And Then There Were Two

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 15th January 2007

Characters: F'lin
Description: F'lin gets acquainted with Seneth, comes to a few realizations, and chops a lot of meat.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 1, day 13 of Turn 4

If he wasn't so darned happy, Felarin - F'lin, now, he reminded himself - would find it unfair that he was up to his elbows in blood and meat rather than slipping his arm around a pretty girl's waist and leading her onto the dance floor.

}:More!:{ Seneth demanded. And Felarin- F'lin sighed and smiled in spite of himself. The dragon's- _his_ dragon's nose was smeared with blood and his little wings twitched as he fanned them instinctively to dry the membranes in the humid air. }:I am hungry still!:{ "Hold on, I'm working," F'lin said, reaching for another haunch. The herdbeast's hair prickled his work-roughened calluses and Seneth's hunger made the dead, bleeding thing seem suddenly attractive. And all he had to do today was chop chunks into bite-sized bits -
tomorrow, he'd have to do pretty much all of the butchering!

}:More!:{ Seneth said.

"I know!" It made him dizzy, off-balance. Seneth's thoughts crowded his own and he was having problems deciding which were his and which were his dragon's. How could he still be hungry in a blood-stained cavern filled with dragonets and weyrlings with fat, sated flies buzzing around his ears? Sounds were tinny, echoed, twinned -
everything looked new and exciting when reflected upon by the little bronze. **Shards, but he's little,** F'lin thought absently as Semeth wolfed down hunks of bleeding meat.

The bronze paused and looked up at him. }:No, I am large.:{ F'lin blinked. Of course - his grandmother, aunt and uncle had always _thought_ at their dragons. Of course he could be heard!

}:I hear everything,:{ said Seneth, slightly smugly.

**Everything?** Forming words in his head was something he was unused to. F'lin frowned as he turned back to chopping meat. }:Everything,:{ Seneth replied. }:I hunger!:{
**I _know_!** F'lin thought, smiling, even as he was annoyed. When would Seneth stop eating!? And would he ever have a thought to himself again? It was a frightening realization, that he wouldn't ever be alone again, not even in his own head. The flies buzzed and one of them bumped against the side of his head, making F'lin flinch.

Seneth paused, his jeweled eyes whirling. }:You wish to be alone?
Why? Alone is frightening.:{ A memory, vague, of cracking out of a protective, mottled shell, and the aching, empty void in his middle.
Screams, unfamiliar hot shifting sands beneath his unfamiliar claws, light- light! Confusing, frightening, alone, so alone- }:You do not wish that,:{ Seneth said, }:Nobody wishes that.:{ "Yeah..." F'lin said. Meat parted beneath his fingers and he set another chunk aside for Seneth, and was silent as he concentrated on making up a small pile to buffer himself against Seneth's impossible hunger. How much could a small dragon eat!?

After a while Seneth began to slow, and Felarin- F'lin - paused to look around the cavern at the other Weyrlings. His Weyrlingmates.
Most of them he didn't even recognize, let alone put a name to.
**Guess I ought to have paid more attention in class,** he thought bleakly. But there were a few that he recognized - the skinny girl with the amazing blue eyes, the cute blonde girl... Honalyse? Her friend, Ioporol, and a tall Apprentice Healer who'd Impressed the only other bronze in the Clutch. A girl who couldn't have been more than fourteen with red hair and a complexion as green as her dragon, and a pretty young woman around his age with a frighteningly ugly scowl on her face as she wielded her meat cleaver. How depressing that he didn't know who they were.

Seneth burped and F'lin blinked at him, startled. Dragons burped!?
The little bronze blinked at him sleepily, radiating contentment. }:I am done now, but I might be hungry again. Will I be hungry again?:{ "Hopefully not _that_ hungry again. That was hungrier than I've ever been," F'lin told him.

}:Then we should save the meat!:{ Seneth declared. He awkwardly lay down on the ground and wrapped his stubby little tail around himself.
}:We can guard it so nobody else takes it.:{ "No, it'll go bad. There'll be more later." Mindful of his lessons, he realized that he'd have to get Seneth back to their barracks and the bed that had been prepared for them. For the first week he'd be moved back into the Weyrling barracks, but into a small offshoot room that would hopefully muffle the sound of his snoring enough so that the others could get some sleep. Ideally he and Seneth would be off by themselves, but for the first little while it was best for Seneth to be near his Weyrlingmates. At least for the first week. F'lin glanced up again at the other ex-Candidates and their new lifemates.
"Mind if I give the bits I chopped for you to someone else? So it doesn't go to waste?"

}:There will be more when I am hungry?:{ Seneth asked doubtfully. }:I do not like hunger.:{ "Yes, there will be more later when you are hungry." F'lin surreptitiously looked around, then picked up the remaining chunks of meat and snuck them over to the little redheaded girl's green. She looked up in relief and whispered a 'thank you!'. He winked, then helped his lifemate stand and led him out of the cavern.

His lifemate. F'lin smiled. He liked the sound of that.

Last updated on the January 17th 2007

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And Then There Were Two