Tiamat's Kittens: Sanctuary, Part One

[aithne]

Sondirra:

The next morning, I woke long before Palil did, and went to find some breakfast, assured that she was going to sleep a while longer. Jordan caught up with me in the mess, with his usual instinct for where I was about to be. "How are you doing?" he asked as he sat down next to me.

"All right," I said. "Palil is still asleep. It's going to take her a little while to get back on her feet."

"She looked pretty wrecked," he said sympathetically.

"Yeah, well." I sighed. "Look, I'm not really hungry. Want to come for a walk with me? I think I saw a big park on our last flyover that I haven't explored yet."

He agreed, and we set off for the park. It was a cool, green space, full of old trees and a couple of streams. In the center of the park was a big oak tree, which I immediately set to climbing. It was good to be out climbing again, even if was just a huge old oak tree.

"Are you going to come down any time soon?" Jordan called up.

"Come up and join me. Here, I'll give you a hand up." I clambered down and hauled him up onto the lowest branch. He followed me up, until I found a nice big branch with room and strength for us both on it. "Nice," I said, happily. "Friendly old tree."

Jordan was studying the ground below us. "It looks different from up here."

"Everything does. That's why I climb everything. Well, that and it's a challenge." I grinned, then looked over at him. "Hey. Answer a question for me?"

"Anything," he said, immediately.

"What did you plan to do, after you got out of the military?"

He looked over at me, then shook his head. "You don't want that conversation yet, love."

I blinked. "Um, why not? I mean, I was wondering what you'd intended to do, if all this hadn't happened."

His eyes widened, and he understood. "In school, I would have said military, or when my father died I'd go back and run the estate."

Wait, wait. Jordan was a farm kid from the middle of nowhere, just like me...wasn't he? "The estate?"

"My family is on the wealthy side. We have land and several workers that farm it for us."

Kind of a farm kid, then...sort of. "I didn't know you came from money. I guess I never actually thought about it, before. Do you go back and visit your folks?"

Jordan shrugged. "Occasionally. Not as much as I should, but you know."

I chuckled in agreement. "Yeah, well, I should visit mine more, but I don't. My grandmother makes things uncomfortable for me."

He glanced at me, slightly speculatively. "Well, you can come with me sometime. It would make my trip more bearable."

"You don't like them?"

"They are fine, but uptight. Appearances and all. Which fork must be used with which dinner course, that type of thing."

How on earth did a family like that produce Jordan? I eyed him speculatively. "Oh Gorld, I know the type. My grandmother's the same way. One of these days, I'm going to manage to shock her into an early grave. How did your folks feel about you going into the military?"

He spread his hands, then overbalanced slightly and grabbed at the trunk of the tree for support. "They have all been military people. We have bonds back to the reds for generations. Hence the sword that Palil has."

Astonished, I asked, "Is that a dragon sword?"

"Sure is. On loan from Gannon's family to Gannon and his rider, me."

I wasn't quite sure what to say, and shifted in my seat on the branch. "Oh. They're going to be angry if they find out you gave it to Palil, aren't they?"

"Who's going to tell them? If I die, Palil will give it back, I assume, and they can pass it on to the next one of us." Jordan shrugged lightly.

I twitched an eyebrow. "Yeah, she would. Guess you can't go back and visit Gannon's family, though."

Jordan snorted. "Gannon's family, oddly enough, would probably have a good laugh. Gannon is the serious one." He shook his head. "He finds very little funny. I have to hang onto Gannon when we visit all the time. They tend to laugh and spurts of flame come out."

I tried to imagine it, and chuckled. "That sounds like fun, if you're fireproof. Weird that Gannon's so serious, though. I mean, I know where Palil gets it, her father's really reserved."

"I think it was an overexposure thing. They don't take a lot seriously. They live on the grounds my family owns. Gannon's father and my father are bonds."

I blinked. That actually happened? "Really? I've heard of families it runs in, but always thought those were just stories."

He shifted so he was straddling the branch, facing me. "Our families have had twelve bonds between them. Eight of the bonds on Gannon's side are still alive. Which takes it back to great great great great great great grandmother on my dad's side. There are only three on my side. My grandfather, my father and me."

