Children cry when they first meet the dragons. This has always been a fact.
Not Maeve though. She came into this world quiet as a mouse with her eyes squeezed shut. I didn’t get to see those perfect baby blues until a day later when I brought her out to meet Sarith, my bond. I will always remember the way she opened her eyes and smiled, as if my sweet dragon unlocked some secret part of her heart I would never be able to touch.
Maeve came into this world two days after we lost her father to thread. I still remember the scream that reverberated through Sarith’s mind as dragon and rider both fell, twined together by strands of death like macabre marionettes. I thought I would never smile after that day, but then Maeve arrived. I named her for what she was; bringer of joy to end my grief.
Roan never took to his new sister. I believe the loss of his father hit him harder than most. He was a dutiful big brother, but the light that once filled his eyes whenever his father picked him up and spun him through the air fled the day she was born. I thought it was funny at first. The way he cried when she did not. I told myself he stole her sadness so she could bring nothing but joy. I kept waiting for Roan’s own joy to come back, but it never did.
Growing up, Maeve was a quiet, withdrawn child. She preferred to spend more time around the dragons than other people. She would toddle to the edge of the weyr and plunk herself down, content to stare up at the sky for hours. When they came to visit, she raised her hands to their snouts as if waiting to embrace an old friend. She never reached for people this way. Not even me. The most curious thing was the songs though. Strange, haunting melodies. She said they belonged to the dragons.
I remember the day I found her outside, sitting on the ground with her face upturned to the sky. The most serene smile lit up her face. Her soft, brown curls bounced in the light breeze that swept the weyrbowl, tickling her round, baby cheeks. She didn’t appear to notice. She didn’t even twitch as I approached.
“What are you doing, sweetie,” I asked her as I scooped her up from the dusty earth.
“Listen, mama,” she said, her voice sweet and soft as the sound of waves on the shore.
Though I balanced her on my hip and hugged her to me, she didn’t look at my face. Her eyes drifted past me, roaming the clouds above for something I couldn’t see. Then she began to hum. A slow, lilting melody that struck me as faintly familiar. It wasn’t until Sarith joined in that I recognized it. This was the song the dragons sang when they lost one of their own.
::She’s a HAD,:: Sarith’s velvety tones whispered in my mind. Her voice was deep and rich like a forest in the dead of summer. All dark green shadows and heavy, heady air.
::She can hear you,:: I questioned, scarcely able to believe that my little joy could still surprise me with more wonders.
::She hears all of us. She is with us.::
::Why this song though?::
::Because thread comes. We will lose more today. Tuck her away safe, then come join me. We cannot risk losing her.::
I did as Sarith instructed, joining the trickle of other dragon riding parents ushering their children to the tunnels beneath the Weyr. Maeve began to cry as soon as she realized what was happening, but I passed her off to Roan and sent them along anyway.
She always cried when I sent her away during threadfall. It was the dark, she said. It went too deep and stole the world from her. I know it can be scary in those tunnels. I remember fearing monsters in every shadow. Roan always did his best to stay close to the torches and calm her down. Roan was a good boy. A dutiful boy. I don’t blame him for what came next. I think it was inevitable.
“I’m leaving,” he said. He stood in the entrance to our weyr, our home, with a bag over his shoulder and determination setting his face into rigid lines. He looked so much like his father.
“Absolutely not,” I protested. I stood opposite him. I wanted to rush ahead, block the entranceway, but he’d already beaten me there. All I could do was hope to draw him back in with words.
“You can’t stop me. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what? Roan, sweetie, think about this. Holder life is not for you.”
“At least they make sense,” he hissed, his words strained and fatigued as if he’d already shouted them a hundred times before that day. “I am tired of living in a place where I feel like a crazy person every day of my life. I don’t understand how you don’t see it. How you don’t see them for what they are!”
“Is this about the dragons again? You’re only seventeen. We can try again. You just haven’t stood for the right clutch yet.”
“I don’t want to bond a dragon,” he roared. “I never did. I hated every single egg I saw. I was terrified every time one of the little beasts came near me. I was thrilled when I got to stop going.”
Panic clawed at my throat. I was losing him. It frustrated me to no end that he still held to such a childish fear. Most of the other children grew out of it quickly enough.
“They’re big, I know, but they’re not that bad. If you just got to know them-”
“They’re monsters! They’re all monsters!”
“That’s not fair. I don’t understand why you can’t be more like Maeve. She’s never been afraid of them.”
“She’s just as much a monster as they are! The other kids see it, but not the dragon riders.” He paused and his eyes roamed over my face, searching for something. I didn’t know what. “Don’t you get it? They’re in your minds. Dad understood and he was one of them. One of you. He said he remembered what he used to see before the dragons took over. He was the only one who listened to me. If dad were alive when she was born, he would’ve tossed her off the side of the dawnwatch peaks and never looked back.”
I moved without thinking, striking forward in a flash. My hand hit his cheek with a resounding crack that left my fingers warm and tingling. In the silence that followed, we stared at each other with a new understanding. Roan would never be my quiet, moody little baby again. Roan was gone.
“I wish I could make you see it, mom,” he said in a strangled whisper. Tears shimmered around the edges of his eyes. I stepped forward, ready to embrace him, to draw my son back to where he belonged. He stepped away.
I watched Roan leave for as long as I could. He didn’t seek out another rider to carry him down the mountainside to the nearest Hold. It would take him a day or more to get there on foot.
