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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:49:41 GMT -6
Azho drew him into a fierce hug. Her arms had no more weight than the brush of the wind, but if the embrace had any reservation, it was only to spare the healing shoulder. She held the dragon for a long moment, as if she might never let go. No - a dangerous thought. She set him gently down.
“I’ll miss you too,” she said.
Another skip in the air. Whatever more she’d tried to say, Kanagi knew, had been lost in the maze of her visions. She only dusted something from her shoulder. Weightless, scentless, it drifted to the ground and melted into the shade as silently as the phantom townsmen they’d played with. When she plucked it up, and it resolved into a sparrow’s feather, small and drab and tinged the faintest green. Azho held it out to him.
“Take this with you, alright? Keep it safe, and it’ll return the favor one day.”
She took a long look at the dragon - a true look - and stroked his nose for the last time.
“Goodbye, Sjira.”
And suddenly they were quite alone in the forest, seamlessly, as if she had never been there at all.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:49:57 GMT -6
The wind rustled through the branches overhead with a melancholy note, and although sunlight dappled them in wreaths of spring light, the mood was gloomier. The dragon continued to stare at the spot that Azho had been for a long moment, the tip of the feather quivering between his teeth.
“Kanagi,” he said softly, and his voice was choked with emotion. Hers wasn’t a secondary place in his heart, and now that she was gone he found it hurting even more than it had done the last three days.
The dragon didn’t look up - not yet, he couldn’t bear it - and sat in the spot she had been. “Will you make something for me?” A hitch in his breath. “For her feather. Like the clothes you wear, that always stay?”
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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:50:18 GMT -6
“Here, pup.”
A human hand took the feather gently from the hatchling’s jaws. Kanagi had the needle in hand, had the same spool of thread he used to patch his companion. With precise, delicate motions, he threaded it through the feather’s shaft. A clean strip of cloth became the cord, woven through with the thread. The materials seemed at home together, a single, grey whole.
“You’ll need to wear it as a human,” he said, placing it over the dragon’s head. “Or you’ll outgrow it soon.”
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:50:26 GMT -6
The hatchling didn’t look up when Kanagi placed the cloth cord over his head. There was a ripple in the air, a shifting of scales into skin, and the little Saljir was sitting where the dragon had been. Stubby hands cradled Azho’s feather with the most delicate of touches.
Only then did he look up. Bright irises and black sclera shone with tears as the child pushed himself up. He went to the tiercel in two steps and put his arms around the grey-haired man’s waist, burying his face in Kanagi’s stomach.
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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:50:45 GMT -6
He lifted the saljir in his arms then, smoothing its tousled hair the way a parent might preen its offspring. In another life, he could have raised it as his own pup. They would have been a proper pack, small, and no less real for that. But he was Rimguard, and this was the price you paid. It was better for the pup than the alternative.
“Well, my little Bug,” he said, the old smile flitting wanly across his features. “What will it be today? A proper hunt? Exploring? Or shall we tell a story?”
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:50:57 GMT -6
The hatchling scrubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. My little Bug hadn’t helped with the crying, but there was a smile on his face when he said, “Not a bug. Kanagi is a bug. And a big fat slug.”
With the last of the tears wiped away he looked up at the tiercel almost shyly, eyes red-rimmed and puffy, and then looked away.
“All of them?” he suggested hopefully.
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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:51:34 GMT -6
Kanagi nodded, very gravely, as though this were a matter discussed and settled between two adults. He brushed the tear streaks from the pup’s cheeks and set it gently down in the grass.
“Let’s see what we can find then, hmm? A nice, fat doe maybe.”
He held out a hand to the pup, content to go on two feet. There would be new game to hunt here, new sights to see, and he would like to see them on the ground together. Just for the day.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:51:42 GMT -6
The dragon and the tiercel wandered as humans and hunted as beasts. They enjoyed the new spring air of these distant hills and explored watery caves by the river’s edge. They turned over old logs, chased each other through the trees, and scouted ancient cliffs. All the while Kanagi told him stories, and some of them were funny and some of them were solemn, but the hatchling clung to every word like they were made of gold.
