Still Water

Writers: Iluva
Date Posted: 3rd May 2026

Characters: A'garyn, Drenorik
Description: Tragedy strikes
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr, Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 12, day 14 of Turn 12
Notes: Continues directly from "Undertow” parts 1 & 2. Precedes "Changing Tides" and "She's Wrong" cw for death and cursing

A'garyn

-------flashback 6 turns ago-------

For a few seconds it was just blackness.

Then out of the blackness came the sky.

Aegaryn sat up abruptly, distantly aware of the shooting pain in his back. Distant, because the pain in his head was blinding, and he sat there cradling it, dizzy for a long time. Eventually he crawled up the hill a little, everything still spinning slightly, and stumbled over something slippery and dark. His riding jacket.

The way down to the water looked both treacherous and bland. Slick rocks bled into the shoreline, taking the brunt of the ocean’s wrath, and there were no ships, no sails, nothing fixed across the heaving surface holding the horizon. There were no avians, no trees, no posts, no sounds but what nature could muster. And nothing in either direction.

Back to the ocean, feeling strange and adrift, he grabbed his jacket and trekked back up the rock-pocked hill. It was quiet aside from the wind, and it was getting cold.

He didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t grasp any sense of time, scanning the sky to try and deepen it into understanding, into solidity. Right now all he could feel was each passing second as he moved, as he twisted in one direction, the other, calling out, and tried to find the imprint of runnerbeast hooves in the ground. Tried to find something vaguely familiar.

How far had he gone? Fuck, had Drenorik just kept going?

He sensed he was close, but perhaps that was the headache. There was nothing but heathered, wind-blown grass and jumbled stone spilling over the hillside like dice launched from a cup. Moving faster, stumbling less, he eventually picked up the pebbled path. His head spun, and underneath it all was something that almost couldn’t bear the weight of being touched. He scowled instead and focused on trying not to panic, wondering how far Amak had run. He’d been ahead, winning, when Amak balked at the twisting terrain or perhaps something else, and then it had just been the air before he flew over his neck, before he tumbled hard and hit his head and wrenched his back.

And then he saw him.

He was lying on the ground, in a jagged pile of cascading grey stones, partially obscured at this angle. Just his legs until Aegaryn got close enough to glimpse his face. “Dren!” he shouted, thumping down among the rocks beside him. “Oh, thank fuck. Dren, you… you alright?”

“Aeg.” Dren's face turned toward him. His face was the color of the stones, and his dark eyes were very bright and told him nothing. He shook his head finally.

Aegaryn’s breath stopped. “Shit." He looked him over but figured it must be _bad_ if he hadn't moved at all. Didn't even try. He looked like he'd landed hard and was at once uncomfortable and yet somehow oddly unbothered by it. The rocks only had a partial layer of moss creeping up their edges, and it couldn't have offered much.

Drenorik’s eyes watched him calmly as he spread the riding jacket over him, tucking it tightly under his sides to keep the wind out.

“Fuck, Dren. I’m sorry.” Aegaryn said, half a sob already working its way out. “We have to get you a healer.”

“Aeg.”

“You’re going to be okay--” Aegaryn looked around them with feline-like intensity, urgency pulling the land into his eyes faster than he could properly see it. “I’ll find Esher.” There was no sign of Esher.

“No, I don't think…”

“Yeah.” Aegaryn said firmly. “I’ll find him. You just need a healer, Dren.”

“Aeg, a healer can’t fix this.”

Aegaryn stilled, staring at him sharply, almost angrily. “You… you don’t know that.”

“Aeg--”

“_What_--”

Drenorik sighed, shutting his eyes. His voice trembled now, and it scratched against Aegaryn’s skull in a way that made him shut his eyes, too. A burst of pain lit through his temples at what his brother said next: “Aegaryn. Look at me.”

“Dren, please.” Aegaryn's throat closed. “Dren, I… I'll take care of you.”

Drenorik smiled. He relaxed for a moment, and his hand squeezed his so gently it sent Aegaryn's heart into animalistic frenzy. The words he said next all but cleaved his heart open-- “I know you would.”

Terror splintered up through him. They were so far from the Hold or any of the nearest cotholds. They hadn't passed anyone in hours. A forgotten corner of the continent, the remote openness had been the whole point. It was almost dinner, and no one would think to really look for them until well after it was cleared away and the klah service started. And perhaps Petraf would extend the lie. Give him the benefit of the doubt for a little longer. And no one would know where to look. By nightfall they would send out search parties, perhaps enlisting the help of dragons to cover more ground faster. They were Lord Alendren's sons, a loyal tither to Dragonsfall Weyr, surely some number would muster at the Weyrwoman or Weyrleader's call for assistance. But that was hours from now.