"Makes sense, you guys being human and all. The expectations on you must be pretty intense."

Jordan shrugged. "Can be, I suppose, but as a child I was expected to be military. So I just assumed that I would be. And I was." He gave me a wry smile. "I suppose that doesn't really answer your original question, does it?"

"Well, not really." I chuckled and scooted a bit closer to him. "Unless you were actually planning on spending the rest of your life in the military. Palil and I always assumed we'd be in the military for a while, and then take off and go do something else. Be couriers, or hunters, or maybe just settle down in her parents' village for a while. Though that village is a little far away from everything, and it's a lot cold."

"We live north of Khatanga about two hours flight time, in a mountain valley next to a small lake. The reds complain about the cold all the time, but they still are there." He was looking at me intently, now. "Now, though, things are different. I have thoughts you don't want to hear yet."

My breath caught in my throat. "I'm curious, but you're right. We should probably leave that discussion for some other time."

"In general terms, I want to live out my two years' service. Quit and move back to the estate, build my own home, get married and have as many children as you--" He stopped, and cleared his throat. "Sorry, she would like, and live out my time simply."

I flushed. I hadn't ever really thought about having children of my own. I'd always thought I'd raise Palil's and that would be that. Plus, well, marriage. I am so not even ready to think about this. "I hope we're not at war by the time our two years come up. They can bar us from leaving, if that's the case," I said, trying to turn the subject a bit.

Jordan made a face. "I hope not either. I would like to be away from the killing and the intrigue."

"I think in another year, even Palil might be sick of the military. She really did want to see how high we could rise, but...we've gotten too high, too fast."

"Yes I know that, Major." He said my rank with a wry smile. "Makes me wonder."

"Palil's worried about it. We're good, but nobody makes Major less than a year out of school. Hell, nobody makes Captain a year out of school! She's wondering if we're not going to be taking the fall for something."

"We know way too much, and have become both an asset and a liability."

Isn't that the truth. "We can be blamed if we start a war. Hell, we might be blamed even if we don't start it. They say we were a green group who rose too high too quickly, and screwed up, and there you go. Instant excuse to have us killed. I don't even know if they'd let us retire, honestly. Like you said, we know too much." It was suddenly a bitter thought; I'd been all right with it before, figuring that I'd make my way, but the picture that Jordan was painting me was awfully tempting, especially after the last few days.

He shrugged. "Yep, but it's the best plan I have now. Something to look forward to, if we can get out of this situation, or any future situation."

I smiled at him, feeling myself melt just a little at the look in his eyes. "It's a nice thought, really. I like it."

He chuckled, reaching out to take my hand. "Now all I have to do is survive and convince the girl and her bondmate to come live it with me. I think the war will be easier than the bondmate." His eyes were alive with humor, and I laughed.

"How right you are. Palil's getting better, I think. She's kind of backed into a corner at the moment, though."

"She is, so I take a wide berth currently. Cornered and dragon don't make a good combination."

I squeezed his hand gently. "No, they don't. I think, though, Garnet's death might change how she looks at things. At least a little." Will it make you realize that life is short, and we have to love when we can? Will it make you realize how very precious each of our friends and loves are?

"It's the first permanent death we have to deal with. I didn't know Alvar all that well, but Gannon did know Garnet well, I think."

"I noticed that Gannon and Palil were leaning on each other," I said. "I knew Alvar pretty well, as well as Garnet...but I knew that when they were assigned out that we probably wouldn't see them alive again. I've had a while to come to terms with it. Palil never believed that." I shrugged sharply. "And, well, one of the two of us has to hold stuff together. At the moment, that's me."

Jordan's voice was gentle. "If there comes a time when you can't hold it in anymore--I'm here to hold you or comfort you or to spar with you, depending on the grief or anger that may set in."

It was good to know. "Thanks. I'm likely going to take you up on that. Probably better for me than crawling into a bottle of vodka and making myself at home," I said with a crooked grin.

"How's the headaches, by the way?"

