Awkward Reunions (C'ross)

[giftwrapped]

She was supposed to be meeting with the Warden. Wardens. At least one Warden was supposed to be meeting with R'ley. She was, after all, a gold transfer. But Faranth, she had no interest in the tedium of that sort of thing. And anyways, she had...business.

If by business you mean malicious glee in stupid things, the dark voice in the back of her head murmured, and Nostromoth sighed as her rider slipped off her back and loosened her straps. I will speak with the Wardens' bronzes, even if you have no interest in process, the gold went on, grumbling to herself and snorting irritably in R'ley's face as she straightened up.

"Good," R'ley answered cheerily, slapping the dragon affectionately on the rump. "I didn't want you here right off the bat, anyway. I have...things that need to be done, first." Things that involved surprising a certain ex. She hadn't heard from him in a while...all she could hope was that he recognized her. She was pretty sure he would; she hadn't changed all that much, as far as she knew. But still...there was a certain degree of anxiety. She looked back fondly on their memories, but she had no way of knowing if he did or not.

But only one way to find out.

Nostromoth huffed and set off on foot, moving toward the prison building and leaving R'ley on the banks of the river some distance from anything in particular. And it was about that point that the goldrider realized she knew absolutely nothing about the Weyr. She had been given coordinates, but little else. All she had right then was the pack on her shoulder, the bags on Nostromoth's harness, and intuition. And a naturally nosy personality that would have been a lot less annoying if she hadn't decided to hide the knots that marked her as a goldrider.

It wasn't hard to get directions to where she needed to go, though, and before long R'ley was striding past dragon wallows and huts, marveling quietly at the Southern way of doing things and keeping an eye out for a certain bronze and green pair. The green, she didn't see. But the bronze...there was no mistaking that hide, the high-contrast markings, the massive size. And if she was momentarily distracted by the scars, well...

"Merceth," she called roughly, voice carrying as she moved right into the bronze's personal space. She didn't expect him to remember her - it had been what, four turns now. But still, she couldn't keep the excitement and the fondness out of her voice as she called to the dragon. "It's been a long time, darling. Where's Yours?"

[tuathade]

Semith was gone.

Oh, she wasn't gone-gone. She had taken T'di and Mordanth and her rider and they had all gone off to another weyrhold. But the fact remained that she no longer belonged to Warden's... and that Merceth would likely never see her again. One more friend slipping out of his life, to eventually fade from memory save for when reminders sparked that old pain again.

The scarred bronze was coiled alone in his wallow, Nicoth's old haunt lying empty as usual next to his. Perhaps one of these days he'd ask His for a transfer - there had to be other weyrs, ones with only one dragon-wallow. Maybe one closer to the forges that I'saac liked. Yes. Then everyone would be happier.

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a stranger - one who knew his name. One who spoke to him directly, walked into his personal space like she belonged there. His head jerked up, good eye focusing on R'ley and whirling a bright orange as he rumbled a warning. Back off, was the unspoken message. No visitors allowed. No one was to disturb His, or His' weyrmate. Not without permission - or if they were Warden or someone similarly important, but this woman was not one of the new Wardens. Sharp teeth snapped at the empty air to punctuate the warning. She had no right to be here!

Things might well have gone very poorly if C'ross had not reached out to his dragon's mind to see what in Faranth's name was the matter. Through Merceth's eye, C'ross recognized the old familiar face - and through C'ross' mind, Merceth's own memories came flooding back.

...Ripley? The mindvoice was cautious, hesitant, even a little shy. But this was... This was Ripley. C'ross' Ripley. His Ripley. His Ripley had come back.

The goldrider would find herself surrounded on both sides by sturdy bronze forelegs as Merceth practically flung himself at her. He nuzzled at her fiercely, hard enough to knock her to the sandy wallow floor - and the accompanying mindvoice was not precisely a voice, so much. There were no words, save for her name, just an inarticulate outpouring of love and misery and loneliness all wrapped up into one confused bronze mind. But only one thing mattered.