I wanted to chase after him, to offer to at least carry him safely to his destination. He could encounter anything out there. Hungry beasts or unstable paths, or even the threat of a sudden Threadfall. I remained where I stood at the edge of my weyr, looking down the craggy path as his broad shoulders disappeared beyond the stone archway that led out of the Weyrbowl.
Small, hot hands closed around my waist and squeezed as tight as they could manage. My fingers nestled into Maeve’s hair before I even laid eyes on her small face pressed against my pant leg. Though my heart felt as if it would tear in two at any moment, the warmth of her presence always soothed the hurt inside me.
“I’m sorry I made Roan leave, momma,” she said.
“Hush, baby. This wasn’t your fault.”
“He hated me.”
I crouched down and drew Maeve into my arms. My heart broke for her. No child should understand the feeling of being hated at such a young age.
At the same time, my heart surged with a tangle of emotions for Roan that I could scarcely believe belonged to me. Sadness at his loss. Rage at his accusation. Indignation that he could so easily walk away from his family. Shame at the thought that his departure was best for everyone.
Roan was my child, my first born, my precious little boy. Roan was a man growing into himself. So much like his father that a small, dark part of me welcomed his choice. It would mean I’d never have to look at that heartbreaking face again.
It meant that I could keep him forever as I wanted him in my mind.
“No, baby. Absolutely not. Roan loves you. He just needs to go find his own way in life,” I said.
“He was scared of me,” she whispered as she nestled up against my shoulder. Her hot breath tickled the hairs on the back of my neck. “The dragons said he wanted to hurt me.”
“No, baby,” I said again. I held her tighter and rocked her back and forth, wondering if I would see what Roan saw if I looked at her in that moment; refusing to turn my head toward her. “I will never let anyone hurt you.”
::Nor will we,:: Sarith added, her voice buzzing through my mind.
Thread fell the next day.
The day of Maeve’s tenth birthday, a month after Roan left us, Sarith told me she was ready. It made perfect sense in that moment that Maeve would stand for a dragon clutch. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.
::Because she was not ready then,:: Sarith said.
The questions drifted out of my mind, replaced by thoughts of how excited Maeve would be.
I went down to the Lower Caverns to make the preparations. The Weyrlingmaster expressed the same surprise that we hadn’t spoken of Maeve’s eligibility before. Yet he was more than happy to sign her up to the candidate roster and give me the slip to claim her robes.
I kept it clenched in one hand as I made my way to the kitchens, checking infrequently to assure myself that the paper hadn’t mysteriously vanished from my grasp. It was such a small, insignificant thing, but it may as well have been a fistful of diamonds for what it represented.
Once I secured some bubbly pies and the fixings for Maeve’s favourite meal, I returned to my weyr. Sarith lay outside, her moss green body draped across the ledge like a basking snake. She raised her head and rumbled at my approach, and from between her paws, Maeve’s cotton ball collection of brown curls appeared.
“Be good, you two,” I said as I passed. And then privately to Sarith I added, ::Keep her occupied until dinner’s ready.::
::I am teaching her about the stars,:: my bond replied.
It took me a little less than an hour to make all the necessary preparations. I tucked the paper into a box, and then wrapped it securely in a handkerchief I’d been saving for this very occasion. The kerchief was the same blue as Maeve’s eyes.
When I called Maeve in to eat, she came bouncing through the entranceway as if she expected to take off on wings of her own. Sarith moved to block out the outside world, her angular head resting on the front carpet. We became our own little universe of joy.
I laid out dinner on the dining table and set the gift off to the side. The proper thing to do would be to wait until after we’d eaten to give it to her, but her eyes locked on that little blue box and nothing could pry them away. The longer she stared, the more my own excitement grew, and soon I found myself also stealing glances to the box.
“Do you promise to clean your whole plate tonight? Even the veggies,” I asked.
Maeve nodded with such enthusiasm that her curls continued to bounce even after her head stopped.
I picked up the box and held it as if it were made of glass. Maeve cupped her hands together and I deposited it into her palms. Pulling the box to her chest, she cradled it with one hand while the other carefully began to work at the knots holding the handkerchief together. She treated it with such care and reverence that I found myself itching to jump in and help, but I resisted.
At last the kerchief fell away. She opened the box and pulled out the slip of paper. Her brows crashed together, forming peaks and valleys of confusion. I watched her little mouth sounding out the words. Realization came over her like morning sunlight. The wrinkles smoothed away. Her eyes grew wide. Too wide for her face. When they rose to meet me, they shone with a heavenly light.
“Is this what I think it is, mama,” she asked.
I nodded, not trusting my own voice to form words without breaking.
Maeve flung herself out of her chair and into my arms in the span of a heartbeat. She squealed with delight and hugged me so tight I imagined I’d see the marks of her affection for days afterward. Her head pressed into my shoulder and the smell of her, warm earth and wildflowers, filled my world.
I held her close and kissed the top of her head. Briefly I looked to Sarith, wanting to include my dragon in this precious moment.
The bottom fell out from my stomach. Something caught at my attention out of the corner of my eye and ignited a primal terror that sent jolts of fire up and down my limbs. I could not say what I saw. I couldn’t even confirm that I had seen anything at all. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I knew something was deeply, unnaturally wrong.
Then Maeve lifted her face and her bright blue eyes melted the fear from my thoughts. She smiled from ear to ear.
“Thank you, mama. I’m going to be the best dragon rider. Just like you.”
I smiled back and planted another light kiss atop her brow. The aftershocks of the terror remained, fluttering in my heart like a trapped bird. With time, they eased. The unnerving sensation became little more than a bad dream. Nothing bad could ever remain for long in the presence of my joy.
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