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- (Anonymous) - Re: Different anon, spin-off fill
- (Anonymous) - OP here
- (Anonymous) - Re: DresdenFiles! The Grandia II Version
- (Anonymous) - 4th in a series?
- (Anonymous) - Re: 4th in a series?
- (Anonymous) - Inspired by a post on the last meme
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temis_ookami - Re: Inspired by a post on the last meme- (Anonymous) - Re: Dresden/Marcone - The Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, I am a nerd.
- (Anonymous) - Re: 4th in a series?
- (Anonymous) - Re: 4th in a series?
- (Anonymous) - Re: Fill: Slip of the Tongue [1/1]
- (Anonymous) - See the Truth
- luciazephyr - Re: Inspired by a post on the last meme
- (Anonymous) - Re: Inspired by a post on the last meme
- (Anonymous) - Re: Dresden/Marcone - The Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, I am a nerd.
- luciazephyr - Re: See the Truth
- (Anonymous) - John/Harry Reporter AU
- (Anonymous) - Re: John/Harry Reporter AU
- (Anonymous) - Dragon!Prompt
- binz - Re: See the Truth
- luciazephyr - Re: Dragon!Prompt
- luciazephyr - Re: See the Truth
- binz - Re: Dragon!Prompt
- (Anonymous) - Pern crossover: Queens High (4/5)
- (Anonymous) - Pern crossover: Queens High (second 4/5)
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- Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure
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Re: Different anon, spin-off fill
Date: 2011-02-23 08:36 pm (UTC)I just realized that I forgot to include Kincaid and Mab in the scheduled weekends suggestion.
/is frozen and hunted by the Hellhound/
OP here
Date: 2011-02-23 09:08 pm (UTC)Re: DresdenFiles! The Grandia II Version
Date: 2011-02-23 10:00 pm (UTC)I love you
I also love this game.
So perfect...
Someone needs to fill this
4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 10:27 pm (UTC)Things had always been a little awkward between me and the Council in general. Between me and the specific people in the Council? Well, I always thought I should be admired for my self-restraint. But yeah. We made bad relations into an art form. It usually wasn’t so bad. We also mastered the art of evasion. Wizards are great at anything in that field: denial, evasion, secrets, etc. etc. etc. When you live as long as we do, I guess you need something to entertain yourself. Or maybe it had to do with the Sight and having certain things stored permanently in your memory. I tried not to think too hard on it.
Every now and then, though, they actually acted out their fantasies rather than just, well, fantasized them, and that was usually when I was called in front of them. Generally the goal was to try to cast me out or kill me. Gee, and people complained about their neighbors being passive-aggressive assholes. Wizards are among the few creatures who can passively-aggressively find a reason to cut your head off. Maybe when a diplomat dies, they were reincarnated as a wizard. Or maybe whenever a diplomat clapped their hands, a wizard was being a subtle passive-aggressive asshole. Explained why you always saw diplomats leading applauses. Nothing about them trying to be nice and everything about trying to get a wizard to kill someone.
It made sense in my head, okay?
Of course, my head was kind of hypothermic, which had to do with my current incredibly awkward situation, awkward to the point where I missed the less-than-passive-aggressive way Morgan would always try to find a reason to cut my head off before.
Yeah, I missed the days when Morgan would corner me in alleys and tell me I was bound to slip up so he could cut my head off. Too bad I can’t blame that on the hypothermia. I can blame it on Bob, though, so that helped make me feel a little better.
One bit of following Bob’s advice and a bad day for Morgan to play stalker later, and I knew how Morgan’s dick felt up my ass and that he cleaned up his partner after sex. Until then, I didn’t realize how much I preferred Morgan’s other sword.
Come on, there was no way that I was ignoring that pun.
“Dresden, why are you laughing?” Morgan demanded. He wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders, but that only made it so I pressed harder against his side…closer to both of his swords. I snickered harder. “Did you hit your head when you fell in the water? Dresden!”
If you paid attention in school when they were discussing witchhunts, you would notice a theme…besides naked orgies. The things they teach in school. Really. But if you get past the supposed orgies and doing magic skyclad, you would notice two popular ways they killed supposed warlocks: burning them and drowning them.