She had come back.

[giftwrapped]

The growl, that huge head swinging up, eyes whirling red-orange, the snapping of teeth - none of it surprised R'ley. She took a step back, but even as she did so she reached out, palms toward the bronze, a placating gesture as much as it was a request, a plea for recognition. She did not fear Merceth. He was a bronze, incapable of harming humans, nasty though his temper and threats might have been. No, she wasn't afraid of hurting him, just causing him undue stress. There was no way the dragon would recognize her, but if his rider touched his mind, if C'ross saw through his eyes - and she understood, now, how such things happened - then perhaps...

And then the voice, and the sudden attack that was a nuzzle rather than a headbutt, sending R'ley straight to the ground. The wind escaped her in a whoop of laughter, and she threw her arms around the bronze's head, scratching behind one headknob as she pressed her cheek between the eyeridges and laughed. "Merceth," she answered the bronze's pleasure with her own, a laugh when she could breathe again, though it was shaky. The feelings in her head, the bronze's intense emotion - this was different from Nostromoth. In a way, it felt nearly like Impression. But it wasn't the same kind of emotion, the sudden coming together of two halves. This was -

There is another dragon, Nostromoth murmured, taking care not to intrude on the strange feelings overwhelming her rider. The gold's voice was detached, devoid of interest or emotion but nonetheless betraying a suddenly more observant presence than she had been displaying before. She was interested in this bronze, with his strange feelings, interested in the way her rider's mind lit up in a similar display. This was strange, a curiosity. And Nostromoth would, for the time-being, allow it to happen.

R'ley, in the meantime, let hands wander, feeling the ridges of scars - some old, some newer, some - Faranth! "Merceth," she said softly, drawing back for a moment to look at the bronze's face. At some point he had - "Faranth, Merceth, what-" she shook her head, tracing the scars with one hand while the other cupped itself below the bronze's chin. "You've been through a lot, haven't you, old man?" she asked quietly, and her hands traveled from the face to along the neck, the maze of old wounds. All of it was new, strange - though so much of it was old and fading.

"My old boy."

[tuathade]

Even if Merceth could have noticed Nostromoth, he most likely wouldn't have. He was too busy being utterly delighted by her rider. He nuzzled up against her, let his muzzle rest against her chest and relaxed into the touch as her hands wandered over him. This - he had missed this, something unique to the two of them. Even with his rider, while C'ross had moments of rough affection, they tended to be sparing. The bronzerider wasn't the kind to be so openly tender with his dragon; that wasn't the kind of bond they had. Even as her hands lightly touched on the most recent and grievous scar, he didn't twitch or flinch back as he would have for anyone else. No need. Ripley would never hurt him.

You're here, he managed at last, crooning a bone-shakingly low note. Were you transferred here? Are you staying? Please, tell me you're staying. The orange had been utterly drowned out by a rich blue-green, whirling contentment as that initial hitch of loneliness faded. She was here, the same as she had always been. He remembered, now. Everything would be all right.

The door to the hut swung open and C'ross stepped outside, hesitating in the doorway. This was... rather more complicated for the rider than for the dragon. True, he and Ripley had parted on amicable terms. Shells, she'd helped him finally make the decision to pursue his soulmate. It was because of her that he was here with I'saac. But there could only be a little shred of discomfort, an unspoken could-have-been. They were exes, after all.

So he did not pounce as Merceth had, but continued over to them at a sedate pace. Leaning over his dragon's arm, he gave R'ley a tired, lopsided smile and a little nod. "Well, well, well. Look who it is. What are you in for, then?"

[giftwrapped]

"Yes, I am here. I'm here now, with you. I'm staying, yes."

