Shifting Sand

Writers: KC
Date Posted: 12th September 2025

Characters: K'daen
Description: K'daen sneaks back to the Hatching Cavern
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 10, day 15 of Turn 12

Note:

~*~

K’daen moved in silence, the Weyr dim and quiet after the raucous song and dance of the Hatching festivities. The stone corridors held only the whisper of his boots and the faint smell of rain still drifting in from the Bowl. He carried no glowbasket, needing none. He had walked this way too many times not to know it in his bones.

The Hatching Sands were nearly dark when he slipped inside. Only a faint shimmer of starlight through the high vents touched the floor, leaving the broad stretch of sand in shadow. The heat still rose from it, familiar as breath, and he paused at the edge to let it wash over him. It was the same heat that had pressed against his skin so many times before, on so many days he had walked away hollow.

He remembered them all. The first time, so young and so certain that a dragon would rise from the shell with his name already in its mind. The second, the third, the tenth, each harder than the last. He had stood with aching hope until the moment every dragonet had chosen someone else. He had carried that failure off the Sands again and again, each handful of sand in his pouch a witness to the truth he had feared: that he was not meant for this.

K’daen stepped farther onto the Sands, the hush of the cavern filling his ears like the echo of old doubts. His hand went to the pouch at his belt. The leather was soft from Turns of use, the stitching worn smooth. He pulled it open and turned it over slowly, letting the grains spill from his palm. They trickled down in a thin, dry stream, scattering into the place that had once only seen him as a bystander. For a long time he watched the pale line melt into the vastness of the floor until it vanished.

When the pouch was empty, he tightened his grip and crossed to the spot. He knew it without doubt. His knees had hit the ground here. Zarenth’s eyes had found him here. His name, his new name, his forever name had been spoken into his soul here. The air still held it, he was certain.

He crouched and pressed the pouch into the warm sand, drawing it full once more. The grains clung to his skin and he curled his fingers into them, reverent, reluctant to let go. He breathed in and the cavern seemed to breathe back, the hum of the Weyr echoing in memory.

For a long moment he stayed there, kneeling in the heat, the pouch heavy with new sand, the weight of a lifetime of waiting shifted into something whole. When he rose, his chest ached with it, but it was not the ache of panic. It was the ache of wonder.

K’daen tied the pouch to his belt again and touched it lightly. It was no longer just a talisman of waiting. It was a reminder that he had been chosen at last.

And as he left the Sands behind, he carried that truth with him.

Last updated on the September 18th 2025

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Shifting Sand