Purifying with the former and disabling their magic on the other.
This case led us to a witch hunter. Nice guy, really. Optimistic, intelligent, overall nice guy.
Eighth generation witch hunter. He apologized to me when he used a hidden explosive to knock me into the river. Called after me that it was for the good of my soul.
I hated it when bad guys knew how to use a wizard’s problems with technology against them. Insult to injury.
No, wait. The insult to this injury was Morgan diving into the river to save my skinny ass.
Or was it when Luccio announced that Morgan and I would go after this witch hunter before he killed any more apprentices?
Or maybe I was right all along and the Almighty hates me. I’m betting on that one.
Morgan’s sword poked my hip. I snorted and hid my face in the blanket, chortling a little.
Yeah, might have hit my head on a rock. Or it was hypothermia. It was difficult to tell at that moment.
Not sure where Morgan dragged us to. Just knew that it was warm and dry and it had a fire. It would have been cozy if I hadn’t been freezing with Morgan curled up against my side.
Curled up, sitting up straight with military precision, whatever, he was still pressed against my side, close enough that the sword that he had threatened me with for years was poking my hip.
I laughed into the blanket. Or maybe it was just hysteria making me laugh. Could you really blame me?
“Dresden!” There was a sharp sound, and then my cheek hurt. I stopped laughing and stared at Morgan in astonishment. Did he just slap me?
“Did you just slap me?”
Morgan pulled his hand back and calmly resettled the blanket around himself. “You were losing control,” he retorted calmly, “and I didn’t want to escape drowning to burn alive.”
I glanced at the fire, which looked much brighter than before. I coughed. Ah, oops?
I leaned forward, acting like I was moving closer to the fire rather than away from Morgan. “How long are we going to stay here, anyway?” I grumbled. My voice gave a little mid-sentence. Great. So not only was I huddling with someone I…someone I…someone who has been hunting me for years, but I sounded like a teenager while I did it. Just great.
He ignored that opening. Guess it was too obvious. “Stop moving,” he said testily. “We need to dry off before we do anything.”
Having apparently decided that I wasn’t concussed, just insane, Morgan went back to ignoring me. It was actually pretty impressive considering we were huddled under one small blanket in front of an even smaller fire in a house that was smaller than my apartment.
And his sword was poking my hip.
I coughed to hide my laugh and stared at the fire instead. It rose a little in response.
“Stop that,” Morgan snapped. “The air around us it too cold as it is.”
Because of course Morgan would save us from drowning to find the one cabin in a hundred-mile radius with only a fireplace for warmth. Or maybe that was just my luck. I was always told that I was special like that.
Like I mentioned earlier, wizards have mastered the art of evasion. Morgan went from being a stalker to completely vanishing from my life after the…incident. I was grateful, really. It made it easier not to think about it if I didn’t see him, and I guessed he thought the same. True, this apparently prompted Marcone to up his stalking, but I was always comforted that I was never alone, and it gave me a great excuse to strengthen the protections on my duster.
I scowled at the fire. Everything was just easier if we didn’t think about it. Luccio didn’t get it. Neither did Murphy or Thomas. They knew something had happened, and Luccio knew that the something had happened between Morgan and me.
Wizards were great at evasion, but more often than I liked, they hated it when they watched other wizards do it.
I pulled too far away from Morgan, and the blanket slipped out from around my shoulder. Before I even realized my shivering had increased, Morgan was dragging me back against his side. “Stop that, idiot! Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Why did everyone always ask me that?
I grunted and tried to squirm away from him. Note for future reference: getting exploded into a rushing river and then drowning with the current hurts. Just so you know. His hand squeezed one of the nicely forming bruises and I stopped squirming with a gasp.
“…idiot.” His hand lingered, and I remembered the feel of his hands on me. Most of that time was a drugged blur, but I remembered that.
I also remembered the regret on his face.
Fuck, but I missed hating him so easily.
His hand moved slower than I would have liked away from my arm to wrap the blanket more securely around my shoulders. I did my damnedest to ignore him, but the feel reminded me of something, when he had insisted on bandaging my back on one of the few times I didn’t wear my duster.