R'ley's words were soft to the bronze, barely more than whispers as she stopped her investigations of the scars and just wrapped her arms around Merceth's neck and leaned there for a moment. Faranth, she had missed...she had missed this. In the back of her mind, there had always been a nagging doubt, a worry that she had lost...something. It had been her doing that C'ross had left. It was her fault and she didn't regret it - not in the same way most regretted decisions like that. Certainly, she had missed C'ross - you don't spend turns in close physical proximity to someone to move on as if nothing had ever happened - but...it wasn't C'ross that she had spent the past four turns missing. It was the strange combination of dragon and rider, the closeness that the three had once had.

There was nothing altogether special about C'ross - she had certainly stumbled across a sudden wealth of bitter Watch-trained bronzeriders in the past two turns since her Impression. But something about C'ross and Merceth and what had once been - that was what she missed the most. Scratching idly under Merceth's jaw, she was so engrossed in the activity that the rider's words made her jump a little, turning abruptly to face C'ross with an expression that was equal parts pleasure and 'guilty child unsure if she was in trouble for what she was doing'. It turned to a smile a moment later, though, and R'ley reached out to squeeze C'ross's shoulder with one hand. The other stayed under Merceth's chin.

"Impressing, I'm afraid," she answered with a soft laugh. "Nobody wanted me up north, so here I am." She shrugged a little bit, drawing slightly away from Merceth so she could give C'ross a proper hug. "It's good to see you, C'ross," she said quietly, earnestly. Four turns was a long time to lose touch with someone you had once been in love with, and it was...strange. She had wondered what seeing them again would be like. There was no strangeness in seeing Merceth again, though she wondered about the scars. No, all the strangeness lay in her reunion with C'ross.

It wasn't that she wanted him back, but seeing him again brought back a rush of memories - good and bad - that she wasn't adequately prepared to cope with. It was a lot of feeling in a short amount of time.

Would you like me to come rescue you?

Not yet, darling.

I am coming anyway.

[tuathade]

Merceth kept up the contented, rumbling croon as R’ley wrapped her arms around his neck. He exhaled a warm breath onto her back, nudging gently at her as he re-coiled himself around the tall woman, shifting to allow C’ross into their circle as well. Good. Things have been… difficult, here. But it’ll be better now.

And then she let go, and moved to hug C’ross, and the bronzerider returned it with interest. “You Impressed?” The cautious smile turned into a genuine one, and he gave her an affectionate squeeze before moving to hold her at arm’s length and look her in the eye. “Good for you! Let me hazard a guess and say… brown, for you? And I’m guessing you’d elide… R’ley?” You didn’t let yourself get physically and emotionally close to someone for years without learning a few things about them. And Ripley was just the sort of weyrfolk who’d delight in screwing with the oldtimers by honorizing her name. As for brown… Well, he had always sort of assumed that she’d Impress brown one of these days. She was most emphatically the right type.

Maybe it should have been more difficult than it was, for him. Maybe he should have felt more conflicted. Certainly, being close to her again stirred up all the old feelings, the old memories of all that they’d shared. They had never really had a falling-out, just a quiet fading away after his transfer, and even then they had remained good friends. The ‘end’ of their relationship had been less of an ending, and more of an acknowledgement of something he couldn’t ignore: what he felt for I’saac. Granted, he was happily weyrmated, and that wasn’t changing anytime soon. Nothing compared to his bond to the former greenrider; he’d go to the ends of Pern and back if I’saac asked it of him. But there was more than one kind of affection – and he couldn’t deny that with his dragon beaming happy warm fuzzies directly into his head, C’ross was feeling fondly nostalgic. It was good to see an old friend again.

I’saac probably wasn’t going to be too thrilled about this, though. Things were going to get… awkward. Well, he would deal with that in his own time.
"It's good to see you too."

[giftwrapped]

....A brown.....

Oh, C'ross was going to love this. R'ley grinned a little bit, leaning into the hug after a moment with less of the awkwardness that she had begun with. She bit back a whoop of laughter at C'ross's colour guess. Shards, it would have been her guess, too, had she even considered the possibility of Impression. But apparently riders didn't get to decide that sort of thing. It was up to the dragons. And Nostromoth was a lot of things, but 'brown' wasn't one of them. She wondered idly how C'ross would take that particular revalation.