Just the thought made my head ache with an echo of pain. "Had a warning of one last night, but I managed to knock it down before it set in too bad. They're not going away any time soon, it looks like. It sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it other than outstubborn it."

He was looking at me steadily, now. "Not necessarily. Haven has been working on a herbal pain reliever for you. He has some stuff, if you are willing to try. Well, he thinks it's for me, but that is beside the point."

I raised an eyebrow. "What did you tell him?"

"I told him I was having migraines and he said huh and proceeded to examine me from head to toe and confirmed nothing wrong. Figured it was tension and started making a pain reliever for migraines. His family is from a long line of herbalists."

Useful. "Well, that's sort of what these headaches imitate so it might well work. I'm willing to try it. I keep worrying that I'm going to get a headache at the exact wrong time."

Jordan nodded. "Thought it couldn't hurt." He rummaged in a pouch and handed me a parchment packet. I opened it to see what looked like little chips of bark. "He said to steep this in hot water for ten minutes and then strain and drink the juice."

"I'll give it a shot next time I feel one coming on, and let you know how it works. Thanks. That's really sweet of you to do." I leaned over and kissed him, lightly.

He smiled. "I have access to a strong cleric with some stronger magics."

"Yeah, we were always pretty short on clerics, and now we're short on magic altogether." I grinned. "You just want me to have more reasons to keep you around, I think."

"I do. The things I do for love." He chuckled. "Haven is thorough, and when he couldn't find the source of my headaches quickly, I had to submit to all sorts of bodily fluid collection for him to test."

Oh, now there was a picture. I giggled. "Oh, the trials! Well, thank you for submitting to poking and prodding on my behalf."

"You are welcome. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Speaking of..." He gave me that look that I was starting to come to know very well, and welcome whenever I saw it. "How's the head again?"

"Just fine," I said, and leaned over to kiss him to prove it. I pressed him back against the tree's trunk and shifted over so I was pinning him in place. "You know, maybe we should climb down..." His teeth grazed my neck. "Or, we could just stay up here and risk falling..."

Not quite trusting our balance while engaged with other things, we climbed down and found a nice soft patch of grass while we turned our attention to those other things. We nearly got caught twice, a squirrel scolded us from the oak's branches, but we were laughing, our cares far away for the moment.


Palil:

I'd just gotten up when there was a knock on the door. I put the sock puppet I'd found in my arms when I woke on the table and called, "Come in!"

Olin stepped inside, closing the door behind him. "Hey. I thought I'd come by and see how you are."

"Sore. And wrung out." I plopped down on the bed. I was wearing just a robe Sondirra had bought me in Khatanga, but I didn't think Olin would mind terribly.

"Do you want something to eat?" he asked. "We could go find something..."

I shook my head. "I'm not really hungry. But, if you wanted to do something nice for me..." I opened my arms, beckoning him closer. "It helps to be in physical contact with someone else. It makes it bearable."

"You don't have to ask me twice, Palil!" He sat down on the bed next to me and put his arms around me. I nestled down into his embrace, sighing, trying to let go of the pain I'd felt ever since I'd woken and remembered what had happened in the last few days.

Cuddling turned to kissing, and kissing turned into a tide in me that swept upwards, blotting out my thoughts. I needed this, needed to be reminded I was alive, needed to be reminded in the most direct possible way that someone cared about me--

"Ow, ow, Palil! Palil!"

I came out of the fog, jerking upright, blinking. I was straddling Olin, and I could see on his shoulders strange dark spots, visible even against his nearly-black skin. He was looking up at me, something almost like fear in his eyes.

Oh.

Those were bruises where I'd been digging my hands into his shoulders, blooming black under his dark skin. I gritted my teeth and scrambled out of bed, away from him. "Look, I'm in no shape to be doing this right now. I need to go." I was pulling on my clothes, running my hand over my disheveled hair.

Olin didn't reply, and I shot out the door. I didn't know where I was going, except for away.

Am I destined to always mess things up with the people I sleep with?



Sondirra:

I sat bolt upright.

"What's wrong?" Jordan asked.