Not that my duster did a lot of good today. Morgan had pulled it off me earlier and had it draped near the fireplace.
Morgan had undressed me.
I couldn’t remember who had undressed me last time.
“Asshole,” I retorted, and my answer had a bit more heat than I intended. I didn’t regret it, though, even when I felt him stiffen.
We fell silent again, slowly drying in front of the fire. The thin blanket provided no warmth, only kept Morgan’s and my body heat trapped. What little body heat we had, anyway.
Every now and then I felt him shiver and then stop himself with that damned self-control of his. The same self-control he only seemed to lose around me.
I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and willed my body to warm up faster, for my clothes to just finish drying already.
Morgan didn’t seem to realize we were supposed to be locked in stoic, manly silence, because he spoke again. “I’m sorry.”
I snorted. “For what?” There was so much he could be sorry for. Sorry for hunting down a sixteen-year-old? Terrorizing him to the point that he had nightmares for years?
“…for raping you.”
Or for that.
I grunted. “Fuck or die. It’s what I get for using faerie ingredients in my potions.”
Just thinking about it made me want to kill Bob. Hammer. Skull. Boom.
“It was still rape,” Morgan said quietly. “And…I am sorry.”
My mind flickered briefly to another incident, years ago, and I flinched away from it before my memory could fully capture it. “You did it to save my life,” I said quietly, not wanting to hear myself speak. “So…just don’t bring it up again.”
So, of course, he kept talking. “I…achieved satisfaction from it. You had no choice. I --”
“Morgan,” I cut off. I didn’t look at him. I kept staring at the fire and tried not to accidentally burn the whole building down. “It wasn’t exactly something I would have chose --”
I felt him flinch. I didn’t think about it.
“--but you saved my life,” I plunged on. “Trust me, you have a lot to apologize for, but not that.”
Morgan fell quiet again. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. That was the big thing. Magical beings have a different concept of sex -- especially of rape -- than vanilla mortals. Many magical creatures barely acknowledged consent as a whole, as they naturally steal it away. Fuck or die, which most mortals laugh at, is more common than I would like considering the mischievous attitude of many faeries toward sex.
But Morgan got off on it.
That fucked that strange morality of his more than fucking a supposed warlock.
“Besides,” I continued, the words falling out of my mouth, “I’m good enough to get you off drugged out of my mind. How many people could say that?”
When he laughed, I started, and the fire rose again. Morgan quickly calmed himself.
“You…” He shook his head, water droplets splashing my neck.
“Yeah,” I agreed, putting a note of cheer in my voice.
Morgan didn’t speak again. He just settled the blanket more securely around me, like he was afraid of it falling and leaving me to freeze to death. I leaned toward him a little, just to show him that I wasn’t afraid. Because I wasn’t. I was afraid of a lot, but my fear of him was finally beginning to die.
Our clothes were almost dry, and we would be able to leave soon, hopefully with no one finding out what had occurred. In the meantime…
“Hey, Morgan.”
“What, Dresden?”
“Is that your sword or are you just happy to see me?”
The extra bruises were worth it.
Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 10:55 pm (UTC)Inspired by a post on the last meme
Date: 2011-02-23 10:58 pm (UTC)Harry-as-Fallen-Cas optional but appreciated.
Re: Inspired by a post on the last meme
Date: 2011-02-23 11:06 pm (UTC)Re: Dresden/Marcone - The Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, I am a nerd.
Date: 2011-02-23 11:09 pm (UTC)It could be months before I get to this, but if no one else does, I will do my damnedest to give you something, anon <3 Because CoMC is my favorite Dumas book and this prompt is epic.
Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 11:15 pm (UTC)Re: 4th in a series?
Date: 2011-02-23 11:22 pm (UTC)(Of course my head is now stuck here:
I like swords!
Welcome to Corneria!
...yes, I am a complete nerd)
Re: Fill: Slip of the Tongue [1/1]
Date: 2011-02-23 11:28 pm (UTC)See the Truth
Date: 2011-02-23 11:46 pm (UTC)In it Marcone appears to be about to brutally question someone and Harry is oblivious. There is a great tension in the fic between what Marcone hides/Harry deliberately ignoring and the reality of Marcone's ruthless side.