"Yeah, about that," she began, then trailed off. There were more important things to deal with. "You're right about R'ley," she said, focusing suddenly on that portion of C'ross's guesses as she pulled out from Cross's arms and leaned back against Merceth. Faranth, this was just like old times, wasn't it? The three of them, just....standing and talking. It was nice. A little bittersweet, admittedly. But nice. "It's...been a while." And the awkward conversation began. R'ley fidgeted for a moment with the pack over her shoulder, resettling it before she looked back at C'ross. "Four turns since you left, I guess." And five turns since he left her. But she kept that one silent; no need to open old wounds - if there was even anything left to open.

"How about you," she began suddenly, rubbing the back of her neck and glancing to Merceth, to the missing eye. "It looks like you've had some adventures, darling. Nothing too exciting, I hope? And I'saac, is he-"

So this is the bronze, then. The interruption was smooth, blank, delivered in a tone that offered little in the way of emotion or modulation. Nostromoth was never very good with that whole "cadence" thing, and she certainly wasn't going to start being so now. Thumping to the ground behind R'ley and Merceth, she plopped her sizeable hindquarters down a green's length from the group and cocked a critical eye at scarred bronze and bulky bronzerider. Suits you, she remarked after a moment. I can see why he is a part of your past.

[tuathade]

The smile faded, glassed over by the usual stoic expression that C’ross got whenever people asked about I’saac. Merceth was more obvious, the blue-green of his good eye misting over with dull grey. They were used to it by now. Then again, most of the people doing the asking already knew about Nicoth; their questions were more along the lines of how’s the dragonless man holding up. R’ley would need to hear the whole story, from the beginning. That was going to be... interesting.

“Nicoth is-“ he began hesitantly. Fortunately, he was rescued from a difficult situation by the arrival of Nostromoth. That pretty much distracted him from all other concerns.

Oh

holy

fucking

shit.

“You’re – you’re the new goldrider,” he stammered. “You.. Shards and shells.” He’d heard that there were going to be new transfers to replace Leshta and Semith, and to keep order over the new weyrlings… But he’d never in a million turns imagined it would be R’ley.

And… what a gold she was. Sharding massive, for one. Bigger even than Merceth by a good margin, and Merceth was at the top end of bronzes in terms of size. Not especially shiny, except in patches – if it weren’t for her length, he might well think he was right on the brown guess. C’ross let out a low appreciative whistle as he sized her up. And this was a young gold, too – couldn’t be older than four turns, as R’ley had just so kindly reminded him. Next to the scarred old battleship that was Merceth, the difference was even more striking.

Merceth, for his part, lifted his head and gave Nostromoth a slightly startled, half-guilty look. Hello, he offered uneasily. It's nice to meet you. Faranth, he'd just been caught getting all snuggly and up-close-and-personal with another dragon's rider. Not just that, but a shiny dragon who could theoretically just order him away from her. She didn't seem particularly aggressive or jealous, but that flat cadence was difficult to read. Was she bothered that her rider was associating so closely with him?

...This just threw a rather nasty wrench in his whole relationship with Ripley. It wasn't just the three of them anymore. They now had a spare rider and a spare dragon tacked on, and not attached to each other either. If mapped out, this would make an unfortunate polygon. Merceth would have to tread lightly until he got to know this dragon a little better.

[giftwrapped]

She didn't miss the pause, the sudden flicker of grey in Merceth's remaining eye, and for a moment, R'ley felt icewater in her veins. I'saac - he was - no, it couldn't be. R'ley knew C'ross, knew his bearings and expressions. He didn't wear grief well, and though the man she was looking at was weary (terribly weary; something about his bearing suggested that he had been wrapping himself in bone-tiredness for sevendays, if not longer), he was not broken. Losing I'saac would have broken him. Which meant that when he began speaking about Nicoth - she didn't want to jump to conclusions.

