No Gold For You

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 19th March 2008

Characters: F'lin
Description: F'lin faces a challenge when Tabanirth rises without much warning, and his bronze Seneth wishes to chase
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 8, day 16 of Turn 4

The bellow that cut through the Weyr echoed with challenge and lust. Seneth raised his head eagerly even as F'lin felt his limbs go leaden with dread. }:Tabanirth rises!:{ Seneth crowed.

"You will NOT chase her!" F'lin dropped the oiling cloth he'd been using to polish his dragon's wings and raced back into his weyr from Seneth's couch. "You're _staying_put_, you hear me?!"

}:She is gold and I will catch her,:{ Seneth replied hungrily. His eyes were beginning to whirl with a lust that F'lin found echoed in him, just as he found his riding straps. He grabbed them even as his vision briefly doubled and he felt the bile rise in his chest; his dragon wanted to chase his _grandmother's_ golden queen. The straps cut into his hands as he raced back toward his dragon. Seneth was tense and his claws scraped across the stone of his couch as he perched at the lip of their weyr. His muscles bulged beneath his bronze hide; he was still slender, for a bronze, and still lacked the defined physique of the older dragons even though he was a match for any in length.

**Why didn't she tell me Tabanirth was going to rise today?** F'lin thought angrily as he threw the straps over Seneth's back. **She should have _told_ me; I shouldn't be here.**

Seneth paused and turned his enormous head back to look at his fuming rider. }:You.. do not wish me to chase? But she is gold, and I will _win_!:{

"You haven't even won a greenflight yet," F'lin muttered. The straps were twisted; he cursed and tried to straighten them. "And she's _Tsaera's_ gold. I know you don't care about that, but I do."

}:My hide is bronze, and I am meant to fly a gold,:{ Seneth replied confidently. }:You like Tsaera--:{

"She's my sharding _grandmother_!" F'lin nearly shouted. He was shaking; partially, he realized, with the effort of reigning in his dragon's rampant emotions, and partially because of the dread he felt should Seneth actually slip his control and take to the skies. "Yes, I like her, but people don't have sex with members of their own family! I don't care that her dragon is gold and you're a bronze - you will _not_ chase her!"

Seneth looked back out over the Weyrbowl toward the feeding pens, where Tabanirth was, no doubt, choosing her kills. The air was alive with dragonwings as the other dragons responded to their senior queen's calls, and F'lin felt the lust that Seneth had been projecting subside somewhat. }:You are angry with me,:{ the bronze dragon said quietly.

F'lin shook his head and finished buckling the straps with fumbling fingers. R'syl would have a fit if he'd shown up for Weyrling drills with straps as sloppy they were now, but F'lin was more concerned with getting out of the Weyr and taking Seneth away from temptation than with safety. He leapt onto his dragon's back with the dexterity of adolescence and quickly buckled himself in. "No, I'm not mad at you. I'm angry with Tsaera, and with myself. But we have to go now, all right?"

}:Wherever you wish to go, I will take you there,:{ Seneth said. He spread his wings and leapt from his couch, and a moment later, they were /between/.

~*~

The sun was hot, which was welcome after the burning cold of /between/ and the beat of air against his skin. He'd forgotten his riding jacket and the air, which normally felt so smooth, had developed claws to run against his body. Seneth had winked into existence over a quiet cove near Topaz Sea Hold, and F'lin had been happy to see that there were no boats moored in the still blue waters. Fish had scattered as Seneth's shadow crossed the waves to land on a small crescent of yellow beach. F'lin stripped his dragon of his straps, and they'd dozed together in the sunshine as the leaves rustled in a light breeze above their heads.

F'lin had gone there often with his father before the hurricane, and it was disconcerting to be there now without him. He'd fall half-asleep and then jerk awake as the crash of the waves on the shore, or the creak of a tree in the wind fooled him into thinking that his father had called his name. But his father was dead, lost to the sea and the hurricane that had taken out most of Topaz Sea Hold. **Dead...**

He should go home to see his mother, but it was too painful to look past her smile and see the betrayal she felt at his Impression. If she only knew that he'd chosen to Stand for _her_ sake... it hadn't been difficult to realize that dragons could go through time, and now that he had one of his own, anything was possible. He could appear anywhere in the blink of an eye, and with Seneth, he could go any_when_ as well. But not yet.

}:If we go back now, I promise not to chase Tabanirth,:{ Seneth said sleepily, for the second time. }:I understand. She is not for me. I will not hurt you.:{

"I know," F'lin replied. The sun burned the back of his eyelids orange and spilled in waves down the length of his back, legs, and buttocks. He smiled, content in the knowledge that he'd successfully navigated that particular challenge, and if they'd done so once, then they could do so again. Seneth wouldn't chase Tabanirth, not if he could take his dragon away from the Weyr soon enough to avoid Tabanirth's allure when she took to the skies. He wouldn't have to leave River Bluff Weyr after all.

It wasn't long before he'd fallen asleep, and if anyone had seen him, they'd have notice the rare, slight smile that hovered at the edges of his lips as he snored.

Last updated on the March 29th 2008

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No Gold For You