I'd like to see Harry being confronted with all the actual crime that Marcone is doing. He is in fact a crime lord, so crime must happen. And he may be a lesser evil but his business is still evil.
It can be Hary being called in for questioning by the cops and them showing him pictures to try and turn him, or even just Harry walking into the wrong meeting.
If you want to respond in her verse she's approved that, but it could be any established relationship Marcone/Harry.
Re: Inspired by a post on the last meme
Date: 2011-02-24 12:08 am (UTC)Seconded so hard. Castiel fell, retained his ability to kick unholy amounts of ass, and took up philosophy. 8D
Re: Inspired by a post on the last meme
Date: 2011-02-24 12:13 am (UTC)But definitely, for me, much as I am a Marcone/Harry shipper and a Dean/Cas shipper, Hendricks makes so much more sense as Cas' incarnation. Which just opens up the way for Marcone/Hendricks and/or Marcone/Hendricks/Harry. The answer to any problem is almost always a threesome. :D
Re: Dresden/Marcone - The Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, I am a nerd.
Date: 2011-02-24 12:13 am (UTC)Re: See the Truth
Date: 2011-02-24 12:40 am (UTC)To the preview snippet I posted? Here.
Quick lesson. To link to things, you do this:
[a href="URL HERE"]text you're turning into a link[/a]
Except with arrows instead of brackets. So the link I just made would be [a href="http://lucia-tanaka.livejournal.com/549905.html#cutid2"]like this[/a], okay?
Hope that helps, anon!
John/Harry Reporter AU
Date: 2011-02-24 01:06 am (UTC)I want an AU where Marcone is still his (awesome) self, but Harry is a reporter instead of a PI. Marcone gives his statements, stories, etc. exclusively to Harry for reasons he keeps to himself. Harry thinks it's because, even though Harry hates what he thinks Marcone does (mafia-wise), Harry only reports honestly, and doesn't let his bias enter his work. Marcone has... other reasons.
Bonus if Harry is still a wizard, and has to turn everything in hand-written or typed on a typewriter, and can't go on-camera without causing issues with the feed.
Re: John/Harry Reporter AU
Date: 2011-02-24 01:07 am (UTC)-OP
Dragon!Prompt
Date: 2011-02-24 01:14 am (UTC)As far as I can recall (and please correct me if I'm wrong), Harry only encounters an actual Dragon once - at Bianca's party, in Grave Peril. That poor Dragon doesn't even get a name. This can stem from that party/moment, or bring that character back later, use someone new, or whatever.
Just give me some Dragon/Dresden love. Because there are not enough Dragons in this fandom.
(Yes, this was a bit inspired by the title to the Thomas/Harry fill, which was wonderful.) :)
Re: See the Truth
Date: 2011-02-24 01:22 am (UTC)Re: Dragon!Prompt
Date: 2011-02-24 01:26 am (UTC)Also, Word of Jim is that dragons in the Dresdenverse are enormously powerful. Jimmy B said Ferrovax could take on Mab and win. They are forces of the universe, apparently.
And Michael killed one. Michael is awesome.
Re: See the Truth
Date: 2011-02-24 01:27 am (UTC)What does the alt tag do? Should it say where the link goes? :confused:
Re: Dragon!Prompt
Date: 2011-02-24 01:27 am (UTC)Pern crossover: Queens High (4/5)
Date: 2011-02-24 01:29 am (UTC)Warnings for dubcon of the mating flight variety, dragon sex, and violence.
****
In the Weyr, Ivy was leaning between her two supports as the torrent of Archith's rage and hunger burst through her. She was barely aware of her own body any more, barely aware of her own thoughts, as Archith rose in joy and glory, her wings pumping, the winds obeying her as they never had before. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the proud young bronzes behind her, and could have laughed. They were never going to catch her, but there was no shame to her if they did. The old men hanging even farther back now - that was shameful. Why did they even want to try? It would only show up how decrepit and obsolete they were. She heard a voice in her head, then - she recognized it as Blackstath's. He was never going to catch her, but he was nice enough, she supposed, for a grandfather. Ivy! he said. You have to keep her away from the hold at all costs! North! Turn her north over the mountains!