That was too painful a conclusion to jump to without confirmation. She didn't want it to be true.

Luckily, Nostromoth's arrival momentarily complicated things, and though R'ley ducked, tensing herself to watch C'ross's reaction, his surprise was more genuine shock than horror or upset. "Yeah, yeah," she mumbled, grimacing a little bit. "She's a gold, I know. Transferred here because nobody back there wants me, and this bag of bones decided a prison Weyr was a great place to weather her first Flight." The look she shot Nostromoth there was downright poisonous; she was anxious about Flights and Flightlust - particularly that of golds - to begin with, and Nostromoth's decision to volunteer her here didn't make her feel any better about her chances.

But...C'ross was here. And there would be time to figure that out later. In the meantime, she reached out to C'ross again, resting her fingertips on his elbow. "She doesn't change anything," she said quietly, almost urgently. "I'm still me and still R'ley, this - I don't want this to make things awkward." It had made everyone else awkward. And if there was one person in the world she didn't want to ruin her relationship with - whatever that relationship was - it was C'ross. And Merceth. Idly, she rubbed the bronze under the chin again, looking at Nostromoth with an air of expectancy.

For a hefty pause, the gold simply cocked her head to one side and fixed R'ley with an expression that was exceedingly neutral for a dragon, her eyes whirling an impassive shade of olive green. Then she inclined her head, shifting forward to bump her muzzle against Merceth's and fixing C'ross with one large eye. I am Nostromoth. You are Merceth, and that is Yours, she remarked, offering little beyond a curt inclination of the head to the bronze's rider. R'ley speaks fondly of you, she went on, in a voice that was meant only for the bronze. She did not speak to humans who were not her rider. She was not Merceth.

And whether Merceth chose to relay her words to C'ross was his own decision.

[tuathade]

And without warning, things had drifted into awkward territory. First Flight… so she was a very young gold. The sharp look that R’ley shot Nostromoth, the sudden urgency in her tone, did not escape C’ross’ notice. She was nervous, and understandably so. C’ross hadn’t been there since he was a teenager, freshly Impressed to Merceth… and even then, it was different to have a male dragon, one who might choose whether or not to chase. A gold would rise no matter what you did… And Warden’s was not precisely rich with desirable choices.

Oh Faranth. How did one even begin to explain? The awkward part isn’t that you Impressed gold. The awkward part is that my dragon has always been more fond of you than he is of me, and he’s bronze and she’s gold, and she hasn’t had her first Flight yet, and we’re exes. Friendly exes who don’t resent each other, and I want to keep it that way. And between take it, what if he decides to chase her?

I wouldn’t, Merceth interjected suddenly. Not unless R’ley wanted me to. He gave C’ross a sidelong look, eye whirling a myriad of colors. Although if she did ask me to…

All right, all right. I get it. Shards, it was weird, being attached to one of the few bronzes in the world who cared more about the rider than the dragon. It was one thing if he could just shrug and blame it on the old ‘dragon decides, rider complies’ adage. With Merceth, he couldn’t. With R’ley he couldn’t. It was so much more complicated than that. There was… there was consent and courtesy and history and whatever-the-shells-it-was that R’ley and Merceth had…

But R’ley was waiting expectantly for a response. He didn’t pull back from the touch, instead reached out an arm to pull her close into a rough half-hug. “No, you’re right. This doesn’t change anything.” He chuckled quietly under his breath. “Although, I am glad this is Warden’s. It’d be sharding awkward to have to bow and call you Weyrwoman and obey orders and all that whershit.” C’ross, ever a stickler for the established hierarchy and chain of command, would have felt obligated to defer to her if she was ranked as a weyrwoman. As a goldrider, it was less clear where she stood – which meant he could still maintain this comfortable informality.

Yes, Merceth responded to Nostromoth, returning the gold’s nudge with a hopeful blue tint to his eye. Your rider and mine were friends and sometimes-mates, before I came here to Warden’s. She was still difficult to read, but she seemed to be trying to be friendly. That was good… right? That was a good sign.

