Chapter Text
Violet leans up against Andarna’s side, shuffling through the paperwork. This can wait, this can wait, this can definitely wait. Well, crap, this file she should probably deal with. She starts digging into the supply requests for the overseas embassies. It’s great that Tyrrendor has established diplomatic relations abroad, but there is a downside: ambassadorial requests. And honestly ambassadors in general, mostly they’re a pompous bunch. But she has people in these foreign countries who have gone there to serve their country and who depend on her to take care of them, and she sighs and starts reading through numbers that would be mind-numbingly dull if she didn’t know that the numbers told the stories of her kingdom and her people. She starts making notes, some of them approvals, some of them refusals, many of them questions that will need answering before any decision is made.
Brennan does most of this kind of work these days, but she likes to pitch in when he's busy, which is pretty much all of the time. It would be easier if she were making these decisions with Xaden. She misses him, dammit. It’s good to rest here on his hill – she always feels closer to him here, and she enjoys seeing how the view has changed, how the once-empty landscape has begun to resemble the city he would have seen in his childhood, but . . . well, she misses him.
Fen is having more fun, happily coloring in a drawing that has at least a passing resemblance to Andarna.
“That looks beautiful,” she tells her grandson. Their grandson, his eyes the exact gold-flecked onyx of her husband.
He tilts his head consideringly, eyes the picture itself and then his real-life model, who preens just a bit, somehow managing to do so without actually opening up her eyes. She still seems to be asleep; is it possible to be pleased with oneself even while asleep?
Apparently so.
“It’s not as pretty as she is,” Fen tells her, and Violet nods. Almost nothing is as beautiful as Andarna. “I like Andrana . . . Andram . . . her name is hard.”
“It is a little bit, but that’s because it’s dragon language. People aren’t supposed to use their real names.”
“Where did she get her name?”
“It means second honor.”
“That’s kind of a funny name.”
“I guess it was because she was my second dragon? So she was my second honor, like a second title. Like you’re both a prince of Tyrrendor and the Earl of Lewellen. Earl of Lewellen is your lesser title, so it’s your second honor.”
One golden eye pops open. It narrows on her threateningly.
I am not lesser.
Uh-oh. That had been a bad analogy, Violet realizes.
Dragons are not a ribbon or a badge or a title. Dragons are not “honors.” And I was absolutely not your second dragon. I was your first.
Tairn spoke to me before you did.
That does not mean he claimed you first. The second golden eye opens, and Fen falls back, a prudent child who has spent a good deal of his time around dragons that, no matter he is part of their ‘family,’ are notoriously short-tempered and, of course, breathe fire. Violet, not as prudent as Fen, is ignominiously dumped on the ground as Andarna stands to glower at her.
I claimed you first.
Well. “Andarna says that’s not how she got her name.”
“Then how’d she get it?”
*****
She pushes, pushes hard, desperately hard. But it’s not possible. She’s too small to get the leverage she needs, not strong enough to create the impact she needs.
It doesn’t stop her from trying.
Again and again and again. Until she’s exhausted and even then she keeps going because she can hear the sounds in the den around her, and some instinct buried deep within tells her: those are the sounds of dragons readying for battle. And she absolutely must hatch before they leave.
How far out? That’s the elder of the crystal den, her dam.
They’d be here in about two hours. Her sire, the den’s lieutenant.
We can’t let them get this far. They’d destroy it. We’ll have to fly out to meet them before they get close enough to bring a unit in behind us. How close are the forward riots from Navarre?
Not close enough. They’re flying as fast as they can, but they won’t make it here if we have to fly out to engage the enemy in the open.
The juveniles? The wardstone?
They'll make it in time to secure the wardstone and evacuate the juveniles before the enemy can get here as long as we can hold out long enough. The reinforcements coming behind them have superior numbers and riders; the dragons will win the final battle.
But the crystal den will not be there to see it.
No. We will hold them off long enough for the reinforcements to arrive, but Navarre’s trailing units will be the ones that will win the battle.