North! As if she would listen to someone like that! As if she needed to listen! But, she thought, there was no reason not to go north. That was where the mountains were, said the little part of her that remembered something other than flight and glory. It would be fun to bring her bronzes in among the mountains, where she could lose them among the peaks and trip them on the tricky air currents. Yes. Why not? And she steered herself north, using the turn to glance back at her pursuit again. One of the young bronzes was already well behind the rest, and the pack of older dragons behind them seemed to have come into some sort of a tangle. Oh, this was easy! They would never catch her! She could fly alone forever!
But what was distracting the old bronzes, anyway? She cast back toward them. They were angry. Some of them weren't even paying attention to her! How dare they! What could be more important than her? She was the most beautiful, most powerful, smartest, fastest creature -- there was something else.
There was another queen flying. There was another queen flying, and she was trying to steal Archith's bronzes! No wonder Blackstath had told her to turn north. He was betraying her for the other queen! She gave a scream of defiance and rage and banked her wings, twisting suddenly full circle so that she turned and shot back, south across the mountains, blazing through the group of young bronzes without cutting her speed. She shrieked again as she passed them, contemptuous of their pitiful confusion as they tried to turn in her wake, and then she was right below the older bronzes.
She screamed at them, folding her wings as she shot straight up through the chaos of their battle. She slashed at them as she went, drawing blood with the sharp claws of her forelegs, before she reached clear air again above them. Then, so suddenly she almost panicked, one of the bronzes pulled out of the fight, rolled in the air, and winged for her. She backbeat just out of his reach, losing airspeed as she dodged, and before she could to re-acquire her speed, he got one claw in her tail and they were both tumbling, until another bronze grabbed him and pulled him down, almost climbing him to try to get to Archith.
Good. They were paying attention to her now, as was her right. She cried out again and winged upward, but realized a moment too late that they weren't following; some of the others had used her distraction to get the drop on the two who had tried to follow, and they were too busy ripping at each other to reach her. It wasn't fair! She was the queen! They were supposed to obey her! She turned back to berate them again, and was about to dive when something caught her neck.
She twisted up. It was one of the young bronzes: he had been waiting above the older bronzes' fight, and grabbed her in her moment of distraction. She hissed at him but he only dug in deeper to the thick muscles of her shoulders and twisted his tail around hers, their two sets of wings automatically settling into a rhythm to carry them higher and away, and she decided she didn't care about the other bronzes. This one, after all, had been the only one clever enough to out-think her, the only one fast enough to out-fly her, the only one strong enough to catch her. She lifted her tail for him and forgot about everything else.
***
Lascieth leapt up and away from the stocky bronze, her head whipping around. The big one wasn't even in the air yet - slow, too slow to bother with - but where was the interesting one?
She caught a flash of bronze to the south. He was flying away from her! That wasn't possible. All bronzes were alike, she knew that, how could he possibly be flying away when she knew he wanted her? She winged in that direction and quickly passed him with insulting ease; he flipped a wingtip at her insolently as she passed, but then doubled his airspeed with no apparent effort.
Oh, yes, this was going to be interesting. Now all three bronzes were following her, as they were meant to be, and she was outpacing them brilliantly, and all was right with the world. She called out her joy and the interesting one echoed it. He was too cocky, that one, just assuming he'd be the one to catch her, when she could have any bronze she wanted. She deliberately slipped wind to slide away from him and closer to the stocky bronze, now only a few lengths behind them. She let him nearly brush one of her wings before letting a surge of speed and a bit of tricky flying bring her closer to the other.
The large bronze had reached them while they were playing, and glared at her. She hissed back at him. She'd never liked him, always thinking he could boss her around just because he was bigger. Well, she'd flown enough times that nobody was going to fly her unless she wanted him to, and him, she didn't want. She openly dismissed him and turned back to the other two dragons. Especially the interesting one. Oh yes, he needed taking down to size.
