Work Text:
“Do you know, Laurence, you’ve never quite told me of what you did in the Goliath.”
Laurence opened his eyes to the ominous shadow of a head peering down at him. Temeraire blocked most of the blazing sun, but the persistent warm breeze of the colony made him sweaty and hot. Half awake, and not at all recovered from the morning’s hauling, Laurence bade Temeraire to repeat the question.
“I only mean to be curious. Did they use you at least to swab the deck? Or perhaps assist in the galley? At Pen y Fan, they made me mate with other dragons, though I could scarcely call them of worth, for they have won no battles and are far from scholars.” Temeraire’s blue eyes widened slightly. “Not that I am complaining, Laurence, as I agreed to it all for you.”
Laurence assured Temeraire that he was not forced upon any activity that he did not like, save his actual imprisonment. “They kept me quite out of sight and sun,” he said. “My presence in the ship was well known, and, I suppose for fear of the sailors taking it in their hands to enforce my punishment, they saw fit to remove any trace of me from deck.” Laurence remembered those bleak weeks— months— in the Goliath when he longed for a decent gulp of sea air, his meager room having had no window or grill. Above him, Temeraire snorted, and a familiar rhythmic dragging was heard from behind. Temeraire had begun to wag his tail.
“Pray do no think of it, my dear,” Laurence said. “That ill time has gone before us, and we have the opportunity to rebuild ourselves here.” From where he lay on Temeraire’s foreleg, Laurence slid to the ground and bent over his bundle of belongings. “Would you like me to read to you?” he said as he revealed a battered book. “I’m afraid we’ve run out of new material, though I’m sure the serpents will be back with some. Should you like to hear this once more?” He lifted the book up, and on seeing the cover of Principia Mathematica, Temeraire instantly brightened.
“Oh, yes! if you please!” His ruff spread out in excitement. “I’ve memorized every single word of that piece, but it would be a delight for me to hear it in your voice once again. Mine does not quite make it right.” At this, Laurence was taken back, and he promptly asked for an explanation. Temeraire gave a start. “It is nothing, Laurence. Really. Only that,” he steeled himself, “only that when I thought you had sunk with the Goliath, I would recite the Principia to myself and think that you were still with me. It was folly, I know, but I felt much better after, if not fully recovered. Do you know, Laurence! I can almost make out your voice if I broadened mine for a bit, though it would not be as deep as yours.”
It was good fortune that Laurence was half-kneeling on the ground, else he would have staggered. Though knowing that Temeraire was waiting for his reply, he did not trust himself to speak. A knot had formed in his throat, and he was afraid it would come out as a sob. He settled himself with placing a firm hand on the base of Temeraire’s neck.
Laurence remembered how a dragon of their company had observed him from Temeraire’s back, the beast admitting his curiosity on the companion that caused Temeraire so much grief. At the time, Laurence took it somberly, privately thinking that though his supposed death caused Temeraire sorrow, it had ultimately allowed him to rise above and make a leader of himself. Almost two years later, a fresh thought occurred to Laurence — a memory from years ago, of a French aviator bidding farewell to his dragon, Choiseul begging his beast to obey, Praecursoris shaking his head and emitting a desperate cry. Laurence and the other captains had huddled together in shared misery, their dragons enveloping them with their wings. Suddenly, the image of the dragons faded, and so did Harcourt and Berkeley and himself. Temeraire was left alone and hunched, head under his wings, eyes closed tight, mouth muttering the words of an old book. Laurence found that he could not breathe.
“Laurence?” He snapped his head back. Temeraire twisted his neck to peer at him more closely, concern etched on his face. “Are you well, Laurence?”
He recovered himself, and with a shaky hand, Laurence reached out to caress Temeraire’s muzzle. At most he had two more decades to Temeraire’s ten, and if the war continued to keep away from them, maybe three. So long as they stayed in the colony, they had a good chance of living together as long as they could, and Laurence determined that they would. Gazing up at Temeraire, he suddenly found himself with an absurd wish: he wished that it was the year four, Temeraire freshly hatched from the egg, his size scarcely that of a horse, that Laurence may gather him in his arms and embrace him properly.
“I am fine, my dear,” he finally said. “We will be fine.”