But the leader of the mirror pack, Thorne, has her own ideas about what's right.
“She left,” Lastlight snarled, her orange, eye-spotted wings trembling, her muscular body quivering with barely contained fury. “She just-left!”
“There aren’t any rules about when and how dragons can leave the clan,” Sirei said carefully, trying to find the finicky balance between gentleness, which the four mirror dragons before her might take as weakness, and firmness, which might turn their anger and aggression against her instead. Inwardly she cursed the fae dragon who was the focus of Lastlight’s outrage, consigning her to the most pestilential front in the Gladekeeper’s eternal war. “She did at least wait until the eggs had hatched-”
“She barely waited until the shells had stopped falling! And then she was gone, just like that, without even a word to him!” Lastlight snorted, a sound like a choking, rasping cough. Turning to her brother, who was sitting hunkered down on the ground, rock still in contrast to her tense agitation, she growled, “I know I used to twist your tail by making all kinds of terrible suggestions for mates-but literally any one of ’em would have been better than that flittering maggot! What were you even thinking-”
“Are you blaming me for this?” Forestfire snapped back, jerking upright in immediate reaction, his wings mantling. His voice rose swiftly to a shout. “Are you sayin’ that I screwed things up, huh?”
“I just want to know why,” Lastlight yelled back. “You always said you were waiting for the right one to come along, yeah? Why her?”
Forestfire hesitated, and when he spoke the belligerence had drained out of him, leaving him oddly abashed. “The way she’d ask me stuff, and listen to everything I said, like it was interesting...ain’t never had anyone find me interesting like that before,” he muttered. “I thought...aaaagh.”
The other mirrors all looked studiously away from him, as if pretending not to notice his discomfiture. Sirei felt sorry for the young male-but still she couldn’t help preferring the awkward silence to all the screaming and ranting that had been going on before. She made a cautious attempt at moving forward. “Since Kila’s gone, that means that you have sole responsibility for the hatchlings.” She paused, uncertain, then prompted him, “Do you want to exalt them?”
“Exalt ’em just ’cause their mother slagged off?” he grumbled querulously, slumping back down onto his haunches. “That don’t seem right.”
“If not, then you’ll need to care for them.” Sirei measured his reactions-the hunching of his shoulders, the closing of his wings, the way he ducked his head-and was unsurprised, although somewhat disappointed. He was, indeed, so very young.
“I ain’t ready for this,” he mumbled, and Sirei sighed.
“Well, if you’re not-”
“I said I ain’t ready! I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna do it!” On his feet again, he bared his fangs like a snake, his sinuous tail lashing. “They’re my boys. And I’m gonna take care of them, all right?”
Sirei glanced toward the caves where Seraphinx was watching over the hatchlings. His boys, he said, but would be truly treat them both as such? Even the one who had been born fae, like their mother?
“We’ll help you out,” put in Arcus, who had been quiet until then. The other mirror male grinned amiably. “We’ve got two of our own right now; we’ll just pile ’em all up together, yeah?”
“Not much to taking care of wrigglers.” Those laconic words came from Arcus’s mate Thorne, the mirrors’ leader, who after an initial eruption of wrath that had outblazed even Lastlight’s anger had also gone silent, almost unnervingly so. She shrugged, green tiger stripes rippling with the movement. “Keep ’em clean, keep ’em warm, keep ’em fed, and keep ’em from doing stupid shit that’ll get ’emselves killed. ’S all.”
A mother herself, Sirei thought that Thorne was vastly understating the difficulty. Then again-mirrors. And at the very least her casualness had reassured Forestfire, who was looking much less traumatized.
“You’ll have other help too, of course,” Sirei added. “Seraphinx, and Flowerbat....” She paused, drawn up short as she found the mirrors all staring at her, their alien four-eyed faces blank with incomprehension or perhaps disbelief. “The whole clan helps, however they can,” she went on, carefully but with conviction. “That’s how the clan works.” Forestfire faltered over this, then gave an awkward little bob of his head.
“Huh,” was Thorne’s only comment. She scratched lackadaisically at the base of one crest.
“Why don’t you go and spend some time with the babies now?” Sirei told Forestfire, with a sense of relief that the situation seemed to be resolved, at least for the moment. “You can get to know each other, and Seraphinx can talk to you about taking care of them.”