The large bronze glared at her for a moment, and then peeled away, aiming due north like a lightning-shot. That was impossible. Nothing could -- and then, suddenly, she remembered the other queen rising, and rage descended on her like red fire. She was going to kill him, and then she was going to kill the other queen - she could almost feel the hot blood spilling over her claws as she eviscerated her. Lascieth flew straight toward her quarry, leaving her other two bronzes in her wake; nothing could outfly a queen with her blood hot; and then sudden pain slashed across her rage, so startling she nearly lost track of her flight.
"Sheila!" shouted a voice she almost recognized - the little Lord Holder who thought he was a queen rider, maybe? - and another hot slap of pain lashed across her cheek. "You mustn't let her go north! I don't care what Andurieth's doing - you don't care what Andurieth's doing - why would you bother when you have the best bronze in the Weyr anyway?" She felt an echo of pleasure move across her, the promise of what the interesting bronze could do if she let him - but no, she wasn't going to be distracted. She was going to get her bronzes back from the other queen if she had to drown them all in blood and fire to do it. It was her right.
She had been distracted, though, and the distraction was enough that the other two bronzes caught up to her. The stocky one dropped out of the air above her again - she was getting really tired of his sudden appearances - and she startled away from him, without realizing that in doing so, she'd moved right into the range of the other bronze, who had grappled her tightly before she had time to respond.
The stocky bronze gave them both a darkly ironic look before winging away after the large one, but what did she care? She had the only bronze worth the winning.
***
Gard fled out of her Lord's window, already twenty feet above the wide ground of the hold. She caroled mockingly back at Nietschze, already lengths and lengths behind her, but stoically pumping along and refusing to be provoked by her. Oh, it was a beautiful day, and they would make it a good long glorious flight through the brightness of the afternoon before she let him catch her. Overhead the big ones were moving in their mating dances, too, their need flooding all the world with sharp-pitched savage joy, and she pinwheeled once in acknowledgment to them before she headed out over her Lord's forest. Other fire lizards were rising, too, in the overspill of the big ones' passions; at the edges of her vision she saw flights lifting like multicolored streamers behind their glowing queens, but what did she care? She had her bronze, who was letting playfulness take him a little, too, as he started to catch up; and her employer had his bronze, finally, she could feel them at the back of her mind, starting to twine into each others' warmth, her employer's mind-touch glowing the same gold as she was as their joy fed back and forth between them. They each had their bronze, and what more did a queen need?
Her bronze made up several lengths in a sudden burst of speed, and whirled a ripple of green humor at her; she only flicked her tail in response, but she started angling upward to make plenty of height before the end, and she was nearly in the clouds when she finally let him take her, the two of them twisting together into one shining creature as they fell ecstatically through the air.
It was a good mating flight, and Nietschze agreed with her good-humoredly afterward, as they untangled themselves and started slowly flying back, less than a wing-width separating them as they pushed through their exhaustion in the early afternoon twilight. Neither of them were thinking of much more than sleep as they slipped back through the open window and curled up together, making a little nest for themselves among the limbs where her Lord and his bronze rider were lying pillowed on each other, the queen rider just beside them, deeply asleep.
Her Lord opened one eye as he felt the rustle of their wings against his bare chest. "You were gone awhile," he told her, eye a soft green of contentment. He lifted one arm to stroke her, but seemed to give it up as not worth the effort and just dropped it across her back, incidentally draping it along his bronze rider as well. "Good flight?" he asked her.
As if he had to ask. She didn't have to ask how his mating flight had gone, either; she'd felt it as it was happening, as they felt the joy together, and she could feel it radiating off still. She just trilled softly at him in reply, and sank into contented sleep in his warmth.
Pern crossover: Queens High (second 4/5)
Date: 2011-02-24 01:30 am (UTC)Warnings still in play.
***
S'nya acknowledged the Wingleader's orders by way of Esperaccieth, then looked over at M'chael, mounted on his own beast. M'chael nodded at him, and the two of them blinked between in perfect unison, emerging back into the sunlight on a small ridge, halfway down the mountain slope between Weyr and Hold. It offered both a small amount of cover, should they need it, and an excellent vantage over the entire valley. The two browns arranged themselves along the rock until they almost looked like small pieces of scree themselves, and then S'nya gave a quick wave as M'gan's Damocleth flashed by.