“Aeg, I…” He paused, dark eyes shining. They closed again. “It’s okay. Really.”

"No." Aegaryn shook his head. He squeezed Dren's hand. That's all that felt possible. Hurry. Hurry. Where was it -- what was it -- how could he get it. Those were his most desperate -- and only -- questions now.

The wind roared up around them in thick, surly gusts straight from the sea. Whistling over them. Something else. Aegaryn wiped his eyes and sat back on his heels and tried to think of something to say. Something, anything, that would hold hope. The words were lost, too. Just the awfulness and the wind. Again. He heard it again. That high whistling. He craned his neck then, trying to discern the high-pitched sound on the other side of the wind.

After a hollow sense of eternity, he heard it again. He knew that call. A runner. Someone else out this way? He stood shakily and went a few paces, stopping and scanning. He’d hit his head; his heart was tearing itself apart. But he’d know that sound anywhere.

There he was. Amak, whinnying in the distance, a lone dark shape down near the water’s edge.

Aegaryn leapt back to his brother’s side. “Dren, I’m gonna go get Amak! I’m gonna get you out of here!”

Drenorik tilted his head a little, eyes opening. Not to look for Amak, but at him. He seemed to study him, taking his time, as if he were not concerned but considering more things Aegaryn could not see, and Aegaryn hated that even more. His face had gone gently still. Soft and ineffable. Because Aegaryn wanted it. Because Aegaryn needed it. Because Dren knew. Because he didn't know. Because he was alone, and because they were brothers. "Okay," he said, softly. He squeezed his hand. “Hurry.”

Aegaryn flew down the hill so fast he couldn’t feel his feet.

Amak was too spooked to be approached, a creature in the grip of his flight responses, bewildered, uneasy about what the world had in store. His movements carried wild and skittish urgency. Anytime Aegaryn approached -- and Aegaryn approached aggressively, with hot-eyed terror and madness and single-minded intent, too bent on stopping the world from falling any further in this direction -- Amak snorted and shied away, tossing his head, hot breath firing out at him as he spun away from yet another of Aegaryn’s desperate grabs. His dark nostrils flared. He was too scared, too confused, but even so, he didn’t seem to want to run. He wanted him. He wanted his rider. He wanted direction, safety. He waited, watching Aegaryn, and then when he flew at him like a creature incensed, he bolted the second he got too close.

It was not close enough.

Aegaryn roared in frustration but kept trying. He lunged for the reins. Lost him again. He felt an uneven heaviness touch his shoulder and whirled, wild-eyed, into a sea of gold. Zolta. She veered away at his instinctive swipe, shrieking first in surprise, then crooning and sending waves of worry, and her eyes alight with distress. The same sinking feeling in his gut. He had to focus. That time, his steps more measured, his intent less telegraphed and blatantly predatory, he caught the reins. The broken end was almost sliding from his fingers when he finally reached that dark flank. Aegaryn pressed his forehead to his warmth with a strangled sob. Amak’s mane was soft where he gripped him, and he leaned into him, shushing him, trying to show him calm could still exist. He had him. A faint flicker of relief scratched up in his chest. He had him.

He patted him, and then, turning Amak, Zolta gliding somewhere overhead, he led him back up the rocks.

He looked exactly the same. Still crumpled against the stones, legs still unbearably wrong, but like he was waiting or even asleep, eyes gently shut -- almost shut -- head tilted back in a calm, neutral expression. Like he was dozing. His eyebrows angled up in thought, but no trace of worry or pain. Almost wry. Anywhere else it’d look like he was just slipping away somewhere into the beginnings of an unusual dream.

Aegaryn stared, numb, puzzled. He stepped back a few paces.

While he was gone, chasing and wrestling with a spooked runner and his own stupid emotions, his brother had died. He stared. Drenorik's face was as smooth and pale and bright as the moons. Still here. Still warm, as if he were holding------

His body splayed, all its animation gone. And the wind was still cold, and Aegaryn crouched there and breathed the salted air and the scent of earth, and it was over, and it was not right.

“Fuck.” And then quieter, cracking open entirely, “No. No.”

Last updated on the June 4th 2026

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Still Water