Consequences of a Kiss (4)
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Kane
Date Posted: 16th February 2026
Characters: P'yanka
Description: Peyanka agonises over what his future holds
Location: Sunstone Seahold
Date: month 13, day 16 of Turn 12
Notes: Follows directly after Consequence of a Kiss (3)
Peyanka ran until his lungs burned and his legs turned heavy as lead and the night air cut sharp into his throat. The sea wind chased him, tugging at his shirt and hair, but even that could not cool the heat of humiliation that still crawled across his skin.
When he finally stopped, it was only because his body refused to carry him any farther.
He doubled over, hands braced on his knees, gulping air like a freshly caught fish. His chest ached and he felt physically ill. His throat tasted of brandy and bile and the beginnings of panic.
Peyanka turned, shaking, and looked back.
It was all gone.
And for what.
A kiss?
Anger flared briefly but it was quickly smothered by the unfairness of it all.
That was the worst of it. Not the shouting. Not even the words. It was the fact that his whole life, every careful choice, every scrubbed hand and memorised lesson, every day spent learning, assisting, and watching his father work, had been reduced in the space of a few breaths to worthless.
_Unfit._
Glint tightened around his throat, a small bronze coil of heat and frantic devotion. The firelizard’s tail looped too snugly, his little claws pricking through cloth as if he could physically hold Peyanka together by sheer force of will. Peyanka lifted a trembling hand and stroked him without thinking, thumb smoothing over warm hide and the fine ridges of his neck.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, though his voice cracked with the lie. “It’s all right.”
Glint crooned, a broken little sound, and thrust his wedge-shaped head against Peyanka’s jaw.
Peyanka sank down onto the cold ground, drawing his knees up, cradling his head in his hands as if he could keep it from splitting apart. The sob that tore out of him was ugly and helpless, the sound of a boy whose world had collapsed with a slammed door. He cried until his chest hurt and his throat burned, until his tears ran dry and left only raw, hiccupping despair.
How would he survive?
With no home.
With no craft.
With no family to stand behind him when the Hold asked what use he was.
Holdless.
The word struck like a stone to the gut.
He stared down at his hands, at the faint redwort stains beneath his nails that no amount of scrubbing ever seemed to fully clean, and his breath hitched again. Soft, uncalloused hands that spoke of study, not heavy lifting. Holdless meant drudge work or worse. Heavy labour. His imagination ran wild with the kind of work that ground boys down into caricatures of men with bowed backs and empty eyes..
A fresh wave of grief swelled up, thick and suffocating, and he bent forward again, shaking.
Then through the fog of it his own thoughts caught on something solid.
No.
His heart hammered, slower now.
He wasn’t holdless.
Craft or no craft, family or no family. He might have been cast out of the family and home in Quartz Creek but he was still, surely, a resident of Amber Hills Hold. He had been raised under the Major Hold’s overarching protection. Certain rights remained his. Didn't they? Even disowned, even stripped of knots and family, he was not nothing. Not yet.
But without a craft… without his father’s standing… what could he possibly do with those rights?
The answer came too quickly.
Nothing.
Not enough.
How would he even get back there?
His hands clenched into fists, nails biting into his palms.
The thought of being forced into a life of hauling and scraping and swallowing his own voice made him choke again, and he pried Glint’s too-tight tail away from his throat with shaking fingers just to breathe.
Glint made an offended sound and immediately tried to curl back into place but Peyanka held him gently and forced his lungs to fill.
He stared back toward the seahold, filled with gloomy and morbid thoughts. A dark shape wheeled in a slow spiral, a dragon cutting briefly across the face of a moon as it lined up for a landing.
Wait…
The next thought struck him like a spark in bone dry tinder.
That was it!
There _was_ one place that still wanted him.
Last updated on the February 28th 2026