[Solo] Deep Dark Night

[Hattaki]

Snoring rose and fell through the healers hall, almost a rhythm to it as each person that occupied a bed on their back or side or even stomach added to the song. All the glows had been removed so the large room was darker than every cold night that one redhead could remember sleeping on a bed of hay back in Telgar. Here at least, flat on his back on a cot, a warm body was spread over him that seemed to anchor him to his current location nearly as much as the pain that radiated in his head. It had been hours and hours since he'd met Bossuth, he hadn't been able to fall asleep as the healers secured his jaw back in place, nor indeed in the hours after they had when they'd simply told him to rest. More than once he'd gotten up and fed his baby dragon, though each time a healer had growled at him. It seemed that they were doing what they could to aid in that particular venture, but it rankled that he couldn't even manage to help with that much.

To his credit, the little bronze had never once complained or been anything beyond compliant when they had checked him, but with his rider he had been more concerned. With each new set of hands that came to check on the pair he had tried to cover his rider with his wings and body in all the places they didn't need to check, something like fear rising in him each time. Alquemieth's last warning of how cruel the world was ringing in his young mind until it was quieted by the gentle reassurance of the form below him. It took more than once for them to be able to even check on R'iz and even more reassurance was needed once they did that, for he was so very worried at how badly his chosen had been hurt before he'd been able to get to him. It was so hard on the baby dragon to admit that he had been late, especially when his brother had been trying to protect him so after he'd foolishly tried to go and look at all the candidates on the sands. He had just been wanting to meet them, to find his Radish among all their kind hearts. But he had been wrong again.

You keep thinking that, what makes you think it was so wrong to go and try to meet them?, while R'iz couldn't share his sentiment that all the candidates were indeed 'kind hearted' he at least knew that baby dragons should go and meet as many candidates as possible. It was really his own fault that the pair of them had missed the feast, missed the opportunity for Bossuth to interact with his siblings and cousins, to get some socialization to try and bring the little bronze out of the funk that he was so clearly in. But both of them had needed tending to, between his face, jaw and chest he'd been bleeding all over and Bossuth's ichor had been spilled thanks to his own sibling. That luckily had needed no stitches and wouldn't leave deep lasting marks, though they would likely be seen for a few months. His tail however, aside from breaking and setting it once more there had been nothing that the healers could do for that and R'iz didn't want to put the small newborn dragon through more, not to mention he didn't seemed overly bothered by how it was cocked.

But he was so terribly upset and they were all so terribly hurt, some of them had darkness creeping into their hearts... Bossuth paled ever so slightly thinking about it and R'iz pulled him tighter into an embrace. Where he had last laid himself covered most of the redhead's body, legs tucked up underneath himself except for his right front that had splayed over R'iz's chest and up to curl over his shoulder while his head rested on the left side of the pillow beside his rider's. Slowly his kinked tail swished over the edge of the bed to betray his mood and unrest. He would never complain of hunger, though he was just ever so slightly so, but he knew R'iz could feel that and see it as well as he. Even in your memories, the world is so dark and cold. Just as brother said.

Looking out of the corner of his uncovered eye at the vague shape of his dragon's head, R'iz was amazed at how he couldn't see it but knew exactly where it was laying and what color the little dragon's eyes were as he stated that so simply. Sometimes life is dark and cold, but not everything always is, you can see everything in there. I know you can. Is it only dark that you see? He didn't even need to open up fully for Bossuth to see it all, every memory laid bare before him, every painful memory and every gentle one alongside it. Every quiet morning spent listening to his siblings sleep, every time his mother had ran her fingers through his bright red hair, the times his father had been present even if not affectionate. They were there alongside the darkness, knives meant to kill that traced tracks in skin, the finality of one life, followed closely by the heartbreaking loss of yet another. Uncertainty for the fate of another and the lack of care about one more.

Rainbows of purple, blue, gray, white, and yellow all swirled in Bossuth's eyes as he reached deeper and knew more certainly that life was indeed both wonderful and cruel, for there was no other way to describe the things that he could see in his beloved rider's head, in his memories. Life can be terrible, it can be very final and short, but your brother is wrong about it always being like that. Maybe we can't see it tonight, maybe we can't see it tomorrow, but once we can get out of here I'll show you everything I know. It was a promise that the little bronze could feel rise up in his mind and push into his two hearts like a solid force. As long as the two of them were together they would always know what the other needed and they would go and find everything that the two of them needed in life. Someday... can we go and see it? Bossuth asked very quietly in his head, hesitant to upset the teen because he just knew that R'iz would know what 'it' was when he said it. How could he not?

Sharply and suddenly R'iz's chest rose with a deep breath and he turned his head over so he could bury his face against Bossuth's own cheek, forehead pressed tight against it so all that was clear was the bandages covering the left side of his face and head. Someday.  

[Hattaki]

Pulled from slumber by a thought, one small dragon shook itself awake, eyes the gray sick of worry and concern as it he peered about. There had been enough a stretch of time between sleep and wake that he wasn’t sure exactly what day or what hour it was anymore, nor could he ask as his rider was well and asleep beneath his small body. It wasn’t the concern for the uncertain hour that had pulled him from slumber but rather... emotion. Not any emotion would do, there was certainly quite a bit of it rolling through the healer’s wing, but this was something deep from someone he could almost say he knew and Bossuth wasn’t yet acquainted with all of his rider’s friends and loved ones.