“Yeah, okay!” Forestfire flashed his more accustomed insouciant grin at her, and then bounded off toward the caves. Arcus and Lastlight went loping after him-curious to see the hatchlings too, Sirei supposed, or maybe it was a pack thing.
“What about her?” Sirei glanced back at Thorne, who had remained seated. Her voice was low, but there was a feral intensity in it that sent a prickle of wariness down Sirei’s spine.”
“Kilaialeia’s gone,” she repeated. “There’s nothing to be done about her.” With a shrug, she added, “Wind dragons are like that, you know, blowing in and out at whim. I’m not saying she wasn’t wrong, of course, but-”
Thorne’s mouth curled up in a fang-baring sneer. “She took our food, our training, got all up in everyone’s business with all her egg-rotting questions, dumped her get on us and kited outta here, and that’s all you’ve got to say-‘oh well, too bad, she’s gone now’?”
“What do you want me to say, Thorne?” Sirei lifted her head to stare down at the other dragon from her full height. It was just the two of them now, and she was the co-chief, second in the clan. She had her own pride-of-place to defend. “If she’d done something criminal or damaged the honor of our clan, then yes, we’d pursue the matter. But this is just...unfortunate.” Turning away, she sighed. “Forestfire got his heart broken, but he’s young, and resilient, and he’ll find a real mate someday, a dragon who’ll appreciate him. And...I think he’ll be a good father.” She smiled at the memory of his determination, and of his eager, enthusiastic grin as he’d headed for the hatchling caves. “It’ll all work out.”
“Well,” Thorne said after a brief pause, “so I guess it’s all sorted out then, huh.” Glancing back at the other dragon, Sirei saw her rise to her feet and stretch long and, somehow, dismissively. “I’mma go see my newest pack-kin,” she drawled, and trotted off, tail switching idly-and Sirei wondered why that apparent casualness caused unease to stir in her once more.
* * * * *
“I cleaned up your mess.”
Thorne clapped her wings shut and shot a glance over her shoulder at the black dragon who had appeared behind her. How an imperial could move through the overgrown forest so silently, she had no idea.
“Dunno what you’re saying,” she remarked, deliberately relaxing her wings and returning her attention to grooming between her front toes.
The rustling as he moved closer could have been nothing more than the whispering breeze, but now that she knew he was there, she could feel his presence like a tightness between her shoulder blades. She was too old a hunter not to have a danger sense, and it was weighing on her now.
Smooth as water, dark as shadow.
Cold as ice.
“Staked to the Gladekeeper’s tree is a little blatant, don’t you think? Some dragons might be horrified, or at the very least offended.” She said nothing, and he continued, “Not to mention the possibility that you might anger the Gladekeeper herself.”
“That’s sayin’ I did something that’d make her angry,” Thorne replied blandly. “I ain’t done nothing like that.”
“Hmm.” Glancing back again, she caught the gleam of white as he smiled toothily. “She does appreciate good compost material.” Taking on a more businesslike tone, although that sly good humor still lingered, lacing his words, he went on, “That said, if you have a similar need in the future, please come and see me. While I appreciate your skills, if it’s anything to do with the tree, that kind of work calls for a professional.” His grin widened even as its amusement darkened. “Unfortunately, you’re not exactly qualified.”
Not like she’d had any intention of exalting that little insect. That was way too good for the likes of her. Though she supposed that if Seishirou had wanted to do it, then that was all right. Be a shame to waste stuff.
Maybe he took her silence for agreement, because she felt the shift in the air as he turned to go. Curiosity pricked at her, overcoming caution. “Hey.” She gave him a look, sidelong and casual, and beneath that, calculating. “How’d you know?”
His brows raised. “How could I not know?” As she chewed on that not-answer, he bent his long neck, his head dipping in a bow that might or might not be mocking before he slipped away into the shadows. They seemed to hide him damnably fast, but she flicked her gaze to heat-sight, and there he was, bright-limned as he moved between the trees, just like any other creature.
Not ice after all. She snorted, dismissing her unease.
Still. She’d seen a lot of dragons, and she feared no dragon. But this dragon-
This one, she’d walk careful of.
Despite that, she couldn’t help the thought that came, and her mouth bent up into a predatory, speculative grin.
Just imagine what kind of hatchies she could make with that dangerous bastard.
Alas, when Seishirou and Thorne do eventually get together for a one-off nesting, the result is this:
Go on; click on him.
(You can find pictures of all the dragons at my lair.)