[giftwrapped]

"If it weren't Warden's, it'd be the same," R'ley answered, tone dry. "They loved me back at the Weyr for that, let me tell you." And the sharp sarcasm in her voice dispelled the last of the anxiety; R'ley's apparent anger at the gold, her disdain for the old traditions that were so wholly grounded in weird old rituals that it was nearly offensive, was enough to distract her from feeling sorry for herself. "Faranth, it's like...." she shrugged. "Dragonflesh is dragonflesh. Golds aren't even..." she paused, then, glancing at Nostromoth. Gold had its perks. Gold meant, for instance, that most folk were willing to drop everything for her. It commanded instant respect, even if she didn't think she deserved it. It allowed a great deal of freedom, even as it came with a great deal of restriction.

"It's complicated," she sighed eventually. "I'm too old for all this change," she added with a sly, self-deprecating laugh. "People keep treating me with respect and I don't know what to do with it. Too much attention. She should've gone to some starry-eyed sixteen-turn-old with dragons in her head and some burning desire to be Weyrwoman."

A girl like that would have been useless to me. I did not choose you on some whim, Nostromoth answered, and though her tone was still the same flat delivery, there was an edge in her feelings. Some tiny modulation, not in the sound but below it, that hinted at some faint glimmer of...if not fondness, then satisfaction in a job well done - a rider well chosen. Nostromoth was not fond of R'ley in the traditional sense. And R'ley was far beyond the few days of passionate human-dragon obsession that came after Impression. They were...partners. A business endeavor.

You are useful. Others would not be.

That means a lot, coming from you.

Don't expect further iterations.

And about that point, R'ley realized she was spacing out, momentarily unaware of the world around her as she lost herself in conversation with the dragon. It was difficult, to remember to do two things at once. She suspected she would never entirely figure it out, if old moments with C'ross were anything to go by. Then again..well, it didn't matter. At this point, she was stalling the inevitable. Even as Nostromoth turned to Merceth, eyes momentarily flickering slightly blue as the gold attempted to be something approaching personable, R'ley turned back to C'ross.

"Enough about me, C'ross. I'saac...Nicoth isn't here anymore, is he?" R'ley's voice was soft, barely more than a whisper as she leaned against C'ross in another hug.

Sometimes-mates. And then he was mated to a different rider. A man. Nostromoth paused. There was something about the situation, something in the back of R'ley's mind and that the dragon could all but instinctively feel, that was indicating to her a less-than-ideal situation. Merceth was here. Merceth's was here. The man mated to Merceth's was not...but R'ley did not seem to think he was dead. She did, however, seem to think that the green, a dragon that rang in R'ley's head as danger and problem, was. She did not mention the green, for the bronze's sake.

It is perhaps for the best, she remarked privately to R'ley before returning her attention to Merceth. The mate of Yours is not a fond memory of R'ley's. It held the barest hint of a question.

[tuathade]

“One of the few perks to living here,” C’ross said dryly, “is that people really, honestly don’t give two shits about your dragon’s color. We have pinks running around. Pinks. It helps.” He kept the companionable arm around her, though she would be able to feel the sudden shift in posture, the sudden tension as the topic shifted back to Nicoth.

C’ross didn’t want to talk about Nicoth. He didn’t even want to think about Nicoth. And Merceth was in his head, worrying at the memory as one would worry at an abscessed tooth: you know it won’t do any good, it’ll just hurt more, but you can’t stop and just leave it alone, you can’t ignore it. The wound should have faded and healed with time; he was not the dragonless man who had to carry the emptiness for the rest of his life. Merceth was still alive and well. He just had to carry the guilt of knowing he’d caused the death of his weyrmate’s dragon, however inadvertently –

Stop. Merceth’s eye flickered orange, and his tail lashed once in irritation.

I made the call. It was a bad one, and she died for it.