Such a mind that had given him a name, there was a connection there that he didn’t prod at, he was young and new but not a complete fool. How else would he have heard that name if not for who the other was connected to?

Why then did that person hesitate? Emotion that he’d felt from his first moment in the egg washed over the small bronze and despite himself he couldn’t but wish to be of some sort of help. Casting a purple hues glance at his slumbering rider, Bossuth gave him a nuzzle and slunk from off his bed slowly. Nothing about him could be considered even remotely stealth, from his awkward hopping gait to the limp he possessed in lieu of his beloved brother’s actions on the sands, he still made his way to the door nonetheless. Something shifted, however, what he’d felt suddenly dissipated and was replaced with an emotion he didn’t understand, one that stayed his movement for such a small space of time as to make his trip pointless.

The Flower was gone before he so much as made it to the entrance. Slow. Just as he’d been with another flower. Bossuth couldn’t blame it one anything else really, he was not as fast as any of his siblings and nerves had made him all the slower. Sighing as he turned, the little bronze surveyed the room before making his way back to the only bed occupied by a person he knew would care he’d moved. So many wounded and broken. With a resigned cheep he pushed back onto the bed again and looked down at R’iz’s one golden eye hat seemed to be staring into nothingness. He seemed important, he was one of the ones...

Yes, he’s important. I guess that’s his answer though. An ache had settled in where Bossuth hadn’t felt one before and his response was the same as it had been since they’d formed their bond on those sands, to pour an endless and undying love into the sore spot. Settling down across the scarred form of his rider, the small bronze continued to let those feelings of love and support fill the heart of the rider he was beginning to understand was as different as he was himself and not just because of his small stature or slim frame. I might be wrong in many ways, but that one is wrong too. We can prove it together someday.

There seemed to be too many somedays for the small redhead, who simply rolled over despite his injuries and wrapped himself into his dragon so fully that he couldn’t feel anything but Bossuth and his love. How could he begin to explain it anyway and it didn’t matter, for though the source of feelings was different the bronze knew all about that type of feeling and together they could weather it. For now they weren’t going to be alone to do so.  

[Hattaki]

One eye, one that was facing towards his rider where the small bronze's head lay beside R'iz's own on the pillow, watched everything that had happened from the moment that the Flower had walked into the healer's wing. Certainly he was new enough that he didn't quite understand what it was that he saw, but it was because of that newness that he could feel every emotion coming off the taller man that had sat beside his. Why was it that fear settled in this flower's heart when he so clearly held a deep and endless love that Bossuth himself could understand, that he couldn't comprehend. Why on Faranth's Pern had this flower tried to eat Radish's face!? Was his rider really part vegetable?!

Reaching out he pressed into R'iz's heart, not enough to wake him but enough to see everything about this man, this stranger that appeared to love his rider so deeply that he would come to see him, but so little that he wouldn't want the teen to be awake to know that it had happened. Deep beneath the layers there was a yearning, but even in sleep he could see the confusion, could see the uncertainty that wasn't a result of the redhead's own feelings. Why? Gray tinged his eyes for a short moment before he found something he could understand.

"Lets keep this a secret, you and I" the voice said after it admitted love. It was a voice he understood at least, one of the ones that belonged with the voice that first called his 'Radish'. Bossuth knew those voices as if they were imprinted upon his hearts as strongly as his own brother's had been within the egg. It was a shock to him how fast the man tried to leave, how fast he could move away after what had just happened and without warning the little bronze poured everything he found outward. Maybe it was because he was shocked, maybe it was because he wanted the other man to know, it could even have been simply because Bossuth was just that, a 'baby dragon' that didn't know how to control the flow of the unconditional love he felt for his rider. Their bond being so new he wasn't sure how to turn it off when it came to others.

So he poured everything he found involving this Flower outward. Confusion, admiration, pain, regret, aprehension... love. It wasn't the same sort of love that Bossuth knew for his rider but he knew what love looked like no matter it's form. It twisted, it pulsed even as it came off him in waves, so many emotions at once that his eyes became rainbows once more, colors flashing and sparking across the faceted surfaces like lightning in a storm. These feelings were for one individual alone and though it would be felt through the entire Healer's Wing, the bronze made certain that one man alone would feel them stronger than any other. For they were all for him and he didn't know how deep they went, was searching for those hidden depths when everything slammed shut on him. Eyes whirling back to blue once more, two arms were wrapped around him as tightly as they could possibly manage without hurting his smaller body.

You shouldn't be rooting around in things that you don't understand. You're just a baby, those sorts of pains don't concern you yet. R'iz's voice was firm in his mind even if it was quiet, but he was shaking and a small spike of icy fear and failure was pierced in his heart. Slowly color flooded back through Bossuth's body, he hadn't even realized he'd lost it as their bond had wavered, and the small bronze burrowed his head down under his rider's chin as tightly as he could. There would be time for understanding later, time for confusion and time for his rider to explain what all of that was. I was just curious, you seem so hurt even in your dreams. He wouldn't betray the flower that had been here, wouldn't make himself untrustworthy before they could even meet officially, this Flower that was so important deserved better. Still, as he said those words he sent a gentle flood of love towards that man as well as he poured it over his Radish's soul to try and melt that little icy spot. That's why they're just dreams Bossuth, you can't control them but they're always there to remind you.

That explination was enough for now. No one could truly be a failure that understood love of any kind. Not to one small bronze in such a large and cold Weyr.