0001-03-21 - First 'fall over Keroon

Inside, Lady Keroon watches from the window of her personal quarters, one of the rooms with an exterior wall and window that can see much and have, on good days, beautiful sunlight streaming in. Inscrutably, she watches the dragonriders prepare and then casts a glance to the ground where the courtyard is empty but a small detachment of people who are armed with grounds crew gear. Her eyes train to the person leading them and organizing them, and meets his gaze with a tacit, approving little nod. But soon, she's shooed away by someone within, who then draws the large iron shutters inward, and the inner hold goes mostly dark.

Keroon's newest journeyman shadows her mother, her expression hardly sunny. Born here, raised here, of here, today -- while nibbling on brioche and sweet fruits -- her gaze avoids the dragons and their riders in favor of the grounds crew she knows, and their fathers and uncles and aunts. There's no protest from Naledi when they huddle back into the stone.

Keroon's Lord is nowhere to be seen. Has he, by now, accepted the inevitable? If so, he's not making a show of it: the shutters may be coming down around the hold, but Laurent's fingerprints are far from in evidence on this-- or on the provision of the ground-crew outside.

Khataith is making a show of it: low enough to light up the pale spans of her wings against the darkness of their spars, high enough to curve and swoop with none of her rider's frailty, urging Igen's dragons towards battle. Not only the wings but individuals gain her encouragement, and not only Zesoth and the two juniors at that; her attention reaches here, there, and everywhere, buoyant and... wistful. Because, though one of the first to arrive, she is by necessity the first to depart.

Lycaszaeth acknowledges her dam with a low rumble that turns louder and lighter as she reins herself (and her rider) in, prepared for battle. Of course, it's not the same as up in the rest of the wings, but she'll take what she can get, she and her rider: Alendis, it's true, could scarcely be more determined or exhilarated, flamethrower in tow and ready to... go.

"It'd serve Lord Arseface right for the thread to ruin his herds," the junior mutters to her queen, out loud but only because that's narratively more interesting; in either case, it's not as if anyone else can hear her. "But we won't let it through, will we? Be ready, my sweet." She glances over her shoulder to check on Lanelle, but again, only for a moment: she's adjusting her position, readying herself.

Threadfall is go.

Zhareth is there too, a glint of bronze at the back of his wing's reverse formation where he and his rider can keep an eye on one and all. The ichor may be pumping, but they're all so untested. Not only in these first few Falls of the Pass' beginning; Keroon's landscape is unfamiliar to this contingent of Fortian dragons, the winds that blow over the grasslands unbroken by higher terrain. Dragon instinct is raring to go, but among the riders, anxiety is high.

Anxiety is very high. Two-thirds down the vee, V'riad hunches behind Djarith's neckridge, patting the spare firestone sacks to either side as reassurance; his dragon's chomping at the metaphorical bit, threatening to surge faster but so far staying in line. Even matched with a more experienced pair as a let's-not-call-them-babysitters, this is still so new for a just-barely-not-weyrling with the training he's had -- and Igen's winds are not like Fort's.

J'rias' wing is not spared.

The first death is not his, but another one will be. His wing is largely composed of blues and greens, and when their stamina begins to flag, the toll mounts. A green, normally so nimble, avoids a wingmate's airspace only to miss the clump of Thread drifting down from above. It rakes across her neck and her rider, and the shock of it means she twists into another few strands that score her wings before she vanishes between. Zoraith limps back to the Weyr, long enough for healers to drag her badly wounded rider from her, before managing to lift off just enough for one final trip between. K'lace revives enough to struggle against the healers, but it's too late, and she's gone without him.

This is how J'rias learns what it means to be a wingleader in a Pass. It's him who tries to manage to shock echoing through his wing, spurring further injuries as riders feel their wingmate go. He orders a good number back to base, with a few of the hardier dragons determinedly holding their own while others take a short and necessary rest. They'll trade in and out for the rest of the Fall, with the greenest of them all transferred to firestone resupply. He won't lose them, too.

It's J'rias who takes the bereft rider between to join his beloved green. Kace, as everyone called him, will never be the fun-loving, mischievous man he once was; now, all he desires is relief from pain that runs deeper than Threadscore. It's J'rias who takes the news to Fort. To a former lover. A son. To friends left behind. And when J'rias returns, that customary, charming smile of his is gone, too.