Breathe in deep, hold it, let it out slowly…

It still hurt.

Whoever said breathing techniques worked?

Staring down at the sleeping form of her son cradled in her arms, Keris struggled to take breath after breath as the tears gathered, threatened to fall but never quite making it. His face looked so pure, so peaceful in whatever dream he was having. It had almost been a turn, and he was making such progress. Keryaix was getting so big, strong though he was still behind for averages. He was looking more and more like Ulix as time passed, and Keris had been left idly laughing from time to time that her son perhaps only inherited her small stature, her weaker immune system.

He was even starting to say his first words, whipping around with excitement whenever she or Ulix entered, whenever she brought him to see Argoth. Keryaix was utterly enamored with the brown dragon, as she was with the big softie. But Keris can’t help but wonder if he knows there are people who he doesn’t see anymore, missing people who Keris had grown to call friends. She knows that he’s still young, but her inexperience is vast with children--but always willing to learn on the fly.

But ever since she’d attended Killakeeth’s clutch hatching, something in Keris just simply.. gave out.

The spark to keep going, to fight against circumstances that keep burying her flickered out and died as she witnessed one impression that made her heart soar but also want to curl up and be left in some decrepit corner to wait for the end. Phryana was.. beautiful, and every moment was etched in Keris’ mind as the equally golden dragon had found her, that the rainbows of impression had been directed at her… A hiccup as a fresh wave of tears threatened once more, and her arms tucked her baby tighter so that he wouldn’t be shaken awake by her sobs.

Kleoth was stunning for a queen, and, just as she had told Phryana, Western didn’t know what they had gained in them both--but they would learn.

The soft, sweet melody of that dance was what kept Keris going for so long after the hatching feast. The newly minted weyrling looking utterly breathtaking in the rich, crimson dress, with her dark gold dragon at her side. There had been so much Keris had wanted to say, and yet she can still recall how each thought of what she had intended to say slip away with each note of the song. Phryana had never been hers, no matter how her heart had ached, had pined, had loved. Every opportunity before the hatching had always slipped her by, never quite making it past Keris’ walls to speak her mind, her heart’s love. To have said something at the feast would have been unfair, to the point of cruelty, in her own mind -- for what more did Phryana deserve than a fresh start at Western, with her dragon at her side? The woman who had stolen her heart deserved the world -- and now Kleoth could give it to her.

She’d remembered her exit, of the soft but firm words that Phryana would thrive at Western, and had remembered finding herself some place to hole up in until Ulix and Argoth had been ready to leave.

It hadn’t been her running away.

It hadn’t.

Keris couldn’t bring up the mental strength to try and write a letter to Phryana, though the stationary near Keryaix’s crib was always in sight. She’d tried, on more than one occasion, yet never got any farther than making an ink blot on parchment as her mind went blank on what to say -- and somehow two months had slipped by. Sending a letter almost seemed like a moot point, an idle wonder if it would have been unwanted as a reminder of an old life. Yet she’d added a small, golden pin to her outfit daily, no matter if she was working or not.

Even if she was letting go, that torch would burn brightly -- threatening a wildfire that could have consumed her. Perhaps a measure in memory to let Phryana go, whenever the itch to reach out would rise.

But after losing Phryana, the departure of another dear friend had staggered Keris as well. Niika’s departure to pursue healing had been equal measures a surprise and not--for she could not begrudge the woman a way to seek a new path in life after aging out of candidacy. It had been a heavy effort on her part to smile, be happy for her friend’s parting to make herself happier. Didn’t everyone deserve to be happy?

A selfish part of Keris couldn’t help but laugh, to try to let go of the heavy ache in her chest. She’d lost not one but two friends due to dragons.

When did her life boil down to dragons ruining her chances to be happy?

She’d allowed herself for a brief morning to allow the possibility of herself impressing from the stands at Killakeeth’s hatching. After all, Western candidates aged out at 30, not 25. Yet her eyes would never find the rainbows she sought. The foolish idea that a dragon, that anyone might find her worthy had stung harder than she’d like it to.

Her father, the utter b*****d, had sent a courier after her to press a gift in her hands -- rubbing in what he knew she had hoped for. The firelizard had been unexpected, but she couldn’t begrudge a baby for being a vindictive gift. The fact that he had hatched brown, the color that she had found her gaze drifting to in some botched wish to impress a sweetheart just like Argoth, had felt like an unintended spit in the face. But he was just the sweetheart she’d been looking for, and so Armor had been a fitting name. For what did she need more right now, than some armor for her heart.

It still felt like her father, the man that had ruined her poor mother, was still taunting her, even from afar. She still wasn’t good enough, was she? Not for her heart’s light, not for her friends, and.. Not for her son.

Keryaix had been spending more time in the creche, as Keris had debated leaving him there. Days of experimental visits had worn on her sick heart as he seemed to adjust to life with crecheworkers, and cried less for the absence of his mother. At least there, he would be given a good shot at life, would he not? Raised by diligent workers, and not a holder with so little experience with children.

At least her last failure to her son could give him a better chance at life.

Keris gently shifted Keryaix closer, so his head was tucked into the crook of her neck. She gently swayed as her son slept on, humming a song that the hatching feast had made so important to her… until her sobs drowned the notes out.