"Palil," I said shortly. "She's upset. Something to do with Olin, almost hurting him--" I pulled on my shirt. "Along with everything else. I could have told Olin that when she's like this, she forgets how strong she is! If I don't get to her soon, she's going to take off without me."

"Where is she?"

I felt for her. "The barracks, I think."

"Gannon's closer. Do you want him to see if he can talk to her?"

"If he's willing. She's in a state right now." I got to my feet and held out my hand, pulling Jordan to his own feet.

"He is," Jordan said, a serious look on his face. "Let's walk back."



Palil:

I wasn't looking where I was going.

Gannon stepped into my path and I ran straight into him, eliciting an oof from him and a flail of surprise from me. "Gannon! Sorry, sorry."

"Where are you off to?" he asked, dusting himself off.

"I don't know. Just--away. I thought I'd fly for a while."

He looked at me, dark eyes searching my expression. "Palil, if you need some time away...there's a place I know you can go. Nobody much knows about it but me. It's quiet, you won't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to. You can take a few days, clear your head."

I thought about it. It would be nice, I thought. To live for a few days in silence, without having to worry about the people I led, without having to endure the sympathetic looks, without having to worry about injuring the fragile humanoids around me. "I think I'd like that."

"It's on land owned by my and Jordan's families," he said. "But it's very private. Nobody will bother you if you don't want them to."

I gave him a tired smile. "It's all right. I'll take you up on it."

"So are you telling Sondirra and getting her, or going alone?"

I shook my head. "I'll definitely tell Sondirra, but...I think I need to go by myself. I think I need to not worry about losing control and accidentally hurting her for a little bit."

"Understood. All right, here's how you get there..." It was a few hours north of Khatanga, and he gave me very specific directions. "I'll go ahead of you. Wait a couple of hours after I leave to take off, I want to arrive before you to get things ready."

"All right. I'll tell Sondirra and the rest that I'm going somewhere for a few days, and put a few things into a bag."

He nodded. "It'll take me a half hour or so to get ready to leave." He tilted his head, listening. "Jordan and Sondirra are coming with me."

"All right. I'll see you three off in a bit."

Three hours later, I was in the air for the two-day flight to wherever it was I was going.


Sondirra:

I'd never ridden pillion more than a few hours, and while it was kind of fun to ride pressed against Jordan's back, my legs ached after a few hours. This whole thing had been a little on the strange side. I wasn't quite sure why Gannon had insisted I come with him, instead of riding Palil, other than that he said he wanted everything to be ready when she got there.

I'd come because Jordan mentioned that the place Palil was going was on the estate he'd grown up on, and had asked me to accompany him. I also didn't want to let Palil get too far away from me, not now. After flying for two days, we reached a place high in the mountains. Winter's chill hadn't left this part of the world quite yet, and there was still a little snow on the ground.

We touched down in front of a building, and I blinked. "I thought you said Palil was going to be staying in a cabin."

"That is a cabin," Jordan said as I swung down off of Gannon's back and followed suit.

It was spacious, well-built, with two bedrooms, a kitchen for whatever humanoids wanted to stay, a reading room, a sunporch, and a large main room with an imposing stone hearth. "A cabin," I muttered. It was about twice the size of the house I'd grown up in, with me and Sinte sleeping on a bed that was tucked up into the rafters.

Gannon and Jordan went to open the cabin up, and I stood on the porch and looked around. The land around was densely forested and alive with small critters in the undergrowth and birds in the branches. At the bottom of the slope below the cabin was a small lake, early reeds coming up around the edges.

He'd said there were several cabins on the estate. How many, I wondered. Two more? Ten? It's just money, I told myself. Some people have more of it than others. Still, I couldn't help but be a little intimidated.

I sat down on the steps, taking a deep breath. I knew Jordan, and loved him. Where he'd come from made no difference.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wings, and I jumped to my feet. "Palil!" She touched down and shook herself, and I ran to help her with her harness. Then I threw my arms around her neck, hugging her. "I'm going to miss you," I said. "But you can talk to me whenever you want, and if you want me to come visit, I will."

"Thanks," she said, and moved away from me a little to change to her small form. Once she'd done that and was dressed again, I looked up to see Gannon and Jordan on the porch.

