Dragonheart

Eyes green, delight

Eyes red, fright

Eyes yellow, worry

Eyes closed, no hurry.

FortWeyr , Next Morning, AL 507.13.15

The light of morning streaming in to her room woke her. Fiona leapt out of her bed in horror; she hadn’t meant to sleep so long. One gentle touch to Talenth confirmed that the young queen was still sleeping, though Fiona got the feeling that Talenth’s dreams were troubling her.

As Fiona hastened through her toilet she kept an ear out for any sound of her dragon stirring. She had just finished pulling on her day gown when she heard the unmistakable sound of a dragon coughing.

Talenth?  Fiona thought nervously to her dragon. But Talenth did not respond, her mind still sleeping, though twitching with whatever dream bothered her. Fiona raced to her dragon’s weyr to confirm her impression: Sure enough, she could see Talenth’s flanks and wings twitching as though in some dream flight.

Another cough. Fiona spun around toward the noise. She ran out to the ledge that overlooked the Weyr Bowl and connected her weyr with the other queen’s weyrs, her head cocked in the direction of the noise.

It came from her left — that was Tannaz’s weyr.

Fiona raced that way, her nostrils flaring for breath. When she reached Kalsenth’s weyr, Tannaz looked up at her approach, her eyes red with tears, wide with fear and worry.

“She started last night,” Tannaz told her.

“Fiona!” Cisca called, coming into the dragon’s lair from Tannaz’s quarters. “Good, run to the Kitchen, they should have that decoction ready. Bring it back as fast as you can.”

Fiona spun on her heels and took off, racing down the ledge, across the Weyr Bowl, and into the Kitchen Cavern.

“I’m to get the decoction for Kalsenth,” Fiona called as she entered, looking around frantically.

“Over here,” a man’s voice called. She turned to it, saw that it was Kentai, and trotted over, her sides heaving from her run. “It’s nearly ready.”

Whatever it was smelled good, Fiona realized as she neared the steaming pot. Kentai waved her back, then pulled the pot off the coals, grabbed it with wherhide gloves, and poured its contents into a large bucket that had a ladle hanging from its side.

“Will you be able to manage?” he asked as he handed her the bucket.

Breathless, Fiona nodded and took off again, running nearly as fast as she had on the way down. Her legs complained and she caught a stitch in her side just as she started to climb the incline of the ledge to the weyrs.

“Great,” Cisca called, grabbing the bucket from her and leaving Fiona to lean against the wall, panting to regain her wind. “Tannaz, they say that the Weyrwoman at Benden recommended it,” Cisca said. Tannaz looked up at her, hollow-eyed. “You know, the one who Impressed that gold before Breth . . .”

Tannaz looked down, then back to her dragon. Fiona stumbled over to her, knelt beside her, and hugged her tight. Tannaz did not react. Worriedly, Fiona exchanged looks with Cisca, but the other only shook her head slightly and frowned down at the bucket, stirring it with the ladle to cool it more quickly.

“Tannaz . . .” Fiona began but was cut off by another cough from Kalsenth. Again Fiona noticed that sickly smell. Tannaz crumpled against her dragon’s side.

Fiona?  Talenth called from her weyr.

Wait,  Fiona replied, surprising herself. Tannaz was so strong, she couldn’t give in now, so soon, she just couldn’t!

Setting her jaw, Fiona leaned forward, grabbed Tannaz by the shoulders, and pulled her back.

Tannaz looked up at her, her expression one of mingled surprise and anger.

“You need to take care of your dragon,” Fiona said, looking down at her. “You need to feed her this stuff that they use in Benden.” A faintly puzzled look entered Tannaz’s eyes. “You are her rider; you must be strong.”

Fiona leaned back, getting her feet under her and urging Tannaz to rise with her.

“Come on, Tannaz,” Cisca added, scooping some of the liquid into the ladle. “Fiona’s right.”

Tannaz looked at the ladle, looked at her dragon, and nodded.

“Kalsenth,” she said aloud, “open your mouth.” Before she poured the liquid down her dragon’s throat, she checked the temperature against the inside of her wrist. “It’s not too hot, you should like it.”

“It smells good,” Cisca added encouragingly.

The gold dragon waited until Tannaz retracted her arm before closing her mouth and raising her head to swallow the liquid.

“Feed it all to her,” Cisca said, extending the bucket to Tannaz.

“There,” Fiona said as the gold opened her mouth once more and Tannaz ladled in another dollop, “that’s better, isn’t it?”

The bucket was empty in no time. Kalsenth lay her head back down and closed her eyes. In a short while she was asleep again.

“You should get some sleep, too,” Cisca said to Tannaz. Fiona darted into Tannaz’s quarters and returned with pillows and blankets. Tannaz took them gratefully and curled up against her gold.

“We’ll check on you later,” Cisca promised, passing the empty bucket and ladle over to Fiona and gesturing for her to leave through the weyr entrance.

As Fiona followed the Weyrwoman down the ramp toward the Kitchen Cavern, she spotted Talenth peering timidly out of her weyr. Cisca noticed and nodded to Fiona, “See to her and meet me when you can.”

Fiona insisted upon oiling Talenth before feeding her, and between the two tasks it was over an hour before she had the dragonet back in her weyr, sated, scrubbed, and somnolent. Fiona failed to stifle a yawn herself as she headed down the incline toward the Kitchen Cavern, wishing that times were such that she could curl up with her dragon.

Cisca wasn’t in the Kitchen Cavern when Fiona arrived. Zirana directed her to a doorway at the back of the cavern and Fiona found herself in a corridor she’d never been in before.

As with all of Fort Weyr , the walls were just as smooth as those at Fort Hold . Fiona ran her hands along them, delighting in the cold smoothness. She knew from her times at other holds and at the Harper Hall that whatever the Oldtimers had used to create such smoothness had failed before all the holds or Weyrs were finished, and she was glad that, having left Fort Hold, she’d been lucky enough to come to Fort Weyr with its reassuring similarities.

I wonder if the layouts are the same? Fiona thought, turning to the right to follow her hunch. She’d been told that Cisca was in the storerooms, and at Fort Hold , the storerooms had been set to the right of the lower corridors.

A faint smell of herbs came to her, and Fiona smiled to herself: She’d guessed right.

“I don’t care if we don’t have enough,” Cisca was saying impatiently as Fiona entered the room. “We’ll send for more. Just get all the dried echinacea and bring it to the cooks — we’ve got to make more of that potion!”

“Just where will you get it?” an older woman’s voice asked tetchily.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cisca said. “Our first need is the sick dragons.”

“Dragons don’t get sick!” the woman replied. “And who do you think you are, the Weyrwoman?”

Fiona entered the doorway in time to identify the irritable woman as Melanwy.

“But she is  the Weyrwoman,” Fiona declared, only to be surprised by the shushing motions Cisca was making behind the old woman’s back. The room was filled with cabinets, except for the far end where there was a work desk and some chairs. Glowbaskets hung from hooks on the walls.

Melanwy’s eyes widened in surprise and she said to Fiona, “Who are you?”

“She’s Fiona, Melanwy,” Cisca said. “She cooked for us last night.”

Melanwy’s face drained of expression and she tottered to the table and sat down, hard. She dropped her head into her hands. Finally she looked up at Cisca. “But what happened to Nara ?”