[Healer Hall, 3573.06.23: Minutes after the Tarot clutch hatching ended.]
Part of Le’x’s searching for parents arc. Purposely vague, because suspense?


The day was perfect for a stroll through one of Healer Hall’s gardens; traipsing the bright stone pathways and taking in the sight of a rainbow of blossoms. Dusiph was one of the partakers of this diversion, taking a quiet break before the midday meal. Today was a good day, one of the best he’d had since coming to Healer Hall nearly a turn ago. He felt… pretty normal, for once. He’d found an unoccupied section of the garden and walked slowly past each flower, examining its color, shape and scent while trying to recall its medicinal use. He’d recently taken a great interest in such things, though at his age he felt it would be absurd to officially apprentice as a healer.

He heard a dragon, a smaller one by the sound of it, greeting the watchdragon with a cheerful trill. That was common enough, as of late. Healer Hall had many comings and goings with its abnormally high number of patients, both for physical ailments and for those maladies of the mind.

What was not common was the sight of Dusiph’s sister, every forceful footstep telling of her poor mood as she made her way over to him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her that way. It wouldn’t be the last, not by a longshot.

She stood on her toes, her nose nearly touching her brother’s. “He Impressed,” she snarled. Her breath smelled like klah.

Dusiph shrank back, a cold weight in his stomach. Oddly enough, a small twinge of pride was in there, too, but it was barely noticeable. “Karone Impressed? What color?”

“Not Karone!” she hissed. “Lenix.”

The holder bared his teeth in a grimace, fighting an unexpected, powerful outrage. Not his son? If anyone deserved the power of a dragon, it was Karone. He would use such a great beast to rebuild what they had lost, surely. If he didn’t die to Thread, first. If.

Suddenly, Dusiph was glad the ward had been the one to Impress.

The woman was not intimidated in the slightest by the man’s irritability. In fact, she slapped him – and dodged his instant rejoinder. That, too, was not a first time. As children, the two would have ended up on the ground in an all-out brawl. More often than not, it was the girl who came out the victor. This clash, though a mostly-verbal one, would likely end the same.

“I sent him to you so that he’d be raised right, Dusiph. A holder, not a dragonman!”

He winced, but then he remembered what had led up to Lenix and Karone’s abandonment. “It wasn’t my decision! The dragonmen took them as payment for… for saving us.”

She scoffed, her eyes bright with rage at his insistence. “High Reaches doesn’t take people, deadglow! You let them get Searched!”

The poor man stood there with his mouth hanging open, wanting nothing more than to spew out fire and fury at his sister. She had to have known what had happened to their home in that threadfall, if she knew to find Dusiph here, of all places. Her nephews, save Karone, were dead, and precious little remained of the hold where they had been raised. Dusiph himself was certainly not here on holiday.

But his sister wasn’t done with her tirade yet.

“And what is this I hear, that you reduced my son to nothing but a personal servant for your own boy? What did he do to deserve that?”

This time, Dusiph did reply. “He was lucky to be that much. If I hadn’t claimed him, Donarmo would have left Lenix in the field where you landed to hand him over… for the scavenger wherries to deal with.”

She made as if to snap another sharp retort, but suddenly dropped her eyes, skin paling with the sickening sensation she no doubt felt. “I was the one with a dragon, not him,” she said, her voice quiet. “I didn’t care if Father disowned me. I… I almost wanted him to. But his newborn grandchild…? I don’t understand. He couldn’t have been that angry about tithing. We always had more than enough, even after the weyr took a portion.”

Dusiph nodded. “You’re right. It was never the tithing. Tithes were just something painless to complain about.”

“’Painless?’ You need to explain that, Dusiph.”

The holder looked away, hesitant to answer. He knew his sister and feared her reaction to the truth. But she pressed him, clasping his sleeve in a grip that served as a silent threat. He sighed deeply through his nose, hoping she was ready to hear it.

“Do you remember Grandmother?”

“Grand--? Donarmo’s mother?” Her eyes unfocused as she sorted through what had to be some of her earliest memories. “I think I can picture her face, but only vaguely. I remember her long black hair. She passed away a long time ago.”

“You were a babe, then. You don’t remember, but she had a dragon.” Dusiph inwardly cursed the accidental emphasis he’d placed on the word... had.

“Y-you mean…?”

A tremor shook his sister at the same moment her dragon let out a shrill keen of terror in the distance. Several other dragons repeated her cry, each one further away than the last, like a relay. It was a much weaker version of the terrible keening that Dusiph heard for his grandmother’s golden dragon all those turns ago. It had been an accident in play with her own young offspring, and she had gone Between. Such a senseless loss. Their grandmother had followed her beloved only days later.

“He lost his mother, and had to watch his heartbroken father decline into dotage well before his time. It wasn’t really the weyrs Donarmo hated...”

“...It was the dragons,” his sister finished in a whisper.

“And dragonriding is obviously in your blood,” Dusiph said. “He didn’t want Lenix to Impress, any more than you did.”

The woman’s face was in her hands now, hiding her pained expression. “Lenix… My little Len… My babe...” Her voice cracked, and she shook her head back and forth, as if it might somehow make all of this go away. “I should have just kept him… just stayed in the weyr.”

“Maybe you should have,” the stern words came forth, almost without thought. “Then I might still have my sons.”

Her tear-filled eyes looked at him over the tips of her fingers. It was her way to be contrary, and he expected her to be so… but she surprised him. “I’m sorry, Duse. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. If I’d been home when Thread came, maybe I could have gotten your boys out in time…”

Dusiph knew better than to embrace his sister without an invitation, but he managed a sad smile. “Telgar and surrounding lands were the first place it hit. No one could have known it was coming.”

It was as close to forgiveness as he’d be able to get, for now. He could see the expectation, the hope for release in his sister’s round eyes, but the man was unable to bring himself to say the words. He abruptly felt an urgent desire to pick up a nearby stone that had an interesting shape. And a greenish one that he’d passed earlier – that one would be a nice addition to his treasury.

“Maybe you could check up on Karone for me,” he said as he edged sideways toward the first stone. “See how he’s dealing with his extended Candidacy. And while you’re there, you might visit your own son.”

Dusiph bent and picked up the stone, holding it out on his palm and fondly stroking it with gentle fingertips. Then he turned his back on his confused sister and made his way to the next stone on his list.



As her brother moved away, clearly forgetting her presence in his strange hunt, the woman remained where she was, unsure of what to do next. The prospect of facing her son made her tremble almost as hard as the shock of learning her grandmother’s fate. Her dragon was anxious and creeling, pulling at her with wordless thoughts.

Would he be happy to see her? Angry at her for abandoning him? Would he even want to know who she was?

You need to find out, said her dragon. You’ve wanted to ever since you found out he was at High Reaches, too.

But...

He has a dragon now, too. He will understand, and he will love you. I know because I’m your dragon, and I love you. Let’s go home and meet them.

Her dear green’s utter ease in using the word “home” to describe the weyr struck the woman in a curious way. It felt a little like… hope.