I took Palil's hand and we went together up into the cabin.


Palil:

The two days of flying had already done me a lot of good. There was still a core of pain in me, a heavy weight in my chest, made up of all the pain I'd been through recently and all the mistakes I'd made.

Sondirra and I spoke a bit over those two days, but not about anything much deep. I arrived and my bond was waiting for me, sitting on the porch of a house and looking like she was deep in thought. Once I was changed, she led me inside.

Gannon settled me in, showing me around the house, where the pump for the well was. He pointed out where herds of mountain cattle and goats were frequently found, and told me I was free to take as many of them as I liked. He also pointed out a couple of good spots to go climbing. Then he took me back inside.

"Thank you, Gannon," I said, my voice uncertain. "So much."

He didn't reply, just nodded and pulled the door of the cabin shut.

I was alone.


Sondirra:

"You can go to another cabin, if you want," Jordan was saying as Gannon shut the door. "I need to go check in with the family. I'd like you to come along, if you're up to it."

I turned towards Jordan. Was that just a trace of nervousness in how he was standing? "Yeah, I'll come. I have to meet them sometime, might as well be now."

Gannon changed, and we mounted and took off.

The main house was a few miles away...well, it was less a house than a complex. Gannon swooped low over a cluster of outsized buildings. "That's where Gannon's family lives," Jordan said. "Coming up's the main house."

The main house was about a mile away, and it was huge. The entire village I'd come from, and probably most of the sheep and horses, could have fit into it with room to spare. There was a separate building for the kitchen, I saw, and it overlooked a large lake with a dock and a few boats moored.

Gannon landed, and we dismounted. "Home," Jordan said, gesturing at the house and the land around. "It's a bit strange to be back. It looks smaller, somehow."

"Maybe it looks smaller to you." I chuckled, then jerked my head at the lake. "Hey, do those boats out there mean that you know how to sail?"

He grinned. "I do. Why do you think I pulled the pirate thing in Tura?"

"I'm going to have to get you to teach me how, sometime. I know the very basics, but that's it."

Jordan nodded. "Okay, look out. My parents are coming down."

I resisted the urge to grab his hand, not knowing exactly what Jordan wanted his parents to know about me. I studied the human man and woman walking towards us, wondering how this was going to go.

The man was pretty much an older image of Jordan, about a height with his son, still on the lean side but getting a bit of a belly. His hair was all a steel grey, and he had a big grey moustache. The woman was small, under five feet tall, and rather roundish, though not extremely so. She'd probably had a lush figure when she was younger, I thought. She had long red hair that was streaked a bit with grey, worn in unfussy ringlets.

Behind us, Gannon waved a wing and then took off. "He'll go say hello to his folks," Jordan murmured. Then he stepped forward and shook his father's hand, and gave his mother an unabashed hug. "Mom, Dad, this is Major Sondirra Durxyra," he said, stepping back beside me. "A classmate of mine."

"Ah, good to meet you, Sondirra!" Jordan's father said. "Just call me Dad or Pops or whatever. I don't answer to Gabriel unless it's Jordan's mother, and then I always hide because I'm in trouble."

His mother favored her husband with an amused look. "My name is Iris, but just call me Mom. Would you like to come in for some vodka and cake?"

I grinned. "Sure!" Uptight, eh? I thought, glancing at Jordan. He shrugged, and we followed them into the main house.

The vodka was served in gold cups, with ice and bits of fruit in it, and the cake was served on silver plates with little forks. All right, so maybe I was out of my depth after all. The conversation was light and wandering, and it eventually wandered towards the military. Jordan's father had not missed his son's bars, and he congratulated Jordan on the promotion. "I'm impressed you've made Major and Captain so fast," he said to us. "Never got past Captain myself."

I smiled. "We've been in the right place at the right time to impress people. My bondmate is ambitious."

"Speaking of," Jordan's mother said, "will we get to meet your bondmate?"

I shook my head. "We had a pair of deaths on our team recently. Palil took it hard, especially the death of the dragon. Garnet was her closest friend that's not me. Gannon offered to let her stay on the estate for a few days, away from everyone."