And survive.
And survive.
They fall silent as the sound of assembling dragons rumble around them, echoing through the assembly area.
Have the forward units been informed of the battle plan? her dam asks.
Already done. Our wings know their job. They understand.
Good. That’s good.
Maybe if she can crack the egg from the outside. She starts to throw her weight from side to side, trying to get the egg to roll over and break of its own weight. She’s not heavy enough, and the egg does no more than rock slightly, not even enough to be noticed.
She keeps trying.
Maybe I made a mistake.
The unhatched dragon is shocked. She’s never heard any dragon say this, much less her dam.
You did not make a mistake, Bròn, the lieutenant tells his den elder. The second wardstone has to be protected; we could not abandon the den while it was here, and we don’t have the harnesses to carry it.
But now that’s going to happen anyway.
We had no way to know that. And it will be saved because we were here.
What are you doing? her dam’s voice is sharp, and she seems to be talking to someone else.
Our unit is lining up. The new voice is younger, much younger. The unhatched dragon has heard it before, laughing, playing. She knows it is not the voice of an adult.
What do you mean, your unit? You’re feathertails, you don’t have a unit.
We are the Golden Wing Unit, and I am the Golden Wing Captain.
Her dam’s voice grows sharper. There is no such thing as a golden wing unit. You are children, and you will remain here in the den and remain safe until the other wings can come and take you to Basgaith, where the wards are already up.
No.
You are speaking to your den elder and you will obey me, feathertail.
No ma’am. We get to say who we are and what we do. We choose not to be children. We choose to be dragons, and it is the purpose of dragons to determine what is right and to fight for that cause, to die for it if necessary.
I will not permit it. You will remain here where you are safe.
It is not the purpose of a dragon to be safe, the young voice tells the den elder. You know better than that.
In any case, the unhatched dragon’s sire notes, you are not trained to fight. You do not know how, and you are more likely to do harm than help by getting in the way of the other dragons.
We have been training.
There is a long silence. Finally the den elder breaks it.
The games.
Yes.
Where you swarmed the toys.
Yes.
They weren’t games. You were training.
Yes.
You knew all along that this would happen.
Perhaps she could smash the whole egg, the unhatched dragon thinks. She could roll the whole thing out of the soft nest and crash it down on the den floor below, shattering it on the hard rock. She might end up smashed along with the egg, she knows, but at least there’s a chance. She tries to throw her weight all in one direction to see if she can move the egg. She manages to nudge it a bit towards the side of the nest, but she cannot roll herself all the way out of the nest; it is too deep. But she throws herself at it again and again, frantic to escape, to be there for her den. She’s never seen them, never touched them and she needs that, so she has to get out --
For the first time, the feathertail is hesitating. We did not know for sure. But we thought it was possible. We discussed it, and we understand, all of us understand, what will happen.
Treun . . . her dam doesn’t complete the thought, and the feathertail breaks in, his voice impossibly soft.
We want the right to make the same choice our parents are making.
Her dam’s voice is strange, and she is making a sound the little dragon in the egg has never heard before. It sounds . . . clogged. As if it is hard to get out the words.
You have no flame. No talons. No weapons in your tails. You have only your teeth, and you will be dead before you can use them on any wyvern close enough to bite.
We have each other. Where the teeth of one fail, the teeth of others will take their place. Flame and talons are weapons, but they are not what dragons fight with.
The unhatched dragon keeps rocking, refusing to quit. If only she could get out!
I know, she hears her dam say.
There is a long pause, then the unhatched dragon feels a flare of warmth as the den elder throws up a tiny tendril of flame. Her voice rings out clear.
Treun of the Crystal Den, you are hereby acknowledged as Captain of the Golden Wing, and any who choose to join you are acknowledged as adult dragons and as members of the Golden Wing. Any who choose not to do so are to face no recrimination or censure, and are to be encouraged to remain in the den.
It will be so, but there are none who will refuse.
Gather your wing, Captain.