Two queens rising together, S'nya said, not really needing to complete the thought.
Have hope, Esperaccieth replied, steady as ever.
If it was anyone other than Denari... S'nya answered. They had been weyrlings at Denari Weyr, and it had been, ah, not good. Denari fought Thread like demons, but when a Weyr's leadership was poisonous, as Denari's clearly was, it filtered down and affected everyone. When Sh'ro and M'chael had offered to take him on as part of their Brown formation at Council Weyr, he'd barely hesitated.
Together we can handle anything Andurieth can think of, Esperaccieth told him.
Da, S'nya said, but he couldn't help thinking about Sh'ro, who had been the third part of their trio, who S'nya had though indestructible until that day they had flown a double Fall alongside Denari. The Weyrs were supposed to unite together against the common threat of Thread, but in reality, the politics between the Weyrleaders and their allied Holds made that unity more an ideal than a practice.
No-one could swear, when N'codemus's Andurieth had unexpectedly turned out of formation, forcing one of Council's bronzes right into the path of a sheet of Thread, that it had been intentional. When Sh'ro had noticed the danger and taken his own brown dragon between to shield the bronze, searing a clear path at the cost of his own life, that, however, had all-too-clearly been purposeful. S'nya, sweeping in too late to char out the rest of the patch of Thread, had seen only a glimpse of what what was left of him, under the mass of writhing Thread, in the seconds before the dragon had taken them both between for the last time, but it was not a sight he would soon forget.
At any rate, it is good to have a chance to act against him cleanly, S'nya said, letting a bit of savagery into his tone, and Esperaccieth below him growled low in his throat.
M'chael gave them an eloquent look, reminding them not to start the fight until an enemy was there, but S'nya could see his own Amoraccieth tensed and ready under him.
From where they were perched they were just close enough to the Hold to see the great shapes of the four dragons, and even as they watched, the gold leapt from the courtyard to the pen where Damocleth already waited. They watched as Boboth and Damocleth managed, somehow, to herd her away from the other mating flight, which Esperaccieth could feel ongoing already in the part of his mind that was bonded to his Weyr's queens. S'nya could feel the muscles trembling through him and the turmoil in his own emotions, the reaction to the queens' mating call, but he firmly pushed it away for both of them. Browns rarely rose for queens and almost never flew them, but no dragon could be completely unaffected by a mating flight near him. S'nya knew the faith which Eb'nezar had in them wasn't misplaced, though, and they managed to watch the dragons below almost dispassionately.
For a moment, he almost thought they would be unneeded. Boboth and Damocleth were working together to keep her focused on them, too distracted by foreplay to think about Archith's flight or notice Andurieth's increasing frustration. "I didn't know bronzes could work together like that in a mating flight," S'nya said.
M'chael let out a huff of breath, amused. "If a rider isn't really interested in winning her, he can keep his dragon detached enough to do all sorts of stuff. I never thought I'd see those two bronzes working together though. What we really need to keep an eye on is Andur-- Shards! Up!" he said, but S'nya was lifting off before he'd finished the word.
Below them, Andurieth had turned away from the mating flight and was heading straight for the mountains and Archith. S'nya caught a glimpse of Lascieth starting to follow, but he didn't have time to worry about that. Neither of their beasts, though strong, were particularly large for browns, and it would take both of them to have any hope of slowing down a bronze in a mating frenzy; if he made it over the mountains to join the other mating flight, it wouldn't matter; the Council bronzes would turn on the intruder in their midst and tear him to pieces. Take care of the bronze, and then worry about the queen, if she came.
Amoraccieth put himself right in Andurieth's way, screaming at him, and S'nya wished for one unworthy moment that they had brought firestone, watching as Andurieth reared up in the air almost casually and raked his claws down Amoraccieth's neck. The smaller brown let himself fall down out of Andurieth's reach, but S'nya was right there to take his place, Esperaccieth's claws reaching for the bronze's eyes as Andurieth lashed out to claw them in turn; but S'nya and his dragon danced out of the way at the last minute as Amoraccieth appeared behind him and dug his claws into the wing-muscles, in a vicious parody of a mating clasp.