"Oh, that's always hard. Well, you'll have to bring her by sometime when she's in a better state of mind." We continued talking, and I found myself, strangely, very comfortable with these two. After we'd all finished our cake, Jordan's mother took me on a tour of the house. If I had my doubts before about whether his parents knew about our relationship, they were completely erased by that tour. Iris (because I couldn't bring myself to call her Mom, at least not in my head) was careful to point out various features of the house such as the nursery, and the wedding chapel.

In the wedding chapel, in an alcove off the main room, was a display case with a family wedding dress in it. It was a beautiful piece of clothing, gold and white, and there were also a few pieces of jewelry along with the dress. Iris scrutinized my hands. "I think Jordan's grandmother's wedding ring would fit you perfectly," she said, smiling.

I couldn't help but laugh. This was all so absurd, so very over-the-top. It felt oddly like coming home, and if I stopped to examine that feeling, it was going to start scaring me, so I didn't. We walked back towards the front of the house.

"You can have the room next to Jordan's, or you can stay in one of the cabins with him, if you'd like more privacy," Jordan's mother offered. I opted for the cabin, and they put Jordan and me up in one that was about a mile from the main house, and three miles from Palil.

Once Jordan and I were alone, he sagged against the door he'd just closed after him. "I swear my parents have been replaced by doppelgangers or something."

I laughed. "Maybe they're just happy you have a girlfriend? Not what I expected from what you said."

He shook his head. "Me either. Must be the company face they are showing. Or MI has invented a personality changing pill."

"Oh, now that's a scary thought. Well, they seem to like me, anyway," I said, coming over to him and sliding an arm around him.

Jordan put his own arm around me and squeezed. "Yes, they do. My mother not so subtly gave me my grandmother's ring to take with me, just in case."

I looked at him askance and he just shrugged helplessly. "Definitely not the reception I was expecting. I was expecting them to at least think twice about the fact that I'm a drow."

"No, my father served in his flight squad with all drow but him."

"Ah! All right, that makes sense. Well, it all went well, anyway. I like them, they seem very nice."

He nodded, then kissed me. "I am sure they like you. My mother was very excited about you and my father seemed to be, as well."

"It's just...strange, is all. I mean, I do love you. But I'm not really ready to get married yet." I looked up at him. "I like the idea, though, don't get me wrong."

"That's all I need for the moment, Sondirra. To be honest, I'm not ready yet, either." He brushed the hair out of my eyes. "We love each other. That's all that's important."

I kissed him, my eyes brimming with sudden tears, my heart catching in my throat. "Keep that ring, though," I told him. "It might come in handy."

His response to that carried us to the bed, and we spent a very pleasant hour or two, loving each other with everything that we had in us.


Palil:

I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself after the door closed. I wandered the cabin, opening doors and poking my head into cupboards. I looked through the few books that were on the shelves of the reading room. I sat in a comfortable chair and stared into space for a few minutes.

Finally, I got up and went out onto the porch. I could see no people, only birds and animals. The water of the lake in front of the cabin looked temptingly cool, and I shucked my clothes and walked down to the shore.

I waded into the lake, and found that it very quickly got deep. I swam down a bit, holding my breath, to where the water held the chill of winter in it still. I floated there for as long as I could, letting the cold seep into me gratefully, then kicked to the surface.

I breathed out, turning onto my back, facing up towards the afternoon sun. I closed my eyes, and let the tears come. I pulled up my heaviest shields and just let myself hurt for what seemed like a very long time. Everything was so muddled inside me--grief over Garnet, guilt about the way she and Alvar had died, my hatred of Jordan, guilt over what I'd almost done to Olin, trepidation about what had happened with Gannon, rage over what Yafa had deliberately done to my people, my fears about the war that was looking more and more inevitable every day, fear that if I wasn't good enough, if I failed to protect those in my care, that more of my friends and colleagues would pay with their lives...

No wonder I'm a mess, I thought. No wonder it feels like I'm carrying around rocks in my chest.

And that thought, unaccountably, made me tremendously angry.