By the time the sun had begun to set over the western horizon they were both tired and full, and the last of Kanagi’s stories had come to a close. They lay next to each other on the top of a hill not unlike their old little camp, and the long shadows of trees cast stripes over their gold-touched hides as the sky turned to fire.
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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:52:07 GMT -6
He curled his tail over the pup as the first night breeze began to blow. It seemed so small to be on its own, and so alone against all that sky. He raised his nose to the wind, scenting. There would be other dragons out there. If not here, in other lands - the places the pup might roam as it grew. If he had any pull with their kind, he might have taken it to them directly. Instead he was a stranger, and overtures from a foreign predator might be more condemning than what the pup might do for itself. And there simply wasn't time. It had learned well, he told himself, and could recite every lesson he had asked for. It would survive. Azho had promised him so.
With that comforting thought in mind, he preened the pup to sleep. He waited until the last twitches of dreaming had gone from its body. Then he rose on silent steps and padded away. He spent the long night drifting this way and that, sharp features angling at the ground. Never far, and never for long. For all the doubts in his mind, he came back to its side and settled there. And he was still there the next morning - the last morning - waiting for the pup when it opened its eyes.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:52:28 GMT -6
Kanagi’s absence had been in his dreams that night instead of the silhouette of the aerie. The hatchling had wandered across the rocky slopes of mountains, over the long flats of the plains, and through the deep woods, but he had not been able to find the tiercel. Yet there had been a sense that he was there, just of sight, as though Kanagi had gone to a place he could not reach.
As such the hatchling had expected him to be gone when he woke; vanished the same way Azho had done so that the morning was bleak and empty. It was with great surprise that he found the tiercel still there.
Surprise, but not relief. That meant that they had to face the leaving.
He got up with solemn movements and brushed his head against Kanagi’s side.
“Is it time to go?”
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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:52:57 GMT -6
“Yes.”
The tiercel dipped his head, the warm breath puffing over the pup’s scales. He nuzzled the dragon, a short, brief touch. But it wasn’t the same as it had been. There was something subtle in the air now - a tension, like a bird about to take flight. The tiercel backed away. He didn’t want to catch the pup in his wake.
“What will you do today?” The words were gentle, prompting.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:54:30 GMT -6
The hatchling looked up at the tiercel as Kanagi moved away. He didn’t answer for a long moment, just watched that drifting gait as though he could commit the Icarim’s shape and scent to memory. When he did speak it was a clear answer, said with all the emotion he felt in his heart without any of the hysteria that had come before.
“I’ll be missing you,” he said simply. “While I hunt, and wander, and sleep. I’ll always miss you.”
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Post by MP on Mar 21, 2019 21:54:43 GMT -6
The words almost broke him. All his resolve, his better judgment. He nearly took it back that very moment and opened the door for them both - himself and the pup he’d adopted. It could not be. If he cared at all for the pup and all the shades like it, that must never be.
The tiercel rested his jaw over its shoulders, a final weakness. Then he retreated another step. Mane billowing, his body flowing like the wind, he seemed remote already - all but for the sharp, narrow face. Craning forward, jaws parting, he set something on the ground before the dragon. The stone was slightly larger than the pup’s had been, but it was smooth and flat and almost perfectly round, darkly glossy in the morning light. Kanagi spoke no words. The yellow eyes stared into the pup’s, shining with all the pride and affection and wishes he could not - would not - voice. Then he raised his head and, like the passing spring breeze, was gone.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 21, 2019 21:54:50 GMT -6
And just like that, he was alone.
The rising eastern sun cast the shadows of trees over the hilltop. The grass gently rippled in a sudden clear wind. But the bar-like sun fell on a single dark hide now, and only a single nose rose to scent the morning air. There were no more words spoken into the quiet sunlight, and no gentle touches to prompt him follow. The kindness he had been extended had come to an end, gone like the missing tang of aether on the wind, and the sky was lonely without a green shape flitting overhead.
A single long, forlorn note rang through the air - a longing, grieving, distant call. But no sparrow or tiercel answered. The echoes of them lived only in his memory, and would only do forever more.
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