Andurieth howled and twisted, shaking Amoraccieth loose with a sudden snap, and then stretching up, so lost in his rage that he bit at the shoulder joint of Amoraccieth's wing, his back claws shredding the brown skin and harness alike as he scrabbled for a disemboweling hold. S'nya and Esperaccieth flew at him, the dragon clawing down his neck in an attempt to make him let go, but he barely responded until Esperaccieth managed to shred down one panel of his wing, sending all of them tilting off-center. Andurieth howled again and dropped Amoraccieth, but S'nya shouted for his dragon to skip between just far enough. He blocked from his thoughts the split-second sight he'd had of M'chael and Amoraccieth falling toward the valley floor, one wing drooping useless; if Andurieth were allowed to disrupt the other mating flight, much worse would happed.
But just as they were about to try another sortie against the great bronze, Esperaccieth peeled away. What-- S'nya said, but he saw even as his dragon told him, Damocleth is here. He says he'll handle the bronze, we should save Amoraccieth, and they were flashing between to directly below the other brown, Esperaccieth spreading his own wings to support Ammoraccieth's and guiding them both slowly to a wobbly but safe landing over some poor farmer's field, as S'nya lay flat in his harness and tried to keep them all calm and directed.
As they landed the older bronze slid gently off of Esperaccieth's back, and S'nya was relieved to see that he was able to manage that much of the landing more or less on his own. He dismounted as soon as he could and ran for M'chael, who was hanging by one hand from a broken strap of harness. S'nya caught him and eased him to the ground, taking inventory as he did. The shoulder he'd been hanging from was dislocated, but that was the least of it: his other side, to match his dragon's, was slashed to the bone in places, a wide gash that started at his shoulder and carried down to his thigh muscle, baring a couple of ribs along the way. S'nya cursed between his teeth, but it looked like he had lucked out, for certain values of the term, and no arteries were hit.
He had M'chael brace against the dragon's shoulder as he popped the shoulder joint back in. "Stop worrying about me, I'll live," M'chael told him as soon as he had his breath back afterward. "Look to Amoraccieth."
"Amoraccieth's wounds won't matter a damn if I let you die," S'nya informed him, but as soon as M'chael had one more-or-less usable arm, he handed him a wad of bandages and his emergency numbweed salve and turned to the dragon instead.
Amoraccieth was looking at him calmly, as usual, but the wing was certainly broken high up in the first joint, the bone uncleanly snapped. The wing membrane might or might not be salvageable, and the skin over his side, but he, too, looked likely to live, if they could get a dragonhealer here within the hour, as S'nya informed his rider as soon as he could.
"Good," M'chael said, with that sort of dreamy surety that came with shock. "Hey, S'nya. Look up."
S'nya followed his gaze automatically. He saw, to one side, a gold and bronze falling through the sky in a mating clasp, insensate to everything around them: Boboth and Lascieth, but they had height enough and more to pull themselves out of it with no danger. A quarter of the sky away, two bronzes flew together in a terrible parody, but even as he watched, Damocleth's jaws grasped Andurieth's neck right behind the skull, effectively immobilizing his head, while he spread the rest of his body across him and started to slowly force him down. Andurieth thrashed and struggled, and for a moment it looked as if he would escape, but another bronze suddenly appeared from between below him, joining forces with Damocleth, and Andurieth, finally realizing he was outmatched, went limp and allowed himself to be led to earth.
"Is that Darvazeth?" S'nya asked, squinting. "What's R'shid doing back already?"
"It's generally better not to ask," M'chael said. "But it looks like all's well that ends well."
S'nya scowled at him. "You two with half of your blood and ichor soaking into this nice farmer's crop is not all's well or ends well," he told M'chael severely. "And as it looks like the mating flights are done, I'm going to head back to the Weyr and get you some healers. Oh shards," he realized suddenly. "I'm going to have to explain to Charity."
"Don't worry about it," M'chael said, his head rolling back against his dragon as he grinned slightly, still loopy with the shock. "She'll figure out some way to blame it all on H'ry. It's a talent of hers."
Above them, in the slanting sunlight, a queen and bronze fire lizard wandered by on business of their own.