I changed into my large form, sending water to swamp the edges of the lake, then charged onto the bank and launched myself into the air. I headed for a nearby mountain peak, windswept rock bare of anything but a few patches of ice, and landed there. Then I set myself back on my haunches, lifted my mouth to the sky, and screamed.

Rage, despair, grief, guilt; I gave voice to all of them, wordless, with all of the volume I could muster. Emotions shook me, pulling at me, tearing me apart. I hurled my scream at the sky, to the uncaring heavens, to the gods who had seen fit to give me such a weight to carry.

I tore at my hide with my claws, scoring myself a dozen times on the shoulders, driven by some obscure impulse to somehow let all of the pain out. My wings beat at the ground, bruising the outer edges. My voice and my lungs gave out abruptly, and I dropped to my belly on the rocky ground, spent.

In the wake of my venting, I felt calmer. Empty. As if something had scrubbed me out completely, leaving my heart bare and clean. The cuts in my hide stung, and I healed myself at least until they didn't bleed any more.

Out of reflex, I touched Sondirra's mind. She was busy talking with someone; Jordan's parents, I gathered. I pulled back my touch on her mind, and launched myself into the air.

I wasn't really hungry, but I knew I needed to eat, and took down a cow. I'd intended to cache half of it, but once I started eating I discovered that I was starving, and finished off all of it. I remembered, then, that I hadn't eaten in four days. Not since I'd found out about Garnet.

I flew back down to the cabin and settled in for the evening. It was early yet, but I found a strange pleasure in watching the purple shadows creep up the hillsides as the sun went down. I caught little flashes from my bondmate, her talking with Jordan, her pleasure as they made love. I was too tired to resent it or even have it make me lonely. It did, however, make me think of Olin.

Paquita had told me that you had to be careful with humanoids, that they broke easily. I'd thought I could be. I shifted uncomfortably as I remembered so many times over the years when strong emotions had made me forget that Sondirra was a humanoid and couldn't take what I could. She was strong, stronger than most of her kind; still, I'd come close to hurting her several time. She had never blamed me for my loss of control. I was a dragon, after all; it came with the territory.

But it also made it dangerous for me to keep sleeping with Olin. In a few years, I might have better control over myself. Right now, with my life in the process of falling apart, I just couldn't trust myself.

I sighed. I would have to tell him, when I got back, that we couldn't sleep together any more. The thought made me sad; I did enjoy his company, and I'd really liked the sex. He was a gracious and generous lover, and he was going to make some dragon very happy, some day. It just probably wasn't going to be me.

Thinking of that led me to think of Gannon and what had happened between us...and I snapped my wings together, and changed to my small form. Not now. Later.

That night, sleeping with the sock puppet that still had a bit of her smell about it in my arms, I dreamed about Garnet.

She was sitting on the end of the bed I was sleeping in, and I sat up and blinked at her. "You're dead."

"Somewhere in the back of your head, I'm not. So here I am." Her outline was a bit misty, but I could see her clearly, a slight half-elf with wispy blond hair and liquid, multi-colored eyes. "Poor Palil. You hurt so much."

I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. "My life's gone and fallen apart over the last couple of months. Sondirra's in love with Jordan. I've made friends with Gannon, and so I can't even have nice fantasies of running Jordan through any more without thinking of how much it would hurt Gannon and Sondirra. There's a war starting that I don't know if we're going to be able to avert. And then, you went and died." I wiped away tears. "I failed you. I failed to protect you."

"It's a lot to carry," she said, sympathetically. "But, really, Palil. It was supposed to be us protecting you, not the other way around. And we did, in our own way. We managed to get word of what was going on with Bonita back to you, even though it cost us our lives. Our deaths mean that you might have a chance to win this one."

"I should have come and gotten you, though. I should have searched--"

"And you'd have come up against Bonita and her full team, Palil. How many people would you have sacrificed to save us?"

I choked and twisted my hands in the blanket. "You mean--"

"Sondirra was right. Our fates were sealed the moment we were ordered to go with Tessa. It just took a little while to catch up with us. You still might be able to get Bill and Alistair back, but be careful--they're bait, and they're hostages. For you, for Bill's family."

