Maybe This Time
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: Stasha
Date Posted: 29th December 2007
Characters: Ch'lis
Description: Chemalis relives another dinner close to the hatching, and voices his misery
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 7, day 10 of Turn 4
It to be the night before hatching, that is if the clutch did not decide to put the candidates through another day or two of torture; mean while the candidate table was filled with rumors and misery. Who would Impress? Who would be left standing?
It was nothing new to Chemalis, who had stood time and time again, with nothing but disappointment. He ease dropped on the conversation that drifted to him, but it was all the same. Even the tables around him were no better with the adults making their wagers for the upcoming hatching. Who would Impress what? What would hatch? Would the first egg to crack be a bronze? Or maybe it would be a green?
"Chemalis, aren't you going to eat your food?" Animus poked at him.
"What?" he turned his focus back to Animus, who's fork was pointing at untouched slabs of red meat. "Oh," Chemalis was not really hungry he realized "no, I'm not." He seemed to always loss his appetite this close to a hatching.
Animus shrugged and took slabs onto his plate and quickly cut into them. "Your loss," he spoke in between bites while the juices dribbled down his chin. He used his sleeve to wipe the mess off.
As Animus polished Chemalis's plate, Chemalis's focused back onto the gossip filtering through the Dining Hall.
"You really need to stop thinking so much about it," Animus sputtered as he finished the last of the meats and moved on to Chemalis's tubers.
"I know," Chemalis sighed. "It's just that it's so frustrating. I mean, why do I even try anymore Animus? Do I subconsciously enjoy to suffer? Do I like the emotional trauma of failure?"
"No, you just want a dragon like the rest of us," he responded. He paused for a moment as he pushed around the tubers on his plate into the last of the meat juices.
Chemalis knew that look that shadowed his friend's face. It must have been harder on Animus that it was for himself, after all, to be left standing sense he was twelve, and he was what? Eighteen? Nineteen turns now and no dragon? "Why do you keep trying Animus?"
Animus did not meet Chemalis's eyes. He continued to fidget with the food before he finally gave a response. "I want to Impress, because I have nothing else here for me. I don't have a family waiting for me like you, and I'm involved in a craft that I don't want to stay in for the rest of my life. I want something that will always be there for me."
"The bond." Chemalis shook his head with a soft laugh. He wanted it too, just like Animus. "Maybe this time."
"Maybe," Animus glanced up adding to Chemalis's unspoken goal to Impress this hatching.
As soon as their challenge was agreed upon music began to chime in the Dining Hall. A couple stood up and began to whirl on the floor merrily.
Animus raised a glass to toast to the couple, and as the glass touched his lips Chemalis asked "Care to dance?"
Chemalis's question made Animus pause before raising an eye brow at his friend. "I'm not drunk enough to do that," he replied before he took a swig of wine.
Animus's words quickly concluded with a chuckle that sparked from Chemalis.
Last updated on the January 1st 2008