You made the call, Merceth agreed, and the tone in C’ross’ head was sharp and unrelenting. But I followed through. I’m not a dumb animal, without a will of my own. Nor are we just extensions of one another. We’re two people, both of whom are capable of decisions, who just happen to be telepathically connected – and I made a choice, same as you did. Merceth would be shot between if he was going to let this all get blamed on Flightlust. They were both suffering the effects, and to imply that either dragon or rider was more culpable was to claim that one party or the other was the one with the autonomy.

Naturally, both of them danced around the elephant in the room that was Nicoth’s own part in all this. You didn’t speak ill of the dead, nor blame them for their own misfortune. Even if it had been self-defense in part, it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t brought this on herself, and neither had I’saac.

There was a long silence before C’ross spoke, almost as long as the one that had ensued while R’ley and Nostromoth spoke. (C’ross had been a dragonrider long enough to recognize that look, the I’m having a silent conversation with someone else expression particularly common to the newly Impressed.) He had to gather his thoughts and consider. There was no reason to tell R’ley every sordid detail; he didn’t want to say it, and likely she didn’t want to know it. “…If you transferred here, I’m guessing someone told you about the breakout,” he began, voice quiet and heavy but unfaltering. “Things got out of control, and – Nicoth died, yes. But I’saac is still here. We cope, as best we can.”

If there was the draconic equivalent of a shrug, Merceth made it in Nostromoth’s direction. Humans. They crazy. It’s complicated, with humans, he suggested, not entirely sure how to broach the complex topic of human mating and courtship to a dragon he’d only just met, but willing to give it a shot. It’s not like they can just say, I am flying now, and the winner will be the fastest or the strongest or the handsomest. They like things to be as complicated as possible or it isn’t worthwhile. So they look for something else, some other quality that they mostly describe by not describing it. And sometimes they find someone else they know is more suited to them, but they don't want to admit it, and then they make a very silly fuss of it. Or at least, that was Merceth's experience.

[giftwrapped]

...That sounds right, Nostromoth said after a moment, giving a short nod. Humans didn't make sense. It was one of the first things the gold dragon had realized. Humans did nothing in a straightforward way. Not that Nostromoth understood dragon behaviour much better. Overall, the gold had decided, far too many of every species put too much stock in their emotions. It seems a grand fuss to make for mates, she remarked. Nostromoth might not have Flown yet, but it was a matter of the finality of maturity, rather than any lacking understanding of the concepts. But in her eyes, it was a waste of energy to take a mate beyond the strategic advantage it might give.

The thought bled briefly into R'ley's head, and she turned briefly toward the dragon, before looking back at C'ross. For a long, silent moment, she simply stood. What did you say to someone who had lost - everything? It wasn't quite accurate for C'ross, he was still whole, but if his weyrmate had lost his dragon, it must have been - "I'd heard about the breakout, yes," she answered quietly. There were so many things she could have said, and none of them felt right. It all felt false, contrived...rote. Cliche. So instead of trying, she turned her head, pressing her lips against C'ross's cheek in a mute gesture of sympathetic apology. Her embrace tightened.

"It won't mean anything, but I'm sorry," she said softly. "But I'm glad that he's...still here." For a second, it seemed like she was going to say something else. Her lips formed the beginnings of it, a gentle he must love you a great deal or a sympathetic if there's anything i can do, but none of it seemed right. And she sighed softly. "I can't imagine what you must have gone through. The both of you. I'm glad you're..." she frowned for a moment, trailing off awkwardly. "If not 'all right,' then as right as it's possible to be."

"I've missed having you around," she said, trying to change the subject with a slight smile. "Especially the last two turns. Sharding difficult to find someone willing to spar with a queenrider." And here, the smile broadened. "You should have seen the looks on some of their faces when I brought it up. Even the guards looked at me like I was asking them to kill herdbeasts with their bare hands. You'd think they didn't remember who I was, or something."

"Golds are kind of stupid, in that respect," she remarked conversationally.

I appreciate that.

You know it, darling.