I sniffled, hunching in on myself a bit more. "Now you're gone, and I'm in charge. Things are never going to go back to normal, are they?"

She smiled a sad little smile. "No, Palil. They're not. This is the new normal."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

Garnet scooted down the bed, to within arm's reach of me. "You do what you're best at, Palil. You watch and you listen, you pay attention to the people around you, you love them and try to protect them. What you've been doing."

"It's hard," I said, and I was surprised to discover it was true. I hadn't admitted it to anyone before, not even to Sondirra. "And they've promoted us to Major when we really didn't deserve it. A promotion of convenience. It means nothing. I wanted to go high, but not like this."

"Disillusioned, Palil?"

"I'm starting to think about a future that doesn't involve the military," I told her quietly. "But I don't like to think about the future much, right now. It hurts too much."

"Why?" She reached out, taking my hand.

"Sondirra and Jordan." I sighed. "Garnet, he makes her so happy. It's like when she looks at him, something inside her unfolds, something beautiful. She is so sure about him, and I am trying so hard to give him a chance. It's just..." Garnet squeezed my hand gently as I fumbled for words. "Every time I look at him, I see him hurting Sondirra. All of those images, over and over again. For her sake, I want to stop hating him. But I don't know how."

"It's not easy," she said. "Tell me, has he done any good things lately?"

Slowly, I nodded. "He saved our lives. He came and talked to me and asked my forgiveness even though he was half convinced I was going to kill him for it. He gave me his sword. I've seen how he acts with his people, he really cares about keeping them safe. And, well, he makes Sondirra happy. She finally found what she's been looking for since she hit puberty, I think," I admitted. "I'm pretty sure there aren't going to be any more weeks when she has a different boy in her bed every night."

Garnet looked at me for a moment, then said, "You have to let the good things in the now balance and overlie the bad things in the past. You know why he did it. You know that he himself considers it unforgivable." Her voice was gentle. "Do you still think he's going to mess with her head and then leave her?"

Slowly, I shook my head. "No. Not really. Paquita was right, Sondirra has a lot better instinct for people than that."

"Then let the present be what it is, Palil. I know it's hard. It's necessary, though. Besides--" she poked me hard in the side-- "you like his bondmate."

I blushed. "I wouldn't admit that to anyone not you, Garnet," I told her. "I think I messed things up, though. We both scared each other."

"That's as much his fault as yours," she told me. "You probably don't need the distraction right now. You've got a lot of work ahead of you. Maybe after things are over, though."

I nodded. "He's a good friend," I said. "I need as many friends as I can get right now."

Garnet grinned and poked me again. "So, was he good?"

"Ow! He was. It was so nice to not have to hold back my strength with someone. It, um, got kind of rough," I muttered, blushing a bit.

"Oooooo! And?" she prompted, leaning forward.

I shifted, rubbing my feet together. "I liked it, a lot. I kind of wished it had been rougher. It was probably just the mood I was in that night," I said, too quickly.

"I always knew you'd turn out to be kinky, Palil," Garnet teased me. "You're all ice queen on the outside, but inside there's a raging lioness trying desperately to get out."

"Garnet!" I pounced on her and wrestled her, both of us laughing. We ended up tangled together, and she giggled and hugged me close.

I was suddenly strangely aware of her body, pressed close to mine, her slim hips and small breasts, and the fact that her mouth was only an inch or so away from mine. Her eyes had gone solid, reflecting the shifting colors of her hide in her large form. "This is weird," I muttered, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Is it?" she asked. "Palil, if there'd been time--"

I closed my eyes. "There wasn't."

And because it was a dream, and because Garnet in real life had been burned and her ashes scattered on the ocean, and because she was Garnet and I loved her, I kissed her.

She faded from my grasp and I woke with a gasp, tangled in the blanket. I'd managed to wrap it so tightly around myself that I was barely able to move.

Tears were drying on my cheeks. Even though I knew it wasn't really her, it was just my mind making me think that I'd talked to her, I still felt better than I had. The weight in my chest was still there, but it seemed to be a little smaller.

I untangled myself, stretched, and got up to face the day.